For the love of God, OOTP

[pjh5165]

Originally Posted by David Watts

When I think about it, this forum might actually be "storylines" worst enemy. All of us want to report on a unique event that happens in our league and I love it, but when it comes to storylines, once that unique event is reported, it loses it's uniqueness. Then for the most part it becomes something we are waiting to occur.

This makes so much sense.

[jayhawk1106]

Matt Moore was caught cheating on his wife in my game. Is he even married?

[tejdog1]

Originally Posted by DCG12

I am going to start by stating wholeheartedly that this is your game and what you do is up to you BUT you posted about it so it's fair game for comment.

I hate when people post about editing things just because it adversely affects their team. One of the things I love about playing OOTP is fighting my way through the injuries and odd happenings. If he had suffered an injury and retired would you have done the same thing?

Again I know its your game and you can do whatever you want but please don't come back later and post about how your team just went 130-32 because we will know it wasn't a level playing field

No. I never have done that. I've never commish moded anything ever until now. This just seemed absolutely freakin ridiculous to me.

[EvilGenius]

Originally Posted by tejdog1

No. I never have done that. I've never commish moded anything ever until now. This just seemed absolutely freakin ridiculous to me.

Like many other previous posts, its your game, play it the way you enjoy it the most. But just to put my opinion out there, I'm just the opposite of the above post. I LOVE the storylines. In fact, the more ridiculous the better. Had this player given up baseball for football, that would have been more realistic, but less interesting. If I'm going to lose a top prospect forever, I say make his exit memorable, I'd rather him leave through a crazily bizarre storyline than a forgettably realistic reason.

Originally Posted by Elektranaut

Going back to the 1960's there was an outstanding footballer in England who played for Wolves called Peter Knowles.He retired aged only 25 to become a Jehovah's witness.He scored 61 goals in 174 games for his club who always hoped he would return.They didn't cancel his contract until 1982.

Peter Knowles was never forgotten « Express & Star

I think this would be considered by most to be more "ridiculous" by comparison, except it actually happened. He gave up a career in English soccer (and who doesn't know how rabid the English are about their soccer?) to join an unpopular religion, spend his weekends knocking on people's doors, and not be paid for it. But clearly it does happen.

Golf seems less unlikely by comparison. At least golf pays.

Originally Posted by jazzrack

and BTW. Rickey Williams quit football for a few years to smoke pot, so don't talk to me about anything being "unrealistic"

+1

There were whispers of some mental disorders (social anxiety and such), which may explain the pot use. So applying that to the golf situation, there may have been more to the story than what was reported.

Maybe in his world golf is more lucrative. Maybe he has rich parents and didn't need the money. Maybe he figured he'd have a longer career in golf (cause you can play until you're like 90). Maybe he just never liked baseball to begin with, but was just good at it and kept getting contracts. Maybe he was getting bullied in the locker room and switched to a non-team sport. Maybe he just really, really loves golf.

That's why I like the outlandish, it makes you think up interesting backstories

---

Perhaps this belongs in another post, but I'll throw it in here: I think storylines should be expanded --yes, expanded! -- to the point where they're common. Just make most of them benign, so that you never really know what's happening, but it puts ideas/hopes/doubts in your head -- placebo effect. And it gives you something to read as you're simming out the season. Better immersion without adding any core code.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by EvilGenius

Perhaps this belongs in another post, but I'll throw it in here: I think storylines should be expanded --yes, expanded! -- to the point where they're common. Just make most of them benign, so that you never really know what's happening, but it puts ideas/hopes/doubts in your head -- placebo effect. And it gives you something to read as you're simming out the season. Better immersion without adding any core code.

As someone who doesn't use storylines, I agree with this. Part of my problem with some of the storylines is that they have an "out of the blue" factor. Putting myself in the OP's shoes, I'd have an easier time accepting losing my top prospect to a career in golf if I had known when I drafted him or at some point early in his career that he was a scratch golfer good enough to play professionally. Maybe an e-mail in December saying he won a celebrity golf tournament at Pebble Beach, or something like that, would add some depth and background. It would at least add some context to the situation even if it might not immediately make me think he's going to quit baseball in a year to be a golfer.

But on the flip side, I realize that would be A LOT of work for the developers and the volunteers who help with storylines.

[LunchBox]

It might not be that unlikely, think about it. Golfers can make large amounts of money, they have less "games" to play per year, and there's definitely a lesser chance for a career ending injury and if you get too old for the PGA Tour, you can join the Senior PGA Tour

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Elektranaut

Going back to the 1960's there was an outstanding footballer in England who played for Wolves called Peter Knowles.He retired aged only 25 to become a Jehovah's witness.He scored 61 goals in 174 games for his club who always hoped he would return.They didn't cancel his contract until 1982.

Going back even farther, slap-hitting-but-speedy outfielder Billy Sunday quit baseball to become an evangelical preacher.

[pete3]

Folks thinking golfers don't make much money need to check the PGA TOUR tournament results. One Top 5 finish in a regular ho-hum event will make you as much or more money as a fringe NFL player will make in an entire season. And any decent golfer can get hot on a weekend.

[diesel230]

If a year ago in ootp13, a storyline came about that a star player on a powerhouse team was accused of a gangland murder and was suspect in a previous double murder, ending his young career, im sure at least a few people would state how unbelievable that storeyline is. Anything can happen. I understand the dissaponment of a prospect on your team, that you watched progress and were excited for, walked away, but for me, thats something that COULD happen and makes the game fun for me.

[OutfieldGrass]

Grant Desme quit to become a priest. Adrian Cardenas walked away because he no longer enjoyed the game.

Neither was a top prospect at the time but I know Desme was well thought of and was doing very well in the minors. Cardenas didn't fare well in his big league debut but seemed to be in the Cubs plans when he retired.

[jazzrack]

I was reading this Baseball Prospectus | Baseball ProGUESTus: Why Baseball Players Get Injured in Amazingly Weird Ways and thought of this thread. and I was also laughing my butt off.

Still, for every Lionel Letizi, the accomplished pro goalie who suffered a back injury while reaching for a Scrabble tile, or Lionel Simmons, the Sacramento King who incurred carpal tunnel syndrome by playing too much Nintendo, there appear to be a dozen baseball players who somehow ticked off Até, the Greek goddess of folly, and suffered the type of off-the-field injuries that defy logic (or at least expectation). In one incident, Padres pitcher Adam Eaton stabbed himself in the stomach while trying to remove the cellophane wrapper of a DVD case. In another, journeyman outfielder Glenallen Hill suffered severe lacerations when he crashed into a glass table after having a nightmare about being attacked by giant spiders. In 2004, Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa got himself sidelined with back spasms caused by a particularly violent sneeze, and current Reds pitcher Mat Latos once landed on the 15-day DL due to back pain from holding back a sneeze.

One future Hall of Famer broke a hand while playing with his kids on the family yacht, and another cracked a rib while puking up an in-flight meal. In keeping with the theme, 1989 National League MVP Kevin Mitchell suffered not one but two food-related injuries, first when he strained a muscle while vomiting and then when he broke a tooth while eating a donut. Famously, All-Star pitcher John Smoltz is said to have burned himself while ironing a shirt he was wearing at the time, though he later called the story apocryphal. Just as famously, Orioles outfielder Marty Cordova once missed time after he went all George Hamilton by falling asleep in a tanning bed.

and well not laughing as well

Alas, both The Bird and Superjoe were forced into premature retirement due to injuries sustained on the field, while the Spaceman has continued to play to this day, at age 65, in the North American Baseball League. Who knows what’s going to happen to a ballplayer, and once it’s happened, who knows why? And who knows who, in the end, will last? At least the Spaceman lasted longer than The Rube, who in the spring of 1912, having by some accounts saved a dozen or more lives in previous years, suffered a devastating case of pneumonia after standing chest deep in frigid water while stacking sandbags to stem a death-dealing flood in Kentucky. He died two years later, on April Fool’s Day, at age 37.

The weird thing, if reports are to be believed, is that he never got hurt while working one of his many off-season jobs: duck hunting. (He also wrestled alligators.) But not even Waddell was immune to odd injuries: in 1905, he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury while engaging in a friendly tussle over a straw hat.

[pm129]

In my MLB game, a 2nd round pick of mine became discouraged hitting .240 in AA and chucked baseball to enter the NBA draft.

This was the same month that AJ Burnett retired to run for governor and BJ Upton went to prison for defrauding investors in one of his companies.

Crazy days.

[Carlton]

This happened all the time

Problem is, you never hear of them

But some famous guys people might have

Bill Lange - Left for love...didn't work out, he could have been a HOFer

Mike Donlin, left for Hollywood in his prime

Henry Schmidt - Wonderful pitcher, he and Nap Rucker could have made the Brooklyn Superbas contenders, but...he didn't like the East Coast

John McGraw called Heinie Stafford one of the best pure talents he had ever seen in 1916, and Staffors helped Tufts beat baseball titan Harvard and led the nation in runs, Sbs and F%. Yet Stafford wanted to be a chemist and he helped develop nylon, and in retirement became a dairy farmer and assemblyman in VT.

It happens a lot. Baseball is not the love of everyone, as much as that pains me.

I wish I could get their talent as I played in the minors, loved it, studied it and that means squat if you don't have the talent.

[Carlton]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Michael Jordan quit winning championships to play minor league baseball. He probably could have won 9 straight championships in the NBA.

Bo Jackson played his second best sport first too.

(though golf is a bit lame, I agree...)

From what I hear golf is the most bang for the buck.
Your main demographic are old white men with too much money
You get to 'hide' taxable money by playing all over the world
Adverts, you are your own billboard
No wear and tear, so you can play until you are 80 if you are average enough



AND TOP 10 Prospect would never do it because he'll make MILLIONS?

Say hello to

Brian Taylor
Todd Van Poppel --remember that guy?
Roger Salkeid
Tyrone Hill
Sean Burroughs
Ryan Anderson
Kiki Jones
Allen Watson

and these are just the guys around my draft class

[Doc_Brown]

There are some interesting draft stories IRL, my favourite concerns Matt Harrington.

[Carlton]

Originally Posted by Doc_Brown

There are some interesting draft stories IRL, my favourite concerns Matt Harrington.

When you replace the hubris slime Tanzer with the greedy sludge Boras as an agent, the only one who gets screwed is the player

He is currently working at Costco in the tire department for $11.50 hr

I think I will start FA in my league then kill Scott Boras in a 1984 news story, and go to a compromise between FA and the Reserve Clause. I'll call it the Bye Bye Boras rule

[Statsman1]

Originally Posted by EvilGenius

Perhaps this belongs in another post, but I'll throw it in here: I think storylines should be expanded --yes, expanded! -- to the point where they're common. Just make most of them benign, so that you never really know what's happening, but it puts ideas/hopes/doubts in your head -- placebo effect. And it gives you something to read as you're simming out the season. Better immersion without adding any core code.

I think we'd all agree it is very frustrating that some random number generator forced you to lose a great prospect. It should be remembered that "...to play professional golf" is, in effect, just some line of text that OOTP folks put into a list. Based on the whim of the author, "play professional golf" could have been an infinite number of different things, some of which are more likely to occur than others in real life.

Given that the league was edited to put the player back into the league, for the stated reason of seeing how the career played out, it seems to me that this guy was coming back, regardless of his motivation for retirement.

I agree with the quote above, though - there should be an easy way to allow the user to edit (add / remove / alter) events and storylines. That way, each user can make up his own storylines, reasons for retirement, if he wants to.

If my hottest prospect left my team to play golf, I would be asking him to return any signing bonus I paid him.

If my hottest prospect left my team because he was abducted by aliens, I would move my minor league team away from Nevada.

[Carlton]

and it's needed for managers leaving due to contract not being offered, you hear nothing, they just leave after 4 years of .625% ball

Owners dying or selling team...ugh, hate those. If I am Commish(god mode) I should change owners

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by EvilGenius

I think storylines should be expanded --yes, expanded! -- to the point where they're common. Just make most of them benign, so that you never really know what's happening, but it puts ideas/hopes/doubts in your head -- placebo effect. And it gives you something to read as you're simming out the season. Better immersion without adding any core code.

IMHO, storylines should be based primarily on player attributes. Those are something of a mystery right now - I'm not sure if anyone, aside from the developers, knows how much influence a player's personality ratings have on his performance, so nobody pays much attention to them (except for work ethic and intelligence, which have some unknown effect on player development).

Storylines would be perfect for fleshing out that area of the game. For instance, a player with a low loyalty score and a high greed score might end up in a gambling scandal. A player with a low intelligence score might run afoul of a con man who takes all his money. A player with a high intelligence score and a low work ethic might quit the game to become a politician. That would make personality ratings more important and would make storylines a little less unpredictable.

[jayhawk1106]

Originally Posted by tejdog1

My number 1 prospect, like top 10 overall in baseball, just retired at age 24 to become a pro golfer.

Really? I don't think so.

Gotta follow your heart. Maybe his dad made him play baseball and he didn't like it as much as golf and his dad hated golf?