Ahh, crap. My bad. I didn't even look ... just saw demo and linked it. :(

Well, it should be out today anyways.

Poor Davis just isn't going to be getting nearly as many chances to play anymore.

You think OOTP2k6 is bad, try ITP.

That sounds like a perfect marketing slogan. :)

Did anybody report this in ootp tech forum?

yes

What's the deal, did the spelling bug finally get fixed in jbmagic?

No everyone got together and decided not report this one. Weren't you at the meeting?

People on that board are going nuts. It's as if they sat at home all day, called off work and are waiting for the patch.

You think after the hell are getting when they released the game, that they don't want to suck every minute out of June 7th before releasing the first patch?

Isnt' it like 10:00 in Europe right now? Sounds like they won't have to wait too much longer (or SI will have to post an announcement).

If I were them, June 7th could mean June 7th in Hawaii, so long as its still June 7th somewhere. :)

Dola --

I guess I forgot about the Europeans who play the game. I bet the Japanese and Australian OOTP contigent are pissed. ;)

It's up

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=122555

And the try and buy is good for six months in the game. Not six months IRL. At least, that's how it reads there anyway.

I downloaded the demo, hit "trial," but I get some weird error about not being able to find the skin font. As a result, none of the menus or screens have words on them. Strange. On the computer I'm on, I can't uninstall and then reinstall (I can only delete the directory), so I'm a bit stumped.

You only get 14 days to try it. I guess not bad, but if I sim out every game, it'll be hard for me to get to the 6-month as Duffy originally said.

Actually that pretty much sucks. They should allow 6 months of gametime regardless of how long it takes you to play it. I mean it could take 14 days to figure out the interface.

It installed ok for me.

I agree, I was disappointed by that. I wonder if it's 14 days unlimited or 14 days up to 6 months of game time. Pretty disappointing if it's the latter.

are we sure this is the case? every other SI demo is "6 months of gametime, infinitely repeateable"

Me too.

Trying the demo, I REALLY like the pitch by pitch mode. If I wind up buying this game, it will be to play in a league with a short schedule so I can manage every game. Pitch by pitch was probably the biggest addition to me (along with the webcast pitch location screen).

The patch notes look impressive. I saw quite a few bugs I have seen mentioned. I'll give the demo a whirl now and see how it goes. I want to like this game.

I'll give the demo a chance at some point. Right now, I don't want to play it if it is a 14 day time limit since I'm a bit pressed for time this week and weekend, but I do look forward to trying the demo at some point.

It is a very nice addition. The "yeah but" problem with pitch by pitch is the wackiness of the play-by-play. There's the occassional logic error that while annoying is one of those quirks you love about OOTP -- the ol' lineout to the catcher or the infielder circling under a line drive. The other day my second baseman raced over to field a groundball to short, tossed to himself at second base for the force out and fired to first for the double play. The occassional hiccup like that tickles me more than it drives me crazy.

The real wackiness is the play-by-play text. There is some really funny phrasing and grammar. Didn't I read at one point where they had people on the message boards submit text that could be included in the game? It reads a lot like that. It's absolutely terrific that there is some variety and space to the play-by-play and not the repeatitive phrasing where you know what's going to happen after about three words. It's annoying that sometimes you read the play-by-play and you don't really know what just happened. But maybe that's just me.

no I felt the same way about play by play

Any impressions on the patch?

Mizzo, perhaps a word of advise. Just play the demo/game yourself and see if you like it or not. You have been way too needy in this thread.

I thought the play by play was too wordy, actually.

Jones is on the mound....
he looks in at the plate...
he winds up.....
Smith readys in the box....
here comes the pitch.....
Smith takes the pitch....
Outside, Ball 1.....
Jones doesn't seem happy with the call...

Been like that for years. I agree that it's too verbose, but it's the least of OOTP's problems.

Pitch by pitch I'd say it will get old REAL quickly.

There has been some discussion about what makes this game good and where it falls short. For me, in the little time that I have spent with it, it surpasses every other (baseball) game by a mile.

I set up a fictional universe where there are three main leagues. I did it quickly because I wanted to see how it would work, and so far I love what I have found.

My main league is set up with 36 teams HQed in the US with current financials and a full minor league minus short A. I made this league only 5 percent foreign players. My second tier league is a 24 - team international league that is HQed in Canada, where 85 percent are foreign. The idea is that while it is good baseball it isn't the best. The financials are set accordingly so that the teams will have money, but wont be able to outbid the Main league for players. The quality of play here is between ML and AAA level of my main league. In this league there is AAA, and AA ball. Both minors are both foreign heavy and both not as good as their Main counterparts.

My third league is an 8- team independent minor league at AA level baseball with a rookie league support league. The financials here are set so that teams will be able to keep a couple of good players but that the best players will likely move on to greener pastures.

The World league runs from Jan to mid summer and the others run normally from April to October/November.

One of the intersting dynamics has been the abilty of ML teams to sign players in August after the trade deadline, who were stars in the World League and could possibly affect the playoff race.

I will post a couple of player stories to give you an idea of how it has gone. So far though, I could just kill time going from stat page to stat page. If I was a girl this would certainly get me wet.

The first overall player drafted by the Midwest Independent League (MIP) (Independent AA level) was a pitcher by the name of John Megahy. He is 29 at the time throws four pitches and gets into the mid 90's.

He is absolutely dominant getting selected to the All Star game and winning the Top Pitcher Award with a record of 24-5, a 2.38 ERA.

He threw for almost 300 innings with 12 complete games and 3 shutouts. He had 256 K's and only 49 walks.

Trading is not allowed between any league and he elected to become a free agent in the offseason.

The result was a 3yr/39.77 mil contract with the Charlotte Club of the USBP's (Main US League).

So far at this level he has done well. Posting an 8-8 record with a 2.88 ERA.

He has thrown 9 complete games with 125 K's in 147 innings.

Way too needy, lol. I think eager is a better word, but whatever works for you.

I'm off to get the demo though. Was hoping Sack or Troy could compare the game pre and post patch as it's going to take me a bit to learn the new UI.

My new league has a proper schedule, so one of my biggest gripes is fixed.

Still too many talented players in free agency after league creation. I replaced my entire bullpen in January, FWIW.

I'm watching the pitching thing, but I'm given to understand that if you set pitcher usage options to "Normal," that's what causes 9 man staffs. Apparently Markus has a different definition of "Normal" than I do.

The next player is Juan Biell. He hails from Mexico and started his career in the World League. He was the 14 pick overall in the draft and was 34 when he was drafted. He is basically a power hitting shortstop.

He dominated right off the bat, had a couple of small injuries and was selected to the All Star game.

He finished the year winning the Max Slugger Award despite missing some time due to back spasms.

He finished his year in the WL hitting .345 with 38 HR's and 111 RBI's. His OPS was 1.059.

He became a free agent after the year and was snapped up by FT Worth of the USBP's. His audition saw him hit .286 with 7 HR's and 23 RBI's in 40 games. He was paid 5.77mil for his 3 months of work. He helped them to the postseason where he hit 3 more dingers and batted .256 in 11 games.

He became a FA again but did not return to the WL instead opting to wait for the USBP season.

He was rewarded handsomely with a 3yr/28.09 playing for Garland of the USBP.

So far in the season halfway he is hitting .293 with 14 HR's and 45 RBI's.

Seems like its way too easy to sign all the good free agents.

Seems like the AI does not sign any free agents until first game of the regular season.

Best part of the game right there. You can do a ton of different configurations. I enjoy creating the leagues almost as much as playing them.

After the patch I wanted to try out playing every game again, so I starting managing in the default Mexican league and I'm enjoying it. Our first overall pick, Fermin "Litterbug" Jerrez (a 25 yo power hitting RF), has cranked 7 homers in our first 10 games, including 3 in one game. I am managing every game and we're 4-6 so far. If only I could find some reliable pitching. Fun stuff.

There's a Maximum Football joke in there somewhere.

I don't know if this is true every year, but in the inaugural year, certainly.

What are the financials set at for this league? I really haven't toyed around with this part of the game and think it sounds fun.

Funny. I didn't encounter any showstopping bugs pre-patch. Now? My league I created pre-patch doesn't work.

CALENDAR_DATE::set-invalid minute
CALENDAR_DATE::set-invalid hour
CALENDAR_DATE::set-invalid year

Then the player stats don't load anymore. So that stinks. I'm going to start a new league and see how that works.

I love the random name generator.

Has that been reported on the OOTP Tech Support Forum?




:D

It seems to be true only with the inaugural year. I'm not a big fan of house rules to keep a game competitive, but this is the sort of bug I can ignore pretty easily. I just don't sign those FA's until everyone has a shot at them.

So, I haven't heard a lot of comments on the patch yet ... is it still too early to tell?

I'd already figured that. The only real way to change the definition, would be to have it set as a number instead, so like 2-7 or something which would determine the average amount of relievers on your team. I'm fine with Normal being 9, because Very Often is what I consider current baseball.

Are you making this assumption from playing the demo? Because it doesn't seem like that to me when I sim seasons. Players are being signed throughout the entire offseason.

:confused: Who has a 9 man staff in today's game? Who has even carried 10? While I think 11 is often the appropriate number, most teams carry 12 a good amount of the time.

This game is built for people that want to do numerous types of leagues. Just because 11-12 is the norm today in the MLB doesn't make it normal overall.

I don't know how else you determine "normal." I can understand that it makes sense to have options, but a default of 9 pitchers with a default of 25 man rosters strikes me as "not normal." That leaves 16 players on offense and very few relievers. If "normal" means having closers throw 100+ pitches, then something is wrong, IMO.

I wish I could play and see for myself, but I can't get the demo to work. Oh well.

Dangarion's comment seems like something out of the Maximum Football thread.

Have you played the game? It does NOT default to Normal, it defaults to Very Often.

I don't think he's even played the game yet. He is making those statements based on the comments made by others.

As you see from the last line of my post, I have NOT played the game because the demo doesn't work for me. I'm glad to hear it doesn't default to 9 man staffs. That makes me feel better about the game. It does give an odd sense of things to think the default isn't "normal," but if it works out with "very often," then I guess it isn't too big of a deal.

Phew, I spent over 3 hours yesterday getting my league setup:

- fictional 24 team league
- AAA, AA, A
- All teams are completely regionalized into 6 divisions, including all minor league teams. The result being that all minor league teams feeding a ML team come from the same area. (e.g. Philadelphia Keystones have minor league teams in Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and Harrisburg)
- "Double AA level" 6 team Canadian league


After spending 3 hours on this and only getting past the team creation (and not even starting the logo creation, player photo creation, etc...) I'm almost to the point where I'd be willing to pay someone to set this all up for me. There may be a job for an enterprising soul in the exciting field of Quickstart Setup.

You mean Double Eh? :)

I think after another patch and hopefully adding a thing or itwo ie. shop player and more simple scouting UI this will be a buy. Now, I just have to quiet print the 355 page manual/guide without the client company I am at doing an IT audit catch me using up all their paper.:)

I agree. I wasnt thrilled with playing games before, but now Im really uninterested in it...there should be a button to just to get to the "playable pitch"

Yes, there probably should.

There is. The enter button

So, is there one pitch play?

If you press a numbered option, it's pitch by pitch.

If you just want him to go up there, and if he gets a good pitch to hit the ball, hit enter, and it plays out the whole at bat.

That's probably right there in the 350 page manual. :)

I havent played this version of ootp or any version in quite a while. It will be a good bit of time till I have any steady time to try to get into it. but I do have to comment that I find it funny people are complaining about them having too much manual. I remember one of the big complaints a few years ago was lack of manual. :)

man, looking at the last few posts, I wonder how many people in this thread have actually bought the game? If you played the game or demo, you'd quickly realize that both pitch-by-pitch or hitter-by-hitter modes are available when playing out games.

Anyone know where this 14 day time limit rumor came from (is there any validity to it)?

The demo download site still says 6 months of gametime. :confused:

I just downloaded the demo, and it says the trial ends June 22, 2006.

Well, I have bought the game, but I didn't notice a way to toggle it on/off. I was looking for an option rather than just hitting "enter" (enter I'd think would seem to do away with much of any strategy, unless it's just for your basic ab's where you're not doing anything much). I will examine it more closely next time I play.

Looking in the manual, I see a quick play for the at bat in the quick play bar at the bottom of the window - I had been thinking something like that might be with the other managerial buttons under 'Game Controls'. Seemed like a logical place to look.

Yeah, but you cant do any kind of strategy with it. To steal, you have to pitch by pitch. Thats what i was afraid of when they added pitch by pitch, they'd screw up one-pitch mode.

I am playing the demo.

I know it happening when you start a brand new season for sure.

The AI teams wont sign any free agents until game 1. But human teams can sign free agents before.

The demo dont go pass 6 months , so i can't say for sure if it happens after the first season again.

Turning off the ticker helps speed up slower PCs immensely, as does relying on fewer stats (they're important, but...not that much to me when I'm just simming to get a league history before I choose a team) and so, now that I've got the actual patch installed, it seems to be running okay.

I still lost my old league that I was simming pre-patch, but...oh well I guess.

Jeez, that sucks no strategy.:(

*shakes head* so you make a deal in any Face to face games.. if there are runners on base then you go to pitch by pitch mode.

It's really no freaking big deal.

Yeah I'm going with "Normal" stat detail. There's absolutely no value in seeing those detailed stat splits since player ratings do not go to that level of detail. Those detailed stats are just the result of random chance.

But you can use the pitch-by-pitch mode at any time to steal, hit-and-run etc... There's actually a ton more strategy this way.

I actually like the way this is handled in this version. I hated not being able to control which pitch you steal on, when to try to take a pitch, etc.

This way, for most at-bats you just hit enter to play the entire at bat. When you have a strategic decision to make, you play out all pitches by using the other number keys.

It adds a little bit of time to your game, but not much, IMO, since you can blow through the vast majority of at-bats by just hitting enter.

But the problem with that is that alot of people don't want to play out every pitch but at the same time give up the strategy elements of baseball. The pitch-by-pitch mode must take a while to finish a game?

Sorry, I was not aware you could switch between modes. Foz.

If you go pitch-by-pitch for every batter on both sides, yes.

What I've taken to doing is pitch-by-pitch for my own guys, and progress per at-bat when I'm on defense.

The main problem I'm running into is that, well, you can't force a steal unless you use 'Send Forced,' but 'Send Forced' works the same way as a hit-and-run.

So really, it's the most pointless addition to the game that does nothing to solve the "keep trying to send your 19/20 guy on the dude with the 4 arm and have him not run" issue.

Using 'Send Forced' is the same as what I always used to do - hit and run.

Many of you folks here can appreciate this. I just got one of the college interns working under me to print out the 352 page guide, three hole punch it, put it in a three-ring binder and label the sections with tabbed dividers .God, I feel kind of guilty. This must be how Clinton felt:)

It is only 14 days as duffy said that it's at least better than the time limit were used to with OOTP.

It's actually both. You can go up to 6 months in the demo within the 14 days.

Got it thanks. I'd prefer the FM model of 6months of gametime, unlimited play, but whatever.

So would I. That's what I thought we were getting till I installed it.

As a current law school intern....I truly hate you..

;)

Some thoughts on the demo...

I like the universe setup, I've been able to re-create the UBL's setup with a sister Euroleague that only allows EBF free agents to be bid on by the UBL. We'll have to see how it really works once free agency rolls around (I had to turn it off because guys were jumping ship mid-season). I love the reports, the interface (once you toy with it for a while) and the news sections.

That being said, the AI is completely, astoundingly bad, mostly with money. There are some mediocre veterans getting signed to insane contracts, and some silly waive, cut, sign loops. Everything is on AI control...


Alan Moye a good 34 year OF for the yanks was inked for 18.9M x 4 years.
JP Druan, journeyman good MR who is 37 was inked by Cleveland for roughly 6.5M per year for 3 years.
Ricky Cashion, Cleveland's All-Star 27 year old closer, he signed for 3 years at 1.87M for the first 2 and 300k for the 3rd.
Jason Bergman was traded to OAK, where the 37 year old signed a 4 year deal worth 8M per year.

There are about 500 cases of teams signing a guy (or claiming him off waivers) only to release said player a few days later....only to sign them again. Example, Cleveland released some dude on 4/18, then signed him on 4/18, only to release him again on 5/1. Multiply that by about 50 and that's what you have. Plus the about 50 guys being promoted and demoted in the same day, (so and so optioned down, so and so recalled the same day).

It's cool, but going through the transaction log makes my eyes bleed.

Oh yeah, I forgot, Cleveland put starting OF Robert Gum on waivers to activate All-Star Mickey Hall, who they then promptly traded for a 7/6/6 MR. About a week later, they traded their 3rd OF Bill Simonton for another MR from the same team (this one much worse). Simonton went right to AAA where he still sits.

So in the span of a few days, Cleveland lost their entire starting OF, got 2 decent MRs (that they probably didn't need) and one of the guys who is quite good is not even playing for the other team.

But on the bright side, the AAA team now has enough players to continue the game ... and the Uganda leagues is still going strong.

At least the important stuff is covered. We wouldn't want civil war breaking out.

Is the demo based on release version code, or is it based on patch code?

it's supposedly based off first patch code

Not exactly. You can't pick any strategy and play one pitch mode. Any strategy at all brings you to pitch by pitch.

I can tell you in my standard out of the box league there are rediculously good prospects in the free agent pool after the amature draft. On a 20-80 scale, I've got players with an 80 contact rating who are 22 years old, have no history and are unsigned. If you run a week - they don't get signed. Run a month - they don't get signed.

I wonder if they'll get picked up if you click the "Run computer manager on all teams" or whatever it's called?

Where is it? I'll try it.

In the game setup somehwere on the bottom right it says actions, and you can run computer manager on the teams.

Hilarious.

Fuckshit. I looked for 10 minutes and don't see it. Then I downloaded the manual. Can't find it in there. Then I downloaded the 350 page thing. Zip file was corrupted. Then OOTP decided to freeze and I had to shut my computer off to start all over.

Imagine that.

Joe Schultz?

I can't remember exactly how I set it up, but most of the teams have finacial budget ranging between 8-13 million. I have revenue sharing, and the highest paid player in the league makes around 1.3 mil per year, but the majority make between 100k and 700k.

So I have some named players and players who are maginal in the majors coming here to play full time or players who are up and coming in the minors get the chance to play more full time.

The league typically draws 10-11k per game at $7 per ticket for most.