Missing features or suggestions for historical play...

[Swimmer]

1 - The ability to start a historical league prior to 1901. Sans direct support for that, at least allow me to start a nineteenth century league with a Lahman imported initial draft, rather than having to do the "start a year early" workaround.

2 - Deleting career statistics - important for those people who want to start a historical league without the lahman-imported career records predating their league.

3 - Ability to designate which year's rookies import in amatuer drafts. This is important because of the pre-season only limitation on when you can alter the league structure. If you add a team in the pre-season, and then want it to participate in a February/March amateur draft before the season starts, the game will import next year's rookies, causing them to debut a year early. This situation could also be addressed by loosening the rules on when you can edit the league structure.

[elderotter]

Originally Posted by akw4572

"era" settings that change automatically over time, i.e. bullpen usage, starting pitcher endurance, closer usage, stealing and bunting frequency.

I second this one.
.

[JPW]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

Calling all historical players. I'm looking for your help and feedback.

I've seen some threads claiming we have not paid enough attention to the historical side of the game.

I personally have no interest whatsoever in playing a game with fictional players.

I know that other people do enjoy it and that is fine with me.

But to me playing with fictional players is totally meaningless ...

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OOTP has always been my choice for my Baseball Sim software but I do have concerns about OOTP2006.

While other games are expanding Historical Replay, with features like "continuous replay mode" which saves the results of each replay, it seems that OOTP has removed replay mode altogether.

But what has totally astonished me about OOTP2006 is the removing of the ability to IMPORT a SINGLE HISTORICAL TEAM into your league at the edit league structure screen.

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This ability is FUNDAMENTAL to those of us who like playing with real teams and enjoy setting up leagues with great teams of the past.

You know ...

Like having the 27 Yankees, 75 Reds, 06 Cubs, 69 Mets, ect, ect all in the same league and having match ups like Seaver picthing to Ruth ect.

In other words ...

What Pure Sim Baseball calls Sandbox Mode ...

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This ability has always been in the OOTP game and it would be a very simple matter to add it to the 2006 version.

So I have to wonder, has OOTP started to move away from historical players altogether ?

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Like I said OOTP has always been my choice for my Baseball Sim software, I bought OOTP2 & OOTP4, am currently using OOTP5.

And I am in the market for an upgrade, but I really don't want to go with a game that doesn't support such a fundamental fuction of historical play and who's future may well end up as being "all fictional all of the time".

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I did read where someone suggested that as a work around you could create your leagues with OOTP6.5 and them import them into 2006.

I guess that is fine, if you happen to already have OOTP6.5 but who is going to buy two games just to be able to play one game the way that they want ?

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Maybe you could offer some kind of Package Deal for both 6.5 and 2006 or something or make 6.5 the free version in place of version 5 ?

Or maybe I should just buy 6.5 and forget 2006 ?

Do you even still sell 6.5 ?

Or maybe I should just look else where, because even if you do still sell 6.5 it is a dead-end game with 2006 starting the move away from historical players ?

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All I want is the best "Historical Baseball Sim Software" that is available at this time and still has the potential to keep getting better in the future.

At this point I just don't know which game that is and I sure as hell don't want to buy two games just to be able to play one.

[Claymore]

Originally Posted by cibl commish

Personally don't care about automatic expansion for certain years, but to be able to hold a "real" expansion draft and control it would be absolutely wonderful!

While I agree expansion is a key element going foward (and all of your competitors have it). I would make it so that you could toggle for automatic expansion and also allow the league to be expanded manually, along with a Draft where the rules for drafting players from current teams might be able to be tweaker a bit (how many players a team can protect, how many picks a team can take off another team, etc.).

[NYJuggalo45]

Probably impossible without some kind of sponser from baseballreference or a like site, but how about a stat split called "in real life". That way, we can immediately compare a players ootp career with his in real life.
His career totals vs in real life, what they did in a given year vs what the did in real life that year, etc.

[Claymore]

(This is a great thread, BTW Marc...)

The ability to import entire teams (something previous versions of the game had).

The ability to import players age based upon the year imported, rather than having the data compared to the player's birth year relative to the start date of the league.

For example:

You import player X at age 30. But he doesn't enter the league at age 30, his age is adjusted to the start date of the league. Meaning a player you whose stats you are taking from 1980 who was born in 1950 that you put in a year 2005 league is going to be 55 years old, rather than 30 years old, which is the date you imported from Lahman.

This makes trying to create an All-time league a huge pain, since you need to create a start date for the league (say, 1950) and importing players from other eras will mean they will be very old or not even born yet.

I'd suggest having a sort of neutral state date, where players are imported based upon their actual ages. This way you can easily have a league where Ruth can play against Ortiz, and Warren Spahn can go up against Tommy Glavine....

[GabeRivers]

Originally Posted by Nukester

Lose the fictional players in historicals with minors (at least allow one level of minors to be created without fictionals). I dont care if we can make them crappy players. I dont want fake players in there, period, no matter how bad they are. Sometimes those fake players sneak into your league and see more action than expected. I know we can use the "reserve roster", which is ok, but one level of minors (where players can accumulate minor league stats) would be very cool.....

Past records. If I import in 1983 I want to see the league records up to that point (even if there was a cutoff of say 1901-the import date)

Lots of good suggestions so far (IMO). Nukester has hit on two that are important to me:

1) Echoing Nukester and TheBishop, the fantasy player influx is making historical play difficult. I understand the desire to move away from the ghost players, but as things are now, in order to play historical leagues that have teams predominately staffed with real players, you are forced to strip down your league to no minors, and certainly no independent leagues. That removes a lot of the fun that the changes of this new version to OOTP were intended to add.

And what's with the first rookie draft? If I start a new league it begins on January 1. The first rookie draft on June 15th has virtually all fantasy players. I suppose that's because all the real players for the beginning year were used to start the league? So what does one do, eliminate the rookie draft, at least for the first year?

I'm wondering if one approach to this problem would be to color code or otherwise delineate the fantasy players from the database imported players, and then provide an option in the game setup to provide that fantasy players can not be promoted (or something to that effect).

2) OOTP continues to improve the stats and history related to individual players, which is great. What I hope to begin seeing is more emphasis on team history -- a better comparison of team results over a period of years so that dynasties and rivalries can arise and be noted. Descriptions and histories of stadiums, together with the ability to build new stadiums or expand old ones, would also be nice.

Ankit's suggestion of a txt/csv file for reading and importing ballpark info is a great idea and could be constructed to address my desires on stadium descriptions and histories. The same approach could be used to allow the importing of league histories, both real and fantasy. Indeed, that could help point toward the creation of scenarios, which the OOTP community could share with each other.

[TheBishop]

Some kind of Expansion mode would be helpful, too. Trying to accurately redo the leagues (or just adding teams at random) can be pretty complicated/annoying at this point. Even if there were an option to have an expansion draft, it'd help immensely.

[targy]

I want levels of minor leagues but the oprtion to fill with fictional players, the way it was in 6.5

Weather would be nice.

I finally gave up on starts, I like the overall number now and it works for me better than the old star system. See you can change the way people look at this game. so please no star system

Shop player feature with an option to turn it on or off for those who do not like it

I do love how Markus has been listening to all the suggestions and how the game just keeps getting better and better

[Scoman]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

Calling all historical players. I'm looking for your help and

- either built-in or better support for the Lahman and other databases (have the game create a /historical subdirectory that it looks in for the database files by default where the Lahman or other database would be etxracted to so that the customer isn't regularly floundering around his computer looking for master.csv)

- automatic league expansion with drafts and protection

To me as a long time historical player,and thats all i play,these two features are the most important elements missing from historical replays imo,and also would make the game flow better. Also i think you would have to edit the latest Lahman Database a little to suit the game engine,especially fielding. If you could add these features to the game,id be tickled pink

[Qrusher14242]

-Ability to edit league structure before preseason so we can add the expansion team and have it import the players onto the right team and not into FA.

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by NYJuggalo45

Probably impossible without some kind of sponser from baseballreference or a like site, but how about a stat split called "in real life". That way, we can immediately compare a players ootp career with his in real life.
His career totals vs in real life, what they did in a given year vs what the did in real life that year, etc.

Now don't jump me for saying this but something like Puresim has where you can click on the individual player card to see their real-life year-by-year stats pulled from the Lahman DB.

[bosunmate]

I also play Historical only, and it would be fantasic to have the game automatically expand with drafts. Someone mentioned quickstarts for each decade that also sounds very interesting. Whatever is added for Historical play will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Claymore]

Originally Posted by rwd59

Now don't jump me for saying this but something like Puresim has where you can click on the individual player card to see their real-life year-by-year stats pulled from the Lahman DB.

Yep, pretty neat too.

[MadMax58]

I posted these in the missing from 6.5 thread...but probably can't hurt to post here as well.

1) Ability to import individual players from any year.

2) Ability to import teams from any year.

3) Ability to edit career stats in game setup, or in other words while still able to make a quickstart. (I don't want to change simmed results, just want to combine with request "1" above for an Alltime League and be able to modify the year #'s.) I'll be happy to explain further if not clear enough on this point.

4) Automatic Expansion. (Plenty of others have listed already)

5) Ability to define how I'm importing player's Current Ratings vs. Potential Ratings. I believe it's limited to Potential currently (I could be wrong).

6) Ability to edit all league (& hopefully in future team) records, preferably with a simple txt or csv file as well as in-game.

Edit: Almost forgot.

7) Ability to input Stats to get Ratings (as somebody else suggested as well). Extremely helpful for making a custom historical league...but helpful in general as well.

[targy]

Import players to their read teams at the beginning of the season and then still have a ammy draft in June....

[turdfurgeson]

Originally Posted by targy

Import players to their read teams at the beginning of the season and then still have a ammy draft in June....

DO you mean to import real players in pre season then have a draft of fake players in June? Because this can already be done.

[Reserve Clause]

I just want more specific on-field options. Roided up sluggers only need to know how to swing away, but us deadball fans should be able to call for delayed double steals, baltimore chops & other odd plays the 1890s Orioles pulled off. Just basic control of the on-field style of the older eras. Doesn't seem like any sim really has that.

[delta]

I want historical weather! All the other games have it, I guess Markus is all about the money now that he's with SI!

Just kidding, of course... OOTP looks great for historical simmers

[bp_]

Originally Posted by akw4572

"era" settings that change automatically over time, i.e. bullpen usage, starting pitcher endurance, closer usage, stealing and bunting frequency.

This would be nice. In fact, anything built in to evolve over time as in real MLB (attendence, financials, etc) would significantly increase the ease of historical play for people like me that are too lazy to go looking around for this info all the time.

I know this isn't stuff that is easily added but it would be cool if it was kept in mind moving thru future releases of OOTP.