A look at the OOTP Roster Set tool

[Raidergoo]

Some time back, several people asked about how the rosters were made. I said I would try to get a post up concerning some of the details. Here it is.

A look inside the web based OOTP Roster Editor

In June 2008, battists laid down the mission for the creation of a OOTP Roster Editor. It had two key points.

1. Define and build a set of collaborative roster editing tools for future use

2. Define a process and system for consistent ratings for players in a collaborative environment

On that note, we started to brainstorm. Some rather detailed suggestions were offered, and they went on for pages. Battists said that he had to hit page down 7 times on one of my posts. The suggestions were offered for days. Lots of people added their thoughts.

The general concept was turned over to OOTP Developments. The executive summary was "Take the roster editor in OOTP and make it a web application."

They built it.

Here is a look at the major league roster. The last names are hyperlinks to the individual pages.



An individual page is included, too.



Third is a change log. Everything is recorded so it could be reviewed. The yellow highlight is generated by the web page to quickly show where changes were made. I had to cut 90% of the info off of my screen shot to make it fit.

[ry1220]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

"Take the roster editor in OOTP and make it a web application."

Now all that remains is "Take the roster editor in OOTP, make it a web application, and make it freely available, so that everyone who has a problem with the default roster can make their own."

This fascinates me, as I'd love something like this to make my fictional league.

[MB.Pelicans]

I agree, something like this needs to be released ASAP

[battists]

It's not going to happen any time soon... We don't have the infrastructure/resources to build this as a robust web application supported for use by all of our customers, sorry!

[MB.Pelicans]

What about allowing the community to have it, but not access to your server? make it available for us to find our own hosting. Just getting the tool would be enough, I dont need the ability to share it will the entire community

[battists]

I will raise this for discussion, but honestly, even if we just provided you with the files and the database, we'd be inundated with questions about what goes where, what certain fields in the database schema do, how to get it working, and so on, and we just don't have the man hours to respond to those inquiries right now.

As much as we'd like to say "here it is, but we don't support it," it's practically impossible to do so.

But, I'll ask the boys when they get back...

Thanks,

Steve

[MB.Pelicans]

Thank You Sir!

Why not take a small handful of volunteers, teach them about it, if you find tech saavy volunteers, it won't take much in the way of man hours to teach them, and have them support this program for you?

[johndoe8865]

I'd be extremely interested if you decided to take a small group and "teach" a litte bit about the use of the program.

Thanks!

[Raidergoo]

You can always learn by doing. When the time comes, apply for a spot on the 2009 rosters team.

[Malleus Dei]

Release it with the written caveat that it is not supported and that the OOTP staff will absolutely never answer any questions about it or support it in any way. Ignore anyone who asks you guys anything about it, and have moderators erase any such posted questions. In six months it will be a fully-understood, documented, user-supported tool available on a robust website with no effort on your part.

Steve, Markus, Andreas - you keep underestimating the talent level of your customers. Don't do it again here, we need the tool, and us having the tool will only make the game better and lead to increased game sales WITH NO EFFORT AND AT NO COST TO OOTP WHATSOEVER. There's no possible downside for you guys here: release it.

[BMW]

As a devils advocate:

This web application is essentially a collaborative roster builder. Unless you are looking to do exactly that: collaborate with a number of people simultaneously outside of the OOTP model, I don't see how this would benefit virtually any the user base of OOTP.

Using it for anything other than that would frankly be an enormous waste of time to set up for something that is already included in the game.

There's nothing here that you cannot already do in-game.

Releasing something to the public and then telling them to sod off when they don't understand how to use it is just bad business practices. I've seen it done occasionally where I work, and even in a very professional business environment, you always end up having to go back on your word and support it in some fashion. Or you risk alienating your business partners, which in this case are purchasers of OOTP.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by BMW

This web application is essentially a collaborative roster builder. Unless you are looking to do exactly that: collaborate with a number of people simultaneously outside of the OOTP model, I don't see how this would benefit virtually any the user base of OOTP.

Wow, your vision does not reach far enough to include tuned, collaborative historical seasons (which, for example, I have already done before with Gambo and Doc) or collaborative fictional leagues, like, say, the NABA? Mine sure does.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Wow, your vision does not reach far enough to include tuned, collaborative historical seasons (which, for example, I have already done before with Gambo and Doc) or collaborative fictional leagues, like, say, the NABA? Mine sure does.

Well, I said "virtually any" so as not to use a cliche like 99.9%. But it wasn't that clear either. My point was that there is an extremely small percentage of people out of the total user base of OOTP who might want to use this, less those who wouldn't be able to actually install and maintain this and then perhaps even less those who found it to be a significant advantage over whatever their current collaborative system is today.

Undoubtedly, in playing that devil's advocate, I'm casting aside the wants of a very small but dedicated group of users and it may seem callous. But I don't think any less so than suggesting that the development team throw out tens (or hundreds) of thousands of lines of code to everyone within the community and then essentially give the community a virtual middle finger when they come asking for help or support.

Not to mention, it is their work and, in general, many forms of web programming such as PHP and Javascript can't really be protected in any way. All the source code of the OOTP.exe is safely locked away, more or less because I can't open up the .exe file and change it around slightly and then sell it as BMW Baseball 2009.

If I wanted to build a web-based baseball game to sell to people, the OOTP designers may have just built 20% or 30% of my back end right there. In fact, for all we know, it could be the basis of a web-OOTP that you're asking them to give out the code for free.

I'd love to look at that code myself, so I'm all for releasing it to the public if for nothing else to satisfy my curiosity. But to suggest that there is "no downside" to releasing it is looking at it purely from your point of view, and not the point of view of the company that actually developed it. There is "no downside" for you.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by BMW

But I don't think any less so than suggesting that the development team throw out tens (or hundreds) of thousands of lines of code to everyone within the community and then essentially give the community a virtual middle finger when they come asking for help or support.

But that sort of thing is not uncommon when it comes to developer tools released to the public. Such tools are often released "as is" and support is not offered. It's part of the price for making the tool publicly available, so to speak.

You can find that sort of thing in first-person-shooter games in regards to the map building tools, for example.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

But that sort of thing is not uncommon when it comes to developer tools released to the public. Such tools are often released "as is" and support is not offered. It's part of the price for making the tool publicly available, so to speak.

You can find that sort of thing in first-person-shooter games in regards to the map building tools, for example.

I don't deny that, but the difference here is that any of those tools are likely able to be easily packed into an install file or even run from a single executable. I have no doubt here that to use this Web-app, we're talking about installing a MySQL (or similar) database and a PHP environment (or purchasing hosting that has these) and then setting up these OOTP files on top of that.

The other tools that you are referring to are provided as-is, but they are also mostly going to be downloading one file, double click and install.

And again, it could be part of a web-based OOTP that the company is planning or considering. If that's the case, that's all the reason not to release it to the public right there.

I have personal experience building a baseball site that allows you to set lineups, negotiate contracts and extensions, log transactions, trade players, process them, create player news, create players, edit players, etc. all via the web, all from scratch.

I can tell you that since I didn't design it with the intent that someone can easily install it on another site, it would be exceedingly difficult to just give all the files to someone and then suddenly they have a copy of my design.

[Killing Time]

Originally Posted by BMW

Undoubtedly, in playing that devil's advocate, I'm casting aside the wants of a very small but dedicated group of users and it may seem callous.

No, you're casting aside the wants of a lot of users and being real callous about it.

You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that releasing this tool to the public would lead to much better rosters. You don't want much better rosters? If you don't then you're in a very small minority group. In fact you may be the only person in it.

[WarFisch]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

No, you're casting aside the wants of a lot of users and being real callous about it.

You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that releasing this tool to the public would lead to much better rosters. You don't want much better rosters? If you don't then you're in a very small minority group. In fact you may be the only person in it.

Let's not get riled up in a discussion that will most likely have no effect on whether this web app is ever released or not. I don't think BMW was being callous, he was injecting some reality.

I also didn't see anything in his post indicating he was against better rosters. Just doubt as to whether this is the tool to get them.

I tend to agree that a web based app is probably not the answer, and the idea that no one will expect support is unrealistic. (Not to mention that collaberative = agreement and compromise, two things we rarely seeme to see around here.)

The bigger reason why this probably won't be released, though, is that it likely would bring with it access to many of the calculations and formulas that so far Marcus has decided to keep to himself.

With this tool, you would probably see the exact formula that translate the editable skills into the un-editable (i.e. contact+gap=BABIP, velocity+pitches=stuff, etc.) He has never released this info (that I know of) and likely never will.

[endgame]

I'm still a bit surprised the original post was injected into the forums. Was that sanctioned by OOTP? I don't see the point, particularly at this point in time.

Regardless, what's done is done and I tend to lean toward MD's take on this, especially since we, as a community, worked together for years with an unsupported mainstay of the game: Cato.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by endgame

I'm still a bit surprised the original post was injected into the forums. Was that sanctioned by OOTP? I don't see the point, particularly at this point in time.

Yes, it was reviewed for publication.

The point was to highlight the roster tool to possible roster team members for next year. Doing this now gets new people involved today, so that when work on the new roster set starts in, say mid-October, there's a few new faces at work. So far, I don't see much conversation on that subject or on roster creation theory.

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

No, you're casting aside the wants of a lot of users and being real callous about it.

You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that releasing this tool to the public would lead to much better rosters. You don't want much better rosters? If you don't then you're in a very small minority group. In fact you may be the only person in it.

Okay, I should have said "needs", not "wants."

Naturally, hundreds of users will want this if:

1. It's free
2. And before they are faced with the reality of the amount of time and resources they'd need to put into it to get the app up and running

Saying, "You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that releasing this tool to the public would lead to much better rosters," isn't really a valid argument, it's just a method to avoid having to use reason to defend your position.

I don't mind hearing your position and if the argument is persuasive, plus you get the bonus that perhaps Markus or someone will decide to release it to the public.

Here's my take.

1. We already have some good rosters out there. Only one was made using this web app. All the others were made using other means.
   
   
2. Could the web app make better rosters? Absolutely, because better happens to be an inaccurate method of describing quality. If Aaron Heilman in the OOTP-released 2009 Roster doesn't have a slider, but his real life counterpart developed one in spring training, then a new Roster that adds in the slider is "better." It's not significantly better.
   
   
3. There is the concept of diminishing returns to consider. If the OOTP-released 2009 Roster had every batter and pitcher as batting and throwing right-handed, then the overall state of the Roster is pretty lousy and there's a great deal of improvement to be had by correcting the batting and throwing. (It's also very easy to track down this information).
   
   If the OOTP-released 2009 Roster doesn't have Colleges for a lot of players, that's less significant. It doesn't impact the game as much, plus the info is slightly harder to track down (admittedly not as much as several years ago).
   
   The list of users who would run out and "upgrade" their roster because of the new college data would be much less than if you were correcting batting/throwing.
   
   That's diminishing return: the effort you put into updating the colleges is worth much less than the effort you put into batting/throwing arms. Hence, the better the quality of the rosters today the more effort you need to put in to making the rosters significantly better.
   
   
4. The only real difference having this functionality as such on the web rather than in the model is that more than one person could work on it simultaneously or you could easily collaborate with a large amount of users on a roster. If you are one person editing a roster, or say, two people editing a roster each exchanging the league files once every few days, there's no benefit here. If you just play OOTP and never aim to create a roster, then you don't need this. So I do maintain that the amount of users that would really use this is probably small.
   
   
5. Markus and company may not have created this to ever be for public consumption. It's not possible to say definitively how easy or hard it is to set up, but I know from personal experience that I cannot just take the code from my web-based OOTP site and port it over to my other OOTP league without a huge amount of effort. And I wrote all the code for it. I can't even imagine what someone else would make of it.
   
   
6. Again, it's their work and their property. Any expectations that do not take into account this point or the prior point just aren't being realistic that the people who have and deserve to have the most say are Markus and company.

I do offer the idea that a really great middle ground would be to consider setting up environments on ootpdevelopments.com for people like Gambo and others if they want to collaborate on, say a very accurate 1983 season disk.