OOTP 11

[Lintyfresh85]

Also... is there any way to turn off the draft stuff?

I like our simple draft. I'd hate to see teams not get a stud because they didn't have the money.

[Andrew]

Also... is there any way to turn off the draft stuff?

I like our simple draft. I'd hate to see teams not get a stud because they didn't have the money.

I think the signing bonuses piece is optional. Implementing it with out current financials would be a disaster.

I really like this piece though:

Also, when feeder leagues are used, undrafted/unsigned high school players may go to college and continue playing!

[Andrew]

What does this mean:

Improved immersion factor, including better modeled player personalities and a brand new "storyline engine" - imagine unfolding stories which can influence your players in a variety of ways and which drawn you further into your virtual baseball universe! The stories are completely customizable via XML.

Here's the best info I could find on it:

I think this feature hasn't gotten a ton of press, because there isn't a lot of content in the game yet, so you'll only see these storylines rarely in the release build. So it won't, at first, be a very noticeable feature. It is, however, very customizable, so when the beta team or the community adds content, this could be a very interesting part of the game. It is, of course, optional, so if it doesn't sound appealing to you, you can turn it off.

I wasn't able to follow the exact details of the implementation (I think someone else will chime in on that), but the rough idea is this:

* The game contains a database of 'storylines'. These might be simple one-offs (player shows up late for practice and is benched for the day, or player organizes charity event in the community) or can be running narratives (player involved in altercation at local bar, player misses court date, player sentenced to three days in jail, or whatever). The running narratives can have a tree structure, so what kq76 suggests above should be possible: when a story is triggered, there could be different ways for that story to continue.

* Each storyline has triggers and conditions. Some storylines could happen at any time, while others can be triggered by game events or at particular times of the season. Each story can also be conditioned, so if you only want a story to happen to a player with bad personality ratings, for example, that's possible. I don't know precisely which triggers and conditions were coded for the release build. There is a frequency condition as well so that one can control how often each story is likely to appear - most are very rare, of course. Finally, storylines can trigger in-game results, so a storyline might trigger a suspension, an injury, and possibly all kinds of other things - we had been talking about all sorts of possibilities, ranging from Morale or popularity changes to (in presumably very rare cases) ratings changes. I don't know just what results were coded for the release.



So the idea was to make the underlying architecture very flexible, to allow modders to create a huge variety of narratives. The only limitations are the triggers, conditions and game results that are coded, and of course these could be expanded over time as we discover new ones that would be useful. Discussing this feature in beta, we had a huge variety of ideas for what types of stories might be generated: stories about dissatisfied players, clubhouse altercations, players taking on community roles, even players defecting from Cuba. I don't know how many of these are possible at the moment, so I'll let someone who knows more about the implementation as it stands outline a few of these.

[Lintyfresh85]

That storyline stuff sounds like something we'd drop after a year... like suspensions that got way out of hand.

[Carlos]

See, if I knew that suspensions were more tied in to guys with bad attitudes then I'd be accepting of it.

The issue with suspensions, however, is the length. They weren't realistic.

The storylines seems to give the league more control of how this stuff happens. I'm open to that. It would add more to the process of signing that great player with a bad personality. Is it worth it? Is he Milton Bradley or Todd Helton? I like that dynamic.

[Matt]

Got this yesterday. I'm going to run a season week by week and update the thread if anything cool jumps out.

[Ryan]

Got this yesterday. I'm going to run a season week by week and update the thread if anything cool jumps out.

Looking forward to it Matt.

I need to get this. Any deals still going on?

[Matt]

No...like a fool I didn't preorder and paid the $39. Where's the good old days when text sims were $20.

In all fairness it's probably the deepest text sim ever created.

[Ryan]

Oh, no doubt. Worth every penny.

[Matt]

Well I just started up a MLB type league with fictional players and AAA, AA, A, and College and HS feeder leagues. I'm starting out with the Texas Rangers.

Likes:

- Game looks sharp.
- Load up speeds seem faster
- Creating a league is very easy

[Matt]

So far I've simmed up to Opening Day.

I have injuries on Normal and there have been a ton. One thing that is interesting though is there is a new category under Status which is Injury History. I've seen Durable, Normal, and Fragile. Would have been useful for that pitcher Batavia just traded for.

One that I don't like is the main screen. Either I can't find it or it's gone. There is no more main screen with Import/Export, Waiver Wire, Sign a FA, Available Coaches, etc...

What I see is a screen that says Matt G Home. It then gives me a little paragraph with links that I can click for news/standings/stats/top prospects/and on and on. I do like the right side of the screen though that has all my Team Leaders and Top Prospects for my organization with their current stats.

[Matt]

Got to the draft...very cool. The signing bonuses and player information are very nice.

The Status bar is:

Health
Injury History (Durable, Normal, Fragile)
Draft Bonus Demand (Slot or $$$ amount)
Eliglble From (College, HS)
School
Competition Level
Sign-ability for Texas (my team)

After that you negotiate with your players. When you draft them you can either Draft or Draft and Slot...which offers them what they want basically (from my understanding). I now have 2 months to sign them or they re-enter the draft and I get a comp pick next season.

[spot]

The slot isn't necessarily what they want but what a player drafted in that spot is "worth". Some players are willing to sign for the slot price, but you can see that in their demands.

FYI: The signability feature is not actually based on weather or not you can sign the player (ala JD Drew with the Phillies) but rather how much flexibility there is in the negotiation. If it is "very difficult" to sign a player then you won't have many chances to low ball before he breaks off negotiations.

[Lintyfresh85]

So far I've simmed up to Opening Day.

I have injuries on Normal and there have been a ton. One thing that is interesting though is there is a new category under Status which is Injury History. I've seen Durable, Normal, and Fragile. Would have been useful for that pitcher Batavia just traded for.

I read on the OOTP forums that injuries are too high on normal levels and that they need to be set to low or whatever other setting that is. Maybe it was just a couple people bitching... but I'm positive I saw that.

Also, like all the added info... just hate the idea of signing bonuses for draft picks... I hope you can turn that off.

[Matt]

Yes you can turn off signing bonuses. After Spring Training the injuries weren't that bad...at least for season one. I finished last night and had a handful but nothing I thought was out of control.