A long, winding OOTP road. Part 1.
by
, 09-04-2012 at 12:20 AM (8249 Views)
16 years ago, I began dabbling in sim leagues. At that time, the craze on the internet was more so basketball. NBA Live 97, 98, and 99 were spectacles, particularly on the PC. Then more complex games or simulators started coming out, many are what you could compare to OOTP nowadays. I even ran several, some went for 10 plus seasons, which was a big deal then. Everything changed when OOTP started gaining steam. Then 6.0 and 6.5 happened. Things would never be the same again.
I think I have been doing OOTP leagues since about 2003-2004 range. Hell, my reason for even first coming to BS or as it was known then, strike3forums.com, was to join sim leagues. S3SL was the first I joined on these forums. I progressed to eventually being in every league. And then when we decided to be a home for OrioleMagic's leagues, I became apart of them as well. When you really get into these things, they're addictive. They truly are. Once you have a good grasp and feel of how any OOTP game works, it's even better. You know you are addicted when menial things that are not real, have no bearing to your life in any way shape or form, can piss you off so much. Random talent losses to players entering their primes, career enders, fluky outcomes to games or playoff series…it burns you. Yet you keep coming back for me. When you comb through the report pages, staring at ratings, staring at statistics, staring at past statistics, you try pushing yourself to a point where you try to figure things out and beat the system. Like counting cards in poker. But then you realize, no matter how much you think you may know, you end up not truly knowing.
But when do you know that maybe too much is not a good thing? When there is constant frustration and frequent negative views of how a league is running, when that which is not real, really upsets you. There is a growing amount of poor sportsmanship. Yes, it has lost some plate/eye. The control has suffered. Why? If I knew this answer, things might be different. But I have no idea. I would like to know why there is such a growing lack of return communication. I would like to know why favoritism has to exist. And why would anyone even begin to cheat at something that only produces internet results and no gain financially. I ask these things over and over, and only see them getting worse and worse. It's frustrating. It's long been maddening. I understand some folks are more comfortable trading with others. That's going to be with anyone and everyone. But to spurn a better offer, better deal, or even the very simple idea of responding to an offer, just to do a deal with someone you know, can drive you up a wall. When folks resort to making duplicate accounts to be able to swindle a certain player from a team, it leaves you wondering. What the Hell are we doing? How can people be so stupid or so pathetic, when these leagues are created for our entertainment, amusement, for…… FUN! Fun doesn't really exist anymore. These days, I cannot imagine running a sim league. I cannot image the mess that Trendy Bastard had to walk into to bridge the gap between himself and OrioleMagic. I cannot imagine how Providence A's can put up with people constantly bitching to him about trades not passing, to the point that he one day had to create a rule to curb that. And I cannot imagine Molina00 running a league since the beginning of time. More power to them all. More power to Porter starting up a radical idea, a league that isn't 6.5, and having to deal with all of our confusions.
Guess that's why I would never run a league again. Cause I can barely stand things now as just a GM.