Enhancements in the version 8D patch

To begin a game in this mode, choose to "Stop after" something other than "Each play". For example, choose "3rd inning" to have the computer manager play the first three innings this way. Then set the Display option to "Show all pitches" or "Show all plays", depending on whether you want to be in pitch-by-pitch or batter-by-batter mode. After the starting lineups have been chosen, the game window will display. Click on the Go button to start the game, then sit back and watch the play-by-play. Press the Esc key to exit this mode at any time.

During a game, you can get into this mode using the Change options command. Choose a "Stop after" setting that's later in the game than you are now, and choose the Display option you wish to use.

NOTE: Before the game starts, setting the Display option to "Show nothing" will cause the computer manager to quick-play to the inning selected in the "Stop after" setting.

- you can now move quickly through the list of players in the Organizer window by typing the first letter of the last name of the player you are seeking

- the Team Status report (one of the options in the Team Roster report category) now displays playing time percentages on a combined basis for players who have appeared for more than one team in a league or an organization. This makes it much easier for commissioners and league managers to track player usage and enforce playing time limits.

- we have improved the adjustments that are made when players are used at positions where they are not rated. The same philosophy is in effect -- the penalties are smaller for players who are moving to positions that are similar to and/or easier than the ones for which they are rated, and more severe for moves to dissimilar and more difficult positions. With these recent adjustments, you'll find it a little easier to make natural moves (such as CF to LF or 2B to 3B) and you'll find that unnatural moves (C to SS, 1B to CF, RF to SS) are punished more heavily in both range and error rates.

- during pregame lineup selection, if you choose to load a saved lineup from the manager profile, you can now double-click on the lineup you want and have it loaded immediately

- while editing portions of a manager profile, you can now double-click on a player in the lists at the right side of the window to display his player profile

- a few real-life teams have occasionally used a strategy of bringing in a relief pitcher and moving the current pitcher to right field, thus preserving the option to bring the just-replaced pitcher back to the mound later in the inning. The game has always permitted this type of move, but there was no record of it on the play-by-play scoresheet, so we have now updated the scoresheet to list each trip to the mound for a pitcher who shuttles back and forth in a game.

- with the bullpen warmup rule in effect, you can now double-click on a pitcher who is warming up in the bullpen in order to see the player profile window for that pitcher

Bugs fixed in the version 8D patch

The following list describes most of the corrections that have been made in this patch. In addition to these items, we have also cleaned up a few other things that have been reported by only a few customers, such as handling some error conditions more gracefully, correcting minor problems with some reports, and fixing a few glitches in the play-by-play commentary.

- in the drafting window, the game is supposed to generate a new manager profile for a team any time the computer drafts a player for that team. But the game was also generating a new manager profile even when a human GM made a draft pick, and version 8D no longer generates a new profile after human picks.

- when the computer manager selected starting lineups for teams with a dual-role player who was listed in the starting rotation and the starting lineup, it was possible to end up with this player in the lineup twice; now he is selected for another position only if he is not already listed as the starting pitcher.

- under some circumstances, the computer manager would overlook the opportunity to jump to the #1 starter for a pitching profile that was in Skip mode

- during an exhibition games involving two teams that were selected from databases other than the active database, double-clicking on a player to display his player profile could cause the game to crash

- when the computer manager was handling the defense against a human manager, it was possible to figure out whether the batter was about to be intentionally walked by looking at the tactics displayed in the lower-left corner of the stadium box. Now the tactics box looks the same regardless of the tactics chosen by the computer manager.

- the version 8C patch introduced a bug that resulted in more than one boxscore being stored in the same boxscore file. It happened only when a manager played ahead in their league schedule, just for fun, thinking that any evidence of those games would be wiped away after installation of a new league database that had been distributed by their league commissioner. To solve this problem, we added some logic that checks to see whether a boxscore file already exists for a game that is about to start, and deletes the old boxscore file if it exists.

- on some reports, and in some uses of the player profile window, the combined stats for traded players were not being displayed correctly

- when requesting reports of transactions or injuries for a date interval, the game was including all transactions from the beginning of the season