Just General Questions

[brewertoby]

So...since pre-ordering ten, and only being able to play the demo version of 9 so far, I've been lurking in these forums, pretty much just teasing myself because I'm very excited about the upcoming release.

2 questions from lurking so far...

#1. I've read alot about how the 2006 release was a complete disaster. What exactly happened? Nobody provides anything specific, only that it was a debacle. It seems to me that OOTP should have been relatively established by then, so how could one year's release been SO much worse than the previous years?

#2. The ONLY reason I found this game was because of "Front Office Manager". Anyone else try it? IMHO, it was awful. If it wasn't for people bringing up OOTP in FOM's reviews, I still wouldn't know about it, and I figure to be pretty active in this game once I finally get my hands dirty with it. It seems like EXACTLY what I've been looking for all my life. I know that I've talked to a few friends that have also decided to purchase it, and I'm working on several others. Those of you with years of experience with this game should go to similar game's review sites (i.e. FOM) and hail the exploits of it. I don't know who's post it was I read in that review, but it caused a trickle down effect of people buying, AND I'm in debt to that person to the nth degree.

Looking forward to meeting some of you in on-line leagues in the future.

Toby

[Bluenoser]

#1. OOTP 2006 was an entire new game engine, thus it was a "new" game so to speak. A debacle? Hardly. That's some peoples opinion, and they are certainly entitled to it, but it was playable. It had bugs and flaws and basic things that didn't work, but I like to think of it as a growing year for the game. It got us the new engine, which in my opinion, is much better. We have seen that the follow on versions, 2007, 2008, 2009 have all been good with many improvements. OOTP 10 will no doubt be another growth spurt, and so on and so on.

#2. I can't speak for others, but I don't spend a lot of time on the net, and certainly don't have time to go to other sites and "hail the exploits" of OOTP. I've certainly mentioned it to a lot of friends and strangers alike over the years, and am responsible for a lot of sales, but that's the limit of my "hailing".

[Kelric]

As to the first point, I hated OOTP'06. I've loved every other version. For whatever reason, it just didn't feel right or play right. I basically didn't touch it after a few weeks. The next version, for whatever reason, felt right. I don't think it was a learning experience with the new interface since that was fine for me with '06. Beats me.

[treedom]

Originally Posted by brewertoby

#1. I've read alot about how the 2006 release was a complete disaster. What exactly happened? Nobody provides anything specific, only that it was a debacle. It seems to me that OOTP should have been relatively established by then, so how could one year's release been SO much worse than the previous years?

That's because it wasn't actually a debacle. It was a big change, sure, but it was for the best. People just like to exaggerate sometimes.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by BruceM

#1. OOTP 2006 was an entire new game engine, thus it was a "new" game so to speak. A debacle? Hardly. That's some peoples opinion, and they are certainly entitled to it, but it was playable. It had bugs and flaws and basic things that didn't work, but I like to think of it as a growing year for the game. It got us the new engine, which in my opinion, is much better. We have seen that the follow on versions, 2007, 2008, 2009 have all been good with many improvements. OOTP 10 will no doubt be another growth spurt, and so on and so on.

#2. I can't speak for others, but I don't spend a lot of time on the net, and certainly don't have time to go to other sites and "hail the exploits" of OOTP. I've certainly mentioned it to a lot of friends and strangers alike over the years, and am responsible for a lot of sales, but that's the limit of my "hailing".

I agree with your first point. OOTP v2006 was not as bad as has been reported. A significant number of customers were put off by the merger with SI. The change in "look" and v2006's faults got it a very hostile reaction. Coming up to 3 versions later I think Markus should be applauded for taking a risk and following his vision.

[brewertoby]

Thanks gentlemen. I appreciate the candor. I guess I had a small worry that eventually a similar situation would occur and I would be less than happy. Now it sounds as though even if a similar situation occurred, it would be more of a change in feel than a product that regressed in any significant way. But really, the way some talk about v6 in these forums, you would think that it was a complete failure. I had thoughts of major bugs, or something horribly wrong.

[kq76]

I know it gets confusing, but v6 and OOTP2006 were very much different. v6 (or OOTP6.x) was the last of the first generation as I like to think of it and OOTP2006 (or v7) was the first of the current generation.

I don't think I'd say it had a "new ... engine" really. In the end I bet many of the ways the games worked were probably pretty similar. The problem was the code got too complicated with v6, Markus called it spaghetti code, and so whenever you try to add to or fix something that's already a jumbled mess it's much more difficult than it would otherwise be. So, Markus rewrote the game from the ground up. And to complicate matters OOTP joined SI which makes the highly acclaimed Football Manager and so Markus tried to bring to OOTP a lot of the great things about FM. It was a huge undertaking to say the least and while many of us got very excited about it, myself included, it ended up being a bit of a letdown because it just didn't end up being as functional as OOTP6 was. Like others have said, though, it was necessary and v8 and v9 and so on probably wouldn't be nearly as good as they are had Markus not taken that risk.

So should you be scared that we'll have another OOTP2006? Eh, I wouldn't be. Markus may decide to rewrite it all over again in a few years, but if he does I bet we'll agree that if he thinks it's necessary then it probably is and we'll just look forward to the advances to come.