OOTP Staff

Connecting with OOTP and FHM fans on Twitch

February 27, 2018 by OOTP Staff

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Like any good network, the OOTP Developments Twitch channel has steadily expanded its programming options during the past few years. It currently offers this lineup of streaming hosts:

Jeff Riddolls (Franchise Hockey Manager Producer): Jeff is currently running the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League, a Canadian major junior hockey league comprised of 16-to-20-year-olds, during the 2017-18 season.
Adam (FHM Community Manager): Adam took the reins Florida Panthers® of the National Hockey League® in a modern day sim and is currently in the year 2020.
Kris Jardine (OOTP Associate Community Manager): Kris is in an historical play-through, guiding the Montreal Expos in 1982, after their “Blue Monday” loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981.
T.J. Lauerman (OOTP Community Manager): T.J. is trying to see if he can put the 1990s era Cleveland Indians over the top and bring a World Series title to the city.

An interview with OOTP creator Markus Heinsohn

January 25, 2018 by OOTP Staff

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Creating a deep baseball management game and releasing a new version of it annually for 19 years is a pretty impressive achievement. Doing so while living in Hamburg, Germany is even more impressive, considering the fact that Major League Baseball scouts aren’t typically scouring that country for talent.

Compared to fans raised in the United States, Out of the Park Baseball creator and head developer Markus Heinsohn became a baseball fan a bit late in life. He recalls: “I started playing baseball when I was 15 years old. It was just a random coincidence because a friend of mine brought a baseball bat and a couple of gloves back from a family trip to Florida. That’s how it all started. A couple of years later we started playing in organized baseball leagues and I really fell in love with the sport and its history.”

An interview with FHM creator Sebastian Palkowski

January 25, 2018 by OOTP Staff

The Out of the Park Developments games roster expanded in 2011 with the release of iOOTP Baseball, now known as MLB Manager for iOS and Android. Developer Sebastian Palkowski was responsible for that game, and he used that experience as the foundation for a more ambitious project, Franchise Hockey Manager, which simulates not just the NHL® but also more than 20 other leagues around the world.

FHM 4 was released this past fall, and Palkowski took some time out of his busy post-release schedule, which has seen him release multiple updates to the game, and talk to us about his background and his thoughts on the game franchise.

Online league SDMB keeps going strong after 15 years

December 13, 2017 by OOTP Staff

Out of the Park Baseball is closing out its 18th year in 2017. OOTP has plenty of long-time players, as well as several long-running online leagues, but few have been around as long as SDMB. The online league was founded by Michael Weintraub and Zev Steinhardt 15 years ago and has embarked on its 30th season.

Rebuilding the Panthers® on Twitch with FHM 4

November 17, 2017 by OOTP Staff

The Florida Panthers® caused quite a stir during the 1996 Stanley Cup® Playoffs, when they took a third place Atlantic Division finish all the way to the Stanley Cup Final®, where they lost to the Colorado Avalanche® in a sweep. It was their third season in the league, but it proved the idea that there’s such a thing as peaking early, because they’ve only made the Stanley Cup® Playoffs four times since then, losing in the first round each time.

Of course, that makes them a great project for a Franchise Hockey Manager 4 sim, especially one that’s streamed on our Twitch channel. That endeavor proved another idea — great minds think alike — because our FHM 4 Twitch streamers, Adam and Jeff, had narrowed down the options for their next streaming project to the Panthers®, and the team won a Twitter poll too, which sealed the deal.

So how have they done so far?

Meet Kris Jardine, OOTP Associate Community Manager

November 17, 2017 by OOTP Staff

As Out of the Park Baseball continues to grow and reach new fans, we’ve needed to expand our team so we can handle the various ways we interact with you. As part of that expansion, we recently added Kris Jardine, Associate Community Manager for OOTP, to our roster. Here’s what he has to say.

FHM 4 forecasts exciting events for the 2017-18 NHL season

October 25, 2017 by OOTP Staff

As the latest National Hockey League® season gets underway, we thought we’d see what might be in store by simulating the 2017-18 campaign, including the playoffs. Our friends at the NHL Network joined in the fun by mentioning our work on their flagship NHL Tonight show — you can see the entire clip on YouTube.

So what does the season have in store? Read on to find out.

Tales from the OOTP Multiverse: A different path for the 2017 MLB playoffs

October 24, 2017 by OOTP Staff

Major League Baseball’s playoff history is full of thrilling comebacks and crushing defeats. Unheralded players have risen to the occasion and become heroes and great players have stumbled and revealed that they, too, are mere mortals.

Out of the Park Baseball 18 lets you tell your own October stories, and this year we decided to set up a 2017 MLB game as the American and National Leagues stood at the end of the season. Then we let ‘er rip and saw what the playoffs might have had in store for us.

We even got MLB Network to kindly feature our forecast, as shown in this YouTube clip. Read on to find out what happened, and note that our sim deviated from what’s really happening, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

OOTP 18 forecasts the careers of Sonny Gray, Mike Trout, and Justin Verlander

September 9, 2017 by OOTP Staff

When OOTP Developments CMO Rich Grisham recently had the unique opportunity to stop by the MLB Network studios, he came armed with the results of simulations involving Sonny Gray (New York Yankees), Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels), and Justin Verlander (Detroit Tigers). (You can watch the full appearance on our YouTube channel.)

OOTP Developments CMO Rich Grisham (R) in the MLB Networks studio.

Of course, five minutes of TV time was only enough to give high-level details of those sims, so we thought we’d do a deeper dive into each one for you.

Continuing to walk a fine line with the San Diego Padres

September 9, 2017 by OOTP Staff

When we last spoke to T.J. Lauerman, OOTP’s Baseball Community Manager, he had taken over the rebuilding San Diego Padres after polling the OOTP Twitter account’s followers regarding which team he should helm. The team finished 58-104 in 2017 but improved to 80-82 in 2018 and seemed poised for a possible breakout season in 2019.

We followed up with him to see how the team has done since then. You can keep up with the latest goings-on during Lauerman’s weekly live broadcasts on OOTP Developments’ Twitch channel.

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