The Show Roster Update

Knight should be done with his base set tomorrow.

TheAub posted what he's going to edit as far as player attributes go:

Pitchers:

Knock down pitch control
Knock down K/9

Hitters:

Knock down plate discipline
Fix durabilities if needed for certain players
Knock down fielding reaction
Knock down baserunning aggression/baserunning ability

I'll be done probably on late Saturday night.

I'll let you know when he posts that. All of that stuff is needed, IMO. Some of it drastically so.

Quote of the Day

Was just perusing my blog roll when I ran across this Daily Kos post called, "Lessons Learned." It led off with the following gem that I just wanted to pass on because I thought it was funny as hell (in an ironical sort of way):

Things I have learned during this campaign season:

In a race that includes a former First Lady of the United States and a multimillionaire Republican senator rumored to share up to eight residences with his wife, the black guy from Chicago is unforgivably elitist.

How is GTA4 Not an AO-rated Game?

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The Hell?

I was playing some more MLB '08 last night (since I've "discovered" the button that shows the batter/pitcher matchup, complete with hot/cold hitting zones, my pitching has been worlds better) and had one of those moment that just defies explanation.

I'm in another 1-0 game (losing), pitching in the sixth inning. There's a man on first and the hitter hits a hard grounder just to the right of second base. The second basement doesn't move an inch to try to glove it, but whatever. Probably wouldn't have gotten to it anyway. This is where it gets weird. The ball rolls to a stop in the shallow outfield and both the right and center fielders close in on it. They're about five steps from being able to pick up the ball and they just stop. I stare at the screen for a moment, completely dumbfounded, only to see the catcher emerge from the bottom of the screen and go racing into right-center field to pick up the ball. Of course, by the time he does both the runner and batter have scored. I was... non-plussed.

Fortunately, my team bailed me out and pulled out a 5-3 win in the late innings. I really hope that I don't see anything like that happen again.

The NHL Absolutely Sucks

I say that as a longtime fan of the NHL and Red Wings hockey. And when they're not sucking, they're blowing. They're the MegaMaid of sports leagues.

What has my ire today?

Tonight's Game 3 between the Wings and Colorado Avalanche doesn't start until 10pm EST. A frigg'n second round *playoff* game isn't starting until I'm an hour from going to bed? Seriously, what the hell? And the NHL has been doing this for years to Detroit fans in particular because Detroit is the only Eastern Time Zone franchise in the NHL that plays in the Western Conference... and regularly makes the playoffs. (Hence, the Columbus Blue Jackets and their seven year run of never having made the post-season are excluded.)

It was bad enough that the NHL put the Wings in the Western Conference to begin with, what with the crappy start times for road games. It's just that much more frustrating in the playoffs. Then there's the way the NHL has tried to manufacture intra-divisional rivalries with a ridiculous number of intra-division games, while allowing legitimate Original 6 rivalries to atrophy. Couple all that with the league telling the Wings that their personnel are no longer allowed to twirl an octopus thrown onto the ice before the game -a longtime franchise tradition- and it just makes me want to tune out the NHL altogether. (I won't, but I should.)

No, it's safe to say that Commissioner Gary Bettman is not on my Christmas card list.

Deep Route Almost Ready

For those that remember, I mentioned Deep Route Football back on the old blog.

Well, it's just about ready. It's a career, text based, online-only football sim from the man that made the awesome horse racing sim at www.simulatedsports.com.

Thing is, GameShark can't touch this game with any sized pole because my dad created the playbooks, tested the AI and basically co-designed the game. He's worked on this for well over a year (closer to two). So um...GameShark can't review it. That would be wrong and if I slammed it...well, Christmas would just be plain awkward. But I can blog about it.

That said, the game looks great. Just great. Dad came up this past weekend and sat me down to take the interface for a spin and to watch the AI in action. Dad and Mike Wallace (the brains behind the operation) wanted to ensure that since you cannot actively call plays (this is an online sim game) that the playcalling AI needed to be absolutely top notch. Dad had me pull up a game log of any game I wanted to see how the AI handled everything. After about 20 minutes of watching a few games -- it looked rock solid, calling timeouts as the proper time (even calling one right before the 2-minute warning to take advantage of the free stoppage.)

I could talk a whole lot about the game and what dad has shown me thus far but the website is live and they have ran various beta leagues with great success. People really seem to dig it. I can't wait to play it.

From what I know, there will be two versions: a free play and one that costs a fee (what that fee is, I dunno yet). If you play in the free leagues you can't trade players, set draft parameters or edit your playbook. But you CAN play. I also know that there will be various league set ups that should fit into everyone's schedule. Weekly leagues, nightly leagues, you name it. The game comes with an optional salary cap function as well as other perks. They're trying to make it as user friendly as possible.

I'm really proud of dad for doing this; it was a massive undertaking. And dad's work on the playbooks is just ...insane. They're really, really good and not just because my father created them. He's a former coach so he does have a clue as to what he's doing and he's done a marvelous job with them. I can tell he's happy (and excited) with out it turned out.

Anyway head on over to the site and take a look. The forums are also hopping. There will be a blog league so I can whip Todd on a weekly basis.

MLB '08: Learning Something New

I was all set to write up an annoyed post about MLB '08 not getting pitcher of record stats correct. I've had multiple games now where I got a loss for games for which I did not allow the winning run, and it was always my understanding that the pitcher who allows the winning run gets the loss. Here's an example:

In a game against Bowie, I allowed one run in my six innings of work. (This is Road to the Show mode.) In the seventh, a reliever allowed another run, making it a 2-0 game. In the ninth, my team (Erie) finally put up a run and we lost 2-1. Despite only giving up one run, I got the loss, which I thought was totally wrong. So, I looked up the rule on MLB.com and here's what it has to say about the losing pitcher of record:

(d) A losing pitcher is a pitcher who is responsible for the run that gives the winning team a lead that the winning team does not relinquish.

So, if I'm reading that correctly, because I surrendered the lead and Erie never recovered to at least tie the game, that's why I get the loss. That still doesn't seem right to me, and I can't believe MLB never discussed this with me, personally, but them's the breaks. At least MLB '08 appears to have gotten it right and I got to learn something new.

Still, The Show ain't perfect. In another game I was pitching in a 0-0 game; I allowed a lead-off hit, followed by a home run. The score moved, correctly, to 2-0. So, why when the next hitter reached the plate was their a runner still on second base? I didn't even notice him until I gave up a hit to the next guy and the runner on second scored for a 3-0 game. I was dumbfounded for a few minutes while I tried to figure out if I blacked out during an at bat or something, but nope, the game put a runner on base where there should not have been one. I promptly turned the console off and started over. Fortunately, after having played about a dozen or so games, this seems to have been the only time this has occurred. Still, it was damned odd.

MLB 08 The Show Roster Update

I'm still not playing my franchise yet and the reason is the massive roster project from Knight and Jim at OS. Here's the latest update:

Anyway....three...four days TOPS I'll be ready to give you the "completed" version. By this I mean FULL MINOR LEAGUES.....All teams with the correct 40 man rosters....set to opening day.....all lineups and rotations set(MINOR LEAGUES ALSO). That set will have over 1000 players created by Jim and I!

If you're not worried about edits to the SCEA MLB players....you can go with that one.

Then 'theaub' will do edits to the Major league players(he's listed them)....they are the edits I was going to do, but Aubrey was AWESOME enough to take that on for me and give me a much needed break.(I totally appreciate that Aub)

Then 'strut' will fix the stances and windups.....(Kudos once again to another fine member of O.S. coming up big)

Then RaZRr will do some pitching edits to correct some incorrect pitches and pitch speeds(Thank you as this will make the set ULTRA-realistic!)

This is the roster I would wait for to do a franchise Hope that clears up some stuff....

M.K.Knight165

Draft Day, Bonaparte, Boren, and Books!

Ok so last night's dinner at The Melting Pot went a lot better than expected. That place is awesome. Granted, it was like $110 but hey...you only have one Ten Year Anniversary, right? Well, I guess you could have more than one but I think that's fairly rare. Ash loved cooking her own food. She got a big kick out of that.

Today is Draft Day and wow...I don't care. See, the Browns did their thing already in the off season and we have no picks in the first three rounds so I'm basically going to have the draft on but I doubt I watch it too closely unless Phil Savage works a deal to get us back into the first. That's unlikely.

Mario Manningham reportedly got a SIX on the Wonderlic test. This has no bearing at ALL as to whether or not he'll be a good pro. None. At all. It's a ridiculous test to give football players. I think he'll be an average pro because he's a head case and was never a true standout in college--but it DOES show that not all 'Michigan Men' are smarter than your average bear. I remember Chris Gamble got like an 8 on his test so there's no glass house stuff going on here -- but UoM is just like any other bigtime program -- they do what they have to do in order to get the best players. If you think than Mario Manningham would have been accepted to Michigan (or Chris Gamble to OSU) without their ability to catch a football and run really fast wake up and smell the BCS money.

In other football news, I never did get Todd's reaction to the fact that former Michigan starting guard Justin Boren not only left the program because of Rich-Rod's "colorful" personality but he has now officially transferred to OHIO STATE. He's not even going to be able to be put on scholarship because it's a transfer within the conference. So, basically, Boren would rather pay his own way to come to OSU than to stay on schollie at Michigan.

Good times. Here endeth my stick-prodding of Todd today.

I am finally wrapping my brain around Bonaparte at Marengo. It's not that this is a terribly hard game but it's so different to every other wargame I have ever played that I need to rethink a lot of stuff. What attracts me to this game is that there's no dice, no combat tables, no hex grids -- just a map of the battlefield and a lot of cool wooden pieces.

The game looks, as I have said before, like an old map or like a documentary when they show the red and blue army bars facing each other. It's like playing a game with those pieces -- and it's wickedly cool. To give you an idea of what this game is like, check out this sample game with pics from the Simmons website. There's an ebb and flow to the game that I find thrilling.

OK books. I'm currently reading some history books of note. One is Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity. This is a fascinating read as it details the way the ancient Romans and Greeks killed one another. Throw me a book that talks about Alexander the Great, the Spartans and the Roman war machine and I'm in.

Li'l Brakke, On the Road to the Show

I decided to skip over the franchise mode of MLB '08: The Show and start a Road to the Show player instead. (If you're unfamiliar with this, you create your own ballplayer and start him out in the minor in an attempt to build him up to a major league hall of famer.) I decided to go with a starting pitcher in the Tigers organization and I proceeded to play through all of spring training in a single evening. (Playing out each of my appearances without skipping any.)

Li'l Brakke (like Li'l Penny, only totally different) had a decent spring for the big league club considering he has no skill whatsoever and has a fastball that tops out around 84mph. (I don't like that you have to -apparently- build up your velocity from scratch. I don't think a lot of future fireballers start out in the minors struggling to hit 85mph on the radar gun.) I think I finished out the spring with about a 4.xx ERA. I gave up a metric ton of hits, but relatively few runs all considered and my strikeout to walk ratio was insanely good given my lack of control. (Something like 15:3.)

Once spring training was done I signed a one year deal to be a middle reliever for Detroit's AA club, the Erie Seawolves. At this point the game starts giving you goals to meet in terms of training your player up, like improving your fielding ability. This is done using points accumulated for being successful when playing in games. (Having a low ERA or inducing a double play, for example.) In roughly five appearances I've been having quite a bit of success, including a 2.11 ERA and continued success striking guys out despite not having any pitch velocity to speak of. (I've got a killer 12-6 curve, though, and it's been a monster strikeout pitch.)

You also get emails from your manager that let you know what he thinks about your play and you have the ability to take career actions like retire or complain about your position on the club. I had the option to complain about not being a starter, but I decided to be the patient rookie that I am. In my final game last night I was called in to start the top of the eight inning of a tied ballgame. Five innings later, having not allowed in a run, Erie pulled the game out and I had a glowing email from my manager informing me that I was going to get a shot in the starting rotation. Oh happy day!

Needless to say, I'm enamored with the Road to the Show mode in this game. It's my first experience with it (having not played MLB '07) and it's a wicked amount of fun so far. I was amazed at how much pressure I felt as a middle reliever to come into a game and keep guys in scoring position from making it home. In one game I was called in to a close game with the bases loaded and only one out. I proceeded to strike out the next two hitters and get out of the inning, which had me on my feet cheering Li'l Brakke on. The experience has actually given me newfound respect for the guys with the thankless job of middle relief.

More impressions to come.

Ten Years! I Did It!

As of today, I have been married TEN years.

And tonight I'm going to cook my own food at The Melting Pot. Woo hoo. I'm going to PAY someone else so I can cook my own food at The Melting Pot.

The Melting Pot was not my idea.

But I agreed because -- I have been married TEN years and I have learned like the good padawan that I am.

Todd Writes a Review!

Yes, it's true!

Todd has reviewed Assassin's Creed on the PC! Woo!!!

Also, Troy Goodfellow has written our latest Top Ten -- Ancient Games. I don't agree with everything here but Troy is a lot smarter than I am so my opinion is invalid.

I'm currently killing Union soldiers in Ageod's Civil War game and also trying my best to learn Bonaparte at Marengo (boardgame).

I'll use a Simpsons line from this weekend's Abnercon when I was trying to explain Shogun to Baroo.

"Uh oh, I don't know what this guy is talking about. I wish I was at home with a big bag of potato chips..."

Right now that's how I am with BaM. Lots of stuff to figure out.

The Saga Continues

Mike's latest There Will Be Games is up. Great read this week.

Hump Day Music Break

A little diddy from Emma Pollock. Another somewhat crappy video, but hey...it's about the music, right?

Lost Cities Now Available on XBL

Well, I bought it and I played 3 games of this afternoon.

Basically...it's Lost Cities on the Xbox 360. How's that for detail? Of the boardgames that are currently on XBL: Catan, Carcassonne, and Lost Cities, this is my least favorite although I do like it -- LC is more of a "filler" game. A game meant for quick plays when you have 20 minutes to kill. It's nowhere Catan level -- which is one of the seminal boardgames. This is much more casual.

The rules are right out of the card game. My beef with it is that the AI is pretty loopy and I beat the "hard" level 2 of 3 games and the reason I lost the other was pure luck of the draw.

I see that the AI likes to play expedition cards and then throw a 7 (or higher) on them to start, which is pretty ridiculous if you know how to play Lost Cities. My first game on "Medium" had the AI end up with a score of -87. That's bad.

What will make or break the game (which runs 800 points) is the multiplayer and Todd and I as well as Baroo will put it through its paces soon enough.

Todd?

Anyway, I love seeing these "gateway" games make it to XBL, but I think it's time to open things up a bit. Enough of the tile laying Carcassonnes and the Knizia card games. So many BG's would translate beautifully to the 360 --.of course next on the docket is another family/gateway game, Ticket To Ride. I guess that makes sense due to its popularity. I'd never bring TTR to the table unless playing with complete boardgame novices, though.

Still, gimme some XBL Citadels or XBL BattleLore or even XBL Shogun! That would actually be super sweet. Of course you'd have to put a timer on it when people are making province decisions. One thing about Todd -- fastest Shogun player -- EVER.

The Post in Which Todd Lands a PS3

For the last couple weeks I've been talking up to my wife how good Bill thinks MLB '08 is on the PS3. She doesn't care, but it gets the whole PS3 conversation rolling. So, of course, while at Bill's this weekend we made a point of playing the game and I made a point of saying, "Like, this is so awesome," over and over again. (I'm subtle that way.) I didn't expect much to come of it, but much to my surprise, with our anniversary being yesterday, Angie gave me the green light to procure a Playstation 3. Now, we really don't need a PS3 in our house, but I'm also not exceptionally stupid, so I jumped on it, also picking up a copy of MLB '08: The Show last night. My thanks to Bill for helping me drive that "need" home.

Now, I haven't really played any of MLB '08 yet, but I'll get some impressions up once I do. I will say that the PS3 is mostly a marvelously designed piece of hardware and it's an exceptional Blu-ray Disc player. The speed with which it boots and loads discs, relative to our Sony BDP-301, is remarkable (and a relief) and the thing is unbelievably quiet. Love it.

I did run into a couple of things I don't like, though. One, the Sony BD remote (sold separately) is Bluetooth only. Which means almost no universal remote on the market is going to control this thing, and certainly not my Harmony 688. There is a Nyko remote that includes an IR USB adapter that I may pick up for it, but still, it's disappointing that Sony either didn't realize or didn't care that this thing will be a lot of people's primary Blu-ray player and include an IR receiver (like the Xbox 360 has). The other problem is that you can't utilize the component and HDMI outputs at the same time. Since I'm set up to send an HDMI signal to my TV and a component signal to my video projector, this omission isn't insurmountable, but it is a pain. Regardless, the rest of the unit is so good, I'll live happily with that particular misfire.

Hopefully I'll be able to really dig into MLB '08 by the end of the week. I've got some all-day and into the evening work events this week, so we'll see. Based on the one game I played at Bill's this weekend, however, I have to agree with Bill that this is the best baseball game I've seen in years.

Abnercon '08 Postmortem

The thing about playing boardgames is you sort of expect the people you're playing with to, you know, give you a game. Baroo was all over the place at Abnercon 08, winning a couple games of Settlers of Catan and Mare Nostrum. Mary crushed the field in Shogun. I absolutely owned Rails of Europe. Hell, even my wife, Angie, got in on the action with Citadel. Now, I don't know what Bill's particular deal was, but you don't expect your host extraordinaire to just mail it in like that. It was very disappointing. I can forgive him because he and Mary fed us incredibly well, but I hope that when (if?) we do Brakkecon '08 later this year that Bill is able to give us all his real "A" game because that performance was just shameful.

In all seriousness, what a great time that was. Four days of shooting the shit and playing great boardgames is an experience that just can't be matched on Xbox Live. I've gotta say that the I love -LOVE- the Rails of Europe expansion to Railroad Tycoon. The European map on which you play this expansion is so much more well thought out and challenging than the American map that it's not even funny. I just wish we'd had time to give it another go.

Mare Nostrum, too, was a fun experience. You never know when just playing a game once if the mechanics will break down upon repeat plays, but I liked the combination of resource gathering, combat and the inclusion of the mythological in this game, which centers around the major ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea.

This Just Never Gets Old

Willie the Pimp!

Surviving Abnercon '08

Well, we finally have our house to ourselves again! Four days of Todd is enough to destroy the will of most mortal men, but we have trudged through and made it out alive.

Actually, the weekend was a a great time as Mary and I enjoy hanging out with Todd and Angie a great deal and then when you add my old college buddy Billy Baroo you have a recipe for a LOT of laughs. I learned a lot this weekend, though:

I learned that despite all my yapping, I am apparently horrible at boardgames. From Thursday through Sunday afternoon we played Catan (twice), Citadels, Shogun, Mare Nostrum, Qwirkle, The Europe Expansion for Railroad Tycoon, PitchCar, and Ivanhoe. I won exactly zero of these games. Now, I still had a ball, and we started to openly laugh at my misfortune, but come on...ONE game? Can I win ONE game?! Come on!!

Anyway, it was a great time and hopefully we can do it again soon.

What's This? A Winning Streak?

Given their 2-10 start, I've been refraining from saying a thing about the Tigers. It's the kind of thing that, when talked about, only makes it all seem worse. Fortunately, the kitties seem to be warming up alongside the weather. Last night they pounded Cleveland 13-2 (with a rook on the mound, no less) to get to 5-10 overall. If you had told me before the season this was the kind of start they'd have, I'd of told you that you were... well, beyond stupid, really. Shows how much I know. Regardless, that lineup was too good for them to not start scoring some runs and if the bullpen can settled down -which it's showing signs of doing- I think the Tigers will be above .500 by the end of May. (I just won't hold my breath over it.)

Anyway, in a few hours we'll be packing up the car and the kids (yes, the kids are getting packed away) for our trip to EuroDisn- er, Bill's. It's always a recipe for fun and frivolity when I get to shamelessly demolish Bill in a variety of boardgames that I'm seeing for the first time that he's played to death.

Have a good weekend, everybody!