Operation Sports is proud to present our interview with Ed Brady, Assistant Project Manager and Dave Perkinson, Project Manager of World Series Baseball.

Operation Sports: What AI improvements have been made over 2k2?

Visual Concepts: Well, the idea is to keep building and improving year after year, and we really think we’ve smoothed out the wrinkles from last year. Just about everything’s been updated, including base-running, stealing bases, pitch speeds, bunting, depth perception, variety of hits, using cut-off men, logic and strategy.

Operation Sports: How many different animations are in this years game and how many player faces are "cyber-scanned?” Also, are there many player specific batting stances and pitching wind-ups?

Visual Concepts: There are literally hundreds of new animations in the game. There are tons of new fielding animations, and among the best of those are throwing from your knees, off-balance throws, throwing against your body, etc. There are also loads of new ambient animations that you’ll see in cut-scenes and after plays. There has definitely been a major upgrade in this area over World Series Baseball 2K2. We think that you’ll be impressed with the results.

We indeed received full 3D cyber-scans for approximately 450 of the top players in the game. The technology is amazing and the quality of the data cannot be surpassed. Believe it or not, when we receive the raw data, the heads are all about 90,000 polygons! Obviously, we can’t put 90,000 poly heads in the game, but what gets in is truly breathtaking. Some of the guys look so real it’s scary.

As far as player-specific stances and wind-ups, I’d say that just about every unique animation imaginable was motion-captured. Everything from Tony Batista’s open stance to Bagwell’s crouch to Hideo Nomo’s odd delivery is there – we even do custom windups AND stretches.

Operation Sports: Are there noticeable changes in crowds in different games? Like are we more likely to see a noticeable crowd of 15,000 at an Expos v. Marlins game and 48,000 in a Yankees v. Mets game? Will the size of the crowd decrease near the end, if the game is a blowout?

Visual Concepts: No, the house is always packed. People definitely want to come out and watch a game in World Series Baseball. One thing that you will notice in the crowd, unlike in 2K2, is that every level of crowd is animated. Last year we were able to animate only the lower decks in all the stadiums. This year, everyone in attendance, from the club seats to the nosebleeds will be animated. We think this adds a lot to the overall presentation level in the stadiums and makes the game more authentic.

Operation Sports: How is the sound in this year’s game? I heard about the crowd hecklers yelling out player specific rants, but are the crowds going to react realistically, un-like High Heat and ASB?

Visual Concepts: Yes, the crowd will react according to the situation. They will respond loudly when the home team succeeds and be aware of the inning and the score.

We really like the improvements to the way our game sounds this year. First off, the game features Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, so when you’ve got the full-on surround system, it sounds dynamite. Even apart from the commentary, you’ll hear ambient sound, hecklers, vendors, sound-effects, crowd cheers, the stadium organ, and PA announcements – everything you’d hear if you were out at the ballpark.

The hecklers will indeed razz the visiting club (“hey Magglio, I can hit better than you”), and will root on the home club with lines that are specific to individual players, stadiums or situations. So, if Giambi’s already Homered that day, a fan might yell, “hit another one, Jason.” Or, if it’s at Yankee Stadium, a crowd member might say, “hit one into the monuments.”

Operation Sports: Will the CPU swing at balls? (It didn't in 2k2) Will the CPU take strikes?

Visual Concepts: CPU batter logic has been improved, so the answer is “yes” to both questions. It’ll certainly be possible for a CPU player to look at a pitch on the corner for strike three, as will it be possible to see him chase a slider out of the zone for strike three. Just remember that, as in real baseball, he’ll be significantly less likely to watch a 0-2 fastball sail over the heart of the plate or to chase a breaking ball in the dirt on a 3-0 pitch.

Operation Sports: Will ball physics be greatly improved over 2k2?

Visual Concepts: If you’re talking about hit ball speed and pitched ball speed, then yes. The game is significantly improved in that department. The pitching, fielding, and hitting should all feel much more natural to the player. 

As far as the rest of the package is concerned, we are using a fully physics-based hitting system, so you’ll see a wide variety of hits. Everything from massive home runs to little infield dribblers. You should be really satisfied with the quality and variety of the hits in the game.

Operation Sports: Will there be GOOD trade AI? How about an override option? (To update the rosters when trades in real life are made) Will there be a minor league or reserve roster to replenish your roster when injuries occur?

Visual Concepts: Trade AI is another aspect of the game that we’ve enhanced this offseason. In Franchise Mode, potential CPU trading partners will now take into account, not only a player’s current rating, but also his potential rating, his age and his salary. Plus, a CPU team will weigh the merits of a deal based on its current needs. Thus, the Mets would conceivably veto a Robbie Alomar/Ivan Rodriguez trade if they already have a healthy Mike Piazza behind the plate. 

Because we want to give as much control to the user as possible, we do include an “override veto” option with every trade. So, like you say, when unbalanced real-life trades are made (like Mark McGwire for Blake Stein and TJ Mathews – I’m still getting over that one!), the game will have the ability to follow suit. And yes, each team has a Minor League roster that it can turn to in case of injury or in case someone like John Rocker stiffs out.

Operation Sports: Will there be a variety of errors (i.e. throwing errors, passed balls, booted balls)?

Visual Concepts: Yes, there will be a greater variety of errors. All the things you mentioned, in fact – including dropped fly balls. And all will be based on an individual player’s defensive abilities, so beware the hard sinker with the tying run on third and a shaky defensive catcher behind the plate. It could come back to bite you.

Operation Sports: How does the hitting model work? (Cursor based, timing based, hybrid) How about the pitching model?

Visual Concepts: It’s a hybrid. At the core, the game supports a cursor based hitting system to determine whether or not the ball is hit, and if the ball is hit, where on the bat contact was made. If you hit the sweet spot then you’ll get a solid hit, hit it anywhere else on the bat and the physics-based hitting system will give you the appropriate ball reaction. In addition, the game also knows the timing of the swing. Swing late on a pitch with a right handed hitter and the ball will go towards the right side of the diamond. Swing early and a right-handed hitter will pull the ball down the left field line. 

Also, if you do not like the default cursor size, the user can choose to change to a smaller or larger one at any time before or during the game.

Operation Sports: Will you get realistic statistics when playing a season? Assuming you are willing to take pitches and play realistically.

Visual Concepts: Unless you’re playing in “rookie” mode, you’re probably not going to run into a whole lot of 15-13 games in which you hit nine homers. The games I’ve been playing on the latest builds have been exactly what you’d find if you looked in the morning box scores. Occasionally you’ll get into a 2-0 pitcher’s duel, and you’ll still run into a good 10-9 slugfest now and then, but we think that things like home run totals, batting leaders and team victories will be a very close approximation of actual MLB numbers.

Operation Sports: As of what date will the rosters be current to?

Visual Concepts: We’ll have rosters current through Opening Day. Plus, we’re excited to be, to my knowledge, the only game that features top rookies such as Sean Burroughs, Hank Blalock, Eric Hinske and Kazuhisa Ishii. The MLBPA prohibits video games from using players that haven’t played in the Major Leagues, but we were able to receive last-minute approval during the opening week of the season to add the rookies once they’d played in a big league game.

Operation Sports: Will the suspect catch-up logic that was in 2k2 be removed?

Visual Concepts: I have no idea what you’re talking about…just kidding. 

To answer your question, yes. If you get good enough to dominate the CPU, then good for you.

Operation Sports: How long will it take to play an average 9-inning game?

Visual Concepts: Well, that’ll depend on how involved you want to get. If you’re just looking to get into the box, hack away and not wait for the right pitch, the game will go relatively quickly – maybe 20 minutes or so. If you’re a little more patient, mix up your pitches, work the count, make substitutions, etc. the game will take a little longer. 

Aside from how you play the game, the user will have the ability to make the game shorter by buttoning through any or every cut-scene. If you want to get rid of the batter intro, substitution, action replay, or between innings cut-scene, simply press the “A” button and you are good to go. If you let them all play out the game will take a little longer, but there’s enough eye candy to make it more than worth your while.

Operation Sports: Will the speed and movement of pitches in the Xbox version of WSB represent the life-like standards that were established in DC's WSB 2K1 instead of the job that WSB 2K2 did with this aspect?

Visual Concepts: Again, we think the answers to those questions are “yes” and “yes.” As far as speed goes, we now have four distinct pitch speeds for the user to choose from: slow, medium, fast and very fast. The slow setting is slow enough that you have about enough time to go make a sandwich while the ball’s on the way to the plate, so this should appeal to very young players or first-time users. Medium is the default level, though it has been sped up from last year’s version. Fast picks things up a little--really making you rely on reflexes. Very fast is enough that our testers that have been working on the game constantly since December still have a hard time gauging pitches. There’s something for everyone, without question. 

Movement has also been improved, and can be especially noticeable with players that have a single great pitch. Robb Nen’s slider is darn near unhittable at times, as is Kevin Brown’s sinker, Mussina’s curveball and Pedro’s fastball.

Operation Sports: How are you taking advantage of the powerful and superior Xbox hardware?

Visual Concepts: That’s a loaded question. Do you work for Microsoft? [Laughs]

The Xbox allows us to do pretty much whatever we want without having to cut corners. The stadium environments are richly textured and beautifully lit for both day and night games. The fully animated crowd, the occasional bird, and the renowned Sega Sports blimp populate the stadiums.

The player model sports real-time lighting and self-shadowing. The real time lighting effect is beautiful and allows for some really breathtaking moments. The uniforms feature 3D scanned textures that allow us to get supremely detailed wrinkles. The player faces that were mentioned above are all high-poly count.

Doing this game for the Xbox has been a treat for everyone on the production staff, and we think that the results will be evident to the user as soon as they boot up the game.

Operation Sports: What about the commentary?

Visual Concepts: The commentary has certainly been improved and refined drastically this year. The most noticeable change will be the addition of a color commentator to round out the booth and bring more player- and situation-specific commentating to the game.

For the play-by-play, in between calling MLB games, college basketball games AND Olympic speed skating, we brought Ted Robinson back in to our recording studios to add even more location- and situation-specific commentary to the game.

For the color commentary, we’ve paired Ted with his former colleague - San Francisco Giants color man Mike Krukow. Anyone who has heard Mike call a game can tell instantly that he’s one of those guys that really enjoys what he does. He’s not one of those guys that has to “turn it on” when he gets in the broadcast booth, and I think our game really benefits from his energy and his ability to make even the most common occurrence sound entertaining.

Operation Sports: Are there manual as well as auto replays?

Visual Concepts: Absolutely. As with our NFL, NBA and NHL games, you’ll have a fully functional manual replay system at your disposal. Plus, you’ll also see action replays (with commentary) for all sorts of plays within the game.

Operation Sports: Will there be player celebrations?

Visual Concepts: There are tons of great Home Run celebrations that are shown in action replays (the kind that would ordinarily get the next batter plunked automatically), pitcher reactions to strikeouts, batter reactions to base hits, inside pitches, beanballs, and fielder reactions to plays both extraordinary and routine.

Operation Sports: Can you use the Cooperstown legends on real teams?

Visual Concepts: Just the thought of some kid putting Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn in Tampa Bay Devil Ray uniforms was enough to dissuade us from allowing this to happen, so we’ve kept the legends confined to playing with their own kind. We’re really excited to have the Cooperstown license, though. Just getting a look at Rollie Fingers’ handlebar mustache alone is worth the price of admission.

Operation Sports: Will the new Indians alternate uniform be included?

Visual Concepts: We don’ t have the Tribe’s new alternate, but we do have the rest of the re-vamped Indians look. Part of me is sad to see the red socks go, but I guess that’s the price of progress. Overall, the game will feature each team’s home and away uniforms plus one classic uniform from the past. Although each team’s third jersey won’t be included this year, the classic uniforms are pretty darn fun to play with. We’ve provided a mix of some really good-looking, old woolen jerseys (like the Brooklyn Dodger grays or the Musial-era Cardinal whites) and also a number of absolutely god-awful, ‘70s-era creations. Remember those brownish-yellow Padre uniforms? The day-glo Giants, A’s and Orioles uniforms? We’ve got ‘em. Plus, we have the Rosetta stone from which all bad uniforms can be judged: the Houston Astros’ monstrosity from the 80s.

Operation Sports: I would like to thank you for this interview. Is there anything you would like to add?

Visual Concepts: Just that I really, truly think people are going to enjoy playing this game. Sometimes, when you work on a project for a long period of time, you begin to get tired of playing or even LOOKING at a game - and of course, those are the ones that generally turn out to be only average at best. I can honestly say that even after working on WSB for as long as I have, it’s STILL a really fun game to play. Just yesterday I was playing a game against a co-worker and he had Ray Lankford come off the bench to hit a home run in the top of the 9th that proved to be the winner in a 5-4 game. My reaction? I just about rocketed my controller through the TV screen. Even after all the innings I’ve logged on this game, if I’m still that passionate about playing it, I guarantee that’s a good sign…