OOTP Developments announces Out of the Park Baseball 10
Preorder period starts today!

We are happy to announce that we are now starting to accept preorders for Out of the Park Baseball 10! From now on, until the game's release in Spring 2009, the price of the game is just $29.99, which is $10 off from the final release price of $39.99. For customers living inside the European Union we charge €29.99, and €39.99 starting release day.

So, by preordering you save $10! Another reason for preordering: We will make the game available to those who preordered 48 hours earlier than official release day!



OOTP 10 is the 10th iteration of our award-winning baseball management simulation game. It will be the best OOTP ever released, adding more features to an already unparalleled feature set and improving already existing ones. We have done a lot of work on the under-the-hood functionality, greatly improving the artificial intelligence, which results in the most realistic OOTP experience ever.

Here is a list of the planned new features and changes, with more being added almost daily:

The game will ship with the best major league roster set we have ever produced, with thousands of real players, down to the rookie leagues, rated individually and extremely accurately. We have a great team of dedicated people working at the rosters right now, and we will be proud of their work once it is done.

We have recoded the entire pitching rating system including adding individual pitch ratings, reworking the endurance/role system and the impact of velocity and groundball percentage in the game engine. This results in the best and most realistic game and player development engine on the planet! Will your veteran ace keep his blazing fastball for another year? Will the youngster develop that promising changeup and become a dominating starter? The new system will change the way you play OOTP!

A new in-game screen will feature 'widgets' which can be activated and freely moved around on the screen. That way, users can adjust the info they see to their preferences and screen resolution.

The AI responsible for handling strategy in a simulated game has been enhanced, it now acts more realistic and is more challenging.

We are very proud of our play by play, and this year it is even better than before, adding new plays and more variety.

Now the user can set team budgets before an inaugural draft takes place, either all balanced, individually, or based on city population. Player have contract demands which combined must not exceed your draft budget, and the manager has to keep an eye on the budget when making his picks. The old mode without budgets is still available as well, of course. Can you draft the perfect team?

The arbitration period now work as in real life. Players state their demand, and teams set their maximum offer or do not offer arbitration at all, in which case the player becomes a free agent. If the team submits an offer, an arbitrator will rule in favor of either the team or the player. On top of that, players eligible for free agency need to be offered arbitration as well if the team wants to receive compensation once the player signs with a different team.
Compensation now follow real major league rules, and a supplemental first draft round has been added to the first-year player draft.

The key to a realistic AI is a proper player evaluation system. We have reworked parts of this system, which results in better AI in every aspect of the game, especially trade and roster AI.

The injury system is a very important aspect of a realistic simulation engine. This year we have improved the model used in OOTP in order to recreate more realistic injury frequencies and durations.

Each minor league team now has its own disabled list, resulting in better minor league team management.

In leagues without minor leagues we have added the option to put a limit on the size of the reserve roster.

We have added more news stories (for example Manager of the Year Award) and improved existing ones.

In online leagues we have added the ability for the commish to send e-mails to all league members. Also, once a simulation is done and a new league file was made available, the game automatically sends an e-mail to the users which contains the most interesting results for the team during the simulation, for example scores, player stats and more.

The system for calculating the fielding ratings have been reworked, a recalculation period for the pitcher endurance was added, new total modifiers were added and the accuracy of the initial season was improved so that single-season replays are now more realistic. Also, imported pitchers now throw the pitches they did in real life, we have enhanced the historical database with real pitch data.

Team leaderboards are now part of the history feature in OOTP. For example, check which teams have scored the most runs in a full season, or which gave up the most walks.

This is an incomplete list, many small enhancements are not listed, and we add more features and enhancements almost daily.

So, what are you waiting for? Get your license for OOTP 10 now!
You will save $10 and you will get the game 2 days earlier!

Right now, preordering is available for the PC via our eLicense webstore, and for Mac & Linux via our new in-house digital distribution system. Mac and Linux licenses are the same now so you can move the license from a Mac to a Linux computer or vice versa! Click on the button matching your operating system:
Windows	Mac	Linux
98/ME/2000/XP/Vista 1024x768 display 1GHz processor 256 MB RAM	PowerMac/PowerBook: PowerPC G4 1GHz min. Mac OS 10.3.9 256MB RAM Mac Pro/MacBook: Intel Core Duo 1.8Ghz min. Mac OS 10.4.4 256MB RAM	Any 32-bit Linux 1024x768 display 1GHz processor 256 MB RAM

Thanks very much for reading our newsletter!

The OOTP Developments Team