OT: Why is play-by-play so hard to implement?

HornedFrog Purple · 03-03-2003, 06:24 PM

This really is not a rant, its a question.

All the sims I have played seem to be stagnant in play-by-play. The best play-by-play that I remember was APBA for Windows and that was the audio one with Ernie Harwell.

Anyways, right now I am playing FOF4, Tournament Dreams and messing around with the CM4 demo. I will add OOTP to the list although I do not have the new one. With the advent of the CD able to hold so much more information especially for basic text I just wonder why this part of a sim is not expanded on more than it has been.

If there ever was an avenue for user feedback and mods this would be it. Most people have their favorite announcer usually local. Just as an example, supposed you were playing OOTP and traveled to another city. You could load up their local announcer and "listen" to the game from the other team's perspective.

It just seems to me that most sims are bland in this aspect. I realize there are only so many ways to describe a grounder to SS or a pass to the wing or a draw play, but it would seem more variation could be possible.

With all the improvement to all the other aspects of sports sims maybe this one needs some work too.

Discuss.

sabotai · 03-03-2003, 06:34 PM

"You could load up their local announcer and "listen" to the game from the other team's perspective. "

There's two ways to do this, that I know of.

1) Have the play-by-play prerecorded and played back. This is how every game has done it since the beginning of time. You record all the possible play by play by the announcers and then include the sound files on the CD.

This is would obviously be out o fthe question in you suggestion, unless you can get every announcer in the entire country to come into a studio, record all possible play-by-play lines and then distribute them with your game, also unrealistic due to size.

2) Have the program look at the word and decide how to pronounce the word and then feed that sound through a voice filter.

This is how we could do this in you suggestion. The problem is how do you obtain the "voice"? I have no expertise in this are at all.

I know Shaun Sullivan has experimented with this technology (for those who have XP). When simming all games, a voice comes on and announces the score of you game.

I can see how this could be implemented for play-by-play. But we come back to the "voice". So far, that I have seen, there is only 1 voice, and that's of a really computerized male voice. Sounds like something out of the 1980's.

So the real trick to doing this is how you capture someone's voice. Also, the voice is slow and doesn't pronounce the word fluidly. Not to mention, this is only available in XP. Not everyone has XP, so this feature would only to appeal to those people.

HornedFrog Purple · 03-03-2003, 06:45 PM

Oops that should not have said sound files, I really meant just text files. Sound files are a long way away. I messed up.

What I meant was like taking the text files or text of the game engine play-by-play and customizing the events according to a local flavor or whatever. If you allow the user to do this to events, it would add an element that is lacking I think. There are a lot of sports fans who would like to be "behind the mic" and since that is not practical this would be the next best thing.

ice4277 · 03-03-2003, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HornedFrog Purple
What I meant was like taking the text files or text of the game engine play-by-play and customizing the events according to a local flavor or whatever. If you allow the user to do this to events, it would add an element that is lacking I think. There are a lot of sports fans who would like to be "behind the mic" and since that is not practical this would be the next best thing.

Not a bad idea. The trick would be to get the PBP changeable for each game. Right now, you can update the PBP in CM, for example, but there's only one set. The developers would need to make multiple sets for each team I would think. And I don't know if that's something they would really want to spend time doing. Then again, I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement. Sorry for rambling its been a long day.

sabotai · 03-03-2003, 07:27 PM

Oh, I guess I just assumed you meant sound not text.

My bad.

kcchief19 · 03-03-2003, 09:37 PM

I think OOTP does a pretty good job with PBP text, but there are two things that I think drastically hinder the quality of PBP text in sims:

1) D#$N typos! Give me a couple of hours with the text files in OOTP and we'd have that thing singing!

2) Variety of text. There are a lot of ways to say that a guy grounded to second. Most games seem to have about five different ways to say that, which means that after a couple of games, you have seen almost all the text there is. Multiply that by a factor of 10 and you got something.

The drawback is speed. I don't know how OOTP stores the text for PBP, but if you add variety, you're going to make the files huge and it will probably affect sim speed, even if it is just text. Text can add up. My Web server outputs statistics logs that are all text and during a busy month it can get up to 40MB.

Airhog · 03-03-2003, 09:58 PM

well you could always compress the data. Text compresses pretty well. Even better if it was an option to go with full text. I think most people can spare 200mb of space. But then again, if you play a game long enough you will get bored with the PBP. So it really comes down to an issue of time and money for the developer.

BishopMVP · 03-03-2003, 10:42 PM

You could have one city with the Jerry Coleman option. "It's a long fly ball to left, wait, no, a grounder to second."

03-03-2003, 06:34 PM	#2
sabotai General Manager Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The Satellite of Love	"You could load up their local announcer and "listen" to the game from the other team's perspective. " There's two ways to do this, that I know of. 1) Have the play-by-play prerecorded and played back. This is how every game has done it since the beginning of time. You record all the possible play by play by the announcers and then include the sound files on the CD. This is would obviously be out o fthe question in you suggestion, unless you can get every announcer in the entire country to come into a studio, record all possible play-by-play lines and then distribute them with your game, also unrealistic due to size. 2) Have the program look at the word and decide how to pronounce the word and then feed that sound through a voice filter. This is how we could do this in you suggestion. The problem is how do you obtain the "voice"? I have no expertise in this are at all. I know Shaun Sullivan has experimented with this technology (for those who have XP). When simming all games, a voice comes on and announces the score of you game. I can see how this could be implemented for play-by-play. But we come back to the "voice". So far, that I have seen, there is only 1 voice, and that's of a really computerized male voice. Sounds like something out of the 1980's. So the real trick to doing this is how you capture someone's voice. Also, the voice is slow and doesn't pronounce the word fluidly. Not to mention, this is only available in XP. Not everyone has XP, so this feature would only to appeal to those people. Last edited by sabotai : 03-03-2003 at 06:35 PM.

03-03-2003, 06:45 PM	#3
HornedFrog Purple Hattrick Moderator Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Fort Worthless, Tx	Oops that should not have said sound files, I really meant just text files. Sound files are a long way away. I messed up. What I meant was like taking the text files or text of the game engine play-by-play and customizing the events according to a local flavor or whatever. If you allow the user to do this to events, it would add an element that is lacking I think. There are a lot of sports fans who would like to be "behind the mic" and since that is not practical this would be the next best thing. __________________ King of All FOFC Media!!! IHOF: Fort Worthless Fury- 2004 AOC Deep South Champions (not acknowledged via conspiracy)

03-03-2003, 09:58 PM	#7
Airhog Captain Obvious Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Norman, Oklahoma	well you could always compress the data. Text compresses pretty well. Even better if it was an option to go with full text. I think most people can spare 200mb of space. But then again, if you play a game long enough you will get bored with the PBP. So it really comes down to an issue of time and money for the developer. __________________ Thread Killer extraordinaire Yay! its football season once again!

03-03-2003, 07:27 PM	#5
sabotai General Manager Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The Satellite of Love	Oh, I guess I just assumed you meant sound not text. My bad.

03-03-2003, 09:37 PM	#6
kcchief19 Pro Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Kansas City, MO	I think OOTP does a pretty good job with PBP text, but there are two things that I think drastically hinder the quality of PBP text in sims: 1) D#$N typos! Give me a couple of hours with the text files in OOTP and we'd have that thing singing! 2) Variety of text. There are a lot of ways to say that a guy grounded to second. Most games seem to have about five different ways to say that, which means that after a couple of games, you have seen almost all the text there is. Multiply that by a factor of 10 and you got something. The drawback is speed. I don't know how OOTP stores the text for PBP, but if you add variety, you're going to make the files huge and it will probably affect sim speed, even if it is just text. Text can add up. My Web server outputs statistics logs that are all text and during a busy month it can get up to 40MB.

03-03-2003, 10:42 PM	#8
BishopMVP Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Concord, MA/UMass	You could have one city with the Jerry Coleman option. "It's a long fly ball to left, wait, no, a grounder to second."

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