MLB Online Manager (First Impressions) - vaughn99's Blog

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MLB Online Manager (First Impressions)

Posted on January 7, 2011 at 04:04 PM.

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Did my best to select a screen without introducing any � problems.

Ok, hard to believe I can't find much on OS about this, so I guess I'll go ahead and write up my impressions. Leave me questions in comments if you'd like and I'll do my best to get to them.

Ease of Log-In: A
I signed up for the BETA a while ago, and pretty much forgot about it. Got a nice email today reminding me, and that I had been accepted. Easy link to the log-in screen, and ease of cut and paste for user ID and password. The usual requests weren't neccesary, since I'd already given them when I signed up for the beta, which was nice, so was quick and painless.

Team Creation: B-
Basically only get to choose the capital city of your state of choice, but not a whole lot to do with what you're doing from what I saw. Team names up to 24 characters with a space, so "Nude Taynes" should be good to go, Paul Rudd.

Uniforms and logos are certainly not as slick as NCAA, but not as bad as some others we've seen. Of course the typical east coast biases are there in logos as well . . . but was nice that after naming the team, the AI weeds out the letters you don't need. So not a lot of choices for logos and colors, but enough to get rolling.

Ease of Startup: B+
There's a nice flash animation that tells you "do this next" pretty much for the first 10 or so steps you need to create your roster. Each one is treated as a "mission" and you not only benefit from doing it (for instance one mission was to buy training cards and then use them to increase a player's attributes), but you get rewarded with "money back" for completing tasks.

Rosters: A
I'm giving this an A, not because I got awesome players, but because I received a full team of players I don't hate. Upon log-in you build your team with an emphasis in a category like power pitching or hitting or athleticism or whatnot and then they select you a starter set based on those choices and your listed favorite team. Players' values are a pretty standard 1 (lowest skill RP) to 10 (Tim Lincicum, etc). It seems only pitchers can have a "1" value though, and position players have a "2" as a floor. Not a big deal. Anyone who's played the ever-increasingly popular EA ultimate teams will know what to do and how to do it and will have put together a decent team within a few packs of player cards and training boosts.

Roster Management / Upkeep: B+
You carry a typical 24 man roster, plus your complete pool of players you can swap in and out from your additional cards you purchase. Nice "real time" status on your points avail/spent and you know the rest. Compare players' stats and attributes, all that. Pretty clean and easy. Only weird thing is any movement reflecting changes on your rotation are severly handicapped. You cannot change the order of your rotation, and removing a "SP" from the rotation to your bench or relief carries a 48 hour "stop" on the player's use. Not 2 "in game" days, but 48 real hours. Don't think I care that much to check back for when Frank Hermann becomes available to plug back into middle relief.

Trades: C+
You're allowed 2 "world" trades, in a pretty nice format. You outline 3 players in order of preference you want and 3 players in order of preference you'd be willing to give up for them. Player values and contracts (currently all set to "2" in the beta) must match. It happens in the background and if the system finds you a match, you get a notification the trade was executed. Oddly enough, I put A-Rod on the block asking for Colby Rasmus, Matt Kemp, or Jason Heyward in return and haven't gotten a bite. But I immediately got a match for Chad Qualls for Carlos Santana. Weird. As nice as the system is, I still think 2 is too low a number when the AI builds your start-up team, not you.

Game Realism: C
It sims nicely, but the "not as good" players (especially pitchers) are bad, and the marginal ones are even worse. You can easily boost your "average" guys into awesomeness, while the real life studs wallow.

Overall: A
It's no Football Manager, or NFL Head Coach, but is a nice time-passer at work, and it seems like that's the market they've aimed for. I love baseball, love fantasy sports, and love my hometown team (Cleveland Indians), and I assume most of the players out there getting into this are in the same boat as I am.

I do not have any inside information, nor did I request nor was I granted any access to the game outside of participation in the beta. I will take this down upon request.