Customizing the look and attributes of each player on every team is surely a huge time issue for developers. Each year people find reasons to be disappointed with the newest crop of baseball games for one reason or another, and I would think the player roster issue in particular has helped to cause this, because it has given developers less time to focus on gameplay, features, and testing. Just go along with me here alright?
So my idea is to create a game with all the fundamentals in place but with NO MLB players license (use the teams, just not the players), but instead provide unprecedented customization by allowing the gaming community to create and distribute their own customized players and rosters. It would have two core features: 1) the best create-a-player possible, and 2) the ability to upload and download players and rosters over the internet. It would possibly even have the ability to create players and rosters using an official PC freeware application.
The default roster that shipped with the game would be totally random--the developers would spend absolutely zero time trying to make them like real MLB players. This would take a pretty big load off the developer's shoulders, and if the game looks awesome and plays awesome you will no doubt see users willing to put in the time to make accurate rosters and great looking players. They'd be accurate all year long too, not just when the developers felt like releasing an update.
As I said, the create-a-player would be the best you could imagine. It would have a library of dozens of eye, nose, mouth, and hair graphics, many different skin tones, and dozens of different accessories for each model. The body shape could be adjusted just like most player editors let you do already. The important thing here is that the editor would be hands down better than the editors in every other game.
Batting stances would still be created by the developers, but they'd be named using pseudonyms like Larry Ponds instead of Barry Bonds. A batting stance / walkup editor could be possible as well, but that'd be tricky.
Another optional feature would be a library of pre-recorded names, like the name Rodriguez and the name Alex, but not together, to avoid infringing on the players license. When it sees the word Rodriguez in a user created name the announcer knows to actually say it out loud.
Of course, the key to making a game like this would be to use any time that is saved to make the game kick-butt in the graphics, sound, and gameplay department. I would totally give up the right to use real players if the game played insanely good, especially if I could download a user-created roster later.
So my idea is to create a game with all the fundamentals in place but with NO MLB players license (use the teams, just not the players), but instead provide unprecedented customization by allowing the gaming community to create and distribute their own customized players and rosters. It would have two core features: 1) the best create-a-player possible, and 2) the ability to upload and download players and rosters over the internet. It would possibly even have the ability to create players and rosters using an official PC freeware application.
The default roster that shipped with the game would be totally random--the developers would spend absolutely zero time trying to make them like real MLB players. This would take a pretty big load off the developer's shoulders, and if the game looks awesome and plays awesome you will no doubt see users willing to put in the time to make accurate rosters and great looking players. They'd be accurate all year long too, not just when the developers felt like releasing an update.
As I said, the create-a-player would be the best you could imagine. It would have a library of dozens of eye, nose, mouth, and hair graphics, many different skin tones, and dozens of different accessories for each model. The body shape could be adjusted just like most player editors let you do already. The important thing here is that the editor would be hands down better than the editors in every other game.
Batting stances would still be created by the developers, but they'd be named using pseudonyms like Larry Ponds instead of Barry Bonds. A batting stance / walkup editor could be possible as well, but that'd be tricky.
Another optional feature would be a library of pre-recorded names, like the name Rodriguez and the name Alex, but not together, to avoid infringing on the players license. When it sees the word Rodriguez in a user created name the announcer knows to actually say it out loud.
Of course, the key to making a game like this would be to use any time that is saved to make the game kick-butt in the graphics, sound, and gameplay department. I would totally give up the right to use real players if the game played insanely good, especially if I could download a user-created roster later.
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