Aesthetics or Look of the Game

[baseballfan99]

I really enjoy the game and think Shaun has done an outstanding job. However, I would like to comment on 3 areas I would like alot of improvement.

1. The graphic/overall look of game- The color scheme, player card profile, blue and white scheme needs to be revamped. It feels to me to be a great game with an overall unattractive look to it.

2. Pbp- I wish the game had a more expansive and detailed pbp. I don't mind if this is an option, but I feel that OOTP does this better and I would like to see Shaun upgrade this part of the game.

3. News/email system- messages from team, other teams, players, coaches.

[PadresFan104]

I agree with all of your improvement ideas, but if I had to choose priorities, I'd go 2), 1), 3).

[jeremy7227]

And I think I'd go 3, something else, 1 + 2. It depends entirely on the type of gamer.

I rarely play games out, I sim weeks at a time stopping to replace streaky guys in the lineup, put players on IR, etc. PBP is something I see only in select postseason games and I like it brief and to the point. Additionally, I think the look of the game is fine. I am coming from years of APBA and SOM gaming. PS2007 is something akin to the first all-technicolor picture (fyi it was, Becky Sharpe, 1935) for those of us coming from those worlds. I loved APBA with Ernie Harwell doing audio PBP but it was clunky and I almost always turned off the audio and sped up the PBP text. Only when I played H2H with a live person sitting beside me did I ever use the audio. Not to mention it drove up the price considerably. I'd rather have a more efficient, results oriented PBP and the ability to play out games online against a human opponent.

Is the PSBB interface perfrect? No. But there is the freedom for the user community to create skins and graphics and post those for everyone to enjoy. I don't think it's something Shaun should waste his cycles on. He has given us the freedom to mod, if we want it we should make it.

Comparing PSBB to other games isn't fair to either game. EA has a better physics model and more polygons (infinitely more i'd say [:D] ) but I don't want to be stuck always playing arcade BB and their career mode is shallow. There isn't one game for all baseball fans. If there were it would probably require a dedicated supercomputer and years of advanced training to operate.

At it's heart PS is baseball from the "sim" genre aimed at recreating decades of history. I think perfecting it for that purpose, tighter integration and freer mod'ing of the Lahman DB, ought to be the goal.

JL

PS: This is not intended to be a flame post, just an observation... my tone (since email hasn't yet evolved to include inflection) is truly positive. I appreciate your opinion and I am taking the opportunity airing mine as well.

[rmielech]

The thing this game does best is seasons. A more expansive PBP would just slow the game down. The way the game is focused and balanced and the tone and look of it are just about perfect for what it's meant to be. I can't think of a baseball game that has a better and more successful compromise between all factors as far as design goes.

[PadresFan104]

Both good posts, but since I'm a game by game player, I'm never going to stop pushing for improved PbP and GameCast since that's where I spend the bulk of my time in the game. I play for the feeling of being at the ballpark, managing a game. Secondary to me is the feeling of walking up to the GM's office and doing the bookkeeping...

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: PadresFan104

Both good posts, but since I'm a game by game player, I'm never going to stop pushing for improved PbP and GameCast since that's where I spend the bulk of my time in the game. I play for the feeling of being at the ballpark, managing a game. Secondary to me is the feeling of walking up to the GM's office and doing the bookkeeping...

I'm with you on "being there", Padres Fan, but I would also caution against anything that would slow down the game too much, i.e., slick and snazzy graphics that would require a PC upgrade. Increased use of audio backgrounds wouldn't strain the video driver, so "park-specific" audio would be cool.

For me -- I want to increase the "nostalgia feel". Incorporating a radio announcer would be cool as hell. On a homer launched at Yankee stadium, wouldn't it be great to hear Mel Allen? Or even better (for me, personally), Rosey Roswell at Forbes. Heck, Bob Prince would do.

If I had the patience and audio resources to do this, it would add immeasurably to the in-game experience.

[PadresFan104]

I just want more detailed PbP and the ability to customize the GameCast screen. (Easy access to custom layouts, scoreboards, fonts, colors, sound cues, etc.) Nothing processor intensive by any means.

[Nukester]

I dont play out many games, so I dont know about the pbp, but I agree that the player card is a bit ugly

[kentcol]

I would love to see more detailed PBP also! And more unusual plays in the games. I don't think more would slow the game much. After all, a nice, slow paced day at the park is what Baseball is all about!

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: kentcol

I would love to see more detailed PBP also! And more unusual plays in the games. I don't think more would slow the game much. After all, a nice, slow paced day at the park is what Baseball is all about!

You touched upon a central point -- there is no clock -- the game is played in a place where time is meaningless.

[puresimmer]

ORIGINAL: Nukester

I dont play out many games, so I dont know about the pbp, but I agree that the player card is a bit ugly

What don't you like about it?

[Crimguy]

I'm pretty neutral on it's looks, but IMHO it's a bit too reminiscent of Macintosh OS X circa 2001, with gumdrop buttons etc.

I like macs, don't get me wrong.[:D]

[baseballfan99]

In regards to the player card and the feel of the roster screens, graphical view, player card, I guess I would like more color, more pizzaz. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but the presentation or color scheme for the most part in some of the schemes seem outdated and bland.

[Nukester]

ORIGINAL: baseballfan99

In regards to the player card and the feel of the roster screens, graphical view, player card, I guess I would like more color, more pizzaz. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but the presentation or color scheme for the most part in some of the schemes seem outdated and bland.

Yeah thats my take on the playercard also. All of the info is there, and the screen is certainly functionable, but the color scheme and font just seem like a program from 1999. Maybe all that is needed is some kind of background to make it less white

[Amaroq]

We had a bit of discussion on this back on page two of the design thread; rather than repeat my points, I'll cut and paste for those who may have missed it:

- - - - - - - (Cut and paste from previous thread - - - - - - -

ORIGINAL: orton1227
I'll give a better answer tomorrow, but off the top of my head here are some thoughts:

1 - drag and drop lineup, rotations, etc.
2 - keep it simple. for example, when loading an association, I'd like to see my team's screen first. On that screen it'd be great to see a who's hot, who's not in one section - the division standings in another - the next game with probable starters somewhere else - a news flash box with the top 10 news stories.

2a - On the top or bottom (of left or right) of the screen, I'd like to see buttons:
...for roster management (setting lineups, rotations, look at minors rosters, trade screen, free agents, etc.)
...for finances (ticket sales, breakdown of salaries, etc)
...for scheduled games that day
...for standings
...for stats
...for news
...for calendar.

3 - I'd like to see more stuff put into an options screen (with the options button in an inconspicuous location like top-right corner). Modifications for logos, parks, unis, etc would go in here).

let me try to think up some more stuff tomorrow and/or refine these suggestions.

I do agree with this; and I'm not convinced that the argument "game play is more important than UI" holds; EA seems to be living proof that the opposite is true: appearance makes first impressions. Most reviewers are writing from their first impressions, and many customers are making a buy/no-buy decision based on their first impressions from the demo.

UI is more important than the average developer thinks it is.

Drag-and-drop certainly is the modern "intuitive" interface.

In juggling a pitching and bullpen 'rotation', I often want to be able to 'put player X between players A and B', rather than 'swap X with A' as the current UI allows.

A unified colour scheme would help with this. Currently we have more different 'looks' than I can count - the main UI is one colour scheme, the game screen is another, the roster-management screen a third, the player card is a fourth, the almanac is a fifth, the minor-league management screen a sixth, the trade screen a seventh, the options dialog an eighth, PSPN a ninth, and I'm sure I've missed others. Consistency is key; the current version feels hodge-podge and 'programmer art' in places.

Less pop-up dialogs would help: I think most things can be presented as takeovers to the 'main screen' area, which would make them feel more integrated and less 'interrupting'. In many cases, going 'main screen' would give you more screen real estate as well, letting you either present more data or use

A consistent always-visible set of the most-used buttons would be excellent additions:
- lineup management screen
- scheduled games that day
- minor-league management screen
- standings
- team home page (front office)
- news
- trades
- free agents
- stats
are the screens I go to most often, probably in order of importance; association home and main game screen I almost never use.

Cut out some of the rarely-used screens, if you can identify them. (Do we need 'stats' and 'almanac'? Do we need the 'lineup' and 'rotation' screens if we have the 'modify lineup' screen?)

Going straight to something about my team, whether that's the 'team front office page' or orton's 'team home page' would be ideal for single-player mode; I'd expect only somebody logged in to a multi-player game in commissioner-mode wants to go to the 'association home page'.

FM-07's customizable "manager home page" screen is a brilliant concept well executed, and probably worth modifying to fit your game's needs, as orton suggested: showing injuries, who's hot/not, division standings, last 3 + next 5 games, news.

The updates I'd like to see to the minor-league management screen I've described elsewhere.

Little things like getting the 'team' stats correct (sum of actions taken for this team this season, rather than sum of players currently on the team) would help.

The in-game management screens still have some of the 'clunky' interface elements I've described elsewhere as well, such as the 'locked' 'please put in a new pitcher' mode which prevents a double-switch, etc.

Some screens don't re-load when you come 'back' from dialogs, which can leave them showing incorrect data (e.g., if I modify the roster from a player-card, the roster-management screen should reload when I come back to it).

No screens currently 'remember' sort order. I'd like to see multi-sort, e.g., the ability to specify two or three columns worth of 'sort', and for each screen to 'store' my preferred sort order for that screen (based on what I was showing the last time I showed it).

Career totals and sortability on the retirements screen would be huge.

Its not 'fun' work, the way game-play is, but that change list would go a long way towards making this the most accessible, easy-to-pick-up game in the genre.

ORIGINAL: bittersweet

I just purchased a football game called Second and Ten. When a player makes a TD or interception or something big happens, his picture appears on the screen for 3-4 seconds and then disappears. It would be cool to have an infielder or outfielder's picture appear if they made a great fielding play or threw a runner out at the plate.

Very late-eighties.

I think the ball animating around the park would be a bigger addition, e.g., the 'ball hit to shortstop, ball flips to second base, "Out at second!", ball whips to first base, "Safe at first!"' animation.

- - - - - - - (end cut and paste) - - - - - -

To which Shaun replied:

ORIGINAL: puresimmer
I agree totally. PureSim's UI most certainly reveals it's historical progression (ahem).

I've spent the last few days triaging the myriad of things I'd like to improve and I'm currently suffering from the "Where do I start?" kind of paralysis

Part of me wants to do nothing but UI refinements for PureSim 2008, the other part wants to introduce new idioms like the 40 man roster etc. Of course it's not totally an either-or situation, but it's pretty close when one considers the only time I get to work on the game is vacations and weekends (can anyone tell I've been on vacation this week?)

Obviously, it's human nature to gravitate to the stuff I would rather do, but maybe PS 2008 should be the year of the UI refining and code tightening. The game certainly already has a ton of features that for sure can't be argued. Of course when I say UI refinements, I don't simply mean new graphics. I mean things like improving the draft experience, roster management interface, lineup management interface, better reporting output and customization options, improved navigation etc.

It's something I need to really think about hard.

[Amaroq]

Obviously, since then, Shaun has stepped out of the 'paralysis' mode, and into action, even if we don't get to see what all the actions are; the Updated Draft Screen certainly looks like a leap forward on the UI elements, and the Quick Links directly addresses one of those points above.

[Amaroq]

Some other things I'd like to see, briefly:

Retirements Screen
 - to display age, position, and career totals
 - sorted such that the players with the highest career totals are at the top, and players with the lowest are at the bottom.
 - filtered such that players with no major-league appearances are not shown, unless they were on a human player's minor-league roster.

[Amaroq]

ORIGINAL: baseballfan99

I really enjoy the game and think Shaun has done an outstanding job. However, I would like to comment on 3 areas I would like alot of improvement.

1. The graphic/overall look of game- The color scheme, player card profile, blue and white scheme needs to be revamped. It feels to me to be a great game with an overall unattractive look to it.

2. Pbp- I wish the game had a more expansive and detailed pbp. I don't mind if this is an option, but I feel that OOTP does this better and I would like to see Shaun upgrade this part of the game.

3. News/email system- messages from team, other teams, players, coaches.

Finally, to respond to the OP's post [;)] ...

1. I think I've covered in detail above [:D]


2. Agreed. I won't comment about the priority level of this, as that seems to be a hot-button topic. I suspect that the task of building the play-by-play itself is near-daunting; the 'right' approach might be to put together a framework for it, ripping the existing PBP text out of the application and into a text file without actually writing new text.

At first glance, that looks like a lot of work for little gain... but I think we could put together a community-based authoring initiative. I mean, who really plays this sort of game, if not the guys who imagined themselves being broadcasters as children, and who watch real broadcasters thinking 'Man, I could do better than that hack!' (Obviously, not the greats, but some of them).

The biggest challenge in any text-description-item is avoiding repetition. As an example, the soccer game Premier Manager '98 had the line "That reminds me of '66, off the bar and in!" as a description whenever a goal was scored after the shot struck the crossbar. That was great - the first time. It brought history to life, it was clever... but if you'd played out 100 games, you might have heard it six or seven times, and it was obviously canned, repetitive, and stale.

They needed a system which included weights for the commentary, and a chance of playing different items, for example:
35% - "Its in off the bar!"
15% - "Its off the bar and in!"
10% - "It struck the bar and went in!"
10% - "It hit the crossbar, but still found its way in!"
... and working its way down to ...
3% - "Its better lucky than good, sometimes!"
3% - "That reminds me of '66, off the bar and in!"

That still gives you the ability to have some 'clever' commentary, but ensures that 'memorable' phrasings don't come up over and over; the brain will forget 'Its in off the bar!' as being a simple, non-memorable description of what happened; even if I heard it six times in those 100 games, its not going to bother me... and that makes the one time I hear "That reminds me of '66, off the bar and in" more special and more memorable.


3. An e-mail system similar in quality to PSPN would definitely bring the game 'to life'. However, its a tough nut to 'get right'.

See FM'07 for an example of a well-done e-mail system, with plenty of depth. It has some repetition, but not too much - and does a really good job of avoiding stupidly repetitive 'color'.

See John Madden Football 2007 or NHL 2006 for an example of a poor-to-useless e-mail system: first, the e-mail's don't tell you information that you didn't already have (or couldn't get to easily from other menus). Second, they have 'color' lines - 'memorable' items, which are pure repetition without adding any value.

NHL'06's 'injury report' managed to get the worst of all possible worlds, as it starts with something like

'Dear ____yourname___,

Here's the team's current injury report. It should be pretty straightforward, but if you want to talk it over, you know where to find me.

. . . . . . . . Sincerely,
. . . . . . . . . . ____trainer's name____

Injured players:'

Unfortunately, THAT block of text is all you can see without scrolling. It has NO value - I knew I was getting an injury report FROM THE SUBJECT, before I opened it; my name and the trainer's name are not relevant data.. and it implies a means of communicating with the trainer which flat-out does not exist.

From a design perspective, it grates on me every single time I have to scroll down to find out how long my injured players are out - this e-mail could have been simply:

'Subject: Injury report

Karl Smith - LW - Broken foot - Out 2-3 months
Jim Jones - D - Bruised rib - Out 1-2 weeks
Abe Johnson - G - Flu - Day-to-day'

No scrolling required, no 'memorable' text that doesn't add anything to the game.

[Nukester]

ORIGINAL: Amaroq

We had a bit of discussion on this back on page two of the design thread; rather than repeat my points, I'll cut and paste for those who may have missed it:

- - - - - - - (Cut and paste from previous thread - - - - - - -

ORIGINAL: orton1227
I'll give a better answer tomorrow, but off the top of my head here are some thoughts:

1 - drag and drop lineup, rotations, etc.
2 - keep it simple. for example, when loading an association, I'd like to see my team's screen first. On that screen it'd be great to see a who's hot, who's not in one section - the division standings in another - the next game with probable starters somewhere else - a news flash box with the top 10 news stories.

2a - On the top or bottom (of left or right) of the screen, I'd like to see buttons:
...for roster management (setting lineups, rotations, look at minors rosters, trade screen, free agents, etc.)
...for finances (ticket sales, breakdown of salaries, etc)
...for scheduled games that day
...for standings
...for stats
...for news
...for calendar.

3 - I'd like to see more stuff put into an options screen (with the options button in an inconspicuous location like top-right corner). Modifications for logos, parks, unis, etc would go in here).

let me try to think up some more stuff tomorrow and/or refine these suggestions.

I do agree with this; and I'm not convinced that the argument "game play is more important than UI" holds; EA seems to be living proof that the opposite is true: appearance makes first impressions. Most reviewers are writing from their first impressions, and many customers are making a buy/no-buy decision based on their first impressions from the demo.

UI is more important than the average developer thinks it is.

Drag-and-drop certainly is the modern "intuitive" interface.

In juggling a pitching and bullpen 'rotation', I often want to be able to 'put player X between players A and B', rather than 'swap X with A' as the current UI allows.

A unified colour scheme would help with this. Currently we have more different 'looks' than I can count - the main UI is one colour scheme, the game screen is another, the roster-management screen a third, the player card is a fourth, the almanac is a fifth, the minor-league management screen a sixth, the trade screen a seventh, the options dialog an eighth, PSPN a ninth, and I'm sure I've missed others. Consistency is key; the current version feels hodge-podge and 'programmer art' in places.

Less pop-up dialogs would help: I think most things can be presented as takeovers to the 'main screen' area, which would make them feel more integrated and less 'interrupting'. In many cases, going 'main screen' would give you more screen real estate as well, letting you either present more data or use

A consistent always-visible set of the most-used buttons would be excellent additions:
- lineup management screen
- scheduled games that day
- minor-league management screen
- standings
- team home page (front office)
- news
- trades
- free agents
- stats
are the screens I go to most often, probably in order of importance; association home and main game screen I almost never use.

Cut out some of the rarely-used screens, if you can identify them. (Do we need 'stats' and 'almanac'? Do we need the 'lineup' and 'rotation' screens if we have the 'modify lineup' screen?)

Going straight to something about my team, whether that's the 'team front office page' or orton's 'team home page' would be ideal for single-player mode; I'd expect only somebody logged in to a multi-player game in commissioner-mode wants to go to the 'association home page'.

FM-07's customizable "manager home page" screen is a brilliant concept well executed, and probably worth modifying to fit your game's needs, as orton suggested: showing injuries, who's hot/not, division standings, last 3 + next 5 games, news.

The updates I'd like to see to the minor-league management screen I've described elsewhere.

Little things like getting the 'team' stats correct (sum of actions taken for this team this season, rather than sum of players currently on the team) would help.

The in-game management screens still have some of the 'clunky' interface elements I've described elsewhere as well, such as the 'locked' 'please put in a new pitcher' mode which prevents a double-switch, etc.

Some screens don't re-load when you come 'back' from dialogs, which can leave them showing incorrect data (e.g., if I modify the roster from a player-card, the roster-management screen should reload when I come back to it).

No screens currently 'remember' sort order. I'd like to see multi-sort, e.g., the ability to specify two or three columns worth of 'sort', and for each screen to 'store' my preferred sort order for that screen (based on what I was showing the last time I showed it).

Career totals and sortability on the retirements screen would be huge.

Its not 'fun' work, the way game-play is, but that change list would go a long way towards making this the most accessible, easy-to-pick-up game in the genre.

ORIGINAL: bittersweet

I just purchased a football game called Second and Ten. When a player makes a TD or interception or something big happens, his picture appears on the screen for 3-4 seconds and then disappears. It would be cool to have an infielder or outfielder's picture appear if they made a great fielding play or threw a runner out at the plate.

Very late-eighties.

I think the ball animating around the park would be a bigger addition, e.g., the 'ball hit to shortstop, ball flips to second base, "Out at second!", ball whips to first base, "Safe at first!"' animation.

- - - - - - - (end cut and paste) - - - - - -

To which Shaun replied:

ORIGINAL: puresimmer
I agree totally. PureSim's UI most certainly reveals it's historical progression (ahem).

I've spent the last few days triaging the myriad of things I'd like to improve and I'm currently suffering from the "Where do I start?" kind of paralysis

Part of me wants to do nothing but UI refinements for PureSim 2008, the other part wants to introduce new idioms like the 40 man roster etc. Of course it's not totally an either-or situation, but it's pretty close when one considers the only time I get to work on the game is vacations and weekends (can anyone tell I've been on vacation this week?)

Obviously, it's human nature to gravitate to the stuff I would rather do, but maybe PS 2008 should be the year of the UI refining and code tightening. The game certainly already has a ton of features that for sure can't be argued. Of course when I say UI refinements, I don't simply mean new graphics. I mean things like improving the draft experience, roster management interface, lineup management interface, better reporting output and customization options, improved navigation etc.

It's something I need to really think about hard.

Whew....What he said [:)]

[Amaroq]

[:D]