Your opinions please...

[cmdroverbite]

I went over this thread to try and see what the common thread of complaints was, as well as the consensus view of what needs to be done going forward. This is my executive summary, for my own purposes -- though hopefully it will be useful to others as well. If I'm leaving out something important, feel free to tap me on the shoulder:

1. If there are people who regard the game as a total and abject failure, they've long since stopped posting here. At the same time, few people, if anybody, believe that 2006 was a resounding success. OOTP 2007 will have to essentially be a patch-on-steroids, especially if it's to address all the 2006 issues and still be released in a timely manner. A significant discount on '07 for registered users of '06 would be a nice goodwill gesture.
2. Simplicity should be an option; the game should come pre-loaded with full-fledged quickstart leagues, complete with logos and such. There should be simpler ways for people to adjust the statistical output or the financial environment than mucking around with numbers that could potentially throw off the entire simulation. There should be (optional) in-game help, walking new players through the first few steps.
3. AI, AI, AI. This needs to be an obsession. Right now, computer GMs are dumb as a post, can't budget at all (and only get out of self-created financial messes by, essentially, cheating) and have seemingly little conception that a heavily loaded team going into Spring Training has different priorities w/r/t trading and free agents than a team 20 games out at the trading deadline creaking under a bloated payroll. The AI is only as formidable as it is because of a) the aforementioned cheats b) because ginormous budgets make it easy to hide disastrously bad contracts and c) because it can refuse to make trades that don't blatantly rip off human players.
4. More baseball "feel." More news stores. FM-style "events" and press interactions would go a long way towards breaking up the monotony. A more attractive interface here, too; I'm drawing a blank as to who suggested a pseudo-newspaper format, but that's a great idea. Take advice from a small select group of highly articulate people who have grown up steeped in the culture of baseball. A season in MLB format should "feel" like an MLB season.
5. Improved world scouting. Make it more realistic and less of a grind. Dominican/Venezuelan Summer and Winter leagues that behave like they do in reality would do a lot here.
6. Ghost players as an option in the minors would be nice. So would a degree of control over which players get assigned to which minor league level without having to manage all day-to-day operations of affiliates. The interface for assigning players to minor league levels needs work, too.
7. Revamp the PBP and in-game views; make them more attractive.
8. Revisit and improve the financial engine. I'm pretty sure there are still problems with market size calculations. Budgets tend to be kind of wonky, too.
9. Make the lives of online comissioners as simple as possible. More automation of the process of running an online league. If you make the process of running an online league as idiot-proof as possible, OOTP will become the de facto standard for online baseball simulations. I would suggest reading any one of Bill Simmons' ESPN Sports Guy columns where he talks about the guys in his fantasy leagues. Program a game that allows those guys to painlessly set up a web site for their league, and all of a sudden you've opened up a massive new potential market.

Do these things, O SI People, and irrespective of any new bells and whistles, you'll have, bar none, the best baseball simulation game in the universe.

[CardinalsFan]

item #5 can be simply done not unlike a loan option in the soccerworld (FM). a team simply loans the player to the winter league team.

[rasnell]

#4. More of a baseball feel. What would go a long way is to see news events of how I, my name, as GM, have guided the team to its first post-season in two years or is headed to the World Series. Play by play like we had before where you're actually welcomed to the ballpark, told the weather, how the wind might be a factor, and that it was the first game of the World Series.

We're left with a manager history and news stories that don't even report on the distinction between a division series, a league series and a World Series. Instead, the meaningless manager history says you made the playoffs or won the playoffs. But the only time you get the "won playoffs" is if you won the World Series. It's a pretty big deal to make it to the World Series, even if you lost, but the notation only reports "made playoffs."

When I look back on my manager history, I want to know how far I got: The line would report as follows:
Won wildcard: If my season ended by winning the wildcard but losing the Round 1 division championship series.
Won division championship: If I lost the NLCS but won the division.
Won league pennant: If I lost the World Series, but won the NLCS.
The rest is obvious.

If you don't want to get into ball flight or animation, at least display a dot of where the ball landed.

If you really want the feel of the game, allow us to drag the box of a fielder on-screen and position them. The size of the box depends on their range. Marking where the ball landed would show that defense and range really matter and so do your management decisions about positioning.

Give us more in-game decisions: Like bullpen warmup; waving the runner in from third and having a true ability to make wise decisions based on where the ball landed, the arm strength of the fielder, even the percentage of chance.

Allow us to direct the baserunner to play very conservatively, meaning that there is almost zero chance of a pickoff but they also will not make it to third base on a single. On the other side, allow us to choose to be very aggressive with a runner. Strat-o-Matic actually has a strategy setting (globally) that you only try to steal or try to advance with an xx percentage chance of success (you decide what that percentage is and the chance is calculated by runner speed, batter arm, pitcher hold, etc.)

OOTP has all of the stats, ratings and elements to do everything mentioned above -- but it was never implemented into the FUN and the FEEL of baseball. Instead, we got the clickfest, accounting table version of the game.

Study very, very closely the in-game feel of Puresim 2007, the very simple and elegant display of both teams' lineups in the game view, the shortcut keys to immediately jump to your roster to make changes in game, the ease of importing your stadium views and of dragging and dropping the display of batters and fields to fit these views.

OOTP wins for features, depth, and overwhelmingly for sim speed, but Puresim 2007 passed OOTP by in a major way in its devotion to fun, feel, user friendliness and devotion to historical MLB.

(NOTE: Here is a lively, similar thread that triggered more than 4,700 views when I asked everyone to post their final review of the final patch...http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...hlight=rasnell) It also could be called shameless, self-promotion, since I started the thread

[jdettbarn]

Just wanted to throw my hat behind 84CubsFan and Big City... both made excellent posts I agree with 100%.

[darkenigma510]

Originally Posted by bababui

The decision to ban Malleus Dei was a bad one. Good or bad, he generated passion and interest. While polite posts are nice and all, they just always arent that fun to read.

Was he actually banned? It doesn't look that way from his account.

EDIT: Nevermind.

[pstrickert]

One word: SOUND. Nothing adds more to the ambience of a baseball game than the sound of the bat hitting the ball, the fans chattering, vendors selling hot dogs and soda, an occasional heckler, etc. That would enhance the "feel" of real baseball. (Of course, it should be an option, so those who dislike it can turn it off.)

[beorn]

Bloggers love to overstate things -- it's just the style.

It is, of course, true that the original game was unplayable online. It is also true that serious problems remain, particularly if you want to use coaches and scouts and all.

But the blogger admits that he plays the game online anyway, and I think that that says it all. It is a very rough game with many strengths. If Markus had gone incognito and put out a new game called SI Baseball, that would be the near unanimous opinion. The trouble is that most of us see it as OOTP 7, and it has none of the polish associated with a version 7.

Thus, I do not share the blogger's view of OOTP2007. Of course, it will be, in many ways, a massive patch to 2006. That is exactly what I want. The rough edges need smoothing out (and not just for online play).

[Elendil]

Originally Posted by kq76

Switch to Just MLB Mode



Posts like this one are what scare me most. Hockey is my second favourite sport and while I don't follow soccer closely I love watching it when I do and besides just checking out the demos of FM and EHM to see what could be brought to OOTP, I won't touch them without fictional leagues and customizeablity. This is not a threat as I know I'm only one person and I have no idea how many more are like me, but if OOTP ever switches to just MLB mode, it'll be time for me to finally move on. I just hope SI feels there is too much to lose by switching to MLB only mode than there is to gain.

You misunderstood my post. I don't think SI should take away any of the customizeability (I play fictional OOTP leagues almost exclusively), but as far as where to focus in 2007, the big areas are: getting MLB-type leagues to work right and improving AI roster management. There should be less focus on adding new ways to customize.

[RBLwebguy]

One of the biggest problems for online leagues is file size. Soon as one starts generating the league report, which in turns builds the cato like history, the file is located in the .lg folder which makes the bloody file size huge, especially after many seasons simmed. If there was a way to make this occur outside the .lg folder, please do so!

[Charlie Hough]

Unfortunately, I think the blogger is right.

I'd say that the biggest overall problem with the merger is that Markus tried to make OOTP more like Football Manager with this release. And I think that is a mistake. While I'm an avid player of FM and have played the game for years, I have a rather unique perspective in that I've also played American baseball sims for over 20 years. And I can definitely say that OOTP should remain a unique product in the vein of OOTP 6.5 and its predecessors, and the focus should be on satisfying the needs and desires of the American baseball sim market. Although OOTP gained a lot of new sales from Europeans and fans of FM, I have no doubt that those people will not stick with the game long-term. And, even if they do, you stand to alienate and lose the true fan base for any baseball game, which is the American baseball fan.

PureSim has the right mentality and approach, and it clearly stands apart as a game dedicated to that true fan base, but it is several years behind because of part-time development. I think OOTP needs to learn some things from PureSim's overall approach and also from other games like Strat-O-Matic and Diamond Mind. By combining the career-based features with the historical and statistical accuracy of these other games, OOTP could eventually conquer the market.

[Curtis]

This is the best baseball game I've ever played, though it does have its flaws (still can't edit the media contracts consistently, in-game management is years behind the industry standards).

I simply don't understand the people who complain about paying $30 for this game. Despite Duffy's repeated assurances that it was still available at $30, he somehow charged me $35. I got that much utility out of it in the first two weeks, half playing 1.01 and half on 1.02. I don't need any discount to get me to buy OOTP2007.

That having been said, I'm not going to be an 'early adopter' on next year's model. I'm going to wait to purchase my copy until I'm reading on these boards that most of the bugs are fixed. And I'm sure there'll be some. I'm just glad that SI and Markus actually do provide a useful level of post-release support, unlike (say) paradox entertainment and Virtual Programming.

[bogieman]

I play only solo leagues and then 99% are historical. So for how I played the game I didn't have that many problems. But I would still like to give my thoughts and opinions to this subject.

My biggest problem with the game is the fact it does not keep the stats correctly. Take away all the fluff and the engine the game has to keep track of the stats. All the rest relies on the stats being correct. Granted all the major stats are correct but there are still some that are not. There is the design decision to carry only 1 byte for some stats causing the 256 rollover. Also if anyone looks closely at the fielding stats they will never total by the end of the season.

How does this affect game play? Are the stats used in the game engine for player development? If they are and a player's fielding stats are incorrect let's say this makes his fielding ratings worse than they should be. From this then players from opposing teams could end up with extra hits or reach on errors because of the faulty ratings. This then would cause the opposing players' stats to become suspect, and so on, and so on.

I admit that this example is probably trivial as you end missing only .25% of the actual putouts. The point is it should not have been missed. For those who say the game should simulate the rules of baseball check out 10.03(c).

If something as simple as this was missed how can something as complex as the CBA be simulated. I know writing code is not an easy task. I have been doing it for 30 years and still run into problems that I want to pull what little hair I have left out of my head.

I agree that the game seems to have lost it's focus and feel. Too much was added to the game on top of a complete rewrite.

[Chris Johnson]

Wow, somebody pointed me to this thread or I would have missed it. Haven't been visiting the forum too often as of late. First, let me say that what I wrote was a final review of our (my online league's) transition to OOTP 2006. Reading just the last post doesn't put things in their proper context, but to be honest, I write that blog for my buddies. It isn't meant to be a "review" in the traditional sense. It is a review of our experience transitioning to OOTP 2006.

And yes, we (I) generally only play this game online. As I wrote in the post, solo players' mileage may vary.

A couple of things I want to point out. First of all, I would have stayed with OOTP 6.5 if I didn' think OOTPB 2006 wasn't worth the incredible amount of pain it has become for us. OOTP 6.5 bores me. OOTP 2006 doesn't. So the nuggets in 2006 are worth the oddities. It just killed our 6.5 league and that was very painful.

Secondly, what really upset us (me) was that the ball seemed to be dropped as far as making this game stable enough for 6.5 transitions. The tech forum was overflowing with issues (poor Mac users) that were simply not being responded to. Now, what I did not mention was that Markus offered to try and look at our game file. So if we hadn't gone through the weeks of pain we may have waited a week or so for him to do that. But it was time to move on because I was ready to pull the plug on the entire league I was so frustrated with the game.

We've restarted, no problems yet, and hopefully life will be good again . But for my league, our worst fears were realized, and that was expressed in my final review. Just one league's experience. Take it or leave it.

Oh yea, whoever made the crack about being a beta tester and not telling me that the game should be delayed, I believe I emphasized the term "I talked to" and no, you were not one of those.

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by bababui

The decision to ban Malleus Dei was a bad one. Good or bad, he generated passion and interest. While polite posts are nice and all, they just always arent that fun to read.

Did they really ban him and if so, why now? Why like a few days before the release? And why'd he go along with it with his "cover story" about moving? I put cover story in " " as I don't believe it that way, I think he left on his own volition. Or maybe The Wolf really was MD in disguise. Or maybe not. Maybe someone else is. Maybe no one is. Who knows and who cares?

Anyhow, polite posts are boring but so what? People talking to each other like adults tend to get things done after a fashion. Impolite posts are entertaining but the idea that they achieve more is just propoganda, they really don't. They just get people pissed off and yelling at each other. The point they were aruging gets quickly forgotten and a food fight develops that never solves anything. People yammer on with the desire to be proved right and eventually all it leads to is a thread lock. This ain't High School.

MD sure generated heat but I don't know that he generated much light.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by Elendil

You misunderstood my post. I don't think SI should take away any of the customizeability (I play fictional OOTP leagues almost exclusively), but as far as where to focus in 2007, the big areas are: getting MLB-type leagues to work right and improving AI roster management. There should be less focus on adding new ways to customize.

You did not come in clear to me before. Now, it's far more understandable, logical, and commendable.

I think it can be boiled down to one word, polish.

Let's make what exists shine.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by Chris Johnson

Oh yea, whoever made the crack about being a beta tester and not telling me that the game should be delayed, I believe I emphasized the term "I talked to" and no, you were not one of those.

That was me.

Thanks for clearing up that I did not talk to you at all. I appreciate that.

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by Zitofan75

Did they really ban him and if so, why now? Why like a few days before the release? And why'd he go along with it with his "cover story" about moving? I put cover story in " " as I don't believe it that way, I think he left on his own volition. Or maybe The Wolf really was MD in disguise. Or maybe not. Maybe someone else is. Maybe no one is.

Odds are he is still around using some alias. Wouldnt surprise me if Big Johnston showed up again for awhile. Kinda strange how Big Johnston vanished from the boards after Mal came back the last time.

[bababui]

Maybe his next alias will be John Johnston III

[Raidergoo]

Five gets you ten that it's John Small Berries.

[darkenigma510]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Odds are he is still around using some alias. Wouldnt surprise me if Big Johnston showed up again for awhile. Kinda strange how Big Johnston vanished from the boards after Mal came back the last time.

I just read those posts for the first time just now and they did make me chuckle. Especially the posts about clutch hitting.