Just the facts, Ma'am...

[Questdog]

Just had my .179 hittin' catcher with 5 career home runs hit a 430 ft. broken bat home run....

Am I the only one, or is there anyone else who wishes the derned text would make some sense....

"He hits a rocket.... this will be an easy play...."

"He comes chargin' in on that fly ball....it's OUTTA HERE!!!"

"This is any easy double play...." (Well, if it's so easy, then why wasn't it?...)

"This should be automatic.....Wow!....It doesn't get any closer than that...stellar play!!...."

"Grounder to the shortstop...Here's the throw to first....he's in under the tag..."

"Ground ball to second.....it'll drop for a hit..."

"Grounder to short....Smith slams his bat down in disgust, he knows this should be two....throw to second...out!....throw to first....Smith beats it out....he really hustled...." (Taking the time to slam your bat should insure that it WILL be two...)

"That pitch is a strike...Wait a minute, the ump's called a balk!" (Well, he wouldn't have called the pitch a strike, if he's calling a balk)

"He fumbles it and just eats it for an error...that will be a two base error" (Did he literally eat the ball? How else could you get two bases?)

"That's a fly ball behind the plate....the second/third/first baseman is there" (Fly balls are only to the outfield. Pop ups are behind the plate and those are caught by the catcher...)

"Here's the throw to third...not in time!...he's out!" (I guess they mean the runner's not in time....)

"He got all of that one....the leftfielder is there for the catch..." (If you get ALL of a pitch, no one can catch it....)

And zillions more....

Anyway, unless descriptive text is truly descriptive of the action then it's just annoying. Often, I don't even know what's happening ("That's a flyball....Wilson ranges for the catch..." Where's Wilson??). And all the little snippets of wisdom ("That's poetry in motion!") and attempts to build suspense get old fast when you play out every game (after a week, you'll know exactly how the play will end up as soon as the sound byte begins....) At least they could be things a real announcer would say and not some hokum schmokum... I would prefer to have just a plain vanilla explanation of the action that would sound more professional, be more specific of what is happening, and be more tolerable over the long season and let my own imagination provide the color commentary.

[DreamTeams]

Agreed.

Also, I've seen players argue a call right in the middle of the play, then the play finishes as though it was suspended in space for a time. Weird stuff.

Hopefully this will get worked out.

[nyysfan]

Totally agree with OP.

I don't know or care how it's generated, but Diamond Mind's PbP is pretty near perfect. Right amount of great plays. Same starting text can end up a couple different ways depending on weather or fielders etc.

I like OOTP for the career aspect which DMB doesn't have at all. And lots of other things make it a nice game. But I can't stomach playing out games batter by batter because the PbP text is so atrocious.

Also I strongly dislike having to hit a button once to sim a plate appearance, then again to clear the PbP area, then again to sim the next plate appearance, then again to clear the PbP area etc. Should be able to hit a button only once per batter. Actually DMB does a nice job here too. They have a tab on the PbP text area to Replay the text of the last play. So you hit a button to sim a plate appearance and the PbP text area clears and you hit a button to sim the next PA etc. If you want to see the PbP text of the last play you simply click the Replay tab...

Again, there's lots of reasons I like OOTP over DMB - but DMB happens to do these 2 things very well and OOTP does them very poorly.

[bababui]

This was the one feature that ruined the game for me. I loved playing out games in 6.5. I was so excited about the new edition thinking that PbP would at worst stay the same while adding on all the other cool things. I would also like to suggest that an ab be resolved on a single screen of text. After a day of looking at a comp screen, it gets a little eye weary to read a lot of needless text.

Like the game of baseball itself, there is always next year.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by bababui

This was the one feature that ruined the game for me. I loved playing out games in 6.5. I was so excited about the new edition thinking that PbP would at worst stay the same while adding on all the other cool things. I would also like to suggest that an ab be resolved on a single screen of text. After a day of looking at a comp screen, it gets a little eye weary to read a lot of needless text.

Like the game of baseball itself, there is always next year.

Not that I necessarily agree with you or OP (see other threads in which PbP is praised as being greatly improved in OOTP 2006, even patch-by-patch), but you could do what I do to speed things up: set PbP Speed to Very Fast and Delay Mode to Per Line. PbP zips and you can get the gist as it goes by. You can always scroll back up if something catches your eye. One minor complaint that I have is that you cannot scroll back and look at previous plays, only the play just ended and only if you don't advance to the next batter.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Not that I necessarily agree with you or OP (see other threads in which PbP is praised as being greatly improved in OOTP 2006, even patch-by-patch), but you could do what I do to speed things up: set PbP Speed to Very Fast and Delay Mode to Per Line. PbP zips and you can get the gist as it goes by. You can always scroll back up if something catches your eye. One minor complaint that I have is that you cannot scroll back and look at previous plays, only the play just ended and only if you don't advance to the next batter.

Great idea

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Not that I necessarily agree with you or OP (see other threads in which PbP is praised as being greatly improved in OOTP 2006, even patch-by-patch), but you could do what I do to speed things up: set PbP Speed to Very Fast and Delay Mode to Per Line. PbP zips and you can get the gist as it goes by. You can always scroll back up if something catches your eye. One minor complaint that I have is that you cannot scroll back and look at previous plays, only the play just ended and only if you don't advance to the next batter.

If you are zipping through the PbP "to get the gist", then you are agreeing by your actions that the PbP isn't worth taking the time to actually READ....

It's awfully silly to have to read 30 lines of text to find out they guy grounded out....

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Questdog

If you are zipping through the PbP "to get the gist", then you are agreeing by your actions that the PbP isn't worth taking the time to actually READ....

It's awfully silly to have to read 30 lines of text to find out they guy grounded out....

I have to say that PbP is not the most exciting aspect of the game for me either. I would like to share this with you again, however. It convinced me that OOTP is at least trying to spice up its PbP!

[Twelvefield]

The PbP definitely slows me down as I try to sim a season in each gaming session. I'm not a big play-out-all-the-games kind of player. That being said, I think the current PbP is a significant leap ahead of the "I don't believe what I have just seen!!!" era of OOTPB text commentary. It is customizable, too. It just seems to take forever to customize it, though.

[BigCity]

Here's why things get interesting.

If you turn back the clock 12-18 months, you would find the board chock-full of posts "begging" for more variation in the play-by-play text. I remember those posts because I took part in many of them.

Many wanted more variation, and others offered that no AI code was going to simulate a real human being - no matter how hard you tried.

Although the Play-by-play could be improved - and it was - it would always be short of a real announcer.

So, here we are today, basically saying the straightforward "play results" would be better than the attempt to simulate a real announcer... the pendulum continues to swing

Not taking either side, but it's interesting to note there is no answer on most things that will please everyone.

[endgame]

I believe this version's pbp to be an improvement overall. That being said:

There are quite a few areas that need to be addressed, however many of these have to do with the game calling for specific information 'out of synch' or inapplicable to the play itself; these are systemic problems in the way the play by play mechanics string together, not actually a function of the written play or exercise itself. I am confident this will get a throrough review before a 2007 release.

Another aspect of the sequence I'd, personally, like to see improved is that a number of fundamental (and minimal) elements be included in an at-bat every time and only those every time: who's batting (I wouldn't mind uniform number now and then), the pitch, the result. All else should be, optimally, a function of variable occurence dependent on our preferences: season stats in a particular field, today's performance, last 10 games stats, batter's .avg against lefties - if he's facing one, or completely customizeable by option and percentages, i.e. I want to see a pitcher's K's for the year 1-2 times a game; a batter's season .OBP announced 1-3 times a game, and so forth. I do not find imperative to have the details of the pitcher's windup announced every occasion, for instance.

In summary, how it happens and how colorful, I'm convinced should ultimately be left to a player's discretion. We have that now with access to the data to make those changes in description, but the process is more than cumbersome and it does require a certain savvy with the tool. The sequence needs to be simplified to certainties; expanded and personalized on demand (as stat details). The Mods/XML thread needs attention and input from users like the OP and anyone with preferences for changes in future versions. I suggest it be treated like a suggestion thread with any and all comments of this nature placed <a href="http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/showthread.php?t=131785" target="_blank">here</a> for review by the Text Team and Markus for early consideration in the next release.

[Cork55]

I agree that while the PbP is vastly improved, it tends to be mismatched in many areas and suffers from being too long at times. Many plays suffer from the "double three outs call" where you will get a line like:

"three down..." followed by "That's three down..."

A simple "That's three down..." would be all that is needed.

I have also seen problems with stolen base PbP when a runner will "take off" only to "take one step, then hit the brakes".

It might be a good idea for Markus and company to purchase a copy of DMB and take a look at what an excellent PbP system looks like. Doing that might give them ideas where to trim things.

-Cork55

[DaddyO]

Originally Posted by nyysfan

Totally agree with OP.

I don't know or care how it's generated, but Diamond Mind's PbP is pretty near perfect. Right amount of great plays. Same starting text can end up a couple different ways depending on weather or fielders etc.

I like OOTP for the career aspect which DMB doesn't have at all. And lots of other things make it a nice game. But I can't stomach playing out games batter by batter because the PbP text is so atrocious.

Also I strongly dislike having to hit a button once to sim a plate appearance, then again to clear the PbP area, then again to sim the next plate appearance, then again to clear the PbP area etc. Should be able to hit a button only once per batter. Actually DMB does a nice job here too. They have a tab on the PbP text area to Replay the text of the last play. So you hit a button to sim a plate appearance and the PbP text area clears and you hit a button to sim the next PA etc. If you want to see the PbP text of the last play you simply click the Replay tab...

Again, there's lots of reasons I like OOTP over DMB - but DMB happens to do these 2 things very well and OOTP does them very poorly.

Absolutely correct. If Markus has not already put DMB through its paces, he or someone on the team should do so, because in this area at least DMB has no peer. It is not perfect. Every game there are three or four "great leaping catch at the wall" plays, sometimes more. And there are a few other play descriptions that happen too frequently. But all in all there is a great balance of mostly routine plays and a few exciting ones, and there is an elegance to the style that avoids too much hype.

OOTP brings many, many features that I wish DMB would strive for, but in PbP it is less like Vin Scully and more like Rick Rizzs.

edited to add: Cork55, I see you beat me to the suggestion about DMB

[akw4572]

I have posted in the past on this versions PBP, it's really been a letdown. While some variation was added, it seems to have no flow whatsoever. I really wish this would be addressed, I like to play out all my games, and lots of time, it just seems to make no sense.

[Charley575]

Put me down as one who was just fine with the old PbP. Yeah, after awhile, you could tell what the outcome of the play was going to be right away, but that was okay with me. I used to get through a game in 20 minutes. Now it's more like an hour, what with the pitch at a time mode and the endless lines of text. Don't get me wrong, I like the new pitch at a time mode, and I don't mind if it takes a little longer to play out a game. However, I feel that for the next version, PbP needs to be "tightened up". What irritates me the most, apart from stupid things like doubles on grounders up the middle, is the zillion lines of text that I have to read just find out if the pitch is ball, or a strike. An example:

Johnson is on the mound
He grabs the rosin bag
Adjusts himself
Spits
Gets the sign
Gets another sign
Anybody want some non-existent beer?
It's out of the park!
Ha! Fooled you! We're just talking about the beer, which does not exist.
Don't forget to listen to our non-existent award winning pre game show, which does not exist.
He pitches
It's popped up
On the infield
Schmellyburger comes over for a look
But it's in the stands
Some kid grabbed it.
He has himself a baseball.
As if you care.
You're sleeping aren't you?
Hey!
Wake up!
And when you do, don't forget to tune in to our non-existent post game show with J.J. Dricoll-Meyers Squibb!
The count is 0-1
...press any key to continue...

This has been exaggerated for comedic effect, but not a lot, and that's the problem. Personally, I would prefer the following:

Johnson winds and deals
It's a fastball at the knees for a strike.
The count is 0-1.
...press any key to continue...

...and save the story telling for when something actually happens. Even then, though, it should be brief. I suggest two rules in PbP script:

Rule #1. Have a point.

Rule #2. Get to the point.

"Cute" text, advertisements for things that don't exist, and overly elaborate story telling are nice novelties for awhile but when you play every game out, as I do, it gets old fast. And when my pitcher is getting lit up and my team's bats are stone cold, it gets old that much faster.

Since I'm on a roll, here are some other things about the PbP I can live without:

1. The diving catcher play. You've all seen this one, right. The ball is popped up, the catcher dives for it, it's in the glove, he hits the ground hard, the ball pops out, and golly gee, wasn't that a nice try? I've become certain of three things in life: death, taxes, and I will see this play at least once per game.

2. This is a big one. STOP TRYING TO FOOL ME. You can't. Okay? No matter how much "variety" is put into the PbP, players who play out every game will catch on eventually. With the current version, for example, if it's smashed, bashed, belted, crushed, jolted, blasted, or towering, it's an out. ALMOST always. Trying to make the outcome of the play "mysterious" to the player does not work in the end, and you just end up with really dumb sounding PbP. The flip side of the above example is that when it is a home run the call starts out really dull:

Here's a fly ball to right
(yawn)
Skydmaark drifts over.
He looks up.
It's gone!

Give me a break. Enough of this already. Don't try to fool me.

3. Foul territory is apparently everywhere. Anyone else noticing that a lot of balls are somehow "finding" foul territory, even in places like "on the infield", or after they have spun to a stop?

...here's the swing.
It's a dribbler.
It spins to a stop near home plate.
A tough play for Tony "Mayor McCheese" Mckensie.
But it rolls foul.

4. If nobody ever gets thrown out, why argue? Players and coaches occasionally argue with umpires. Why? This is more unnecessary text. Either reinstate the possibility for people to be thrown out or get rid of the arguements.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

[1998 Yankees]

Woof. After this long but interesting post, I reaffirmed my choice to have PbP zip by, gleaning the "gist" as I put it. There was a thread a while back that called for a communal (OOTP community) approach to PbP writing. I did not pay much attention at the time; maybe I'll go looking for it later.

[Syd Thrift]

My biggest complaint is that one of the "tough plays" that you actually see good fielders make *more* often than bad ones is the "Bob is running around... he goes to his left... now to his right... to his left again... AND MAKES THE CATCH!" Folks, that's not a description of an outstanding defensive play. That's a description of Glenallen Hill making a routine catch. A great defensive play would be some kind of sinking liner that the player catches on a dead run, or a sliding/diving catch, or jumping on the fence to rob someone of a homerun. Not misjudging a flyball but eventually figuring out where it's going.

And yeah, the inclusion of DAED and battist is funny at first but gets kind of old pretty quick.

[Twelvefield]

I don't believe what I have just seen!!! Really, this time.

[battists]

Without disagreeing that there is room for improvement, I'm kind of shocked that after all of the complaining we've heard about this, that no one has created a "vanilla" PbP file. One of the great aspects of this year's product is that anyone with a text editor can change the text. Tired of hearing DaED's name in the PbP? It just takes three steps that even the most technophobic gamer can accomplish:

1. Open up English.xml with Notepad.
2. Search for Dale and Eli's Dad and replace it with something else.
3. Save the file.

You could have done that in the time it took you to post in this thread. Creating a wholly vanilla file would take a little more effort, but as BigCity pointed out, after 6.5, the whole board was filled with people begging for more colorful play-by-play.

I'm not trying be all "It's fine the way it is" about it. I agree that there's still room for improvement, particularly regarding some of the strange combinations of plays. But, at least there's the possibility of taking things into your own hands here, and if there are enough people around who want a more plain version, put your heads together and create one!

Steve

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by battists

Without disagreeing that there is room for improvement, I'm kind of shocked that after all of the complaining we've heard about this, that no one has created a "vanilla" PbP file. One of the great aspects of this year's product is that anyone with a text editor can change the text. Tired of hearing DaED's name in the PbP? It just takes three steps that even the most technophobic gamer can accomplish:

1. Open up English.xml with Notepad.
2. Search for Dale and Eli's Dad and replace it with something else.
3. Save the file.

You could have done that in the time it took you to post in this thread. Creating a wholly vanilla file would take a little more effort, but as BigCity pointed out, after 6.5, the whole board was filled with people begging for more colorful play-by-play.

I'm not trying be all "It's fine the way it is" about it. I agree that there's still room for improvement, particularly regarding some of the strange combinations of plays. But, at least there's the possibility of taking things into your own hands here, and if there are enough people around who want a more plain version, put your heads together and create one!

Steve

I actually wanted to do that, but the XML editor thingie won't run on my computer. I started to edit the file by hand, but there's a LOT of text.

Question: Can Text objects be deleted? Or must they contain text?

By the way, I wouldn't mind the PbP being more descriptive, if the description wasn't so ridiculous....

Charlie575's post is spot on....