Play ball! Out of the Park Baseball 23!

Games
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Out of the Park Developments has just announced OOTP 23, to release on April 22. Pre-orders are available on their website for a 10% discount. Likewise, there will be a 10% launch discount on Steam. Pre-ordering on the OOTP site gets you the game 3 days early, I think. There’s not much info on new features yet. The first post in this thread has a road-to-release schedule.

There’s also a podcast with a little more info, but apparently it doesn’t mention anything other than new tutorials and some unspecified updates to Perfect Team.

I’d like to see more about new features before I buy this year’s edition, but knowing me, I probably will.

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I love what OOTP is, but find it hard to get excited for this year. Something something owners, something something cheapass Cubs

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As I barley played the one from last year there’s no way I can justify this one. I just never get into it like I could with football manager.

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I’ve played this solo off and on a lot over the years. I think my main complaint is there isn’t enough differentiation between the players with the ratings that are used. The just don’t feel that different to me. Well, I mean good players feel different than bad players, etc… but they don’t feel like how I remember players because the game doesn’t capture certain qualities.

Their system may be more realistic than what bounces around in my head because they only model things that can be proven statistically. I think if sometimes they added things because it was ‘more fun’, like a clutch batter, I would enjoy the game more. If someone is hot or cold it is just due to luck (or an injury).

When I play I need to either hide some ratings to I go by their performance more, or at least turn the ratings down to 1-8 or something so I can tell exactly what players are rated.

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I agree that players could use more personality. They do have various traits, and those do affect various game functions, but I don’t remember them affecting actual games that often. Maybe they do and I just don’t notice?

Also, I’m not feeling any big new exciting feature this year. “More” is the theme of that trailer — improvements, more stuff, more tutorials, etc. That’s all great, but I dunno if it will pump up the player base or attract new gamers. Still, I’m curious to see the improvements to the PT auction house, and I love baseball, so I’ll probably cave and buy it anyway.

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If this existed when I enthusiastically followed the Yankees from around 1975 to 1987 I would have cried tears of joy. I haven’t watched baseball much since then - occasionally a couple innings of the playoffs or something. Not sure why I lost interest, but I did. I think a lot of it was the amount of time watching baseball took. I am limited to watching the Cowboys and UFC fight, and the UFC fights I do mostly when I’m exercising or eating so I don’t feel it takes up a lot of time.

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I burned myself out on Perfect Team last year, so I don’t know if I will bother with this edition.

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19 is my current version. I became very anti-baseball last year after the All Star Game out of Atlanta fiasco.

Don’t know if I’ll return to fantasy baseball or not.

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And just curious, what specifically was the issue you had with it?

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I didn’t like the way MLB tried to force the duly elected representatives of Georgia to change their new voting law, which was actually less restrictive than several other states. MLB should stay out of politics. I was so unhappy with them that I didn’t watch a single minute of baseball last season. I probably won’t this year either.

On the other hand, fantasy baseball may still get played!

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Boughtened.

I’m in a long running online league that upgrades with each new version. I absolutely get $40 worth of enjoyment out of it each year just from that league alone.

I don’t touch Perfect Team. We play real fake baseball - not that fake fake baseball!

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What sort of league is it? Do you have a league website?

The most fun I ever had with OOTP was in a historical league that started in 1876 or thereabouts. I had the Chicago White Stockings, who later became the Cubs. We played a number of seasons, and I came close but never won, in true Cubs fashion. Then the commish poofed.

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The Monty Brewster Baseball Association, named for the Richard Pryor character in Brewster’s Millions.
http://montybrewster.net/
A lot of fun. We chat on Discord, contribute team news write-ups and other features, have some podcasts on occasion. They’re always looking for new GMs to join!

My team is the Chicago Black Sox. We’re mired in sixth place in the division, and it’s time for a rebuild.

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Wow, that’s a spectacular website! I think I’ve run across the UMEBA before; it looks like you’re associated with them.

Also, it looks like you won the first 2 and 4th World Series in history, yes? You’re a legend!

I’ve never seen the Brewster movie. I take it I should?

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It’s a very well-run league with a great Commish who is aided by a Governing Board, other owners who help out with a variety of tasks. If you’re interested in trying it out, let me know! A certain level of writing about your team (by posting ‘articles’ in the forums - here’s my latest) and participation is expected, so there is a time commitment.

UMEBA is a feeder league – newcomers usually get assigned an UMEBA to keep them busy until a Brewster team becomes available. It’s a good way of recruiting new owners and making sure the big leagues are filled up. 32 teams in the Brewster so there’s usually an 1-3 openings each season. 8 teams in UMEBA.

The Brewster had started prior to that, with early, early versions of OOTP, then it folded. In the early 2000’s (real life) the founder re-started probably with OOPT 10 or 11 and it has been going strong ever since. I joined at the re-start, running the Black Sox, which in-game was 1995, and my team won it all in '95 and '96. Then I left for several years, came during the pandemic, and have since reclaimed my original team. In-game, we are now in 2050. One week per sim, three sims each week. The off-seasons are great fun, with trading and free agent signings. Each sim is watchable live, as is the amateur draft, on StatsPlus.

I think they show it regularly on the MLB Network, at least in the off-season to fill time.

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Very cool league you’ve got there. I spent 45 minutes looking through the forums, your team’s roster and personnel, and some of the historical info.

I noticed that you made an inquiry about the (low!) intelligence of one of your players – a pitcher, I think. You paid participation points for the privilege of doing so, I think. What does this inquiry achieve? Was his intelligence stat hidden until you paid to see it? (Also, what does intelligence do in OOTP, anyway?)

More generally, are most ratings hidden in your league? I’ve always day-dreamed about playing in a “stats only” league, or at least a league with relatively few ratings. I do think some ratings are “realistic”, in that we do have scouts in the real world, and even casual fans can make judgments about player talent. But I’d love to play in a universe in which there really is divergent scout opinion about ratings, so that ratings are not the be-all and end-all. In Perfect Team, they’re the be-all and end-all. In the real world, scouting reports are nice, but show me the statistical money!

Also, I love that you have so many levels of minor leagues. Did you set up your own minors manually? Did you get to pick your names? Most of them match your theme of colored sox. Very nice! :) (Speaking as a Red Sox fan here.)

I did look at the application materials and the new-applications forum. It’s good you start folks in the UMEBA; that looks like less of an initial time commitment. (UMEBA has 10 teams, it seems?) Even in the BBA, the normal sim schedule seems reasonable – 3 times a week. Looks like right now you’re in playoff mode, so that’s more like 6 times a week, which could be a bit difficult for me.

But maybe the bigger time commitment is the “participation” obligation, like posting updates and contributing to the press package and doing podcasts and whatnot. I am now semi-retired so I do in theory have the time for all that, but some of my other free time would have to make space for this, so I dunno. I’ll follow you a while and think on it. It may depend on whether I feel like buying OOTP or playing Perfect Team this year.

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  • All new visual improvements! Player faces have been added to in-game 3D models, hundreds of new 3D animation updates have been added, the all-new Cleveland Guardians logos/uniform/stadium is here, along with all-new sortable team statistics and the ability to search for, filter, and tag in-game news messages!
  • Unlimited Alternate Uniforms! At long last, you can create Alternate uniforms for your team – and the options are virtually unlimited! Design hat/jersey/pant combinations to your heart’s content, and designate the uniforms for days of the week and/or even specific dates of the year!
  • All new In-Game Tutorials! For the first time ever, Out of the Park Baseball offers in-game guides highlighting all kinds of interesting information. Rookies and veterans alike will love these simple, powerful explainers – and more will be added all season long based on feedback from the community.
  • Dramatically updated Live Starts! Our wildly popular Live Starts feature just got massively bigger and better – we now feature Full Minors from Low-A all the way through AAA for each organization whenever you Live Start from any day of the entire 2022 season!
  • In-game simulation engine upgrades! We’ve crunched massive amounts of data and crafted a significantly improved in-game core simulation engine, which will benefit not just the traditional Franchise Mode but also Perfect Team! Plus, all-new ratings balances for historical players AND a much-improved version of Negro League player ratings are in place!
  • New 2022 MLB rules, tactics, playoffs, and strategies! Baseball continues evolving each year – and we have got you covered. From the new playoff structure to the universal DH, the latest and greatest MLB experience is here for you!
  • New customizable options to create your own unique experience! Ever want to see what ties would be like in MLB? Or change up the playoffs with a full double elimination tournament or greatly expanded Round-Robin options? All sorts of new options are available to tinker with to design your own personal baseball heaven.
  • New tools for Online Leagues! A new “waypoints’ system allows online league Commissioners to mark customized simulation dates, and a new “limited power” Commissioner option expands the ability for multiple people to help run online leagues.
  • Many, many more improvements, all built upon the incredibly deep award-winning Out of the Park Baseball engine that has accurately simulated the World Series winner the past three of the past five seasons on MLB Network!

I’m curious to learn more about the engine changes and the ratings balance they are talking about.

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I had a fictional league going that was based in the Soviet Union, with teams being named after Soviet sports societies. That was fun, but I didn’t think to back it up before reinstalling my old system so it was lost. I might try that again.

I doubt I will dive into PT much again if at all. I initially dove into PT because I figured it was an easy way to learn about a lot of the game mechanics and ratings without having to deal with trades and payroll. Then I got really into the bronze tournaments for a while until I burned myself out pulling down data to figure out players to use. I think I was having more fun playing around in Python to write up little programs spitting out lists of players then actually playing the tournaments. I certainly didn’t enjoy having to download stats for tournaments by hand, but it was netting me a lot of card packs doing it.

I think playing in an online league like Brewsters would probably be fun, but I need to get better at the game.

@Spock Here is a google doc linked in the forum about participation points: PPT Usage Guide - Google Docs

The section about Offseason Training Programs mentions you can increase certain things with participation points. One of things listed is College Scholarship which can be used to increase intelligence.

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This is a very good idea.