OOTP 17 - Cool Changes, Fun as ever!

I received a code to check out the latest offering of OOPT17. I believe my version is still in beta (or something similar).

Those familiar with the OOTP franchise will recognize features from previous versions, though some menus have been moved and/or consolidated, so it may take a little bit of getting used to where things are now in 17. That aside, the game has made some cool improvements that stand out to me for sure.

The main thing that jumped out at me were the team-oriented banners:

When you select a team from the drop-down menu, the banner across the top changes to match the team's primary color and the menus change to reflect the secondary color. This is a HUGE help visually when you are navigating between teams frequently. Even if you aren't, it's a nice touch.

I love the updates to the 3d stadiums as well:

The rendering gives a cool, "you are there" feeling to the game that was started last year but has really been elevated in this version. My understanding is that they are still working on the modeling and will continue to release updates as more stadiums get the improved 3d treatment.

A few of the things I really like: The scoreboard in the left corner, the info in the right corner, and the play-by-play box in the center. The whole layout, really, gives you the feeling that you are watching the game live on your screen.

I did manage to crash the database once, but I think that was my fault. I had started a new game and exited before finishing the set-up. I think I confused the system. Oops!

I also had a heck of a time getting the game to record for YouTube. Once recording kept jumping because it didn't like sitting there without changing. That is, on menu screens, etc where nothing on-screen changed, my recording software thought I was looking at loading screens. That's a flaw in my software, not the game. When I tried recording again, the game got way out of sync with the voice-over I did. I'm not sure what was happening there.

Several times, not while recording, but just while playing, the mouse seemed to get "lost" and did not match up with menu locations on the screen. So, I would point to the "File" button, but the mouse thought it was higher or lower than the button so it would not let me click. I don't know if that is a resolution issue, a "beta" issue, or if that is a glitch in the game. I did resolve it by forcing the game to full-screen. Once in full-screen, the weird mouse alignment issues went away.

It also seemed that the Steam overlay interfered with the game. It's like the overlay made the game slow down at times and/or get jumpy. I am blaming the overlay because it seemed to be worse when I took screenshots or hit Shift-Tab (a Steam overlay function). Not really the game's fault, but something that might need to be checked.

Aside from those weird quirks, the game is fantastic! I loved creating an exhibition World Series between the 1979 Pirates vs the 1948 Indians. I also had a blast creating a game using the greatest players in team franchise history. This pitted greats like Reggie Jackson against Bob Feller and Babe Ruth vs Randy Johnson. I mean, really, does it get any better than that!? That is exactly the kind of thing I like about baseball simulations and OOTP17 delivers.

There may be no crying in baseball, but seeing some of the greats of days gone by take on the greats of today may very well bring a tear of joy to your eye.

Cool #OOTP Tourney for OOTP 2017!

Out of the Park Developments announces “16 in ’16: Baseball’s Tournament of Champions”, the definitive simulation to determine MLB’s all-time greatest team

Powered by a prestigious Selection Committee of world-renowned baseball writers and the unique Historical Series feature available only in Out of the Park Baseball 17

Tournament will be broadcast live on Twitch with select games from March 24th through the Championship Series on April 14th

Out of the Park Developments, an official licensee of MLB.com, MiLB.com, and the MLBPA, today announced “16 in ’16: Baseball’s Tournament of Champions.” This unique competition will determine which Major League Baseball team truly is the greatest of all time, thanks to the new Out of the Park Baseball 17 Historical Series feature and the game’s powerful simulation engine that has delighted baseball fans for the past seventeen seasons.

In order to stage this ultimate competition, a prestigious OOTP Selection Committee was created to determine the 16 teams that qualify above all others throughout history. The OOTP Selection Committee features highly-respected baseball writers, commentators, former players, and digital media personalities, including:

• Tim Kurkjian - ESPN
• Neil Paine – FiveThirtyEight
• Mark Simon – ESPN
• Brian Kenny – MLB Network
• Ken Hirdt – Elias Sports Bureau
• Rob Tracy – Elias Sports Bureau
• CJ Nitkowski – MLB Analyst
• Kat Bailey – Hit The Pass/US Gamer
• Gus Ramsey – Committee Chairman

The OOTP Selection Committee chose the first twelve seeds of the tournament via blind submissions of their top 20 all-time team selections. These seeds will be announced live on Twitch.tv/ootpdevelopments on Wednesday, March 9th at 9 PM ET. The Out of the Park Baseball community will then have the opportunity to vote for the “Last Four In” from the remaining teams via survey from March 10th through March 15th. The final tournament seedings, pairings, and schedules for all 16 teams will be announced live on Twitch.tv/ootpdevelopments on Wednesday, March 16th at 9 PM ET.

The “16 in ‘16” tournament will feature 7-game series for every tournament matchup. The competition will run from March 24th through April 14th, with select matchups broadcast live on Out of the Park’s Twitch channel, including the final series in its entirety.

In addition to using Out of the Park Baseball 17’s powerful, industry-leading simulation engine, the new Historical Series feature allows each of the series to play out in an entirely authentic manner – not just a number-crunching simulation. Over the course of a series, player fatigue, pitching matchups, and game-specific strategies will ensure an unprecedented level of accuracy. Elimination games will be managed differently than series openers, for example, and Game 7s will be “all hands on deck!”

To further add to the intrigue, the unique Historical Series feature allows the teams to play in a fashion that represents a selected year/era. This calculates the player ratings (normalized against each team’s specific year and then adjusted to the era) and sets up the league totals as well as the strategy settings, including rotation size and strategic tendencies. So, when you have the 1927 Yankees play against the 1996 Braves and select 1927 as the era, the Braves team will behave and perform as if it was 1927 as well. Home teams will have the “Home Era” advantage in the 16 in ’16 Tournament!

OOTP 17 will launch worldwide on March 22, 2016, and can be pre-ordered through this link:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/out-of-the-park-baseball-17.php

About Out of the Park Developments

Out of the Park Developments is the developer of the award-winning OOTP and MLB Manager series of baseball management simulations, Franchise Hockey Manager, and Beyond the Sideline Football. German-based OOTP Developments was founded by Markus Heinsohn and Andreas Raht in 1999. OOTP Developments has consistently produced games that have met with critical acclaim, including winning Metacritic's coveted "Game of the Year" for the 2007 edition of OOTP, which remains the second highest-rated PC game on Metacritic of all time. Further information on the company and its games is available from the OOTP Developments website, http://www.ootpdevelopments.com

About MLB.com

Established in June 2000 following a unanimous vote by the 30 Major League Baseball club owners to centralize all of Baseball’s Internet operations, MLB Advanced Media LP (MLBAM) is the interactive media and internet company of Major League Baseball. MLBAM manages the official league site, MLB.com,and each of the 30 individual Club sites to create the most comprehensive Major League Baseball resource on the Internet. MLB.com offers fans the most complete baseball information and interactivity across computers and mobile devices, including up-to-date statistics, game previews and summaries, extensive historical information, online ticket sales, baseball merchandise, authenticated memorabilia and collectibles, fantasy games, live full-game video streaming and in-progress and on-demand highlights, live and archived audio broadcasts, Gameday pitch-by-pitch application, Statcast tracking technology, around-the-clock hosted and specialty video programming, complete blogging capabilities, console and mobile video games and the award-winning At Bat and Ballpark mobile applications. MLBAM powers more live events across the Internet than any other company in the world.

Major League Baseball Players Association

The Major League Baseball Players Association (www.MLBPLAYERS.com ) is the collective bargaining representative for all professional baseball players of the thirty Major League Baseball teams and serves as the exclusive group licensing agent for commercial and licensing activities involving active Major League baseball players. On behalf of its members, it operates the Players Choice licensing program and the Players Choice Awards, which benefit the needy through the Major League Baseball Players Trust, a charitable foundation established and run entirely by Major League baseball players. Follow: @MLB_Players; @MLBPAClubhouse; @MLBPlayersTrust

#PackADailyCircus #ootp - padcircus.com is now online!

Hello, everyone! I have decided to bite the bullet and start posting the OOTP game online with a paid, real domain. Turns out, it was cheaper than I ever imagined. I am also keenly aware that HOW things are being done are not necessarily the way they are SUPPOSED to be done. You know what? I don't care. Well, I do a little.

In any case, you can now find our OOTP game at www.padcircus.com! It is updated as of 05/14/2015. Remember, some teams may still have real players that have no actually been drafted yet. If that's the case, enjoy the player while you can because they may not be on your team the whole season.

You may notice some of your drafted players are not listed. They may be on your team's Reserve List and so they don't show up on your online roster page. I'll see if I can fix that, too.

You will notice many player pictures are missing. I plan to rectify that by having OOTP generate missing player pics for the next upload.

If you notice other issues or general weirdness on the site, please let me know. I'm sure it has to do with the order/manner in which I am uploading the files from my computer to the site.

A quick technical note: I can ZIP the files locally, upload them, then unzip them directly in the site. Man, that is so much faster than transferring all the files individually! WAHOO!!

#ootp #PackADailyCircus - Getting in the Game!

UPDATE: Several players were in the draft that shouldn't have been. Ex: Don Mattingly, Jon Singleton, Lasorda, and Cole Hamels - I am entering names now and finding the dupes. Now that players are in ootp, mistakes should be reduced. Sorry about that!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to another edition of PackADaily Circus Update! At some point, I will attempt to do these updates (or some updates, anyway) on Youtube or BlogRadio or something. Yeah, yeah, I know, something else I am adding different from last year. When will I stop? Probably never. haha!

First up, let's talk about the OOTP game. We are using OOTP16 and I have assigned teams to divisions. Like last season, we will have two main leagues, each having 4 divisions. Let's see how things worked out:

UPTOWN FUNK LEAGUE		DOWNTOWN GROOVE LEAGUE
Picadilly Division ..Arpsmith ..Dominic FDNY ..Erin Rose ..ProwlingCats ..SuperDuperMen Leicester Divison ..CaptKirk42s ..Jennings64 ..Play at the Plates ..Thorzul ..Wilsons Punto Obelisco Division ..Alecs All-Stars ..Joliet Convicts ..Maddings ..Stealing Home ..Thoughts and Sox Bakerloo Division ..Arkansas Tribecards ..Bo Rosnys ..GCRLs ..Saitama Sushi ..SoxFan4Life		Green Park  Division ..Eastern Virginia Mutts ..Idaho Astros ..Kazis ..Night Owls ..RJBreezes Oxford Circus Division ..Captain Canucks ..Illinois Jafronius ..Jacksonville jobu ..Pedersejs ..Pennsylvania BCs Lillywhites Division ..Backstop Cards ..Cobb County SuperChickens ..Enamel Rods ..The Balking Dead ..Ventura County Royals Caring Cross Division ..Kentucky Quarrys ..Nachos Grandes ..New Jersey Hadsalls ..Northampton Therapists ..TSHensons

The first thing you probably notice are the team names. Some managers kept their names from last season and other decided to try something new. You may also notice that teams have been shifted around from last year's divisions. Some folks may be in the same division, others may not. There was no rhyme or reason to how things worked out.

I have previously assigned drafted players to teams. This most recent draft, which ended up running late, will be added to the game shortly. Speaking of the most recent one, as of this writing anyway, here are the results:

I want to give yet another H-U-G-E thank you to Josh D for making an update to the draft system. Now, I just copy the data from Google and the system will swap out email addresses for in-game team names! I cannot tell you how much time this whole process saves me compared to last season!

Managers, I will have the next draft to you before Tuesday (March 24) morning!

Thanks for reading along!

#PackADailyCircus #ootp - PLAYOFFS!! Lots to catch up on (Wait, have I said that already? a couple times, even?)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Tribecards Pack-A-Daily Circus Postseason! We've got a LOT to catch up on, so let's get started.

First of all, the ambitious notion of creating "radio broadcasts" of the games is out the window. There are just too many things going in in life to try to pull that off here. That is a bummer, because I just know you would have loved my radio style and witty banter with..er, myself.

So, with that news, I have created a Post Season folder that I am sharing so that you can look over the game logs as we go along. I will post the links to the game log folder and then later in each post, I will provide the actual standings, scores, etc. That way, I can head off any spoilers (or try anyway).

We also have a few packs to bust open as we finish out the actual MLB season, so we'll get those going as well.

---

We also have our final draft results!  Let's look at those first:

As always, everyone goes into the pot:

Then, the names are sorted in the spreadsheet. Only, I didn't take that screenshot. Instead, like a doofus, I took one of how things looked before I even ran the randomizer. Well, here ya go, for what it's worth - the list before random sorting:

What everyone really came for: the final results:

 Just as an FYI, here are a couple stats:

1. This draft had the most shut-outs we've had all season (4)
2. We had 24 managers participate
3. Junction Jack, Dmitri Young, and Aaron Harang each received 15 requests
4. The Jennings were the only team to grab two players!

Those names were put into the OOTP game before the first game was played. All teams were then given AI lineups and roster changes. Sorry, Jafronius and Otakus, but the expanded roster kinda freaked the post season out, so I had no choice but to give every the "AI Equal Treatment."

The Managers/Players list is updated as well. See the "PAD Info" tab above for the link.

---

Okay, I know you are dying to see what happened in the first day of playoff action, right!? Before we get there, here is the link to the whole postseason game logs folder:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1Z8vNjtCJDAdXZGcDlWblZ6LWc&usp=sharing#list

The files use the following format:
gamedate - visitor vs home (round, game)
Ex: 0927 - Tribecards at JoshDs (Round 1, Game 1)

SPOILER ALERT!! RESULTS FROM PLAYOFFS APPEAR AFTER THE IMAGE BELOW!!
Stop here if you want to go view the game logs for yourself before seeing the scores/standings.

You have been warned...

Okay, here we go!! Here are the results of the 09/27 games:

Dominic FDNYs vs Missouri Wilsons; Arkansas Tribecards vs California JoshDs; Texas PlayAtThePlates vs Alberta CaptainCanucks; and Illinois Superduperman99s vs Pennslyvania NachosGrandes:

Minnesota gcrls vs Florida Workmans; New York BoRosnys vs Ontario Kazis; Kentucky Quarrys vs New Jersey Hadsalls; and Wisconsin Thorzuls vs Virginia Dawgbones:

Congratulations all 1st game winners!! This is a "Best-of-Five" round, though, so plenty of time for those trailing to win.

I am a day behind, I know. So, I will let these stand. There is no game scheduled for the 29th in OOTP, so I will post the scores from the 28th's games on the 29th. Clear as mud? Well, just keep checking back.

Okay, we have some packs to bust! (Sorry, can't scan pics - ugh!)

2010 Topps Series 2:

Jeremy Guthrie - Orioles - BackstopCards (Wahoo!!)
Jake Westbrook - Indians (Wahoo!) - Wilsons (Wahoo!!)
Frank Robinson (1971 Cards your mom threw out) - Orioles - CaptainKirk42s (Wahoo!!)
Ozzie Smith 1993 Topps Reprint(?) - Cardinals - Maddings (Wahoo!!)
Gary Carter Million Dollar Giveaway promo card - Expos - Hadsalls (Wahoo!!)
Jermaine Dye Peak Performers - White Sox - JoshDs (Wahoo!!) 
Justin Verlander Topps Attax - Tigers - Otakus (Wahoo!!) 
Franklin Morales - Rockies - Free Agent

Man, we were so close to a Perfect Pack! Well, Morales will get randomly inserted for one of you!

Next Pack:

2008 Opening Day

Gil Meche - Royals - Free Agent
Jeff Clement - Mariners - Free Agent
Alfonso Soriano - Cubs - BoRosnys (Wahoo!!)
David Ortiz - Red Sox - FDNYs (Wahoo!!)
Josh Hamilton - Reds - ScottCrawfordOnCards (Wahoo!!)
Curt Schilling - Red Sox - FDNYs (Wahoo!! x2)

Congrats to FDNYs for grabbing two hits from this pack!

Let's do another 2010 Series 2:

Troy Tulowitzki - Rockies - Erins (Wahoo!!)
New York Yankees Team Card - Yankees - Free Agent
Lastings Milledge - Pirates - Free Agent
Jason Varitek - Red Sox - ThoughtsAndSox (Wahoo!!)
Mickey Mantle (1953 cards your mom threw out) - Yankees - Dawgbones (Wahoo!!)
Juan Marichal/Tim Lincecum Legendary Lineage - Giants - JoshDs (Wahoo!!)/Otakus (Wahoo!!)
Jon Lester Topps Attax - Red Sox - ThoughtsAndSox (Wahoo!! x2)
Jay Bruce - Reds - NachosGrandes (Wahoo!!)

Congrats, everyone!! Nice pulls for ThoughtsAndSox, getting two hits there.

Thanks for reading along and joining us on this VERY crazy adventure!

Tune in on Monday for the 2nd game results of the PAD Circus Playoffs!!

#PackADailyCircus #ootp14 - Our First Trade and Busting A Pack

News from the PackADaily Circus League: 

Indiana, Illinois Agree to Deal: The players apparently knew they were on the trading block, so it did not surprise one of them when he learned that he had been traded to Indiana. "Got my bags packed already," Aparicio said, when reached for comment. The MySportsObsessions will receive 34-year-old first baseman Paul Konerko and 21-year-old reliever Chris Sale, while 30-year-old third baseman Joe Crede and 38-year-old shortstop Luis Aparicio will go to the Illinois JediJeffs.

That trade is reflected in the current Manager/Player list.

And, I got the game to actually skip to Opening Day!!*  Tomorrow, we look at Opening Day match-ups and more!

Meanwhile, Let's bust some wax!

2013 Bowman

Shin-Soo Choo - Reds - TSHensons (Wahoo!!)
Delmon Young - Phillies - Free Agent
Matt Cain - Giants - Arpsmiths (Wahoo!!)
Darwin Rivera - Astros - Free Agent
Kelvin De Leon - Yankees - Free Agent

Jurickson Profar Gold - Rangers - RJBreezes (Wahoo!!)
Tommy Joseph Chrome Mini - Free Agent
Bruce Rondon Chrome - Tigers - Free Agent
Hiroki Kuroda - Yankees - BoRosnys (Wahoo!!)
Ian Kennedy - DBacks - PTownToms (Wahoo!!)

Not a bad split! We went 50/50 Free Agents-to-Owned. Congratulations to everyone that pulled cards from this pack. I have to say, that chrome mini is a neat little specimen of cardboard. I hop I pull more of those as we bust packs. Er, I'll have to buy more 2013 Bowman first.


*For those who want to know how: I reduced the draft back down to 1 round and had the computer run that round. As far as I can tell, everyone's players stayed the same and the game continued to Opening Day! Now, to figure out how to let the computer run lineups without managing player trades...

#PackADailyCircus - Gearing up for season breaks! #ootp

Hey everyone!
  I am getting things in order for the first draft of the 2014 season. Everyone who signed up was notified about the draft by email. Please note that most communication will be done by email since there is a weird delay between the time I post something here and the time some of you get notified that a new post was added.

Be sure to check your email if you don't think you have received anything from me and you are signed up.

We have 44 managers participating this season! That is awesome!!  Thanks so much!

Now, before I roll out the draft this weekend, I want to share a couple of game-related items with you and the folks who are watching this crazy thing unfold!

First up, I created teams for each participant. Look over the list, and you should be able to figure out who you are and where you are within the league. I think I can still change team names if you don't like yours. Drop me a line and I will see what I can do. Otherwise, that will be something I fix next season:

The divisions get their names from places associated with Piccadilly Square, since that is the play-on-words title of this year's giveaway. The teams were assign to their divisions based on the order in which they were received during sign-up. We have two (2) SubLeagues (Think, American/National but without actual names). Because we have 44 teams, some divisions have 5 teams and some have 6 teams. Which have which was randomly determined.

For those interested in the OOTP rules chosen for this game:

To be perfectly frank, I don't have a clue what some of these rules do. I am NOT doing anything with financials this season. I hope that allows for any manager to own any player they wish. I won't know that until I start rolling things out. If I hit any snags, we'll monitor and adjust. As you can see, we will have a 25-man roster to start things off and then that will be expanded to a 40-man. This has NOTHING to do with cards you get during pack breaks. I will hold drafts or trades or something during the season so you can, if you want, expand your picks for the cards you get.

The draft order will be a serpentine format (what I called "snaking" last year), and OOTP has set the order. Since the database is outdated, I will create fictional players to fill in (ex: Yasiel Puig). There is probably a better way to handle that, but I want to get things rolling and don't want to take the time to learn. Haha! Here is the draft order:

I plan to simulate games each weekend for the previous week.
Packs will be opened each day.
Unclaimed players will be put into a pool for selection via draft.

I will be out of town until Sunday night, so I will run the draft then and should be able to kick out everyone's rosters.  OOTP lets me export things to HTML files, so hopefully I can post ongoing information and provide links to it. If not, I will figure out how to get things posted here and we will see how it goes!

OOTP has OOTW support! #ootp

If you've been following along, you might know that this season's giveaway will be tied to the baseball simulator OOTP (Out of the Park). What you may not know is that I have never used OOTP before. As I set out to merge the world of PackADay with the world of OOTP, I emailed Brad at OOTP and let him know what I was trying to do. As with any venture where the primary purpose of a program gets stretched beyond the intended limits, I hit a few snags. They weren't going to stop the show, but I will have to combine some of the things I do manually with some of the cool features of OOTP.

As I set out to create leagues and teams, I was having a hard time pulling in actual players. Brad and I emailed back and forth as we tried working through the problem. Finally, he asked me to upload my files so he could take a look. When he let me know that he could not only duplicate the problem (no players would show up in the draft, even though the program said they were imported) but that he had never seen anything like it before, I know I had something special on my hands.

Turns out, I managed to corrupt my game. I am pretty sure that happened during the creation of my custom league. I am not a "read the manual" kind of person. I am not sure reading the manual would have helped for what I am trying to do, but messing everything up the first time certainly helped.

Mind you, this support took place over the course of more than a week, over a ton of email exchanges. I would also like to note here that as a member of the BBA, I received my copy for free in exchange for posting about the program. My original plan was to (and still is to) incorporate OOTP as part of this season's breaks.

What I did not anticipate was the incredible level of patient support I would get from OOTP just getting things off the ground. Thanks to Brad and the great folks at OOTP who are providing OOTW service! OOTW!? Yeap! Out of This World!

The window for joining the break has closed, and we have 44 managers this season! Follow along as I get things ramped up for the initial draft, daily pack breaks and a baseball simulation that ties it all together!