Small OOTP 9 Update

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by hurn0003

I am a big fan of OOTP in general, but the lack of another patch for 2007 is what might keep me from converting my league over when the new game is released. It is a case of preferring the devil I know. It has been disheartening that the game was released with so many bugs, but even more frustrating was that they were never resolved through patching. I felt like the development of version 2007 after the debacle of version 2006 was a huge step forward, but I would like to see the same step forward in terms of responsiveness to solving the bugs on a released version of the game.

If I could know that the newest version was not simply being rushed out without concern for its quality and that once released the inevitable bugs would be properly patched in a timely fashion I would gladly plunk down my cash, but after the disaster of 2006 and the lack responsiveness on the bugs in 2007 I don't think you have earned the blind allegiance to the product being demonstrated by some posters.

It is great that new features are being added to create more depth and realism in the game, but I would gladly sacrifice new features for a game version which has fewer defects and will be properly patched.

Not trying to detract from what you are saying, but I am missing where all of the "so many bugs in 2007" are. I have been playing that game non-stop for a year and have very few issues and no crashes. Again, not saying you are not experiencing things, but just want to know a little more. IMO, it is oneo f the most stable and entertaining OOTP games yet.

Reviewers agree also

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by silvam14

Not trying to detract from what you are saying, but I am missing where all of the "so many bugs in 2007" are. I have been playing that game non-stop for a year and have very few issues and no crashes. Again, not saying you are not experiencing things, but just want to know a little more. IMO, it is oneo f the most stable and entertaining OOTP games yet.

Reviewers agree also

The problem with reviewers is, they get a copy of the game, play it for a little while and write a review. They don't play it for months on end where some bugs might crop up and then write the review.

Note - this is not a knock on reviewers by any means. I appreciate their input.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by BruceM

The problem with reviewers is, they get a copy of the game, play it for a little while and write a review. They don't play it for months on end where some bugs might crop up and then write the review.

Note - this is not a knock on reviewers by any means. I appreciate their input.

Yeah, I hear you there. Then take my word for it, I have been playing it since launch.

[hurn0003]

Originally Posted by silvam14

Not trying to detract from what you are saying, but I am missing where all of the "so many bugs in 2007" are. I have been playing that game non-stop for a year and have very few issues and no crashes. Again, not saying you are not experiencing things, but just want to know a little more. IMO, it is oneo f the most stable and entertaining OOTP games yet.

Reviewers agree also

The game is stable for me so that isn't the issue for me. It is all the small little bugs that you have to work around.

Commissioners having to set rules against raising ticket prices too much because you can charge 10K per ticket and have people show up and draw in hundreds of millions of dollars in gate revenue.

That you have to run waivers through a forum to have it work properly.

That it is damn near impossible to get rid of a league imprint from a league file after a sub league has been deleted.

They have resolved some issues to a certain degree, but a lot of those issues should never have come up in a released game. That GMs would attempt to game the incentives was totally obvious and it should have never been an issue.

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by hurn0003

That you have to run waivers through a forum to have it work properly.

That it is damn near impossible to get rid of a league imprint from a league file after a sub league has been deleted.

While I'm on board for purchasing the new version, I will agree that these two issues in particular are ones I'd really, really appreciate having addressed in OOTP 9. The waiver situation is a major hassle for online leagues. As for the sub-league issue, I made the mistake of running tests with Cubby's set before deleting it and settling on our current setup. BIG MISTAKE: Now all the structures from that set are floating around in my .dat files, making the thing gigantic. You can imagine what a headache that is in an online league!

And while we're wishing, I'm hoping to see the FaceGen bug that corrupts some users "faces.dat" file after a set amount of time fixed. With our league nearing the scheduled point where that's going to happen, this is a major priority for me.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by hurn0003

The game is stable for me so that isn't the issue for me. It is all the small little bugs that you have to work around.

Commissioners having to set rules against raising ticket prices too much because you can charge 10K per ticket and have people show up and draw in hundreds of millions of dollars in gate revenue.

That you have to run waivers through a forum to have it work properly.

That it is damn near impossible to get rid of a league imprint from a league file after a sub league has been deleted.

They have resolved some issues to a certain degree, but a lot of those issues should never have come up in a released game. That GMs would attempt to game the incentives was totally obvious and it should have never been an issue.

I see, mostly seem like online issues. That's where I got lost.

[johnnybourbon]

while we're on the subject of beta testing and bug fixes and such, im just gonna throw something out there...

if any of the game players are programmers in any capacity, would the dev team be open to sharing the source code (this is probably the more important question)?
If so, would anyone (the game players/testers) be willing to voluntarily debug the code and suggest code work arounds?
I sure would. voluntarily.
of course, we'd need to know what programming language the game is written in as well...

[treedom]

Originally Posted by johnnybourbon

if any of the game players are programmers in any capacity, would the dev team be open to sharing the source code (this is probably the more important question)?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there's no chance in hell this will happen.

[johnnybourbon]

Originally Posted by treedom

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there's no chance in hell this will happen.

well, i do believe the source code is protected under some sort of intellectual property law. Plus, any type of contract can be drawn up, even if it's signed in crayon and faxed back to the dev team, it still can be binding.
I might be way off base, my Business Law class in college is but a drunken memory at this point.
2 cents.

[BaseballMan]

I dont think that will happen either unless Markus was retiring.
I cant blame him after all the time and effort he has put into ootp.
I think it might make it worse anyway. Too many different visions of what the game should be might bring too many different codes of the game.
I prefer that Markus takes our suggestions good or bad and keep making the game.
Seems to work ok so far.

[Neags23]

Originally Posted by johnnybourbon

while we're on the subject of beta testing and bug fixes and such, im just gonna throw something out there...

if any of the game players are programmers in any capacity, would the dev team be open to sharing the source code (this is probably the more important question)?
If so, would anyone (the game players/testers) be willing to voluntarily debug the code and suggest code work arounds?
I sure would. voluntarily.
of course, we'd need to know what programming language the game is written in as well...

Originally Posted by treedom

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there's no chance in hell this will happen.

Yeah... I don't think so. It's unlikely they would share any of the formulas used to do certain things, much less the entire code base. That's not happening.

I'm all for open source programs, and I think it can be an awesome way to do things for programs like Firefox and OpenOffice, etc. But not so much for something like this.

[EGGUZMAN]

Ok, OTP with sound!!..This will be my first purchase of OTP since OTP5. and the pre-order of $25.00 is not bad, not bad at all!!..

Thanks Markus

Peace
Ernesto

[RchW]

Originally Posted by hurn0003

The game is stable for me so that isn't the issue for me. It is all the small little bugs that you have to work around.

Commissioners having to set rules against raising ticket prices too much because you can charge 10K per ticket and have people show up and draw in hundreds of millions of dollars in gate revenue.

That you have to run waivers through a forum to have it work properly.

That it is damn near impossible to get rid of a league imprint from a league file after a sub league has been deleted.

They have resolved some issues to a certain degree, but a lot of those issues should never have come up in a released game. That GMs would attempt to game the incentives was totally obvious and it should have never been an issue.

That's an interesting one. In my solo league, if I raise my ticket prices $0.50 my attendance falls about 3000-4000. That's with a team with 100 interest and "great loyalty".

I wonder why it happens in Online Leagues?

[westendcards]

Will there be a fix for pre-season play so you can use minor leaguers without signing them to a contract?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

I dont think that will happen either unless Markus was retiring.
I cant blame him after all the time and effort he has put into ootp.
I think it might make it worse anyway. Too many different visions of what the game should be might bring too many different codes of the game.
I prefer that Markus takes our suggestions good or bad and keep making the game.
Seems to work ok so far.

Even if Markus was retiring, the source code is worth a good chunk of change to him, I am sure. He's not going to give it up. The Football Pro 98 team still hasn't released all of their code, and there is zero chance that game will ever be remade.

[SDtwin]

Sorry if this seems off track a bit, but if this was a small update then when can we expect a bigger update? It seems about time for at least another small update anyways.

[ootp3to6]

Originally Posted by SDtwin

Sorry if this seems off track a bit, but if this was a small update then when can we expect a bigger update? It seems about time for at least another small update anyways.

I agree. I am losing interest in checking the forum with no additional update on the game.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by RchW

That's an interesting one. In my solo league, if I raise my ticket prices $0.50 my attendance falls about 3000-4000. That's with a team with 100 interest and "great loyalty".

I wonder why it happens in Online Leagues?

The problem is there seems to be a limit of how far attendance will fall. So for example:

Team A
Ticket price: $12
Avg Attendance: 35,000
Gate Revenue per game: $420,000

Team B
Ticket price: $10,000
Avg Attendance: 2,000
Gate Revenue per game: $20,000,000

[MadMax58]

Originally Posted by johnnybourbon

well, i do believe the source code is protected under some sort of intellectual property law. Plus, any type of contract can be drawn up, even if it's signed in crayon and faxed back to the dev team, it still can be binding.
I might be way off base, my Business Law class in college is but a drunken memory at this point.
2 cents.

There are certainly binding legal documents one can draw up for this type of arrangement...but it is the enforcement of some such contract that is the biggest issue.

For instance...you could hypothetically assist debugging of logic errors. Wait 2 years (if some such non-compete were part of it). Release "JohnnyBourbon's Baseball Game" which (just so happens to) be a text-based baseball game, which perhaps you've gone the extra mile of designing a completely different looking GUI for. Then the burden of proof is up to Markus to provide. And without direct access to your source code...or spending money to sue you and have your source code brought out as evidence of violation...this becomes an easy way for him to completely throw away everything he has worked for.

Besides...I imagine 3 things to be true in this regard.

1) Markus is a gifted programmer with uncommon efficiency. (i.e. he can do it faster, with his own code than 4-5 people looking at his code)
2) In an app this large...you arent going to find the root of a logic error in a single class or sub, etc. (i.e. you would need to see nearly all source code to even try to help)
3) If you could find the root of a logic error in a single class or sub...he would have found it already.

Just my .

[johnnybourbon]

Originally Posted by MadMax58

There are certainly binding legal documents one can draw up for this type of arrangement...but it is the enforcement of some such contract that is the biggest issue.

For instance...you could hypothetically assist debugging of logic errors. Wait 2 years (if some such non-compete were part of it). Release "JohnnyBourbon's Baseball Game" which (just so happens to) be a text-based baseball game, which perhaps you've gone the extra mile of designing a completely different looking GUI for. Then the burden of proof is up to Markus to provide. And without direct access to your source code...or spending money to sue you and have your source code brought out as evidence of violation...this becomes an easy way for him to completely throw away everything he has worked for.

excellent reply max.
This is the exact kind of thing i was looking for with my post above regarding the legalities of it.

Originally Posted by MadMax58

Besides...I imagine 3 things to be true in this regard.

1) Markus is a gifted programmer with uncommon efficiency. (i.e. he can do it faster, with his own code than 4-5 people looking at his code)
2) In an app this large...you arent going to find the root of a logic error in a single class or sub, etc. (i.e. you would need to see nearly all source code to even try to help)
3) If you could find the root of a logic error in a single class or sub...he would have found it already.

Just my .

I don't disagree with #1 & #3...but with #2, having debugged errors in a programming language that I'm not either familiar with or comfortable with, with a code base of over 600,000 lines of code...the errors can be found. Fixing them is another story altogether. That, of course, can be left to the dev team...which brings me back to one of my original questions:
If you could debug the code, even voluntarily, would you?