OOTP 24

[scooter]

...is now out. I pre-paid, so I'll be getting a copy, though I don't have one yet. Not a lot of serious new features, but several tweaks to improve existing ones, such as improvements to the contract negotiation process. They've also given the coaches more to do. Will post their trailer later...

[scooter]

Hooboy. Now that I've had a chance to play it...well, there are some problems. Specifically, at a time where international baseball is having its greatest popularity, they've taken the international leagues out of the game. Seems they were about to get sued by Nippon Pro Baseball (Konami bought their license) for using their "property", and the makers of OOTP panicked. They were even forced to release a "patch" that scrambles any Japanese league content in the game, and they're preventing modders from even discussing it on their forums.

I gather the others were removed for similar reasons, except for the Korean league, which they definitely have a license for.

[scooter]

Hooboy. Now that I've had a chance to play it...well, there are some problems. Specifically, at a time where international baseball is having its greatest popularity, they've taken the international leagues out of the game. Seems they were about to get sued by Nippon Pro Baseball (Konami bought their license) for using their "property", and the makers of OOTP panicked. They were even forced to release a "patch" that scrambles any Japanese league content in the game, and they're preventing modders from even discussing it on their forums.

I gather the others were removed for similar reasons, except for the Korean league, which they definitely have a license for.

Yeah, this is bad. They've literally removed any player that isn't in MLB, KBO, or an associated minor league. All the Japanese players, Mexicans, Dutch, Italians, French, Dutch...hell, the Cubans are gone. There aren't enough players to actually play the World Baseball Classic.

The mod community is extensive, and they might be able to fix this. Of course, at that point, it's basically a fan-curated game, if not created...

Given that OOTP is running scared from the legal threats, I'm going to open up some discussion with some mods and see if they're willing to come here to The Boardwalk and discuss mods here. I've made no legal agreements with anyone.

[scooter]

Another possible problem is the trading AI, which is getting a lot of flack on The Series of Tubes. Too many trades, too many top prospects changing hands, too little return for some of those prospects, with middling relief pitchers getting cited as typical return fodder for giving up top-shelf guys.

Pat Holden (local guy, btw) has a new video out on some possible fixes.



It should be noted that Pat is really good at this, and I think he's on the money...but a related question is, are we approaching diminishing returns? Sure, if the trade AI was wonky, that would ordinarily be an issue, but a fairly minor one - it's been noted that some settings for the out-of-the-box game have been off in past years, but there are settings which can be wibbled to make things work, just like now. Put that on top of the international league problem, and the break-your-saves-because-our-lawyers-are-scared problem, and we may be dealing with something too wonky to play. And even if it is technically fixable, should we be paying the same amount of money for it as a result?