OS MLB 09 Pt 7 Impressions - rudyjuly2's Blog

rudyjuly2's Blog

OS MLB 09 Pt 7 Impressions

Posted on February 2, 2009 at 11:51 AM.

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Part 7 now! Updated as of Monday, 3:40 pm EST. Check blog for part 8 (last one I will do most likely).

Community Leader Answers Only

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Pared (#1240 on sliders working and a ton of other stuff)

I think they all worked well. Jim and Nem both messed with them.

As far as the catcher calling the game - unbelievably awesome. The only thing I did NOT like (very minor) is the catcher would heavily rely on the fastball early on in the game no matter the pitcher. As the game went on you saw a lot more off-speed stuff. You could see the fingers very clearly.

The Pitcher cam got some work while the Outfield cam looks as great as ever.

BTW, Joe, it's obvious what game you're excited for but I addressed your complaint from last year where "Zambrano doesn't hold his glove high enough" with the man in charge. So that's one less complaint you can have this year.

As far as stances, reading the constant negative comments must be tiring for the devs. Some of you haven't even seen them and you're still lamenting what was in '08. I saw a very good handful of new stances (I've already raved about Span; again, looked absolutely incredible) and pitching motions. Nem. Beat me to Cheeseburger Cheeseburger Sabathia... Hamels, Santana, Rollins, Youkilis... I saw enough that made you say "wow that's a new stance." They were extremely well done. As far as accuracy, they were accurate enough for me but I'm sure guys will find gripes, much like the Pujols stance comments made previously. I understand your sentiments, though, as I had a minor gripe about Wright (since he was correct before HE did his actual mo-cap, funny enough) and got that fixed.

Now, the bad news about it. This doesn't bother ME... but I will go as far as to say the stances are so well done and animated that some of the players that DON'T have drastic movements look a little stale. SCEA is obviously stepping up their game with the new ones... and that's making the older ones look drastically... well, old. The Mets did not have updated stances and it was tough playing as them since I was seeing so much joy and goodness out of the new ones. I understand "no one that made the trip cares anything about battings stances" or however you want to put it, but the new stances made me a believer, as I wanted to keep playing different teams to keep seeing new ones. Legend mode held me back from doing that though. Blame the SCEA guys. I even tapped out one game (with the impending photo proof on the way).

I honestly don't think it will make any raving batting stance fan completely satisfied but IMHO it's a huge leap in the right direction.

On a side note, I had never noticed the amount of work necessary to get the stances 100% correct. Guys can sit there and make requests with little to no effort... but the amount of work that was going into each and every stance gave me a newly found sense of appreciation for everything these guys do. Even if you're not happy with a certain stance/routine/whatever, if you guys want them addressed, I would say do it in a respectful manner with the accompanying photo/video proof. The reference material certainly helps as it makes the job on SCEA easier and you guys get what you want. Win-win.

As for the bubble-gum chewing... it was so cool to see that. Really brought a smile to my face. The amount of things in this game is just mind boggling.

I think Knight was the only one to mention the light tech demo. Amazing. I was actually able to follow what we were being told but it just cemented my belief that anyone who says the 360 is "more powerful" has no idea what they are talking about. Seems like both systems work differently and it's obvious SCEA is spending enough time with the Sony architecture to tap into the power that is there.

The other guys have covered so much I feel like I don't even need to add anything else.

Pared (#1241)
You honestly do not need any "major set" of sliders this year.

Difficult to believe, as there are always guys that will want a "major overhaul" of sliders... but the game out of the box is simply incredible. I felt like I was playing baseball, not a baseball video game.

Nemesis (#1242 on slider changes)
Some are subtle and some have more bite by design. They appeared to all be functioning in some capacity. To be honest fixing the fielder routes to the ball totally fixes the problem we had of trying to slow the cpu fielders down to generate extra base hits.

Brian worked are on cleaning up sliders and getting rid of everything that did not work or was conflicting.

Pared (#1244)
Quote:
Originally Posted by nemesis04
To be honest fixing the fielder routes to the ball totally fixes the problem we had of trying to slow the cpu fielders down to generate extra base hits.

I can't echo this enough! I remember discussing this with Brian way back when but had no idea they would implement it. Completely floored how it all turned out!

Pared (#1253 on gameplay cameras)
I honestly could not tell if they were slightly tweaked or the lighting just made everything look THAT much better, unfortunately.

Knight (#1254)
Like Pared just said.
The lighting almost adds another dimension to the game. It's very hard to explain....but in my mind(and I did pop in '08 last night to see something).....after seeing '09...'08 looks a little "flat".
There seems to be a new depth of field when playing '09.
I hope I'm explaining it correctly....but it made everything look a little different.(in a GOOD way!

)

Nemesis (#1256 on the gameplay cameras)
To me the default fielding cam looked to be pulled back a little more because the players looked a tad smaller from the depth of the camera. It could have been the lighting playing tricks with me but I felt like the viewing field was increased a little.

Jim (#1258)
Knight said 08 looks flat, he's right. The lighting added depth to everything. When you see the batter in front of the catcher, in front of the ump, in front of the crowd, there is more separation between them.

Nemesis (#1263 on when they will publish pictures)
It is not up to us. Ramone said possibly some time today.

Jim (#1288)
I took screens, standby. Hopefully today.

Nemesis (#1267)
Quote:
Originally Posted by green94
Ok, we had a discussion about this in another thread a while back, I was basically saying that night games looked blah compared to day games. Is this still the case? Has the lighting at night been improved at all?

There is definitely improvement in this area. Also, that waxy glow that the players had seems to be toned down a lot.

Pared (#1272 on base stealing)
It still seemed tough to throw out a runner but there was certainly a difference between fast guys and slow guys.

Nemesis (#1277 on base stealing)
As Pared mentioned there is good variation between slow and fast runners. When Posada was running the bases for example, it looked like he was pulling a piano behind him. What seems to make throw outs tough is the varied throws down to second. The were either bounced, left or right of the bag, or over their head into the outfield.

On another note, I was playing Ramone and I was able to pick a runner off at first with a snap throw from the catcher. Good stuff!

Knight (#1283)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tgreer
Sorry guys ift his has been answered. I didn't see it anywhere. On one of the pics sent out by SCEA it appears the Cards had their own newspaper in franchise? Is this true of all teams? Thanks

Well for your team you get 3 newspapers. 1 for each level of your team.....then you get a league wide newspaper also.

Jim (#1284 on cheers/jeers)
Quote:
Originally Posted by JermaineDye05
Just out of curiosity, can you say anything in the chants? I mean I'm not too vulgar but I think it would be funny to have some very explicit jeers for other players like Nick Punto...

The vulgar chants have to be approved by thos g#d d#$$Ed m#()$(@)er sons of #@$@$ at SCEA, unfortunately.

Unless you've got the chant police in your house I think you're good to go, lol. I don't think they have a vulgarity blocker, but the way these guys covered everything else, guess it would have to be confirmed. And be nice to Nick....he has a mom, too.

Nemesis (#1289 on Turner Field)
I am not a Braves fan but it looked okay to me. You guys describe it as if you were playing in a sandlot by mentioning how bad it looks. Jim took a pic of the field hopefully they will show it for critiquing.

UPDATED MONDAY 3:10 PM

Jim (#1310)
Quote:
Originally Posted by brunnoce
i think someone said chants will be attached to the rosters somehow?

Correct. If you have a roster you are going to use for your franchise and put the chants/jeers/etc. in, they will be in that roster only. If you do the weekly updates, for example, add the chants, but download a new weekly update the chants will not be assigned to the new one.

Jim (#1316)
I played an entire game against Nem using the A's. Had Gio Gonzalez pitching. I can't answer the question about Chavez other than it looked like him.
Jim (#1322 on Gio pitching)
I lost. But, that's not new. You will like pitching. You will like striking out. All feels so different this year.

Pared (#1317)
I also played against the A's and couldn't focus on the players. The stadium was absolutely stunning. Breath-taking. Looked so damn beautiful.
And you could play there at night too without the game freezing!

Nemesis (#1323 on if you can break up double plays/collision detection)
No collision, dp's cannot be broken up.

Pared (#1326 elaboration on no breaking up double plays)
The positive thing about this is we had a nice long discussion about it. They know how we feel.

And you guys obviously know what has come of the game when we make our feelings known...

Knight, Pared, Nemesis (#1331 - #1333 on the fact that some double plays can be broken up due to canned animations)
Knight - Yes.....there are animations to deal with it.....and they even added some more.

Pared - It's just very, very canned if it even happens. You can see the player slide, you can see the fielder move to avoid it, you can even see him jump or fall out of the way.... but none of it feels interactive. Very much like the pick-offs.

Trust me; There was plenty of creative juices flowing at the event. Pick-offs alone... I'm excited about the possibilities for '10.

Nemesis - The only animation is the one where the fielder loses the exchange from his glove. Otherwise they get the throw off.

Nemesis (#1344 on collision detection)
To add to this, they know we need some sort of collision but for the most part baseball is not a high contact sport where you are constantly smashing into one another. There are areas where it is warranted. With that said, they would want to have the animations support the contact which I would assume would take serious work. You guys would not want to see two players making contact and bouncing off one another like repelling magnets. It needs to be implemented properly so it is believable!

Jim (#1346 on Nemesis' comments on collision detection)
To add to this, and I know I touched on it several thousand pages back the ball hitting the wall, the ball hitting a player, the players running into players ARE collision detection, but have nothing to do with one another from a programming perspective.

Knight (#1337 on Lefty Throwing Glitch)
Just got the word on the glitch in the editor about not being able to change a left handed throwing player....especially a 1B...to a different position because going past either C or the other infield positions would change his throwing hand to righty and we couldn't change that.
FIXED!

You will now be able to change the throwing hand of any player in the editor...including MLB guys.(I'm guessing as long as you don't put one of his positions to C-2B-SS-3B and leave it there...then it will be greyed out)
SCEA delivers again!

Jim (#1342 on whether infielders botch/don't try for balls near them)
If you're talking about running your infielder towards a ball (just not standing still because I never saw this in 08), then it's been fixed. Here's what I saw.

I started by SS in the hole and hit dive. Suprisingly he didn't dive, he bent over/stretched out to field the ball. If I understood correctly the AI has something to do with whether or not it will go into a dive, or close enough to go into a stretch animation. But, yes, the fielder is going to stretch and make an attempt to get the ball. I did see him stretch and NOT get the ball, but at least it wasn't that same STAND UPRIGHT while the ball is going by.
Jim (elaboration on above point in #1345)
If Pastapadre said it hasn't been fixed....I dunno. I saw something different. Now if the ball is too far for him to dive/stretch, maybe that's what he saw, but I saw this same thing I"m talking about several times.

Pared (#1347)
Did anyone mention how the pitchers can actually field this year? Someone had their pitcher make a gorgeous no-look grab with their glove hand... and I saw Santana fielding most of the stuff that comes his way!

Of course, balls still got by into the outfield... but it's a leap over last year.

Updated 3:40 pm

Jim (#1348 on pitchers fielding the ball behind his back)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pared
Did anyone mention how the pitchers can actually field this year? Someone had their pitcher make a gorgeous no-look grab with their glove hand... and I saw Santana fielding most of the stuff that comes his way!
Of course, balls still got by into the outfield... but it's a leap over last year.

Pared.....I took a screen of Kevin Gregg doing this. After I cleaned up the mess in my pants. He fielded the ball BEHIND HIS BACK.

Jim (#1351 on not seeing the infielder ignore a ball within reach)
Don't know what to tell you. I didn't see it, is all I can say. Nem and I sat side by side playing and were even commenting on it.

Nemesis (#1353 on not seeing the fielding issue in '09 while Pasta said it's there)
I am not agreeing with that comment.

Last year many complained that when they took a right angle approach to the ball it would go by them without the fielder making any attempt.

In 09:
If you try this same approach there is an animation to support reaching for the ball but it is not a lock that you will field it if your approach to the ball is off. It will continue out to the outfield. So in summary they will reach for it but based on the player ability, sometimes he will get it and sometimes he will not, especially if you make that hard right angle approach to the ball.

Pared (#1357 - disagrees with Pasta as well on the fielding error still being there in '09)
I have to disagree with that comment as well. I did not see that at all.

Here's the thing though: With such a short amount of time, this could have been the cause of user error on his part... or we just didn't play enough to see it. Does that make any sense?

We just don't know. There was not enough time spent with the game on anyone's part to say for a definitive answer that "so and so needs work." I know I've made my comments about needing more errors... and I stand by it... but perhaps if I played 10 more games I wouldn't feel that way.

There is just too small of a sample size to make those comments without hesitation on anyone's part.

Jim (#1358 - same fielding topic)
I sat and talked to Kolbe about this, same as with the first baseman now deciding if he needs to run to the bag or throw it to the pitcher covering. Part of the AI this year