Recap missing a minor detail...

[Neags23]

Not even a mention...?

[Eugene Church]

That's why one should always write their own game recaps.
The recaps are embarrassingly bad and misleading... and too many times leave out important details about the game.

Hope OOTP21 gets someone to rework the game recaps code... they really are very poorly written and very poorly constructed as far as game coverage is concerned.

One of the worst things the recaps do is picking the player of the game... when he is on the losing team, the recaps key on him rather than the winning team... and they fairly regularly pick the wrong player as player of the game.

They could get rid of the player of the game... and they could also get rid of the often inane comments by the players and managers.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Neags23

Not even a mention...?

No Hitters usually get their own separate news story. Is there no other article mentioning it?

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

That's why one should always write their own game recaps.
The recaps are embarrassingly bad and misleading... and too many times leave out important details about the game.

Hope OOTP21 gets someone to rework the game recaps code... they really are very poorly written and very poorly constructed as far as game coverage is concerned.

One of the worst things the recaps do is picking the player of the game... when he is on the losing team, the recaps key on him rather than the winning team... and they fairly regularly pick the wrong player as player of the game.

They could get rid of the player of the game... and they could also get rid of the often inane comments by the players and managers.

Wow, you and I are on opposite sides of the fence here. I think the recaps are great, and add so much immersion to the game.

The recap doesn't pick the player of the game, it just reports it. Same as your local newspaper.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

That's why one should always write their own game recaps.
The recaps are embarrassingly bad and misleading... and too many times leave out important details about the game.

Hope OOTP21 gets someone to rework the game recaps code... they really are very poorly written and very poorly constructed as far as game coverage is concerned.

One of the worst things the recaps do is picking the player of the game... when he is on the losing team, the recaps key on him rather than the winning team... and they fairly regularly pick the wrong player as player of the game.

They could get rid of the player of the game... and they could also get rid of the often inane comments by the players and managers.

Sadly, the recaps are best when they're turned off. They're fine for anyone who just wants a few paragraphs about what happened, but anyone who grew up reading baseball writing in local newspapers or other publications will find them woefully bad.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

... and they could also get rid of the often inane comments by the players and managers.

Then again, aren't the comments made by most players and manager, IRL- at least the ones for public consumption- also usually pretty inane?

[Neags23]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

No Hitters usually get their own separate news story. Is there no other article mentioning it?

There is. But I didn't see it til after. And besides, a no-hitter should be mentioned in the game recap in a regular season game, much less in a game to clinch a playoff series.

[albatross11]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

...One of the worst things the recaps do is picking the player of the game... when he is on the losing team, the recaps key on him rather than the winning team... and they fairly regularly pick the wrong player as player of the game.

They could get rid of the player of the game...

Kinda like the Player(s) of the Game, but agree with your comments about it. I always picked my own POG's, and it was easy and, for me, fun. Now, you have to jump through a lot of "editing hoops", and it still doesn't show up in the player history. It's like a lot of the "customizable" features...hard-coded for whatever reason.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Neags23

There is. But I didn't see it til after. And besides, a no-hitter should be mentioned in the game recap in a regular season game, much less in a game to clinch a playoff series.

Not disagreeing with you, just pointing out what usually happens in those cases.

[Dyzalot]

Pretty sure that I've never seen a series ending game recap talk about that actual game. The recap is always for the entire series. Talking about postseason series, not regular season.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Wow, you and I are on opposite sides of the fence here. I think the recaps are great, and add so much immersion to the game.

The recap doesn't pick the player of the game, it just reports it. Same as your local newspaper.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by albatross11

Kinda like the Player(s) of the Game, but agree with your comments about it. I always picked my own POG's, and it was easy and, for me, fun. Now, you have to jump through a lot of "editing hoops", and it still doesn't show up in the player history. It's like a lot of the "customizable" features...hard-coded for whatever reason.

I think you are right... P.O.G. is just a fluff feature.
Too often, someone else should get the P.O.G.
I'm with you... I rewrite my recaps and leave out the P.O.G.
I let my writeup report the important happenings in a game.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Fine, we'll agree to disagree, however I will take exception to your "The recaps are embarrassingly bad and misleading comment.

You and I had a discussion about these a couple of years ago and I explained to you then that they are written by volunteers.Yes, they could always use improvement, so do as I suggested to you in the past, submit some of the recaps you've written for inclusion in the game.

You told me you have written 100's, if not 1000's of them. So where are they?

This game continues to grow and evolve not only because of the development team, but because of the community.

Back in OOTP 16, 17, 18 when recaps, story lines and news articles first started making their way into the game, I was on beta and wrote some of the stories and series recaps. I can tell you for a fact when they looked for writers, there wasn't a big line up of people wanting to do them. A few of us did what we could, I'm sorry they aren't up to your rare high standard.

I have no idea if they still are done in this manner or if they hired a full time writer, but it won't hurt for you to ask.

Why not contact the development team and submit some of your recaps? Right now the team is busy on OOTP21, but once summer rolls around and they have more time I'm sure they'd be happy to add some of them.

You want the story lines and recaps to improve - then submit some and help the game grow.

[smiller]

I have had no hitters and even a perfect game go unmentioned in the recaps, so I feel there is definitely room for improvement.

[Snider&Hodges]

I know that no-hitters and perfect games will go unnoticed in recaps if there were multiple pitchers on the winning side. I guess that also applies in playoff-clinching games.

I'm with Bluenoser, I love the game recaps but I also know it's AI driven and I take it with a grain of salt sometimes. Your real stories are in the box scores, but it's a cool feature for immersion sake.

[Eugene Church]

My replies are in bold print.

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Fine, we'll agree to disagree, however I will take exception to your "The recaps are embarrassingly bad and misleading comment.

You and I had a discussion about these a couple of years ago and I explained to you then that they are written by volunteers.Yes, they could always use improvement, so do as I suggested to you in the past, submit some of the recaps you've written for inclusion in the game.

First of all, let me offer a sincere apology to the Beta Team that wrote the game recaps... I was wrong to say what I did... please accept apology... I went way to far... I should have simply said there are misleading, poorly designed and have too few variations.

When game recaps first came out, I expressed my opinion in a fairly nice and civil way, that they could be improved with better writing and better coding by Markus and more variations... I offered to help out on it... I was contacted by someone on the Beta Team and told them what I thought the problem was... stilted language that doesn't sound like a sportswriter and poor construction... Markus also needed to work on the technical elements in the Text Coding

I must admit, I did not follow up on offering game recaps samples... I thought it would be a waste of my time... and several years later, the game recaps are still poorly done... I don't think they have improved very much... Just like the News Stories from years ago, the Game Recaps could be made much better... but it takes a huge amount of work... for three or four months I would spend 8 hours a day on each new version writing News Stories and PBP variations... one example: OOTP6.5 had 5 individual variations for a shutout... just 5... there were an average of 125 shutouts each season in the 1950s era I played... this meant each of those 5 stories would be repeated 25 times a season... every 5th shutout... I wrote 150 different stories so they would not be repeated in one season in each league classification, majors and minors… I did this for many other categories as well.

If someone on the OOTP Development is serious about improving the writing and the structure of the Game Recaps, I will be glad to help them out.... all they have to do is contact me via Private Message.


You told me you have written 100's, if not 1000's of them. So where are they?

They were written for versions 2006, OOTP7, OOTP 8, OOTP9 and possibly OOTP10 and OOTP11... I don't think I said I had written 100s and 1000s for the later versions with game recaps... if I did, I was in error.

This game continues to grow and evolve not only because of the development team, but because of the community.

Back in OOTP 16, 17, 18 when recaps, story lines and news articles first started making their way into the game, I was on beta and wrote some of the stories and series recaps. I can tell you for a fact when they looked for writers, there wasn't a big line up of people wanting to do them. A few of us did what we could, I'm sorry they aren't up to your rare high standard.

I appreciate your work on the Beta Team very much... and I appreciate you as a contributing member of the OOTP Community... you are always helpful and pleasant to all of us with questions... I was on the Beta Team for three years and know there are just a very few hearty souls that work so diligently and so long on each new versions... when I did New Stories and PBP text, there was very little help... one or two people at most... I would imagine this is prevalent on all the various teams on the Beta Team.

Agree my standards are very high... I call myself a realistic perfectionist... I really like things done very well, but realize it is not always possible... but when it is my responsibility and under my control, like the News Stories years ago, I really tried to do it to perfection... I was on the Beta Team for 3-4 years and wrote a lot of the Play-by-Play when Battists was in charge... versions 2006, OOTP7, OOTP 8 and maybe OOTP9... I also helped RBLwebguy on the News Stories for OOTP10, 11 and 12, but I was not officially on the Beta Team... and I wrote perhaps 75% of the New Stories making sure that they were enough variations so they would not get redundant in each News Category... I also greatly expanded the part of the New Stories that gave statistics for the key player mentioned in the News Stories, like the Awards winners, Players of the Month.

Kudos to RBGwebguy and pstrickert… they both did a superb job on the News Stories and the PBP... I think pstickert is still doing it, too... he made the game come alive with the great PBP text... I miss reading the fine text... for me, animation has now replaced it.

I have no idea if they still are done in this manner or if they hired a full time writer, but it won't hurt for you to ask.

Why not contact the development team and submit some of your recaps? Right now the team is busy on OOTP21, but once summer rolls around and they have more time I'm sure they'd be happy to add some of them.

You want the story lines and recaps to improve - then submit some and help the game grow.

As I said, I'll be glad to help out.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

Then again, aren't the comments made by most players and manager, IRL- at least the ones for public consumption- also usually pretty inane?

Yes... but there is a way to improve the quotes to make them make more sense in OOTPB... it just take a lot of time and dedicated people.

[Bluenoser]

One of the beauties of Recaps is, they're optional.

I think it would be awesome if Markus hired a professional Sports Journalist, even for 6 moths, to write a few 100 recaps and news articles.

Eventually they become repetitive, so the more you have, the less repetitive they become.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Yes... but there is a way to improve the quotes to make them make more sense in OOTPB... it just take a lot of time and dedicated people.

Sorry, I was just attempting to make a joke, but probably not very successfully.
But I appreciate your passion about this and it is always good to aim for improvement.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

One of the beauties of Recaps is, they're optional.

I think it would be awesome if Markus hired a professional Sports Journalist, even for 6 moths, to write a few 100 recaps and news articles.

Eventually they become repetitive, so the more you have, the less repetitive they become.

If it were that easy, I'd volunteer to do that and wouldn't even ask to be paid. The problem is that it's not a matter of sitting down and writing a recap. It's actually writing snippets or pieces of a recap that are then coded and pulled into an AI-generated recap based on the things the AI recognizes as happening in the game.

I was a part of the beta team that worked on scouting reports, and they worked the same way. It's extremely tedious (and much less fun) to sit and write as many different sentences as you can think of to describe a prospect with good contact potential. Writing for game recaps is the same way. You have a bunch of "conditions" that, when they appear in the game, trigger the game to pull text that matches that condition.

If Markus and the gang are serious about improving game recaps, they first need to improve the coding behind those conditions so that game recaps do a better job of capturing what happened in the game (like in the OP about a no-hitter not being mentioned). My quibble with game recaps is not that they are poorly written, but that they are poorly constructed. If the coding behind game recaps were to be improved, I would volunteer to write text for the recaps. I worked in sports journalism for a decade, including two years as a beat writer for a Triple-A team, so I feel like I could churn out text pretty quickly.

That said, I would rather the OOTP team spend their time on more valuable areas than game recaps. Even if they were constructed better, they still wouldn't add anything to the game for me because a computer-generated story will never match real world journalism.