Some OOTP 23 News!

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

And, just to build on what you and a few others have said here, this is one my sources of great frustration here, when I read those posts where people threaten to try Strat-O-Matic or Diamond Mind, or fill-in-the-blank, because of some perceived fatal flaw in OOTP.
Fine, I want to say. Those are good games. I encourage you to give them a try. And that has what exactly to do with OOTP? Sure, they have some superficial similarities and they do some of the same things. And they are about the same sport. But they are not the same genre. It's a false equivalency. Diamond Mind is a completely different classification of gaming experience from OOTP.

If someone wishes to compare OOTP to Football Manager, or the various games in the Draft Day catalog, or as you say, Baseball Mogul, or OOTP Development's own FHM, well, at least now we are talking about games that are all in the same basic gaming genre. There might be significant differences between them, but if it is not exactly an apples to apples comparison, it is at least fruit to fruit.

I come from a cards and dice/board game/ statistical baseball simulation background, having played Strat-O-Matic for decades, Replay for some time, and several others, including in their PC versions. Good games all. Not true sports management simulations in the sense that FM, OOTP, FHM, et. al. are. Apples to, I don't know, sliced turkey sandwich meat.

Hey, just because I love OOTP that doesn't mean I expect anyone else to. (And, to be fair, I've tried to turn others onto the game with mostly failed results.) But when I see people threatening to go purchase Strat or Diamond Mind, etc. because of how much OOTP sucks in their estimation, it just proves to me that they have no idea what OOTP actually even is.
And, at the risk of being overly snarky, probably don't deserve such a deep, immersive, and thoughtful game.

Yeah TBH I feel like there are more than a few people who think of OOTP as a season simulator like SOM or DMB only cheaper since you don't have to pay for individual seasons. It's just plain not that. The game "replays" seasons by having the Lahman database and generating players from that. The algorithms work fairly well but I don't think you'll ever get the straight-up feel of "yeah this is actually 1975" or whatever that you will get from games where the people who make them curate individual seasons by hand. For instance, SOM (which is also a game I played a fair amount of prior to OOTP) grades players on a 1-5 scale in fielding based on their reputation and (probably) a few stats. As a result when you play, for instance, a 1985 sim you can be sure that Ozzie Smith will be one of the best if not the best shortstops in the league. In OOTP, it all depends on what the algorithms spit out.

Honestly I find that if anything the fact that OOTP is like 95% as good as those games at doing single-season replays is kind of a major indictment of SOM/DMB/APBA/et al. Does SOM take into account FIP yet? The game isn't really built for that (APBA kind of is but IIRC pitchers are very, very basic in that game). I think a lot of the hard work that SOM in particular had to do in, say, the 80s and 90s in researching lefty/righty stats and so on is just not all that hard to do anymore and quite frankly I prefer the OOTP 3-year-calc system where a Roger Maris is not going to necessarily average 61 HRs a season (because IMO he should not) but also won't produce as many 70 HR years as 50 HR years. But that bit in particular is a design decision and if you really, really want Roger Maris to act like that, that is absolutely what SOM and DMB will do for you.

I feel like if you really want this stuff, feel free to buy both OOTP and DMB or SOM or, hell, all 3. I personally have gone way over to the side of playing fictional/historical teams, which you just plain can't do in those games (which is not an indictment; one may as well complain that they can't play checkers on a backgammon board) but YMMV and by all means, play the games you want to play.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah TBH I feel like there are more than a few people who think of OOTP as a season simulator like SOM or DMB only cheaper since you don't have to pay for individual seasons. It's just plain not that. The game "replays" seasons by having the Lahman database and generating players from that. The algorithms work fairly well but I don't think you'll ever get the straight-up feel of "yeah this is actually 1975" or whatever that you will get from games where the people who make them curate individual seasons by hand. For instance, SOM (which is also a game I played a fair amount of prior to OOTP) grades players on a 1-5 scale in fielding based on their reputation and (probably) a few stats. As a result when you play, for instance, a 1985 sim you can be sure that Ozzie Smith will be one of the best if not the best shortstops in the league. In OOTP, it all depends on what the algorithms spit out.

Honestly I find that if anything the fact that OOTP is like 95% as good as those games at doing single-season replays is kind of a major indictment of SOM/DMB/APBA/et al. Does SOM take into account FIP yet? The game isn't really built for that (APBA kind of is but IIRC pitchers are very, very basic in that game). I think a lot of the hard work that SOM in particular had to do in, say, the 80s and 90s in researching lefty/righty stats and so on is just not all that hard to do anymore and quite frankly I prefer the OOTP 3-year-calc system where a Roger Maris is not going to necessarily average 61 HRs a season (because IMO he should not) but also won't produce as many 70 HR years as 50 HR years. But that bit in particular is a design decision and if you really, really want Roger Maris to act like that, that is absolutely what SOM and DMB will do for you.

I feel like if you really want this stuff, feel free to buy both OOTP and DMB or SOM or, hell, all 3. I personally have gone way over to the side of playing fictional/historical teams, which you just plain can't do in those games (which is not an indictment; one may as well complain that they can't play checkers on a backgammon board) but YMMV and by all means, play the games you want to play.

Exactly. And agreed.

[strzepeksc]

But what is lacking is the feature to be able to play games head to head live on the computer...........which games like DMB and Dave Koch Sports do!

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by strzepeksc

But what is lacking is the feature to be able to play games head to head live on the computer...........which games like DMB and Dave Koch Sports do!

And it's great that those games offer that feature. And sure, it would be nice if OOTP had a feature like that.

But to be clear, nothing I'm saying has anything to do with judging which is better, OOTP or DMB (or whatever other game that isn't actually a sports management sim you wish to put in that second spot.) It's like asking me whether I prefer my couch or my coffee pot. Well, if I want a comfortable place to sit or lie down, I prefer my couch. If I want to make coffee, my coffee maker has some clear advantages over the couch. Two different things, two different purposes, two different intentions.
I like them both.

DMB is a really good baseball historical/statistical simulation game.
OOTP is a really great sports management simulation set in the world of baseball.

These aren't the same thing. I guess it just mystifies why so many people here seem to conflate the gaming genres these games belong in and make comparisons that assume somehow that these games are actually competing in the same niche market. (There is overlap, sure, but from the evidence I've seen here, people who are looking for one to scratch the same gaming itch as the other end up very dissatisfied.)

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

And it's great that those games offer that feature. And sure, it would be nice if OOTP had a feature like that.

But to be clear, nothing I'm saying has anything to do with judging which is better, OOTP or DMB (or whatever other game that isn't actually a sports management sim you wish to put in that second spot.) It's like asking me whether I prefer my couch or my coffee pot. Well, if I want a comfortable place to sit or lie down, I prefer my couch. If I want to make coffee, my coffee maker has some clear advantages over the couch. Two different things, two different purposes, two different intentions.
I like them both.

DMB is a really good baseball historical/statistical simulation game.
OOTP is a really great sports management simulation set in the world of baseball.

These aren't the same thing. I guess it just mystifies why so many people here seem to conflate the gaming genres these games belong in and make comparisons that assume somehow that these games are actually competing in the same niche market. (There is overlap, sure, but from the evidence I've seen here, people who are looking for one to scratch the same gaming itch as the other end up very dissatisfied.)

I haven't played OOTP as a sports management sim in over a decade. You couldn't pay me to buy this game to play the MLB quickstart. I've played fictional in the past, but probably wouldn't buy the game if that was my only option. I'm not disagreeing with you, but for me, OOTP is a lot closer to a DMB, Strat or ActionPC type game than it is a management sim. Of course, that's just me and based solely on how I play OOTP.. I also think you and Sid are selling OOTP short in terms of it's historical performance. If you eliminate stuff like development, coaching, storylines, moods and personalities OOTP can perform nicely as a replay game That being said, folks fire up hitorical and sometimes they can't even tell you if they are using recalc, what recalc they're using, if they have the development engine on etc. Playing the game with 3 or 5 year recalc, definitely turns the game into more of a whatif based heavily on reality than a replay game, but damn is it fun.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I haven't played OOTP as a sports management sim in over a decade. You couldn't pay me to buy this game to play the MLB quickstart. I've played fictional in the past, but probably wouldn't buy the game if that was my only option. I'm not disagreeing with you, but for me, OOTP is a lot closer to a DMB, Strat or ActionPC type game than it is a management sim. Of course, that's just me and based solely on how I play OOTP.. I also think you and Sid are selling OOTP short in terms of it's historical performance. If you eliminate stuff like development, coaching, storylines, moods and personalities OOTP can perform nicely as a replay game That being said, folks fire up hitorical and sometimes they can't even tell you if they are using recalc, what recalc they're using, if they have the development engine on etc. Playing the game with 3 or 5 year recalc, definitely turns the game into more of a whatif based heavily on reality than a replay game, but damn is it fun.

Fair enough.
And I get that one of the great things about OOTP is that it is very flexible, allowing for many different ways of playing the game and to personalize the experience.
But as you yourself indicated here, it does require that you do some fairly significant manipulation to the basic settings of the game to get it to perform more, let's say, Strat-O-Matic-like. Essentially it requires that you strip it of much of what is at the core of the game experience. And if that is the flavor you prefer, I'm all for that. You are clearly someone who has found ways to make the game/program work for your tastes and I have always found you to be a great communicator of the joy you receive from playing OOTP your way.

I would just argue that many of the people who lodge vehement criticisms of OOTP and back those up with comparisons to games like DMB, SOM, etc., are making an unfair and irrelevant comparison. Unlike you, they don't seem to get that OOTP is not a direct comparable, or competitor to, those games. In my estimation you have made a perfectly logical decision that many of the aspects of the game that make OOTP a sports management simulation game, that, from my perspective, make OOTP OOTP, aren't for you and you have found a sweet spot for playing the game in a way that emphasizes those portions of the game that are more directly comparable to these other games. But I think you completely are aware of the primary focus and intention of OOTP while deciding that you can do without a great deal of what that entails.

And I should say that I never intended to make any judgement on how well OOTP actually simulates historical statistical realities as I have no interest in playing OOTP in this manner. But I'm glad to hear that for those who do choose to it does a good job of that as well.

It does seem though like the evidence from many of the posts here in this forum that there are people who come to OOTP wanting it to be a more cost effective direct replacement for Strat or Diamond Mind, etc, and then get quickly very frustrated and negative and to my mind this is a matter of them having a misunderstanding of what OOTP is and while I don't mean to over-sell the argument that you can't play OOTP in a fashion that is similar to these other games (you obviously have found ways to do so) I just think we need to be more clear that at its core OOTP is not the same type of game those games are, even if you can customize it to get to much the same resulting game experience.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

Fair enough.
And I get that one of the great things about OOTP is that it is very flexible, allowing for many different ways of playing the game and to personalize the experience.
But as you yourself indicated here, it does require that you do some fairly significant manipulation to the basic settings of the game to get it to perform more, let's say, Strat-O-Matic-like. Essentially it requires that you strip it of much of what is at the core of the game experience. And if that is the flavor you prefer, I'm all for that. You are clearly someone who has found ways to make the game/program work for your tastes and I have always found you to be a great communicator of the joy you receive from playing OOTP your way.

I would just argue that many of the people who lodge vehement criticisms of OOTP and back those up with comparisons to games like DMB, SOM, etc., are making an unfair and irrelevant comparison. Unlike you, they don't seem to get that OOTP is not a direct comparable, or competitor to, those games. In my estimation you have made a perfectly logical decision that many of the aspects of the game that make OOTP a sports management simulation game, that, from my perspective, make OOTP OOTP, aren't for you and you have found a sweet spot for playing the game in a way that emphasizes those portions of the game that are more directly comparable to these other games. But I think you completely are aware of the primary focus and intention of OOTP while deciding that you can do without a great deal of what that entails.

And I should say that I never intended to make any judgement on how well OOTP actually simulates historical statistical realities as I have no interest in playing OOTP in this manner. But I'm glad to hear that for those who do choose to it does a good job of that as well.

It does seem though like the evidence from many of the posts here in this forum that there are people who come to OOTP wanting it to be a more cost effective direct replacement for Strat or Diamond Mind, etc, and then get quickly very frustrated and negative and to my mind this is a matter of them having a misunderstanding of what OOTP is and while I don't mean to over-sell the argument that you can't play OOTP in a fashion that is similar to these other games (you obviously have found ways to do so) I just think we need to be more clear that at its core OOTP is not the same type of game those games are, even if you can customize it to get to much the same resulting game experience.

Just fast simmed 1972. Real lineups/real transactions. Coaching turned off. Development turned off. Injuries are off, but since real transactions are in effect, real Injuries are in effect. 1 year recalc and league set up as a single season replay.

AL East Winner is the Detroit Tigers, finishing with a 86-70 record. Guess what? In 1972 the Tigers won the East with a 86-70 record. Now the AL West went a little haywire. The Kansas City Royals won 98 games and the division. The NL East was won the by the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 94-61 record. The real life Pirates also won the East, but in real life they had a 96-59 record. The Cincinnati Reds won the OOTP NL West with a 88-66 record. The real life Reds won the West as well, but won 95 wins with 59 losses.

Rod Carew won the AL Batting title in 1972 hitting .318. Lou Piniella hit .312, Dick Allen hit .308 and Carlos May hit .308. In OOTP Carew also won the batting title, but did so hitting .350. Dick Allen was 2nd and hit .330 followed by Carlos May hitting .327. So the averages were higher, but other than Piniella the names are the same.

Billy Williams won the NL batting title in 72 hitting .333. Billy Williams won the NL batting title hitting .338.

The NL homerun leader was Johnny Bench with 40. OOTP's 72 leader was Hank Aaron with 44(34 in real life). Bench hit 42 to come in second. Dave Kingman came in 3rd in the OOTP season hitting 40(29 in real life). In real life Nate Colbert came in second in the NL hitting 38. Colbert hit 36 in the OOTP replay. Billy Williams came in 3rd in real life with 37 bombs. He hit 39 in the OOTP replay.

The AL Top 4 home run hitters in real life were Allen 37, Murcer 33, Killebrew and Epstein with 26. In OOTP Bobby Murcer led with 38, followed by Allen with 37 and Epstein with 33. Killebrew hit 24.

Dick Allen led the AL in RBI with 113. Dick Allen led the OOTP AL with 112.

Johnny Bench led the real NL with 125 RBI. Johnny Bench led the OOTP NL with 138. Billy Williams came in second in both real life and OOTP life. Real life he drove in 122. OOTP 125

I want to get back to playing my actual league, but as you can see that's quite impressive.

[Pelican]

Hey, just had a post disappear, because the site timed out and wanted me to log in again, fifteen minutes after I logged on. This has happened to me multiple times. Sometimes the message I had prepared shows up, sometimes it is lost. This time, when I relogged in, I got a blank screen, even when I hit the link “if you are not redirected”. If I sign in, I don’t need to be prompted again, for at least an hour. Most of us spend time reading through the threads. We should not be forced to sign on again, simply due to the passage of fifteen minutes. Not that the world lost much of anything by being denied my post. It’s just frustrating.

[Pelican]

If anyone else has had the problem with demands for repeated log-ins, and loss of posted messages, please share. I’m usually willing to assume it is “user error” on my part; but here that’s tough to see. It could be a defect in the machine I am using; but that is doubtful, as it has happened on both computers I use on the forums.

[jacobp]

Originally Posted by daves

But don't you have to buy seasons $$$? Action PC is nice as well, but you have to buy seasons there too!

OOTP is still on top especially at the base price for all that you get. Not even close. If you don't like Perfect team, then don't play it.

Yes, you have to buy each season.

[jacobp]

Originally Posted by RchW

Replay sim only right? How does it handle fictional and historical fictional leagues?

I'm not sure. I play it only to replay seasons and to play the upcoming season using their annual preseason set. I don't know if you can do fictional leagues. You can buy all sorts of prior historical seasons.

For most of the seasons, you get accurate day to day lineups and rosters.

[Will_L]

Originally Posted by Pelican

If anyone else has had the problem with demands for repeated log-ins, and loss of posted messages, please share. I’m usually willing to assume it is “user error” on my part; but here that’s tough to see. It could be a defect in the machine I am using; but that is doubtful, as it has happened on both computers I use on the forums.

The timed logout happens to me all the time because I'm often doing multiple things while reading the forums and don't get back it them before getting logged out. I don't have a lot of posts but I've had to rewrite a few that I hadn't finished, that's my fault for not finishing & posting though.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Pelican

If anyone else has had the problem with demands for repeated log-ins, and loss of posted messages, please share. I’m usually willing to assume it is “user error” on my part; but here that’s tough to see. It could be a defect in the machine I am using; but that is doubtful, as it has happened on both computers I use on the forums.

You can set this so that you are never logged out and you don't have to enter your password every time you enter the forums.
I can't remember the last time I used my password.

I couldn't quite recall how to do this, but this is from the FAQ section of the forums:

[Reed]

I am a lot like David W.. I have probably played all the other stat based baseball computer games. They all have their strong weak points. I finally settled on OOTP because it was cost prohibitive to play historical on the other games and career play is so much easier with OOTP. I have never had any desire to play the financial part of the game.
I agree that the management niche of the game is what distinguished the game from the other games (along with the cost of playing historical).
My question is, with the advent of PT, do you still feel that the management/financial aspect of the game is still the core feature? I am not sure that COM2US feels that way.

[Braden]

Originally Posted by Reed

I am a lot like David W.. I have probably played all the other stat based baseball computer games. They all have their strong weak points. I finally settled on OOTP because it was cost prohibitive to play historical on the other games and career play is so much easier with OOTP. I have never had any desire to play the financial part of the game.
I agree that the management niche of the game is what distinguished the game from the other games (along with the cost of playing historical).
My question is, with the advent of PT, do you still feel that the management/financial aspect of the game is still the core feature? I am not sure that COM2US feels that way.

Yes, pay to win is the product they like best!

[Pelican]

I’m not sure I understand the criticism of OOTP due to its complexity, depth, and flexibility. What that means is that you can play the simulation almost any way you want. Like the gorgeous 3D stadiums, live play, logos, uniforms? Go for it. Fictional universe? Your imagination is the limit. Replay a season from a century ago, but with no color line? Or Ted Williams not serving in Korea? Lou Gehrig not suffering from ALS? You got it. Manage and act as GM of your favorite current team, with all the roster and financial constraints, proving once and for all you could do better? Have at it.

Many of the other games mentioned have some aspects of OOTP; but without the depth or options or, honestly, the difficulty and challenge. I played the APBA computer game for years, and the dice game before that. OOTP is a far more comprehensive sim. Player development. Managing a full minor league system. Contracts and free agency. Arbitration. Amateur draft. Rule V draft. And, OOTP is an incredible bargain, compared to the others. The price is tiny, when I think of the hours I spend working through a season. Sure it is daunting to the first-time player. (So is MS Word or Excel or PowerPoint, to the new user.). It takes time to work through the endless variables and find your preferred setup. I could not have made it, without the sage advice on these message boards. All worth the effort and study, though.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Reed

My question is, with the advent of PT, do you still feel that the management/financial aspect of the game is still the core feature? I am not sure that COM2US feels that way.

Which game? OOTP and PT are two separate games that can share some code to the benefit of both.

I'll go back to what I've already posted. OOTP has not changed in how it is coded or plays with the advent of PT. If Markus had never mentioned PT, started a new company to code and market PT, and OOTP was still the only baseball game produced by OOTP Dev. nobody would know the difference.

Yes, they'd still complain that their pet issue wasn't getting attention and legacy bugs were not fixed. Just like the "old days", except they wouldn't have PT to blame.

[Rain King]

In fact, from what I understand, the extra cash from PT is what allowed them to specifically hire someone (outside of their core development team) to update all of the 3D stadiums last year.

I've played around with PT...but it's not really my thing. However, I have not seen any regressing from the core game since it has come into play.

That being said, OOTP has always improved in small increments (with 1 or 2 exceptions)...and we as humans are an impatient species. So, I understand some restlessness. But at the end of the day we get a well done baseball game that fits a bunch of different gaming genre's for an extremely reasonable price every year.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Rain King

In fact, from what I understand, the extra cash from PT is what allowed them to specifically hire someone (outside of their core development team) to update all of the 3D stadiums last year.

I've played around with PT...but it's not really my thing. However, I have not seen any regressing from the core game since it has come into play.

That being said, OOTP has always improved in small increments (with 1 or 2 exceptions)...and we as humans are an impatient species. So, I understand some restlessness. But at the end of the day we get a well done baseball game that fits a bunch of different gaming genre's for an extremely reasonable price every year.

TBH I can remember two instances in which the game made pretty large changes:

1. That point in 2006-7 where Markus (and, I think for the time a brand new set of co-developers) reworked the entire game engine and UI from 6.5 to OOTP 2008(?). We missed a whole season, although there was 6.5 that had some bells and whistles added in, and then not everything that was in the final version of 6.5 made its way into the new game. People complained and especially during that time when there wasn't anything newer, I don't think morale on these boards was ever lower.

2. I think earlier on, maybe 5, Markus made 3TO a thing. People also hated, hated, hated that: even when you had reams of statistical analysis to show that the overwhelming majority of pitchers don't appear to have any ability to influence BABIP, people complained that Johnny Podres was broken now or whatever. IIRC there was even an argument that was made that just because, like, Mark Fidrych got hit-lucky in 1976, that was no reason for the game to not recreate that season as if he was a superstar. FIPS and all that is now pretty much a given part of the baseball lexicon so it seems like a kind of absurd argument to have but we had it.

I have to conclude here that, as much as people want "sweeping changes" to the base game... they kind of don't. Indeed, the changes I see being asked for are often rather small and often, frankly, very amorphous and hard to act on ("improve the trading AI" is a common one for example). I am not for a minute saying the base game is perfect or even that major changes are probably in order in the near to mid future (a move to a physics-based engine seems like an inevitability, either for OOTP itself or the game that eventually eclipses OOTP) (which, imagine the outcry when *that* happens, with players no longer being rated by "ability to get hits" but "launch angle" and "bat speed" and so on). I am saying that PT is not, I don't think, anything but a convenient scapegoat (ironically because it's new), and people don't want "big changes" so much as they want their smaller changes implemented.

[Will_L]

Thanks Birdwatcher, I'll look around for that.