Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

[phillyfan23]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Here's an answer for the people wondering about the arm strength of players. (Taken from the Q&A at 2ksports)

Q: Will the players throwing arm's be toned down in the retail version?
A: Yes, they are toned down a bit in final version, but if you are not
happy with them there is a slider for fielders throwing power you can
adjust.

I don't know if this next question answers much but here you go.

Q: For the Cpu AI I see that you have put strike tendency, so I am sure you can tweak that so you can get realsitic pitch counts and walks. My concern is for USER pitching. I did not see the balls/strikes sliders for user pitching and I am concerned that the pitch meter will be dependent mostly on user skill. how's zone hitting implemented?? Thanks for your time
A: We have pitching sliders that will make pitching more difficult, it really depends on where you are aiming and how well you execute your pitch as to whether throw a ball or a strike, if you aim to a specific spot in the strike zone and nail the gesture and fill the pitch meter then why would anyone expect to throw a ball, we are a sim game but it is a video game, which punishing the user for doing something wright doesn't seem like something a majority of user's would like.

Basically it's a transparent bat shaped cursor which you aim where the ball goes, so you swing with the right stick and aim your bat with the left stick.

I asked that question starting from the bolded part and this was just a question on user pitching. The A.I pitching does have strike tendency slider to make it easeir to draw walks. But it doesn't have take strike tendency slider in batting to make it more patient.

So when i said good pitch counts, I meant when the cpu was pitching .....

hope that clarifies

[mike360]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

He mentioned last week he has corporate training seminars. It was planned (to silence you conspiracy theorists)!

Oh, hah, nah, I'm not like that. I'm just saying though. It is convenient.

[The Bimmer]

Thanks Steve for the preview. The issues in your write-up with 2k9 are the issues that would stop me from making a purchase. Graphics are not a priority for me, but fluid motion and realism is. If we add in a questionable A.I. well..... I get the feeling 2k will strikeout swinging this year instead of looking like last year which is a good thing for baseball fans

[jeffy777]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

He mentioned last week he has corporate training seminars. It was planned (to silence you conspiracy theorists)!

Just extremely bad timing though don't you think? They have one guy at the 2K forum who provides official info about the game and he's going to be gone for 2 weeks right before the game is released. There's no conspiracy needed. It's just horrible timing, that's all.

[fistofrage]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

I asked that question starting from the bolded part and this was just a question on user pitching. The A.I pitching does have strike tendency slider to make it easeir to draw walks. But it doesn't have take strike tendency slider in batting to make it more patient.

So when i said good pitch counts, I meant when the cpu was pitching .....

hope that clarifies

The thing I hate about his quote was that yeah the game is a sim, but its still a video game. So you can't punish the use for doing something right. This means entirely not a sim. If everything is based on timing, its a hand/eye coordination video game, the exact opposite of a sim.

This is where 2k College hoops gets it right. If you choose sim instead of arcade in the menu, you can have a perfect release on a 3pt shot, doesn't mean you'll make it though.

Why would baseball and strike zones be different. A pitcher can release the ball to the best of his ability and miss the strike zone, it happens all day long.

Thanks, that quote saved me $60. 2k needs to just hang it up.

[Knight165]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Damn.

I was worried about the animations.
I wasn't sure considering guys were saying it might have been the capture from the vids...but I know Steve knows what he's talking about.
I will still buy the game(I've got every BB game through the passages of TIME! )...I'm hoping that like a couple of guys alluded to...it might be lessened in the final version.
Still looks very rough...but it's moving in the right direction IMO.
I hope I can convince the dev's to add a Manage Only Mode(then I could actually forgive some hiccups in the animations!) for future versions as I think the next couple of versions might REALLY be on track.

M.K.
Knight165

[King Gro23]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

The silence from 2k is what has me concerned. This idea of CPU not taking strikes has been floating around since they first released the videos. If this was truly not an issue you would think they would come and say so. Or at the very least Ron at 2k would have addressed the board

Videos came out 3 days ago dude?

[Danny305miA]

First of Steve, in behalf of all us waiting for March 3 to arrive here, thank you for all the updates and for making the waiting process easier. Now i know you said in an earlier post that you weren't taking request but since i don;t know if you changed that i decided to take a shot and ask you anyway. I was wondering if you could do a video featuring the Marlins vs Yankees or the Marlins vs Red Sox since this is the year that they actually play each other in the regular season. I wouls realy appreciate it and thank you.

[Padgoi]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Stop with the requests for games and teams please. The only thing we need answered at this point is whether the cpu will swing at every single pitch in the strike zone.

[phillyfan23]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

The thing I hate about his quote was that yeah the game is a sim, but its still a video game. So you can't punish the use for doing something right. This means entirely not a sim. If everything is based on timing, its a hand/eye coordination video game, the exact opposite of a sim.

This is where 2k College hoops gets it right. If you choose sim instead of arcade in the menu, you can have a perfect release on a 3pt shot, doesn't mean you'll make it though.

Why would baseball and strike zones be different. A pitcher can release the ball to the best of his ability and miss the strike zone, it happens all day long.

Thanks, that quote saved me $60. 2k needs to just hang it up.

it's certainly not promising....because as hard as the pitching is at the beginning, it WILL be mastered at even the highest difficulty setting/sliders by a lot of people here given the amount of time played.

Hopefully the demo we can mess with sliders and see if a pitcher's ratings are incorporated into the pitching. Looks like it won't though but we never know

[King Gro23]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Q: Will the AI Batters be more patient in the retail version?
A: Yes, the AI batters will take more pitches. We have toned down the amount of balls swung at in the zone by the AI batters.

I found this here around at gamespot ?
I am really lost
I am on a cell though so I dont know much

[NumberOneRB]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Besides the obvious answer about the CPU taking strikes, I'm also looking forward to hearing Steve elaborate on the hit variety because from reading his impressions it appears to be REALLY good.

[Bahnzo]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Besides the obvious answer about the CPU taking strikes, I'm also looking forward to hearing Steve elaborate on the hit variety because from reading his impressions it appears to be REALLY good.

I find this kind of strange, because from all the videos that have been published, the hit variety has been anything but.....well, a variety I guess. I'll take Steve's word on it for now, I just have yet to see any of those "seeing eye singles" as of yet.

[Wombat5]

Steve, is there a way you could get a video of a game at miller park. Miller Park in the past few years has been very poorly done, but looking at the screenshots it has looked improved but i was just curious what it looked like in actual game play.

[kcxiv]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview

Yeah, I just read over there that Ron is going to be gone for the next two weeks. I thought that was kind of weird timing

Ron is always in and out of the offices and going to the other 2K offices around the world. Its part of the job. He's not a developer, he's a 2K sports employee. There are tons of people that have to travel for their job.

Though, i can get a hold of him if need be or something gets seriously messed up.