OOTP and Sega part company!

[Tony M]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

I never did like your watered down beer

*gets out the English and European flags and waves them in support of proper alcohol*

[Melo]

outside of someone like dsvitak, who appeared to have a particular set of problems that was not resolved to his satisfaction, I can't see where anyone would have a problem with what SI brought to Markus and OOTP. Because of the merger, Markus had the resources to take the game to the next level and support it.

I have every confidence that Markus is making the right decsion for the game and for Markus.

[Andreas Raht]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

I just want to reiterate that at no time did I or SI or SEGA try to dictate the way the game should go. Markus is the visionary and long may this continue.

I just want to confirm that. Marc and SI have been a great help and never pushed the game to a direction where Markus didn't want to go. And without SI we would never have been able to completely rebuild the game. And I can tell you that it was about time to rebuild it

[deadringer]

I always felt that SI got more flak than they deserved for the problems with 2006 version. I'm just excited to see what the future holds now. As a guy that uses real rosters every year, knowing that real rosters are even on the radar makes me very happy.

[BaseballMan]

Well if Markus & SI have no problem or ill will with the parting then their word is good enough for me. I will look forward for new games from both of them.

[mh2365]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

I never did like your watered down beer

Well how about the next time you are in Kentucky I will buy you a bottle of small batch bourbon?

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

Been busy so not had a time to reply to this thread.

I'm actually pretty sad about this announcement, I was really excited about OOTP and keen to continue working on the game. The net result though is that I do believe this is for the better for Markus and his team.

The licensing issues were a big draw when we all hooked up, but pretty soon that rug was taken from under our feet.

Working back on their own I'm pretty confident, in fact I'm going to bet my house that the next version will ship with rosters. Ideally I would have loved to do that but with a very good and cautious legal team it would never happen.

I'm a bit upset reading some of the comments about SI. At no time did we force Markus and the game down a certain path in terms of gameplay or the design. Markus was and will continue to be the driving force behind the game and the visionary. Hopefully my involvment took some of the less glam jobs away from him so he and Andreas could concentrate on making great games.

I know with Steve B on board he'll be able to do much if not all of what I used to do and he's been one of the biggest plus points during the past 3 years (even though he's only been involved properly for a little over a year).

I'm still going to hang around when I can and I'll be watching with interest the reaction to some of the forthcoming announcements.

Best of luck, it's now in your hands!

Marc, I thought you personally and SI as a company were both good for ootp. You should all be proud of how far the game has come in two years.
I always got a kick out of someone posting how they could tell the game was made by a "soccer" company and how it's problems were because it used the FM engine They just couldn't grasp the fact that FM had nothing to do with OOTP and that Markus was still "the man".

Any how as others have already stated we certainly wouldn't have the great game we have to day without SI's involvement and this gamer certainly appreciates all you did.

I do believe though, since SI was not able to obtain MLB licensing, that Markus again being on his own will be a good thing. Free to make his own deals and having real players (more than likely) in the game will hopefully lead to the game being available in stores again.

Best of luck to you and SI.

By the way you'll still be getting some of my dollars when WWSM 2008 comes out. From what I'm reading on the SI boards the game sounds like it is going to be great

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

I never did like your watered down beer

I don't like our watered down beer, either.

[Malleus Dei]

This was probably inevitable once SEGA bought SI, and it's probably the best thing for OOTP in the long run.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

I never did like your watered down beer

Personally I drink Belgian beer. But, regardless of anyone's taste in beer, you were a bit of all right, Duffy.

Good luck to you. May the wind always be at your back.

[remangiii]

Marc Duffy = Class Act

[kagnew35]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

I never did like your watered down beer

Watered down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never, only the best, San Miguel, Guiness, Nippon, Asahi, Kirin and Tuborg vailable in the tavern

[Tony M]

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

The next newsletter will come on Monday I guess

Linky link bitte??

(only joking)

[Oxydizer]

Originally Posted by remangiii

Marc Duffy = Class Act

I couldn't have said it any better, nicly put. Please don't be a stranger around here Marc.

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by battists

The newsletter e-mails are going out as we speak, but there's a lot of them. Delivery times may vary. And remember, they're going to whatever e-mail address you registered when you bought the game, not what your forum account is registered as!

I'll post the newsletter on the forums later on tonight, I think.

There will also be a second newsletter (which frankly has juicier news) next week. Just out of time this week!

I've moved since purchasing the game and have a different email address. Is it possible to update this so we can receive the newsletters?

[Kivlehan]

I'm a bit sad to see this happen because I was hoping that WWSM/FM and OOTP would share cool features one had but the other didn't (WWSM/FM could use OOTP's very open customizability and OOTP could benefit from WWSM/FM's international play features).

That being said though the most important thing is that Markus and Andreas get to keep building the game the way they envision it. No matter what the company behind it has been called, Markus and Andreas have put out a great game year over year and have shown incredible vision and amazing willingness to work with the community for ideas.

The funny thing about this that occurs to me now is that I was just at an e-commerce convention in Las Vegas listening to all of these major online retailers and their current objective is to develop communities around their brands and open their brands up to these communities. It is funny that these two guys in Germany have done with a baseball game (of all things) what these billion dollars companies are now trying to do and by and large will probably fail at.

I will trust in whatever Markus and Andreas come up with for OOTP 2008 and back it with my dollars (even though that may not add up to as many euro as they would like )

And on the upshot, I got introduced to WWSM too, which is a helluva game in its own right.

[Jpotapoff]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

That's all well and good, but what about my Baseball Pro '98 league?

Not before they get the Micro League Baseball import feature done.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Melo

.....I have every confidence that Markus is making the right decsion for the game and for Markus.

There's the truth of it.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Personally I drink Belgian beer. But, regardless of anyone's taste in beer, you were a bit of all right, Duffy.

Good luck to you. May the wind always be at your back.

Leffe rocks!

[Tony M]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Leffe rocks!

Blonde, Brune or Triple?

Triple was always my favourite, and the Blonde was good as a light drink (all relative since the Triple is 8.4% I think and the Blonde a nice weak 6.6%)