Perfect Game 2009
 

Hello from Germany!

It is done: After a long time, Perfect Game 2009 is finally ready to be presented. It is now available as an Open Beta Version for everyone as a free download.

You can find a list of features and the link to download here:

Perfect Game 2009

Or you can use this link to download: Direct Download

Some important notes:

1. This Open Beta is completely playable but it is obvious that there might be some Bugs in this Version.

2.The Game Engine needs some Tweaks aswell. This will be done after intensive testing.

We would appreciate any kind of comment.

On our board you will find some FAQ where we explain the use of Perfect Game 2009. In the area "support" we started a Thread for further explanations.

palli

alright boyz here we go

(first)

k when I run it I just get a blank window?

Is this a totally new game or a new version of an existing game?

interesting - will definitely check it out

So any word on why I'm just getting a blank window? I'd like to try this out.

That's why it's a perfect game ;) . With a blank window, you can make it the dream game you've always wanted.

This is a totaly new game. I had some kind of free version available a long time ago but then rewrote the game more or less from ground up. :)

I already found some smaller bugs (and a bigger one, do not save during the playoffs!) and will release version 1.01 tomorrow or wednesday.

@ MJ4H:

I wrote you a PM to find out the problem!

palli

So is like the Maximum Football version of baseball?

What the hell, only people in Germany can design baseball games or something??? :)

On a separate note, he has had some posts in a baseball programming dynasty thread.

No, I hope not. :) First of all it is much harder to write palli wrong on a public board. ;)

But on a serious note: we try another way. We start small ("just" modern day MLB), try to get all serious problems removed and then start to add new stuff on a (hopefully strong) basis.

It would be pretty simple to add historical play for example, the data is all there (park and era neutralized), but I don´t see the fun to play historicaly by just setting the date to 1901 and divide all $ by 1000. For me, a historical mode should feel like playing 1901, it must try to catch the atmosphere of this time (yeah, I studied history here in Germany :)). But before we add that we want to get the basic stuff working. So you could call us Minimum Baseball. :)


I don´t know what this is about. I know Markus way back to Ootp3, worked for him as beta tester. We talked by phone a few month back and went to the same university here in Hamburg. :)

But I´m a diehard Redsox fan, I even worked at Fraunhofer in Boston for a few month.

palli

Just a joke. Just found it funny that there is another baseball game programmed by someone with German ties while the offerings by American programmers are thin.

HAHA...AWESOME!!! A DEVELOPER WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR!!!


well on behalf of the Red Sox fans here on the board, welcome!! :D

Now to see if Ortiz has lost as much power in the game as he seems to have lost in real life (when Jason Varitek has more homers than you at this point in the season you know there's a problem. the big guy is toast).

And from the rest of us that aren't Red Sox fans, welcome as well!

There are non-Red Sox fans? WTF?!! :rant:

I have to admit I thought that was pretty good too.

I was also impressed that he seemed to know exactly what the comment meant, which is at least a good sign.

Thanks. I visit this board almost every day and I know how great you guys are.

For David Ortiz in PG: I created the development pathes for each player before season start so he is not as bad as his season start. But his batting value is not the same as in his prime years from 28-31. Varitek is pretty much done, I think the CPU will put him into a backup Catcher role. He was one reason I hand-edited a lot of contracts so 5 for 1 is much better then his 2008 money and a random 3-year contract. :)

palli

How picky are you getting on rosters at this point?

The state of our roster(s) is more then automatic generated but less then I would like them to be. :)

To make it more clear how roster work in PG here a little rundown:

We have a master database which has all player, teams, coaches from the lahman db in our own format.

The ratings are based on different projection systems.

Then we have "games" (2 right now: 2009 seasonstart and 2009 offseason-start) which are startingpoints into the game. Here we define which player is on which team, his contract-value, contract-length and contract type.

The 2009_offseason start has rosters from the end of 2008 and FA´s from this offseason.

The 2009_seasonstart game has most FA´s from this offseason on the right team and we hand-edited a lot of contracts (but not all).

All player in the minors are just fictional.

What are our plans with the master-db and (actual 2009) rosters?

I would love (and I will start to search for one soon) to find someone who is really into rosters, stats and projections and who would be interested to work on the master-database/rosters with me. Firstly we would work out what tools would be cool to have (e.g. a retrosheet parser to fill up missing stats in the database) and then work out a system to build a strong db/roster(s) and keep them up to date. So if anyone has interest just get in contact with me and we can talk about such a project.

palli

:lol:

I like the fact that you know exactly what each displayed stat stands for ("ability to hit 2b, 3b") for example. It did take me a little while to figure out what everything was - I had to go I think into the scouting screen to get it so that I could see what they all corresponded to (that'd be a nice change if possible).

Only played around with it a little the other night, but did sim+save about half a season or so, so I will pop in and look for strange things.

This looks interesting...think I'll download and try it out today.

Dola,

Just a suggestion. I may have missed it, but I didn't see a link on the website to download. Had to come back here to do it (though I am sometimes oblivious to things).

EDIT: nevermind...indeed I was oblivious to it.

We know that documentation is not our biggest strength. We want to add tooltips for labels so we can add this e.g. on the scouting-screen of the player.

Because ratings are a little bit different to other games here a little rundown:

The pitcher is nothing special: Stuff (K), Movement (HR) and Control (BB, HbP), additionaly GB% (which is pretty important with a DIPS-Engine).

The batter has some interesting points:

Power (HR), Eye (BB), XBases (2B, 3B), Speed (gaining the extra base, a little for Stealing, a little for fielding), Bunt are as you would expect but Contract and Placement are a little different:

The PG Engine has DIPS not only for Pitching but also for Batting. Studies show that batter have a little more control over hits on balls into play but it is still a lot of luck and defense. We take that into account by doing:

Contact: Avoiding the K, so making contact and put the ball into play.

Placement: The quality of a contact (or the abillity to put the ball out of reach of a defender).

So PG has no rating which corresponse directly to Avg. Contact is the abillity to put the ball into play and Placement is more BABIP.

Another important part of the engine is the type of Ball into Play: Groundball, Flyball, Linedrive or Popup. This will directly influence the possibility of an out. But I should save this for later. :)


Thanks, every feedback is important for us. We work on Version 1.01 which will be a bug-fix update and Version 1.10 wich will have one new major part that is missing.


Yes, the first thing we heard from a friend of mine but I was to tired to change it before our release. It was 2:30 AM here in Germany and I wanted this initial release to be out of my way. :)

palli

so im the only one that cant run the game huh? great

I've got it running. Why does my height and weight matter? Also, I think it locks my birth year at 1959.

Also, there's a circle next to each item available to select, but the circle doesn't fill in when selected.

Your height and weight do not matter, they are just available in the lahman db so we added them for the user. Put in whatever you want, it changes nothing.

The birthyear is something different. Let me explain:

In PG you play a career as GM/Coach and as a matter of fact some day you are to old to manage a team (you have to retire). You will get a final score for all your archivments during your career, a place on the highscorelist and the game will suggest a job in baseball business for you (yes, we played Pirates and Civ a lot back in the days :)).

Right now the career is shortend to about 8-12 years, thats why the birthyear is locked. Version 1.10 will have the normal career-length.

And YES, you can continue the universe after your retirement, you just have to create a new Coach/GM and take the same team or take another and try to break your highscore. So if you like your universe with all the history you can use it as long as you want!

The reason behind this is that your stats would look pretty boring after 100 years of simming and we aim to make PG a realistic but fun to play game and not toolkit.


You mean the circle right next to "Charismatic" for example? The one you select should have a green (which is wrong, should be blue :)) point in it and the text should change (explaining what you chosed).

Again thanks for all the feedback. We work hard on 1.01 to fix all known issues and will upload it this week.

palli

I noticed this while I was playing the game today. I started in the offseason so I was shopping for free agents and was trying to figure out how to evaluate players. Luckily the fact that there are real players made this easier to get a handle on.

I basically went with an avg of Contact and Placement to determine approximate batting avg (or expected).

Also...I didn't notice a difference between batting ratings vs. R and vs. L. Is this because you didnt have the actual L/R splits to generate the ratings from? So...future fictional players would have a difference between R/L?

I also wasn't sure what to make of this...not sure if this is a bug. I started as the NY Mets and began bidding on free agents. I had offers to 1B-Texiera, SP-Sabathia, RP-Rodriguez. Every day required me to up my bid due to competing offers, but after one point(before anybody was signed) it gave me a max offer to Texiera of roughly $340k (which the bidding was around $20mil by then). I then simmed the day and since nobody was still signed, it then let me offer a $20mil plus contract to him (as well as the other 2 mentioned). This happened sporadically with the 3 players over a few days, so not sure why. I know I have a salary limit by the owner...but why would the limit be ok one day...not ok the next...then ok the following day? I'm not sure I explained the situation very well...but I also did not have a good grasp of how to reproduce it (or avoid it).

Overall...I enjoyed it quite a bit today. I didnt get very far (only the first month so far), but definitely has the right feel to me. Might make one suggestion to maybe lighten the interfac a little...or maybe allow a few options there. Thanks for making this beta available, it was great to play around with.

I know, we need some sort of scouting feedback, maybe a screen where you can ask your scouts to produce lists with player that fit your needs.

We changed the scale for the Placementrating just a few minutes before I uploaded the version (not the best idea :)) so I have to check how the new version works but 10 should be about a .300 BABIP (league average).

But be careful: in PG we have no modifier to "force certain results" so totals look spot on. This was a very early design decission we made as we think that this has nothing to do with reality. So a player with good ratings can have a bad year and come back the next year just because BABIP went back up. And don´t count on "10 years of almost the same stats-line", especial pitcher are hard to predict. PG uses no linear development path.


Thats right. Right now no R/L splits (and an average GB% of 47.5). I wrote estimates for both into the database and version 1.1 will have both enabled. As I wrote earlier: I hope to find someone interested in working out tools to edit the master-database. Then one of the first things will be a parser to get the real R/L + GB% from retrosheet.



I will pass this to the second developer as he tested the FA phase. Hopefully he can reproduce the bug and I can change it in time for 1.01.


The game is fully skin-able (all graphics can be changed), we even have a css file (its not a real css-file but it works almost the same) so technicaly even font, colors and other stuff can be edited. Right now it is not high on my list but someday we will add 1-2 more skins and write a tutorial so other people can make skins.

The same is true for all news/pms in the game which can be added and edited by everyone (XML + placeholder).

again thanks for your time!

palli

Just started a new career.

One small thing I noticed is you have the Mets home ballpark as Shea.

Maybe that was on purpose, I mean I still call it Shea or New Shea most of the time.

why would you start as the mets lathum? masochist much?

palli - not to keep asking how to do things, but is there a way to lock your lineup and pitching rotation? i figured out how to set my lineup but it resets after every game. Is that right?

I'm just glad Daniel Murphy isn't the game, b/c nobody wants to create a leftfielder with no left field rating :devil:

Small issues:

In the boxscore : The pitcher batting should say "P" not "DH

The pitcher's boxscore : the innings pitched decimals should be .3, .6, .0 or something similar.

Game 1: I don't understand .7, I don't know why it wouldn't end in .0

New York Mets IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF Pit GB-FB GS
Johan Santana 7.7 5 0 0 0 10 0 0.00 29 101 10-4 89
Francisco Rodriguez 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.00 3 9 0-2
Totals 8.7 5 0 0 0 11 0 32 110 10-6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Atlanta Braves 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 1
New York Mets 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 6 1

What is your frame rate?

:devil:

0

I would imagine 7.7 is 7 2/3. It is just 7.6 rounded up I guess.

I´m happy about every question. Will will use the questions to decide which parts of a "manual" should be written first.

Our Lineup/Rotation/Bullpen system is a little diffrent and we are not 100% happy with it right know so feedback would be great. I will let the co-developer of the project explain it as I´m of to work. He will drop by during the day.

I guess it is the old Yankees stadium too (for the Ballpark factors). I will add the two new ballparks to the database and they will be included in 1.10.

I will answere the rest later.

palli

Thanks for the input, the bug is fixed.

Quote:

palli - not to keep asking how to do things, but is there a way to lock your lineup and pitching rotation? i figured out how to set my lineup but it resets after every game. Is that right?

At the moment there is no way to lock your lineup completely. On the Teamroles Screen you have to assign your players to their roles (position, battingorder spot) and the cpu will generate a current Lineup for the actual game with these informations. There will be changes made by the cpu only if a player is tired or injured and you can alter these changes on the Linep Screen.

cool thanks - just wasn't sure if i was missing something

I probably won't get into playing much of this until the weekend. It sounds like a lot of bugs are being fixed each day -- should I download again to get a newer version than the one I grabbed Tuesday?

At the moment there is no newer version of pg2009 but we will finalize a first patch today or maybe tomorrow.
It's not necessary to download the whole game again.

The first update is done and uploaded, bringing the game to version 1.01. This is mostly a bugfix version but we added some smaller stuff (e.g. status icons on main screen for player).

Here is a complete changelog for Version 1.01:

[Game-Engine] Errors do not count as outs
[AI] FreeAgent valuate player AI changed
[AI] Evaluate available Fa-Money
[AI] Contract Demand for FAs with 1 year contract
[Screen] Change Next Starter on Team-Roles Screen
[Screen] MainScreen: Playerstatus added to lineup
[Miscellaneous] Crash on Coach-History screen when Coach has no team
[Miscellaneous] Changed DH to P in Boxscore
[Miscellaneous] Changed IP to .0, .1 and .2
[Miscellaneous] Player receives a pm after trade
[Miscellaneous] MinorsScreen header changed
[Miscellaneous] Sign Fa with negative money
[Miscellaneous] Load Game doesn't work during playoffs
[Miscellaneous] Tooltip Geometry changed
[Miscellaneous] Attendance calculation incorrect after first season
[Miscellaneous] Clear battingorder spot after changing teams
[Miscellaneous] Reset rotation after season

Thanks for all your feedback!

You can download an update (about 5 MB) here: PG 2009 Update Version 1.01

Just install it into your PG folder.

The full version (link see first post) is also updated to 1.01.

We started work on a bigger feature that did not make the cut for 1.00 but is an important part for a game that is played like PG. I introduced a new concept, that, if liked, will be extended to other parts of the game. I will talk about the feature as soon as I have a few good looking screenshots to support me. :)


Fixed!


I changed this now (I don´t now why I had .3 and .7). I hope I got all places where it is shown.



This was a serious bug. The error did count as an out during the game (so the inning was over after two outs). Stats are read "on the fly" from a special game log and here an error counts (correctly) not as an out which explains the .7 (which is now .2!).

palli

Any other thoughts? Seems a bit like Puresim from the screenshots.

I havent actually taken the time to play it as bugs really bother me so I usually dont waste too much time until it is good enough to where I have to pay for it.

For reference, the new version does the same thing for me.

We still try to locate the problem. We are not able to reproduce it on our vista machine. Do other people use vista and have/have not the problem?

I wrote a developer diary about the "new" feature I mentioned yesterday. You can read it here: Developer Diary

I posted 2 screenshots to give you a better look.

palli

Palli,

Nice looking game UI. This one looks better IMHO than other well known baseball sim. Greta job. If it plays as well as it looks we got a winner.

didn't get a chance to do anything this weekend unfortunately. Will DL the update tonight and keep looking around

oooh - in-game mode - that will be nice!

palli - from reading the developer diary - i LOVE that everything is XML and customizable. That's a great way to develop a passionate community around the game.

i want player pictures in mine - how can i get them?

I´m in the middle of preparing the update with the new lineup/rotation/bullpen screen (see last post in the Developer Diary). I guess it will take 1-2 hours before the download is ready.

It will not be possible to use any previous save as I made a big mistake early in development: I forgot to save the version-number of the save to make it possible to continue old saves in newer versions. I have to put it in sometimes and I guess now is better then sometimes in the future so I have that out of our way for future versions. I´m really sorry! If you really want to continue your game just send me a PM and I will help you out.

I will answere all post after the upload but now I just want to get the files up. :)

Just a short answere for the player pics:

Go to the PG board and find the pinned thread in "General Talk". There are logos and player-pics to download.

Unzip them into the player_pics and logos folder in (your pg folder)/games/2009_startseason.gdb and (your pg folder)/games/2009_offseason.gdb. If you start a new game the pics and logos will be placed into your save folder.

If you already have a game running you must copy the logos and player_pics into (your pg folder)/saves/(your save folder)/logos AND player_pics.

palli

cool...thanks palli. just wasn't sure if there was a post somewhere with them and logos or not. figured they had to be sized right and all. Thanks for the directions - that'll make it much more immersive to me personally.

Along those lines - question for everyone else - is palli going to incur the legal wrath of MLB by having real rosters+hosting photos+logos on his board? What was the outcome of all of that with say OOTP? I'm not up to speed on it.

No problem, just tell me if it works. And wait until the new update before you start a game (see last post)!

One thing I forgot to say (I wrote it in the thread with the links): The player pics and team logos are not from us, we just use them for testing as the game looks much cooler. All credit goes to the original artists!

For the legal stuff: as far as I know player names and stats are open source, team logos and player pics not. We will remove both packs from our webspace as soon as we start to sell the game. But we can not hinder people to generate cool packs for PG. :)

palli

Names and stats are open source. I'm just worried that by having the pics+logos on your site you could open yourself up for trouble -- even if you're not selling the game yet. But I'm not 100% on the law on that - I hope somebody else here might be and can help you.

The lawyers on the board can chime in but I agree playing itsafe may be just to have padresfan to host that pack as soon as is feasible to eliminate any trouble.And on a similar point it is great to see a game that makes it real easy to load player pics and logos that used to driveme crazy spending a whole evening setting upa league and never getting to play a game. That is one of the main reason I have switched almost 90% of my gamng to baord gaming (sports) and have not regretted one bit.

Ok, it took longer then expected (as always :)) but we finished the 1.02 update.

This is not a bugfix update and not a major update. As I wrote we redesigned the lineup+bench screen and the starter+bullpen screen as we thought that the old one was not really intuitive. Now you have more "classic" screens. On the pitching screen you can assign your rotation and the bullpen-roles. The lineup screen has 4 lineups (R, R+DH, L, L+DH) and bench roles for all of them. The game will use the right lineup so no surprises any more. :)

Please remeber: you have to start a new game (reason in one of my post above).

To download an update or the full version go here: Download-Page

If you have 1.00 installed please install 1.01 first, then 1.02.

Thanks for all your help!

palli

Sorry to post back to back but I want to answere a few questions.


I guess we should really put the two files somewhere outside our own side. We will find a place in the next few days.


The philosophy of PG is simple: don´t work the game, play it. We want the game to be fun "out of the box". After a long day just start the game and play 2 hours. We will take care of the rest. It is our job to get the numbers right, the development and the AI (we get paid for it someday). And to reach this goal we decided not to make everything an option. Some people will not like that but I guess other games will give them fun. And believe me, it is hard enough to teach the AI how to handle a 25 men roster, I don´t want to teach it how to handle a roster between 15 and 100 men. :)

Just to be clear: everything from news/pms, graphics to pbp-text is (or will) be editable!

So we try it our way and hopefully a few people will follow us.

I will write more about what you can expect from PG in the future so you can decide if it is the right game for you but if you have special questions about this just ask.


Thanks very much. The Minosgames Text Sim Interface Framework (short MTSI) took us a lot of work but in the end it is well worth the time we spend. We try to make navigating as simple as possible:

The main-screen (2, one for the season, one for the offseason) has all important infos right in front of you. On top of that we use popups. Every button will open a popup so most of the time 1 click will be enough to get you your information and then just close the popup. The new modular system I talked in the Developer Diary (which the In-Game mode will use for the first time) will be expanded to the mainscreens to make them even more useable (decide what modules you want, higher sreen resolutions can load more modules).

Is the MTSI-Framework perfect? No, no way. But after all the time we spend with the game you don´t see any problems any more. Thats why we have you take a look. :)

palli

making all the news and pbp text and everything editable is awesome palli - that will definitely help to get an enthusiastic community around the game.

Liking this so far, and I'm glad you left the lineups up to us. The computer was putting Prince Fielder in my leadoff spot half the time.

I know the game is still beta but will there be any consideration to making it so the LAHMAN hsitorical DB could be used to start seasons in the MLB past? If not no biggie just thought I would ask:)

that'd be cool!

i wonder if it'd be problematic though due to differences in financials and stuff?

Oh, I am pretty sure it would be a complete pain the arse to do which is why I asked:). Seriously it would be cool to have.

I will go into more details about the direction of PG later this week but just a short answere:

all data is already in the master database. Even better, all players have ratings stored based on normalized (era + ballparks) stats. The AI even uses normalized Batting/Pitching Runs for evaluation, so theoreticaly we could put Babe Ruth right into 2009 and the game would be able to handle it.

So why no historical play so far in PG?

We could just let you start in 1901 (or any other year), divide money by 100 (or whatever number works), divide attandance by X and let you play. But that has absolutely nothing to do with historical play. Thats a "2009 look and feel" with numbers from 1901.

We want the player to feel like playing in 1901: the way leagues work in that time, the way contracts work in that time, the way roster are build in that time. Thats the reason we take small steps in development: we don´t want to build in a "wrong" mode fast and then have no chance to change it, we want to make it right from the start. But we decided to start modern first and then, after the basics are working, expand into the past.

I will go into more details sometime this week to give you an overview where we are going with Perfect Game.


I guess we where blind after spending so much time with the game. :) But it became clear that we had to change it and it was better to do it now to make it easier to use. I will implement Drag&Drop on both screens in the near future but the In-Game mode has to be finished first.

palli

Wait a minute does that quote mean that we have to set lineups for both teams or just if we choose to? Is there an option for the AI to set them or use real life lineups from that year something like that?

No, just your team.

palli

Palli thanks. Not to rush you but do you suspect to have 1.1 in the next few weeks done and ready for sale?

I will not give a release date but so far work goes pretty smooth on version 1.1. Motivation is high after our first release ever (we are a little proud to have finished something :)) and we work fast to get 1.1 out of the door. We talked about the way we will release version 1.1 but have not made a decision so far.

I have a few more smaller tweaks and updates on my todo list, stuff that makes the game more fun to play on a day by day basis and I need to tweak the game-engine more. Right now I do stuff like that in between but maybe I will take a few days "just for the small stuff". I will to continue to write a Developer Diary so you will always be up to date.

Thanks for all the interest, its really a fun trip so far!

palli

Thanks for your honest answer. I prefer developers who treat there customers like adults and not kids.(Not to infer any of sim devs do that)

Anymore updates in the works especially the one that will add the in game mode? It has been quiet for the last few days and was wondering since it won't be a perfect game until it has that mode:)

:)

I added an update to the Development Diary.

palli

I love that you have added the character to each player and it will be somewhat real lile accurate for the initial rosters.

I posted this on our site: Jobs

This is nothing we have to fill out right away but maybe someone is interested in working with us from the beginning (even help to develop tools for the work). Or maybe you guys know someone who might be interested and you can direct them to us.

thanks for all your help.

palli

Found a bug tonight.

Right up against the spending limit. Cut a guy during FA signing period, going over budget. The game stays in FA mode forever..advancing years at a time w/o ever getting in to the season.

Frustrating trying to move draft picks to 'A' ball as well...would like to just right click and assign them to a level I want them at.

Ok, thanks. I will look into that.


Thats not a bug, its because we made the decision to let the CPU handle the Minors up to AAA. At first we had the user make all decisions himself but it took forever to play a season. Maybe some sort of Minorleague-Coach would be the ideal way to go. The user could make decisions on some player in the minors (moves, roles) and override the coach who does all the rest of work. I will take a look.

palli

I'm actually fine with the minor leaguers being moved about on their own. Just thought I was missing something on how to move them around. So, to be clear, after I draft my studs in training...I just go to dfa, move them to the major league roster, then down to AAA?

If the cpu is handling it, may be nice for them to automatically drop the flotsam at the bottom of the roster then, so as to avoid the "check your AAA roster" notification when there are too many kids on the team.

After the draft you can leave the prospects on the dfa list. The cpu will move them to their minor league teams.

Palli and mschwarz are really making a good first impression. Can they continue to deliver? Find out next week on "As The FOFC Turns".

Palli I am sure you have been busy working on the game but I am curious if you have anymore development updates or news of an updated version coming soon:)

Sorry, I had a bad cold last week and did not do as much as I hoped on PG.

As a short update: the display-part of the In-Game is almost finished, only the baserunning has a few problems left (not showing the right pbp-text for base advancment, drives me crazy :)). The In-Game AI is at 90%, I guess I only have to check if everything is in place (the AI is the same as for simmed games). Malte will start today to add all the user-options (like subs, change positions, ...) and as with the "new" lineup/rotation screens it is Drag&Drop all the way. As far as I see it you can do all changes directly on the game-screen, only if you want to see a player in detail you need to open the player-popup.

palli

With the release of OOTP coming shortly, was curious how this was coming along?

Yeah, three weeks and no word.