We are proud to present our interview with Chien Yu, Project Manager for Major League Baseball 2K6.

Operation Sports: The Confidence feature is a brilliant addition to the series, yet it wasn’t implemented very well. Players lose confidence over a much longer stretch of time – several games or more – and not after one or two at-bats as was the case in last year’s game. Is the Confidence feature still a part of the game and, if so, has it been refined and improved upon at all?

Chien Yu: Player confidence has been completely revamped this year, partly to address the concern you brought up. We have a new player morale system in our game that confidence is now tied to. In-game performance will affect player morale, but there are a lot of other factors that will affect the player’s mood and thus his abilities on the field.

Operation Sports: There were several major bugs and glitches in last year’s game, including: the CPU pitcher always walking the #8 batter, regardless of the situation; no CPU sacrifice bunting when using any pitching interface other than K-zone; player movement resulting in muddled lineups with two SS’s and/or two DH’s, or bench players missing from the lineup altogether. Have these problems been identified and fixed?

Chien Yu: We have definitely identified much of these issues you’ve written in about and we have addressed a good portion of the problems at this time. When the game ships in March, you shouldn’t have this problem plaguing your gameplay anymore.

Operation Sports: This year they said they are focusing on the catcher. What will the interaction be when pitching in the game? Will it be done by pitch type and location? Can you shake off a call? Does it have a reward/punishment if you blow off the call?

Chien Yu: In gameplay, your catcher will call the game for you by setting up behind the plate and calling for the location and pitch type he wants. Your catcher will do this based on the Inside Edge scouting report that he has for the batter. Also, it’s important to note that your catcher’s ability to call a game will be a combination of the scouting reports he has access to, as well as well as a new “call game” rating that we’ve given to all our catchers this year (some catchers will of course call a better game than other catchers, just as in real life).

If you want to shake off a call, you can manually position your catcher using the right analog stick. The risk of not throwing or blowing the called pitch is that you increase the likelihood of a wild pitch.

Operation Sports: Do you plan on having playable minor leagues in 2K6 similar to what MVP had in their game? If not this year, would this be a feature that might be implemented in future versions? It would be great to be able to play with your AAA, AA and A farm teams and see how your talent develops.

Chien Yu: We will not have the ability to play minor league games this year, although chances are good that we add this in future editions of our game.

Operation Sports: Will the user be allowed to choose the CPU’s uniform in season, dynasty or whatever mode?

Chien Yu: No, although CPU teams should don alternate uniforms on their own at their choosing.

Operation Sports: Will weather/conditions of field/sky be a part of this game? Will it affect playing?

Chien Yu: In 2K5, we introduced time-of-day lighting as well as variable weather conditions (wind, rain). Wind influences balls being hit, how far they carry and in what direction so that will definitely affect gameplay. In addition, we’ve also added rain delays and rain outs for 2K6.

Operation Sports: Will the game be random, meaning random happenings occur? (i.e. - balls fly into seats, ball jumps off of mound into center field)

Chien Yu: It’s funny that you mention this. There’s always some form of random game happenings, but this year I’ve seen more of them. One of the coolest random things I’ve seen during development this year is the ball ricocheting off 2nd base. Last week, I hit a hard comebacker right to the pitcher, he ducked out of the way, and the ball ended up ricocheting off 2nd base towards right field. Amused, I ended up using a debug tool that we have access to and replayed that hit again, only this time the ball hit 2nd base slightly towards the left and thus it ricocheted into left field. Another time the pitcher wasn’t so lucky and got stung!

Operation Sports: Will franchise mode resemble exactly what the MLB has- i.e.- arbitration, non-tendered players, 40-man rosters, waivers, rule 5 draft, MLB first-year player draft in June, recognition of important stats, HOF, homerun derby, futures game, etc.

Chien Yu: We have incorporated new features to our Franchise mode this year that we think will have a very positive impact on the franchise gaming experience. We have incorporated Inside Edge scouting services, rain delays/makeup games, and a new rivalry system into our Franchise mode. We have a new player morale and player fatigue system, as well as a new dynamic difficulty system that will scale the CPU difficulty according to how the user performs in franchise. To top it off, we’ve also completely revamped the player trade system. We’ll also bring back features from last year such as Hall of Fame, and Home Run Derby.

Operation Sports: What has been done to ensure that both the human and AI controlled pitchers will have pitch counts? Will we finally see 3-2 counts and walks? Will there finally be at-bats where the batter fouls off 6 pitches? Will humans finally have to monitor their pitchers based not solely on innings pitched but also on number of pitches thrown?

Chien Yu: I think your concerns will be addressed by our new partnership with Inside Edge. Inside Edge is a real scouting service that provides scouting data to many major league ballclubs. Because of our partnership with Inside Edge, we now have access to the same real life data that MLB teams have access to. By incorporating IE, we’ve made the pitcher/batter battles much more interesting because each player you face will have their unique tendency and their very own strengths and weaknesses. We’re feeding all of this data into our AI, so our players will behave like their real life counterpart in game.

Operation Sports: Could you explain the Swing Stick?

Chien Yu: The Swing Stick in Major League Baseball 2K6 was inspired by the Shot Stick feature of our NBA 2K6 game. When we were playing with NBA 2K6’s Shot Stick feature during the development of that game, we thought it would be really cool if we tried it out for our batting mechanic. Since then, a lot of R&D time have been spent implementing and tuning this feature for Major League Baseball 2K6, and we’re real happy with the way it feels at this time. Here’s how Swing Stick works:

To bunt: Push and hold the right analog stick up at any time.

For a contact swing: Pull and hold the right stick down to step into the swing, then release the stick to begin swinging. You’ll want to step just after the pitcher lets go of the ball in order to get a jump on the pitch, and then you want to let go of the stick to begin the swing as the ball reaches the plate.

For a power swing: Pull and hold the right stick down to step into the swing, and then push up on the stick.

No matter what type of swing you do, you can influence which direction you hit the ball by using the left stick to aim while you use the right stick to swing. All in all, there’s a lot of depth and control to our Swing Stick feature.

Operation Sports: I liked timed hitting is there any plans to bring it back as an option?

Chien Yu: We’ve spent a lot of time working on our Swing Stick feature and hope that you’ll give it a chance to see if you enjoy it. But if you want to skip it and use timed hitting instead, we have a “classic batting” option that you can turn on.

Operation Sports: Can you go a little more in-depth on "Flashback Replays"? Is this an occurrence that happens when a player has hit a home run earlier in the ball game? Is it to flashback on a past at bat against X pitcher?

Chien Yu: There are two replay highlights that are new to 2K6. The first is an after innings highlight where we replay spectacular plays from the inning that just ended (home runs, steals, great strikeouts, etc). The second replay is a batter highlight reel that we play when batters come up to bat. So for example, if you’re using A-Rod and he’s already hit two homers in his first two at-bats, you’re going to see those homer replays when he comes up for his 3rd AB.

Operation Sports: How deep do V.I.P.'s get? I'll assume they'll go down to the type of swing, pitching location, etc. But will it take leadoff types into account? Amount of diving/leaping attempts? Hitting the cutoff? Double steals? Bunts to the right side (as opposed to the left side)? Type of pitcher we substitute in (MR, LR, SU, CL)? Slide type? How in-depth does it go?

Chien Yu: Baseball is *the* game for stats, so when we decided to implement the V.I.P. feature into 2K6, we did it with the intent that we would stay true to the sport and incorporate & track as many statistics and tendencies as humanly possible. We take a tremendous amount of pride in bringing the best experience possible to our gamers, and this shows with Major League Baseball 2K6’s V.I.P. feature. So since you asked I’ll break our stats and tendency tracking down a bit for you:

Batting/Pitching: We have 9+ pages of info that we’re tracking just for batting and pitching. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice to say it’s very impressive!

Leadoff Types: Yes we track this. We’re tracking stealing frequency (low, med, high), leadoff steps (1 step, 2 step, 3 step), and slide selection (head first, head left, head right, feet first, feet left, feet right)

Defensive Tendencies: Throw intensity, use of cut-off man, use of smart throw, and jumping/diving success are all tracked. Also tracked are how you’re using our new catcher and snap-throw mechanics this year with % of runners caught stealing, % of successful snap throws, manual spotting of pitches, favorite zones, etc.

Managing Tendencies: We have several pages of tendencies that we’re tracking here. All the different types of infield and outfield shift usage is tracked on a % basis. Defensive subs by every position is tracked. Pinch hitter use for every spot in the lineup is tracked. Bullpen usage for every type of reliever is tracked (starters, LR, MR, SU, CL) as well as the average number of innings you let your starter pitch. For managing tendencies we’re even tracking your temper by showing how often you’re arguing with the umpire and the types of issues you normally argue over.

The amount of stuff we’re tracking is really mind blowing, so I’m just scratching the surface here – you’ll see all of what I described and more in the final game.

Operation Sports: Losing the ESPN license is a HUGE loss in terms of presentation & realism (not just overlays but music too). What are your plans to combat this loss?

Chien Yu: We have a lot of amazingly talented people at Kush Games and at Visual Concepts, and we’ll continue to push forward with making the best playing and looking sports games on the market. We feel that not having the ESPN license actually gives us the creative freedom to show our abilities just that much more.

Most people think that video games are still copying TV or movies, but the last couple of years this has started to go in the other direction as games have gotten more and more popular. Not many people on the outside know this, but during our relationship with ESPN, they solicited us for ideas to help make their TV broadcasts better. With the level of talent that we have at Kush and VC, if you ask me, ESPN are the ones that are losing out.

Operation Sports: Will we see unique homerun celebrations in the game this year?

Chien Yu: Yes, we have added more signature animations to our game this year, including new signature batter walk-ups and celebration animations. We don’t have signature celebrations for every player in the league, so certainly we’re not at a point where I’m happy with what we have. But time is limited and there’s only so much we can do in a given year, particularly when we’re spending a lot of our time adding new features and revamping existing feature sets.