Thinking About Buying the Game -- Have some questions first.

[b10wick]

Hey guys, I just registered on the board, and let me say that I've seen some screen shots of OOTP and like what I see. Personally, the past four or five years I have been playing Baseball Mogul. I never really heard of OOTP until a week ago or so, and came over to check out the site.

As I said, I liked what I saw in the screen shots, and was thinking of purchasing. However, before I decide to do so though, I just wanted to ask a couple of questions and make sure on some things.

1: In most of the screen shots I saw, there were only fictional players... I can play with real MLB players, right? (Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, etc.?)

2: I'm a big fan of the Play by Play in Baseball Mogul, which allows me to paly the game out myself, controlling all aspects. Is there a similar feature in OOTP?

3: When running a franchise, am I able to set all teams to human? Controlling each and every teams roster moves?

4: If so, would I be able to set every game of every team to be played out in PBP mode? (I know in Baseball Mogul, until a recent patch, you weren't able to do this. You were only able to play one team's game a day. I love to run each team's games, playing them out.)

5: How are the mods for this game? Is there a good set of rosters out there in case I don't like the set that comes with the game? What about player pictures? Stadium pictures? (For PBP -- Not sure if your PBP is the same as Baseball Mogul) Team logos? Etc.. Please detail what is out there and what you would recommend for me to download.

6: How are the developers of the game in terms of listening to what the consumers list as Bug Reports, what they would like to see added to the game, etc? Do they listen, and try to get what the fans want to see in the game added?

7: I've heard OOTP is difficult to navigate through, and get used to playing? Is it really that hard? (Remember, I've played Baseball Mogul for the past four or five years, and from what I've heard Baseball Mogul is 100x easier to navigate through) Please explain.

8: Is there anywhere I could download a demo of OOTP 9 to see a more in depth look at what I would be purchasing? Would really love to see the features up close before I buy.

9: How much is the game to purchase? Are their any discounts of any sort I could use?

10: Finally, in everyone's all honesty.. for those of you who have played both Baseball Mogul and OOTP.. Could you compare and contrast the two, and say which of the two you like better and why?

Thanks everybody who decides to help this newbie out by answering my questions. Hopefully I'll be a new customer of OOTP within a couple of hours. (Barring I like what I see of course )

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by b10wick

1: In most of the screen shots I saw, there were only fictional players... I can play with real MLB players, right? (Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, etc.?)

Yes. Current MLB players, historical MLB players, a mix of historical and current and fictional... any combination.

2: I'm a big fan of the Play by Play in Baseball Mogul, which allows me to paly the game out myself, controlling all aspects. Is there a similar feature in OOTP?

Yepp.

3: When running a franchise, am I able to set all teams to human? Controlling each and every teams roster moves?

Yes. By default, when you take over a big league team you control all of the minor league clubs for them as well. You can decide to give the AI control of them, if you wish.

4: If so, would I be able to set every game of every team to be played out in PBP mode? (I know in Baseball Mogul, until a recent patch, you weren't able to do this. You were only able to play one team's game a day. I love to run each team's games, playing them out.)

I believe so, yes. Just make sure the 'sim world while playing this game' option is turned OFF, so that way the only game being played is the one you control. That should let you play all of your organization's games for every level.

5: How are the mods for this game? Is there a good set of rosters out there in case I don't like the set that comes with the game? What about player pictures? Stadium pictures? (For PBP -- Not sure if your PBP is the same as Baseball Mogul) Team logos? Etc.. Please detail what is out there and what you would recommend for me to download.

I won't get into details since there are so many mods, but... plenty of good ones. I know there are alternatives to the '08 rosters that came with the game, but I haven't tried them. There are several versions of the historical database that comes with the game (I use Gambo's DBs myself). You can easily find player pictures for virtually everyone who ever played in the bigs. Stadium pics and team logos are easy as well. PadresFan has a large collection of community mods on his website.

6: How are the developers of the game in terms of listening to what the consumers list as Bug Reports, what they would like to see added to the game, etc? Do they listen, and try to get what the fans want to see in the game added?

Very much so, though Markus can be stubborn when it comes to certain aspects of the game. Not that I blame him, since he's pretty much the only developer there is for the game. Basically, if your feature makes sense and can be implemented without lots of extra work, Markus is pretty good about seeing if he can get it into the game.

7: I've heard OOTP is difficult to navigate through, and get used to playing? Is it really that hard? (Remember, I've played Baseball Mogul for the past four or five years, and from what I've heard Baseball Mogul is 100x easier to navigate through) Please explain.

Can't help you here. OOTP is the only baseball text sim I've ever played and I've been following it for more than six years.

8: Is there anywhere I could download a demo of OOTP 9 to see a more in depth look at what I would be purchasing? Would really love to see the features up close before I buy.

Not yet. OOTP's demos tend to come out several weeks after the game is released. You could download the OOTP8 demo, as it is pretty similar.

9: How much is the game to purchase? Are their any discounts of any sort I could use?

$40. No discounts at the moment.

[b10wick]

thanks for answering the questions.. this game seems like the real deal. i may end up purchasing it in an hour or so when i get home. one quick question though, as far as the controlling all teams thing, I meant controlling all the MLB teams, as well as all of their minor league squads, etc.. I think you think I meant just the one MLB team.. Thanks for the help again.