Last year, I gave my impressions of Dynasty League Baseball Online, a virtual edition of the classic board game, as well as a pre-season update.

I loved the game's ability to recreate everything about real baseball, including injuries, park-effects and the truly bizarre events that make baseball special. But since then, they've added a few elements that make the game more customizable, and in turn, even more interesting.

Private Custom Leagues

First, you can now play in and run full leagues, not just tournaments or multi-game series. While I love the intensity of a short series, I also like the broader scope of an entire season. Dynatsy League Baseball Online increases the appeal of league play through a relatively deep series of league creation options.

First, you can run a league with as few as six teams or as many as 24. From there, you'll be able to edit your league structure. The game doesn't give you too many crazy options, but rather sticks to more traditional league formats.

For instance, a 12-team league can be divided into two 6-team divisions, three 4-team divisions, or two separate leagues with six teams each. The divisions/league are balanced, so there's no recreating the actual MLB format.

Playoffs?

Next you'll select a playoff structure. Again, for a web-based game, the options are commendable. Play-in games and multiple wild-cards are available, depending on your preselected league structure.

Beyond the scheduling choices, you'll set the number of series per week, what stadiums can be used, and if the DH is an available option.

In season, the game handles real-world aspects well. You can create a split lineup, manage injuries and the disabled list, and bring up September call-ups. League leaders and standings are updated in real-time.

Other New Aspects

I'll also mention the some of the game's newer features, including live draft rooms and manager profiles. The live draft rooms will make it easy for the draft to occur right in your browser window. Currently, private leagues need to hold their own drafts. Eventually, though, both private leagues and the upcoming public leagues will have access to this live drafting system.

The manager profiles allow you to customize your manager in the event you aren't able to manager live and in person. These profiles are SUPER-deep, and allow you to set aspects like closer use, base running aggressiveness, defensive positioning, substitutions, throwing aggressiveness, etc. Nearly every decision you'd expect to make during the course of the game can be preset, truly recreating "your" managerial style.

Worth a Look
I'll back up last year's recommendation that Dynasty League Online is an interesting split between fantasy and historical text simulations. It's worth your time to explore their site (dynastyleaguebaseball.com) and see if this kind of simulation is for you. As a browser-based, multiplayer text-sim, it's really one of a kind.

Also, stay on top of their new feature by following their blog at: http://dynastyleaguebaseball.mlblogs.com/