Silvam14

[David Watts]

I join quite a few sport sim groups on Facebook even though I pretty much only play OOTP. Just love reading about the sports sim genre as a whole. Lots of very creative people out there. Plus, joining these groups gives me stuff to look at other than the daily proof that I really went to high school some creepy people.

Today, in the ActionPc games forum a guy is sharing a link to a OOTP file in jpg form, so folks can use the OOTP historical stadiums when playing ActionPc Baseball. Who knows, maybe some of these folks will see how great the stadiums look and come on over to OOTP. Just thought I would mention it.

[Ty Cobb]

Nice! Looks like their product's add-ons are well behind OOTP's, although I did snag a collection of BB card pix there that seems at first glance quite useful. It's in the add-ons section of their forum. Mostly low-res pix, but many are upscaling nicely in Topaz AI. Personal quirk...I hate 200x300 pic's.

Here's a link to my mega drive with that file...be warned, it's almost 3GB. The upscaled versions are likely not to be a manageable download.

https://mega.nz/file/frJwjLxb#qF6gfc...OInolvi8DEQsV8

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I join quite a few sport sim groups on Facebook even though I pretty much only play OOTP. Just love reading about the sports sim genre as a whole. Lots of very creative people out there. Plus, joining these groups gives me stuff to look at other than the daily proof that I really went to high school some creepy people.

Today, in the ActionPc games forum a guy is sharing a link to a OOTP file in jpg form, so folks can use the OOTP historical stadiums when playing ActionPc Baseball. Who knows, maybe some of these folks will see how great the stadiums look and come on over to OOTP. Just thought I would mention it.

Have you heard the news regarding the future of Football Manager?


https://www.footballmanager.com/news...otball-manager

[sdw1000]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I join quite a few sport sim groups on Facebook even though I pretty much only play OOTP. Just love reading about the sports sim genre as a whole. Lots of very creative people out there. Plus, joining these groups gives me stuff to look at other than the daily proof that I really went to high school some creepy people.

Today, in the ActionPc games forum a guy is sharing a link to a OOTP file in jpg form, so folks can use the OOTP historical stadiums when playing ActionPc Baseball. Who knows, maybe some of these folks will see how great the stadiums look and come on over to OOTP. Just thought I would mention it.

How the heck do you think I found OOTP!? I was looking for stadium pics for my Stratomatic and realized I could have all the seasons!

[drksd4848]

Originally Posted by sdw1000

How the heck do you think I found OOTP!? I was looking for stadium pics for my Stratomatic and realized I could have all the seasons!

That's sort of how I came over! SOMBB discontinued their Mac version and in circ 2010 I was lurking around the internet to see if there was another baseball sim that could run on OS X... I stumbled on OOTP and said, "Wait a sec... You mean I can have all the seasons and not pay $29.99 for each disc?!!!. Where is my credit card?" Downloaded.


Haven't left since.

[itsmb8]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Have you heard the news regarding the future of Football Manager?


https://www.footballmanager.com/news...otball-manager

I did, incredibly excited. I havent even started a 23 save so I'll probably skip 24 until 25 comes out so I can transfer through 24 into 25.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

I did, incredibly excited. I havent even started a 23 save so I'll probably skip 24 until 25 comes out so I can transfer through 24 into 25.

You will be able to transfer saves going forward now with 23. 23 can be imported to 24 and 24 will be able to transfer to 25.( even with the massive changes)

[zappa1]

Originally Posted by sdw1000

How the heck do you think I found OOTP!? I was looking for stadium pics for my Stratomatic and realized I could have all the seasons!

This was the biggest seller for me. I was tired of spending lots of money on seasons with SOM. Getting all the seasons with OOTP and not paying a penny more plus with constant free updates are big winners.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by zappa1

This was the biggest seller for me. I was tired of spending lots of money on seasons with SOM. Getting all the seasons with OOTP and not paying a penny more plus with constant free updates are big winners.

Hands down no contest best value is OOTP
I would upgrade? every year with OOTP but I feels as if there dev strategy is not geared towards my interests, more stats and analytics throughout the whole game.

[Brad K]

There are lots of other games out there. They must be doing something better than OOTP does it or people wouldn't be buying those games.

[Eugene Church]

It would be nice if Markus would get approval from the Korean owners to communicate with us like the head developer of Football Manager did in that report.

Would be nice to know what is in the future for OOTP.

FM sells 5 million a year now.

Wonder how many OOTP sells?

It's sad... wish we had more contact with Markus.

[Brad K]

The future of OOTP is the same as for any mature product. A tweak here and there. At some point it will become a legacy product with most of what's new being ratings for the new year.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Brad K

The future of OOTP is the same as for any mature product. A tweak here and there. At some point it will become a legacy product with most of what's new being ratings for the new year.

And yet there are core elements in need of an overhaul, e.g. the financial system.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

It would be nice if Markus would get approval from the Korean owners to communicate with us like the head developer of Football Manager did in that report.

Would be nice to know what is in the future for OOTP.

FM sells 5 million a year now.

Wonder how many OOTP sells?

It's sad... wish we had more contact with Markus.

OOTPD may not even know what the future is going to be at this point. I could be very wrong, but somehow I get the feeling that development is year to year and very “touch and go”. I suppose it will be around so long as PT is still being developed, but it seems to me the focus is much more tied to PT instead of the franchise game.

Like I said, I could be wrong, but without much in the way of communication any more, people will indeed form their own opinions.

[Syd Thrift]

I was going to file a small little complaint that our dear uniform and stadium curator/creator missed the 1972 San Diego Padres but nope, he hit them all right:

http://exhibits.baseballhalloffame.o...f&Entryid=1219

I should file a complaint with the year 1972.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

And yet there are core elements in need of an overhaul, e.g. the financial system.

Perhaps people are satisfied with the current abstraction.

It they changed it that would be a tweak not something that defined the future of the game as in choosing a direction for development.

Even something like throwing away the purity ring of randomness and preventing guys from hitting .320 one year and .179 the next, while a huge change, isn't big enough to qualify for that.

Now, if OOTP decided to offer the visual experience of The Show, that would qualify.

[Brad K]

Thirty years ago what were the plans for the future of the big auto makers? Well, keep doing what we're doing, hopefully a little better, and remain competitive.

Now what are the plans for the future of the big auto makers? Reinvent themselves as electric vehicle manufacturers.

Why any one expects OOTP to have plans like the latter are beyond me.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

It would be nice if Markus would get approval from the Korean owners to communicate with us like the head developer of Football Manager did in that report.

Would be nice to know what is in the future for OOTP.

FM sells 5 million a year now.

Wonder how many OOTP sells?

It's sad... wish we had more contact with Markus.

I don't think it is the ownership that has anything to do with it.

I think Markus himself has lost a lot of interest. He only shows up on the forums for a new update and occasionally will answer a question here and there.

On one hand I cannot blame him, he has been doing this for close to 25 years.
But I think too much blame is put on the new owners when we have very little evidence that they have much to do with the game.
They did recommend the removal of non licensed leagues due to legal reasons.
I really do not want to dredge that up again.

Other than that, I have no idea what their influence is.
They have no official presence of these forums, on the website, on Twitter or Reddit.

They make no mention of OOTP on their website.

On their own English speaking Twitter they did a single retweet from the OOTPD account upon the release of the game.

They mostly seem content to collect what income they get from the series but do zero marketing of the game.

If it was not for my prior knowledge of the sale, and a single splash screen at the start of the game, I would have no idea this series was owned by another company.

Even the Steam page does not list COM2US as a publisher.
It is one of the oddest purchases of a game company I have ever seen.


I think we put way too much blame on the buyout but even before that there were signs that Markus and Andreas were running out of energy and ideas.

PT was included well before the takeover. The forum activity of Markus had already been declining in the past half decade as he spent less and less time interreacting with us and would only come here to accounce patches or a new game.
It was not rare for him to go radio silent from October until February of the next year except to announce the offseason sale and wish us happy holidays.
Lukas and Matt have picked up a lot of the slack in the communication department.

And again, I am not blaming Markus. Burnout is real.
And one of the goals of running a company is to one day reach the point when you can take time away and not have it all fall apart.

He has accomplished a lot by forming the company along with Andreas and making it as successful as they did and then selling it while still being somewhat young.

And it sounds like I am overly negative about the game all the time.
I am mostly just frustrated about the glacial pace of improvements and for my own personal playstyle (which is that of a GM), there has been next to no improvement.
I could go back to OOTP 19 or 20 and while there would be a few things missing that would be nice to have, there would be no single feature that I would miss enough that would make me have to upgrade to a newer version.

The core GM experience has undergone so little change.
Most of the improvement have gone into actually playing out your games, which I wish the had the time to do, but simply do not.
Not when most baseball schedules are 120-162 games.
And some extra customizations options which are nice. But even though I have been playing this game for close to 20 years now. Even I get bewildered by some of the setup options.
Some of them appear to duplicate one another, conflict with one another. I wonder if some of them flat out do not work correctly.
And one wrong button or switch or checkmark and you can destroy your entire league stats wise or player movement wise and not even really understand what you did.

Then of course PT. I have nothing against those who enjoy it, and I understand why they push it as hard as they do. It makes lots of income.
I even played it myself of the first two versions of it's existence.
But I tired of it and have not touched it since.


So me and the series have moved in different directions.
It is a shame since I still enjoy sports sims and baseball in general.
But it is no longer for me, and unless radical changes to the direction of the series are made, then it will not be for me ever again.

And I am cool with that, nothing lasts forever.

[Pelican]

That was a long thoughtful piece; but you brought me up short when you essentially demanded “radical changes” in the game. It’s like a non-séquitor. Care to expand on that? Do you want it to go back to the game you originally loved? Or is there something else that you want? Perplexing.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Pelican

That was a long thoughtful piece; but you brought me up short when you essentially demanded “radical changes” in the game. It’s like a non-séquitor. Care to expand on that? Do you want it to go back to the game you originally loved? Or is there something else that you want? Perplexing.

I have posted a lot on this before, so I will not go too deep.

But when I play sports management games (which is a genre I love)
What I look for the most is, does this game make me feel like I am a real GM/Head coach/owner etc

i.e. the person in the front office making the decisions.

No matter the sport, I will play anything if it is good.

I really do not care much more NCAA football or tennis. But I have found two really good sports management games that give me good experiences in both of these sports.
I enjoy them a lot

OOTP is still the best at this at baseball, but that is more down to lack of competition rather than anything the series has done over the past 5 or so versions.

Back in the 2000s to mid 2010s I was enamored with this series.
But technology and time marches forward and I am always looking for more.

The core experience of being a GM and running a baseball team has not changed much and IMO for sure has not kept up with advances in computing and gaming in general.

But, I am admittedly a small subset of the player base.

One of OOTPs biggest assets is also one of it's biggest hinderances.
By making itself into a baseball universe sandbox, it has kind of lost form and focus and it has to satisfy so many audiences (and generate that sweet gatcha game revenue) that it makes it difficult to greatly improve any one area.

I personally like being a GM only in either a modern day QuickStart or setting up my own fictional world.
I would love to check out all the new graphics that have been introduced, but I am one of the younger members here and still have a job and two young children, playing out all my games is simply beyond my time commitments.

I enjoy a good historical sim every now and then. But really only as a passing curiosity or I will do a quick sim as a kind of 'what if'

So for me personally, I have little interest in improving the managerial experience or the historical expereince.
But the game has expanded in those directions and must serve those audiences.

Also, as I stated before. As the game adds more and more customization, I find myself often times lost as to what does what and I find myself with more broken games than long term saves.

And I have been at this series for almost 20 years now. I imagine for new players it must be very daunting if they want to try their hand at a fictional universe and not use a pre made template.



I hope that explains it a bit better.
What I mean by 'radical changes' is big changes to the series focus.
And that would be a focus leaning into the GM/Front office/Business side of baseball and less away from sock colors and better graphical stadiums.

And I do not even say that derisively, I realized in game graphical enhancements are a big deal for some players.
But as I said before, we have so many subsets of players who each want different things out of this series, that it is impossible to satisfy them all.