Importing of OOTP 6 leagues

[deadringer]

When issues like this come up you can definitely tell there are different factions of OOTP fans. There's the historical guys, the online guys, the fictional guys, and the real life MLB guys.

I feel sympathy for the one's whom this is going to pinch. It hasn't changed my excitement though! I don't do historical or online anymore.

[RonCo]

At some level you have to say "get a life" to a guy who draws a hard line. A league may lose those guys anyway. But the issue of histories coming over is important enough to a collection of the community that it bears a serious, serious examination of the state of the possible. If, at the end of the day, it's truely imposisble to have them, then that's that...leagues and guys will have to deal. But if it's possible (but just hard) for histories and minors stats to come over in an integrated pile, then a re-examination and replan is not out of line.

Only Markus/SI can answer this question. So it is deferred to them.

(Note: I'm a FOBL owner, too...just not quite as hard-line as some of the original gang)

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Only Markus/SI can answer this question. So it is deferred to them.

(Note: I'm a FOBL owner, too...just not quite as hard-line as some of the original gang)

I think Markus just did answer that question. I'm not sure that at this stage of the game, re-planning is an option.

Once the new game is released, and people start their new leagues, I, as I'm sure most other customers, would expect markus to be spending his time improving the new game, not figuring out ways to make the old game more compatible.

I think the import limitations are what they are, that is of course someone else can make a utility that can do it better.

[MorseMoose]

Originally Posted by RonCo

But the issue of histories coming over is important enough to a collection of the community that it bears a serious, serious examination of the state of the possible.

I'm sure Markus looked at it and tried as hard as he could to get it to import into 06. He just wasn't able to do it. What he is doing is more than generous already as there is no where that states that he has to make it at all backward compatible.

The game is a COMPLETE rewrite and with a complete rewrite, it should have been obvious that not everything was going to export/import correctly. I honestly don't know any game (other than these text games) where you can export/import from a previous version. MVP? Not that I know of. Madden? Not that I know of. Final Fantasy? Not that I know of. Sim City? Not that I know of. The Sims? Not that I know of.

The closest I can think is probably Roller Coaster Tycoon where you can import a roller coaster, but that's it. Sure, there may be a few games out there; but it is not general practice to allow COMPLETE backward compatibility.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by deadringer

When issues like this come up you can definitely tell there are different factions of OOTP fans. There's the historical guys, the online guys, the fictional guys, and the real life MLB guys.

I feel sympathy for the one's whom this is going to pinch. It hasn't changed my excitement though! I don't do historical or online anymore.

True, there are many different factions. The funny thing is how everyone thinks that the majority is always in their faction, when realistically, nobody knows.

[CBL-Commish]

This just isn't a big deal for me. I've always had split histories.

In 1988 the Continental League began on Pure Sim Baseball on my Commodore 64. When I moved to Earl Weaver on the PC in 1989 no one had a utility to convert my old league.

When I moved from Earl I to Earl II midway through the 1992 season the league file converted over, but my histories were all in exported .txt files. Sometime around 1996 I put all of the history stuff into Word files, and the stats into Excel.

When I moved to OOTP2 in 2000 I didn't have any utility to help me convert. I built my own Lahman database and manually imported ~800 players into OOTP.

When each new version of OOTP came out new things were added, new stuff was tracked. Newer players naturally had more stuff in their history than the older guys. My real league history is, as it always has been, in spreadsheets and text files and archives. One of these days I'll get around to building my own Lahman database or Sabermetric Encyclopedia type app to consolidate it. Hopefully.

When OOTP2006 comes out there will be similar transition pains, similar bumps in the road. But that's the way it's always been. No big deal.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by CBL-Commish

This just isn't a big deal for me. I've always had split histories.

In 1988 the Continental League began on Pure Sim Baseball on my Commodore 64. When I moved to Earl Weaver on the PC in 1989 no one had a utility to convert my old league.

When I moved from Earl I to Earl II midway through the 1992 season the league file converted over, but my histories were all in exported .txt files. Sometime around 1996 I put all of the history stuff into Word files, and the stats into Excel.

When I moved to OOTP2 in 2000 I didn't have any utility to help me convert. I built my own Lahman database and manually imported ~800 players into OOTP.

When each new version of OOTP came out new things were added, new stuff was tracked. Newer players naturally had more stuff in their history than the older guys. My real league history is, as it always has been, in spreadsheets and text files and archives. One of these days I'll get around to building my own Lahman database or Sabermetric Encyclopedia type app to consolidate it. hopefully.

When OOTP2006 comes out there will be similar transition pains, similar bumps in the road. But that's the way it's always been. No big deal.

Good post, the moral of the story being: If your league is that important to you, you will find a way to carry your history with you, but it may not be pretty.

Edit: Hey CBL-Commish, How many seasons have you simmed in your league to date?

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by battists

Well, I don't mean to trivialize what you're going through, but change happens. If your entire league is still on V5, you've been resisting the change for some time, and unfortunately for your league, you've reached a point in time where you can't avoid change much longer. Markus has made attempts along the way to smooth the transition, and even now he is doing the same, he just didn't have enough hours in the day to make everyone happy all of the time.

Sure. And I appreciate the fact that some things carry over. As for trivializing the league, this *is* a league that has been around since 2001, has brought together a community and a forum with over 160k posts and a chat that is filled on a daily basis (I won't go as far as saying it killed FOFC, but it did syphon some users, that's for sure), spawned an FOF league and even a poker blog/tour. For some, the league has almost become incidental, for others, it's one of their main hobbies. But at least for bringing us all together, we do owe a big thanks to Markus, whether most of us would like to admit it or not.

We're on v6 because for our purposes, most of the additions to the game wouldn't have improved our playing experiences. In fact, it had been argued (by Killebrew I believe, among others) that a percieved more randomized dev in v6 would have just gotten everybody angrier at the game engine.

Originally Posted by battists

It seems that you guys have a number of options in front of you - as do many online leagues. It's just that the best option (total backwards compatibility) didn't work out. As I see it, you have at least the following options:

1. Preserve the status quo, and keep the league going with OOTP 5

2. Keep OOTP 5 for now, wait for the release of OOTPB 2006, and wait to see if some brave soul can come up with some kind of conversion utility. Make a decision on your league's future then.

3. Bite the bullet and convert your OOTP 5 league to OOTPB 2006, and learn to live with a split history.

4. Do a "parallel test" of sorts - convert your league to OOTPB 2006 and play out one season to see what sorts of issue arise.

5. Encourage the other excellent GMs in your league to create a brand new OOTPB 2006 league, and if some elect not to join, look for new GMs.

I understand that everyone wanted option 6 - seamless conversion - but we all have to live with this situation...

Good luck!

Steve

Yep, those sum up the options. Some would prefer 1, but others feel it's played out, plus there are most certainly concerns that eventually you'd run out of replacement owners (ownership changes aren't frequent, but due to life circumstances they do happen). #2 sounds like it likely won't happen, at least the part about conversion utilities. Which leads to #3, which seems like the likely option at this point. Unfortunately, we'll be losing BOSI, probably FBR, and maybe a few other custom tools that we'd written depending on if they can be reworked or not (automatic financial updates for our custom financial system, AS voting, standings predictors based on set of custom scripts I wrote). #4 we will likely cover as we will have an team doing extensive testing. #5 has been covered in a few different ways, from a complete redraft of existing players, to fast-forwarding the league 20 years, to contraction, etc. I personally don't like any of these options, as it seems to invalidate any work that has been put into teams up until this point.

So really we're probably stuck with #3. It will have to be workable, but it's by no means optimal unfortunately.

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by MorseMoose

I'm sure Markus looked at it and tried as hard as he could to get it to import into 06. He just wasn't able to do it. What he is doing is more than generous already as there is no where that states that he has to make it at all backward compatible.

The game is a COMPLETE rewrite and with a complete rewrite, it should have been obvious that not everything was going to export/import correctly. I honestly don't know any game (other than these text games) where you can export/import from a previous version. MVP? Not that I know of. Madden? Not that I know of. Final Fantasy? Not that I know of. Sim City? Not that I know of. The Sims? Not that I know of.

The closest I can think is probably Roller Coaster Tycoon where you can import a roller coaster, but that's it. Sure, there may be a few games out there; but it is not general practice to allow COMPLETE backward compatibility.

Anyone who's ever been in transition from a legacy program to a brand new design would agree with the above. According to Markus he could not squeeze any more innovation out of the old engine. It was time to jettison it and move on to something else if he wanted to keep growing his product. Remember Markus is in a competitive market out there. He can't simply sit still with an old game engine and wait for the other game developers to catch and then perhaps surpass him. Change is needed to stay on top and stay competitive with other product lines. Evolve or die.

This nonsense that Markus wants to line is pockets deserves a word that I shouldn't use on this board. If that were true then Markus would've continued with the old engine. He would've done some cosmetic things here and there and then charged us $35 for essentially the same game. He didn't want to do that though so he's doing something bold. He wanted a fresh and interesting game that not only appealed to old timers but that might attract a new group of players and grow the company all the more.

Look (and not to single anyone out here), we're all spinning our wheels here right now. Let's cut out the "sky is falling" junk until it actually does. The new game will mean change. Some folks can't stand that but that's a part of life in general. Battists has the right idea. Let's get our hands on the game before we start talking about how we "know" the game is "ruined." Let's make our opinions based on real knowledge of the new version and not the old ones. Maybe we'll be surprised by it.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by Zitofan75

Anyone who's ever been in transition from a legacy program to a brand new design would agree with the above. According to Markus he could not squeeze any more innovation out of the old engine. It was time to jettison it and move on to something else if he wanted to keep growing his product. Remember Markus is in a competitive market out there. He can't simply sit still with an old game engine and wait for the other game developers to catch and then perhaps surpass him. Change is needed to stay on top and stay competitive with other product lines. Evolve or die.

This nonsense that Markus wants to line is pockets deserves a word that I shouldn't use on this board. If that were true then Markus would've continued with the old engine. He would've done some cosmetic things here and there and then charged us $35 for essentially the same game. He didn't want to do that though so he's doing something bold. He wanted a fresh and interesting game that not only appealed to old timers but that might attract a new group of players and grow the company all the more.

Look (and not to single anyone out here), we're all spinning our wheels here right now. Let's cut out the "sky is falling" junk until it actually does. The new game will mean change. Some folks can't stand that but that's a part of life in general. Battists has the right idea. Let's get our hands on the game before we start talking about how we "know" the game is "ruined." Let's make our opinions based on real knowledge of the new version and not the old ones. Maybe we'll be surprised by it.

^^^ Get's it

[f.montoya]

Zitofan75 couldn't have said it any better. Probably time to close this thread.

Bottom line...

OOTP6.5 works. If your league is in it and you want to keep all the history, keep it there.

OOTPB 2006 rocks. If you want a totally new experience with new features and previously unseen possibilities just beckoning you (and Markus too with future versions), then open your mind until May 31st.

Peace.

[battists]

Just to be clear, I'm not of the school of thought that says "Geez guys, get a life." I can see the frustration that these online leagues will have, and I wish it hadn't worked out that way.

But, I *am* of the school that says, "Let's try to come up with some positive approaches once the new game comes out" rather than the "Markus has ruined my league" approach.

[cuervo72]

I still don't understand though how importing *stats* would have been "impossible". I mean, that's largely what we're talking about here, right? New database or not, I assume that the old stats are essentially a subset of the new stats that will be in the game. Obviously, Markus has a way of putting all the new stats into the database. Would stand to reason that a subset of those stats could go in as well somehow. No, the old stats wouldn't be complete, and they could possibly mess some new-fangled reports up. But I still can't believe that programmatically it couldn't be done. Like I said before, it's more of a business decision not to. Yep, it would take time to do, and it would be for something that only a portion of the users (from the looks of how many are single player folks, a large portion) wouldn't really need anyway. Which is fine - this is a business after all. I'm just not sure I buy the can't argument.

[RBLwebguy]

Originally Posted by Zitofan75

Anyone who's ever been in transition from a legacy program to a brand new design would agree with the above. According to Markus he could not squeeze any more innovation out of the old engine. It was time to jettison it and move on to something else if he wanted to keep growing his product. Remember Markus is in a competitive market out there. He can't simply sit still with an old game engine and wait for the other game developers to catch and then perhaps surpass him. Change is needed to stay on top and stay competitive with other product lines. Evolve or die.

This nonsense that Markus wants to line is pockets deserves a word that I shouldn't use on this board. If that were true then Markus would've continued with the old engine. He would've done some cosmetic things here and there and then charged us $35 for essentially the same game. He didn't want to do that though so he's doing something bold. He wanted a fresh and interesting game that not only appealed to old timers but that might attract a new group of players and grow the company all the more.

Look (and not to single anyone out here), we're all spinning our wheels here right now. Let's cut out the "sky is falling" junk until it actually does. The new game will mean change. Some folks can't stand that but that's a part of life in general. Battists has the right idea. Let's get our hands on the game before we start talking about how we "know" the game is "ruined." Let's make our opinions based on real knowledge of the new version and not the old ones. Maybe we'll be surprised by it.

Please refer back to my earlier posts in this thread as well, when I encouraged folks to be patient and use common sense before freaking out

I have just as much at stake with 3 online leagues, all up in their 20 plus seasons. I will do what is best for those leagues, which may be:

Staying with 6.5
Upgrading to 2006 with no worries about what is lost
Upgrading and using manual processes to keep the history together

[RBLwebguy]

dola,

and the sky hasn't fell yet!

[f.montoya]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I still don't understand though how importing *stats* would have been "impossible"...But I still can't believe that programmatically it couldn't be done...Which is fine - this is a business after all. I'm just not sure I buy the can't argument.

Not impossible but are you willing to wait another 6 months to get what you want?

I don't think so.

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by RBLwebguy

Please refer back to my earlier posts in this thread as well, when I encouraged folks to be patient and use common sense before freaking out

Didn't mean to exclude, there have been many people on here who have exercised common sense and patience ... and that goes for both sides of the argument.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by MorseMoose

The game is a COMPLETE rewrite and with a complete rewrite, it should have been obvious that not everything was going to export/import correctly. I honestly don't know any game (other than these text games) where you can export/import from a previous version. MVP? Not that I know of. Madden? Not that I know of. Final Fantasy? Not that I know of. Sim City? Not that I know of. The Sims? Not that I know of.

Thanks so much for that education. I sincerely appreciate it, and intend to use it the next time one of my business customers tells me that I have to build backward compatibility into the databases I develop. You have just saved me a ton of work! This is so great!! I mean, rather than have to spend hours and hours rethinking our designs, I can just tell them that while we've supported this request in the past, no one else does it so we won't be able to do it now. I am so into this. This has freed several weekends of my time. The benefits of the OOTP forum are never ending!

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by f.montoya

Not impossible but are you willing to wait another 6 months to get what you want?

I don't think so.

Um, our league still on v5 remember. And I personally don't play single player. So in my case, quite possibly yes.

(and I seriously doubt if the process itself would take 6 months to do. Maybe it would be back 6 months in the queue, but then again, if the release date is May 31, Markus doen's have 6 more months of coding to do, unless we're talking a lot of patch work).

[f.montoya]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Thanks so much for that education. I sincerely appreciate it, and intend to use it the next time one of my business customers tells me that I have to build backward compatibility into the databases I develop. You have just saved me a ton of work! This is so great!! I mean, rather than have to spend hours and hours rethinking our designs, I can just tell them that while we've supported this request in the past, no one else does it so we won't be able to do it now. I am so into this. This has freed several weekends of my time. The benefits of the OOTP forum are never ending!

Ah! you develop databases for computer games?