Quote:
|
Originally Posted by theobscure
What is this "Cato" of which you speak? Is that something that you buy seperately?
|
I wouldn't say you need it in order to try out the game.
It's a third party utility that generates a bunch of HTML reports from a league. An easy way to look at it is that if you were running an online league and had a web page, the HTML files generates by Cato are a lot beter-looking and have a lot more information than those generated by the game. It's great for solo leagues too, to keep track of your league history in a lot more detail than the game would, but it's by no means necessary for trying out the game at all, only if you're going to get pretty involved with an online or solo league.
To answer your other questions, getting OOTP5 would definitely help. OOTP6 is similar to v5 but with a lot of upgrades and new features, and although the game is being totally rewritten I would imagine it would have the same kind of "feel" as the old versions, just with some differences and a lot more in-depth. But, if you want to get the idea of what an OOTP-style text sim is all about, definitely try OOTP5. Also, playing v5 for a while will allow you to look at all the information/screenshots about 2006 and see how the game will be different, but still have a base of the old game so you'll better know what you're looking at. ("Oh, that's the new version of a player card", etc)
For #2, I don't know exactly what kind of customization you would want but I'm going to say I'm 99% sure you'll be fine. Most of the customization is very self-explanatory and easy to figure out, and if there's something you're stuck on, this is one of the best forums out there to get help with a computer game.
In summary, definitely try out v5. It may be difficult to find the mods you're looking for (logos, roster packs, etc) just because it's an old version, but play the game keeping in mind the fact that these things are all over the place for current versions of the game. And, if you aren't really "feeling" the game when you play it, the add-ons do really work wonders (it feels like a whole different game when you have logos, stadiums, player photos, and everything else), so keep that in mind.
Judging by the reasons you don't like the console games it seems like this thing is right up your alley.
Drop me an IM or a PM if you have any questions, I'm a college student so my laptop is basically an extension of my body, it shouldn't take me too long to get back to you.