OOTP and the competition

[injury log]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

That's an interesting phrase -- "take advantage of." I hate to say it, but I think Markus has taken advantage of people in the best sense of the term . . . and the worst.

I do mean the phrase as I wrote it - the amount of unpaid work so many of us do for this game is really quite incredible, in the literal sense of the word. It's hard to imagine this game being playable without the volunteer contributions of the beta team, the text team, and the individual contributions of several members of this community. Perhaps this is a kind of 'exploitation' as Curtis uses the term, with no pejorative connotations attached, but we're all adults who understand the investment and the reward tradeoff: we donate time and expertise to helping develop OOTP, but in return, we see our contributions in the final release of the game, and get a game which is more like the game we ideally want to play, as Eugene points out above.

It is certainly true that Markus is not very communicative, at least for spells (near the end of beta last year he seemed to post very frequently, however), but I don't think it's fair to attack him for not replying to Eugene's post on the beta forum. The beta forum is closed, so there's no reason to expect Markus to be looking there.

[stevebydac]

If you want insight into how Markus thinks, you should read this interview on Gameshark: GameShark | Features | Indie Chat with OOTP's Markus Heinsohn

A pertinent quote to the conversation here:

Sports simulations often require an extraordinary amount of detailed testing. What are the biggest obstacles for your development team in regards to making sure that your games are tested to the fullest extent possible?

I do not think we have found the perfect approach for testing the game yet. Of course, the more testers the better, but too many can become a hassle as well, especially when you try to follow the discussions on the beta forums. For several years we have been using professional bug logging software. That has helped tremendously with logging, organizing and fixing problems. I cannot believe that we did testing without it for so many years.

As an aside, it is interesting that he is a Civilization, Doom and Sims fan, and daydreams about creating a sci-fi game.

[pstrickert]

I knew what I posted would not be universally accepted. That's OK. I'll offer a few other observations, then, if I may. (I'll list a few things off the top of my head.)

First, Markus has posted a few times on the beta board since Eugene made his original post. I can't believe he didn't see the thread title, which begins "Markus: Please give . . ." It's not as if Eugene's post got pushed to the second page.

Second, I have seen Markus completely ignore other threads. I think I even started a couple of threads myself during beta testing last year, which began: "PING: Markus." To one, he never responded. To another, he responded, IIRC, only after we pleaded with him in another thread.

Third, he has initiated discussions only to drop completely out of the conversation after a post or two. It has the effect of making us think he's interested in our feedback. So, we eagerly respond. But then he does not interact with us again. Once, as I recall, he solicited feature requests for the first (or was it the second?) patch. The predictable frenzy ensued, each person grasping at the chance to make his requests known. The thread ran several pages. Never heard back from Markus again. Did he consider our requests? Who knows? I rather doubt it.

Fourth, he sometimes promises (or hints strongly) that he will address certain issues. Months later, nothing is done. I can remember Eugene, I, and others -- in the meantime -- pleaded with Markus to address some PbP issues. I think we tried every trick in the book to get his attention. Even groveling. It was like pulling teeth to get Markus to respond. Case in point: Markus promised on the General Discussion board (and more than once) that he would enhance the PbP in OOTP9. That was good news for the text team, or so we thought. We had design plans in place BEFORE beta testing even began. What happened? Nothing. Markus did nothing with the PbP before the OOTP9 release. He then promised to get to it for the first patch. Nope. Finally, when he hinted that the final patch (at the time) would soon be released, we had to beg him to do something about the PbP. It was as if his earlier promises -- made publicly -- meant nothing. Fortunately, Markus found a couple of hours to deal with the PbP issues.

Fifth, Markus -- from time to time -- will admit he does not communicate with us enough. He says he'll try to do better. For a little while, he will. Then it's back to the same old thing.

I have tried over the years to give Markus the benefit of the doubt. I have tried to empathize with his predicament. But after a while I can only conclude that, really, he doesn't give a d***, as much as we'd like to believe otherwise.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

That - together with the fact that Markus probably knows already what he plans to do with OOTP10 -- suggests that Markus takes very little of our input into consideration.

Injury log already addressed this in post #71, but I'll add my two cents' worth as well.

What you said isn't necessarily correct, because Markus did add new features and responded to suggestions for improvements during the beta period. The customizable playoffs currently in the game were added during the beta period, and was based on the (extremely) detailed proposal I had put together and posted up in the beta forum. People had been asking for awhile for some sort of more customizable playoffs in the game, but not much had been done, probably because Markus would have had to sit down and figure out a way to specifically achieve what was only given as a general suggestion. The proposal I put forth relieved him of that burden since I had thought through the design aspects of customizable playoffs in considerable detail, and as a result he could just run with the design I proposed.

(As I recall, it only took him a day or two to code the customizable playoffs that are now in the game. The moral of the story, I would say, is this: the more detailed one's suggestion is, the more specific thought put into it, the better chance of it being adopted. The proposal I wrote up evolved over the better part of two years; the basic concept was first hatched during OOTP2006's beta. The final proposal ran thirty pages, though roughly half of that was taken up with screenshot examples of how it would work.)

Originally Posted by pstrickert

Eugene's post on the beta board. Three months have gone by with no reply from Markus. Why?

Injury log touched upon what I think are the reasons at the end of post #81. I would have suggested Eugene either e-mail or PM Markus directly, or wait until the start of the beta for OOTP10 and then post, e-mail, or PM (with the latter two having the advantage of direct communication).

Originally Posted by injury log

I do mean the phrase as I wrote it - the amount of unpaid work so many of us do for this game is really quite incredible, in the literal sense of the word.

I don't know how many hours in total I spent on the customizable playoffs proposal, but it was a lot (and it didn't help that I kept modifying things as I went along). I didn't mind doing it though, as I firmly believe the best chance of getting a suggestion adopted for the game, especially a substantial one, is for it to be as precise and detailed as possible. And to achieve that means putting in a lot of time on it. I also look at such efforts as a hobby of sorts, and in exploring various topics it's gotten me to do research on aspects of baseball I might never have otherwise looked at or thought about.

I will say, however, I'd be more than happy to take a six-month contract with OOTP Developments as an OOTP advisor/researcher/features designer/what have you if such an opportunity ever came up (and I'd be an inexpensive hire too).

I can probably name three areas where I could spend a huge amount of time writing up extensive proposals for the game...

Originally Posted by pstrickert

Fourth, he sometimes promises (or hints strongly) that he will address certain issues. Months later, nothing is done. I can remember Eugene, I, and others -- in the meantime -- pleaded with Markus to address some PbP issues. I think we tried every trick in the book to get his attention. Even groveling. It was like pulling teeth to get Markus to respond. Case in point: Markus promised on the General Discussion board (and more than once) that he would enhance the PbP in OOTP9. That was good news for the text team, or so we thought. We had design plans in place BEFORE beta testing even began. What happened? Nothing.

But how much of that was due to the old adage of "no plan survives first contact with the enemy"? That is, circumstances and situations can come up which cause the original plans to have to be set aside or otherwise changed.

I think a lot of the issues raised so far in this thread could be solved if Markus had the resources to hire an additional coder or two so that they could concentrate on specific areas...

[Dr. P.R. Park III]

Le Grande Orange,

I hate to come down like this, because I genuinely enjoy your thorough posts about the history of the game and other eccentric outbursts, but my question is why does it require a 30 page "manifesto" and some two years of thought for something like customizable playoffs to be implemented into the game? I hate to bring up other games, as that usually offers no answer, however, I use it simply as an example...Eastside Hockey Manager 2007...this game comes with all kinds of essential small things (invite players to camp, try-outs, loans, purchasing of indie league players, etc) and that game is almost three years old. Not to mention, that game comes with no more eye candy then OOTP, so my question is why are these things so difficult to implement? I do not think injury log or pstrickert's statements go unfounded, as I also get the same feeling from Markus concering the community, and it's sad to see that translate over to the Beta Team. Would it really be that bad if Markus sold the rights to the game to a more able developer, if one were to be interested in doing so? While not a gold mine, the game certainly has a "cult" following, and I could see the schism being beneficial to both parties. I can only imagine how many times Markus has wished he didn't have to deal with the game or community any longer...

[Carplos]

Eastside Hockey Manager 2007...this game comes with all kinds of essential small things (invite players to camp, try-outs, loans, purchasing of indie league players, etc) and that game is almost three years old. Not to mention, that game comes with no more eye candy then OOTP, so my question is why are these things so difficult to implement?

I'm not sure why this statement follows a question about why it takes so long to implement customizable playoffs, since like the CM/FM games, EHM wasn't very customizable. Riz, once moving to SI, had the code base of CM/FM which had been built over a decade+ by the Collyer brothers and others.

Obviously OOTP was briefly with SI, but I'm not sure how much of the code from them really came over to the "radically" (in some ways) different base of the game. I'd imagine the customizability that can lead to a gazillion different league setups makes it a bit harder than EHM/FM where the leagues are set, based on real life. (And if you follow the SI forums, there are all sorts of mistakes with league rules that have been around for several versions as well.)

Would it really be that bad if Markus sold the rights to the game to a more able developer, if one were to be interested in doing so?

If SI didn't feel it was worth keeping financially after what, two years, who is going to that can really take the code to the next level?

[Tullius]

My point in that discussion was that the competition is getting bigger and stronger, and is developing their game at a time where more is known about how the game of baseball works. If I am correct, OOTP will very soon (if not already) look skin-deep.

I agree that will be a time when more is known about how the game of baseball works so you could code a superior engine. But i do not see who should do it. So i would you offer 50:1 odds that OOTP will still the leader in the next 3-5 years. It is only a theoretical chance that someone will pass OOTP and the existing "competitors" have either an other audience or could not do it all the years before.

Like Syd (?) has said a big company will produce a engine which will give you reasonable results but never waste money to make a perfect engine. To illustrate this point i will use a simple and plain example. To have a 90% correct engine you have to invest 1000 units (ressources), 90% requires 1500units and 99% 2500. But the average customer is satisfied having a nearly correct engine (90%). The "experts" will moon for the missing 10% and but you know even when you deliver 8% the game will be still "unplayable" for them. So it is the best to ignore them and do not risk the commercial success. This is the line which EA has taken since years.

And to be honest, when i would be the producer i would do the same.

[RonCo]

I think Markus does a great job of listening to his customers and (having been a very active one) his Beta folks. The volume of discussion is huge, and he is one guy. I think Markus has a vision for his game, which is great even though I don't share it. If I were a developer of this game, I would have a different one. Not a big deal, and nothing personal. Markus has created a great game, and I don't intend to demean anything he has accomplished.

I've said my vision of what's coming in the future could be wrong. Perhaps there are no other games/sims on the horizon that will overtake OOTP. I thought I saw a big-name group (like a Yahoo/G-mail/CBSSportsline/ESPN kinda name but not them) was working on an on-line sim, but I cannot find it now. But even if I messed up on that call, the idea that another guy in Topeka has a better engine on a hard drive is still there. It's also quite possible that one of the big video/console games will move more deeply into stats accuracy--if this happens, those games will blow OOTP away because the visuals would be backed by deep accuracy. Perhaps none of these will happen though.

For Markus's sake I hope OOTP is still the leader 3-5 years from now. I'm not betting my house on it, though.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Curtis

Trying to answer for RonCo is the original Losers' Game, but I'll take a shot here: I believe he wasn't referring to any particular game now in production or in development, but to some theoretical game now brewing in the imagination of some bored baseball fanatic/computer science major who's sitting in front of his monitor thinking, "I can do a better job than this."

I see either option as viable. As I posted just a bit earlier, I swear I saw a name company kicking off a "ultra-accurate" baseball sim. Can't find it in Google...but the idea that someone somewhere isn't turning advanced pitch, development, and defensive knowledge into a much better game engine is hard to discount. Of course, maybe I'm the only person on the face of the Earth who thinks this way.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by injury log

I do mean the phrase as I wrote it - the amount of unpaid work so many of us do for this game is really quite incredible, in the literal sense of the word. It's hard to imagine this game being playable without the volunteer contributions of the beta team, the text team, and the individual contributions of several members of this community. Perhaps this is a kind of 'exploitation' as Curtis uses the term, with no pejorative connotations attached, but we're all adults who understand the investment and the reward tradeoff: we donate time and expertise to helping develop OOTP, but in return, we see our contributions in the final release of the game, and get a game which is more like the game we ideally want to play, as Eugene points out above.

I spent easily a work-year (mornings and nights and weekends) testing and developing design concepts over the last year I was a beta. I did it because I loved the idea of what could be. I stopped because it became obvious that Markus is not going to change his vision in ways required to make the game fit my view of quality. I have no grudge with this, and that sentence is not meant to be read with a snotty tone.

The base algorithms and ratings structure Markus uses to establish results and players are 10-15 years old, hence were developed before the burst of new sabermetric understanding. Markus has a huge commitment to these structures, and as I've said, if he changes them to match modern concepts he risks losing a lot. I completely understand that. But to think that the OOTP game (at least the fictional portion) can be competitive against a potential future game that is more accurate is fanciful in my mind.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by stevebydac

Sports simulations often require an extraordinary amount of detailed testing. What are the biggest obstacles for your development team in regards to making sure that your games are tested to the fullest extent possible?

I do not think we have found the perfect approach for testing the game yet. Of course, the more testers the better, but too many can become a hassle as well, especially when you try to follow the discussions on the beta forums. For several years we have been using professional bug logging software. That has helped tremendously with logging, organizing and fixing problems. I cannot believe that we did testing without it for so many years.

In many ways, Markus's biggest problem is that he uses too many voices.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

I knew what I posted would not be universally accepted. That's OK. I'll offer a few other observations, then, if I may. (I'll list a few things off the top of my head.)

First, Markus has posted a few times on the beta board since Eugene made his original post. I can't believe he didn't see the thread title, which begins "Markus: Please give . . ." It's not as if Eugene's post got pushed to the second page.

Second, I have seen Markus completely ignore other threads. I think I even started a couple of threads myself during beta testing last year, which began: "PING: Markus." To one, he never responded. To another, he responded, IIRC, only after we pleaded with him in another thread.

Third, he has initiated discussions only to drop completely out of the conversation after a post or two. It has the effect of making us think he's interested in our feedback. So, we eagerly respond. But then he does not interact with us again. Once, as I recall, he solicited feature requests for the first (or was it the second?) patch. The predictable frenzy ensued, each person grasping at the chance to make his requests known. The thread ran several pages. Never heard back from Markus again. Did he consider our requests? Who knows? I rather doubt it.

Fourth, he sometimes promises (or hints strongly) that he will address certain issues. Months later, nothing is done. I can remember Eugene, I, and others -- in the meantime -- pleaded with Markus to address some PbP issues. I think we tried every trick in the book to get his attention. Even groveling. It was like pulling teeth to get Markus to respond. Case in point: Markus promised on the General Discussion board (and more than once) that he would enhance the PbP in OOTP9. That was good news for the text team, or so we thought. We had design plans in place BEFORE beta testing even began. What happened? Nothing. Markus did nothing with the PbP before the OOTP9 release. He then promised to get to it for the first patch. Nope. Finally, when he hinted that the final patch (at the time) would soon be released, we had to beg him to do something about the PbP. It was as if his earlier promises -- made publicly -- meant nothing. Fortunately, Markus found a couple of hours to deal with the PbP issues.

Fifth, Markus -- from time to time -- will admit he does not communicate with us enough. He says he'll try to do better. For a little while, he will. Then it's back to the same old thing.

I have tried over the years to give Markus the benefit of the doubt. I have tried to empathize with his predicament. But after a while I can only conclude that, really, he doesn't give a d***, as much as we'd like to believe otherwise.

And that is exactly why all of us here are so frustrated - we care far, far more about the game being right than Markus does.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Tullius

I agree that will be a time when more is known about how the game of baseball works so you could code a superior engine. But i do not see who should do it. So i would you offer 50:1 odds that OOTP will still the leader in the next 3-5 years. It is only a theoretical chance that someone will pass OOTP and the existing "competitors" have either an other audience or could not do it all the years before.

You could be right.

Like Syd (?) has said a big company will produce a engine which will give you reasonable results but never waste money to make a perfect engine. To illustrate this point i will use a simple and plain example. To have a 90% correct engine you have to invest 1000 units (ressources), 90% requires 1500units and 99% 2500. But the average customer is satisfied having a nearly correct engine (90%). The "experts" will moon for the missing 10% and but you know even when you deliver 8% the game will be still "unplayable" for them. So it is the best to ignore them and do not risk the commercial success. This is the line which EA has taken since years.

And to be honest, when i would be the producer i would do the same.

Yes, but. The ease or difficulty of software development, regardless of whether it's a game or a business application or whatever, is predicated on the perspective from which the basic design is developed. OOTP, for example, has an established design that uses Lahamn database as player input and resolves results by the plate appearance. This philosophy immediately locks in certain decisions and capabilities.

If I were a college software engineering student writing my thesis, or a Google worker with 20% of my free time given to my own projects, I would take 3-6 months and develop a game predicated on a design approach that used more creative/humanistic player characteristics as ratings and resolved results based on each pitch.

My design decision would immediately make my game more capable of creating the game of baseball properly than OOTP is (because the events happen naturally rather than being kind of crammed into the rate-based [K/PA, BB/PA, HR/PA] approach OOTP uses). All those bolt-on "special plays" that Eugene is so looking for and that Markus adds on the back-end of the basic algorithm would just happen by natural incidence. And the development environment would become immediately scalable because each step in the result is suddenly open to future improvement or modification.

A big company would develop the entire framework, but stub out pieces it didn't have time to complete fully--because a big company would work very hard to NEVER miss a release deadline. Then with each version, that company would add a few more lines of code and sell it again. And the forum fans would be happy because the biggest holes would be capable of being resolved.

Probably more than you asked for.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Probably more than you asked for.

Visionaries are delusional until they deliver. Then their eccentricity becomes the establishment.

I think you are nuts (or are not fault-tolerant, or don't like the sausage making), which bodes well for the future.

I think OOTP will remain on top for the simple reason that PC gaming is dead (Long live PC gaming...). It's all console driven nowadays, and effort will go towards cool shading and polygon counts vs. a more perfect modeling of the transformation of boys into the Boys of Summer.

This situation is sort of like having the coolest gravestone in the cemetery. You get noticed but once a year and you are still dead as a doornail.

[Nutlaw]

Originally Posted by RonCo

I think Markus does a great job of listening to his customers and (having been a very active one) his Beta folks. The volume of discussion is huge, and he is one guy.

This is absolutely true, and quite hilarious given the length of this thread. Of course Markus can care about the quality of his games and about the opinions of his customers without getting dragged into detailed discussions over every matter that anyone brings up. This thread alone is 94 posts! Why would I want to see Markus spend his time exhaustively responding to every generalized attack here when he could be spending his time writing a game for us to play?

The guy is smart enough to be able to take in suggestions without getting tied up in arguments over why he chose this over that. If he only has time to code in four more things and those four things don't include text upgrades, for instance, he can't spend so much time endlessly arguing the relative value of text upgrades that now he only has time to code three things.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

Visionaries are delusional until they deliver. Then their eccentricity becomes the establishment.

I think you are nuts (or are not fault-tolerant, or don't like the sausage making), which bodes well for the future.

As far as my decision to participate or not, it's a basic business decision.

I don't mind faults, nor do I mind being in the middle of making sausage. I have participated in, managed, and deployed design of technologies for many years. I only stopped playing in OOTP sausage when it became obvious that I had been as successful as I could be here within the fictional world and the results engine. My opinion is that the engine is about as good as it can be at this point unless the approach is fundamentally changed. Markus owns this decision--as it should be, of course.

Sure, he can mush things one way or the other and make tiny changes in this environment. But I'm not willing to donate $100K of my free time again to make a .05% improvement.

I think OOTP will remain on top for the simple reason that PC gaming is dead (Long live PC gaming...). It's all console driven nowadays, and effort will go towards cool shading and polygon counts vs. a more perfect modeling of the transformation of boys into the Boys of Summer.

This situation is sort of like having the coolest gravestone in the cemetery. You get noticed but once a year and you are still dead as a doornail.

I don't think the next great version will be a PC game, but will be a Web-driven approach. That's where I would be developing it if it were me. Though it's certainly possible that console games will eventually turn to making the game engine and career-mode option accurate. Don't sell the polygon-makers too low. I would love to have a visually spectacular rendering of the game as it plays out, complete with voice-over play-by-play and a results engine that was "right" as well as an environment where a flexible GM-model allowed me to manage my team.

I would play the heck out of that.

But, yes, in either vision the PC gaming world is slowly grinding to a halt.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Nutlaw

This is absolutely true, and quite hilarious given the length of this thread. Of course Markus can care about the quality of his games and about the opinions of his customers without getting dragged into detailed discussions over every matter that anyone brings up. This thread alone is 94 posts! Why would I want to see Markus spend his time exhaustively responding to every generalized attack here when he could be spending his time writing a game for us to play?

The guy is smart enough to be able to take in suggestions without getting tied up in arguments over why he chose this over that. If he only has time to code in four more things and those four things don't include text upgrades, for instance, he can't spend so much time endlessly arguing the relative value of text upgrades that now he only has time to code three things.

It's actually another reason he would have a better go of it if he limited his approach to one market.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Dr. P.R. Park III

Would it really be that bad if Markus sold the rights to the game to a more able developer, if one were to be interested in doing so?

In a word, yes. In a few more words, his independence is why the community interaction is as good as it is.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by PhillieFever

Wow,I didn't realize that there was so much competition either,should make for an interesting spring...

Yeah, but the Wolverine Studios project appears to be dead in the water.

[1998 Yankees]

Except for the very last sentence, this is a great summation and is the reason why OOTP needs a nuts and bolts community coordinator type of guy, one that we thought they had acquired last year:

Originally Posted by pstrickert

I knew what I posted would not be universally accepted. That's OK. I'll offer a few other observations, then, if I may. (I'll list a few things off the top of my head.)

First, Markus has posted a few times on the beta board since Eugene made his original post. I can't believe he didn't see the thread title, which begins "Markus: Please give . . ." It's not as if Eugene's post got pushed to the second page.

Second, I have seen Markus completely ignore other threads. I think I even started a couple of threads myself during beta testing last year, which began: "PING: Markus." To one, he never responded. To another, he responded, IIRC, only after we pleaded with him in another thread.

Third, he has initiated discussions only to drop completely out of the conversation after a post or two. It has the effect of making us think he's interested in our feedback. So, we eagerly respond. But then he does not interact with us again. Once, as I recall, he solicited feature requests for the first (or was it the second?) patch. The predictable frenzy ensued, each person grasping at the chance to make his requests known. The thread ran several pages. Never heard back from Markus again. Did he consider our requests? Who knows? I rather doubt it.

Fourth, he sometimes promises (or hints strongly) that he will address certain issues. Months later, nothing is done. I can remember Eugene, I, and others -- in the meantime -- pleaded with Markus to address some PbP issues. I think we tried every trick in the book to get his attention. Even groveling. It was like pulling teeth to get Markus to respond. Case in point: Markus promised on the General Discussion board (and more than once) that he would enhance the PbP in OOTP9. That was good news for the text team, or so we thought. We had design plans in place BEFORE beta testing even began. What happened? Nothing. Markus did nothing with the PbP before the OOTP9 release. He then promised to get to it for the first patch. Nope. Finally, when he hinted that the final patch (at the time) would soon be released, we had to beg him to do something about the PbP. It was as if his earlier promises -- made publicly -- meant nothing. Fortunately, Markus found a couple of hours to deal with the PbP issues.

Fifth, Markus -- from time to time -- will admit he does not communicate with us enough. He says he'll try to do better. For a little while, he will. Then it's back to the same old thing.

I have tried over the years to give Markus the benefit of the doubt. I have tried to empathize with his predicament. But after a while I can only conclude that, really, he doesn't give a d***, as much as we'd like to believe otherwise.

I do NOT agree with this however:

Originally Posted by The Wolf

And that is exactly why all of us here are so frustrated - we care far, far more about the game being right than Markus does.

I honestly think MH does not have the personality or the inclination to consistently deal with the community in a proper manner. Cannot blame him, considering some of the stuff I have read here over the years.