Creating a system of personal finances

[Imgran]

Mogul is right on the verge of being what it thinks it already is -- a game where you can come in, play and own a team, and control it totally.

The flaw I see is that instead of owning the team, for all purposes you ARE the team. As in, you know, not being the owner but being sort of a living embodiment of the entire FO. That's at least as good as it is bad, but I think there's room for a little more play and a much deeper game if you just take one half step backward from that

I like the idea of creating a whole new level of play where you take over a team to start with but you personally have opportunities to earn (or lose) personal owner-only money based on your decisions, sell the team, purchase a team or an expansion franchise (no more than one franchise per owner please!), or just sink money in a team and keep it winning even though it can't really gross enough to fund its roster.

So basically you'd come in as the owner if whatever team you started with and with a base "fortune" and your decisions to line your own personal wallet with your franchise, or field a winner, would be your own.

It could also, if done right, fix one of the more glaring flaws that's in Mogul right now, which is inadequate handling of expansions other than the ones history demands of you.

Allowing you, as an owner, to purchase an expansion squad, would clear away some of the awkwardness that can come with wanting to expand beyond the current 30 major league teams, and would actually make the Expansion Draft a real factor in expanding the league like it was always supposed to be. It creates an actual reason to bring it in even when you're making your own teams, which right now is not there.

Hey, if it plugs a hole in the game while adding a whole new dimension of play, an idea can't be all bad right?

[JayC]

I'd have to no objection to something like that, I guess, but it'd be way down on my list of changes or additions I'd want to see. To me, the financial part of the game will always be an extrapolation, and trying to fit a business simulator into a baseball game isn't important to me (had enough of those in college). To me, the priority should be in areas like roster management, scheduling, and actual gameplay. Some changes to the financial portion of the game would certainly be helpful (or necessary) for the first of those, and I'd like to see that happen. That is, I'd like to see the simplified view of financial aspects as they're currently presented actually work better before adding a whole "new layer."

Maybe what it comes down to is that I see myself more as a manager/GM than an owner. I want to deal with roster and in-game decisions, and in doing so I should have to work within some financial constraints. But I'm not really interested in financial management becoming a big task.


Allowing you, as an owner, to purchase an expansion squad, would clear away some of the awkwardness that can come with wanting to expand beyond the current 30 major league teams, But I don't really get what you're saying there, so maybe I'm missing some compelling reason for such a change. To me, from time to time I want to run a different team... so I do it. Maybe it's an expansion team, maybe not. I don't really care about having to buy it first, I just want to run it. :)

[ohms_law]

But I don't really get what you're saying there, so maybe I'm missing some compelling reason for such a change. To me, from time to time I want to run a different team... so I do it. Maybe it's an expansion team, maybe not. I don't really care about having to buy it first, I just want to run it. :)

This describes the way I feel as well.

There are a lot of games now that are implementing (imposing, in my view) this style of increased structure. Personally, I hate it. Even if such systems are "optional", they always seem to take away the real sandbox style of play.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the point about adding more game, but there are ways to do that without going as far as this. For example, it would be easy enough to extend the Mogul Rating system so that it is more meaningful. There could be a system where your "character" earns money as well as Mogul Points, for example. The Mogul Points themselves could be both more... accurate(?), more accessible, and could then even be highlighted more in some fashion.
As JayC mentioned above, it's easy enough to implement some sort of house rules for yourself. You can switch teams at will and even "fire" yourself if you'd like. I don't see what's wrong with doing a bit of storytelling for yourself (or not, however you'd like) and taking care of this sort of thing on your own.

ps.: this suggestion, in and of itself, isn't going to fix expansion drafts. That needs to be fixed anyway, and it's a completely separate system.