Text Sims and 3rd Party Utilities-posted at .400 Board. (Am I off base?)

[Ben E Lou]

I started a thread over at .400 Studios looking for a fix to the scheduling problem. It has turned into a discussion about what's teh best work-around, with no one else calling on Markus to fix the broken feature. The entire thread is HERE (http://www.400softwarestudios.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30938) if you want to see it. I just posted the following in that thread, and I'm curious what y'all think.

--Ben


Originally posted by SkyDog
Guys, wait just a minute. I personally haven't spent a lot of time in the OOTP community, so I could be wrong here, but something about the attitude in this thread really bothers me. This is a broken feature that has been broken for a long time. It should not be the responsibility of the gaming community to fix the game's problems. That is the developer's responsibility. I'm seeing everyone in here talking about third-party fixes, and no one echoing, "Markus, you need to fix this." When I buy a game that purports to accurately simulate professional baseball, and it has a feature to generate a schedule, it is reasonable to assume that the schedule generator will accurately simulate professional baseball.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that there is no place for 3rd-party utilities. There is! Facepacks, extra ballparks, roster sets, stats analyzers and the like are all extras though. That is very different from the gaming community having to either create a schedule, write another software package to create a schedule, or go out and find schedules.

Also, don't see this as an indictment of .400 Studios or Markus. I've met three of their staff members, and have had rather extended interaction with two of them. I have no axe to grind with them. Heck, I LIKE 'em! (For those that don't know, I run another message board where sports text sims are heavily discusses. On the release day of OOTP5 when the server was slammed and you couldn't get here, I stickied a thread with a link to a DL mirror.) Still, they know Ol' SkyDog isn't going to given them a free pass on a broken feature. ;)

I don't like to throw the loaded "fanboy" term out there, but to me the very essence of "fanboyism" (and the danger of it) is when the gaming community decides to simply overlook obvious flaws in the game rather than calling the developer to task.

Thanks for the link to the work-around. I'll use it for now, but I sure hope Markus decides to fix the game himself.

--Ben

[Easy Mac]

methinks Skydog doth protest too much;)

While your at it, can you go to the SI boards and slap some of those idiots around who complain about people who report bugs, they basically say get over it and play the game. How can you play a game with bugs?

[Fritz]

Perhaps markus should just pull the feature.

[Ben E Lou]

LOL. Y'all need to check out the thread over there. (It is linked to in the top post.) This guy spleen is cracking me up!

[WussGawd]

Originally posted by SkyDog
LOL. Y'all need to check out the thread over there. (It is linked to in the top post. This guy spleen is cracking me up!

Hahaha. I tell you, my first thought was "How long has Spleen been on the payroll of .400, and why hasn't he been fired yet for poor PR management for the company?"

Truth be told, the .400 boards are a tremendous waste of perfectly good bandwidth. I troll them to know when new patches are released, and to look for some of the third party utility stuff, but as a forum for serious discussion, they are worse than useless.

[WSUCougar]

Originally posted by SkyDog
This guy spleen is cracking me up!
Now there's a phrase you don't hear every day... ;)

[couriers]

Time to get over OOTP and CM. Move on to GalCiv for the best AI engine ever. Oh, sorry, thought this was a different thread.

[GrantDawg]

They remove all of spleen's comments, or did he erase them?

[Ben E Lou]

i think Steve removed 'em.

[Anrhydeddu]

I just responded in that thread. I think my two posts in that thread is about all I posted at 400 since OOTP5 came out, just not a fun place to be.

But I think Easy Mac is on to something. Everywhere you go, you will see a vocal group of posters defending their game and not wanting to hear any criticism of it, esp. in suggesting how it can be improved or changed for the better (FOFC is no exception, imo). Stubborness among the developers and its customers can never be a good thing because as I said in that thread, anything can (and should) be improved. But I guess it is human nature to irrationally attack things you don't like and to irrationally defend things that you do like.

[Ksyrup]

Yeah, I guess they removed something because I didn't see much to crack me up about.

I posted my thoughts over there. SD, I think you are on the right track, but frankly, the things you find to be broken I don't see as issues. I posted what I think the real problems are with the schedule generator.

[Anrhydeddu]

I read that K and had never seen that before (September scheduling). But giving it some more thought, if Markus were to include StickWare into OOTP5, folks would still complain that it is too generic (esp. with the frequent Monday/Thursday off-days). That was why I said that the in-game schedule generator needs to be basic but allow the gamer or through 3rd-party utilities to customize it more to each of our own perception of reality or likeness (or historical duplication).

I'll probable get slammed for this but you guys remember why Jim could not have expansion teams or customizable league structures? It had to do with his unwillingness to have a customized (or flexible) schedule generator. While I know it is not an easy thing to do but taking a look at StickWare, which as the ability to come up with a decent schedule for anywhere from 1 division-8 teams to 2 divisions-12 teams to 3-divisions-16 teams. Seems to me that shouldn't be the sticking point for not having expansion teams or customized league structures.

[Bee]

They could always use Jim's comment that it's their "vision" of a major league baseball schedule. :D

[Easy Mac]

Originally posted by Anrhydeddu
I just responded in that thread. I think my two posts in that thread is about all I posted at 400 since OOTP5 came out, just not a fun place to be.

But I think Easy Mac is on to something. Everywhere you go, you will see a vocal group of posters defending their game and not wanting to hear any criticism of it, esp. in suggesting how it can be improved or changed for the better (FOFC is no exception, imo). Stubborness among the developers and its customers can never be a good thing because as I said in that thread, anything can (and should) be improved. But I guess it is human nature to irrationally attack things you don't like and to irrationally defend things that you do like.

Oh my god, me agreeing with both Cam and Anhry in the same week, something is wrong with me.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by Anrhydeddu
I read that K and had never seen that before (September scheduling).

Are you saying you've never seen the problem because you haven't looked, or that the schedules that you've generated don't have this problem? I've seen this problem with every single OOTP-generated schedule I've ever created, be it 2003 alignment, 1900 with 8 teams in 2 leagues, or anything else in between.

That said, I'm happy to be using the utility. I've started an 1898 league with 2 6 team leagues, and that generator works fine to give me what I need. But something like that should be included in the game itself, and we should not have to rely on a utility for something so basic.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Ksyrup
Are you saying you've never seen the problem because you haven't looked, or that the schedules that you've generated don't have this problem? I've seen this problem with every single OOTP-generated schedule I've ever created, be it 2003 alignment, 1900 with 8 teams in 2 leagues, or anything else in between.

That said, I'm happy to be using the utility. I've started an 1898 league with 2 6 team leagues, and that generator works fine to give me what I need. But something like that should be included in the game itself, and we should not have to rely on a utility for something so basic. The one-game series' are an issue I just forgot about when posting. Hey, it was early. ;) You're dead-on there. I see 'em every season.

[Cards4ever]

You know what really makes me laugh about that thread?! Skydog has a Avatar! For someone who won't let us use them here, you sure took advantage of a little promotion over there! hehehe :D

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Cards4ever
You know what really makes me laugh about that thread?! Skydog has a Avatar! For someone who won't let us use them here, you sure took advantage of a little promotion over there! hehehe :D I don't have to moderate that insane asylum. This one I do. ;)

[Bee]

Originally posted by Cards4ever
You know what really makes me laugh about that thread?! Skydog has a Avatar! For someone who won't let us use them here, you sure took advantage of a little promotion over there! hehehe :D

ROFL.

Good catch.

[MizzouRah]

Skydog, most of us dig ya, but not all of your gripes are going to be heard over there. I think you're like 3-4 then? :)

I post things from time to time that I would like to see fixed and I always go unheard. At least Markus fixes some of your gripes.

Don't fret... I would bet Markus will fix this in the next patch.


Todd

[vtbub]

It's been an annoying problem since at least OOTP2. It's something I've discussed with them in chat. That should have been an easy one to fix. No excuses for that.

[Fritz]

must not be a big enough problem to keep repeat customers from buying the game.

[FBPro]

Originally posted by vtbub
It's been an annoying problem since at least OOTP2. It's something I've discussed with them in chat. That should have been an easy one to fix. No excuses for that.

I'm thinking that it may not be as easy a fix as we might think, afterall I'm sure that Markus has worked on this area and the 3rd party schedule program(though it does an OK job) still has some shortcomings. I know that I have looked online for "league scheduling software" and it isn't cheap.....there maybe more to it than we think.

[vtbub]

Originally posted by FBPro
I'm thinking that it may not be as easy a fix as we might think, afterall I'm sure that Markus has worked on this area and the 3rd party schedule program(though it does an OK job) still has some shortcomings. I know that I have looked online for "league scheduling software" and it isn't cheap.....there maybe more to it than we think.

He would know a lot more than I would about that. It is an area that needs to be improved.

[FBPro]

Originally posted by vtbub
He would know a lot more than I would about that. It is an area that needs to be improved.

Very true, however I get the impression that we sometimes think that all a programmer or developer needs to do is essentially "snap their fingers" at the problem or issue can be resolved. And yes, I know "it is their job", but in all areas sometimes things just take time.

I'm gonna be quiet now :)

[MizzouRah]

Yeah, I like the people who say, "I need X fixed, should be easy to program".... or "Can you add this? I'm sure it's simple and could be added in an hour or so".

:)


Todd

[vtbub]

This goes back to .400's achilles heel, adding new features before making sure the old ones look right, then overhyping the new features.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

not a clue

[vtbub]

Lemme rephrase that. .400 is notorious for adding all sorts of new bells and whistles while leaving nagging things such as this or trade AI or Women's teams in TDCB or what have you not done.

I understand that somethings cannot be fixed without major tweaking. But time and time again, they will release patches that have new features a,b,c, and d in it when old features a,b,c, and d are still off and have been off for awhile.

[MizzouRah]

vtbub, almost all gaming companies do this. 3do ring a bell? :)

Seriously, almost every series of games do this. Come out with a new version... new features, cool! wait, why is this part of the game still broken?!?!?


Todd