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My main interest comes with upgrading the classic seasons with saved lineups and transactions. I believe these upgraded seasons, of which a very good start has been made with the first 10 or so available, is something that sets DMB apart from the other games. I would like to believe that we can expect a handful of them to be released every year, much in the same release patterns before the Simnasium buyout. I would like confirmation on this remaining a priority.


Well, I don't own the company any more, so I don't have final say on priorities. Dayne always asks for my opinion on things, though, and he's always listened to me. Most of the time, my recommendations are followed, which is gratifying. But I don't want to give the impression that I still have the power to unilaterally set policy for the company.

Having said that, I don't see any reason why we would need to back off on adding transactions and lineups. The people who do that work do so on a contract basis. They're not employees, so they're not subject to being pulled of those projects to work on other things. (They do have lives that compete for their time, of course.)

So my working assumption is that we will continue to add transactions and lineups to past seasons. As has been the case with so many things lately, I've been a bottleneck when it comes to kicking off the next round of seasons, but once we get 9b out the door, I should be able to kickstart this process again.

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As far as the pre-1926 seasons... many of us have a lot of experience creating these seasons. We've created some very good quality pre-1926 seasons, at least 8 of which already have saved lineups and extensive transactions. When DMB is ready to tackle those seasons, I hope that those of us involved in these seasons in the past will be communicated with and the knowledge we've built can be used in some way. I think it is a lose/lose situation if we're competing against each other. The knowledge base that we've built can be a win/win situation for this part of the DMB strategy. And I work for free.


To be honest, I'm not sure how much or how little we'd be able to work with you and your colleagues on those seasons, so I want to be careful not to make a commitment that I cannot honor.

I can tell you that we have been open to this sort of thing in the past. Certain individuals have undertaken projects (such as transactions) on their own and then offered them to us, and we've given them credits for free season disks and other DMB products in return.

At the same time, it's probably going to be important that DM/Simnasium have clear, unfettered, legal ownership of those seasons when they're done, so if any non-employees participate in this process, certain agreements will need to be reached.

And there are some practical concerns that we'd need to think through, such as making sure the resulting seasons reflect a consistent approach. Depending on the task, some things might be better done in-house, especially if it takes some effort to coordinate the work of several non-employees.

So I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no, partly because it's not my call in the end. I do know Dayne is very open to the idea of taking advantage of expertise and initiative wherever we can find it. I've seen several examples of that in the past 18 months. So, when the time comes, I'd be surprised if we don't at least explore the idea of taking advantage of work that's already been done.

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Frankly, I don't trust Dayne. Many of us don't. The Simnasium side of the shop is getting the top billing and the emphasis. There is a lot of effort at trying to get the DMB customers to try Simnasium. I'm not aware of the reverse happening. I'm not aware of an effort being made to get Simnasium customers to try DMB. It seems like DMB is being used to build Simnasium, but Simnasium isn't being used to build DMB. We've been told it's supposed to be a win/win situation, but so far it seems to be a win/lose situation.


Yes, there has been an effort to get DMB customers to try the Simnasium game, and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's a good game, and it's only going to get better over time.

Simnasium does offer incentives for users of Total Baseball to try the Diamond Mind Baseball game, too, though I don't know how prominently that offer is featured on the Simnasium web site.

Having said that, I understand your frustration. Although I know that I've been working almost exclusively on DMB projects for the past five months, the only evidence you've seen so far is the 2006 Season Disk, so it's easy to see why people would wonder what we've been up to.

By the way, I've heard people complain that the STB game has received several upgrades since the last DMB release. That's true, but keep in mind that this is mainly because they're playing catch-up. Just about everything that has been added to STB since it was launched last March is something that DMB customers have been enjoying for years. And the DMB game still contains a ton of features that won't be available on STB for some time.

I can't promise that you won't see some things on STB before they appear in DMB. In fact, it's possible that some of the stuff in 9b will make it into STB before 9b is released. If that happens, it's not because the company is treating DMB as a second-class citizen. It's because some things are easier to test in the STB environment and other things are easier to test in DMB. It wouldn't make sense for us to pass up a good opportunity to use STB as a proving ground for certain new features just because it might hurt the feelings of some DMB customers. And vice versa.

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We're a loyal and fanatical DMB customer base and we don't want to see the game we love wither away.


Let me say that I (and everyone here) very much appreciate your support, your loyalty, your fanatacism, and your business. We don't want to see the game wither away, either.