Why was Malleus's thread closed???

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by RBLwebguy

OK, truce Goodnight all!

Truce and out.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

You are wrong, and you are making it worse with your attitude and insults.

No, MD, if I was to call you a jerk, that'd be an insult. Calling your actions similar to that of a drama queen or of imitating a child in a schoolyard is using (admittedly colourful) descriptive language to describe your actions. Criticizing actions is not the same as denigrating a person's character, which is what an insult is, to me at least.

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Read the quotes above. *Markus* - that's right, Markus - verified to Nutlaw that the following were now hidden ratings: "team loyalty, desire for winning team, consistency, popularity, injury rating, and the like."

Now explain to me how consistency and injury ratings don't effect historical simming.

That's not my job. Your job is to show exactly how those ratings spell the end of historical simming, particularly considering that OOTP has NEVER provided EXACT recreation of real-world players' careers and developments. Your job is to demonstate that the effect of such ratings will be so huge and so significant that historical rosters would be "impossible" as you yourself said they would be.

But wait... you can't provide such evidence or facts because you haven't played the game.

Therefore, what other conclusion can there be other than you SPECULATING and GUESSING that the effect of said ratings would be large and significant. You ASSUMED the effects of such ratings would be so dramatic that it would be "killing" historical simming and rendering "impossible" the production of historical rosters (the quotes are your words).

YOU'RE the one who made the claim that historical leagues were DEAD. It is therefore incumbent upon YOU to provide the EVIDENCE which conclusively demonstrates the validity of your assertion. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" as the old saying goes. So what evidence are you going to provide related to OOTP2006 which proves historical leagues are dead in the game?

Sorry, but past experiences with other titles do not count. We're not talking about other games. Sorry, but personal preferences do not count, as they are preferences and not evidence. Sorry, but guesswork and assumptions do not count as they are guesswork and assumptions.

So, what evidence are you going to provide to prove your thesis?

[Le Grande Orange]

For everyone's edification, here is MD's post from yesterday which got the whole ball of wax rolling. You can also read it here.


====================================

Unless this is changed, I am not likely to be buying OOTP 2006

I know, I know...I shouldn't start this thread. I'm even breaking my own suggestion.

But right now I am appalled and aghast, and am very unlikely to be buying OOTP 2006.

Why?

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=118672

Originally Posted by Nutlaw

So in looking through screenshots and league reports, I don't see anything along the lines of team loyalty, desire for winning team, consistency, popularity, injury rating, and the like.

I can certainly understand leaving out clutch performance and team leadership skills, but data regarding who a player prefers to sign with, how likely they are to be injured, and how much a team's popularity would suffer for trading away all of their popular players was pretty important stuff that added quite a bit of depth to the game beyond whether player X's contact rating was higher than player Y.

Do these ratings still exist, possibly as hidden values that can be referenced in various game interactions? If not, then I do not understand why they were taken out.

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

They are there, just hidden... you should get a sense for the ratings through the news/messages on the players.

The existence of hidden ratings will completely kill any historical rosters. They are DOA in OOTP 2006. Hidden ratings mean that you while you think you are creating Greg Maddux, you may actually be creating Jose Lima. While hidden ratings won't affect fictional and hobbit leagues, the existence of hidden ratings makes it impossible to accurately create historical players, which therefore makes it impossible to accurately create historical rosters.

Every single player rating needs to be visible and editable. Period. I literally cannot imagine what everyone on the inside was thinking to let this thing get off the ground, let alone allow it through. Someone claimed the other day that the beta testers represented all of the OOTP world. That's clearly total nonsense, because just so far I have seen three deal-breaking issues for the historical gamer: no in-game expansion, which kills long-term historical simming; no managerial record tracking, which kills the managerial aspects of historical gaming; and now, hidden ratings, which render the creation and play of historical rosters completely impossible.

What were you people *thinking*?

====================================


So, what does a critical look at the above yield?

We see the statement that certain hidden ratings exist in the game. But what we do NOT see is ANY specific mention of the EXTENT to which said ratings affect players or their performance. Not only that, but of the hidden ratings listed in Nutlaw's post, only ONE would conceivably have any impact on a historical player's on-the-field performance, and that's the injury rating. The others, team loyalty, desire for winning team, consistency, and popularity, were CONFIRMED by Markus in another thread to be of use only in financial matters. That means their effect is entirely off-the-field.

Unless a historical simmer had free agency turned on and the financial engine running in full, then the chances of said off-the-field ratings affecting anything is just about nil. Of course, if a historical simmer has free agency turned on, one could question straight away the historical accuracy and legitmacy of the league since players won't be on their proper teams.

So, in summary, we see the mention of the existence of certain hidden ratings, but we see no mention of the manner of their implementation nor the extent to which they may have an effect.

Undaunted by the aforementioned lack of detailed facts, however, MD proceeds to make the following claims:

• "The existence of hidden ratings will completely kill any historical rosters. They are DOA in OOTP 2006."
• "...the existence of hidden ratings makes it impossible to accurately create historical players, which therefore makes it impossible to accurately create historical rosters."

Without any evidence whatsoever about how the hidden ratings will work, with no knowledge whatsoever of how they are implemented, or indeed, what areas they will actually affect, MD confidently and stridently predicts the death of historical leagues and that historical rosters are impossible in OOTP2006.

A rational and discerning mind will question how MD arrived at those conclusions, given the scant details on the nature and inner workings of the hidden ratings. A fair-minded individual will wonder how such broad, sweeping, and dire generalizations were made given the miniscule base upon which they stand.

[marc]

Must. Stop. Watching. Trainwreck.

[Le Grande Orange]

You know, I think all the time I spent demolishing D'artagnan's 9/11 conspiracy arguments in OT have really served me well in this thread...

[bababui]

May we call this the 5/31 conspiracy?

[Tiger Fan]

Well said LGO. The other interesting point, one that Malleus would of course have no knowledge of since he is not a tester and has not yet played the game, is that we have been able to edit injury ratings in every beta build I have received.

I assume Markus must have missed that part of Nutlaw's post because injury ratings could definately be edited all along.

And I agree injury ratings are the only one that I would feel are essential to create a good historical roster file.

[Tiger Fan]

I might as well cross-post this here as well since in the eyes of at least one senior member it appears you need to say the same thing in a minimum of 3 different threads to maintain any sort of seniority on this board.

I generally avoid this types of threads like the plague but I figure I better chime in here. First off a one paragraph rant because I am sick of all the crap from one or two - okay maybe just one - of the so-called senior members of this board. Whether or not your points were valid there are far more productive and adult ways to voice your concerns than the drama-queen act that you seem to prefer. You may contribute to this board in a positive way on numerous occassions but your little temper tantrums do far more damage imo than anything you contribute. A pm to Markus voicing your concerns or even a thread that did not come off sounding like you are a 4-year old wanting to take your ball and go home would have earned you a lot more respect in my book. Actually, strike that. I have a 4 year old son and to compare your behaviour to him is actually quite insulting...to my son.

Anyway, I just had to get that off of my chest. I will not respond to it or discuss it any further.

What I will discuss are some thoughts on the historical sim capabilities and limitations of OOTP2006. I have signed an NDA so I won't be able to mention by name any new features that have not discussed but let me start by saying that I have been testing OOTP since version 3 and I feel this is the best testing team I have seen. It is really a brand new game and throughout the process there have been plenty of bugs (just like any game I have tested for) but Markus, Marc and the rest of the team have done a fantastic job addressing them.

Some quotes from this thread and my comments:

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Uh, no, it was ASSUMED to be a big deal by certain persons who leaped to the conclusion that such ratings would have significant impacts on a player's onfield performance and thus destroy the integrity of historical leagues. There was NO, repeat, NO actual evidence to that effect.

Indeed, if such things were negatively impacting historical play, I would think Tiger Fan would have been voicing concerns about it in the beta forums. He has not, nor have any of the other historical testers.

As LGO states above, MD assumed with no firsthand experience that these ratings would have a significant impact while in truth the vast majority of them have very little impact.

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Let's see, the hidden variables were, as of last night, according to Markus's reply to Nutlaw, "team loyalty, desire for winning team, consistency, popularity, injury rating, and the like."

Some of these items significantly affect historical simming.

Out of these I would only say injury rating would have any sort of serious impact on historical league play. Malleus, if you were a tester and had actually played the game before jumping to your conclusions, you would know that right from Day 1 of testing that injury ratings can absolutely be edited within the game.

The need to edit the other ratings really did not seem all that important to me, and in fact I somewhat prefer the randomness of it as it helps these players - historical or fictional - develop a little more personality within the game. Besides, I would love to see you or any other roster maker be able to recreate without a shadow of a doubt the proper personality ratings for Herb Pennock or Mahlon Higbee. The truth is none of us on this board can say for sure whether or not Jimmie Foxx had a higher desire to win than Joe Hauser.

99.9% of historical simmers import their rookies from the Lahman database or a user modified database and do not make much in the way of edits to the imported players. Therefore, imo, it is far more important to work on making sure the data contained in these files can translate into the most accurate primary ratings we can get instead of fretting over Benny Kauff's team loyalty rating.

To that end the focus of the historical simmers on the beta team has been to make the game easier and far less labour-intensive for people to play with historical rosters.

Has Markus been able to accomplish everything we want. Of course not. The big thing still missing imo is an in-game expansion draft. If I am selected as a tester again for the next version you can bet I will continue to ask for it to be implemented and hopefully we will see it next year.

Read the blogs on the new features and improvements that have already been made public. The Catobase style almanac included in the game. The faster sim times. The new financial engine allowing you to completely customize your historical league from the salaries paid to players and staff to all kinds of free agency and roster size changes. Plus a couple of more that you do not know about yet...some of which, time permitting, I will include in my next blog.


The bottom line is this game is so much easier for historical simmers to use. To me that is far more important than being able to edit Steve Bilko's popularity rating (although now you can do it if you so desire).

[f.montoya]

"To not rebut is to accept defeat"
Fidel Montoya

Ah! In all seriousness, MD, you've got holes in your assessments among other things. ... And Takashi wasn't very happy when I showed him the thread where, at the end, you demanded credit for all the work he did.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by f.montoya

"To not rebut is to accept defeat"
Fidel Montoya

Ah! In all seriousness, MD, you've got holes in your assessments among other things. ... And Takashi wasn't very happy when I showed him the thread where, at the end, you demanded credit for all the work he did.

You know the guy from Takashi's Castle ? WOW in fact double WOW WOW lol, ok who's the popcorn guy ?

[ukhotstove]

Sorry it's Takeshi's Castle, (bloody rubbish that Montoya fella doesn't know Takeshi and got fired from that Maroon team last week pfft )

[atarizx3]

cool cool cool

[cephasjames]

Hmmm.

+1

[Terpripken]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Truce and out.

MD is backing down?

[Malleus Dei]

I'm appalled even more.

We called a truce here, and LGO decided to keep the bullcrap up, even though the direct quotes prove him wrong.

Despicable.

LGO, I have lost all respect for you.

[Terpripken]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

I'm appalled even more.

We called a truce here, and LGO decided to keep the bullcrap up, even though the direct quotes prove him wrong.

Despicable.

LGO, I have lost all respect for you.

He can't help himself....one of those last word types....

[atarizx3]

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by Terpripken

MD is backing down?

I made my points, and the other side called a truce, and I agreed to it and respected it.

Sadly, some of the people the other side have no shame and kept on.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by Terpripken

He can't help himself....one of those last word types....

If you noticed I am keeping my end of the truce by no longer arguing the point. All I am doing now is making it clear that the other side called a truce, and then attacked me personally and ruthlessly.

This is useful information; it's always worthwhile to know who can be trusted and who can't be.

And in keeping with the truce, *I* am not arguing the point further here.

[Terpripken]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

If you noticed I am keeping my end of the truce by no longer arguing the point. All I am doing now is making it clear that the other side called a truce, and then attacked me personally and ruthlessly.

This is useful information; it's always worthwhile to know who can be trusted and who can't be.

And in keeping with the truce, *I* am not arguing the point further here.

Mal....for the record (although my post may have been ambiguious)...I was speaking of LGO.

I don't want to get into it...but I know his style.