Out of Bounds: The Old, Old, Ballgame.

[RaychelSnr]

Nobody seems to care about baseball right now. There's just too much going on. Foreigners have been kicking a ball around and three exceptionally talented basketball players decided to have an extended slumber party in South Beach and dance and pose awkwardly in front of smoke and lasers.

You can't blame people for their apathy though. The baseball season is a slog of a journey through months and months of occasionally meaningless marathon games.

With the All-Star game approaching the spotlight will fall once again, if only briefly, on the national pastime. We'll all tune in this week and pretend the Home Run Derby isn't an incessantly repetitive affair and then to the big game itself, a disjointed, artificially pumped-up exhibition where our favorite players are only on the field for an inning or two.

It's about this time of the year where I fire up my baseball franchise on my game and try and get my interest back. The baseball games we've got right now go a long way in trying to replicate the sport, but they do come up short on occasion. What I need in future endeavors is a closer eye on detail and development and an effort in increasing gamers' enjoyment. While I am not a game designer, or even a professional baseball player in my own right, I do have some suggestions on where we can go from here.

Read More - Out of Bounds: The Old, Old, Ballgame.

[stlstudios189]

I agree with most of this but, I still get into baseball the entire season.

[HustlinOwl]

Quote:

1. Let's Clear Up Some Screen Space Am I the only one who's tired of playing a game where it seems like I'm walking around a rave as opposed to a ball field? We've gotten to an embarrassing point of excess in recent years where every inch of the screen is covered in one diagram or hint or direction or another. I want a clean space where I can visualize myself being on the field. After all, when Ubaldo Jiminez gets on the mound and prepares to embarrass outmatched batters, is his vision filled with directions on how to throw a two-seamer or a slurve? Which brings me to my next point -

Play, MLB 10 the Show and turn off visual aids, problem solved.

Quote:

2. For the Love of All that is Good, Can We Please Simplify Controls? Here's an interesting thought: for a long, long time now we've been playing baseball on gaming consoles. I remember spending hours beating the hell out of my younger cousin on the pitiful Atari game Baseball. The Atari, amazingly had one button. One! Imagine that! Flash forward twenty years and I'm playing season after season on World Series Baseball 2004. My Cubs finally win a World Series and I land an awesome girlfriend in the same year. Flash forward a bit more and we're fighting because I can't stop playing the game and/or thinking about an upcoming series with the lowly Pirates. And the controls? Surprisingly simple. Last night I played a game on MLB 2K10. One game. And do you know why? Because it is impossible to do anything effectively on that game without at least a Master's degree in engineering. Try and steal a base on that game. I dare you. Additionally, fielding is awful in every regard. There's no spontaneity involved anymore. Either your fielder is on rails and makes great plays automatically or you're giving up multiple triples a game because you're missing routine fly balls. There has to be some kind of improvement here. When I was eight years old I played the hell out of a game called Baseball Stars and the fielding on there was intuitive and easy. Same for Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball or the aforementioned World Series game. Shouldn't we be evolving, or was Darwin just some bearded liar?

Auto-fielding, dont know how difficult you want it to be. Routine plays should be exactly that routing, this is after all the big leagues.

[idesign2]

Great post. I agree with all of it. I play The Show more than every other game, but each year I lose interest after about a month of playing.

For several years baseball games have been missing that extra "something" that compels me to play the game each day. Like you I'm no expert, but I think games need to make a bigger push toward immersion into our various leagues and dynasties. Although I haven't played it yet, I'm intrigued by the web management tools included this year with NCAA 11. I'd love to see The Show take that idea and run with it.

[TheShowRocks]

i dont lose interest, the game is still better and deeper then any other sports game on the market.

After saying that, it does need some changes, I agree with the fielding, needs an overhaul. I also think pitching needs some innovation. The commentary and presentation also need to be changed IMO.

Having a phone and talking to other GM;s, and maybe some drama and interaction with other teams front offices could add a lot more immersion and realism to the show. Having some harsh words in the media and seeing it on the paper before a big series between rivals could add some spice.

[bhurst99]

I don't know if the MLBPA would allow players to chirp off to the media, get in heated arguments with the coach, that kind of thing (although I do recall a bit of this in MLB 2K7 in the newspaper stories). I'm not sure the time spent building that kind of a thing would be the best use of a developer's time.

If you think the controls are difficult now wait until we have to motion control players movements. Yikes.

I'm not sure what you can do about feeling detached from other teams/results in a dynasty. I'd like to see a once a week highlight package from around the league like College Hoops 2K8 or ESPN 2k5 but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

[TheShowRocks]

Quote: Originally Posted by bhurst99

I don't know if the MLBPA would allow players to chirp off to the media, get in heated arguments with the coach, that kind of thing (although I do recall a bit of this in MLB 2K7 in the newspaper stories). I'm not sure the time spent building that kind of a thing would be the best use of a developer's time. If you think the controls are difficult now wait until we have to motion control players movements. Yikes. I'm not sure what you can do about feeling detached from other teams/results in a dynasty. I'd like to see a once a week highlight package from around the league like College Hoops 2K8 or ESPN 2k5 but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

Disagree, there is a point where the game play is already stellar, why change it too much if it works great? Change for the sake of change is not good either. Adding things like weekly papers, e-mails from other teams, some rivalry stuff, more interaction with the league can go a long way to immersing you and connecting you your virtual league.

RTTS is really lacking, why can't I demand a better salary or sit out? Complain more? etc... RTS is really designed for this.

For franchise having more interaction, and headlines and communication could really bring dynasty to another level.

[onlybygrace]

I know that MLB 2K10 is not the choice of most gamers who have a PS3 at their disposal, but let me say this: MLB 2K10's presentation is top notch, compared to what we've seen so far and post-patch, plays a pretty solid game of baseball.

Every game, during dynasty, you are shown the standing for each team as well as where they are ranked in several statistical cataglories. Also, each player has split stats shown during their at bats. For example, if Pujols is hitting .345 with 4 homeruns and 12 RBI's over the last two weeks, it will be displayed before his at-bat. Thats just one example as there are splits over the last 3 games, 4 games, 5 games...etc ad nauseum.

On top of that there are headlines in the franchise menu which are tagged to the boxscore of the referenced game. For example, if the headline is "Wainwright fans 11 in Cards Loss", you simply highlight, hit A and you see the boxscore.

I really agree, however, when it comes to the controls on some of these games. Baserunning, for example, is really tricky when you've got multiple runners on base. I wish I had a dollar for every time I accidentally sent a runner back to 2nd when a runner was already headed toward 2nd from 1st.

Ugh. Rally killers.