Baseball Mogul 2006 Preview Thread (Yes, Virginia, there ARE lefties and righties!)

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by oykib

Here's the biggest question:

Has Lefty/Righty been implemented in this, BBM's seventh iteration?

Obviously it isn't the biggest question:

What New Feature(s) Would You Like to See Added for Baseball Mogul 2006? You have already voted on this poll.
All-Time Leader Boards (e.g. tracking who beats Aaron's HR record)		114	5.94%
Expanded Salary Negotiations (Counteroffers, Option Years, Signing Bonuses, No-Trade Clauses etc.)		121	6.30%
Historical Rookies (i.e. when playing pre-2004, new rookies won't be random, but will come from historical data)		101	5.26%
Full Minor League System (3 separate minor league teams with their own lineups and schedules)		88	4.58%
Player Personality Ratings (Loyalty, Attitude, etc)		88	4.58%
Realistic Expansion/Contraction		79	4.11%
Editable League Structure, Interleague Play, and Playoffs		68	3.54%
Manager Signings/Firings		80	4.17%
Platoon splits (lefty/righty stats and lefty/righty lineups)		76	3.96%
Editable Number of Pitchers Per Team and Roster Sizes		62	3.23%
Enhanced Play-By-Play: Triple Plays, Double Switches, Taking a Base on Defensive Indifference, Ejections, etc.		58	3.02%
Salary Caps and Revenue Sharing		58	3.02%
Enchanced Injury Engine (the ability to play hurt, e.g. "he's at 85%" etc.)		67	3.49%
Interactive Play-By-Play (e.g. choose when to pinch hit, sacrifice, steal, bring in relievers etc.)		55	2.86%
Increased Maximum League Size (more than 34 teams)		45	2.34%
Stadium improvements (e.g. luxury suites, additional seats)		59	3.07%
Player Morale, Happiness, Hot Streaks etc.		66	3.44%
Expanded revenue options (merchandise, concessions, media contracts etc.)		50	2.60%
Ability to Move Pitcher's Slot to any Position in the Batting Order		37	1.93%
Use a Pitcher as a Position Player or Vice Versa		40	2.08%
Computer-controlled commissioner (vetoes cash-only trades, disallows team movement, etc.)		44	2.29%
Other [non-lefty/right] split stats (home/away, day/night, runners-in-scoring-position, month-by-month)		48	2.50%
'Team Options' Slider for Percentage of Games to start Alternate Starters		40	2.08%
Computer-controlled owner (that sets your budget and/or fires you for poor performance)		45	2.34%
Three-way trades		62	3.23%
Pitch-by-pitch interaction (e.g. choose which pitch to throw to what location in what count; as batter, guess pitches)		31	1.61%
Minor-league TOTALS in Scouting Report		46	2.40%
Schedule Editor		34	1.77%
Playoff TOTALS in Scouting Report		44	2.29%
Drag and drop interface		31	1.61%
New Screen and Dialog background artwork		28	1.46%
Rule 5 Draft		47	2.45%
Other (please describe below)		8	0.42%
Total:		182 votes	100%

[Buccaneer]

In playing with the Lahman database and setting up a historical season (say, 1951), if Simulation Mode is ON, how predictable will be the results? I mean, is there still some degree of unpredictability that some past HOF just might not develop fully? It sounds like with this OFF, it becomes a random crapshoot. I'm just wondering of a happy medium.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. This is kind of cool, yet creepy, at the same time:



If there's an accompanying news story, then I can get behind it, I think.

[Ksyrup]

Death usually robs most people of the opportunity to show off their skills, I think.

[Buccaneer]

I assume there's an .ini type file that can change colors? That fetching peach doesn't do it for me.

[Barkeep49]

Until today I never tought I'd play Baseball Mogul again and suddenly with OOTP being far off and Puresim no longer doing it for me, Mogul is looking very attractive.

[Buccaneer]

Same here. I had wanted to play baseball again but my only choice was to go back to OOTP5 because v6 didn't do it for me. That seemed kinda silly. The last time I saw BM was a demo in 2000. It sure has come a long ways.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Until today I never tought I'd play Baseball Mogul again and suddenly with OOTP being far off and Puresim no longer doing it for me, Mogul is looking very attractive.

I'm *really* hoping this franchise can get up off the floor with this version. The skeleton appears to be there. The big question is if all the new stuff works to my satisfaction.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

SkyDog puts IGN, Gamespy, Gamespot and all the rest to shame.

Seriously, who wouldn't buy a SkyDog gaming magazine?

[jbmagic]

wow

On league editor screenshot, you can enter year when woman can enter the league. That very interesting.

[Bad-example]

While I have vowed never to spend money on a Mogul product again, I hope they find some success with this latest version.

[dawgfan]

I seem to recall in the version of BBM that somewhere down the road women's names entered the mix, so I don't think this is a new thing. Being able to set when (if?) they do so is new (at least since BBM2000, the last one I played).

[sovereignstar]

As long as there's no crying...

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

OK. This is kind of cool, yet creepy, at the same time:

If there's an accompanying news story, then I can get behind it, I think.

I would think there's some kind of flag within the game that occurs when a player is considered retired - once this happens, the scouting report ought to change to something that describes what kind of hitter he was in his prime, or is simply blank.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

As long as there's no crying...

i can see it now, Woman will have to take certain time of the month off for PMS.

[FBPro]

I may actually have to check this one out, if nothingelse it has a nice look and maybe a different diversion.

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

And there will be a new manual with the game this year.

Clay

Shut up.

Just shut up. You had me at "And there will be a new manual with the game this year."

[Swaggs]

I can't remember the last version of BBM I played, but there were women, animals, and robots, if I recall correctly.

[TazFTW]

Women, aliens, and robots were in the first version of Baseball Mogul. I know this as it is the only version I have.


(well, women as players and aliens & robots as agents. Don't remember if aliens and robots became players.)

[Suicane75]

Clay oughta give Skydog commision. I'm not saying i'm buying it, but the chances are much better than they were yesterday.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Clay oughta give Skydog commision. I'm not saying i'm buying it, but the chances are much better than they were yesterday.

Same here.

[Zippo]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Clay oughta give Skydog commision. I'm not saying i'm buying it, but the chances are much better than they were yesterday.

definitely, Skydog made me want to give this game a try as well.

[Ben E Lou]

Ran some overnight tests to take a look at average player age of everday players (which is one of my pet peeves in OOTP--with default settings leagues are usually 1.5-2 years too old). A couple of comments, one positive, and one negative:

POSITIVE: It is VERY easy to export any data from the game, including data from one team, either league, or the entire universe. As Clay mentioned earlier, on the Team-->Roster screen, you can pick what fields are shown in the report, and there are 8 default reports that can be loaded. Point being, it was VERY easy to grab the average age for >350 AB players. I just selected the entire league, included age and AB's, sorted by AB's, right-clicked and selected "Copy Players to Clipboard," opened Excel, pasted into Excel, did a massive deleted of players under 350 AB's, and then ran the "AVERAGE" function on age. This export feature should be a HUGE help for dynasty reporting. I'll give an example in a moment.

NEGATIVE: Just like OOTP, not enough young players are getting into the league when they should. Average age of >350 AB players should be aprox. 28.8. It is running in the 32 range right now in Mogul. I've reported this issue to Clay.

Here's an example of an export that took me about 30 seconds to do:

Player Name	Free Agency	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	Avg	SB	CS	K	BB
Correa, Ramon	No	594	80	160	30	0	26	96	0.269	2	0	107	86
Clark, Adam	No	494	82	139	24	3	35	97	0.281	2	0	69	55
Mizutani, Nagafusa	No	444	71	116	18	0	45	108	0.261	0	1	113	64
Karren, Tobey	No	438	44	112	19	2	1	19	0.256	10	2	46	41
Platz, L.T.	No	418	81	113	14	2	17	48	0.270	5	2	54	129
Insley, Neil	Yes	366	68	117	15	2	35	84	0.320	1	1	102	31
Lizarraga, Rafael	No	275	19	64	4	8	0	19	0.233	5	1	39	3
Cepeda, Efrain	No	264	36	67	11	1	19	60	0.254	0	0	70	48
Casero, Raul	No	185	26	55	5	2	5	23	0.297	0	0	50	24
Steiner, Tom	No	164	16	46	5	0	0	8	0.280	2	0	34	12

[Ben E Lou]

Above export, cleaned up quickly with FrontPage (much better than posting directly from Excel on WYSIWYG editor)

Player Name	Free Agency	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	Avg	SB	CS	K	BB
Correa, Ramon	No	594	80	160	30	0	26	96	0.269	2	0	107	86
Clark, Adam	No	494	82	139	24	3	35	97	0.281	2	0	69	55
Mizutani, Nagafusa	No	444	71	116	18	0	45	108	0.261	0	1	113	64
Karren, Tobey	No	438	44	112	19	2	1	19	0.256	10	2	46	41
Platz, L.T.	No	418	81	113	14	2	17	48	0.270	5	2	54	129
Insley, Neil	Yes	366	68	117	15	2	35	84	0.320	1	1	102	31
Lizarraga, Rafael	No	275	19	64	4	8	0	19	0.233	5	1	39	3
Cepeda, Efrain	No	264	36	67	11	1	19	60	0.254	0	0	70	48
Casero, Raul	No	185	26	55	5	2	5	23	0.297	0	0	50	24
Steiner, Tom	No	164	16	46	5	0	0	8	0.280	2	0	34	12

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Clay oughta give Skydog commision. I'm not saying i'm buying it, but the chances are much better than they were yesterday.

Well, at this point I would say that it has enough new features to be a really fun game and a nice upgrade from the past, provided the answers to these two burning questions are satisfactory:

1. How well do the new features work? Will I really have to pay significantly more money to sign a guy when a team with one of his friends is also pursuing him? Will it cost more to sign a guy who thinks my organization is heading in the wrong direction? Do team and player options make a difference on contracts? Do call-ups/demtions in the expanded minor leagues work well?

2. How buggy will it be on release? As always, I really hope Clay holds it until the obvious bugs are squashed. I've yet to run into anything monumental like a crash bug, but there are still some bugs present.


There are (so far) three "Things I Know For Sure" so far about this version:

1. The two hallmarks of the Mogul franchise are still there: outstanding interface and oustanding sim speed. This version still blows everything else away in these two areas.
2. *Much* more attention has been paid to the customer base. A survey was taken on their web site (posted earlier in this thread) of what were the top new features desired, and they implemented all of the Top 6.
3. This isn't a tiny upgrade to the last version--which was one of the primary complaints about the Mogul franchise in the past several years.

I'd at least say that it deserves attention. I'm going to spend a couple of hours or so this morning actually playing the game, and give some more comments at that point.

[Sharpieman]

I loved Baseball Mogul way back when, I'm kinda sad that I threw away some of the old versions. These screens are real nice I love additions. OOTP never did it for me. The presentation or something was wrong there. One thing I love about the BBM series is the fast simming and it looks like you can still do that. Can't wait to hear more.

[CraigSca]

Ben,

Try to find if there are any busts or booms out of the draft. This goes hand-in-hand with my earlier pet peeve - spend a lot of money on scouting and the effect is lowering the +- range on the player's overall rating. Spend enough money and you pretty much have a bulls-eye understanding of each and every player, including prospects. You therefore can horde the good players because you know exactly who they are (who's career is fading before his statistics show they are, as well as the really good prospects).

IMHO, there should be less variance between the true value of a player and his rating as the player progresses through his career. However, prospects, as we all know, are only a step above wild speculation until they get to the higher levels of the minor leagues. In last year's version of BBM, this wasn't the case.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Ben,

Try to find if there are any busts or booms out of the draft.

I'm at another computer right now, so I need to reinstall the beta and run a bunch of seasons, but that shouldn't take long. (Actually, the numbers I reported yesterday on sim speed were from the slowest machine that I have access to.) I just started a sim up through 2040, and it should be done in, oh a little under a half an hour.

Yeah, I just timed a season from 1/1/07 to 1/1/08 took a grand total of 50 seconds on this machine.

It is very easy to check this. You have access to all past drafts on the "transaction" screen--and of course every player is clickable right to his player card.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Obviously it isn't the biggest question:

So are you saying it wasn't? If there is no lefty/righty, then there is no way I'm buying. That is a fundemental part of baseball.

[Ksyrup]

SD,

How do the BB/K correlations look with pitchers and hitters? For example, in the data you posted above, I see a guy with 129/54 BB/K numbers, yet he only hit .270. Are power pitchers with some control typically better than most soft-tossers, and are the guys with good BB/K ratios typically the best hitters?

On a whole, "out of the box," do the league ERAs/Avgs/HRs, etc., seem reasonable? If one was to start a historical career, do the numbers reflect the era, or is there some sort of file we have to manipulate for hours (like in OOTP) to get the era setting down right?

I know some of these aren't questions you can answer at this point, but they are questions I'm interested in hearing answers to, as they will probably determine whether I give this game a try. I lost interest in OOTP last year, most likely because setting up my leagues was too hard, and I got sick of having to run multiple tests to make sure the "deadball" era simmed properly. Too much work.

[Ben E Lou]

DRAFT BOOMS/BUSTS

First off, it looks like I was a little off: 15 years of draft picks are viewable/clickable, not every single one in league history. Good enough for this check, though. I'm at the end of 2041. Here are the top 10 picks from 2027.

1(1): SP Rodney Longbehn--122-133, 4.19 ERA--led league in strikeouts once (2040), all star twice (2038 and 2040)
1(2): CF Gregg Burns--lifetime .754 OPS. --gold glove once
1(3): 1B James Manning--lifetime .789 OPS-three seasons of >30 HR's
1(4): SP James McGlathery--94-102, 4.36 ERA, but has been very strong the past 5-6 seasons. perfect game once---ERA over 4.00 only once since 2033--probably rushed a bit...born 2008....hit league in 2029, and had 3 1/2 awful season...put it together with 10-9, 3.94 at age 25, and has been solid since
1(5): 1B Ever Padilla--star slugger--lifetime .944 OPS--two seasons of 60+ homers, and five of 40+--7 All Stars, 3 MVPS, 10 Gold Gloves, ROY
1(6): SP Daniel Heyert--107-95, 4.11--1-time All-Star
1(7): C Harry Dixon--lifetime .310 hitter-starter for last 10 seasons--8 Gold Gloves, 1 -time All Star
1(8); RP Herman Hurst--never became a closer--lifetime 31-29, 3.79 ERA in 453 appearances
1(9): RP Luis Clavet--45-41, 3.51 ERA, 238 saves--spent 7 seasons as closer--1-time NL saves leader
1(10): SS Mike Modzinski--complete bust---33 years old now, and has never had a season with >421 AB's


Looking at Padilla's player card made me notice something that made me happy:



By the way, it turns out that the AAA listing on his card is a reporting bug, which has been reported to Clay.

As far as booms are concerned, I figure the best way to examine that is to look at some league leaders, and see when they were drafted.

TOP TEN HR HITTERS THIS YEAR
1(5)--67
1(2)--57
2(13)--57
1(22)--52
2(7)--49
5(25)--46
1(7)--46
4(27)--44
1(10)--43
1(16)--41

I can live with that.

TOP ERA PITCHERS THIS YEAR
1(12)--1.82
1(21)--2.28
1(30)--2.40
4(12)--2.64
3(30)--2.70
1(4)--2.71
3(5)--2.88
4(28)--2.97
1(1)--2.99
1(6)--3.00

I can live with that, too.


ACTIVE TOP-FIVE CAREER HOME RUN LEADERS
1(19)--541
1(5)--454
3(30)--452
3(21)--451
1(5)--448

ACTIVE TOP-FIVE CAREER WIN LEADERS
1(1)--290
1(4)--253
1(1)--213
2(12)--203
1(3)--201

(Note--of the next five career win leaders, only one was a first round pick.)


THOUGHTS AT THIS POINT: Booms and busts definitely happen. Right now, the Braves are middle-of-the-road (#14) in scout spending, and have a variance of +/- 8 points. That is pretty significant on a game with a scale of 75-100 for major league caliber ratings. My initial thought, based on past experiences with Mogul, is that as long as you're not using the Yankees, Mets, or Dodgers, there will be times when, in order to keep your star players, you'll have to drop down to middle-of-the-road or worse in scouting. If that is the case, a player rated 83 could be anything from a 75-rating (usually not an everyday player) to 91. Putting the game in commish mode, I can see that there are only 11 players in the entire current universe with *true* overall ratings of 91 or better--and 9 of those 11 put up star-caliber numbers this year. That's a pretty dang wide scout variance.

[CraigSca]

I wonder, however, what the bust's ratings were at draft time. Were they just poor picks by the AI, or were these actual prospects that didn't pan out? I'm crossing my fingers it's the latter.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

By the way, it turns out that the AAA listing on his card is a reporting bug, which has been reported to Clay.

That means Jim Edmonds wasn't really in the minors, then?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

That means Jim Edmonds wasn't really in the minors, then?

I can't be sure, because that career is gone now, but probably not.

[Huckleberry]

Okay, can someone explain why it wouldn't be very easy to implement at least a very basic R/L split theory into the sim engine?

I'm really looking for a new baseball sim. I used to use both DMB and OOTP, but I'm pretty much done with OOTP right now. I'll still use DMB for my league, but I'm looking for a single-player sim.

[shameless plug]FWIW, my league is at http://www.texasprojectionleague.net and I'm looking for a couple of owners for our expansion. And someone that wants to assist with commissioner duties would be greatly appreciated as I just started a new job in a new city and I'm incredibly busy.[/shameless plug]

[Ksyrup]

I'm with you on the L/R thing. I just don't get it. Particularly when we don't even have the option of playing with fictional players, what this means is that if Jesse Orosco pitches 50 innings with a 2.00 ERA, in the game you'd be able to use him in 50 1-inning appearances like a normal reliever, when in real life, he probably would pitch in 90 games to get those 50 innings, and only face lefties.

Even if I'm simming on a global level and not playing/watching each game, I still want the game to approximate real baseball, and right or wrong, lefty/righty matchups are a very real part of the game.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Obviously it [L/R splits] isn't the biggest question.

While I certainly understand the context of this post, I think this evidence doesn't really persuade me that this isn't a needed addition. Rather, it mostly persuades me that the fans of this game, who would vote in such a poll, just value very different things in their games than I do.

I remain absolutely staggered that there is a baseball sim game that has seen so much improvement, so much thought, and so much expansion -- that for whatever reason refuses to recognize the very elemental fact that left/right splits in baseball are simply fundamental.

While I generally try to be sensitive to arguments in favor of "simpler" games in favor of more complex ones (to suit the desires of gamers who would prefer such) it's just very hard to reconcile the layered contract negotiations in this game (which seems like a very well-conceived element of the game, but by any reckoning pretty complex) with this idea that recognizing left/right lineups and pitching assigments is "too complicated" for this game. You just can't honestly put those two arguments side by side in my book.


If the poll you posted is a fair representation of what the BM fanbase wants... then I'm not in a position to judge. Implement the things that they want most, I suppose. I wish Clay and company well with it.

But for me, this game has a litmus test, and always will. Until the game recognizes this fundamental aspect of the game of baseball -- it simply demonstrates that it's not taking things seriously enough to be on my buy list.

[HomerJSimpson]

Thanks for confirming I'm nt the only one on the l/r thing. Refusing to add that is suggests this programmer doesn't understand baseball, and therefore this game, no matter how many bells and whistles, is not worthy of my time. How can you make a baseball game for 7 years and not get one of the fundemental parts of the game in it? Baffling.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

Okay, can someone explain why it wouldn't be very easy to implement at least a very basic R/L split theory into the sim engine?

I don't think easy/hard is even the issue. They took a poll on their website, and seven or eight features came out as being more important to their customer base. They decided to put the top SIX requested features in--and none of those top six look like small things. As always with text sims from small developers, my guess is that the finite-amount-of-time issue comes into play here more than anything else. These are the top six vote-getters, and the ones that made it in:

All-Time Leader Boards (e.g. tracking who beats Aaron's HR record)		114	5.94%
Expanded Salary Negotiations (Counteroffers, Option Years, Signing Bonuses, No-Trade Clauses etc.)		121	6.30%
Historical Rookies (i.e. when playing pre-2004, new rookies won't be random, but will come from historical data)		101	5.26%
Full Minor League System (3 separate minor league teams with their own lineups and schedules)		88	4.58%
Player Personality Ratings (Loyalty, Attitude, etc)		88	4.58%

My suggestion to those complaining on here, after-the-fact, about it is this: if you care about the game, then give feedback when it is requested. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I don't think easy/hard is even the issue. They took a poll on their website, and seven or eight features came out as being more important to their customer base. They decided to put the top SIX requested features in--and none of those top six look like small things. As always with text sims from small developers, my guess is that the finite-amount-of-time issue comes into play here more than anything else. These are the top six vote-getters, and the ones that made it in:


My suggestion to those complaining on here, after-the-fact, about it is this: if you care about the game, then give feedback when it is requested. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

You're ignoring the fact that people who cared about the l/r thing already gave up on this game long ago. The customers he is polling would have probably bought the game anyway.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I don't think easy/hard is even the issue. They took a poll on their website, and seven or eight features came out as being more important to their customer base. They decided to put the top SIX requested features in--and none of those top six look like small things. As always with text sims from small developers, my guess is that the finite-amount-of-time issue comes into play here more than anything else. These are the top six vote-getters, and the ones that made it in:

Actually, that's not the top 6 at the top of the poll results listing. Manager signing/firings is listed below something it got more votes than. Same with platoon splits. L/R splits came in 7th with only 3 fewer votes than 6th. It's important.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

My suggestion to those complaining on here, after-the-fact, about it is this: if you care about the game, then give feedback when it is requested. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

There's a possible correlary here, too.

After five or six iterations of this game without the addition of something as fundamental to baseball as left/right splits, maybe the real baseball fans just gave up, bailed out on this series, and sensibly migrated elsewhere. Thus, when the poll is taken of those who remained, this was no longer a significant issue.

Again, I really have no quarrel with that business model, and I hope things work out fine -- I think the sports sim industry benefits from every vibrant addition, even those that have zero appeal for me personally, so I'm happy to see this franchise taking an apparent big step forward.

[Ksyrup]

The issue here is whether this type of thing should even be considered a "feature" or "option." It's hard to draw an analogy (maybe someone can come up with something appropriate), but imagine a football game without punting, or one where all defensive players were simply lumped into "linemen" or "backs" with no further delineation of duties. That's what this is akin to, IMO.

It's a major part of the game - statistics demonstrate the correlation. Now, you can quibble with how the general idea is actually implemented by people like Tony LaRussa, who will use 4 or 5 guys in one inning (bringing to mind the Simpsons episode where Burns pinch-hit for Strawberry), but even at its most basic level, it is a part of the game. And as such, it has to be added.

[miked]

Can you do online leagues with Mogul? Like can GMs export and all that shiz? Also, the fact that the export just goes to sloppy text doesn't really bode too well. I would never take all that time just to fix the reports.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

While I certainly understand the context of this post, I think this evidence doesn't really persuade me that this isn't a needed addition. Rather, it mostly persuades me that the fans of this game, who would vote in such a poll, just value very different things in their games than I do.

Bingo. To put it bluntly, there are WAAAYYY more potential customers who want it than there are of Mogul fanboys--who probably made up the vast majority of voters in this poll. Based on the fact that they implemented features based on the responses, I firmly believe that if the greater text sim community would continue to give constructive feedback to SportsMogul--as opposed to sitting back on the OOTP and FOFC boards and scoffing/looking down our noses at the game because it doesn't have L/R splits--then they'd make it into an update of this version, or at least BM2K7. As you pointed out, they've gone into great detail in the areas that they DID add this year. Whether we like it or not, it appears that their philosophy is to listen to the feedback on what the customer base wants, above even baseball common sense. From having interacted with Clay, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he is a BIG baseball fan, and very knowledgeable about the game. If Jim is perceived as "not listening to his customer base" (a charge which I disagree with, by the way), the very opposite is true about Clay, it would seem: his customer base's word is LAW, to almost a fault.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

the very opposite is true about Clay, it would seem: his customer base's word is LAW, to almost a fault.

Hasn't he been making this game from the begining? Then this couldn't have always been said about him, because I remember long ago when I purchased BM, and the chief complaint I saw on every messageboard/chat at that times was l/r. He has ignored this complaint for 7 years, and has cost himself many, many customers in the proccess.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

Actually, that's not the top 6 at the top of the poll results listing. Manager signing/firings is listed below something it got more votes than. Same with platoon splits. L/R splits came in 7th with only 3 fewer votes than 6th. It's important.

Look at the order they're in, not numberically. Obviously, those things were close, but they left the poll open. The Top 6 at the time they made the decision were the top 6 that they put in the game.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by HomerJSimpson

You're ignoring the fact that people who cared about the l/r thing already gave up on this game long ago. The customers he is polling would have probably bought the game anyway.

Not me. I probably wouldn't have bought 2K6, as I barely played 2K5. However, I voted in the poll.

[Ksyrup]

But SD, I was there 5 years ago. I suggested/asked/pleaded for it (nicely). I gave up. Now granted, had the game continued to progress, I might have stuck around and fought the fight a little longer, but that didn't happen so I gave up on the game completely.

However, with as many improvements as have been made, and with this still sitting on the sideline, I get the feeling that any further pleading I do will be about as effective as a request for avatars, the return of the QOTM, and our own board around here (can I get an Amen, FN?).

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Read my other post on this. I can assure you that Clay understands the ins and outs of baseball very, very well. If there is a problem here, it is that he apparently listens too much to the feedback he gets, and not to his own knowledge of the game.

Remember, Jim commented that his #1-requested feature at one point was NFL Europe, for crying out loud. I'm glad he listened to his own football knowledge, and not the people that requested that, when considering where to spend his time on new versions.

Clay doesn't understand baseball or business if in 7 years he still hasn't added l/r splits.