Live Q&A with Bernie, 3/17/06 (transcript)

[bernieh]

[b:98986d209f]Edit: Session over. Transcript follows![/b:98986d209f]

[b:98986d209f]Live Q&A session with Bernie[/b:98986d209f]
Friday, March 17, 2006, 2-3pm ET

In order to properly welcome you to the new season, this Friday I'll be hosting a live session from 2-3pm ET where you can ask me whatever you want and I'll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.

[b:98986d209f]A little about what I do, who I am[/b:98986d209f] (so you know what I'll be able to talk about):
I'm the main designer and developer of SOM Online.
I'm not the creator of the original SOM board game or computer game.
I'm not a customer service representative.
I'm a lifelong New Yorker, former Yankee fan, and current die-hard Brewers fan.
I have the 2 cutest 8-month-old twins in history, a boy and a girl.

[b:98986d209f]How the Q&A session works[/b:98986d209f]
Send your member name, comments and questions to [i:98986d209f](email address now defunct)[/i:98986d209f]. I'll pick appropriate questions, and publish my reply to them as individual posts to this thread. I'll have exclusive posting access to this thread, to keep it clean and legible. To follow along with the proceedings, you'll have to reload the thread to see if a new answer has been posted.

And that's it! If it's a success, I'll be having some more of these, periodically. Thanks!

Bernie
SportingNews.com

[bernieh]

[i:ba4eb22e67]from Sykes:

Can you possibly enlighten the 80's folks with any information regarding what you may be looking at upgrading? We know that the interface is one, but will there be salary adjustments and/or player pool expansion of any kind?[/i:ba4eb22e67]

[color=darkblue:ba4eb22e67]For the short term, I plan on getting as many of the recent site advancements into the 80's game as possible, namely: flexible salary caps, frenzy option, game headlines, etc. We haven't made a formal decision about adjusting salaries or the player pool, as that's a much more significant change ( i.e. we can't just roll it in), but after the summer it is a distinct possibility.[/color:ba4eb22e67]

[bernieh]

[i:3fafec1ad6]sent in by "Joe":

Bernie,

Is there any chance of adding some sort of usage limits to the games? I find it frustrating to see players used well outside of their normal patterns to the point where the realism is impacted.

Thanks,

Joe[/i:3fafec1ad6]

[color=darkblue:3fafec1ad6]There are no short term plans to add usage limits. I do agree about the realism issue - in fact, here's a bit of interesting trivia - the original design of the game did include usage limits (see this hidden, unpublished help page: http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2001/about/popup_proj_usage.html).

However, we found there were too many problems with this approach. First of all, it became an artificial restraint placed on the manager that real-life managers do not deal with. Second, it was too difficult to get the concept across clearly to new users. Third, there was no good solution to what happens when you hit the limit - imagine a team that was abandoned by its manager and ran out of ABs and IPs from all its players.

On the plus side, I do like the principle of our game that you are able to decide to play a player full-time when his real-life manager let him rot on the bench -- as long as his stats would be reasonable over a full season. [/color:3fafec1ad6]

[bernieh]

[i:ee552302e3]sent in by nycalderon:

Hey,

Just wondering about the future of 80's and/or Mystery Card?? Will
80's remain the same basic game or be rolled out as a new product (ie,
80's 2)?

Has there been any thought to incorporating a market-based player
valuing system? Where Mystery Card players see there values rise and
fall based on how often they are used?

I would love to see home/road splits incorporated in the 80s game...
any chance?

I would love to see deeper managerial options especially preferred
reserves and tiered relief pitching options. Furthermore I think we
could use multiple lineups so we could quickly associate different
lineup configurations to different series'. Any thought on that?

thanks bernie,

nycalderon[/i:ee552302e3]

[color=darkblue:ee552302e3]We've thought about the market-based salary system and think it's a pretty good idea. Unfortunately it would take a pretty major system overhaul to support it. Who knows; I'm ambitious about the great things we're going to get done this year so maybe it'll happen.

re: 80's home/road splits - I think this can be arranged.

re: managerial options - We've thought about incorporating the CD-ROM game's "Super Hal" bullpen settings, but that would take some serious thinking about how to present it. I may enlist the help of some CD-ROM game veterans for this.

re: per-game lineups - We've thought about this, too - the MAJOR headache with this is the presentation problems, which are too extensive to get into here.
[/color:ee552302e3]

[bernieh]

[i:5f27fb5bf7]sent in by Pinhead1987:

About the credit transfer you recently did, I was just wondering what the reason was for only transferring a 2005 credit rather than an ATG II or 1969
credit. I had 4 ATG II and 4 1969 credits at the time of the transfer but no
2005 credits because once the new game comes out the older games always
takes forever to fill a league.[/i:5f27fb5bf7]

[color=darkblue:5f27fb5bf7]This is mostly a practical thing. The introduction of the 2006 game immediately makes the 2005 game less popular, less current, so even though we're under no obligation to do so, we offer this policy to make the transition a little easier for you. It's also very easy to do an automatic transfer from 2005, whereas we can't assume that everyone who has an ATG II credit wants it transferred. It becomes an administrative nightmare.[/color:5f27fb5bf7]

[bernieh]

[i:a76a1a5f01]sent in by MightyMoose:

Can you address the issue of “normalization” ? I don’t know if was ever fully cleared up whether this is turned on or off. But it’s frustrating when a player has a good first half of the season, only to be yanked back to reality by a seemingly obscure setting to see that he winds up not too much out of whack for the season.[/i:a76a1a5f01]

[color=darkblue:a76a1a5f01]There is definitely no such feature in play in the online game.[/color:a76a1a5f01]

[bernieh]

[i:0fa58d0d24]sent in by Moodywoody:

Any chance that the mystery card concept will be expanded to other SOM games?[/i:0fa58d0d24]

[color=darkblue:0fa58d0d24]Yeah. New games, not existing games.
[/color:0fa58d0d24]

[bernieh]

[i:0f7f210463]sent in by Geekor:

Yo Bernie,

Can we get at least 2 pitchers to be allowed to be set to avoid before 8th? When the avoid before 9th option was removed, it makes it much harder to handle the specialists.[/i:0f7f210463]

[color=darkblue:0f7f210463]You know what? Yeah. I'll make that change ASAP and make a little announcement.[/color:0f7f210463]

[bernieh]

[i:e8db7aa222]sent in by Nev:

Bernie,

Instead of just adding more players to an already large enough playing pool in ATG2 why not keep several different groups of ATG teams going at once, similar to the 200x games. Instead of having to "select either" the 56 Yankees or the 61 Yankees why not be able to "select both" Yankee teams each placed in Different ATG League...Example maybe something like 30 teams in ATG, ATG 2 and ATG 3... a couple of differnt Mays, Mantle etc, cards to choose from....
Thanks,
Nev[/i:e8db7aa222]

[color=darkblue:e8db7aa222]Too much product confusion. While I know that hardcore ATG players would be able to keep track of the differences, nobody else would. And this isn't "dumbing things down" - it's responsible product management.
[/color:e8db7aa222]

[bernieh]

[i:62fc402897]sent in by franky35:

My question is about the 1969 league, but I think it is generally applicable. Why can't you give us more info about how HAL determines play outcomes and decisions?

Other than the player cards, we get nothing but vague generalizations. What happens if an "X" comes up on the pitchers card? How are pitcher at-bats determined? Based on the manager settings, when does HAL decide to go for the extra base, or attempt a steal, etc.?[/i:62fc402897]

[color=darkblue:62fc402897]Our boxscore displays are taken straight from the CD-ROM game. The good news is, as I've been forthcoming about, is that this year I do have the ability (read: balls) to go in and tweak the code in order to improve the interaction between Strat-O-Matic's engine and our online interface. So I'll be looking into some of the things you mention.
[/color:62fc402897]