OOTP development thoughts and musings

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally posted by wbonnell
So, whose expectation is more important to a text-sim developer? The casual fan or the hard core fan? Aren't text-sim fans by definition "hard core"? It seems to me that casual fans are playing High Heat or Triple Play...

You've hit on one of several outstanding sub-topics that could stand on their own in this thread.

From reading through the rest of the posts, I think there's some occasional confusion when the terms "hard-core" & "casual" are used.

For example, in your comment I believe you're using the following definitions (paraphrasing roughly)

Hardcore fan = Diehard baseball people who also enjoy baseball text sims. Guys (and gals) who know who Toronto's fourth reliever will be next season. People who (in olden times) used to read every boxscore in the morning paper. And might be willing to sacrifice body parts if anybody ever managed to truly capture the essence of baseball (or whatever their fave is) in a PC text sim.

Casual fan = Folks who watch a little baseball throughout the season but don't live & die with it daily. They might not be able to name every member of the major league roster of their favorite team & would have no chance in hell of naming the entire 40-man roster. A baseball text-sim is one more item in their PC library, something they enjoy when the mood strikes them..

Or at least something like that.

Others who read/use those terms might mean:

Hardcore fan -- A gaming diehard who plays most every game that comes around. Sometimes grognards, sometimes totally visual and/or arcade oriented but dedicated gamers if they have even the most remote interest in the subject (and sometimes even if they don't).

Casual fan -- Gamers who like to play for a little break from time to time. MIght get hooked on one or two titles for long periods but would probably rather watch Baseball Tonight (or NFL Countdown, etc) than play OOTP/FOF, etc.

Broken down that way, there's not just two audiences for programmers to choose from, there's four (plus all the various combinations that would exist). And that makes picking the focus and then hitting the target even more challenging.

{edited to add missing word for clarity}

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally posted by BoneGavel
The scariest part to me about this whole thread is that SkyDog knew about the rotation thing in the first place. Is this a common baseball fact?

I went over & found the thread in question, so to answer your question (which I suspect just got lost among the overall discussion here) :

Having 5th starters skipped over due to off-days & such would be a pretty common baseball fact.

[MizzouRah]

Of course, the Holy Grail is the game that has the flexiblity to satistify both crowds. I've rarely seen that done. Maybe Gran Turismo and Microsoft Flight Simulator come close. Any other examples?

JMS

Great question.... I didn't like Gran Turismo The game looked unreal, but I couldn't get into it for some reason. Nascar was much better, for a racing sim, imo.

Maybe Tecmo Super Bowl on the Super NES for me. Had just enough stats, yet a blast to play. I even thought NHL 95 or 96, I forget which one, was a perfect blend for the time. Even Madden on the Sega was a blast to play and look at leading rushers, passers, etc...

As more stats are kept, there is more room for scrutiny with respect to accuracy.

Todd

[FBPro]

One thing that I don't think has been mentioned about this option of "a family thing" is that this is the manager mode where you can get "canned" for your performance as a GM so I think it adds to the challenge.

Just thought I'd mention that fact since it has been overlooked.