OOTP Developments Documentation

Customizing OOTP

One of the hallmarks of the Out of the Park series has been its great customizability, allowing players to modify the game by importing custom roster sets, creating new 'skins' for the game, adding custom ballparks, and so on. OOTP continues in that tradition, but with even greater flexibility.

So, what does 'customizing' mean? For our purposes, we're going to define 'customizations' as 'changes to OOTP made outside of the game.' So, modifying some of the text files that come with the game is a customization. Changing your game's league settings is not. Got it?

OOTP does include some in-game editor features, such as the ability for a commissioner to edit a player. Editing in this manner is described earlier in the manual, not in this section. In some cases, such as editing ballparks, there is a little bit of both required. In those cases, we'll cover everything here so that you have the whole picture in one place.

Note: This section of the online manual assumes you are familiar with the OOTP interface. At times we will refer you to specific pages within the game, and in most of these cases we will expect you to know how to find them.

You've heard it before, but we'll say it again. Any time you customize, you risk damaging your game. The only way to be really sure you won't ruin anything is to back up, back up, back up. If you're modifying your game's rosters, back up the entire league. If you're modifying a text file, back up that text file, and so on.

Trust us-the few minutes it will take to do this is well worth it. We don't want to hear any stories about people who blew up a league that took them weeks to create, because they messed up a player import.

Just in case that wasn't overbearing enough, we'll mention it a few more times later on as well.