If only ootpbb could look like mogul

[megamanmatt]

The thing is too, it's not that I'm opposed to graphics. It's just that I don't see what it would add to the game except aesthetic value. The game would still function exactly the same way, with the game determining what happens then giving it to the player in the form of pBp. 2k tried making a management sim, and it had graphics. The problem was the simulation engine was crap, and they only programed in like 100 different animations, which is very low. OOTP was still hands down the far superior game. Part of the superiority is mod-ability and a graphical engine would force us to only have the pBp that was programmed in. Granted OOTP's is great "out of the box" but it's still nice to have the ability to make it your own, even if it's only adding in or editing one or two lines.

[struggles_mightily]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Yes, I've seen this argument before. The problem is that it ignores the fact that there are thousands of graphic artists going through university programs that would love an opportunity to work on a game and get an early credit to build their resumes. And they might just take something like this on for free. If OOTP established a graphic design unpaid internship and perhaps worked with a university to allow an advanced level student to earn credit in return, then this is the answer.

i) "Graphic artists"? So who actually programmes the engine for the visual component in your scheme? Another unpaid grad student? Markus?

i) Programming is not one of my major interests or areas of expertise, but I strongly suspect that a project of this size (i.e. incorporating a serious, useful, comprehensive visual element into OOTP) is going to be above the level of a programming graduate student (or one who'd work for free anyway).

ii) Surely an internship of this type would work best when the project is small, marginal to the entire project, and a "one time" deal. Say that this kid comes into the OOTPD team and, working unpaid for one year, manages to finish the job and create a usable graphical element for OOTP. (Remember that the possibility that (s)he fails to do this has to be planned for. Thus, there have to be contingency options -- i.e. Markus would need to keep a close watch on and familiarity with the engine). What happens then? Is the engine just... never improved? If there are problems, then who troubleshoots or makes patches? Does this guy or girl work unpaid for us forever more?

iii) I guess that in response to my last question you would say that so many new buys would be encouraged by the graphical element that we could afford to add one or two new people to the staff. I'm not so sure. What do people like that make? $40-50,000 per year? So for two people, you're looking at almost $100,000. Do we see 3,000+ new buys coming from this (and this is presuming that no-one hates the idea of graphics so much that [s]he stops buying)? I'm just not sure that the upgrade is that large...

EDIT:
I should say, though, CH, that I have never played Microleague. You mentioned FM's 2D match engine earlier. Is that the kind of thing you would like to see for OOTP? (That's what I've been presuming.)

EDIT EDIT:
Incidentally, has Markus ever spoken about this issue? If so, has he talked about the way that available resources feed into this? Or has he cited other stuff (e.g. just not being interested in doing something like; not thinking that it would affect buys much; etc.)?

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally Posted by rich12545

A baseball sim can effectively have graphics OR text but not both. Try it with Mogul. It has some text on the right hand side. Try looking at the ball flight with one eye and reading the text with the other. You can look at one and then the other but not both at the same time. I've played both and prefer the ootp text although I also like the Mogul graphics.

Also a good point.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by struggles_mightily

i) "Graphic artists"? So who actually programmes the engine for the visual component in your scheme? Another unpaid grad student? Markus?

i) Programming is not one of my major interests or areas of expertise, but I strongly suspect that a project of this size (i.e. incorporating a serious, useful, comprehensive visual element into OOTP) is going to be above the level of a programming graduate student (or one who'd work for free anyway).

ii) Surely an internship of this type would work best when the project is small, marginal to the entire project, and a "one time" deal. Say that this kid comes into the OOTPD team and, working unpaid for one year, manages to finish the job and create a usable graphical element for OOTP. (Remember that the possibility that (s)he fails to do this has to be planned for. Thus, there have to be contingency options -- i.e. Markus would need to keep a close watch on and familiarity with the engine). What happens then? Is the engine just... never improved? If there are problems, then who troubleshoots or makes patches? Does this guy or girl work unpaid for us forever more?

iii) I guess that in response to my last question you would say that so many new buys would be encouraged by the graphical element that we could afford to add one or two new people to the staff. I'm not so sure. What do people like that make $30-40,000 per year. So for two people, you're looking at almost $100,000. Do we see 3,000 new buys coming from this (and this is presuming that no-one hates the idea of graphics so much that [s]he stops buying)? I'm just not sure that the upgrade is that large...

Well said.

[Blublub]

I'm not all that familiar with Mogul, but looking at the screenshots on their site I can say without hesitation I'm glad OOTP DOESN'T look like that. It's like a Windows 95 nightmare. Give me the OOTP/SI interface elegance any day..

[endgame]

First of all, thanks to everyone for exchanging reasonable viewpoints in what can often become a very volatile subject area that escalades into playground fights. Good work!

Secondly, my two cents on animation in OOTP, and these are only my impressions. I am reluctant to embrace any animation for animation's sake, but am willing to accept that a minor addition - in cautious increments - can go a long way toward enhancing sales and expanding the potential audience base, however small that addition, e.g. ball flight.

Off the top of my head, I can envision a few of our talented text writers in some future version assembling Hall of Fame inductions that scroll under a FaceGen or real pic of the inductee that portray his accomplishments, highlight key years; maybe even pause for a moment to show a picture of the ballpark and showcase his impact on the team's history along the way. Yes, the text could be dropped in bulk and read like a book, or like news as we read it now in the game, but it could also be brought to life in a - okay, let's call it what it is - bit more animated manner.

Lots of room to expand on such a concept (the slide show, if you will) rather than have to add the logic and programming resources behind more. There are options like giving more news time and presentation to premier 1st year draft candidates, Cy Young candidates, or League Championships. Better yet, a walk through the team winning the World Series, reviewing key players, post-season stats, owner profiles, managerial records, returning again to pics, stat screens, writing contributions, and more, that automate and animate our experience rather than click, click, clicking our way to our own ambitions.

[struggles_mightily]

Originally Posted by endgame

Lots of room to expand on such a concept (the slide show, if you will) rather than have to add the logic and programming resources behind more. There are options like giving more news time and presentation to premier 1st year draft candidates, Cy Young candidates, or League Championships. Better yet, a walk through the team winning the World Series, reviewing key players, post-season stats, owner profiles, managerial records, returning again to pics, stat screens, writing contributions, and more, that automate and animate our experience rather than click, click, clicking our way to our own ambitions.

See now, these, to me, are exactly the ways in which aesthetic improvements could be made easily and effectively. I'd love to see some kind of illustrated season preview and review, or a more eye-pleasing precis of the draft (pool or selections). We're kind of moving (or trying to move) in that direction with inclusions like baseball cards. The cards haven't be received well, but the general graphical presentation of OOTP is very nice, which bodes well for future work here.

I guess a lot of people consider such things to be "fluff". I dunno; I like fluff. There is no metalanguage in which to have this conversation, friends.

Has anyone played FIFA (Soccer) Manager? It's not a very good game; but the information is presented beautifully. I doubt OOTP will ever be that slick; but it could take some pointers.

[CobaltJays]

Graphics isn't a big thing for me, but I'd really like the in-game ballpark generator to create some sort of unique graphical representation of the ballpark. I'd even be happy with something basic with just field dimensions, similar to the ballpark graphics in Diamond Mind. As nice as Citizens Bank Park is, I don't think every ballpark in a fictional OOTP universe should look like it.

[limsol45]

For me, sports video games are all about immersion. Forgetting that I'm playing a video and getting that feeling that im "there". Things that happy in ea games like madden like crappy AI and a glitch in animation screw it up. Baseball mogul was my 1st text sim, but when i found out about ootp it was a big step up. sometimes playing out the game in mougl the ball would go to left field and the text would read a grounder to 1st. Its not like mogul has MLB the show graphics(btw if they finally fixed the trade AI in that game it would be so much better)

[megamanmatt]

Originally Posted by CobaltJays

Graphics isn't a big thing for me, but I'd really like the in-game ballpark generator to create some sort of unique graphical representation of the ballpark. I'd even be happy with something basic with just field dimensions, similar to the ballpark graphics in Diamond Mind. As nice as Citizens Bank Park is, I don't think every ballpark in a fictional OOTP universe should look like it.

An easy way to generate ballpark images:

1) Download the program in this thread http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...r-updated.html

This is a freeware program that generates ballpark images.

2) Make a ball park. There are quite a few options so fiddle around a bit.

3) Now there are two choices, first you can just save the park as a .jpg and load it into the game. This kinda stretches it out and makes the infield a bit small. Otherwise you can load that image up in MSpaint and crop the image to make it fit better in OOTP. I recomend setting up a "test park" in your game so you can slowly crop the image down to your preference.

[Boom Boom]

Originally Posted by ravinhood

I just got my copy of Baseball Mogul 2010

Baseball Mogul 2011 is a great game.

I still think that OOTP play by play is better. There are more options in the PBP in OOTP than in Mogul. Even thou Mogul looks fancy, it isn't better.

As for game simulation, I say they are both on par. I have always felt the simulation of Mogul was superior until recently. They both make a great game.

[Killing Time]

Originally Posted by CobaltJays

Graphics isn't a big thing for me, but I'd really like the in-game ballpark generator to create some sort of unique graphical representation of the ballpark. I'd even be happy with something basic with just field dimensions, similar to the ballpark graphics in Diamond Mind. As nice as Citizens Bank Park is, I don't think every ballpark in a fictional OOTP universe should look like it.

"

[robster1225]

While I don't think that OOTP needs improved graphics, I just wanted to point out that this isn't entirely correct. OOTPD is Markus, Andreas, and Aurelio (SP?) who does the graphics work.

Still, I don't think any kind of 3D graphics is necessary.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Please discuss other games in the the general forum. Thread moved

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by ravinhood

I just got my copy of Baseball Mogul 2010 and am very impressed with the graphics representation as it looks and has a better feel for the game instead of just a ball flying out into an empty outfield. I still would love to have some Microleague Baseball animations at least though.

The text and statistical value of OOTPBB is number 1 but the animation is last.

Sound isn't that great either. Cmon can't you have a fan say "You ain't nutin" once in awhile like Front Page Sports Baseball did? I miss that game so much. If I could only get it to work on Vista 64 or I'd even upgrade to Win7 if it worked on it.

So come on now you've made the greatest statistical based game can't you add and improve the graphics of the actual game more?

Stat based game -- we want.
Graphical game -- we don't want.


Enjoy your BM.

[molarmite]

Originally Posted by struggles_mightily

Has anyone played FIFA (Soccer) Manager? It's not a very good game; but the information is presented beautifully. I doubt OOTP will ever be that slick; but it could take some pointers.

There's a reason it's not a very good game and you just listed the reason.

[struggles_mightily]

Originally Posted by molarmite

There's a reason it's not a very good game and you just listed the reason.

Eh?? It's a bad game because the information is presented slickly?

Stat based game -- we want.
Graphical game -- we don't want.

Considering the fact that this topic always raises a variety of multifaceted, nuanced viewpoints, I'm not exactly sure who "we" are? You and people who agree with you? In the only meaningful sense, anyone in the community who has bought or considered buying OOTP is part of "us".

[molarmite]

Originally Posted by struggles_mightily

Eh?? It's a bad game because the information is presented slickly?

In a way, it spent so much time working on looking good that it probably didn't work much on the engine. You have to pick and choose and I'm glad OOTP isn't picking the graphics right now.

[struggles_mightily]

Originally Posted by molarmite

In a way, it spent so much time working on looking good that it probably didn't work much on the engine. You have to pick and choose and I'm glad OOTP isn't picking the graphics right now.

OK, I agree with your concluding sentence; but I'm not sure that "graphics" and "gameplay" exist on some kind of continuum in which an improvement in one necessitates a worsening of the other. I mean, look at Uncharted 2, say.

[damonrusst]

i would love to see graphics. I agree with the other thread. in a perfect world, the engine of the game, stat integrity everything works as well as OOTP, you just get to see the game play out The Show style.

However, I'm content that this doesn't seem possible at the moment. Although as computers/consoles keep progressing it will. I would love to see OOTP partner with one of the big game makers to create a game where OOTP controls everything that happens as far as gameplay but the other company just makes it look pretty on the field.

That said, I will always choose the minimalistic look of ootp with accurate stats, depth of history etc. over the show type graphics and no depth of the world.

But think this game will lose its competitive edge some time in the future if it doesn't partner with some company that can make the results it generates look pretty on a 42" TV.