PBP Animation: Why The Heck Not?

[Lakeman]

I've been fascinated and slightly frustrated by the fact that all the baseball sim games of the last decade or so have forsaken complete play-by-play animation. Why is this?

My supposition has been that with the advent of realistic-looking arcade baseball games for Play Station, Wii, etc, the baseball sim creators have felt they needed to be on the cutting edge of animation to warrant adding PBP animation into their games. And because of the amount of time and money needed to make true-to-life animation sequences, this hasn't been viable to the smaller-time baseball sim makers.

Thing is, we're not competing with the arcade-type photo-realistic baseball games. Would nice, clean, smoothly animated simple play-by-play characters hitting, pitching, and fielding on a baseball diamond be too much of a risk? Would the loyal mogul fan base, or OOTP fan base be alienated?

I'm a long time fan of Earl Weaver Baseball I and II. Earl Weaver really kicked off both branches of baseball computer games: arcade and sim. It did both better than any other game of its time. But then both threads were ripped away from each other... you either got a really good arcade game or a really good sim. 18 years later, no one has hooked these two aspects back together. It's amazed the heck out of me no one has attempted to build this game.

When I was shopping for a new sim to finally replace Earl Weaver II, one of the things that appealed to me about Mogul was the pitcher-batter animation. It was simple, clean, and smoothly animated, but limited. But I figured, hey... if any sim franchise is going to animate everything eventually, it'll be Mogul because they already have begun the process with the pitcher and batter.

So what's stopping Mogul from going the Full Monty with animation? Lack of interest? Higher priorities? Assuming you're not going with photo-realism and are just extending the pitcher-batter animation that already exists to all the other fielders, would this be a huge undertaking of time and energy? I mean, it's been done already in IGI Ball (I Got It Baseball, by Eddie Dombrower). Admittedly IGI Ball is a tragically flawed and forgotten project... but the crisp simple animation works wonderfully.

I just think if Mogul was THE game to bring together the best of simming and simple-but-good animation, it would be releasing into the world a ground-breaking baseball sim, the first complete virtual baseball playing package in nearly 20 years.

Am I the lone voice in the wilderness on this issue? Is anyone with me?

[CatKnight]

Mm...I'm in the camp that there are many, many far more serious issues that need dealing with.

IF Clay can get around to it, I'd certainly have no objection to SIMPLE animation. (Cut scenes would annoy the **** out of me.) If we're looking at only a limited number of things Clay can get to however, then I'd rather he continue toying with the actually sim engine/option as discussed on ohms_law's polls.

[etothep]

animation is at the very bottom of my list of wants for this game

[dps]

I usually have a very limited time to play. I don't want to waste it watching animated play-by-play; I just want the results.

[ohms_law]

Also, as soon as more "complete" animation is added, the game does become a competitor to all of the console/arcade style games. It doesn't matter what the intent is, the perception is that the game is attempting to compete with more arcade style games.

Even with a multi-million dollar budget, I wouldn't be that confident about a game like Mogul competing against the arcade style games. I guess Microsoft Baseball did OK (Clay is the only one who can talk about that, really), but you'll notice that it's not still around...

[Lakeman]

It makes sense that something like complete PBP animation shouldn't be at the top of the list for Mogul development. Creating a more complete managerial experience should be the priority for a baseball sim for sure.

That's a good point you make, ohms. I hadn't thought about the intent of creating greater animation for more flavor resulting a false perception that Mogul was trying to compete with arcade-style games. I hear that.

I also understand that many Mogul players really like simming through seasons outside of PBP to move through player careers faster.

However, what the player animation in Earl Weaver II did for me was make my players feel more "real" to me. I watched as Roy White ran after a ball in the outfield. I was able to see Oscar Gamble circle the bases after hitting a homerun. It gave me more than just the text could give.

I'm definitely happy with Mogul, and I think Clay is doing a fantastic job. I'm just saying that basic animation would make my team that much more real for me.

[ohms_law]

Oh, no doubt. Personally, I really enjoy PBP mode. I also happen to trust Clay's judgment about this sort of thing (especially since he was involved in developing Early Weaver!). Really, I'm just as much of a consumer and a fan of his work as the rest of you are.

All of that being said, I understand exactly where you're coming from. I just can't imagine a better balance than what currently exists, is all. Maybe it's a personal lack of imagination on my part, I'm perfectly willing to accept that. So basically what I'm saying here is that I don't see exactly what you may be envisioning is all. I'm sorry for that really, and I'm not saying that you're ideas "suck" or anything like that. I'm simply asking for more details is all, really.

Basically what I hear you asking for with the above is something like full screen game play animation? Is that correct?

[gosensgo101]

I want to see mogul be perfect in the sim area before anyone even thinks of adding animations.

[Lakeman]

Specifically what I'd like to see:

You make the same PBP decisions as we already do... choosing from the three managing options (general manager, player, etc).

The pitcher and batter animation remains the same, but after the batter makes contact the camera pans to where the ball went. Say a grounder is hit to third. The camera shot moves to the left of the infield. George Brett dives to his right and snags the ball. He throws to first. The camera pans to the right side of the diamond and you see the play at first base. After the play is over, the camera shows the pitcher-batter matchup again. (just like IGI Ball)

That's the first idea. The second idea I had that might be simpler is to see the fielders move around on the overhead stadium shot. You could watch as the tiny center fielder going back on a fly ball for instance. The advantage of this would be (probably) less work building the animation engine. The camera doesn't need to pan anywhere. Much smaller players. It wouldn't be much more time consuming than watching the ball flight as it already exists. Only fear I would have is that the players would be too small to make for attractive animation.

And I'm not asking for mouse or joystick control of players in the field. So no extra headaches there.

However, animation would pause if - for instance - a decision to send a runner for an extra base came up.

It would be nice to incorporate different skin tones and uniform numbers, but that'd be just frosting to me. I woudn't need it. Different color uniforms for players in the field versus batters would be adequate.

[Lakeman]

Right on. I hadn't known Clay was involved with Earl.

[rockiesfan4ever]

I would rather have the overhead view, but we would need to make sure it didn't look like a 2-D Gameboy game or something.