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Old 06-17-2006, 04:01 AM   #1
DAL 9000
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Tilting at Windmills: the diary of an XML tinkerer

Thanks to the amazing, incredible, and miraculous OOTP text editor (which I, uh, kinda like. Y'know... carnally.), I can finally do something I've wanted to for a long, long time: go through all the in-game text and make it more lifelike-- more like you're dealing with an actual person or reading an actual news story, as the case may be; and, in the process, replace the text objects that, well, kinda look like they were written by a German programmer who lives and works in England.

This is a ginormous undertaking, and the truth is that I don't know if I'll complete it, but I do know two things are on my side. First, I'll be posting updates in this thread with samples of my better work, and that should keep me honest; and second, you have no idea just how much spare time I have on my hands this summer. No. Idea. It's ridiculous.

I grow weary of this endless talking, gentlemen. Let's do this thing.
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Old 06-17-2006, 04:57 AM   #2
DAL 9000
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Day 1 report and update

My first reaction when I opened up the OOTP text editor was: "Good LORD, there are a lot of templates here." Which there are; thousands and thousands of them. But the second thing I said was, "AND ALL OF THEM WILL BOW TO ME, FOR I CONTROL THEM UTTERLY!" ... and the best part is, I do!

So as I rolled up my sleeves and set to work, I hummed a merry tune, undaunted by the enormity of my task. OK, maybe I was slightly daunted: it's /really/ gonna be a lot of work. To put it in perspective, I've been editing comments for several hours now, and I'm only about halfway through the first subcategory of the first category of text objects. There's an amazing amount of text in this game, and I salute Markus for putting it together, especially in a foreign language.

Having said that, I'm about to tear down all his work and reassemble it in a manner much more to my liking. First up: editing the e-mails you receive in player contract negotiations.

I've always thought that you could just do so much more with those e-mails-- that you could make the game world a thousand times more immersive by giving them some real variety and personality, and that's what I've been doing so far. Generally, what I do is select a text object that's slightly... off... and then edit it so that it's (usually) longer and is more polished or conversational (or both).

Now, sometimes the original text is just a hideous abortion of the English language and there's no real way to clean it up. When that happens, I take it as a sign to scrap it all and re-write it from the bottom up-- and have a little fun in doing so. Which brings me to the subject of today's sample of my work. And yes, for "[Person.First Name]," you SHOULD be reading "Rickey."

Quote:
Originally Posted by Don't worry, most of the new messages are about half this long. I promise.
[Person.Full Name Link] is in the building, and he's in full effect. Listen up, because I'm here to speak the plain and simple truth.

And you know what that truth is? I'm looking for a better deal here. The [Team.Nickname Link] have made me an offer that's a whole lot closer to what I'm looking for than your deal ever was. But don't despair: there's still time for you to make a better offer. [Person.First Name] knows it's not in his best interests to sign a contract without giving the other bidders one last chance to top it. Truly, [Person.First Name] is as wise as he is just, and as just as he is studly. And, as at least one fine honey in every city in the league can tell you, [Person.First Name] is extremely studly.

[Person.First Name] does request that you not show this e-mail to his wife, however.

Now let me be upfront with you: just a few minutes ago, I called another club (who shall remain nameless) and told them the same thing I'm telling you right now: [Team.City] has made me the best offer so far, but if you want to make a couple changes and resubmit your offer, I'll consider it. Well, they hemmed and hawed and said, "Oh, well, we're very busy but we'll have an offer for you in the next few days; be patient." Well, guess who just got crossed off [Person.First Name]'s list of destinations?

That's right: they did, 'cause I took it as an insult. Hey, I'm not some random scrub here-- I'm a player of some stature in this league, and frankly, I should have your full attention when you negotiate with me. I mean, if you can't take the time to show me that you want me on your club, then I guess y'all will have to do without me.

So get your offer in, and get it to me in a hurry.

[Person.Link]
But writing a long and personalized e-mail like this is absolutely pointless if you can't also ensure that getting it will be EXTREMELY rare. After all, if you get the same message twice in the space of, say, three weeks, you'll actually be MORE irritated than you will by repetitive generic messages. So how do I ensure that these messages are rare?

Two ways: first, you can set conditions for each text object. Using a condition for a text object is kind of like using a filter for a player search-- the text object will only be displayed if the condition is met. In this case, I set CONDITION: MINIMUM PLAYER QUALITY IS 4. Player quality is rated on a 1 to 7 scale, where 3 is an average major leaguer and 7 is an all-time great. So when you get this message, it really /won't/ be from "some random scrub"; at the very least, the player will be a good-to-very-good player whose self-opinion is, uh, a little bit inflated, and it might also come from a star.

But, although that goes /some/ way towards making it unlikely that this message will be repeated, it still sounds /fairly/ likely that it will be. This is where the second part of my concept comes in: Markus wrote a ton of these text objects, which is why they very rarely repeat. I'm not going to delete those-- I'm going to alter and, in some cases, entirely rewrite them, so that the frequency of each /individual/ e-mail is still fairly low.

Will that actually work? I won't know until I run a test league with this puppy, and that'll be a while in the future.

In the next exciting, yet much /shorter/ update, you'll hear all about what I'm doing with the contract negotiation e-mails that are supposed to read like they've been sent in by an agent, including several samples that give you a taste of how a much more ordinary e-mail in this category looks. That's all for now, though, so I'll wrap up with a progress report:

CURRENT SUBCATEGORY: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_GOT_BETTER_OFFER
CURRENT CATEGORY: PLAYER CONTRACT NEGOTIATION

SUBCATEGORY COMPLETION %: ~50
CATEGORY COMPLETION %: Oh, geez. It must be under 5%. It might be under 1%.
PROJECT COMPLETION %: Let's just say I'm not too far along, OK? And then let us never speak of it again.
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Old 06-17-2006, 02:18 PM   #3
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Excellent read. Enjoy the narrative of your experiences. Seems one of the peripheral benefits of the game's complexities is that areas like this exist that, in reality, can become games in and of themselves. Great to see you investing such energies in it and taking the time to share it with us as well. Nothing like a little inspiration to make others consider immersing themselves in a similar manner. Good work. Keep us posted.
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Old 06-17-2006, 02:25 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000
There's an amazing amount of text in this game, and I salute Markus for putting it together, especially in a foreign language.
It's my understanding that the text for OOTP2006 was put together by a team of people chosen from the community rather than Markus himself.
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Old 06-17-2006, 10:20 PM   #5
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This is a cool diary. I'm going to put together some of my own text too, because as a solo player, that's probably been the #1 problem for me when reading stuff in the game is just the fact that I wasn't able to fully "get into" the articles and such because they made no sense.

Though they are a little better now than in the past, this is a great tool we have at our disposal now.
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Old 06-18-2006, 12:09 AM   #6
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Taking the feedback in order here:

1. Thanks, endgame. And I do mean that-- thanks. The first response to a dynasty thread always takes a load off the writer's chest-- and this /is/ basically a dynasty report, when you think about it. It's just that whereas most dynasty reports are about boring things like teams and players and alternate universes and one man's long struggle to overcome the odds and ultimately triumph in a moment of powerful emotional satisfaction, /my/ dynasty's about /exciting/ things, like editing the English.XML file for hours every day. If this thread were an album, it would totally go platinum, f'r sure.



2. Y'know, I'm not sure how to feel about that, treedom. On the one hand, I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize that earlier. On the other hand, by saying that much of the text is, um, not quite up to snuff, I've also just insulted some longstanding members of the community by accident. But on the third hand, they deserved it. Seriously, some of the text in there is terrrrrible. But on the /fourth/ hand, how come I keep thinking there's a little nip-slip going on there with your avatar?

I mean, I know there's /not/, but still, for just a fleeting moment every time I see that picture, I'm dead certain there's a wardrobe malfunction going on before my tender eyes. And it occurs to me... if you're ever about to be lynched by a mob of rowdy 12-year-old boys, all you have to do is pass a copy of your avatar around the crowd and sneak away while they're all hypnotized by its nipple-licious power of suggestion.

Your avatar is a survival tool.


3. darkcloud's right! OOTP Text Editor /is/ a great tool. In fact, "great" doesn't even begin to describe it; it's already leapfrogged Catobase as my all-time favorite OOTP utility.

Lemme tell you something. If the guy who wrote the editor were here right now, I'd give him a bear hug and start weeping uncontrollably in gratitude. Then he'd mumble something awkwardly and try to disengage himself from me, but I'd just start sobbing even harder and let out an incoherent cry of joy as I used his sleeve to loudly blow my nose. And after he shoved me and started running away in terror and disgust, I'd fall to my knees and scream, "WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME, MY SAVIOR?!"

Because I'm just that grateful for it.
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Old 06-18-2006, 12:23 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000
Seriously, some of the text in there is terrrrrible. But on the /fourth/ hand, how come I keep thinking there's a little nip-slip going on there with your avatar?
You're not the first to say so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000
I mean, I know there's /not/, but still, for just a fleeting moment every time I see that picture, I'm dead certain there's a wardrobe malfunction going on before my tender eyes. And it occurs to me... if you're ever about to be lynched by a mob of rowdy 12-year-old boys, all you have to do is pass a copy of your avatar around the crowd and sneak away while they're all hypnotized by its nipple-licious power of suggestion.

Your avatar is a survival tool.


It's how I protect myself from the rabid fanboyzz.
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Old 06-18-2006, 05:42 AM   #8
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Update for Day 2: fight!

A random observation to start off my second update: yesterday I talked a little bit about conditions, which basically tell you when an item /is/ and /isn't/ eligible to be shown. What I forgot to mention, though, is that some of the preset conditions-- the ones that, by default, go with the comments-- are extremely weird. For instance, this text object:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Some dude. Just, like, a guy, OK? You're such a square. Get off my back!

I've had my share of contract spats over the years, and quite frankly I'm tired of that. I'm [Person.Age] years old and ready to sign my final contract. It won't be with you unless you offer me more than [Team.City Link] is floating. If you can match, or exceed it, you might just have hooked me.

[Person.Link]
... is /not/ conditional on the player's age, but rather on his service time. In fact, several of the default messages that indicated that a player "wants to sign his last contract" were tied to service time instead of age. I wonder if whoever did that knows something about the aging algorithm in 2K6 that the rest of us don't.

Probably not, though. I can't think of any reason to make service time a component of the aging algorithm. Anyways! To business.

(Tiny yellow dudes: By George, we'll drink to that! TO BUSINESS!
Disheveled-looking, wild-eyed old man: You young kids today disgust me. The way you two drink and carry on, there's no doubt in my old mind that pretty soon there'll be a Commie in the White House.
Bystanders:
Tiny yellow dudes:
Disheveled-looking, wild-eyed old man: A Commie /terrorist/.
Ghost of V.I. Lenin: You rang? Allow me to introduce my colleague Koba, sometimes known as Stalin, who-- uh--who... oh, dammit. Where's he gotten to? Koba? Koba? [spots him] KOBA! Stop consorting with the bourgeois youth!
Ghost of Iosef Stalin: I'm sorry, Comrade Lenin, but I can't hear a word you're saying! I'm too busy rocking out!
Ghost of V.I. Lenin: ... idiot. Well, then. Comrade Trotski, maybe YOU can sort of stand off to one side and loom threateningly while I talk.
Ghost of Leon Trotski: Ohhh... please don't talk so loud, Il'ych. I have an awful headache.


MEANWHILE, in Shannon's apartment, unbeknownst to any of the Commie ghosts:
Shannon: Oh, Mike!
Mike: Yes, Shannon! Shannon!


... when SUDDENLY...
Shannon's boyfriend Eric (from offscreen): Honey, I'm ho-ome! Guess who left work early-- [opens door to bedroom] OH MY GOD!


WILL Eric demand Mike duel him to the death... or will he take revenge right here, right now?
Perhaps the two of them will have an angry dance-off for the hand and heart of Shannon!
But maybe things will take a /sexy/ turn. Yes, there could be... a THREESOME!
And what will become of the ghosts of Commies past? Find out on the next episode of... DAYS OF OUR EMOTICONS! )


Yeah. So anyways, to business. Remember when I said that in this update, I'd talk about my grandiose plan involving player agents? I /am/ going to talk about it. And while I talk about it, it would be a good idea if we both pretend that it would be a significant addition to the game, as opposed to a cosmetic one.

Let me backtrack and explain here. My Super Smart & Totally Completely Brilliant Plan (tm) was simple. I would write the contract negotiation e-mails in five distinct styles, ranging from a guy who really does care about his client's personal ambitions, but employs a ludicrously soft sell:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Denton
When I talked with [Person.Link] the other day, he told me that he's getting pretty old for a ballplayer, and that he can't believe how fast his kids are growing up. He said he thought his body had a few years left in it, but that the time is coming when he'll want to hang 'em up and be a full-time father.

I told him I admired his priorities, which I do, and I also said that, come hell or high water, I'd land him a contract that took him all the way through to retirement, which I will. And that's why I have to tell you that my client can't accept your offer, and will be signing with [Team.City Link] unless you can offer him a contract that'll run a little longer than your last proposal would've.

It's not that big a gap; we're talking about one extra year here, preferably guaranteed but we'll take a player option. A no-trade clause might also be a good idea, but we won't insist on it.

We're not making any particular demands about the terms of the contract, because we don't want you to feel hamstrung when you sit down with us to work out your final offer. All we want is for you to make an offer that's both generous and fair.

Sincerely yours,
Paul Denton
... to Mr. Hard Sell, who's an obnoxious jerk who thinks he's smarter'n'he really is:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Hampton
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Tick...

The [Team.Nickname Link] have offered my client, [Person.Link], a very tempting deal-- one so tempting, actually, that tomorrow he's going to fly out there and start looking for an apartment.

In short: yes, he does plan to sign a contract in the next few days, but no, he hasn't made a final, irrevocable decision yet. So gentlemen, if you really want my client on your team, man up and put your best bid forward no later than 8 PM New York time tomorrow night.

Tock,

Brad Hampton
... and, in order to keep two different agents from sending e-mails on behalf of the same player, I would once again make use of the conditions (you have no idea how much I love conditions) so that you'd only receive e-mails from Brad Hampton, who's the /most/ aggressive and hard-driving agent, on behalf of players with a greed rating of 5 (on a scale of 0-5); you'd only receive e-mails from the next-most aggressive agent from players with a greed rating of 4; and so on down the line. (The specific way I planned to do this was pretty simple: just set two conditions for each e-mail from a given agent-- Minimum Greed and Maximum Greed. If you set them both to 4, for instance, then agent #4 will never send out e-mails on behalf of any player whose greed rating is less than OR greater than 4.)

So in theory, at least, you can use the greed rating to divide all players into five bands, and ALL players within each band who will only send out e-mails signed A) by one specific agent... or B) in their own name.

Point B is why the agent system is, as I was saying earlier, only a very small improvement on the status quo. The e-mails in that category are all (well, almost all) just short, generic messages, such as this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by THX 1138
I think it's only fair to warn you that I'm strongly considering another offer. The [Team.Nickname Link] have made me an outstanding offer. I'll let you have one last shot to sign me if you're interested, but you'd better put real money on the table.

Cordially,

[Person.Link]
The thing is, these generic, from-a-player e-mails will vastly outnumber the longer from-an-agent e-mails that I've written. This is because, in a hypothetical nightmare world in which I replaced all the generic messages with agent messages, I would have to write an /insane/number of long, personalized e-mails from eeeeeeach and every agent to deal with eeeeeach with every possible situation in the course of a contract negotiation, or else you'd notice that the agents' messages were repeatin' with unseemly frequency.

Now, the truth is that I /could/ do that if I wanted to devote the time and effort to it. But honestly I don't, because that's not my goal -- mostly I just want to clean up the awkward and frequently deficient prose in the game's text, and add more variety, flavor, and realism so the game feels more immersive. You could say that my plan consists of two prongs: 1) smooth, and 2) improve. Tearing down what's already there and building something wholly new to take its place... well, that's neither smoothing nor improving.



BONUS QUESTIONS FOR ACTUALLY READING TO THE END OF THIS INSANELY LONG-O POST:

1. Remember how my Day 1 update claimed my update for Day 2 would actually be shorter?
2. Did you believe that?
3. Really?
4. Hahahahahaha! I can't believe how gullible you are.
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Old 06-21-2006, 05:39 AM   #9
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DAY 3 REPORT: Father's Day. No progress.

DAY 4 REPORT: Spent aaaaalll my time on an unrelated personal project. Once again, no progress.

DAY 5 REPORT: Finished up the first sub-section! I also decided that, if I come up with any ideas for Totally Kewl Features (tm) in the course of this project-- like, for instance, my elaborate idea to create a bunch of player agents, which I mentioned above-- I will NOT immediately start trying to make it work. Instead, I'll make a note of it... and then completely ignore it until I've fully edited all the categories. This will keep me focused on the most important work, as opposed to getting sidetracked every time I think of something nifty.

Today's sneak preview of the coming attraction that is DAL's English.xml file: text object #3267, which was the last object I edited in the got_better_offer subcategory. Since it had been a long and grueling process, I figured it was time for a fiesta.

A /limerick/ fiesta.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Text object #3267
I'm feeling creative today, so I'll put this in the form of a limerick:

There once was a miserly club
That was awful with bat and with glove
They told me, "Please play for us
Our groupies are splayferous--
And cash? You'll be paid like a scrub!"

Except I'm not a scrub. I've been in the league for quite some time now, and I deserve a better salary and more respect than you're apparently prepared to give me me. Happily, [Team.City Link] is offering just that, so unless you want to prove me wrong by offering a better contract, I'm pretty sure I'll sign with them.

Yours irately,

[Person.Link]
OVERALL PROGRESS REPORT:

CURRENT CATEGORY: PLAYER CONTRACT NEGOTIATION (#1 of 7)
CURRENT SUBCATEGORY: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_NEGATIVE (#2 of 13 in category)
PROGRESS ON SUBCATEGORY: 0%

COMPLETED SUBCATEGORIES: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_GOT_BETTER_OFFER

SIDE PROJECTS:
Player agents
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Old 06-21-2006, 07:43 AM   #10
DAL 9000
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Mm, short posts. So quick to write. So effortless. So accurate. (On the other hand, they leave no scope for things like Emoticon Theater, which let me come within an ace of fulfilling my lifelong dream of using-- in a contextually appropriate way-- every possible emoticon in just a single post. Plus, even though I know it's rude and crude and just plain sad to laugh at your own jokes, I gotta say... the two-bananas-and-a-cat thing? Stroke... of genius. But, however, I digress.)

Tune in tomorrow (probably) for my next update, when we'll pay a visit to the seedy back alleys of Sesame Street and document Oscar the Grouch's darkest secrets... and the /shocking truth/ about his past.

Also, we may produce a clear, concise explanation of what we're trying to achieve with this project in the specific areas of news text and PbP commentary, which would enable us to avoid lengthy and confusing explanations later in the project when we reach those areas.

But on that front we make no promises. We're good at lengthy and confusing. Clear and concise is frightening, and strikes us as unnatural.
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Old 06-21-2006, 08:15 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000
We're good at lengthy and confusing. Clear and concise is frightening, and strikes us as unnatural.
Clear, concise writing is unnatural.
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Old 06-21-2006, 10:07 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raidergoo
Clear, concise writing is unnatural.
Agree... it's just plain wrong. Nothing good can come of it.
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Old 06-26-2006, 05:25 PM   #13
griffeyin98
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if you're doing all this work, wouldn't it be more fun if it wasn't brad hampton, but was Scott Boras? I know most of the updates beign worked on for this game are an attempt to make it mirror real life....I know the minute i get an email from scott boras, that i might want to look for a different free agent to sign
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Old 06-26-2006, 05:37 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000
.....
3. darkcloud's right! OOTP Text Editor /is/ a great tool. In fact, "great" doesn't even begin to describe it; it's already leapfrogged Catobase as my all-time favorite OOTP utility.

Lemme tell you something. If the guy who wrote the editor were here right now, I'd give him a bear hug and start weeping uncontrollably in gratitude. Then he'd mumble something awkwardly and try to disengage himself from me, but I'd just start sobbing even harder and let out an incoherent cry of joy as I used his sleeve to loudly blow my nose. And after he shoved me and started running away in terror and disgust, I'd fall to my knees and scream, "WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME, MY SAVIOR?!"

Because I'm just that grateful for it.

Glad you like it ....I think I mumbled something awkwardly when I read this....

If you use it alot and have suggestions on improving it, drop me a note.
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Old 06-27-2006, 07:05 AM   #15
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Once upon a time, I read that, in order for an activity to become a habit, you have to do it every day for about five weeks straight. Wouldn't it be awesome if it only took five /days/?

Mmmm... impossible dreams.

Speaking of impossible dreams, here's the latest progress report.

DAY 5 REPORT (Wed. 6/21/06): No progress.

DAY 6 REPORT (Thurs. 6/22): No progress.

DAY 7 REPORT (Fri. 6/23): No progress.

DAY 8 REPORT (Sat. 6/24): No progress.

DAY 9 REPORT (Sun. 6/25): Progress! Fired up the text editor again and started in on the insanely long subcategory PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_NEGATIVE. It raised some interesting questions for me, chief among them this: why are there so many text objects for player responses to bizarro lowball offers? There must be almost 30 objects that will only display if your contract offer meets these two conditions: CONTRACT OFFERED SALARY REACTION -3, CONTRACT OFFERED YEARS REACTION -3.

Now, -3 is the absolute lowest either value goes. If you offered Albert Pujols a one-year contract at the league minimum, that would be a -3/-3. So my question is... why are there so many -3/-3 messages? I always assumed that most players followed the same general free-agent strategy I did: make a competitive offer from the start. Are there, in fact, a significant number of players who prefer to start things off with an insane-o lowball offer?

Anyways, I'm pleased to report that, having applied my subtle and delicate touch to the -3/-3 e-mails (I've included an example below), they now sound suitably pissed off. Several of them demand that, before their talks with you go any further, you apologize for making such a blatantly insulting offer.

Hm. Note to self: go back and edit at least one e-mail to include the phrase, "Cur, abase yourself before me and repent, and I might suffer you to live."

DAY 10 REPORT (Mon. 6/26): More progress! Having finally escaped the doldrums of the -3/-3 reactions, I'm moving along at a steady clip. As I write this report, in the last two days I've edited (and as always, by "edited" I mean "rewrote the entire thing from scratch in about 80% of cases, and cleaned ") a little more than 100 text objects. Now, I don't know how many hours that took me, but it was certainly no less than four. Six sounds about right.

SIDE NOTE: My engineer friend Sarah informs me that she used the Power of the Calculator to discover that, if it did indeed take six hours to edit ~100 objects, at my present rate I could work on this project three hours a day for every working day in a calendar year and STILL only edit about 12,000 messages.

The good news is that I'm pretty sure there aren't actually that many in-game e-mails, and the editing process (I've peeked ahead to reassure myself that this is true) will be sped up enormously once I get to play-by-play stuff.

The bad news, though, is that I'm obviously /not/ working on this five days a week. I'd say there's about a 50/50 chance I'll be finished with this before OOTP 2K7's out.

But gentle reader, don't despair. I've come up... with a /plan/. Specifically: when I finish each text category (the categories are: Contract Negotiations, Game News, Game Play-By-Play, League Events, League News, Manager News, and Player Season Descriptions; please make sure to put your answers in the form of a question. Hi, Eck! ), I'll release an updated .xml file for download so that all you undeserving peons will be free to bask in the glory of my prose.

/side note

SUMMARY AND SAMPLES:

Since this is, after all, player_contract_reaction_negative (emphasis on the negative), the e-mails I've been writing have been decidedly unhappy.

Sunday's e-mails were the worst, of course; I spent Sunday working on all the -3/-3 reactions (again, -3 salary/-3 years), and those were mostly flat-out angry:

Quote:
Originally Posted by God bless our just and noble King,
Whose word each man relies on:
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.
Dear sirs,

I am in receipt of your extremely recent contract offer, and wish to cordially advise you where to shove it. Jackasses.

Yours faithfully,

[Person.Link]
The -2/-3 reactions were a little better, but not much:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Today is the first day of the rest of that poor ******'s life.
Hm. I COULD sign this contract. Or, and at the moment I think this idea actually makes a lot more sense for me, I could strip naked, slather myself in honey, AND START ROLLING IN THE DIRT NEXT TO A COLONY OF FIRE ANTS.

Here's what will be in your next offer if you want it to be read instead of used as toilet paper: a MINIMUM of three more years; a much, much higher guaranteed salary; and a sincere apology for opening negotiations with such a horribly insulting-- actually, y'know what? The apology should probably come first, 'cause if you haven't guessed by now, I feel just a teeny bit insulted.

Yours,

[Person.Link]

Happily, the -1/-3 reactions are much more civil; they're basically in "This isn't nearly good enough, but we can work with it" territory:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: When the Girls Gone Wild Games go wrong.
OK, let me be upfront with you. I'm a little disappointed with the per-year salary you're offering (I think we both know that it falls a little short of market value), but what really makes me shake my head is that I told you that I wanted to make a long-term commitment to a club with my next contract, and in response you offered me a deal that lasted... all of [Person.Contract Years (@)]. I mean, I don't know what to say to that. I really don't.

Actually, that's not quite true. I do know SOMETHING I can say to it: I won't be signing with your club unless you offer me a much, much longer contract.

Yours sincerely,

[Person.Link]
But finally I reached the promised land: the 0/-3 deals! With these, it was finally possible to be downright cordial:

Quote:
Originally Posted by At GenCorp, we believe that ideas breed innovation.
An imagist poem about your recent offer to my client, Mr. [Person.Last Name Link]:

The cash is fine.
The years are pinecone-bitter
In my mouth.

Tender him a far, far longer contract
At a salary no less than what's on offer now
And we'll do business.


Boy, that Stanford education is a gift that keeps on giving. Anyway, you know where to reach me when you have a better offer for my client. I'm thinking three more years would go a long, long way towards putting [Person.First Name] in a [Team.Nickname] uniform; two probably won't do it, FYI.


OVERALL PROGRESS REPORT:

CURRENT CATEGORY: PLAYER CONTRACT NEGOTIATION (#1 of 7)
CURRENT SUBCATEGORY: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_NEGATIVE (#2 of 13 in category)
PROGRESS ON SUBCATEGORY: ~30%

COMPLETED SUBCATEGORIES: PLAYER_CONTRACT_REACTION_GOT_BETTER_OFFER

SIDE PROJECTS:
Player agents



Tune in for our next update, when you'll discover that Ben Franklin had a shocking secret. (HINT: He was a zombie Satanist.)
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Last edited by DAL 9000; 06-27-2006 at 07:39 AM.
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Old 06-27-2006, 07:52 AM   #16
DAL 9000
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Quote:
Originally Posted by griffeyin98
if you're doing all this work, wouldn't it be more fun if it wasn't brad hampton, but was Scott Boras? I know most of the updates beign worked on for this game are an attempt to make it mirror real life....I know the minute i get an email from scott boras, that i might want to look for a different free agent to sign
Y'know, I hadn't thought of that. When I finally go back and implement the player-agent system, I'll have to sit down and have a long, long think about that.
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Old 06-27-2006, 08:11 AM   #17
DAL 9000
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Quote:
Originally Posted by halos17
Glad you like it ....I think I mumbled something awkwardly when I read this....

If you use it alot and have suggestions on improving it, drop me a note.
Roger wilco. I actually haven't run into anything bad yet, but I HAVE discovered a pretty nifty feature. When you try to enter a tag that doesn't exist (like [person.contract years #] instead of [person.contract years (#)], for example), when you try to save the text object, the tag in question will flash bright red and a little "You're an idiot" icon pops up.

OK, it doesn't /say/ "you're an idiot;" it's a question mark. But still!

Uh, OK, so where was I? Oh. Right. It was pretty clever of you to put that function in there. And if it weren't for the fact that I'm a seriously broke college student who doesn't even have a summer job, I would pay you for making this.

Of course, I'm pretty sure that no one with a paying job would have enough free time to discover OOTP Text Editor, let alone play with it and be awed. That kinda sucks for you, huh?
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Old 06-27-2006, 10:17 AM   #18
halos17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000
...
Of course, I'm pretty sure that no one with a paying job would have enough free time to discover OOTP Text Editor, let alone play with it and be awed. That kinda sucks for you, huh?
Far from it. It was a great way for me to finally contribute to this fine community after several years of just lurking here.

I like your writing style, cracks me up at times. Keep up the good work.
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Old 06-27-2006, 12:27 PM   #19
Raidergoo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DAL 9000

Of course, I'm pretty sure that no one with a paying job would have enough free time to discover OOTP Text Editor, let alone play with it and be awed. That kinda sucks for you, huh?
I have a full time job, a child, a second one soon, and most spare time is spent beta testing, and I am awed by the application. Can I make the headway you are? No, I've only added 3 dozen or so lines, but they are MY LINES, and the tool made it simple to do.

As a 1.0, it is silly solid. I am anticipating what comes next.
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Old 10-18-2016, 05:02 PM   #20
TheMaus2
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So, uh, any more of that emoticon theater?
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