Cool, thanks for the feedback. I think that's a winner--I've seen 32 GB kits for around $250 but that strikes me as overkill for my needs :) I had 14 in my old machine (remember when triple-channel was a thing?) and it never seemed to want more.

Nice to have the M.2 NvMe capability--but I'll prob stick with my existing drives, I have a 160 GB SSD for my OS, and a 500 GB SSD for game installs, with a bunch of larger HDDs for media/data.

Cool, thanks for the feedback. I think that's a winner--I've seen 32 GB kits for around $250 but that strikes me as overkill for my needs :) I had 14 in my old machine (remember when triple-channel was a thing?) and it never seemed to want more.

16GB is a good amount. One open game usually takes about 4-6 and then you've got 1-2 in Chrome or FF and then you've got 8 more or so to play around with all your other apps. 8GB is kinda low for gaming these days imo. I'm in the habit of just letting games run in the background now.

Yeah I'm not going less than that--I got used to the overhead of having 14 GB. But that thing ran hot and the fans ran constantly if I left games open, hoping the new build with less power consumption will run a bit cooler/quieter.

I do my desktop gaming & work on a 42" 4k TV--and the only problem with the r9 390 is that it doesn't have HDMI 2.0 out, which makes it pair weird with the TV (can't do 4:4:4 chroma via HDMI, so I run a DVI with an adapter...doesn't work perfectly). Might have to consider flipping the 390 in favor of a 1070, but GPU prices still haven't settled down enough...

Has anyone played this OOTP "Perfect Team" thing yet? Apparently - the 6 months of "coming soon!" on the startup screen appear to have finally become a "PLAY PERFECT TEAM"... Is it just like a more integrated online OOTP league? Some kind 'badges/cards' things? Should I care?

It's Pay-to-Win lootboxes adapted to OOTP.

Update on my Macbook/Steam issues (not that you're all waiting on the edges of your seats, but since a couple of you tried to help me):

I tried all the tricks, looked for and failed to find any updates being pushed by Apple, and then basically gave up when nothing worked. Then Apple pushed out another update Saturday evening, so I did that and now everything works great again. Somehow in my several uninstalls/reinstalls of Steam I managed to not screw up and delete my old game files, so everything is back to normal.

Anyway, thanks to those of you offering tips.

It's Pay-to-Win lootboxes adapted to OOTP.

Ugh.

No, Markus... bad... bad Markus.

World championships of Rocket League were streaming all weekend on Twitch. Holy cow, those guys play a completely different game than us plebs. It seems like they only touch ground long enough to grab more boost before taking to the air again.

I've been kind of thinking for a couple of years now that the OOTP devs are pretty much done with meaningful improvements to the game. So in a way, it's nice to have that confirmed now.

I have really complicated feelings about gambling (which, there is no mistake, 100% is what lootboxes are--gambling). In the abstract, I believe people should be free to ruin their own lives in whatever way they please, and think we're best off without the government sticking its nose into people's private lives (as with drugs, so with gambling).

But a decade back I was a semiprofessional poker player the last couple waning years of the boom, not making very much but it was my primary income for a while. And I saw gambling addicts up close, knew a few of them. It's ugly. Very, very ugly. And people getting rich preying on gambling addicts really bothers me. It bothers me that I myself was such a predator, in my own way (the winnings don't come from fellow pros, they come from the fish, who are sometimes just blowing a paycheck on a fun weekend, but who are sometimes gambling addicts desperately in need of help and someone to forcefully keep them away from their fix), and it really bothers me that some people (casino owners, and state governments, and EA, just to name three) make their fortunes systematically milking them cows dry, and knowing exactly what they're doing.

Make no mistake, Markus will make twice as much money in one year from turning OOTP into a slot machine as he's made off OOTP in his whole life before. It is VERY lucrative. Already a significant part of the player base is obsessed with it (just check out r/ootp), which is no surprise because gambling is extremely addictive to the brains of a small but significant percentage of people. But to say I find it dismaying that Markus decided to turn OOTP into a slot machine would be the understatement of the year.

I've been kind of thinking for a couple of years now that the OOTP devs are pretty much done with meaningful improvements to the game. So in a way, it's nice to have that confirmed now.

Oh, I disagree... Things I'd like to see OOTP do:

1) The contract/offer/response still needs work. Players are too quick to break off negotiations. It's not possible to discuss a long-term deal, fail to arrive at terms, and then essentially 'restart' negotiations with arb buyouts, shorter durations, inventive opt-outs, etc.

2) The AI is tons better at 40 man roster management, but it still has holes. Trading, likewise, could still get better. It's harder now, but it's still entirely possible to build a good team in short order with the old "sign all vets to minor league contracts, watch waivers like a hawk, trade chaff for B/C prospects".

3) I still want a better and robust fictional generation -- as in, let me create a one-click MLB will completely randomized/fictional players (including history, reasonable contracts, etc). WHat's more - I want to be able to generate a 'challenge'... i.e., generate my crappy old team with a bad farm system and lots of bad MLB contracts.

4) Scouting/player development - still not great. I do like the more hazy and vague coaching system, but there's still plenty that could be done in terms of FO staff.

5) Some of the new financial items - support a player's charity, etc - are good... but there's a ton more to do here - how about actual FO finance; negotiating radio/TV deals. A more finely tuned fan interest? Wrangle new stadium concessions from your city.. etc

I didn't mean there aren't meaningful improvements to be made. There definitely are. It's just the devs have lost interest and aren't going to do any of that work.

Is it like Ultimate Team in FIFA or 2K games? I've played those a bunch without spending actual dollars.

I've been playing the beta of this OOTP thing.

Although "playing" is a strong word for it.

Essentially you use points (generated by achievements or, I assume purchased) to buy card packs. They are mostly current players, but a bunch of historical cards as well (I've got 2001 Luis Gonzalez playing left, an early 1990s David Cone in the rotation, and Don Money on the infield).

25 man rosters that you can cycle your card collection in and out of. If a player is de-activated he can't be inserted back into the lineup for 15 games.

My team finished its first season this morning, in what was termed "Rookie League". Won the division and now appear to be in "A League". I'm not sure if there's a promotion/relegation system, but if there is there might be leagues and divisions to compete for even if you're not putting any money into it.

It would be kind of cool if the players aged out, so you had to keep adding new ones, but I can't tell if that's the case or not. The players have "2019" stats in their history, and are now compiling 2020 stats, but I don't remember anyone's ages, so I can't tell if David Cone is just going to be 33 years old forever or not.

So far it's a fun little distraction I check for 5 minutes every time I play OOTP. They say that when the beta is done they'll delete all your cards and start over, so I haven't got too attached. But it might be fun to build a team.

It sounds like OOTP is ready to go into micro-transactions from what Greg posted.

OK, 912 sounds like it might well be a moderately fun lark... I mean, so long as they keep nibbling at enhancements to the core game, keep the mobile card/lootbox separate, OK.

Hell, BITD - my buddies and I used to do this all the time... grab a stack of cards out of the commons box, create your 25 man roster... and maybe play a microleague season if you didn't get too bored entering all the stats in by hand.

Now that Madden is back on PC, I can personally loathe the whole Madden Ultimate Team stuff. I just want to play normal games of football with normal teams!

Somehow, I stumbled onto OOTP god mode... Never had a dynasty start out quite like this -- ordinarily, I manage games to start until I lose and mix sim/manage while I focus on org management and minor league lineups.

I've started 2018 at 25-0 -- technically, I probably would have lost game #15 when Justin Wilson gave up a go-ahead grand slam, but I rage-mashed the keyboard and everything on the mouse and the game crashed (fortunately, I had just saved before the game).

Anthony Rizzo is hitting 403/501/917 with 14 HRs and 43 RBI. Jason F Heyward is hitting 337/421/533. Sans the rage crash blemish, Justin Wilson has 8 saves. Tyler Chatwood is 4-0 with a 3.42 ERA.

I just realized that if I decided a year in advance what franchises I was going to try to play as, I could totally slant ZiPS into giving an edge to the players on that team in the initial rosters. Corruption is amusing when it's for petty reasons.

I am sad that when this thread showed up in my sidebar, my initial reaction before noticing the date was that there was a new OT thread on gambling on games. Natural, I guess, given the cozy embrace Rob Manfred is giving to Big Gambling.

I just realized that if I decided a year in advance what franchises I was going to try to play as, I could totally slant ZiPS into giving an edge to the players on that team in the initial rosters. Corruption is amusing when it's for petty reasons.

That's too much power for one man!

I just realized that if I decided a year in advance what franchises I was going to try to play as, I could totally slant ZiPS into giving an edge to the players on that team in the initial rosters. Corruption is amusing when it's for petty reasons.

Yeah, but you would just pick the Orioles, and all it would do is lead to you going 67-95, instead of 47-115.

Actually, that is a question I'm curious about. If Dan were going full p-hacking mode, how good could he make the 2019 Orioles roster?

It's not even unethical, it's proof of his model. "If my results turn out like this you know I'm messing with it in a way I shouldn't be."

Yeah, but you would just pick the Orioles, and all it would do is lead to you going 67-95, instead of 47-115.

We'll see when Dylan Bundy has that 2.43 ERA projection and Mark Trumbo becomes J.D. Martinez!

Epic Games is planning to give away free games periodically if you sign up for their game store. Current freebie is "Subnautica" which I've heard good things about, it's a first-person survival/horror game set underwater. Next week the free game is "Super Meat Boy" which is probably not what I'm assuming it is.

Anyways, free games! And you can always get Fortnite at the same time and work on those dances before the shyster lawyers take them away.

Subnautica is very high on my GOTY list this year. I can't recommend it highly enough. Just a beautiful, well paced, and enjoyable game.

Any wargamers out there? Anyone played Victory at Sea Pacific?

Finally got a PS4 when they were on sale for like $200. Didn't get the Spiderman deal but got one with a $50 gift certificate. Got Witcher 3 with all the DLC for like 30 bucks.

OMFG. What a satisfying and oddly brutal experience. So many dead children but man is this game fun. Taking on the different monsters presents some really varied challenges (ran into my first earth elemental the other day, that didn't go well), the quests are fairly distinct and its stayed challenging. I've been playing for hours and I'm at level 12 and have rarely left Velen at this point. So much left to do, so much time left to waste.

I've never played the other 2 games, that really hasn't hurt my engagement. There was some trial and error with the signs and the potions but I feel like I've got my footing now. I can still die in a heart beat if I run into the wrong monster and I'm not paying attention. There's a level 20 Leshen I'm coming back for when I can actually kill him.

Is anyone playing Apex Legends?

I've given it a try and while I'm terrible, I think I might start playing it more than Fortnite (or Slay the Spire) soon.
Being free-to-play and launching without any fanfare has made it VERY popular.
Before people could complain about it, it was already available and ready.

Question for everyone, is there going to be any point in playing Anthem as a single player? I really don't do multiplayer gaming any more.

Neato!!!

I'm usually aware of video game stuff, but I did not know that modders were using AI to upscale.

Any of you dorks play WGT? I hate it but have quickly become obsessed, which I guess makes it just like the real thing.

Hey, DJS (or anyone) I'm going to have to replace an existing LGA 1155 motherboard that is dying on me, which is almost certainly going to mean getting a used board. Any suggestions as to the best method/place to source the board?

Is eBay my best bet?

eBay's absolutely the best place to source a used board. Take a used board over a new board that has been sitting in a box for awhile - unused capacitors age. Also, look for a Z board even if you don't have a K-series CPU as they tended to have a more robust parts that tend to have longer lives because of the additional stresses of overclocking.

Thanks for the feedback, Dan.

My current board is a Gigabyte Z77X-UPTH5 and I've got a i5-3570k CPU.

It's a pity so many of the eBay auctions seem to be from China/Hong Kong/S. Korea, if only for the shipping times.

Out of the Park release date announced to be March 20.

Baseball is shut down.

I've been enjoying vanilla S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.

Black Mesa 1.0 has been released, including Xen. I recommend it if you've ever enjoyed any iteration of Half-Life.

Any recommendations for games for an almost 6 year old girl? I play (4x typically) and she would love to have a game or two. Ideally it'd be thru stream, but anything would work.

Baseball is shut down.

I've been enjoying vanilla S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.

I got a PS4 for Christmas so I borrowed The Show 18 from the library. Being a Nintendo gamer, it's the first baseball game I've played since MLB Power Pros. It's fun and I'll totally buy the new version that's out soon*, but the CPU GM/Manager is totally screwing up my Road to the Show franchise. My pitcher (an implausible knuckleball/screwball specialist) got traded to the Giants. Led by myself and Brandon Belt, the Giants were had a decent lead over the Dodgers by mid-May. Then they started losing most of the games that my pitcher didn't start. One game I noticed Belt wasn't in the lineup. Was he hurt? No, AFAICT no teammates can get hurt in RTTS mode. Looked in transactions, and discovered that he'd been traded to the Angels... for a platoon CF ... who only starts vs LHP ... and has a 'C' potential... while we were in the middle of a pennant race. Not great. BUT, to make this more fun, the only options at first base left in the entire Giants system is to either move Posey or Evan Longoria to first, both of whom are starting elsewhere. AND! To make this even more fun, Virtual Bruce Bochy has decided that the best solution is to platoon BRANDON CRAWFORD at 1B, with some random 2B taking up the other half of the platoon. AND! since neither of them can actually play 1B, even as a secondary position, they make tons of errors there, even with Crawford being a Gold Glove level SS. And to really ramp up the fun, virutal Bochy will occasionally wake up after a single defensive out is recorded, go 'Why the hell am I playing Crawford at 1B?' and immediately pull him with one out in the top/bottom of the first and moving Longoria or Posey to 1B, burning a backup infielder for no reason. PLUS! not that this part matters, but the Virtual Giants have a grand total of four second basemen in the entire organization... all of whom are in the majors.

[I know, I know, nobody cares about your fantasy baseball team, but I just find this to be absolutely bonkers roster management.]

(*: primarily so I can move the Giants back to New York, have them play an entire season in the Polo Grounds, and see if it totally breaks the game)

I've also been playing a lot of the Switch version of Fire Emblem (probably my favourite Switch game), and am eagerly looking forward to the latest version of Animal Crossing that comes out next week.

If anyone's answering random questions: anybody have any strong options on Playstation Now? I really don't need more games to play, but it's a tempting way to gain access to a large number of games.

Any recommendations for games for an almost 6 year old girl? I play (4x typically) and she would love to have a game or two. Ideally it'd be thru stream, but anything would work.

I'd like to help but I don't PC game that much so my ideas basically start with "get a 2DS" or "get a Switch, then..." And to be honest I'm not 100% certain you'd want to give a 6 year old a Switch.

Minecraft is probably still the best answer for a young child.

Only thing that springs to mind would be Stardew Valley.

I don't really play many kid-friendly games. And as someone who is childless, I never really know what is age-appropriate from a skill level.

My daughter loves Stardew Valley.

#937 Break the mold. Go with Dark Souls.

My daughter also loved Stardew at age 7, but 5 might be too young. She liked Manhole (available on Steam) when she was 5. Amanita Design makes fun and creative games for kids. Botanicula is probably the best one for a younger kid.

Any recommendations for games for an almost 6 year old girl? I play (4x typically) and she would love to have a game or two. Ideally it'd be thru stream, but anything would work.

If you wanted something that had some relationship to 4X games, have you seen/tried Armello?

If you wanted something that had some relationship to 4X games, have you seen/tried Armello?

I have, definitely too advanced for her at this point. Think I am just at a tough age - any sort of in depth reading is going to be too much. I've got a load of games in mind I could get her in a year or two.

Makes sense. Seasons After Fall and the Ori games are wonderful to look at, but probably quite challenging too. How about Plants vs. Zombies?

#937 Break the mold. Go with Dark Souls.

My 8 year old girl has loved watching me play Dark Souls and Bloodborne since she was 5 or so. She's tried playing it, but with the expected results.

Her main thing right now is Roblox. Other games she's liked between age 6 and now include Smash Bros, the Kirby game on switch, Ultimate Chicken Horse, Fire Emblem: Warriors, Burnout: Paradise, PvZ Garden Warfare, Lego Dimensions, Lego Harry Potter. A lot of these are played Co-op, which gives the freedom to learn while the grown accomplishes actual objectives.

947/948 - Thanks! Will look into those.

Does anyone have recommendations for a somewhat recent FPS where I can basically just destroy things and do whatever I want? I'm looking for something without much plot. I haven't played one in awhile, so my frame of reference is like GTA: Vice City or Just Cause 2. I've been playing the new Star Wars game, but that has a lot of focus on map reading and finding paths.

I was looking at maybe trying one of the Far Cry games.

I know, I know, nobody cares about your fantasy baseball team, but I just find this to be absolutely bonkers roster management.

That was a great read. Would take more.

Far Cry isn't a bad shout.

Borderlands 3 came out last year. Not as good as it's predecessors, but still lots of mindless fun, murder, and mayhem, if that is the kind of thing you want. You can play it in Co-op mode, but it works fine as a single player.

Metro? Doom? Titanfall? Depends what kind of gameplay you like really.

I'm told the later Saints Row games get pretty wild, though I suppose they're 3rd-person, not 1st-person. The Serious Sam series is pretty pure blasting, from memory.

I said first-person, but then mentioned mostly third-person games, so I'm really fine with either. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm gonna watch videos from some of them and try to pick something.

#950 Saints Row 2 isn't recent (2008) but is tough to top for sheer mindless fun.

If you want something third person, I would suggest Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War. Does have some story to it, but it's mostly running around murdering orcs.

Saints Row 3 was a blast to play for that sort of mindless fun.

Out of the Park release date announced to be March 20.

FWIW, I'm annoying people with a live review/How Zonk Makes the Cubs into juggernauts at the land of the misfit toys....

My early review of v21 is that I think it's one of the bigger step forwards I've seen in a while (and I haven't even managed my first game yet :-).

I love the GM aspects of the game - and I go nuts with shortlists and filters. Many of the things I used to do manually have now been baked in as specific pages. There's also a multi-year "draft class" preview now - previously, draft classes were "revealed" based on a date you could configure... Now - I can see the full 2020 draft class, the 2021 (fewer players), 2022 (fewer stil), 2023 (just a couple 15 yo wunderkinds).

The UI is mainly the same - but, they've streamlined an absolute ton of what were formerly click operations to open new pages and interfaces... For example - you can now view the top 200 prospects in a list (with filters on the page - your scout vs OSA, filter by position, etc) and rather than opening player pages, expand/collapse the player to get the overview inline.

Couple other neat features I've only started playing around with... There's now an individualized "scouting accuracy" level on each player - I presume this goes up the more you scout him (I used to have to use shortlists to track who I scouted recently for trades, etc). There's also this enhanced scout focus list (No, I don't read manuals!) that I'm excited to play around with.

I always buy the new editions mainly just for the roster updates - but this one looks like it's got more new and cool stuff than usual, particularly for armchair GMs.

Does anyone have any recommendation for a not-too-intense PC racing/driving games where I can just kind of chill out and enjoy driving real fast on virtual roads? Other than GTA5, I mean. Don't care how old or new it is.

[I know, I know, nobody cares about your fantasy baseball team, but I just find this to be absolutely bonkers roster management.]

Fun with horrible old AI:

I reinstalled Diamond Mind 10 and decided to play a season with 48 teams and a mix of the 2002 player set and the "all-time great teams" player set. I turned off injuries and created a 25 round draft. 47 teams drafted 11 pitchers and 14 position players, while Long Island (of the AL) drafted 17 pitchers and 8 position players, none of them catchers.

So I simmed a 168 game season. Long Island gave 131 starts at C to 1971 Steve Blass, 34 to 1980 Steve Carlton, and 3 to utility infielder 2002 Jose Ortiz.

More amazing things here. Long Island had a decent pitching staff that finished 8th in the 24 team league in ERA (though 18th in runs allowed, thanks to having catchers who gave up 263 passed balls). But the offense was completely horrible. Their only good hitter was 2002 Bret Boone. The next best hitters were 2002 Michael Cuddyer (266/326/452) and 1919 Chick Gandil (274/307/397). They had four full positions hit under .200 -- CF (Preston Wilson .198), DH (Jose Ortiz .189), 3B (Drew Henson .119), and the pitchers playing C (.098). Playing in a mild hitters park with the DH under 2002 conditions they scored 485 runs, 153 fewer than the second-worst in the majors.

And yet the computer looked at this lineup and said, "I need to draft Pedro Borbon as my 5th LOOGY behind Ray King, Graeme Lloyd, Randy Choate, and Mike Magnante." As if it were Tony LaRussa Baseball with Tony LaRussa serving as lead developer. More ridiculously, two pitchers (Seth Greisinger and John Stephens) didn't make a single appearance, while Borbon only made 7 appearances. Meaning the team effectively played with a 22 man roster for almost the entire year.

The team went 48-120, beating their pythag by 4. All five starters lost at least 18 games, Blass leading the way by going 5-23 with an ERA at about the league average.

The 'Perfect Team' online leagues function with Out of the Park 21 is particularly welcome given the lack of actual MLB games so far. Very similar to the MLB The Show 'Diamond Dynasty'/FIFA 'Ultimate Team' concepts, but the advantage here is that OOTP auto-simulates the games in your league, with one game every 30 minutes Mon-Sat (one month per real-time day with a downtime overnight) and then the playoffs run on Sundays. New 'season' every week, and there's promotion/relegation between league levels.

It's pretty fun. Lots of historic/legends players, and there's always the swarm of owners who drop $100 in real-world currency to field an elite team on the first day, but for the rest of us, it's nice to be able to get some 2020 fantasy baseball going. If nothing else, I'll spend some time looking up who the heck 'Rookie Sensation Larry Jaster' actually was when he's led my Dusseldorf Waschbaren rotation to a division lead in April.

Interesting on 'Perfect Team'... I haven't taken a dip in it yet, going back to last year (I think it was part of 20, not 19, correct?)... Been thinking about doing so, though.

That said, I'm really enjoying ootp21 solo play.... Some people get bored with pantsing the AI.... other people, well, don't!

#960 Speaking of abusing AI and catcher at the same time, I got an aging Frank Robinson to waive his no trade clause by converting him to catcher. Fortunately the team was good enough to handle this but the results were not pretty while he was behind the plate.

OOTP 14.

Interesting on 'Perfect Team'... I haven't taken a dip in it yet, going back to last year (I think it was part of 20, not 19, correct?)... Been thinking about doing so, though.

This is my first year trying it, but I think it was definitely there last year, not sure about the year before. They seem to have made some tweaks to the logic to prevent abuse (e.g. cruising through an easy league then deliberately tanking the playoffs to avoid being promoted to a tougher league, making it easy to score more points in the simulator by beating up on rookies).

The initial packs are free with the game anyway, so as long as you feel like you're not going to be tempted to throw cash at the screen, hopefully it costs you nothing but time if you decide to give it a go. If you do, you can opt to be preferentially placed with friends when the leagues are re-sorted every week (assuming you're at the same level) - feel free to connect with me in-game, 'FlyAugustus'. I'm trying to convince my usual fantasy league to give this a go, but so far I've persuaded exactly zero owners.

#960 Speaking of abusing AI and catcher at the same time, I got an aging Frank Robinson to waive his no trade clause by converting him to catcher. Fortunately the team was good enough to handle this but the results were not pretty while he was behind the plate.

OOTP 14.

Heh... it's a new world now, baby... All the prior versions run together now - my first was OOTP2, bought on CD-ROM, and I've bought every edition since. Markus really puts out an excellent product so I'm more than happy to just auto-send him 30 bucks a year (I usually do the preorder). I think 14 was before the MLB license changes? This is one of the big things I like now... BITD, one used to have to forever scrounge up logo packs, roster packs, ballpark packs, etc. Now - as someone who almost always plays "real" MLB - good to go, out of the box. I have to admit... I'm also fond of "Challenge Mode" - not so much for the silly badges, but because I used to be a bit of a.... well.... cheater. So, if nothing else - challenge mode keeps me from undoing career-ending injuries or otherwise.... cheating. I don't really do historical replays or fictional leagues -- but from what I've seen, folks rave about the game's improvements in those areas, too, over the years.

While I have yet to see some extended AI action, I will say that the game has gotten incrementally better at prior flaws... it's a lot more difficult to just fill out your team with waiver claims now and even trades have gotten somewhat better.

The initial packs are free with the game anyway, so as long as you feel like you're not going to be tempted to throw cash at the screen, hopefully it costs you nothing but time if you decide to give it a go. If you do, you can opt to be preferentially placed with friends when the leagues are re-sorted every week (assuming you're at the same level) - feel free to connect with me in-game, 'FlyAugustus'. I'm trying to convince my usual fantasy league to give this a go, but so far I've persuaded exactly zero owners.

Thanks, Ben -- I may take you up on that in a week or so... At the moment, I'm still laboriously filtering through all of the out-of-the-box minor league free agent signing fodder players... a tradition of mine!

#960 Speaking of abusing AI and catcher at the same time, I got an aging Frank Robinson to waive his no trade clause by converting him to catcher. Fortunately the team was good enough to handle this but the results were not pretty while he was behind the plate.

OOTP 14.

I still play OOTP 12, where the computer will sometimes take a player who has almost no business behind the plate and convert him to C. So occasionally you get something like Rogers Hornsby spending a career as a noodle-armed passed ball machine, because the computer just loves a C who can really hit, no matter how incredibly hopeless he is behind the plate.

I still play OOTP 12, where the computer will sometimes take a player who has almost no business behind the plate and convert him to C. So occasionally you get something like Rogers Hornsby spending a career as a noodle-armed passed ball machine, because the computer just loves a C who can really hit, no matter how incredibly hopeless he is behind the plate.

Yeah - the game has most definitely and certainly evolved its defensive "potential" ratings... players now have core/raw rating for range, arm, error proneness - separate for IF and OF, as well as things like "turn DP" for IF, as well as two different raw/core catcher ratings (arm and "catching ability").

I used to do this all the time - my bench would always be a bunch of Ben Zobrists who could also catch in a pinch.... not any more. Players are fairly strictly limited by their raw defensive skills - so if a guy has a minimum rating at catching ability/catcher arm - he isn't going to be able to learn to catch. You can also forget turning every 3B into a 2B - if he can't do the DP pivot, he'll never be acceptable there.

The other cool thing - if you like manually doing stuff like setting you minor league lineups - young draftees tend to have fairly poor "skill" levels at specific positions, so they need to be groomed for positions.... and it works logically - a cannon armed, fleet-footed OF will most certainly rapidly improve his skill levels at all 3 OF spots... if you give him time in each.

Finally, the "skill" levels do degrade... so no more "learn position X, then learn Y, then Z, etc"... plus, of course - the gold glove SS won't become a GG SS until you leave him at SS to focus on the position.

It all scales really well and logically now, I think... Nice to have a catcher with a good bat who can fill in at 1B/3B/LF.... but he'll end up being a subpar catcher until you let him get the reps behind the plate.

I made a completely custom league with fictional teams and players in OOTP years ago (1980 environment, two leagues/two divisions each/no interleague play with a 70 game schedule, playoffs were intradivisional with 2nd-3rd place teams in a best-of-5 entirely hosted by the 2nd place team, winner goes best-of-7 entirely away to the 1st place team, then best-of-7s for the championship) and played it out for about 40 seasons. It was by far the most fun I ever had with OOTP.

Those separate ratings are all in place for OOTP 12. On a 0-200 scale, a guy like Hornsby might have scores around 20 in both catching ability and catcher arm rating, which is enough that with 200 games of experience he'll grade out as a 2 (of 20) in catching ability. That's horrendous and the sort of player who should never be allowed behind the plate, but the computer will happily go ahead with it. Especially if it moved him there as an 18-year-old who never had times to develop his skills at 2B or 1B.

Does anyone have any recommendation for a not-too-intense PC racing/driving games where I can just kind of chill out and enjoy driving real fast on virtual roads? Other than GTA5, I mean. Don't care how old or new it is.

Old, but NFS Underground 2. Imo best racing game of all time. And also has the bonus of having the best soundtrack.

Anyone here familiar with the Super Mega Baseball franchise? It looks like a Baseball Stars throwback - cartoonish players, simple gameplay, funny fictional teams. They've added a franchise mode to the latest version, just released now. I'm thinking about buying it, for myself and to play together with my kids.

I have zero interest in modern, realistic baseball video games. The last game I bought was MLB Power Pros, which I loved.

I have all 3 SMB games, the latest just came out and is definitely a lot of fun. The difficulty is the best part, as it can be as easy or as hard as youd like, and each aspect can be controlled individually (pitching can have a different difficulty than hitting, etc.). Franchise mode is very watered down, not complicated in any way at all. The seasons are your choice of length, the longest I think is not even half of a real MLB season. You would do well to get this, especially playing with the kids. Way better than RBI and not complicated at all.

Thanks for the report! Pretty sure I'll get it.

Anyone getting a launch console?

Football Manager 2020 is free on the Epic Games store for those interested

What is Football Manager most like? It's not FIFA, is it more like... I don't know, Civ?

#974 Nope. I plan on snagging a last gen from somebody who upgrades.

What is Football Manager most like? It's not FIFA, is it more like... I don't know, Civ?

It's like OOTP crossed with a Paradox game.

I never gave a #### about soccer in my life but Football Manager hooked me like few games ever have.

Why did Firefox release a such a bug-ridden update?

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