Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

[born_bad]

Essentially, every feature other than a "play now" mode were stripped away, *but* the game just played an downright amazingly accurate and fun game of baseball? Let's say "play now" allowed for single player, 2 player, and online.

My answer, with no hesitation is yes. I'm thinking of something like Rockstar's Table Tennis and can't help but wonder, how good could the developer make a game if they weren't spending time trying to get complicated franchise and owner modes together. If they weren't concerned with adding new "features" and gimmicks? Granted, Table Tennis is only 2 players and table, but I think part of what makes the gameplay so solid is that all of the focus was simply spent on making the game play well.

I would love to see what 2k could do if they spent a whole year just focusing a game where you load it up, choose your team, and get on the field and play baseball. I bet it would be so much better than what we get now because so much time has to be spent on the other factors.

The truth is, when I play a sports game, I like to just play the game. I'll do a season mode or something, but I'm not that into tracking every team and the stats. I figure, if my intent is to just look at screens of stats, there are PC sims that can do that well. I want to take the field and have an amazing experience. I can't help but wonder how much better that experience would be if the companies were able to just do that. Unfortunately, I don't think it would sell that well as long as their is competition out there that does feature those other modes.

What do you all think? Would you a buy a game like that or do those other modes mean to much to you live without?

[countryboy]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

Essentially, every feature other than a "play now" mode were stripped away, *but* the game just played an downright amazingly accurate and fun game of baseball? Let's say "play now" allowed for single player, 2 player, and online.

My answer, with no hesitation is yes. I'm thinking of something like Rockstar's Table Tennis and can't help but wonder, how good could the developer make a game if they weren't spending time trying to get complicated franchise and owner modes together. If they weren't concerned with adding new "features" and gimmicks? Granted, Table Tennis is only 2 players and table, but I think part of what makes the gameplay so solid is that all of the focus was simply spent on making the game play well.

I would love to see what 2k could do if they spent a whole year just focusing a game where you load it up, choose your team, and get on the field and play baseball. I bet it would be so much better than what we get now because so much time has to be spent on the other factors.

The truth is, when I play a sports game, I like to just play the game. I'll do a season mode or something, but I'm not that into tracking every team and the stats. I figure, if my intent is to just look at screens of stats, there are PC sims that can do that well. I want to take the field and have an amazing experience. I can't help but wonder how much better that experience would be if the companies were able to just do that. Unfortunately, I don't think it would sell that well as long as their is competition out there that does feature those other modes.

What do you all think? Would you a buy a game like that or do those other modes mean to much to you live without?

no

thats why I have Bases Loaded and Bases Loaded II on the NES.

[BigL]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

id buy it but id get bored pretty quickly without a season to play

[jdros13]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

Funny you say that, but yes I probably would. The problem is that the consumers demand to have franchise mode now (and all current games I can think of have it), so many will not give a sports game a second look without it.

You could just create your own "franchise" by recording the wins and losses, simming all the other games on the schedule, and recording stats, but that isn't something that is easy from a console. Unlikely to happen, but it isn't a bad idea to get the gameplay right before adding the career stuff.

[jdros13]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

no

thats why I have Bases Loaded and Bases Loaded II on the NES.

But you enjoy BL and BL2 I'd assume, so you would probably at least consider it.

I still don't think it will ever happen at this point, but it's at least some out of the box thinking.

[Radioactiveman]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

I could live with out mini games, crazy in depht franchise mode (I'm not interesting in tweaking the cost of a hot dog), even season mode IF the gameplay was so titties that I had absolutly no complaints. I'd rather have that than having the option to play 30 seasons in a franchise mode when the reality is 30 seasons times 162 games equals 4860 games (minus playoffs)...in order for me to complete that, assuming that a game for me is about 30 minutes, I would have to play for 2430 hours or 6.65 hours a day every day of the year. In other words, it's never gonna happen. That's more time than a full time job!!!!! Time and money invested in creating these kinds of options is time wasted as far as I'm concerned. Paticularly when there are GAMEPLAY issues that could be addressed.

[born_bad]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

And, clearly, I'm talking about a game that would blow Bases Loaded out of the water.

That's the point - could the graphics and gamepay be so much better than it is now, if they leave out the other stuff (which is where a lot of the bugs and disappointments come in, too).

I kind of like this idea for all sports games, actually, not just baseball. I'd love to see what a football and basketball game would be like. Maybe it would be the same and I'm wrong in thinking those other things hinder the actual game in some way, but I wish some developer would try it out.

[born_bad]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

I could live with out mini games, crazy in depht franchise mode (I'm not interesting in tweaking the cost of a hot dog), even season mode IF the gameplay was so titties that I had absolutly no complaints. I'd rather have that than having the option to play 30 seasons in a franchise mode when the reality is 30 seasons times 162 games equals 4860 games (minus playoffs)...in order for me to complete that, assuming that a game for me is about 30 minutes, I would have to play for 2430 hours or 6.65 hours a day every day of the year. In other words, it's never gonna happen. That's more time than a full time job!!!!! Time and money invested in creating these kinds of options is time wasted as far as I'm concerned. Paticularly when there are GAMEPLAY issues that could be addressed.

The thing is, there's a demographic that will sim those 30 years (I don't think anyone would ever actually play all those games) just to see the results (and then usually find glitches or bugs). To be honest, I wish they would ignore that demographic for now (since there are sim games out there for stat-loving folks) and focus on "Is the best (insert sport) game on the field we can absolutely make?" and then maybe add things like a bare-bones season mode.

[Radioactiveman]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

And, clearly, I'm talking about a game that would blow Bases Loaded out of the water.

That's the point - could the graphics and gamepay be so much better than it is now, if they leave out the other stuff (which is where a lot of the bugs and disappointments come in, too).

I kind of like this idea for all sports games, actually, not just baseball. I'd love to see what a football and basketball game would be like. Maybe it would be the same and I'm wrong in thinking those other things hinder the actual game in some way, but I wish some developer would try it out.

I can see where you're coming from and agree 100%.

[WDaniel]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

Is that not what we have on our hands here? The gameplay is great judging from the demo, but I'm not willing to plunk down $60 for a defective multi-season mode.

[Fu Man Ching]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

Is that not what we have on our hands here? The gameplay is great judging from the demo, but I'm not willing to plunk down $60 for a defective multi-season mode.

That is your loss. some of th thing sin franchise mode can be fixed. IF lineups bother you that much than I guess you will have to wait and see if there is a fix for that. THe game is great. You could get your money worth out of this game from just playing exhibitions and online mode.JUstmy opinion though. I am aslo one of the guys who is mad that there were these problems.

[Dienekes]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

Essentially, every feature other than a "play now" mode were stripped away, *but* the game just played an downright amazingly accurate and fun game of baseball? Let's say "play now" allowed for single player, 2 player, and online.

I don't have the game but it seems like you got what you wanted right now. It appears to me from everything I read that franchise and season mode are busted.

I'm thinking of something like Rockstar's Table Tennis and can't help but wonder, how good could the developer make a game if they weren't spending time trying to get complicated franchise and owner modes together. If they weren't concerned with adding new "features" and gimmicks? Granted, Table Tennis is only 2 players and table, but I think part of what makes the gameplay so solid is that all of the focus was simply spent on making the game play well.

Table Tennis is great but it only cost $40 new.

[Radioactiveman]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

To be honest, I wish they would ignore that demographic for now (since there are sim games out there for stat-loving folks) and focus on "Is the best (insert sport) game on the field we can absolutely make?" and then maybe add things like a bare-bones season mode.

We can dream...

[born_bad]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

I guess a simplified version of what I'm asking is - would you sacrifice all the modes you're used to now for the best pick-up-and-play, the most accurate graphically and technically, sports game you've ever played?

If the anwser is "yes," why doesn't a developer try this with a major sport now that the hardware is powerful?

I think part of the problem with sports games today is that they try to cater to and appease everyone. To accomodate what they perceive as the "hardcore sim" fans, they try to throw in a complicate franchise mode. They research and market it to the casual audience and find out what they think is "fun" about a sports game and then cater to them. That's why you get the excessive long balls in baseball, the big-plays in Madden, the ridiculous haymakers in Fight Night, etc. They don't want to ingore that crowd because, let's face it, that's a huge part of the market, so they put that in the game. That now upsets the sim fans, who then have to try and tweak sliders endlessly.

I wish a developer would just break it down to basics. What would happen if they *did* ignore the guys that want 30 season stats and they *did* ignore the guy that plays Madden once a month and want to score 8 touchdowns a game? Imagine if they stopped trying to please those groups, threw all the modes out the window and just focused on making a videogame, with the technology available today (real motion, etc) and tried to make the most realisitic game they could? Without all the gimmicks, modes, features, etc. I bet we would all be blown away.

[Fu Man Ching]

Re: Out of curiousity - would you buy a baseball game if...

True . It would be interesting to know how much effort actually goes into these game modes because all of the games have their own problems in these different game modes. The ones that get right seem to add less to the gameplay that year. In this case. I'm glad MLB2k went the gameplay route.