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surly manservant · 02-11-2016, 08:00 AM

This time last year I'd not heard of OOTP, now I'm addicted, thought I'd take the time to tell my story with the game. I think I'm an unlikely guy to take this game up, I'm Australian and live in Singapore, and the game I grew up loving (and still love) is cricket. I've always been interested in American sports, and I read and loved Moneyball when it came out, that and Bill Simmons Red Sox columns in the early 2000s ESPN got me interested in baseball, but it was kind of a casual interest.

Fast forward to last year at this time. I travel a lot for work (about half my time), so there's an awful lot of time on planes and in lounges, and I started thinking I'd look for something other than reading to do (I never watch movies on planes). There are no cricket sims so I started looking for baseball and from the reviews OOTP was the clear choice.

Started out playing MLB Quickstart for the Red Sox, but at first every time I got to the post season it was all too much for me (Rule 5 Draft, off season moves), so I'd just start over. You have to understand how little I knew about baseball, when I first saw the term "tagging up", I had to look it up. The financial side hooked me though, and when I managed to get through an offseason my immersion increased hugely. In one of my games I finally won the World Series wit the Red Sox in 2018, then switched to the Dodgers and won three straight in the 2030s with talent I'd developed, still my proudest OOTP moment.

After that I switched to fantasy, and the immersion increased exponentially. I created a 32 team MLB realigned by geography and played that until the fantasy bug bit again and I created a new game that has me completely hooked. I miss Sydney, where I come from, so I created a league with teams based on the suburbs I used to hang out in and it's weird but it really makes me not miss home as much to see the names of those places every night when I play.

Now I'm trying to learn logo and uniform design (I have been using the nickname project but want the team name on the logo as well as away uniforms), not to mention scheduling (I play a 106 game season, two 6 team divisions, and I want Friday and Saturday games to start during the day and to play the all star every Jan 1).

I now listen to not one but two baseball podcasts to help me figure out how to trade. I've printed out two pages from FanGraphs to help me understand WOBA, WAR and ERA+. I could go on but you get the picture, I love this game. There's no way I'm not buying OOTP17, I need to get my Randwick Hooks to the championship!

02-11-2016, 08:00 AM	#1
surly manservant Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 61	My OOTP Story This time last year I'd not heard of OOTP, now I'm addicted, thought I'd take the time to tell my story with the game. I think I'm an unlikely guy to take this game up, I'm Australian and live in Singapore, and the game I grew up loving (and still love) is cricket. I've always been interested in American sports, and I read and loved Moneyball when it came out, that and Bill Simmons Red Sox columns in the early 2000s ESPN got me interested in baseball, but it was kind of a casual interest. Fast forward to last year at this time. I travel a lot for work (about half my time), so there's an awful lot of time on planes and in lounges, and I started thinking I'd look for something other than reading to do (I never watch movies on planes). There are no cricket sims so I started looking for baseball and from the reviews OOTP was the clear choice. Started out playing MLB Quickstart for the Red Sox, but at first every time I got to the post season it was all too much for me (Rule 5 Draft, off season moves), so I'd just start over. You have to understand how little I knew about baseball, when I first saw the term "tagging up", I had to look it up. The financial side hooked me though, and when I managed to get through an offseason my immersion increased hugely. In one of my games I finally won the World Series wit the Red Sox in 2018, then switched to the Dodgers and won three straight in the 2030s with talent I'd developed, still my proudest OOTP moment. After that I switched to fantasy, and the immersion increased exponentially. I created a 32 team MLB realigned by geography and played that until the fantasy bug bit again and I created a new game that has me completely hooked. I miss Sydney, where I come from, so I created a league with teams based on the suburbs I used to hang out in and it's weird but it really makes me not miss home as much to see the names of those places every night when I play. Now I'm trying to learn logo and uniform design (I have been using the nickname project but want the team name on the logo as well as away uniforms), not to mention scheduling (I play a 106 game season, two 6 team divisions, and I want Friday and Saturday games to start during the day and to play the all star every Jan 1). I now listen to not one but two baseball podcasts to help me figure out how to trade. I've printed out two pages from FanGraphs to help me understand WOBA, WAR and ERA+. I could go on but you get the picture, I love this game. There's no way I'm not buying OOTP17, I need to get my Randwick Hooks to the championship!