MLB 10: The Speculation

[liftheavy]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

So should a person get this years game if they already have 09 and are extremly happy with it? If you look at all the pictures that have been out...the game looks great but very similar to 09. The menu sytem from what I have seen looks the same...the in game overlays look the same...except for the drop down stats that are suppose to be in but I have yet to seen.

Game is going to be great but the majority of gamers will think it is a slight upgrade from 09. I am still undecided what game to purchase this year. It will come between gamers and their needs.

[dgrfan]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

Figured I would post this here too:

My two cents...

I think in reading these forums, seeing what people say regarding this game and why the demo isn't out (Pasta Padre included); its just clear, like in every part of daily life, that people are going to believe in what they want, no matter the circumstance. You can't please everybody.

I have been a member of this forum for almost 10 years. I have read almost every post regarding baseball games and rarely post, not because I do not have anything to say, I have just found that with a little patience, it will get said for me. There are some great members of this site, that are knowledgeable and because of that I know that we are in good hands. Also, I do not like to get caught up in these wars that have happened on here (Blzer comes to mind, ), but I do not like what has transpired here over this demo. The MLB 10 Speculation thread, lead me to this post.

For me, I pride my self in making decisions based on facts, and I always try to remove my emotions from my decision making process. Like I said before, I rarely post, because most of my questions can be answered through patience and reading. I trust the senior members of this site, so I can afford to sit back and wait.

From what I have gathered, MLB 10 will be the best baseball game we have ever seen.

If anyone has truly followed the development of this series over the years, the interaction between Knight and Pared and Jim with Russell, then you can easily see the passion these guys have in making the most authentic representation of the sport. When I see these same guys saying that they will never play MLB 09 again, what more do you need to hear?

But, in trying to gather the facts for myself, I found that some of my "wants" have been addressed, namely fielding. I wanted a more, shall I say, MVP feel for fielding. Momentum, ratings really mattered. Very dynamic and fluid. Fielding received a complete overhaul. Great.

I wanted a new fielding view, not because the old one didn't work, it just felt a little old. RTP was created. Awesome.

I wanted to see more lifelike batter reactions, walk outs and in between swing animations to give the game a little more "life". Done. Awesome.

I wanted more control over the stuff I could edit on the players, gear etc. They did it. Awesome.

I wanted to have a more realistic game in terms of hit variety and scoring chances. New ball physics, upgraded hitting model. Done. Awesome.

I wanted a tougher, less forgiving pitching model. Pitch meter shakes when pitcher is nervous or loses confidence. Done. Amazing.

I wanted to see some new pitching animations. In my opinion, this has been the weakest part of the series. Albeit, last year some new animations looked amazing, but for the most part, they were really lacking. What did they do? They overhauled the majority of the pitching animations. Now, while this sounds great, I will have to play and analyze this before I can be excited about it, but, I at least I can point to an actual report that this has been done and know that, based on SCEA track record, I can expect a better experience.

I wanted new player models for the longest time. Now, I know and understand why this hasn't happened and I have seen the tweaks that they have made with the current model and all I can say is I don't care anymore. The improved and current models look fine, with exceptions ,but there is so much the game does right, it doesnt matter to me anymore.

I wanted a more lively atmosphere in the game. Thundersticks, fans reaching onto the field, customizable audio for almost every situation. Done. Amazing.

I wanted better swing follow throughs. The JJ Hardy home run reversal swing was awesome. The Joe Mauer RTP home run was awesome. The Mauer single looked great. Done. Check. Amazing.

For me, to take an already amazing product that I play daily still in MLB 09, add or fix almost everything that stood out to me, add more that maybe wasnt a big deal to me, but definately creates a more feature rich experience (i.e, Catcher game calling in RTTS, realitime lighting, day to night transitions, Home-run Derby and All-Star weekend, Classic stadiums, etc.) and what we will find is the 2010 version of the Show will be the greatest baseball game ever produced.

Remember this; these guys do this right. As Russell stated; they do not add features for the sake of adding features or to fill the "back of the box". They truly want to make the best game. They have proven that with their previous performances.

So, in closing, please show them some love, don't get mad because the demo didn't come out the day you wanted it to. Don't get mad and say they haven't released enough info so you think they game wont be more then a roster update. Calm down, gather all the facts, find out what is important to you and then, enlighten us with your take. Other than that, please do not bother. Thanks.

[500Feet]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

This game is just a roster update with a homerun derby thrown in? Did I just read that? That is a complete insult to the guys at SCEA who just spent thousands of hours, 6-7 day work weeks, 12 hours plus a day, doing the best job possible to create the ultimate baseball sim.

I agree with you. It really seems ungrateful for someone to say that about MLB 10 after reading how much work SCEA actually did.

[Afrikan]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

Figured I would post this here too:

My two cents...

That is one Hell of a post for a Rookie.

seriously, wonderful job man....totally agree.

[gostate]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

For some reason, fans of the MLB series don't seem to share the same hostility or outcry for year over year changes as fans of other sports series do. Can you imagine if Madden didn't change their core gameplay for 2 years? Personally, I bought MLB 09 last year, which was my first entry into the series. Obviously, it was better than 2k, but I wasn't enamored with it. For me, it's a somewhat bland representation of the game. Sure, it's an accurate representation, a lot of attention to detail is payed to players, stadiums, etc., but I just didn't get excited about playing it. Baseball is a slower game in general, but it has its moments. Diving catches/stops in the infield, jumping catches at the wall, clutch hits, key strikeouts. MLB just didn't capture any of the excitement of the game. I also found the controls to be a bit cumbersome. Too many times I'd try to hit & run or steal, only to have a guy get picked off. There were also an inordinate amount of inning killing double plays.

I get that there are diehard sim heads, and people who care about the color of Albert Pujols shoe/glove laces. I care to a point as well. But the games have to be fun to play. There are times you just want to pick up a controller and jump into a game, without being mentally taxed by all the nuances of making the game work. Personally, I'm curious to see what changes the 2k series has brought about in 2010. I know MLB is going to be essentially the same game as it was in 2009, with some presentational improvements. I guess I have to weigh this fact with against the improvements that 2k will bring. I'm the type of guy who would probably buy 2k if it was a step below MLB, but more fun to play. If it's 3 or 4 steps, that's another story. I guess it's another week of wait and see...

[Clarityman]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

Honestly, I think your post was very well thought out, but I think you are looking into things way too much.

I disagree. This is the type of stuff a marketing consultant would consider. I should know, one of my friends is one and he discusses these issues all the time.

[ATLNYankee]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

For some reason, fans of the MLB series don't seem to share the same hostility or outcry for year over year changes as fans of other sports series do. Can you imagine if Madden didn't change their core gameplay for 2 years? Personally, I bought MLB 09 last year, which was my first entry into the series. Obviously, it was better than 2k, but I wasn't enamored with it. For me, it's a somewhat bland representation of the game. Sure, it's an accurate representation, a lot of attention to detail is payed to players, stadiums, etc., but I just didn't get excited about playing it. Baseball is a slower game in general, but it has its moments. Diving catches/stops in the infield, jumping catches at the wall, clutch hits, key strikeouts. MLB just didn't capture any of the excitement of the game. I also found the controls to be a bit cumbersome. Too many times I'd try to hit & run or steal, only to have a guy get picked off. There were also an inordinate amount of inning killing double plays.

I get that there are diehard sim heads, and people who care about the color of Albert Pujols shoe/glove laces. I care to a point as well. But the games have to be fun to play. There are times you just want to pick up a controller and jump into a game, without being mentally taxed by all the nuances of making the game work. Personally, I'm curious to see what changes the 2k series has brought about in 2010. I know MLB is going to be essentially the same game as it was in 2009, with some presentational improvements. I guess I have to weigh this fact with against the improvements that 2k will bring. I'm the type of guy who would probably buy 2k if it was a step below MLB, but more fun to play. If it's 3 or 4 steps, that's another story. I guess it's another week of wait and see...

Thanks, goodbye. You do know that their are sliders. You can tone up or down anything in the game. Base runner speed, fielder reaction, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

Too many failed hit and runs. Happens all of the time in the real game. It's a cat and mouse game with the pitcher, base runner and the catcher. If you aren't going to do a straight steal, wait til after the pitcher commits to home with the ball and then run.

Too many inning ending double plays? I have seen baseball teams hit 4-5 double plays a game. It's part of the game. Here is another thing. Unless you tweak the sliders, you HAVE to work the count in this game. You are also going to have to lay off on any pitch on the outside part of the plate unless you are protecting a 2 strike count. 90 percent of the time you are going to hit a weak grounder just like in real life on an outside pitch.

Baseball is a game of inches. Great hitters fail 70 percent of the time. Very good teams in baseball get shut down plenty of times. Getting 10 hits, 3-4 runs for a game is the norm. Scoring runs without the homerun is the toughest thing to do in baseball. I love that the game is tough and difficult and forces a learning curve, strategy, patience and luck. I rather have that than have 2k with their 5 homeruns a game offense. Plus like I said, play with the sliders based on your skill. You can turn the game into an arcade version if you want. You have the internet, all it takes is 1 second to google MLB 09 The Show sliders to find suggestions.

[Rebel10]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

I'm with you (gostate) in that I didn't get completely enamored with MLB '09 The SHow, even though I was really blown away by it at first. It didn't grab me like MVP '05 did, and I'm sure that the guys in this forum are tired of the comparisons (although I think that The SHow is a better game, by far, MVP still brought something that no others have... and perhaps that's just nostalgia talking).

I'm dedicated to giving another go at MLB '10 and I'm pretty excited for it. I read on here a month ago or so, that one way somebody gets through a lot of seasons is to play only every 6th game, and that way, a season is pretty short... 28 total games played, but you still get to play evenly with all of your pitchers, so I think that is what I'm going to do. I'm looking forward to trying it and pushing back into multi-season baseball games.

I'd like to see a tutorial mode for gamers like me. I know that there are the helpful tuts on this site that have been good, but I WISH the game had a robust system of explaining all of the controls and mechanisms in detail... something to explain shifting defenses, pitching, hitting, base running, and so on. I struggled a lot with the controls last year and felt that the baserunning, stealing, hit and run, etc., controls were too daunting without a lot of help. I ended up switching to automatic, which I hated to do, but I Was tired of accidentilly sending a runner home from somewhere and missing out on what would have been guys in scoring position. I'm sure that others don't have this problem, but at the time, I did.

Still really looking forward to MLB '10, but I sympathize with GoState's approach.

[ped3328]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

Thanks, goodbye. You do know that their are sliders. You can tone up or down anything in the game. Base runner speed, fielder reaction, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

Too many failed hit and runs. Happens all of the time in the real game. It's a cat and mouse game with the pitcher, base runner and the catcher. If you aren't going to do a straight steal, wait til after the pitcher commits to home with the ball and then run.

Too many inning ending double plays? I have seen baseball teams hit 4-5 double plays a game. It's part of the game. Here is another thing. Unless you tweak the sliders, you HAVE to work the count in this game. You are also going to have to lay off on any pitch on the outside part of the plate unless you are protecting a 2 strike count. 90 percent of the time you are going to hit a weak grounder just like in real life on an outside pitch.

Baseball is a game of inches. Great hitters fail 70 percent of the time. Very good teams in baseball get shut down plenty of times. Getting 10 hits, 3-4 runs for a game is the norm. Scoring runs without the homerun is the toughest thing to do in baseball. I love that the game is tough and difficult and forces a learning curve, strategy, patience and luck. I rather have that than have 2k with their 5 homeruns a game offense. Plus like I said, play with the sliders based on your skill. You can turn the game into an arcade version if you want. You have the internet, all it takes is 1 second to google MLB 09 The Show sliders to find suggestions.

My theory behind the lack of a demo is this : Upon viewing the demo, people will start debating this and that, they will find a glitch here, a glitch there. They will say: '' Oh, this is not what we thought it would be'', etc, etc. There will be no end to it. By not making a demo available before the actual launching date of March 2, SECA is avoiding a lot that nonsense. Upon viewing the demo, the ''addicts'' would read these posts and write their impressions, mostly the negative stuff. Some of us can be very picky at times. We sure don't miss a beat! Can you imagine starting a new post pertinent to the demo. The assault would be on, believe me. So, I think SECA is playing smart, and tha'ts OK with me.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

who said the demo wouldn't be out before March 2nd?

[dmbfan1970]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

I honestly don't care/need demo because it would be an old build anyways. Besides...The game comes out in 10 days. 10 days! We can wait

[dgrfan]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

That is one Hell of a post for a Rookie.

seriously, wonderful job man....totally agree.

Who said Dodger fans and Giants fans couldn't get along

[Senor_Herbatron]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

All I care about is online play. If they let us down again after the countless "We spent tons of time fixing online play" posts I'm going to be truly upset.

Other then that this game will be great.

[Segagendude]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

I've only been a buyer of The Show since 08.

Two years. And already I've seen the drastic improvements.

So, speculation, smeckulation. I know what the team is capable of, and I've no doubt this game will raise the bar (again) for other sports titles.

Sure, I'd have liked a demo. But as was said earlier, all that would do is make the wait for release that much tougher. 10 days, folks! 10 days!!!!!

[badmrfrosty7]

Re: MLB 10: The Speculation

I'm just curious to see how the game will be reviewed considering there's not a number of BIG improvements. But of course what counts as such an improvement is subjective and what's considered to be substantial improvements to long-time fans and casual fans differ. Either way I suppose only time will tell.