A couple quick things from the latest e-mail by Brian:
- What he is waiting for now: Brian is checking with Verizon to see how much it would cost to upgrade his FiOS internet so he can have a web server on it. Then he could just host the server at home, hopefully saving a little money in the process plus being able to check on it easier. This way also, he can in theory get the server back up relatively quickly once he gets it in his hands (assuming it isn’t a hardware issue).
- After that is solved: we will be going through the options to figure out what works best for the CSFBL and CSBB.
He also mentioned that D Man has offered a credit card processing package through his company at a much better rate then using PayPal.
Finally, it seems like Brian is a huge fan of the credits approach (example: $10 = 100 credits to spend as you like). Much easier to manage and easy for all of us users to understand as well
Of course, nothing is final and anything can change. But we are working on it.
- Chris G.
January 26, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I just want to mention that the rates I quoted Brian were my break even rates meaning I will not be making a pennie off of CSFBL, making money off Brian was never my intention, helping CSFBL in any way I can is my intention.
January 26, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Yes, you have stated that already D MAn.
So basically, in a nutshell, the site might be running again next month?
And for the record, I hate Chris also. I’m not a fan of people who abuse useless power.
January 26, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Thanks for the update Chris.
January 26, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I think Jew and Blunt should go find somewhere to cuddle and get rid of all that pent up anger…
January 26, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Thanks for the update. Why rag on someone who is doing you a favor?
January 26, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Jew and Blunt won’t be bothering us again anytime soon, unless they have something nice to say.
January 26, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Credits was and has been an approach we discussed several years ago during a similar outage.
We have tossed the idea around a lot since that time, and originally were more likely to unveil that kind of thing when CSBB came online, leaving CSFBL a sort of “no nonsense”, but utlimately FREE version of the game.
With the current crisis, we are retooling the thoughts and brought the “credit plan” back into focus.
Everything which has been mentioned would work under a “Pay for Credits” system.
Also there would/should still be an entirely FREE version of CSFBL still out there for people, who are less financially capable, to still enjoy.
January 26, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Because people love to complain and be asses. Thanks for the update Chris, always appreciated!
January 26, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I will be trying to do an update at least once a day, even if there is no news. I feel I owe it to all of you who have donated in the past and have been so great in coming up with ideas to help us moving forward.
January 26, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Credits SOUNDS like the best way to do it (so long as you don’t make them too pricey =D).
January 26, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Credits would be good as long as, like people have mentioned a kajillion times, it won’t let someone ‘buy’ a championship A-la Boston or some such spendy team.
January 26, 2007 at 3:58 pm
We will NOT allow the use of credits to better your team directly (no salary cap changes, better scouting, etc.).
Now we would probably offer enhanced stats, but the effect of those isn’t going to make a team win 20 straight championships. They may win(or heck, even lose depending on how smart you are with the stats) a game here and there, but it isn’t enough to worry about.
January 26, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Hmmm, some things are just too funny…
January 26, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Realmwalker // Jan 25th 2007 at 4:28 pm
Keep in mind all the suggestions and posts here, even by myself,chris,babar and harborpirate are our own personal ideas of how the game could be structured. Brian is weighing the opitions and will likely find some sort of morphing of all the great ideas everyone has posted.
In the short term, if we do go to a pay to play format, it should be something that can be put together quickly.
The quickest solution, for the short term, is a yearly charge of “X” amount (i think $25 is more than reasonable for 1 year.)
Now, that said, I know Brian will want to have some sort of “free” access to play the game, be it slower sim rates, only 1 team, or whatever, but I am sure a FREE full functioning game will still exist assuming CSFBL comes back up.
Long term I think the transition to ComputerSims Baseball will be a completely different site, but membership from one to the other will likely be simply a transitional thing.
Additional functionality will be based on if new CODE will need to be written to achieve that end…which costs…costs in terms of TIME.
Things like memberships, charging $1 for player renames, etc. however can be handled fairly simply via a service like pay pal or the like and can happen quickly.
#
Realmwalker // Jan 24th 2007 at 5:46 pm
I think the most important factor is this:
Would you pay to play CSFBL if you were required?
Some will say YES without hesitation, others would scoff or say they cant. Either way it appears that such a situation has dawned.
I think a subscription based system works easiest.
25$ / year for up to 3 teams, 2$ extra for each additional team.
All teams “purchased” get the extra stats that premiere leagues enjoy. (for now)
This could help alleviate the current dilemma.
Also each new user should get 1 free month with 1 / 8 game a day team thus allowing him to atleast witness a post season depending on when his sign up date was…all new users are placed into leagues as they are now, and can only access private forums or leagues if they upgrade to MEMBER status.
$25 x 250 users = $6250 in annual income.
Membership includes unlimited trades, stats, etc. as part of the complete package.
Additionally, perhaps if you wish to setup a “PREMIERE” League with its own private forums, that will cost an annual fee of $25 for setup… commissioner is responsible for paying…however the arrangement is made is up to the commissioner.
If we have 10 private leagues operating at 25$ per thats an additional $250 dollars
I believe that all these things can be instituted without too much difficulty and would be effective in getting CSFBL where it needs to be…a self sufficient entity.
Glad to see you change your position…now that the man is interested in credits…its all good.
January 26, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Sorry if I am late to the party with this, but I wanted to share my ideas too. I like the idea of having “supporter” accounts. Supporters will receive enhanced stats and configurable draft tools. Draft tools will allow you to order your draft list by age/salary ratios and/or other player’s attributes. I think this should cost about $5.00 a quarter (every 3 months) and should be free to all new users for the first two weeks.
January 26, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I totally did not expect DMan to be a number mashing business machine. Excellent work and ideas.
January 26, 2007 at 4:54 pm
since the thread Don posted his proposal in the other thread and its locked-ill give my feedback in here-Don this is one of those things where you and i havent always (or usually dont) see eye to eye, but i generally agree with this proposal. One thing that I think should be added is the premiers should be recreated and the current premiers are made private leagues if that happens because those could drop a lot of players and go through a down period.
The other thing is that I think before anything is done involving money, there should be at least 2 or 3 months of searching for advertisers and sponsors. I look around the sides of this and all i see is white space. Putting ads there wouldnt be that annoying and every one that we get makes it that much easier. I would like to see a comprehensive site activity profile put togheter as a presentation so they can be made professionally and show the companies their incentives and not just make it look like we are begging for money. It wouldnt take many to make this whole thing a moot discussion. I think it should at least be put on hold until we see if that works because thats the best option for everyone.
January 26, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I understand the concern of the people who fear the website being “pay-for-play”, but I don’t think I read anywhere that anyone would be forced to pay for CSFBL. Alright, so you might not have an 8-game/day league anymore, but that’s what you have right now with the sims running at less than full power and are still sticking around. Well, not exactly RIGHT now, because this is no sims at all and what we are all faced with unless Brian can come up with some sources to help finance the site.
I like the credit idea as it is the most flexible. Credits are ambiguous enough that they could also be earned based on activity as well as purchased which would benefit the non-payers out there. As new features get added to the game they can just be added to the menu that credits could be spent towards.
And I don’t think that we should necessarily be so hasty as to say that credits couldn’t be used to improve a specific team’s well being though. I suspect that would generate a much higher interest in people donating to the site and it could be done in a way to not completely swing the power to the higher paying teams. I don’t see anything wrong with somebody paying more to gain excess scouting reports or more money to put towards development or drills.
January 26, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Nice work guys, I like where this is heading
January 26, 2007 at 5:14 pm
one question… if you use your credits for “enhanced stats” would this be on a league basis or an individual basis?
so would you have to pay lets say 100 credits to get enhanced stats just for your team… or would you as a league have to come up with 2,400 credits to receive these stats?
January 26, 2007 at 5:38 pm
All this talk of credits makes me think of a CSFBL branded credit card. It could work just like my Sierra Club of Canada credit card – a few pennies from everytime I use the card goes to support the Sierra Club folks–and it don’t cost me a cent. Comes out of the fee Visa charges the merchants or something. Yessss…
http://www.ezarchive.com/album/CID-u0073399-5/image-u0073399:10:1.html
Looks stylin’ too don’t it?
Now what if I bought my CSFBL game credits using my CSFBL credit card. Would that set up a loop where money keeps flowing from VISA HQ into CSFBL coffers forever? Sweet freedom boys!
January 26, 2007 at 5:38 pm
I WANT CSFBL BACK NOW !!!!
January 26, 2007 at 5:41 pm
hmmm credits…. hmmm credit card… a-ha! The CSFBL credit card is born:
http://www.ezarchive.com/album/CID-u0073399-5/image-u0073399:10:1.html
looks stylin’ dont it?
January 26, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Right now, we are talking about on a per team basis. Although we could always have league-wide options at some point.
January 26, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Hey all…while we’re down for the count here, check out Bricks & Ivy Radio at http://www.bricksandivyradio.com.
It’s a stone groove, my man…
For reals…
It rocks and jams, flips and slams…blips and blams.
Do it…check us out.
January 26, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I MISS CSFBL !!!! HURRY BRING BACK A HAD A DYNASTY GOING !!!!!!
January 26, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Like I said, do it up like Hattrick. It works!
January 26, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Well I would like to see it back too. I haven’t even been able to check out the full website yet. The ink on my membership wasn’t even dry. I spent a whole three days of being a member before this fiasco. In fact I even recall reading in someone’s blog before I registered that these “crashes” are a common occurence. Hell, I even remember reading about Brian commenting on how proud he was that CSFBL actually got through a whopping total of 6, count em boys’, 6 sims without a server problem. Now, being in a professional business, it appears more of an “opportunity of convenience” to be discussing the overall monetary policies of this website as everyone is waiting with baited breath hoping that some magical benefactor will ride out of the Heavens and save CSFBL. To me it just seems that this financial problem has been running a parallel suicide path right next to the server dilemmas. The only difference being, that the financial woes of this website should have been discussed like this long before the fact rather than after the horse has left the proverbial barn.
The point I am trying to make is simply this. If you can’t fix this problem in the short term, then having to revamp CSFBL’s bylaws and philosophies and financial directives over the long term is again “water over the bridge”. I think that the powers that be should concentrate on first getting a viable website up and running on a stable platform, so that there IS a product to be had rather than second guessing the whatifs of “what should we do now?”
This, of course is my own personal opinion and probably will be scoffed at saying I’m all wet. Yet look at the amount of “hits” on this website over this. 17,000 and counting. Would be a shame of it wittles down to nothing over time. Something has to be done, I agree. But one problem at a time generally works.
January 26, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Keep in mind that the website ran sims quite easily for a long long time. Then more and more folks started showing up as the product has gotten better and better. Because the ads on the site do not properly offset the costs of operation, the more users there are on the site, the worse things have gotten. Now we’re at the breaking point. With thousands of active users and a sim engine grinding through tens of thousands of games per month, the load is significantly exceeding the hardware available to run it. Thats really the impetus here, we need to get back to a point where the website is offsetting its own cost.
There are ways to do that:
1) Less users (we don’t want that).
2) More money from our userbase (what we’re looking at trying now)
3) More efficient sim engine (already underway)
4) Better money for website ads or mysterious benefactors (we’ve been searching for a long time)
Option 1 stinks. Nobody wants that.
Option 2 looks viable, we’re moving forward with it.
Option 3 will help matters as well, which is why we’re pursing that also.
Option 4 appears to be a pipe dream.
We’d love to have more options, but those are the ones on the table right now. Remember, CSFBL wasn’t created as a business. It was created out of a love of baseball, a love of statistics, and a love of games. Brian wrote it in his spare time and unleashed it upon the world. The other developers helping him now, we’re DONATING our time. Gratis. Free.
January 26, 2007 at 6:38 pm
yes but at the same time, you have to ask yourself why did most people start with this site in the first place.
Answer-its free-it looked halfway decent when i was looking so i thought id try it out-if it had anywhere that i may have to pay eventually i wouldnt have ever even tried it.
the other thing you have to ask is what would set CSFBL apart from other sites? I can answer that question in comparison to other free sites but I couldnt give an honest answer what would make me pick this over another site I had to pay for. I agree with whoever said a few things up that a quality product must be able to be guarenteed first. Maybe this means the site is in debt for a while, but what company hasnt had to be in debt to fix something for the future at some time. And as stated before before we jump to any big money decisions I think there should be an all out blizt for sponsors.
January 26, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I love to hear where this is heading. What sets CSFBL apart from all the other games that are out there is that it’s FUN, EASY, AND FREE.
Buying credits (a kind of purposeful donation system) is a GREAT idea, and one to which I would personally greatly contribute.
Just to get some ideas out there – things I would pay for, to get credits to purchase:
1. Team logo on my team page
2. Stadium Naming Rights
3. Player Re-names
4. More Sabermetric Stats
5. A Graphic Trophycase on my team page
6. A team records hall (page that displays all the team records and team history)
I can’t be the only one who has ideas of cool add-ons that they would gladly pay for.
January 26, 2007 at 6:46 pm
totally with you Ace, 100%.
but…you smell. take a shower.
January 26, 2007 at 7:19 pm
#
meddlepal // Jan 26th 2007 at 4:45 pm
I totally did not expect DMan to be a number mashing business machine. Excellent work and ideas.
Ha Ha, theres alot you don’t know about and theres alot of experiernce that I have got from the Business World that would benefit CSFBL, Guys like the C.M.’s weren’t going too listen to me..they think they are smarter, I had to go directly to Brian…ask those C.M.’s who it was that brought up the idea of credits way back a few years ago, it was the D Man, when we get back to the CSFBL forums I will find the thread and pm it to you meddle.
January 26, 2007 at 7:23 pm
And for those of you that didn’t search for the plan that changed the way the C,M’s are going about this…
here it is, I will work with them but they aren’t getting Credit for this atleast not all of it, they wanted to charge everyone…Brian said No !!!
Yes, I am pumped….
This is the fax, remember these were just ideas,
The CSFBL Blueprint*
Strenghts of the Game,
1) 8 game a day Leagues
2) Premier Leagues
3) Community
4) Leadership
5) Statistics
6) Trading of players
7) Renaming of players
Weaknesses of the Game
1) Too many Greek Leagues
2) Reliability
3) Members owning too many teams
4) Not enough Revenue to carry the game.
Initial problems,
CSFBL deos not generate enough revenue to pay for itself, its strong point is it has been offered as a free game for over 6 years and because it is free it has a substantial member base, The question now is how can CSFBL begin generating revenue without damaging the membership base.
First thing to consider is charging everyone an annual fee, this option is not in the best interest of the game, keeping the game free and building on the strenght’s while addressing the weaknesses is the starting point.
The first thing too address is the most addictive part of CSFBL, Members like stats and aggresive play, The 8 game a day leagues are CSFBL’s biggest strenght’s. This can be seen in the fact that there are dozens of well known 8 game a day leagues in CSFBL while there are only 2 or 3 well known 4 game a day and 2 game a day leagues.
Eight game a day leagues are the backbone of the CSFBL community, for this reason charging for them would break the backbone of the game itself.
However, charging credits for enhancements in those leagues is a viable option, How and what can be done is up to the creator,
Some recommended suggestions would be,
Charging Credits for things like player renames, which could be charged individually for members who wish to use the option, This would allow the casual owner who only plays in the Greek League that might have donated in the past a way to get something in return for his donation and will also make donating in the future more pleasing.
For Private Leagues, setup a league credit system, by doing this you allow the owners in that league who do not have the means to donate for credits the chance to be covered by other league members, thus not upsetting the infrastructure of the league and the quality of the owners in that league who have close ties to eachother thru CSFBL.
The League Credit system would work like this, If a league wants enhanced stats then that league would need to comeup with a certain amount of Credits per calender year, I will use 60 credits as an example, the creator can choose his credits limit at his discretion, The league would then be required to pay 60 creitd every calender year to keep the enhanced stats that are now offered for free, it could also be a 3 month credits system or 6 month Credits system.
What this option offers is a way for the private leagues to come together as one and cover those members who can’t donate. Allowing the leagues to keep their ownership in tact.
Premeir Leagues,
This is the good and the bad about CSFBL, These leagues were orginally setup as donation leagues, this idea was great but was never followed thru on, this is where CSFBL should have been generating revenue all along, The Premier Leagues should be donation leagues, say 20 credits per calender year, these leagues should be the Cadilacs of CSFBL, they should be privledged to all the enhanced stats that can be generated, Also members are more likely to donate the Credits if they know there is a possibility of some sort of return..the solution to this is the World Series winner from each Premier League should recieve Free Credits, the Premier Leagues should be the only leagues this is offered in, the number of Credits for winning the World Series should be at the discretion of the games creator. But be advised that 1 or 2 credits wont generate much interest if your paying 20 credits annually to be part of the league.
In a Paid Premier League , trade approvals should not be allowed, people who will donate to be part of them will expect to have the freedom to manage their teams as they see fit. Removing owners from these premier leagues should be allowed under certain conditions, but remember anyone who is going to donate 20 credits to be part of these leagues will no doubt be very good members of these leagues.
The current crop of Premier Leagues would need to be evaluated, and maybe replaced with some of the better private leagues who have a better league infrastructure and more activity.
The option for a private league to become a Premier League needs to be on the table also .
If you have 24 owners donating 20 credits annually to be part of a Premier League then that league generates 440 credits per year for CSFBL, that should be the Credit Cost for a private league to become premier.
As for Greek Leagues becoming private, there should be a credit cost in place for that, the cost should be left for the creator to decide.
New Members in CSFBL,
New members should only be allowed to recruit a team , not create one, creating a team should cost credits, 5 credits to do this should be efficient but again should be left up to the creator.
No new leagues should be allowed to be created as private leagues, all leagues should start as Greek Leagues and take the neccesary Credit steps to become private leagues and then ultimately Premier Leagues.
The CSFBL leadership needs to have structure, the representatives of the Creator should have restrictions as to what they can do and a code laid out in public as to what they can do.Abuse of power has been an issue in the past, with members now donating or paying for credits there can be no abuse of power.
All newly created Greek Leagues should only be allowed a maximum of 3 trades per season, while private and premier leagues have unlimited trading, this will encourage a Greek League to move towards privatization thru Credits so they can get unlimited trading.
With the game moving forward to revenue status the Creator will need to address reliability publically, in the past the state of the game has been made public knowledge in a very professional and open manner, this will need to continue.
Members owning Teams… All Members should be limited to no more than 8 teams, with a cap of 12, but the first 8 should be free ownership and credits should be applied for the other 4 possibilities.
Conclussion,
CSFBL needs to generate revenue to survive but needs to keep in mind that the state of the game is very fragile, turning something that has been free its entire exsistance into something members have to pay for is asking for disasterous results.
Having options for credits and free membership is the way to go , and as owners become more addicted they also become more willing to donate for credits to enhance their experience.
Another option is to create a Tournament version of CSFBL with a Free Agent pool, owners can pay credits to create teams solely for the tournament and then pay to participate with the winner getting a return of 2x his investment.
This State of the Game analysis was created by Don Armstrong, A.K.A. The D Man with nothing more than the best interst every member of CSFL in mind.
January 26, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Here ye, here ye, step right up….
Get your FREE game, get your FREE forum use, get your FREE game support and updates… Get your FREE CM support…
Guess what isn’t FREE? The right to assume that those FREE moments are beholden to some set of preceived ‘rights’ we as users have right now.
This new ‘credit’ system isn’t going to allow you to feel empowered to exercise any more supposed rights you seem to feel you have. If you don’t like this suituation feel free to leave. If you don’t think others will fill right in after you leave… you’re deluding yourself.
I guess I’m tired of all these posts that make some heady assumptions and ‘demands’ on people that have done all this for YOU and I for FREE, in both TIME and MONEY…. Are you all that crazy not to realize that? By ‘you all’, I refer to the folks that make gross assumptions and demands that ‘yours’ has more weight than the others in this game and community…
PLEASE take a step back and a depth breath and realize what’s right in front of you…. It takes the game to crash to really polarize this situation and bring to light some issues but the stance many of you are and have taken isn’t helping build a better beast, only the chance to rail on it and the folks that have FREELY dedicated time and money to it…
That’s how I see it, and if you have issue with waht I write here I’m sure I’ll read about it soon enough but that will only reinforce what I’ve described here
January 26, 2007 at 8:08 pm
There has never been any intention by Brian, his CMs, or the other devs to remove the free part of the game completely. Though this was suggested by a few community members, the idea that CSFBL would be pay only is not under consideration at this point. Things could change at any time, but retaining a free portion of the site has been an important point for all of us.
January 26, 2007 at 8:26 pm
>And for those of you that didn’t search for the plan that changed the way the C,M’s are going about this…
>here it is, I will work with them but they aren’t getting Credit for this atleast not all of it, they wanted to charge everyone…Brian said No !!!
Don, please don’t start in with this stuff again. There’s no reason to start another flame war. I’ve been a part of all these discussions and I don’t remember the CM’s ever saying they wanted to charge everybody and Brian saying no. All of us have discussed every single option trying to figure out how to keep this game as free as possible and we’ve changed our minds about the best option several times now. I don’t think we’ve settled on Credits, yet, but we do like the idea and it’s currently at the top of our list. But, we might be changing our minds again now that Brian has heard back from his ISP. There are 2 packages available from his ISP and both of them will save Brian a considerable amount of money per month.
The server donation drive was to purchase another server to replace the current one. He couldn’t afford to host two servers because it was way too expensive. If he moves the server home he’ll be able to run more than one server which opens up several new options for us.
I’ve sent Brian several different proposals that would help keep the game free and remove most of the reliance on donations/fees/subscriptions/credits/etc. I haven’t heard back yet, but I’m sure one of us will post once we all discuss this.
January 26, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I commend D Man on his master plan. I do not commend him, however, on his lack of civility or humility. I was going to add more, but I’ll leave it at that.
January 26, 2007 at 9:10 pm
D-Man, are you as immature as you appear?
January 26, 2007 at 9:18 pm
credits… hmmm …. nah. what csfbl really needs is a credit *card.* yesss!
http://www.ezarchive.com/album/CID-u0073399-5/
looks snazzy too!
January 26, 2007 at 9:41 pm
How do we know it’s really Don? It could be Mike Magoo.
January 26, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I can hardly wait for CSFBL to be back up. I’ve been playing for over 2 years and this is the first substantial break we’ve had (more than a day or 2). And at least with the others we still had the forums. I’ve been going insane.
I love the credits idea, I love the idea of those of us that can donate more to start donating more.
Thank you D Man for saving Brian some money on CC transactions.
Brian, thank you for creating such an addicting game. My life would be far more boring without it.
And the rest of the team, thank you for all your hard work over the past several years. This game would not be the same without any of you.
January 26, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I wasn’t starting a war Rick, I really was just messin around..its funny how guys like blunt and the other guy are getting moderated for saying things and these guys who come on here without any guts want to slam me, create fake names so they can’t be confronted are allowed to do so, I don’t care, I actually consider it a compliment, Anyone who has to hide to mock me is basically complimenting me in the ways I like to be complimented…Actually I am lovin it…I will give you all a word of advice to ponder if you like, The credits need to be expanded to a league wide option as I described, simply charging them individually won’t create the revenue needed, you can always remove the league option later, but you will find it hard to implement later, implement it from the start…then remove if necessary.
Keep the compliments coming though, I look forward to them, but maybe make youselves known instead of hiding behind fake names..
Acually Knowing who it is that is complimenting me would be an even better feeling.
January 26, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Us C.M.’s and developer’s have never said that the site will be for pay. We did say that at some point, portions of it will have to be in some fashion.
We have been in 100% agreement though that there has to be a significant part of the game that is free…as we want to get you hooked so you do feel the need to purchase add-ons to enhance the game for you.
We have decided over the past few days that the core game that for the most part you know of today has to be free. Once you get into nickle/dime stuff to do the littlest of things (trades for example), people won’t put up with it.
However people will pay for stuff like renames, special stat reports, special features, and so on. So we are definitely moving in that direction.
And when we threw out ideas in the past, some of the time is as devils advocate. We wanted to see reaction, so we can gauge what could realistically work or not. But we seem to be reaching a general consensus that some type of credit system definitely has the most pros and the least cons of all the options.
Of course, this is all moot until we get the server back and online again. Without that, nothing we are talking about is going to come true.
Although the downtime in a way is a blessing, as it is allowing all of us to have a civil discussion with lots of brilliant ideas being thrown around. Thanks to all of you, I think we are reaching the point where we have left no stone unturned for ideas. Couldn’t do it without any of you.
I hope we can return to normal soon. I really do. You all deserve it.
January 26, 2007 at 10:37 pm
dman… can i say you suck to your face… would that make you happy or sad
great work everyone… I think packer summed it up perfectly…
btw… is it bad if ive had the shakes for the last 2 days? I need my csfbl fix!
January 26, 2007 at 10:39 pm
I really like you guys, guess I just can’t mess around like others can because of who I am, Text in a forum really does dilute the context of the writings, if I were saying those sentences in real life they would all be in a joking manner…stay cool, take care…
January 26, 2007 at 10:42 pm
add the
dman! I find that solves a lot of problems lol
Even if i use them too much… atleast ppl know when im joking around (hopefull)
January 26, 2007 at 10:42 pm
D man, that is one reason why I do stuff like
when I joke online. I have been online since I was in 7th grade (1994-1995) and have seen first hand how what I thought was funny turned out to insult someone else just because it is text.
You are right, text doesn’t convey the context of the whole message at times.
January 26, 2007 at 10:43 pm
*hopefully
I want to be able to edit!
January 26, 2007 at 10:49 pm
How do I get those smiley faces here, I use them on the CSFBL forums to covey moods but don’t have them here, Do I have to download them from somewhere? Thats the main reason I am not using them here, I just don’t have them..
I know everyone involved has had nothing but CSFBL’s best interest in mind, and I also know that all ideas and angles neede to be covered,
And I still don’t have any smileys to show the mood here…but the mood was good.
January 26, 2007 at 10:50 pm
The smiles use the old text way of doing it
; ) for example (no space)
January 26, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Hey I found them , they worked….: )….; )…
January 26, 2007 at 10:52 pm
on csfbl… you can put the smilies in w/out clicking on them by putting them in []
so to do this
it would look like this [:)]
January 26, 2007 at 10:53 pm
January 26, 2007 at 10:55 pm
how do I edit my post above that unmeaningly created the rutgus and insert the needed smileys to show the mood of the post?
January 26, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Chris G, Thanks for making me feel old. I was online then too. But I had graduated. Ouch.
January 26, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Heck I am a novince when it comes to computers, I never touched one until 2001, the very first time I ever touched a keyboard was when I went to the neighbors on 9-11 to check out pictures of the towers that weren’t available on TV yet,
I will say I have taught myself alot, Excell, Word , etc. everything I know is self taught.
January 26, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Sometimes I type to fast though and I hardly ever use a spell check..but I figure even with the spelling flaws people know what I mean.
January 26, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I forgot to post what I originally came here to post..
I emailed Brian with a lower rate quote than I originally quoted him,
It was like getting tickets to the Kotex 200, I had to pull a few strings but I got r done.
January 26, 2007 at 11:26 pm
I prefer cereal over granola
January 27, 2007 at 12:09 am
D Man// Ha Ha, theres alot you don’t know about and theres alot of experiernce that I have got from the Business World that would benefit CSFBL, Guys like the C.M.’s weren’t going too listen to me..they think they are smarter, I had to go directly to Brian…ask those C.M.’s who it was that brought up the idea of credits way back a few years ago, it was the D Man, when we get back to the CSFBL forums I will find the thread and pm it to you meddle.//
I keep reading this in a number of ways and fail to see the humor or humility in it. I’ve added many
and 
and it still doesn’t seem to work… No worries, though. As long as we get csfbl back up and figure out a way to fund it…
January 27, 2007 at 12:18 am
Damn. You guys are all addicted to this game. You’re missin’ it—-aren’t you. Me too!
I’ve read every post so far. I’ve no doubt we’re on the right track.
One thing , though, some of us have been around for years and have never played in a 8-game league. All my teams are 4 a day and I am quite happy about it..
You all that are in those 8 a days are quite excited about it. Perhaps I should try it, but already I log in 2-5 times a day and that takes some quality time away from my kids, husband and myself.
I suppose that my stand has little to do with what might happen to those that are in 8 game leagues and I wouldn’t begin to express what may occur with those leagues. I do feel, however, that those who chose to remain in those ” minor league games a day” be given some consideration.
January 27, 2007 at 12:21 am
I too miss CSFBL. I am in tune with Brian (and many others) in that I love baseball, I love the stats, the history, the strategy and the dream of actually running a team. I actually have a new prospective of baseball thanks to CSFBL. When I watch a game on TV I think about how I would change the batting order to be more productive….
Bottom line is the site Brian has created and the selfless loyal guys have helped maintain and improve has become an enjoyable game for many, many people. Running a website and maintaining a server costs money. There’s no way around it. Brian has made a commitment that the game will always be offered free of charge (a commendable promise), but he must produce an income stream to keep it up and running. Much to his dismay, I assume Brian is not on the Forbes list of richest people in America. This means we need to find a way to collectively produce enough money to off-set the cost to run the site.
Credits, pay-for-play and annual fees would work, but it takes away from the draw of CSFBL. My suggestion is this: anyone can play for free, but you have a limit on options. For example, free players are allowed no more than, say, 2 franchises and only allowed to enter 2 or 4 games-per-day leagues. We take for granted the 8 per day leagues, these leagues should be a privilege granted to those who commit to help support the site. Anyone who wants the privilege to have 3 or more franchises should also be expected to support the site. The amounts can be better determined by the ‘powers that be’, but those of us who really love this game and appreciate the time and effort Brian (et al.) put into CSFBL would certainly be willing to support ‘our’ site. Maybe a flat $10 per year per franchise rate for 8 per day leagues, with an additional $5 per year for enhanced stats, name changes, etc. would help off-set costs. Something like that, with ad revenues and the occasional extra donations, would cover the costs.
I think we should simplify this, and decide if we are willing to donate some chump change to keep the site up and running. I know I would.
Mike
January 27, 2007 at 12:22 am
Ambrose… you ever consider joining a private 8 game a day league?
I find it amazing that in all the time some people have been playing that we’ve never heard from you on the boards… great to know that their are ppl like you in the game, and who care about it too!
January 27, 2007 at 1:39 am
She was in CSFBL Justice ages and ages ago, thats the onlyplace I saw her
January 27, 2007 at 2:58 am
I was in the Justice League for 2 seasons I believe. I wish I’d stayed instead of getting in a huff over a trade and some guff over a 1st round draft pick some thought was terrible. BTW-That draft pick turned out to be a pretty good player.
I’ve been in America’s Pastime since like day one, along with Realmwalker. It’s a pretty good 4 a day league.
I don’t usually post. I just do my teams and hope my kids will give my time for a bit.
The thing about 8 games a day is that I’m afraid that it would require just too much of my time. My “Greek” team has players with low endurane levels and its all I can do to keep subbing all the time. God forbid that I’d have to deal with that in a 8 game league. Whooh-No thank you.
January 27, 2007 at 5:43 am
The thing about 8 a day leagues is that most team owners don’t actually deal with game to game decisions unless they sit at a computer all day and never leave the house… Even then, you gotta sleep sometime…
More often than not, lineup changes and rotation movements are done every few games…
My first experience in CSFBL was with a 4 a day league as well, a private league made up of people from another game…
I didn’t have much trouble getting addicted to the game as we had a very active and competitive league…
I now have 6 teams with the other 5 all 8 a day leagues… At first I added a 8 a day team so I could learn how the game worked faster so I could be better in the private league… I found that the 8 a day leagues, at least the ones I played in, weren’t near as competitive and people played a lot more passively…
That’s one reason why I think those kind of leagues should end up being pay only…
I figure that if you are going to pay for it then you are going to pay attention to it…
Most people in 8 a day leagues would then be active and competitive making them damn fine leagues to be a part of while generating revenue for the site…
Sounds much better to me than having all these leagues that take up the most resources, with so many teams getting a half-assed effort from their owners… Then you got all those unowned teams getting no effort from anyone while contributing to putting the biggest workload on the sim engine…
I
January 27, 2007 at 6:42 am
(cont) D Man should pay attention here…
I honestly think we’ve been spoiled by the 8 a day leagues… If there was no such thing as 8 a day leagues, you guys would still love playing CSFBL because it’s a cool game… A new user doesn’t have that problem of having been spoiled by 8 a day leagues like many of the old timers do… They would play the 4 a day leagues and fall in love with the game just as all of us did… If 8 a day leagues were available for pay and these users really liked the game that much then they would pay to get into one if they could afford to…
I don’t buy the argument that 8 a day leagues are THE backbone of the game… The game itself, as well as the community, are THE backbone…
I would still be here waiting impatiently for the game to return if 4 a day leagues were the maximum… And so would you guys…
8 games is simply what we have become accustomed to, if we had 16 a day leagues, then some would think that they were what keeps the game going…
I’m thinking this is more of a case of people like D Man trying to protect their own interests rather than thinking about the whole of the game…
He is one of many that have been spoiled by the ability to have so many games for free… I am as well… Difference is I’m willing to put aside my own greediness for more free product and think of those who will come after me…
If you think that what I have said is BS, consider this:
Most of us walked where we wanted to go or rode a bike to get around when we were younger… We didn’t get upset, it was all we knew… We would walk an hour to the store just to buy a little candy… When we got older we began driving and getting to places in a fraction of the time it would have taken us when we were kids riding that bike or wearing out our shoes… We get used to getting to places fast and, like having 8 a day leagues, got spoiled by the upgrade in transportation… I’m confident that if you ask 10 people each with a car in the driveway if they would walk an hour to the store instead of driving 5 minutes that at least 9 would tell you to kiss their ass… These are the spoiled people, the ones who have played 8 a day leagues for free for so long… They have lost their way from when they used to make that walk as youngins…
Then ask 10 people who have never had a car if they would make that exact same walk and 9 would say yeah, no problem let’s go… These are the people who never got spoiled, these would be the people in CSFBL who find the game for the first time as a 4 sims a day game…
This is why eliminating the free 8 a day option would work in the long run, those that find the game for the first time wouldn’t know any difference… It may be a bit of a downer for those who have enjoyed the increased games for the same price as those who get less for so long, but in time they would get used to it…
Anyone that says they would quit playing if they had to play only 4 a day leagues doesn’t enjoy the game as much as they claim…
January 27, 2007 at 7:16 am
blah blah blah
January 27, 2007 at 9:03 am
Alyssa I’m with you on this. The fact that most of the people are in 8 a day league’s is the main reason that we’ve gotten to this point as quickly as we have -not that we wouldn’t eventually- the extra data needed to store and run these games put the load on the sim itself . Now I am a big advocate of the 2-4 a day leagues I’ve been in some of the best * a day league in CSFBL ReMake on down and by far the most interesting team I have is in LCL a 2 a day league were you can follow whats going on with out being next to a computer 24-7.
With that said, all this talk about paying for this paying for that is making me dizzy why can it just be a simple 3 teams free after that you pay for your teams this would lighten the load on the game as owners could only have 3 teams free no matter what speed they play at after that they would have to pay to own another team simple as that that revenue would support the game along with Ads, I have 4 teams in CSFBL and would be more than willing to pay $25 dollars a year to keep all four and by the way they are all 2 and 4 a day league teams.
If I had my way we get rid of the 8 a day league or make them pay the majority of the load as they take up 2 to 4 times the space, but being that we were spoiled by them they are a necessary evil now. Ask yourself though if they were no longer part of the game would you stay or leave? Quick answer you leave, right. But I think if 8 a day’s were removed some would leave yes, but most would stay and enjoy the game even more. With less complaining about sims not running because of over lapping sims or the like.
But whatever you do keep it simple- (X) amount of teams free- pay for each additional teams!
January 27, 2007 at 9:49 am
Once again I’ll say: The problem with going with 4/day is free and 8/day is pay is existing 8/day, HIGHLY competitive private leagues, where it’s possible that only half the league will be willing to pay for the 8/day, and the other half will have to settle for 4/day even though they might be paying for something they aren’t getting.
And as for the general proposition that 8/day leagues aren’t competitive or active… that’s just wrong. Look at 90% of the premier leagues. Look at almost all of the private leagues. They’re 8/day, and I think some of their owners would take umbrage at the suggestion that they aren’t competitive, active leagues.
If you want to say that 8/day leagues are passive, wasting data, be more specific. The leagues you are talking about are the public greek leagues.
January 27, 2007 at 10:07 am
One thing is for sure, the growing numebr of greek leagues needs to stop. There are way to many new leagues being created. Within 2 seasons, they are dead. The leagues need to be timmed down. Unowned teams are killing us. If you combined leagues and get rid of unowned teams, it will lessen the load of sims ran.
January 27, 2007 at 10:54 am
private league fundraisers – have them responsbile for 100 dollars amongst the 24 owners. if everyone pays that’s about 4 bucks a piece, if its important to you to keep the 24 owners intact, maybe guys that can, can chip in 8 instead of 4, take care of another guy.
January 27, 2007 at 12:09 pm
If you think charging for 8 game a day leagues won’t hurt the game then by all means charge for them….but one question, how many well known 2 and 4 game a day leagues are there, how many well known 8 game a day leagues are there?
The 8 game a day aggresive leagues are the back bone of CSFBL just answer the question above..
As for only having my best interest in mind, every option I laid out would afftect a league I currently play in somehow..I just remember when CSFBL went thru a spurt of making all 8 game a day leagues play only 4, there was less activity, less trading, less hits on the site…these are things that have to be considered.
January 27, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I know i’m not saying just pay for 8 a day i’m saying have (X) number of teams free then charge for additional teams no matter what the sim rate is. so the player / owner get to choose what they want and are paying for
January 27, 2007 at 12:37 pm
All premiere leagues were started on the basis that each of the members was giving a donation so they should have no problem paying for the sim rate going forward. Brian used to have a logo for donating memebers so when the site comes back up you could probably snoop around to see who is likely to support a faster sim rate based on their previous donation rate. If a few people don’t want to keep their teams when the rest of the league wants to continue the faster sim rate then I don’t think that is the end of the world.
Any idea as to how long CSBB will be ready? That could be an opportunity for donations as well. There was talk that not every league would be migrated over to the new engine, so maybe only leagues that contribute a certain amount can go? There needs to be enough new features and improvements to entice people, though, and I still haven’t seen a fully fleshed out idea of what CSBB will entail to know if it will encourage enough donation though.
To get back to some of the ideas about how to structure the game here are a couple of ideas I liked from other sim websites I have tried:
Simdynasty only gives one team for one season (at 3-games a day) for free. If you want to activate your team into a dynasty league then you have to pay to play. While simdynasty does have a very slick sim engine with more more managerial controls and realistic play-by-play approach with a graphical game viewer built in, I have never payed for it because I prefered CSFBL’s more modern approach to baseball and more varied league play.
The college basketball sim, DriveTheLane.com (SimulatedSports) allows complete free play, but special perks to those that donate by allowing them to upgrade the size of their program which brings extra recruiting benefits and the ability to schedule scrimmages. I had resisted paying for the longest time since the game has lacked creative development, but after my team has won its conference for several seasons in a row I finally caved in and paid for a a season to see if I could advance a little bit further against the big programs so this is how I know that playing the competitive advantage card is the strongest way to get people to donate and continue donating.
I donate to CSFBL mostly because I value Brian’s willingness to listen to my suggestions and even implement a few of them. In a way it makes me feel like an owner of the game and as an owner I want to help share the financial burden of providing it. But as a player I also feel obligated to donate to make sure that teams I have owned for 40 seasons now will be around for much longer. It is an impressive community and everyone should pledge several dollars of loyalty to the the game since Brian has shown his loyalty to all of us. Get the credit system in ASAP to help encourage people to give as that is what it takes a lot of times in this rewards-based society, though. Limit the number of teams in a franchise and allow credits to be used to bid on available teams. Let credits be spent on name changes, exhibition games, and especially team perks like additional scouting or dev/drills and even player salary. Get this game self-sufficient so we don’t have to worry about its disappearance.
January 27, 2007 at 12:39 pm
And I never said that 8 a days aren’t competitive I said they take more of the data space and use more of the server thats it each league type has it’s place in csfbl and an owner should choose which he wishes to pay for If i want 5 teams all in 2 a day leagues that should be my choice but I should have to pay for 2 of those teams and the first 3 should be free as with the same for an owner who wants 5 8 a day teams
January 27, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Well, I honestly can not disagree with anything either of you are saying rew and GT, The credits are the way to go, more people will donate if they know they can get something in return…The Premier Leagues need to be sent back to what they were originally suppose to be, and several of them even need to be re-evaluated to see if they even deserve premier status, the 3 tier system for leagues that has already been suggested is actually already in place in CSFBL, I just suggested to enhance what is already there instead of changing a bunch of stuff, there is already enough options in the game that will allow the credits system to work,
Using what is already there instead of changing the face of the game would be there better way to go…:0
January 27, 2007 at 1:58 pm
>Any idea as to how long CSBB will be ready?
Not sure, but we have been making great progress on SimpleSim, the precursor to CSBB. SimpleSim is a simple baseball engine that we’re using to see what works and what doesn’t. For example, a few weeks ago I ported over the Steal Logic from CSFBL and realized there was no way it was going to work with CSBB. I spent a week tinkering with it and then got everyone up to speed on it during our weekly dev chat. Harborpirate took over at that point and reworked it all to fit in with the new architecture. In CSFBL a steal is a full play. The guy steals and either makes or he’s thrown out…that’s it…no hit and run, not run and hit, no double steals, triple steals, runners going on 2 outs, etc. Harborpirate fixed all that and now all of that is possible in CSBB.
Harborpirate also wrote a killer algorithm for base running logic and we’ve been playing around with it for the last week. It is a huge upgrade from CSFBL. Most runners will score from second on a single to the outfield and faster runners will have a better chance of scoring from first.
I’ve been working on creating xml files that contain full rosters for teams. Right now SimpleSim only loads 10 players per team (9 for the lineup with a DH and 1 pitcher). Then I need to code in loading the full rosters to the bench and bullpen.
>That could be an opportunity for donations as well. There was talk that not every league would be migrated over to the new engine, so maybe only leagues that contribute a certain amount can go?
I doubt we will be porting over leagues that have low ownership but I’m pretty sure most leagues will be ported over. I’m pretty sure Brian already wrote some code that will port leagues over.
>There needs to be enough new features and improvements to entice people, though, and I still haven’t seen a fully fleshed out idea of what CSBB will entail to know if it will encourage enough donation though.
CSFBL sims thousands of games every 3 hours and it sims a full game in about 5 seconds and then goes on to the next game. CSBB will have the ability to sim thousands of games at the same exact time and have them all done in under 60 minutes. It will sim one play at a time per game then go on to the next game and sim one play and so on. This will allow you to “watch” any game in real time and it will also allow you to “manage” in real time. You will be able to show up in the 3rd inning and manage until you have to leave or until the end of the game. When you are not there to manage or you are there but you aren’t making any decisions in the allowed time (maybe 30 seconds between plays) the sim will use your default manager options.
There will be more manager options, too. Things like I mentioned above (hit and run, run and hit, double/triple steals, etc) plus things like defense positions (double play depth, guard the lines, infield in, deep outfield, shifts, etc).
We are planning on allowing tournaments and head to head exhibition games at any time between 2 owners or you against the CPU. There will be options to use any team from your franchise (pick the year) or create your own team from any players from any year in your entire Franchise history…basically a Franchise All-Star Team.
Another feature would be to schedule league games. Say the next sim is scheduled at noon and my team is going to play Realm’s. We will have up to 11:59 to reschedule the game between noon and 2:00 so that we could mange in real time against each other.
There will be a live draft with a queue like we did for Moneyball. You will have the option of creating a new league and having a live draft instead of just populating 24 teams with players.
I know there’s more but I have to go.
January 27, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Alyssia and I are in the same 2 4 a day leagues. I enjoy them because they aren’t quite so rushed. America’s Pastime has been around for quite a lot of years. It was my 2nd league after I’d tried it out for a while with a 2 a day Greek league. I’m also in some 8 a day leagues, they’re pretty good. And of course, the Lawn Chair, which is a 2 a day. Alyssia, you should get on the waiting list for Lawn Chair, when we get back on-line.
January 27, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Well known 2 game a day leagues…
Lawn Chair..
Well known 4 game a day leagues…
Americas Pastime
Psi Sigma
Simusports or whatever the name of Dknutes league is.
Can anyone name anymore that are well known?
January 27, 2007 at 3:24 pm
“Well known” is all subjective…
Out of those leagues you listed, I can only say I have heard of Lawn Chair and Psi Sigma… The others aren’t familiar to me even though I have been here nearly 2 years…
I’d like to think that the 4 a day private league I’m in is well known, but maybe it isn’t… It’s called WEBL… We have active members, 3 commissioners, league rules, record books, all-star games, and up until this crash every owner was going to receive a player rename based on seniority in the league… We have a fairly active league forum, nothing spectacular, but we have decent interaction…
I’d like to think that we are one of the better leagues in the game…
As far as worrying about if only half of a good 8 a day league would be willing to pay to keep it that way, there could be options with the credit system that appears is going to happen…
One scenario could be that all newly created teams could spend X amount of credits to join a 8 a day league or join 4 and 2 a day leagues for free… X amount of credits would be charged for anyone wanting to recruit a team in a 8 a day league… In a way it would turn 8 a day leagues into what the premiere leagues were supposed to be… They could have some league perks that the free leagues don’t have unless they use credits to get them…
For already existing leagues, there could be a league upgrade option that costs X amount of credits to increase the speed of the league to 8 games a day….
Maybe there could be a league bank so to speak where members could deposit credits into it… Once the league reaches enough credits to afford the upgrade, someone (commish, league rep) could inform Brian to make the change…
All charges would be a one time deal, no annual fees…
Surely if it were that important for a league to remain 8 a day then the members in it would be willing to pay the one-time price to receive such a privilege even if it takes some time to afford it… Perhaps only a few people end up being the ones paying, maybe you replace owners unwilling to chip in, but at least you would know that the money that was spent on those credits is going to help Brian and help the game we all love…
Those 8 a days that are indeed passive leagues likely would never get that upgrade unless one or two owners became the league sugar daddies…
All those greek leagues that are on life support likely wouldn’t get the upgrade either…
With a significant decrease in 8 a day leagues the reliability of the sims would be increased making everyone a little happier….
January 27, 2007 at 3:30 pm
As far as the league speed upgrade option, there would have to be something along the lines of 75% approval rate from the league owners in favor of the upgrade for it happen…
You wouldn’t want Mr Fat Banks turning leagues into 8 a day against the wishes of the majority in the league…
January 27, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Psi Phi is 4 games per day, Psi Sigma runs at 8 games per day.
Also, Dream Power and Hemispheres run at 4 games per day.
January 27, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I’m wondering if there is any type of an ETA on the game being back online??
And my opinion on the ‘credits’ plan –
I was/am more in favor of a flat rate for any/all options.
But as long as $20-$25 a year will get me enough credits for any extra feature for any one of my teams I could possibly want.
I’m sure I’ll be perfectly happy with the ‘credits’ plan.
January 27, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Hey, totally off topic – but something more fun to talk about. Has anyone ever mentioned the idea of a more qualitative assessment of a player’s status? Currently, the only way to project the type of season a player is going to have is to look at their stats, their previous performance history (if any), their salary, and guess/hope. What if there was a spot on the player card, or perhaps a page on the team site, that has a statement assigned to each player about their status? Perhaps a scout’s comments on their form (e.g., “‘Super Mario’ Jones was swinging the bat well this pre-season,” “Winthrop Gonzales hasn’t been able to regain his footwork in the field”), their off-season (e.g., “Winthrop Smith didn’t work out too much this off-season”, “John Johnson had a great season of winter ball”), their demeanor (e.g., “Kevin Reynolds is chomping at the bit in AAA,” Winthrop Winthrop has been talking about hanging up his cleats in another season or two”), etc. I know, this would be a lot of additional work, but I think it’s an interesting idea. Could be fueled by scouting rating (more accurate the more you spend), and could be linked to stats (or a range for a stats) and randomly selected based on sentence fragments/fill-in-the-blank type sentence structure. Also, it gives another dimension to strategy and decision-making, instead of just guessing about stats.
Thoughts? I love criticism!
January 27, 2007 at 4:16 pm
off topic with spoop, I’ve always wanted a pitch hitter option somehow incorporated into the game.
in manager options- you could choose the likelyhood of going to a pinchitter late in a game –
but you would need to be able to also set the order or which player(s) your team would most likely ph for. Because you certainly wouldn’t pull your #3 hitter for a ph. Maybe even an option of ph against rhp/lhp or home/away.
anyway – I saw spoops comments … and they reminded me of that.
January 27, 2007 at 5:35 pm
i think all this stuff you guys are asking for is neat, but not feasible for the current game… when CSBB comes out a lot of the things we have been waiting for will be available… but if we are already having performance issues, adding major changes to the current game would not be wise (if possible at all)
January 27, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Pinch hitting, pinch runner, and double switches (leagues/divisions will have the option of being DH or no DH) will be part of the CSBB.
January 27, 2007 at 9:17 pm
>I know there’s more but I have to go.
Since we are going to allow pitchers to hit, we need to generate batting stats for pitchers now. In fact, we are going to generate batting, pitching, and defensive stats for every player. This will allow teams to throw in a backup LF to pitch in blowout games. Of course this will up the chance of him getting hurt if his pitching stats are poor, which most of them will be, but it’s going to be an option.
We are also going to have 3 levels of minors: AAA, AA, A. It’s been suggested before and I’m not sure if we’ve agreed on this but it might be possible to switch regular players over to pitchers (it’s done a lot in real life quote a bit).
I mentioned the live draft earlier but didn’t give specifics. The draft will be 5 rounds with 1 pick happening each sim for the first round or two, then up to 3 picks per sim by the 5th round. You will be able to create a queue of players to pick and you will be notified in every possible way (email alerts, PM, notifications on your team page (You’re Up!, On Deck, In the Hole). Trading of draft picks will be implemented as well.
The draft architecture will allow us to easily add a Rule 5 draft and a Contraction/Expansion draft. We don’t plan on adding either of these features for the first release, though, and they will be a per league option.
January 28, 2007 at 2:14 am
The game is excellent. Let me know if I can help.
January 28, 2007 at 10:44 am
wow, all that sounds awesome, babarfloyd.
January 28, 2007 at 12:54 pm
all this stuff sounds awesome babar.
but one thing you just mentioned intrigued me… contraction/expansion draft? Will cont/exp be possible in the new game?
will all leagues be created w/ 24 teams, with the option of adding on new teams to the league? cause that would be awesome… or am i misunderstanding what you meant?
January 28, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Cont/Exp will be easier to implement in the new game because the new design of the draft can be used for this. I doubt it’ll be available in the first release, though.
We planned on allowing leagues with 18 teams all the way up to 32 teams…I think, I’m not positive of the numbers but I know there will be different sizes available.