Your final verdict of final version?

[rasnell]

What is your final verdict? I really am interested in what the long-time historic simmers have to say like Eugene Church, Charlie Hough, Endgame, Battists, Tiger Fan, Halo Fan, eriqjaffe, arod, garlon, LeGrande Orange, Bruce M., Cubbyfan, Sweed, HolyCow, and others.

Here's my opinion, and I hope it's worth at least $35.

The game has ended as a 60 with potential ratings of 90. For the first time, I can recommend that folks get off the fence and buy this game. It is now fully ready for release. All previous versions of OOTP 2006 were public beta IMHO. Plus, it had to compete with the incredible 6.5.

There have been a lot of fixes, tweaks and new features added. I'm willing to let go and hope for far more in OOTP 2007. I really like how much more difficult it is to trade and to acquire free agents. You still need house rules to keep from dominating, but not as many rules as before.

The game plays well in fictionals when you cannot spot obvious AI flaws like when real names and historical players are used. With real players, you just hold your nose and play on when lousy lineups and roster moves are made.

The game sims so rapidly and generates such great stats that it can be recommended for rapid, fictional simming. That's the niche and where the game is special.

But 6.5 and PureSim 2007 will finish out this year as the best places for the joy of solo play, ease of in-game roster manipulation and customization and faithfulness to historical play. I hate the reserve roster of OOTP 2006, players don't seem to develop, no stats are generated, you can't use all of the waiver rules and other features and it is impossible to keep the fakes out if you create minors -- even when the fakes are set at terrible ratings.

I'm glad I can see runners now in the Webcast view. Hoping some day to see the entire pbp next season. I love the retiree e-mail added in 1.03 in recent days -- very nice.

I like the improvements of schedules and reports in the team and league views -- much friendlier interface.

I really like bookmarks and hope to see them employed in the solo play, in-game, roster management screen some day -- for instance, allowing you to toggle the in-game broadcast view to see stats vs. pitcher, season, career, post-season, etc.

The wonderful logo, photo and other developing utilities of Larry Anderson (Webcomedian) are what bails out OOTP 2006 and will keep me playing because it gives me user-friendly ways to see stats and customize much more smoothly than the game interface itself.

Really hope that greater attention is paid to the stat outcomes, solo play, and real minors and full features for historical.

If I see all the excited marketing hype of OOTP 2007 with new features and all kinds of bells and whistles, but see nothing about real minors, customized in-game views, full-size, easy-to-read play-by-play text boxes and attention to the details of stat results and AI roster management, this will be my sixth and final purchase of the OOTP series.

I have purchased every text sim ever released -- currently own Action PC, Diamond Mind, Strat-O-Matic, Baseball Mogul, PureSim and even some freebies on the Web.

The perfect sim rests somewhere between one-person development "teams" of Markus and Shaun Sullivan. Markus is a genius in the amount of complexity that he tackled. But Shaun passed him this year in ease, faithfulness to why we love text sims -- recreating the historic teams that we loved and grew up with. But Shaun's PureSim is still doggy slow, has nowhere near the stats, but sure is getting close with the almanac -- something hugely missing in the leap from 6.5 to OOTP 2006, by the way.

I meant to be fair and balanced in my final verdict, but I'm bummed about how high the potential is and how stuttering the steps were this year for OOTP 2006. I think the 18-month wait, the excitement of release and the reality of a product dramatically rushed to market are the letdowns that were hard to recover from.

I hope there's a reason to be around for OOTP 2007. If the fun and fundamentals can truly be focused on, instead of new bells and whistles, all of this will be well worth the wait of another year.

If the future is to even more substantially mimic SI's other products of world league soccer, this fan of America's pasttime will finally recognize that I'm not the kind of customer that you're seeking -- an old-timer who loves the old ballparks, watching Mays come up as a rookie, seeing if the Babe will really be as good, seeing if I can rescue the end of the Big Red Machine when 1977 rolls around and free agency decimates the roster of Gullett, Rose, Perez and ends a childhood era of thinking every Red team would be like the 1970s.

[ashantewarrier]

Well written.

I for one have shelved OOTP 2K6 and have gone back to version 6.5 with Cato. I do however hope that 2K7 will be an overall better product. I believe that Markus and company will bounce back in a big way.

[The Wolf]

Rasnell, I think that you pretty well nailed it. Well done.

[pstrickert]

In one post, Rasnell summed up months of discussion on this board. Nicely done.

[Eugene Church]

rasnell's evaluation seems to be a fair appraisal in general. I agree with a lot of the things he says.

Right now I can't make intelligent comments on the game...don't really know enough about it.

But for the first time since the first day of the release of V2006, I am going to jump in feet first and learn this version.

It has been tweaked three times, so it should be free of any major flaws.

Markus and SI have really made quite an effort to fix the game. I thank them for doing that.

I don't use financials, so I guess that is a blessing as I won't have any problems with that area of the game.

I will now begin to create my ultimate fictional world of baseball.

I might even try to recreate my Alltime Allstar Association, too.

I am still playing it with V6.5.

I will post my opinion of V2006 in a month or so.

[NomarHits400]

I too like alot about the game- but the AI is just brutal- and I find I can play the game as a sim- but I simply cannot overlook some of these flaws enough to enjoy playing as I was accustomed to.

Simple example:

Not even two weeks into the season- the game's #2 overall prospect (as defined by the game's own evaluation)- Delmon Young- is RELEASED by Tampa Bay....Holy smokes....

This type of thing just kills the experience for me- and these kinds of examples are frequent occurences. I am wondering....Can this really ever be fixed?

[onnel]

OOTP6 is good, but not great. for the first time, the newest version of OOTP is not the best baseball sim available..and it's beaten by the previous version of OOTP!

I had great hopes for OOTP6, but I am mostly of the opninio that Markus should have skipped a year and just come out with OOTP7 rather than release a product which is inferior to previous iterations.

I'm sure I'll be there with my pre-order for 2007 as I have been since OOTP3, but that doesn't make me feel any better about OOTP6. nor does it change the fact that, for the first time, I feel let down by Markus (though not by his effort to release a non-beta worthy version of OOTP6).

All my opinion, of course.

Onnel

[Markus Heinsohn]

- I think the stats output of 1.0.3 is very very good, and far superior to other sims.
- I never thought the non-minors for historicals would be such a big deal, as the reserver roster is the same as minors in terms of developing, the only thing missing is stats (which are not very useful with incomplete minors anyway IMO). But I have learned my lesson, and ghost players will return in 2007. By the way, I like historical simming, and personally the history keeping features of OOTP 2006 far outweight the 'shortcoming' on minor leagues when comparing to OOTP 6.
- What is wrong with the play-by-play text? If the size is too small, there is an easy way to increase it, just PM me. Oh, and in Puresim you can see the full text because the PbP there is very very thin, and never longer than 6 lines
- What exactly are you missing from the almanac? All it did was dump the whole league HTML reports at the end of a season, so you can easily do this now yourself if you want.

Just my .02

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by NomarHits400

I too like alot about the game- but the AI is just brutal- and I find I can play the game as a sim- but I simply cannot overlook some of these flaws enough to enjoy playing as I was accustomed to.

Simple example:

Not even two weeks into the season- the game's #2 overall prospect (as defined by the game's own evaluation)- Delmon Young- is RELEASED by Tampa Bay....Holy smokes....

This type of thing just kills the experience for me- and these kinds of examples are frequent occurences. I am wondering....Can this really ever be fixed?

This can happen when Young suffered a massive talent drop that was not reported in the game (not all talent changes are reported). So when the AI released the guy, he was not worth a lot, and the game does not know he was the #2 prospect two weeks ago...

[skeetz]

Far to0 many GLARING errors still in the game. Its crap!

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by skeetz

Far to0 many GLARING errors still in the game. Its crap!

Your spelling is the only thing that is crap here

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by skeetz

Far to0 many GLARING errors still in the game. Its crap!

troll

[Goodsox]

Originally Posted by skeetz

Far to0 many GLARING errors still in the game. Its crap!

Post some because I would love to see your GLARING errors... This game is very solid and your childish trolling is quite annoying.

[skeetz]

I've been purchasing the game since OOTP 4. This is by far the worse running version ever.
Well dont worry I wont be trolling any longer because I have no intention of posting on here, or ever buying or even playing this game again.

[Erik W.]

Originally Posted by skeetz

I've been purchasing the game since OOTP 4. This is by far the worse running version ever.
Well dont worry I wont be trolling any longer because I have no intention of posting on here, or ever buying or even playing this game again.

Bye.

And as for myself, I think the game is in really good shape, and quite playable. I look forward to 2007, but will enjoy 2006 just fine in the meantime.

If I could ask for one thing to get fixed if there happens to be a minor patch (1.0.3.1) is the fact that players get no benefit from rest if they pinch hit. Very lame.

[rasnell]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

- I think the stats output of 1.0.3 is very very good, and far superior to other sims.
- I never thought the non-minors for historicals would be such a big deal, as the reserver roster is the same as minors in terms of developing, the only thing missing is stats (which are not very useful with incomplete minors anyway IMO). But I have learned my lesson, and ghost players will return in 2007. By the way, I like historical simming, and personally the history keeping features of OOTP 2006 far outweight the 'shortcoming' on minor leagues when comparing to OOTP 6.
- What is wrong with the play-by-play text? If the size is too small, there is an easy way to increase it, just PM me. Oh, and in Puresim you can see the full text because the PbP there is very very thin, and never longer than 6 lines
- What exactly are you missing from the almanac? All it did was dump the whole league HTML reports at the end of a season, so you can easily do this now yourself if you want.

Just my .02

I agree on stats output. The game wins for speed of simming, depth of options and the fictional league experience, too.

I'm very glad to hear that you will recover from the 2006 speed bump with a return to greatness with the historical aspect.

The font size is not the only issue with PBP. The box is so small that you cannot view the whole play. I like to set this to instant display and would like to read the whole thing -- possibly by resizing the box to my own wishes, as Strat, Action and other text sim games now allow. Short of that, give us an option to see the entire PBP as you finally had to fix in 6.5 because of similar issues. Even removing word wrap to some extent would help -- more than a dozen lines of text for a simple out. PureSim may be thin with the game account in PBP but that's the beauty of the entire game -- much more basic version of OOTP, kind of like OOTP lite, but with focus and dedication to easy setup of customized stadiums, in-game displays of both teams' rosters at the same time, shortcut keys to call your plays, jump to lineups to make roster changes, etc. Lots of nice details like this that are intended to be user friendly.

You're getting there with bookmarks, very nice addition. Depth of everything in the game is fantastic: stats, Rule 5, waiver wire, e-mails, news -- but it just won't be the game of choice and fun place to go if it's not easy to setup, play, see, view, and enjoy in solo play.

Here is where you ended on a very good note with 1.03, that is along the lines of what I'm pushing for 2007. You finally fixed the webcast view to be able to see the runners' ratings. You added retiree e-mail as a very valuable new report for human managers. You noted that you actually found time to play the game and it showed as you tweaked the team display to add schedules and reports as tabs that are much easier to find. You did the same for league reports as a complete new pulldown menu.

If you stay on track for 2007 to add no new bells and whistles but, instead, focus on solo play views, customization, a full display of the PBP, shortcut keys or bookmarks of lineup and roster views -- all related to the solo gameplay window -- this game will help the 90 potential immediately IMHO. Perfecting everything about what you've set in place with 2006, not adding a whole bunch of new things, would be very big deals. Such as: Cleaning up the clutter of Webcast; clicking on a pitching tab and having the view default to your last pitching view; same for hitting tab jumping back to a hitting view; seeing if the bookmark concept could be implemented in-game so you could immediately toggle to see the entire lineup stats as F1 season, F2 vs. this pitcher, F3 career, F4 post-season or something like that. Figuring out how to make our customized bookmark settings global so that it carries over to newly created leagues, etc. I always use the same bookmarks and views and would love to have the game globally remember this for anything I create in the future.

A suggestion for the webcast clutter: Instead of using all the boxes to the lower right to display all of the variety of stats, why not increase the font size for visibility, and arrange in columns, all key stats for every player in their lineup card. For example, both teams' lineups would continue to be seen but the line display for each player would show visually appealing, larger fonts, arranged in columns according to season/career/vs pitcher/post-season BA, HR, RBI, SB and similar line display of much more info with pitcher.

When going to my roster to make changes in game, I wished I didn't have to leave the game view to do this, but, if we must, it should would be nice to quickly and easily know whether the opposing pitcher is a lefty or righty and who is coming up in their lineup. I'd really like to see a view that reminds me of exactly who my starters, middle relief, setup and closers are when trying to make the roster change. I know I should remember all of this before I go to the roster screen, but it's just one example of being a little bit less user friendly, a little more cumbersome and just not as elegant and simple as the competition.

However, if your core audience is for rapid simming, not really solo play, and extensive fictional, worldwide leagues, that is a marketing decision that you may understand better than me. I'm just saying that I'm not one of those customers and, at the moment, PureSim 2007 ends the season as my personal favorite for historical, solo play, despite it being a much lighter version of OOTP, being doggy slow, etc.

I am now recommending, and will play, OOTP 2007 for rapid sims of fictional leagues and I believe that OOTP 2006 v 1.03, build 122270, is the first version completely ready for release and a satisfactory conclusion. I would recommend buying it for anyone still sitting on the fence.

Here's keeping very high hopes alive for 2007.

[Markus Heinsohn]

OOTP 2007 will definitely have another game screen that should fit your needs Also, I'll finally add drag&drop of the player positions on the field...

[rasnell]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

OOTP 2007 will definitely have another game screen that should fit your needs Also, I'll finally add drag&drop of the player positions on the field...

Those are both very big deals. Now I'm starting to get excited again and ready to give you another year of money.

I appreciate your thick skin and willingness to listen. And I hope you understand that all our remarks on these forums (well, almost everyone's) are intended to improve a game we love.

It still amazes me that you, Markus, a 29-year-old genius, who had to learn English, could love an American game so much as to show the greatest depth and potential for THE TEXT SIM OF THE FUTURE.

How did this love of baseball actually develop and have you ever made it to any of the American ballparks? There are many fans of this game who would probably love to take you to their favorite ballpark and invite you into our homes if you ever made the grand tour of the U.S. and the parks.

[Assos]

Us historical players are minor league stat junkies and I, in advance, thank you for adding the ghost players back into the minor leagues. The one thing I have noticed without the ghost players, it is harder to train a player to a position that is not their imported one. I think that is the real resaon I miss the ghosts and the use of the minor league system, unless there is another way to set the training up.
I am looking forward to the expansion mode that you stated you would create for 2007. I know, having been using OTTP for almost two years now, you have plenty of imput from most of us and I feel you'll do a smashing job!

Thank you for all your hard work on the patches to tweak the game to a "more better" game and a big pat on the back to the SI team!

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by rasnell

How did this love of baseball actually develop and have you ever made it to any of the American ballparks? There are many fans of this game who would probably love to take you to their favorite ballpark and invite you into our homes if you ever made the grand tour of the U.S. and the parks.

Well, I started playing baseball when I was 15 (a friend brought a bat & some gloves from a trip to Florida), and then when the internet started to grow I discovered the wealth of stats & history the game of baseball has, and this fascinated me

I have been to Atlanta a couple of times, and have seen two games at Turner Field. It is a nice ballpark, although I find the outfiled dimensions a bit boring. I like it edgy