Your thoughts so far?

[jarmenia]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

From a beginning to an 1871 historical league:

2. There really should have been 19th century schedule files. The generated schedules are not suitable for 19th century play. 4 man rotations in 1871? I'll just handle the league structure and scheduling manually. I'm very happy to have any 19th century support at all, but it's on the needs work list.

They are being worked on.

[ScottPoseSnag]

So far so good. I also just realized, I am finally as comfortable with navigating around the game as I was in OOTP 6/6.5, and that really increases enjoyability.

[84Hammy]

Originally Posted by Erik W.

Get Avast. It's rated better anyway.

(I did research and made the switch last night after the AVG problem cropped up. Avast is rated better at doing its job anyway. And this is coming from a former AVG fanboy of many years.)

Sorry to go so far back in a thread, but is avast free too? Sorry, I am a cheap bastard.

[jarmenia]

Originally Posted by 84Hammy

Sorry to go so far back in a thread, but is avast free too? Sorry, I am a cheap bastard.

Yep and works well unless you're on a 64 bit OS but that should be changing soon as well.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

From a beginning to an 1871 historical league:

2. There really should have been 19th century schedule files. The generated schedules are not suitable for 19th century play. 4 man rotations in 1871? I'll just handle the league structure and scheduling manually. I'm very happy to have any 19th century support at all, but it's on the needs work list.

The 1871 settings don't have a 4 man rotation. If you select the year 1871 in the drop down box where you import the initial settings, it gives you a 1 man rotation for a 30 day schedule. From that point it will gradually increase to 2 man, then 3 as the years go on.

[cameron]

I think its great...really like the new stories.....have a look at this

[84Hammy]

Originally Posted by jarmenia

Yep and works well unless you're on a 64 bit OS but that should be changing soon as well.

What's a 64 bit OS (I have Windows xp)? Sorry to bug, but since I installed AVG I haven't been able to access my MP3 players...so I want to dump it and not have to go back to the turtle that is Norton.

[towerofpower]

Ha ha! Just noticed the little image that's beside a player's name when he's suspended is jail bars! Now that's a nice little touch.

Again, just want to say that I'm really enjoying playing in the ABA and can't wait to build a little history with it.

Just a thought for future games/patches...

any chance of having an ABA in the game that has already been in existance for a few years? It'd be nice to say have the game start in the 1970's and the league having been running since 1951. It'd be interesting to see how different people play out the game using the same set of fictional players, see which players become forum favorites and who is able to take which teams to championships.

Another benifit I could see to this would be having a sort of default difficulty setting in the game, i.e. there could be a couple teams that are pretty well set as far as their team's current roster, minor league system, fan base and revenue and they would be considered an "easier" game to start, whereas there would be a couple of teams in dire straights, with aging and expensive players on their rosters that needs a complete overall, these would be considered a starting point for a "harder" game.

Just some random fictional league thoughts...now back to the game to see if I can win out this 4 game series against the Rivermen! Go Colonials!

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by towerofpower

any chance of having an ABA in the game that has already been in existence for a few years? It'd be nice to say have the game start in the 1970's and the league having been running since 1951.

Give me 12-13 hours and there will be a mod with board members and 10 years of history.

EDIT

Have you found any of the Easter Eggs yet?

[Bobble]

Great game. Thanks, Markus. I'm having a blast with it.

Allow me to focus on the ball animation for a second. What I'm hoping for here is to be able to see the play develop with simple graphics and then check out the test for more specifics. I understand the graphics for the next version will be improved (not 3D but something like a CF "dot" ranging over to "catch" the ball). What we get now is where the ball went but not really an idea of what happened. A few suggestions that I hope can be included in the patch:

- How about changing the ball color for an out? Line shot to second. If it's caught for an out, the ball flashes red for a second. If not, it flashes green at the end of it's path.
- Since you have the ball movement routines, how about showing the throws to the bases? Grounder to short, thrown to second for one, thrown to first for two.
- If not that, can you maybe light up the bases for each out? Ball goes to short, then second bases flashes red for an out, then first flashes red for the second out.
- Can the player faces on the field stay visible while the ball is in flight? I can see how it could be an either/or deal (ball or faces) but I'd like to still see my player's faces on the field even if they get set to 50% opacity or something.

Comments?

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

There will be better sound files in patch#1.... also, in exhibition games fatigue does carry over, but injuries do not happen. That was a design decision since exhibition games are added to the schedule, and many people use that for some custom playoff stuff

Markus good info.

Is there a way to have an option to have fatigue turn off for exhibition games?

It will be nice to use the exhibition games just for fun without affecting the player at all.

Thanks

[jarmenia]

Originally Posted by 84Hammy

What's a 64 bit OS (I have Windows xp)? Sorry to bug, but since I installed AVG I haven't been able to access my MP3 players...so I want to dump it and not have to go back to the turtle that is Norton.

Xp x64 and Vista x64 are two examples. You would know if you have a 64 bit OS for sure.

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

So guys, what are your thoughts so far about OOTP 9?

I really like the late-game bullpen AI thus far (after one game!)

The computer really took advantage of matchups with his bullpen in my first game from my solo league I imported. Tough lefties came in and only faced my better LHB's (Cleveland's Rafael Perez - lefty killer came in to face two leftys).

I highly recommend anyone grab the Eriq MVP stadium set from a few years ago - with the new ball flight it looks AWESOME. You can set up one stadium and are set with all of them (pretty much - a few touch ups). Also I like the return of sound.

With a new one-month old at home I've only got to import and play that one game....but so far I am very impressed. Hopefully she will sleep more the next few nights so I can play more games!!

Markus thank you for such a fantastic, addictive game!

[Kelric]

OOTP9 is significantly faster in load and save times for me and I'm running a halfway decent 2 gigs of RAM and a 2.67 duo core system. Much smoother now. (Except when switching skins, which is very, very, very slow.)

I miss the Player Development Report. Not being able to see a summary of player changes in my organization, even if they are minor and happening over time, is frustrating. With seven layers of minor leagues, plus the big league club, there's no way I'm looking at every player or even a couple per team to see if they have been having ratings/talent changes.

The in-game add-on system is nice once I finally got it to find Padrefan's server. That was probably just a traffic issue, though.

Thoughts on the Financial Report screen(s)...... That's a lot of monetary figures to look at. I dislike having to go to a second page to look at my attendance and highest paid players. But... I do like the new information on that second page. The attendance history, cost efficiency and rough arbitration figures on the player salary report are all nice additions.

The animated ball movement is terrific to finally have, especially since (to me) it seems to travel at different speeds off the bat and the PBP seems to know that. A 'frozen rope' got out to LF much quicker than a high fly ball to center did, for example.

Upcoming opponent reports are nice. Performance of the day is nice. Let's get those user teams up on top of the screen.

When selecting the New Message at the top of the Message screen, the game then drops down one level on the screen so the message you are reading no longer appears up top. That is very annoying when there are multiple new messages to read.

Overall so far in my limited time the game seems much smoother than before. A few of the changes I like, a few I dislike, a few I just need to get used to. I'll be able to put a lot more time into it after work this evening.

[towerofpower]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

Give me 12-13 hours and there will be a mod with board members and 10 years of history.

EDIT

Have you found any of the Easter Eggs yet?

Well my star relief pitcher hurt his arm from an arm wrestling match at a bar
Thought that was amusing. Can you give me a hint what I should be looking for? Is there some of the developers/beta testers hidden in the game somewhere? I'll admit I haven't really delved too deeply yet, as I'm just trying to get a hold of my own roster and then slowly learn the stars of the other teams so I might have missed somethings.

Looking forward to seeing the 70's version of the ABA!

[ThruBeingCool913]

I don't have any real specifics for you Markus, but - as always - you've delivered in a big way! This is definitely my favorite post-6.5 release yet; the improved speed of pretty much everything definitely isn't lost on me.

[Neags23]

Originally Posted by Bobble

Allow me to focus on the ball animation for a second. What I'm hoping for here is to be able to see the play develop with simple graphics and then check out the test for more specifics. ... What we get now is where the ball went but not really an idea of what happened. A few suggestions that I hope can be included in the patch:

- How about changing the ball color for an out? Line shot to second. If it's caught for an out, the ball flashes red for a second. If not, it flashes green at the end of it's path.
- Since you have the ball movement routines, how about showing the throws to the bases? Grounder to short, thrown to second for one, thrown to first for two.
- If not that, can you maybe light up the bases for each out? Ball goes to short, then second bases flashes red for an out, then first flashes red for the second out.


Comments?

I lobbied for this in beta. If the 'G' or 'F' indicating a ball is a grounder or fly would change to 'out' or 'single' or 'double', etc... that would be huge. Having to move from the ball to the pbp is a little cumbersome, and I think it would be a huge improvement to be able to see the play result on the field right away and then have the pbp complement it. I personally don't like the color changing idea, if only that it might be hard to differentiate colors based on various backgrounds.

Originally Posted by Kelric

I miss the Player Development Report. Not being able to see a summary of player changes in my organization, even if they are minor and happening over time, is frustrating. With seven layers of minor leagues, plus the big league club, there's no way I'm looking at every player or even a couple per team to see if they have been having ratings/talent changes.

Another thing I lobbied for. We need some sort of way to monitor development changes. I've grown accustomed to using my solo league add-on/tracker (which I really should update for OOTP 9), but it's admittedly not the best tool. There should be a way to see all of your player's development at once. Something like... on the roster screen, one of your column options should be 'development change for power' and then in the splits, you can specify since what time. So if you chose development change for contact and you split it since May, you would get a + or - then the number development change in the columns for each player. And since you're on the roster screen, you have your whole organization which you can sort by name, league level, development change, etc. That would not only be amazingly helpful but really is badly needed. One of the very few gaping holes in an otherwise fantastic game.

[ovccsteve]

Originally Posted by Hotwheelz

The game keeps crashing when I try importing a league from OOTP8. It was time to move on but it still bugs me a bit.

Mine LOOKED like it was crashing when I imported (in Vista). But after a few tries I started checking with Windows Explorer and it was working, it just takes FOREVER to import a big league. (Mine took about six hours.)

[rustyw101]

I am playing on a Mac G4. Very impressed with how fast the game runs compared to OOTP 2007. Importing my 2007 league was so fast I thought for sure something got hosed but all is well. BTW, I imported during the middle of a season and no issues

[Doughnuts?]

The improved speed is definitely the best part of the new game. Except, as has been noted, the skins, which take forever to load.