A look at some history

[Easy Mac]

found this while scouring through on-line journals my school has access to... thought you guys might find this interesting:

Fans of the Front Office Football franchise are no strangers to frustration. When Solecismic founder and chief programmer Jim Gindin signed a contract to do the sequel to the highly successful original FOF (a CGW Editor's Choice Award winner) for publishing powerhouse EA Sports, many gamers were thrilled to see a text-based sports game get the kind of mainstream acknowledgement (as well as the support of a major publisher's marketing and PR machines) that other action-oriented sports games receive. FOF 2 sold well through EA's website, generating a lot of anticipation for the third installment, Front Office Football 2001. So where is it?

Well, it is complete. After considerable wranglings over the official NFL license, the game was made available for download from EA Sports' website on November 1st. But a few days later, the NFL and AOL asked EA to take it down, due to a licensing and distribution dispute involving rights to all officially licensed NFL products. As of press time, the game is still in limbo, but Gindin is hoping for a quick resolution. Hopefully, the game will be available by the time you read this- regardless, you can count on a review in next month's CGW.

I thought you guys got EA to take it down after you "hacked" the site? Oh well, just thought I'd drag up some history.

[Easy Mac]

dola, and here is an ootp3 review... the cons look familiar ;)

What could be more American than baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie? Why is it that the best simulation of our national pastime comes from the land of knockwurst and apple strudel? Markus Heinsohn, a German programmer and designer, has a deep affection for baseball that shows in every little detail of Out of the Park Baseball 3 (OOTP 3). Previous incarnations of the game have also glimmered with the minutiae that attracts baseball fanatics, but design flaws and the awkwardness of the interface resulted in only the hardest of the hardcore wanting to assimilate it. The good news is that while the game still exhibits some problems that prevent it from attaining the elite status of the very top sports management games (such as Championship Manager 2000/2001), OOTP 3 is a baseball fanatic's dream.

OOTP 3 is a text-based simulation; you are the general manager of a professional baseball team. If you're looking for EA Sports-style eye and ear candy, you're playing the wrong game. Games play out on a top- down baseball stadium graphic, with a lineup box, a detailed pitcher/batter stats box, fielder text boxes, a scoreboard showing updated scores of games being played around the league, and a superb play-by-play description. If you've never played a good text sports sim, you'll be surprised by how well the play-by-play and stats draw you in.

Where OOTP 3 shines is in the options. You can enter a career league and create a dynasty, or you can replay a season from the past: Will the 1927 Yankees be as legendary under your helm as they were in real life? When you select a time frame, the game adjusts gameplay and management tendencies to match that era; thus the "dead-ball" era feels and plays very differently than today's slugfests.

You can choose to play each game or let the computer simulate as many as you like, perhaps only jumping in during crucial series or playoffs. All of the real-life management decisions are yours: trades, free agency, pitching rotations, injuries, when to promote minor leaguers, and more. Baseball fanatics tend to be statistics fanatics, and in this OOTP 3 shines, presenting every statistic you could possibly think of for every player, including "soft" data, such as desire to play for a winner and loyalty. OOTP 3 also includes a full range of coaches and scouts with their own sets of skills.

There are problems that keep OOTP 3 from hitting for the cycle. The interface is still is far from elegant, requiring numerous mouse clicks where a forward arrow/back arrow design would be much more effective. The minor league management and stats overview is clunky at best. The AI makes some occasionally odd management moves, the most serious being the AI general managers' tendency to run their teams into bankruptcy at an alarming rate (there is a financial model, but it is highly undeveloped at this point).

In a lesser game, these issues could be game killers. But for the true baseball fan, OOTP 3 does what it does so well that the flaws are tolerable. This is easily the best baseball simulation on the market today.

CGW Rating 3.5 Stars:Out Of The Park Baseball 3

Pros: Superb career play and realistic historical season replays; statistics out the wazoo.

Cons:An occasionally awkward interface; weak financial model; AI can create some odd lineups.

Requirements: Windows 95/98/2000 (will not work with NT), 486 processor, 16MB RAM, 1MB SVGA graphics card (1024x800 resolution required), 80MB hard drive space.

Recommended Requirements: Pentium processor.

3D Support: Direct 3D

Multiplayer Support: Online leagues via Commissioner (no head-to-head multiplayer).

Publisher: Out of the Park Developments

Developer: Out of the Park Developments

Price: $29.95 (can only be purchased online at www.sportplanet.com/ootp3/)

www.sportplanet.com/ootp3/

ESRB Rating: Everyone

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Ah , I remember the''hacking'' incident ....Gosh hard to imagine that was almost 3 years ago ......how time passes by fast .

[vtbub]

IIRC, The flap with AOL and the NFL delayed the release for quite a while, then it was released and pulled back, causing the "Great Flame War", I believe for the same reasons before it was finally released.


The interface was REALLY bad, and I returned it.

[JeeberD]

Hmmm, wonder when FOF Online is going to come out? ;)

[tucker342]

What was the "hacking" incident?

[sabotai]

tucker,

the short version is this. Many people on this board constantly checked to see if FOF2001 had been released. One day, EA set up a "test" page to test out the downloading and ordering functions on the website. Several people of this forum downloaded and purchased the game from this test site.

The next day, one of the EA guys came to the forum and blasted the people and accused them of hacking the site to get FOF2001.

That's about it. Mayeb someone can find the guy's post.

[MIJB#19]

I'd better not start the discussion on the 'hacking' incident, but on a side note:

Do people still remeber the Digiwatt Studios 'incident' with the screenshots being shown and then vanishing within 30 minutes after FOFC'ers started looking?

[Fritz]

Quiksand stole an advanced copy

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

What was the name of that guy from EA who told everyone we would all get sued ?