OOTP vs. FM

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

There is a changing trend because most all of the parks are now fairly new. Once the need to replace those parks arise again in the future, you will see the same trend once again.

I doubt it. The shift in ballpark type was the main point of the early 1990s. They went from emphasizing capacity to emphasizing luxury suites and clubs seats, at the expense of regular seating and overall capacity. They also added improved fan conveniences like more and better concessions.

Those wells are dry. They've already done all that can be done in those areas. New parks in the future won't be any substantively better than the current crop of "retro" parks built over the last twenty years in terms of revenue generating potential. The main thing that might happen is for those clubs still with older parks to finally build fully modern facilities rather than trying to refit their current old park.

Originally Posted by Biggio509

In 1895, Phillie would open the Baker Bowl. According to ballparks.com it sat 18,000 in 1895. Retrosheet says Phillie played 51 home games that year. Rodney Fortes data list attendance at 474,971 for Phillie in 1895. So they averaged about 9,400 per game. Why a ballpark that is twice the capacity your average attendance?

I think the answer to your question consists of two words: weekend games.

Remember, before the advent of artificial lighting, all ball games were afternoon events. And during the week, Monday to Friday, most people had to work. So attendance was limited. Clubs made up for this with weekend games, which were very well attended. So you'd want a good-sized park to accommodate those big weekend crowds. (This is the reason why later on some clubs would elect to move a Friday or Monday game to Sunday to create a doubleheader not on the originally published schedule. Because even with the two-for-one nature of a doubleheader, the club still made more money than it would have with a single Sunday game and a game on Monday or Friday.)

The attendance benefit from weekend (and holiday) games persisted for decades.

Here is an illustrative example from 1955. Below are the attendance figures for the New York Yankees. Night games are excluded from the sample. The table shows the attendance per home date for each day of the week (a home date may consist of one or two games, depending if a doubleheader was played or not).

1955 NYA daytime home dates

           Home  Per Date
          Dates  Average
-------------------------
Monday       -         -
Tuesday      1    11,520
Wednesday   11    11,700
Thursday     8    12,045
Friday       5     9,383
-------------------------
TOTAL       25    11,340

Saturday    10    20,757
Sunday      11    34,204
Holiday      1    43,794  <--- July 4 (Monday)
-------------------------
TOTAL       22    28,528

The importance of weekend and holiday home dates is readily apparent.

[Biggio509]

Interesting. That makes more sense. I had thought about holidays but that seemed a little too rare to make that big of stadium just for July 4. It does look the weekday games are really skewing the attendance figures downward. Something I would think probably still happens in modern day baseball just to a lesser extent.

There were some accusations of reporters not reporting real attendance and the turnstile was not required early on but maybe the week day distribution has more to do with lower averages on working days than trickery. There certainly was incentive in the 1890's to under report once the league charged the 5% tax on gate revenues to pay back the money it spent buying out the PL and AA clubs but the data may not be pointing to such nefarious activity.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

Interesting. That makes more sense. I had thought about holidays but that seemed a little too rare to make that big of stadium just for July 4.

There were three holidays that took place during the typical baseball season: Memorial Day (back then it was a fixed date of May 30th), Independence Day, and Labor Day. The equitable apportionment of these holiday dates and the weekend home dates was always a big factor when the league schedules were put together.

Indeed, it was a the Louisville's club being upset with its allotment of weekend dates in the 1899 NL schedule that led to a fight between the club and the league. The result was a revised schedule that included a number of three-way doubleheaders.

[Pretecf]

Likely prejudiced some by the fact that it took years for me to learn to win at FM and since I was born to baseball it took no time in OOTP.

But, given that disclaimer, FM has some advantages in that you can take an amateur club and raise it to dizzying heights. OOTP has a BIG advantage in that you can play out the career of a Babe Ruth.

I had to vote for FM12. I just don't find that the opposition in OOTP can maintain a high enough level of challenge to sustain a long career. There is always something in FM12 that changes the save enough to make it worth a few more seasons. I just don't quite find as much immersion in OOTP.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Due to the passing of Joe Frazier I'll use a boxing term, pound for pound the best game is OOTP. The op asks about AI, immersion, realism and fun. Firstly the AI probably shaded by FM but both FM and OOTP can be taken advantage of, on to immersion IMO OOTP wins by a landslide you can get lost in real, fictional and historical, FM can do real but can't do fictional or historical and if anyone says they can do fictional in FM let me send them my Skelphland file and see how long it takes them to input into FM.

Realistic, both have their flaws so I'm going with a tie on this one. Fun again IMO not even close, ive spent hours upon hours of fun just working on name files, country files etc for OOTP where's I spent around an hour of boredom and frustration trying to do a FM fictional league.

To finish if OOTP had the money and staff that FM did then we'd be talking a first round knock out and a new undefeated heavyweight champ.

but it doesn't so which? I'm not sure you ever came to a conclusion? Also, what if the player doesn't care about fictional or historical leagues? I know you can play with fictional players very easily in FM. (just like playing with real teams & fictional players in OOTP) All you need to do is uncheck the "use real players" box when starting a league.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Antonin

I gave up on FM after FM08 because the game just got too big and too crowded with things that make it seem more like work than a game. The lack of a "can't get fired" feature and an in-game editor killed the fun for me, especially since I strongly suspect [and I began playing in 2001, when it was called Championship Manager] that the AI cheats.

The fact that much of the talk about each version of FM centers around the need to develop new tactics is proof, to me, that the AI in that game is deeply flawed. Basic soccer tactics in real life don't change from year to year. But in FM, you must literally, with each version, come up with new tactics to trick the AI. That's too gamey for me.

Another factor in my lack of enjoyment of FM is the hostile atmosphere of the SI forum. If you are having trouble playing the game and want advice, or if you want to suggest changes in the game, forget about going to the SI forum. It is a hostile place where anything goes.

I occasionally play FM05 these days. I still own FM06, FM07 and FM08 but have not played them in a very long time.

OOTP, on the other hand, has given me countless hours of competitive fun since the Season Ticket Baseball version. Creating my fictional baseball universe, managing historical teams with great [or not so great] baseball players of the past, playing out games, managing my home city's team with players I can actually go see in person...

For me, OOTP Baseball is the best sports management sim ever. It allows me to be as casual or as hardcore in my gameplay as my free time allows. The "can't get fired" option allows me to experiment and freely build my own little baseball fantasy world. Every sports management sim should have a "can't get fired" option.

If somebody introduced a soccer management sim with OOTP's flexibility, customization options and user-friendliness, without all the irrelevant "stuff" that bogs down FM and makes it more work than game, I would be in sports management sim heaven.

FM 2012 is much different, and if you can use the standard of FM to be a version form 4 years ago...same goes for OOTP. You can't say I played OOTP 8, and then use it as a comparison.

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

but it doesn't so which? I'm not sure you ever came to a conclusion? Also, what if the player doesn't care about fictional or historical leagues? I know you can play with fictional players very easily in FM. (just like playing with real teams & fictional players in OOTP) All you need to do is uncheck the "use real players" box when starting a league.

Why do you contradict/question anyone who doesnt have the same view as you? How about letting people answer for themselves without trying to convince them differently. After all, you were allowed just that.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

Why do you contradict/question anyone who doesnt have the same view as you? How about letting people answer for themselves without trying to convince them differently. After all, you were allowed just that.

oh, I am not trying to convince anybody they should have the same views...just trying to keep the control the same. OOTP8 doesn't = OOTP12, and FM 2010 doesn't = FM 2012...both have undergone some significant changes in the last few years. I am just saying it's very hard to have this discussion if you are comparing the two using out of date versions.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

but it doesn't so which? I'm not sure you ever came to a conclusion? Also, what if the player doesn't care about fictional or historical leagues? I know you can play with fictional players very easily in FM. (just like playing with real teams & fictional players in OOTP) All you need to do is uncheck the "use real players" box when starting a league.

No idea why people try to cause an argument instead of just reading a post, it's rather easy to be honest. I'll help you out a bit by putting in bold the main points.

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Due to the passing of Joe Frazier I'll use a boxing term, pound for pound the best game is OOTP. The op asks about AI, immersion, realism and fun. Firstly the AI probably shaded by FM but both FM and OOTP can be taken advantage of, on to immersion IMO OOTP wins by a landslide you can get lost in real, fictional and historical, FM can do real but can't do fictional or historical and if anyone says they can do fictional in FM let me send them my Skelphland file and see how long it takes them to input into FM.

Realistic, both have their flaws so I'm going with a tie on this one. Fun again IMO not even close, ive spent hours upon hours of fun just working on name files, country files etc for OOTP where's I spent around an hour of boredom and frustration trying to do a FM fictional league.
To finish if OOTP had the money and staff that FM did then we'd be talking a first round knock out and a new undefeated heavyweight champ.

It struck me as very funny that my post was #14 but it took you nearly double figures in posts to get around quoting my post, argumentland kind of dull since the Paterno thread fell by the wayside ? For the last 5 years I've purchased both FM and OOTP, last years FM I played not more than 5 hours the year before around 10 hours I spend more than that per week just working on my fictional league without even playing a single game in OOTP, I spend probably around that in the one online league per week I'm in.

You stated that you can play fictional in FM, yes you can but like I stated
anybody who plays FM and wants to try and input my Skelphland league of 6,000 cities with seperate populations, with each county (state) having it's own weather and also throw in a few thousand names in my name files I'll gladly send the files to them. And don't even get me started on historical.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

No idea why people try to cause an argument instead of just reading a post, it's rather easy to be honest. I'll help you out a bit by putting in bold the main points.



It struck me as very funny that my post was #14 but it took you nearly double figures in posts to get around quoting my post, argumentland kind of dull since the Paterno thread fell by the wayside ? For the last 5 years I've purchased both FM and OOTP, last years FM I played not more than 5 hours the year before around 10 hours I spend more than that per week just working on my fictional league without even playing a single game in OOTP, I spend probably around that in the one online league per week I'm in.

You stated that you can play fictional in FM, yes you can but like I stated
anybody who plays FM and wants to try and input my Skelphland league of 6,000 cities with seperate populations, with each county (state) having it's own weather and also throw in a few thousand names in my name files I'll gladly send the files to them. And don't even get me started on historical.

I think you are reading into this way too much. I just happened to see you were having trouble doing a fictional league in FM, and I just wanted you to know it was possible, and wondered if you had ever tried it...that's all...really!!

[PSUColonel]

Let's assume you have the game set up the way you want...whether it's historical, fictional, MLB, or whatever....which of the two do you think is a better experience of replicating the General Manager/Manager's chair? AI is a big part of this...as are many other factors. Which one is more competitive and realistic from that standpoint?

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Let's assume you have the game set up the way you want...whether it's historical, fictional, MLB, or whatever....which of the two do you think is a better experience of replicating the General Manager/Manager's chair? AI is a big part of this...as is many other factors. Which one is more competitive and realistic from that standpoint?

FM is soccer to me so i can't say how realistic it is in the slightest but it seems like your more involved with the day to day running of a club, dealing with the media and team talks, babying your players like you have to if you want to really have success. Is this realistic it would appear so from what i can tell. Most custom tactics are designed to game the AI, be it with the corner cheat or whatever, or that just a little change can change the whole tactic around and i have no clue how to see that.
OOTP your more the GM then manager so your bound to feel less connected but it does feel like it could be more, be it agents or media or the enhanced story lines but it just needs more

The fact you have all the leagues, allot of the cups and competitions is the realistic part in FM has over OOTP, without minors or winter leagues working like they do in real life OOTP can't create a world like you can in FM

Now try making your own cups/comps and FM starts to fall apart, can't recreate all the rules or do have the things you want. But OOTP you can have whatever you want and with the new additions I'm hoping at least you can have AAA championships and shared all-stars mirroring the real world allot better.

Historical in FM, show me a good one as I've never found one in years.so you can't even set that up unless you do everything yourself and no one really wants to do all that.
OOTP is a historical dream, leagues, players whatever you want you can do it.


OOTP needs to take a few ideas from FM but it's by far the better game. Take away the graphics on FM and i don't know if i would even want to finish a week of games let alone a season.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

The fact you have all the leagues, allot of the cups and competitions is the realistic part in FM has over OOTP, without minors or winter leagues working like they do in real life OOTP can't create a world like you can in FM

This is a big part of what I'd like to see OOTP start to do. International leagues feel forced in OOTP, and not part of the natural "world" that's been created. I'd like to see all the nations, leagues and competitions in OOTP...I know people will say you can set them up, but it's just way too much work. Why is it nobody (a modder) has come up with a world of baseball that works well recently?

EDIT: and like you said, all of the fall and winter leagues should be included...you should be able to send players to these leagues. Playing time should be a bigger factor in development.

Also finances in OOTP are much less involved than in FM

OOTP for some reason takes the "less is more" approach...and while I agree it doesn't need everything FM has (press conferences, team talks) it should take some of what it does and apply it to baseball (as you said) Some of those things would be : better finances including new and upgraded ball parks, a true baseball universe, more player interaction in terms of positions, sending down, calling up etc..

That's one thing OOTP doesn't have considering all of the options it provides: a lot of downloadable mods, roster, universes etc...

Someone else said it in this thread I think : OOTP is more like a model train set...something you build and then watch...not terribly interactive for the aspiring GM.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Now try making your own cups/comps and FM starts to fall apart, can't recreate all the rules or do have the things you want. But OOTP you can have whatever you want and with the new additions I'm hoping at least you can have AAA championships and shared all-stars mirroring the real world allot better.

Historical in FM, show me a good one as I've never found one in years.so you can't even set that up unless you do everything yourself and no one really wants to do all that.
OOTP is a historical dream, leagues, players whatever you want you can do it.


OOTP needs to take a few ideas from FM but it's by far the better game. Take away the graphics on FM and i don't know if i would even want to finish a week of games let alone a season.

Again...forget all about the historical and custom stuff...I am interested in which you think is a better "management" experience in terms of reality? I basically play real world with fictional players in both...so which do you feel is a better management sim going forward from that point?

[OutS|der]

FM feels like a better management sim at the moment, but with a few improvements OOTP could surpass it and overall is the better game.

Real versions leagues, winter, minor and international and yes a bit more detailed finances would go along way with OOTP. The new story lines should help out with the lacking personality of the players, they tend to be just numbers to much and associations should help with making the minors act like they do.

If they ever get graphics they can add signs to the runners and batter like the do shouts in FM.

But when it's all said and done FM feels more "real" but the graphics help allot with that to. Your watching the game rather than just reading what that at bat was. You feel more apart of it even if i don't understand whats going on half the time

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I think you are reading into this way too much. I just happened to see you were having trouble doing a fictional league in FM, and I just wanted you to know it was possible, and wondered if you had ever tried it...that's all...really!!

You can do fictional within FM but the fictional I'd like to do would either be impossible or would take months maybe even years to input into FM. I'd want at least 3 divisions maybe even four of 10-14 teams in each, not that hard really but I'd want players names to match my OOTP world example being I wouldn't want any David Smith's playing football when there isn't a David or Smith in my name files. I'd also want my city file to be in it, no use having a Liverpool United playing when there isn't a place called Liverpool in my OOTP file but i'd want something like a Northgate Rovers playing in the Northern Section of the First Division (like in the 1920's in the old third division) and managed by say Heinie Stocksdale names that are in my file.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Let's assume you have the game set up the way you want...whether it's historical, fictional, MLB, or whatever....which of the two do you think is a better experience of replicating the General Manager/Manager's chair? AI is a big part of this...as are many other factors. Which one is more competitive and realistic from that standpoint?

Well your OP brought into count AI, immersion, realism and fun which imo would go FM, OOTP, equal and OOTP giving it to OOTP which is were I cast my vote. Now if it was just down to AI and realism then I'd shade it to FM but you state IF FM could do historical and fictional (like I want to), you could also say IF OOTP had the money and staff of FM then they could make OOTP better.

In the end I see no problem in liking both, I personally love OOTP but like FM. I used to love FM until OOTP came along, reason being I wanted to do an historical league within FM but couldn't but OOTP gave me that option. THEN when I found out you could do fictional leagues within OOTP that's when I fell in love with OOTP and my first love FM just couldn't give me what I wanted.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

FM reaches FAR more people than OOTP. Therefore, any poll is going to be tainted, but if your conclusion makes you happy, there ya go. FM is prefered to OOTP.

True Cool. it does reach more people, but there is also a reason for that!!... Free market darwinism I would say. I understand there are likely many more football fans around the globe, baseball is becoming a real international sport. Markus might want to start making this fact a priority in OOTP the way FM does. OOTP...should have every league and school from around the world. Doing so would still pale in comparison to FM database wise, as there are so many more football teams globally than baseball. It's really ashamed SI & OOTP parted ways, as I think OOTP could really have been there by now. I think it would have had a much larger audience, and would also be a much more "polished" product by now.

[Antonin]

Well, I was quite happy when OOTP and SI parted company. I don't want OOTP baseball to become more like FM. The latter, to me, has too many limitations and too many weaknesses--and I was playing FM back when it was called CM, before I ever heard of OOTP.

Baseball and soccer are different sports--in a way, it's silly to compare a game that attempts to model one of them to a game that models the other.

[Skydog3000]

I haven't read all the posts above mine as I was specifically asked for my opinion on this by PSUColonel (and therefore did not randomly stumble on the thread). So I apologise if this is repetitive.

FM and OOTP are undeniably very similar games. I've played a lot more FM than OOTP so I'm more familiar with its strengths and weaknesses plus I know a lot more about football than baseball.

If I could only buy one for some reason, I would by FM - but that's just me. To be perfectly honest, I don't really understand the point of comparing the two except insofar as the makers of each game could probably learn from each other but that's go little to do with me or my opinion.

Having said that, there are few points of interest (to me anyway) that I will raise now that I'm here:

1. In my view baseball is a more natural game for computer simulation than football. Football is harder to simulate as it depends on dynamics between 11 men on the field more than statistical data. Baseball simulation in large part boils down several instances of batter v pitcher. FM's strength is that it does a pretty good job at simulating the behaviour of an entire team of players but OOTP to me seems more believable in the way that it produces results by reference to plain statistical data.

2. The FM focus on the psychological state of the players (form, morale, complacency) seems to me to be excessive, probably to increase the feeling that the manager is in control. But it is infuriating and unrealistic to win 20 straight only to be thrashed 3 times in a row by cellar-dwellers because your players "complacency" has led them into complete ineptitude. OOTP seems to be free of this.

3. I tend to play with Tottenham in FM and I find it relatively easy to contend perennially simply by buying 1-2 young-ish world class stars each season plus a few prospects. On the other hand, OOTP seems to need a lot of tweaking with the AI options to get the difficulty right, which strikes me as a little artificial. I'm new to the game but I am having trouble finding the "right" difficulty for me.

4. FM is or at least until FM12 was undeniably getting lost in the detail. There is no shortage of detail in OOTP but it seems less like tedious work than FM when FM is at its worse.

5. The UI in FM is better. There are a few pretty simple things that the OOTP team could learn from the FM UI, such as right click menus on player names, that would make life much easier.

6. The potential ratings in OOTP confuse me. I don't understand how they work and they rarely seem to be accurate even when the scout in question should be doing a good job. FM puts less focus on potential ratings and they are easier to use. I don't know which better simulates the real world but the OOTP system sure is more frustrating for me.

Anyway, I was asked for my views and there they are. To me they're both awesome games, I will definitely continue to buy both and it's great to see people in the marketplace making thoughtful games of this nature in such great sports.