We've come a looooong way :)

I was looking through the 2004-era posts in the Suggestions and AI forum, and I truly realized how much this game has improved, even though we may still have shortcomings.


Here are some of the suggestions I found that have been fulfilled:

Historical rookies
all-time leaderboards
stat splits
more minor leagues/minor league players
allstar appearences in the Transactions screen
option years in contracts/counteroffers in negotiations
automatic historical expansion
All star Game
player happiness


As the title says, we've come a loooooong way!

i disagree...












not, ive played bbm for quite a few years now and i like each game more and more

Even from 07 / early 08 the financial model's improved tremendously. The AI is far less likely to go bankrupt, and that helps keep the league....sane. :)

but if you think this game is where it needs to be, you're delusional.

Seriously, I think I wasted my money this year.

It's frustrating to know that this game reminds me of an old HHGTTG reference.

The superficial flaws are fixed but that only proves to hide the bigger faults which mar the game throughout.

We've established them throughout this board, and if you go back to 2004, you find numerous bugs brought up THEN still not fixed.

--adam

What's HHGTTG?

I was going to say that maybe that's a tad negative, and it ain't so bad (despite the fact that I mostly agree with your sentiment)...then I took a look at Adam, and see he's been a forum member since 2001, and posted many times on bugs, suggestions, and other helpful, good stuff.

So clearly...if you've seen the game for that long and you feel this way, it certainly makes me feel like my misgivings about the last 2 versions aren't entirely unfounded. I haven't bought it since BM07, mainly because I saw no improvements worth the $20 (I don't do historical/real-life anyway), and my fictional game was potentially going to be hurt by some bugs.

Hitch-
Hiker's
Guide
To
The
Galaxy

Here
Hand
Gelatin
To
The
Germans

Hairy
Huns
Go
To
The
Gallows.

honestly, i do.

bugs that screamed at me 5 years ago are still there. basic bugs, that most people would see in the beginning.

I've played every version since the original, so I think I've given my share of money to Clay.

The financial model is still broken--the cities date from 1998, and I'm not sure how they work in the historical sense.

There are numerous major problems with player development.

Common sense things that seem obvious are broken early--for example, if you're playing a historical expansion team, and you don't know to check it, it automatically assumes you want fictional rookies.

The leagues play nowhere close to the historical leagues--a 4-5 era for the league during the dead ball? Rosters set for today's game (although not really) versus how they worked back then? Missing strategies? Half-arsed arcade things rather than getting the stuff right?

Contracts are still way off compared to real life and easy to manipulate to your advantage.

I'm tired of reading that we should change fourteen things (could we at least save a profile?) and make up a whole list of ground rules of our own to run a sim.

I could go on, but I won't bother. This is a game produced by a talented amateur. It isn't in the league of OOTP, FM 2008, etc.

Does it have some advantages? Sure. The main one is that you can sim in an hour and not play a game for weeks. Frankly, the errors are so galling that I don't want to play a long dynasty on it.

--adam

Hump
Her
Good
today &
Tonight
Grampa

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Originally Posted by adam

I could go on, but I won't bother. This is a game produced by a talented amateur. It isn't in the league of OOTP, FM 2008, etc.

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FM 2008? You mean football mogul, which was created by the same "talented amateur" that you just mentioned?

I'm pretty sure he means Football(Soccer) Manager 2008.

Ahhh. Ok, I'm on the right track now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adam

honestly, i do.

bugs that screamed at me 5 years ago are still there. basic bugs, that most people would see in the beginning.

I've played every version since the original, so I think I've given my share of money to Clay.

The financial model is still broken--the cities date from 1998, and I'm not sure how they work in the historical sense.

There are numerous major problems with player development.

Common sense things that seem obvious are broken early--for example, if you're playing a historical expansion team, and you don't know to check it, it automatically assumes you want fictional rookies.

The leagues play nowhere close to the historical leagues--a 4-5 era for the league during the dead ball? Rosters set for today's game (although not really) versus how they worked back then? Missing strategies? Half-arsed arcade things rather than getting the stuff right?

Contracts are still way off compared to real life and easy to manipulate to your advantage.

I'm tired of reading that we should change fourteen things (could we at least save a profile?) and make up a whole list of ground rules of our own to run a sim.

I could go on, but I won't bother. This is a game produced by a talented amateur. It isn't in the league of OOTP, FM 2008, etc.

Does it have some advantages? Sure. The main one is that you can sim in an hour and not play a game for weeks. Frankly, the errors are so galling that I don't want to play a long dynasty on it.

--adam

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I pretty much concur - especially on PbP,if anything PbP has masked the "non" reforms of the game that you have outlined

adam hasn't said anything really positive since 2k3 came out.

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Originally Posted by adam

honestly, i do.

bugs that screamed at me 5 years ago are still there. basic bugs, that most people would see in the beginning.

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Which bugs from 5 years ago?

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The financial model is still broken--the cities date from 1998, and I'm not sure how they work in the historical sense.

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They are from 2000, but there is a City Mod which you can change them.

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There are numerous major problems with player development.

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I agree, but there is more user control over it now. If you play with Default settings. I see that it really doesn't work. But if you change some settings the developments works fine.

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Common sense things that seem obvious are broken early--for example, if you're playing a historical expansion team, and you don't know to check it, it automatically assumes you want fictional rookies.

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This isn't a broken feature, but more of a simple request. It was designed this way.

Quote:

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The leagues play nowhere close to the historical leagues--a 4-5 era for the league during the dead ball?

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Historical Play does need work on it, but it has come along way since it was first introduced.

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Rosters set for today's game (although not really) versus how they worked back then?

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Back then they used .dat files, now they use the .mog files which holds a lot more information. Also some updated rosters come with the game now. Take a look at FRS rosters or HGM rosters. They came with a patch.

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Missing strategies? Half-arsed arcade things rather than getting the stuff right?

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What strategies need work? The current Startegies work just fine for simulation.

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Contracts are still way off compared to real life and easy to manipulate to your advantage.

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Yes and no, HGM rosters are current, but going into the future, you can change using the simulation settings (league editor in previous verisons)

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I'm tired of reading that we should change fourteen things (could we at least save a profile?) and make up a whole list of ground rules of our own to run a sim.

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Profile is a great idea, and I agree about ground rules, you shouldn't have to do this. But even with OOTP, you need ground rules. ;)

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I could go on, but I won't bother. This is a game produced by a talented amateur. It isn't in the league of OOTP, FM 2008, etc.

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I think that after playing OOTP, you want mogul to be the exact same thing. And it isn't If you go to operations sports (FOF website) you can find a good review about BM2k9.

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Does it have some advantages? Sure. The main one is that you can sim in an hour and not play a game for weeks. Frankly, the errors are so galling that I don't want to play a long dynasty on it.

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I don't think we play the same version of Baseball Mogul, cause it is a totally different game then you have been describing over the past 5 years.

If I'm paying hundreds of dollars over the years, I don't want to hear about next year, next year, next year.

Nor do I want to install new rosters, change every setting, research cities (do I need to change that for the era I'm in), and after doing all of this getting a game which is nothing close to realistic?

I think there are places for both games. I like the speed of BM, as well as the fun part of the overall picture. It's also easier to use.

I could go back 4 or 5 years and find 50 bugs from then that are still in the game, or features which would improve the realism.

The overall point is this--this is still a game with many amateurish errors and every year, the game engine is still flawed. If you think the game engine is flawless, we are NOT playing the same version of Baseball Mogul.

Perhaps I should just email Clay, ask for my money back, and take this site off of my bookmarks. I've invested many hours into finding bugs (oh, that's another thing, the way the board is run is downright tyrannical when it comes to moving bug reports, etc), attempting to document what is off, and I see a game which is not much more accurate than shooting an arrow blindfolded.

--adam

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Perhaps I should just email Clay, ask for my money back, and take this site off of my bookmarks.

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Seriously, I think you should. You've provided support since 2001 in the form of purchasing the product, so you're obviously a happy customer. The largest complement that you can give any company is to be a return customer. Since you're actually unhappy with the product though, you're actually hurting both yourself and the product.

done. I've emailed Clay asking for a refund.

The attitude of the moderation team here drove away someone who obviously cared about the product.

I've provided support since 1998 or so--ten years is enough to wait for a game that willl never get better.

Thank you to the moderators for your lack of support, egotistical defensive reactions, and bashing people who dare disagree with the product!

Your welcome.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adam

If I'm paying hundreds of dollars over the years, I don't want to hear about next year, next year, next year.

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I partially concur here. But most of the time, people who use this complaint are focusing on the things that haven't happened and don't bother to focus on the things that HAVE happened for the better. Sure there are things that haven't been addressed; no game is perfect and Mogul is far from it I'll admit, but what about;

Personalities
Arbitrations
Histrorical Rookies
All-Time Leaders
PBP
Depth Chart
Encyclopedia
Active Forum
Ticker
Player Development
Bigger Scouting Reports

Just to name a few. Like the thread title says, we've come a long way; that doesn't mean "perfect"

Quote:

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I've emailed Clay asking for a refund

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This is one thing that really grips me.

You go to a movie and don't like it, do you get your money back

You go to a restaurant and get a bad meal, do you get your money back

You buy a plane ticket and the plane is 5 hours late, do you get your money back

You go to the doctor and he doesn't fix whats wrong, do you get your money back

Has anyone heard of the phrase Buyer beware!

Couldn't agree with Adam more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reade

This is one thing that really grips me.

You go to a movie and don't like it, do you get your money back

You go to a restaurant and get a bad meal, do you get your money back

You buy a plane ticket and the plane is 5 hours late, do you get your money back

You go to the doctor and he doesn't fix whats wrong, do you get your money back

Has anyone heard of the phrase Buyer beware!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Redsauce

Couldn't agree with Adam more.

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Personally, I tend to agree with both of these statements. There are definitely things that I think can, and should, be improved with Mogul. That being said, if those things that are most important to you are not improved to your satisfaction... what are you doing here?

You can be against me, I'm fine with that. You can not like me or anyone else here, some of the methodology used around here, or whatever. What do you expect any individual here to do, go cry in the corner because you don't like it? If you genuinely don't like Baseball Mogul though, then the question remains: "What are you doing here?"

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Originally Posted by ohms_law

Your welcome.

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Your welcome Adam. Have a nice day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ohms_law

That being said, if those things that are most important to you are not improved to your satisfaction... what are you doing here?

"What are you doing here?"

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agree.

I think this thread's taken a negative turn. A 'put up' or 'shut up' attitude won't do much for the game or players.

That said and out of the way, of course there are things wrong with the game. Glaring, obvious problems.

However, first given the choice I'd PREFER Clay to move cautiously. Why? I like the game. I do not agree some of the features the majority wants (such as 40 man rosters) are necessary or a good idea. Maybe some day I'll turn around, but right now it's not a priority for me. Further, can I compensate for the majority of the problems I'm having? Sure, you can argue I shouldn't have to... but I *can.* I like that. Usually in games it's "here's what we have. If you don't like it, Sorry." The ability to somewhat customize your settings really helps.

Second, the title of this thread was "We've come a long way." We HAVE. I didn't jump in until 10.17, and I've already seen improvements in stuff I care about. I've gone back and downloaded 05, 06 and 07.

05 had tolerable competitive balance, but it was easy for the league to get out of control, the AI had no sense of budgetting, there were no historical rookies and no AA/A/R levels so fictionals overwhelmed your league pretty fast, and so on and so forth.

06 was (to me) an early effort with a lot of new changes that just didn't go well.

07 IS a great game, and I'd have to concur that not much seems to have changed on a sim level since then...but the AI is better at budgetting now. It usually avoids bankruptcy. I can't speak much as to fictional player development, but the career development paths seem to be better.

Early 08 made me grimace, but by 10.31 things were starting to move nicely. I could've been happy there if there were no more updates.

I feel that way about 11.10. (Didn't get to try 11.17 before the computer's fonts blew up on me.) As I proved (to myself) in 'Ballfield Blitz' I don't need to babysit the game nearly as much now as I have in the past. That means I can sit back and focus on the parts of the game I care about.

Is BM perfect? Of course not. Perfection does not exist on this side of the fence, and anyway what might be 'perfect' to me might be a game breaker for someone else, and vice versa. There comes a point where you need to decide "this works for me" and leave it at that.

Or, that you simply can't wait anymore and need to try elsewhere...

To answer the question, I've generally liked the game and hte board for many years.

I'm just tired of the way you treat your users, and trying to defend a game which has major problems year after year.

I've finally cashed in my interest and figure other games deserve more time.

I've never seen such a set of defensive moderators in my life. All I have tried to say is that we've all reported thousands of bugs, small and large. Clay wants to fix the small, but ignores most of the large issues.

Getting aggresively defensive to someone who disagrees with the premise of the thread is a way to pull users away.

Would you rather have apathetic users who buy it once, get frustated with the issues, and give up, or someone who has bought it year after year in hopes of it becoming better and posting issues that are problems?

The best thing for this game would be to get new moderators and realize that we are here to help, not to hinder.

However, the fact remains--I wasted my money this year.

Seriously, you started all this. Someone(s) were simply commenting on how much the game has improved over the past several years, never making any mention of it being perfect or anything close, and you come in basically calling everyone idiots. I don't think theres a single person on this board who thinks that this game is anywhere close to perfect, but I'll take the realism, simplicity and fun of BBM over the complexity of OOTP, the lack of realism in a console game, and the boredom of online baseball sims that I've seen.

I first started playing BM with the 2002 version and loved it and then moved to the 03 version when it came out and liked it just as much. Then unfortunately moved away from PC games for a while and have just re-discovered BM and bought BM2K9 without a second thought. Man, I am impressed and agree with the thread title...it has come along way! But it still retains all the things that made it my baseball game of choice in the first place ,the ease of play yet realism combining to make it fun which is all that matters to me in the end. Great job and I look forward to the next version of this great game.

Thanks,

Tony.

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Originally Posted by AndrewOsborn

Personalities -- Broken
Arbitrations -- Broken
Histrorical Rookies -- Broken
All-Time Leaders -- Working!
PBP -- Never Use It
Depth Chart -- Broken
Encyclopedia -- Last I checked Wroking
Active Forum -- Not sure what you mean
Ticker -- Useless
Player Development -- Broken
Bigger Scouting Reports -- Often inaccurate

Just to name a few. Like the thread title says, we've come a long way; that doesn't mean "perfect"

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7 broken features, 3 working features (2 of which I personally never use, and would happily do without).

.300 may be great in baseball, but for a success rate in a game like this, it sucks.

Adam, I know EXACTLY how you feel, especially with regards to the embarassing behavior by the "moderation team" at times.

Ohms, do Clay a favor and go away for a while... you are NOT helping.

I bought BM03,BM05, BM07 and BM08! The game is massively improved. Yes there are kinks, no it's not perfect however if someone thinks they have all the answers and knows how to improve the game then maybe they should develop one from scratch, write their own code, make it perfect and market it to others. Let me know how that works for you.

Ohms does help a lot. And this game has come along ways in the past few years. The reason I posted the way I did is becasue even in 2k3 old forums, Adam was very negative.(those forums got deleted?) It gets old after awhile... he lamblasted this thread and game and has been doing it for years. I am just tired of it. Period.

I understand this game is far from perfect. I remember when adam was complaining like crazy we had points instead of dollars. We had no splits like ootp....so on. Well we have those now, and BM was the first game to implement the Lahman database, Pure Sim followed then finally in December OOTP8 introduced it. BM is a great game and countinues to be. If you don't think it is, why do you keep on buying it? It just gets old. So if you want your money back and don't think it was worth $25 dollars...then e-mail Clay. If you want your money back because of the moderation team...so be it.

Here Here....

I really don't quite understand the criticisms of the forum moderators. This place is actually very open to letting people post criticism of their products, which A LOT of other small developers absolutely get rid of with an iron fist. I HAVE seen some people jump all over criticisms, but, for the most part, they don't tend to be the regulars around here, they're the 'once a year' types who popped up when 2k9 first released. Now, maybe there's stuff going on behind the scenes that I'm simply not aware of, but, on the face of it, the criticism of the mods puzzles me.

I DO like seeing a frank discussion of the game, though. That's where improvements are going to come from...people bringing up shortcomings.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boomboom

They are from 2000, but there is a City Mod which you can change them.

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We use U.S. Census data -- the only free data that I'm aware of that includes as many cities as we'd like to include in the game. So it's not that this data is "outdated" -- it's that the most recent data that exists is from 2000. The U.S. does a new Census every 10 years. After 2010, we can update the census data.

Clay

Adam -- I agree with some of what you said (like the contract AI still has holes that can be exploited).

And I disagree with some of what you said. For example, the use of Fictional Rookies in Historical Sims. When I play Mogul, it's important to me that there is enough talent in the league for game balance to be maintained. If you play in a year like 2005 without fictional rookies, that's a serious problem. So, "Fictional Rookies" are on by default, but can be turned off. This is a design decision, not something that is "broken". I realize there are parts of the game that frustrate you, but you lose credibility when you take something that can be toggled with a checkbox and call is "obviously broken".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adam

However, the fact remains--I wasted my money this year.

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And this is the one thing that I have to disagree with more strongly than anything else you said. We have a 100% refund policy. OOTP doesn't have that. EA doesn't have that. I've honestly never found a merchant of any kind that has that. So you've never wasted your money. I processed your refund request as soon as I received it. I do spend most of my time programming and testing, so don't expect me to read my e-mail the second it comes in.

I do think it's silly for Ohm's to tell you to go away. I wish there was a way to differentiate between "Ohm's the Moderator" and "Ohm's the Mogul player", because moderators shouldn't be telling people to go away.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dolfanar

7 broken features, 3 working features (2 of which I personally never use, and would happily do without).

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This isn't the bugs forum, but it would be great if you could elaborate on all the ways in which the listed features are broken. If so many things are broken, why isn't there a long list of 5-star bugs in the bugs forum? When I make patches and new versions, the first (and last) thing I do is check the bugs forum. For 11.18, the most serious unfixed bug I could find was:

• "Walk-off wild pitch", batter up completes at bat

That is certainly a bug, and I plan to fix it soon. But it's fairly uncommon and it doesn't affect the outcome of the game. It's not the kind of bug that makes me think that 70% of the game is "broken".

Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument. I sense that you truly feel the game is "mostly broken" and I would love your help to point me to past bug reports, or just flesh out the problems you've reported, so that I can get to work on fixing the problems.

The #1 reason that Ohm's is a moderator is because he does a great job of organizing bug reports for me. Without a QA staff, that kind of help saves me a lot of time. I've worked on projects where we've had 15 full-time people dedicated to finding, documenting and prioritizing bugs. At Sports Mogul, we have zero. So I really do need your help pointing me in the right direction.

The downside is that everyone assumes that everything posted by Ohm's is "officially sanctioned". It's not. Ohm's does very valuable work, for free, and needs to be a moderator in order to do it. But just because I flip a switch that lets him help organize threads, that doesn't mean that I agree with everything he says.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arctic Blast

I HAVE seen some people jump all over criticisms, but, for the most part, they don't tend to be the regulars around here, they're the 'once a year' types who popped up when 2k9 first released.

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McBunty....cough, cough.

OK. This is about to be my fourth post in a row. This thread has pissed off a lot of people, and the only reason why is because some of the participants happen to be moderators.

Seriously, go back and re-read this thread, pretening that Ohm's and BoomBoom aren't mods. You'll find that the thread is somewhat heated: that it contains both Mogul critics and Mogul 'fanboys'. But you probably won't draw the conclusion that this thread had gotten out of control -- or that it reflected badly on the small company that happens to pay the bills to run the computers that host this forum.

I don't know what else to say.

To everyone: Please realize that 20% of what the mods say is in their duties to keep threads organized, ban spammers and try to keep things civil. The other 80% is just them being board members -- just like everyone else. They start arguments, post pad, and what not. I wish they wouldn't, but that's what happens when you have mods that also have strong feelings about Mogul.

To the modders: Please realize that extra attention is being given to what you say. If you need to say something that a modder shouldn't say (like telling someone to go away) I would strongly recommend that you create a 2nd forum account and use that name instead.