MLB 09: The Show - March 3, 2009 - Demo Out Now!

Two questions - last year they gave out a voucher for a free cap with purchase. Anyone know if they're doing that this year? And anyone know of any cool pre-order bonuses? I see Gamestop has free eMusic downloads, not really interested.
 
[quote name='slickkill77']Amazon added release date delivery for the game.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I have Amazon Prime and will probably go that way. Can't wait for this game!
 
haven't stopped playing the demo since i downloaded it last week. i don't think i've ever been so addicted to a demo ever lol.

a tip for some of you folks having trouble with the batting, do what i did: take the difficulty level down to rookie, and find your rhythm and swing when you're down there (remember the batter's swing is a bit faster now too). when you're comfortable with your timing, go ahead and go back up to veteran. worked wonders for me!
 
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/02/17/mlb-09-the-show-%e2%80%93-new-roster-vault-feature/

Details on the new Roster Vault feature:
Hey folks, Jason Villa (Producer) here to let you know about a new feature to look out for in MLB 09 The Show. I’ll be explaining the details of the new Roster Vault feature for the PLAYSTATION 3 version of MLB 09.

Following in the footsteps of the My Slider feature, we’ve put more control in the user’s hands. Community shared content leverages the creativity of user’s like you. And if you’re one of the users that love to customize rosters and share with others, you know how difficult it’s been in the past to relay your settings to other users. The Roster Vault in MLB 09 The Show solves that problem. The Roster Vault allows you to make all your roster changes (some new to this year), save them off, and upload them for others to download and use.
Here’s how to upload a Roster to the Roster Vault:
1. Take any roster (on disc or a weekly Live Roster update)
2. Make any changes you’d like to the roster and players within. This could be player names, attributes, jersey numbers, accessories, handedness, etc…
3. Save the Roster to your hard drive
4. Connect online with MLB 09, via SportsConnect, select the Roster Vault feature from the Community section.
5. Select Upload from the Roster Vault options
6. Select one of the Rosters from your hard drive to upload
7. Name it, describe it and Upload
​


At this point, anybody in the community can browse the Roster Vault to find the highest rated or most downloaded Roster online.
Here’s how to find a Roster in the Roster Vault:
1. Simply connect online, via SportsConnect
2. Select Roster Vault from the Community section and choose to Browse/Download
3. Once in the Roster Vault you can sort by highest rated, most downloaded or date uploaded.
4. Select the Roster you’d like and choose to download
5. Save it to your Hard Drive and name it
6. Select the Roster section in the Features are of the Main Menu
7. Select the Roster from your hard drive and apply it
8. Select to start any offline Game Mode (Exhibition, Season, Franchise, Road to the Show, etc) and play with our new Roster
9. Connect back online and Vote for it’s rating
​


As well as being able to browse all uploaded rosters on the server, there is also a My Rosters section. That is a custom list of all Rosters you’ve uploaded and downloaded. It allows you to easily see how you’ve interacted and contributed to the community. You can browse and remove rosters from that list at any time.

Although we believe we package the best MLB game out there right out the box, users always want to customize and make changes. The goal is to provide you, our community members, the tools to customize the game to your liking.

We appreciate your feedback, as we try to make the best game possible. Thanks for your time. We hope you enjoy MLB 09 The Show and the new features!
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='DestroVega']yeah but I don't get it, they update the rosters every week... what could I do better?[/quote]
You don't have to beat the official rosters. You could create retro rosters, fantasy rosters, or whatever type of rosters you could come up with.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']You don't have to beat the official rosters. You could create retro rosters, fantasy rosters, or whatever type of rosters you could come up with.[/QUOTE]

Like I said way back on the first page of this thread, I'd like the opportunity to take the 2000 Mets and try to set things right. I guess this is how I'd go about doing that. I sort of suck at creating players though. Hopefully someone out there gets to work on creating a whole slew of retro teams.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']You don't have to beat the official rosters. You could create retro rosters, fantasy rosters, or whatever type of rosters you could come up with.[/quote]

ok... i see now. thanks. it would be cool to make my fantasy baseball team
 
The best part of the custom rosters are Knight's Full Minors rosters from Operation Sports. It is nice to have every player on the game be a real player all the way down the minor league depth chart.
 
[quote name='WatchdogXC']The best part of the custom rosters are Knight's Full Minors rosters from Operation Sports. It is nice to have every player on the game be a real player all the way down the minor league depth chart.[/QUOTE]

Oh I forgot about that. Thats going to be awesome.
 
[quote name='WatchdogXC']The best part of the custom rosters are Knight's Full Minors rosters from Operation Sports. It is nice to have every player on the game be a real player all the way down the minor league depth chart.[/quote]

So this person takes the updated rosters each week, then adds the real minor rosters and posts the whole update? how exactly does that work.... is it as easy as downloading them once a week after Sony updates... or is it one update at the beginning that you just have for a franchise?


I'm not familiar with any kind of roster posting outside of the great job Sony does week to week.
 
[quote name='WatchdogXC']The best part of the custom rosters are Knight's Full Minors rosters from Operation Sports. It is nice to have every player on the game be a real player all the way down the minor league depth chart.[/quote]

Sick! I was going to add just the Top 100 prospects but that's awesome.
 
[quote name='DestroVega']So this person takes the updated rosters each week, then adds the real minor rosters and posts the whole update? how exactly does that work.... is it as easy as downloading them once a week after Sony updates... or is it one update at the beginning that you just have for a franchise?


I'm not familiar with any kind of roster posting outside of the great job Sony does week to week.[/quote]

For NBA 2k9, 2k Sports updates the rosters every week or so and people then take the new rosters and re-edit them.

I assume that's the same way that this person has to do it, unless he has a way to merge minor rosters with the continuously updated "authentic" rosters.
 
[quote name='n8rockerasu']But do you think you'd have a fair shot of winning with the Pirates? I mean, to me...that's the issue. A lot of guys found out last year that even if you're good at this game, if you have a weak rotation, and a bunch of singles hitters, you will not do well. It just seems like that would be frustrating as hell. And if you're getting your ass handed to you every time you play, you're not going to have fun. And if you're not having fun, you're going to lose interest. That's all I can tell you. I've seen it happen.

I'm a Yankee fan, but I used the Diamondbacks last year because they had good pitching and I liked a lot of their young guys. I started out pretty hot, winning my first 8 games, but as the season wore on, the Dbacks hitting in real life cooled off, a few guys got hurt, and with every roster update, I got worse and worse. Toward the end, I was playing with guys I didn't care about, on a team I didn't care about. It wasn't very fun.

Pretty much the same thing happened to Wpark with the Reds. He had a lineup full of AAA players the last month of the season. He can tell you how much it sucked. Even if you're using a team you don't care for, I think you're going to have a better time if you at least got to pick your roster...if that makes sense.

If this game had some kind of intuition feature that allowed a Cinderella team to play better than their rating, it would be a different story. But handing one guy the Yankees and one guy the Royals in a video game is just F'ed up, haha. It's only fair to start everybody out on an even playing ground. I hope that explains it better.[/quote]

Exactly. While the Reds aren't my favorite by any means, I thought there team was decent, and I started 7-0. But like N8 said, I had their AAA roster the last month and it sucked. Fantasy draft I think is the way to go, and everyone should get a team drawn from a hat, and that is your team.
 
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/02/19/mlb-09-the-show-%e2%80%93-lighting-explained/

A look at how they do lighting for MLB 09:
Hello all, my name is Patrick Hager, I’m the lead graphics programmer and I’m here to fill in some more info on lighting in MLB 09 The Show.

Lighting was a major focus for us this year, and we implemented a Global Lighting model. What does that mean? It means that objects are lit by their surroundings. It means that when players are in shadow, they can still get light from the sunlight hitting the dirt just beyond the shadow’s edge, or a bright wall behind them. It means that in stadiums, red floors cast red light on neighboring objects. It is another step towards that realism we all want in our baseball game.

How do we do all this? Well, I can’t give away our secrets, but I can give you an overview of our lighting model. There are several steps we take to make each image, and we make 60 of these images every second.



Starting with the stadium:

  • We begin by tracing direct sunlight into the scene, with detailed shadows.
  • We render a sky (without a sun), then use this sky to add the indirect sky light to the scene.
  • We then trace the sunlight’s path as it bounces off the ground and stadium. When sunlight hits a surface, it takes on that surface color, bounces off, and lights objects around it. We add that indirect light into the scene.
  • We do the same with the crowd (up to 50,000 people lit in place!)
  • All of these steps are done in HDR (high dynamic range), and tone mapped into our final frame.
The players are handled in a similar way. They are lit by the sun, the sky, the stadium, and the ground around them. They also sample the environment to get reflections and gloss energy. The goal is to always make the player feel like he belongs to the world around him.



Pictures are worth a thousand words, so I’ll just let them speak for themselves. Scroll through the filmstrip images to see all the step-by-step (click on them to download full resolution). I hope you are as excited about this year’s lighting as we are, and have a blast with MLB 09 The Show!

Click to expand...
 
[quote name='ohboy10451']preordered on toysrus.com. Free shipping + a $10 off coupon.[/quote]

Ehh...toysrus.com has been known to be sketchy in the past. Good luck getting it by the all-star break, haha ;)
 
[quote name='DestroVega']So this person takes the updated rosters each week, then adds the real minor rosters and posts the whole update? how exactly does that work.... is it as easy as downloading them once a week after Sony updates... or is it one update at the beginning that you just have for a franchise?


I'm not familiar with any kind of roster posting outside of the great job Sony does week to week.[/quote]

No, I think for last year, he took the update where the season began and all the major league rosters were finalized and worked his roster set from there. He does not use the other official rosters that are updated every week from that point on.

I've used Knight's and Jim's rosters last year from the beta to the finished project and it's amazing what they did. I imagine this year, the roster might come out a little faster than last year because he now knows what to do and he has a list (from last year's game) of updated stances/deliveries for players.
 
FYI the first 4 trailers for the game are up on the PSN Store. 1 each showing the new NY area stadiums, 1 general trailer, and 1 trailer for Road to the Show.
 
[quote name='TheRock88']No, I think for last year, he took the update where the season began and all the major league rosters were finalized and worked his roster set from there. He does not use the other official rosters that are updated every week from that point on.

I've used Knight's and Jim's rosters last year from the beta to the finished project and it's amazing what they did. I imagine this year, the roster might come out a little faster than last year because he now knows what to do and he has a list (from last year's game) of updated stances/deliveries for players.[/quote]

I would definitely use that roster for my franchise mode.
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']FYI the first 4 trailers for the game are up on the PSN Store. 1 each showing the new NY area stadiums, 1 general trailer, and 1 trailer for Road to the Show.[/quote]

Love the new Mets stadium (biased Mets fan). The new Yankees stadium is too similar to the old to get really excited about it.
 
[quote name='dragonjud']Love the new Mets stadium (biased Mets fan). The new Yankees stadium is too similar to the old to get really excited about it.[/quote]

Yeah, it's basically a clean replica of the old Yankee Stadium... but now you won't have to wait 90 minutes for food and it will actually be good quality.
 
It's too bad the MLB wouldn't give them the dimensions and everything for the new Yankee and Shiti Field stadiums, so the developers had to develop them around those 3D concepts.
 
[quote name='BostonCollegeFan']It's too bad the MLB wouldn't give them the dimensions and everything for the new Yankee and Shiti Field stadiums, so the developers had to develop them around those 3D concepts.[/QUOTE]

At least Fengay Park will be rendered accurately. Seriously, what's your problem with Citi Field?

Anyway, can they adjust park factors in updates? Like, if the park winds up being lit differently than they anticipated. Or, when teams decide to move the fences out/in, have they changed that in game?
 
You calling it Fengay doesn't bother me, i'm a fan of the Rays :p.

And my problem isn't with the park, it's with Citi themselves. And they can't update it because the MLB won't allow them. Something to do with terrorists or something like that.

That's why the outfield is all blue walls.
 
Tropicrapa Field then? ;)

Yeah, that's pretty lame. I guess I'll have to wait for 2010 to have an accurate Sh . . . Citi Field.

Do they do retro stadiums?
 
I have been playing the demo in between rounds of Street Fighter IV and I have to say that this is the first time I was wowed by the graphics and player movements since MLB 06. 07 and 08 felt like they needed something extra added to them and 09 definitely has it. I have it pre-ordered, along with the PSP version, to arrive on day 1. Play ball!
 
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/02/23/mlb-09-the-show-online-season-leagues-and-improvements/

The details we've all been waiting for: the changes to the online leagues!

Hey there, Jason here again, this time to relay some information on new features and improvements to the Online/SportsConnect area of MLB 09 The Show. Along with improving the league system and layout, this year we focused on two major components of the Online League System…A) Draft System; B) Flex Schedules (with new Schedule screen). We truly believe that the additions of these two components are what the Online Leagues needed. The goal is to allow users to customize as much as possible and to ensure that these league games get played!

Online League Draft System:
While online leagues are fun, there’s nothing like hand picking the team of your team. And taking it one step further than Fantasy Sports, you can actually take your team on the field and play with them yourself.

The draft system rivals that of any fantasy sports system. It allows from 6-30 players to hold a FULL LIVE Draft, with the ability to set your draft day/time, pick timer/length, chat (and harass), view the Player Card/stats of available players, view the Player Card stats of other users in your league drafting. Another integral part of the draft system is the ability to set you draft queue. No matter how much planning you do, there’s always a chance you can’t physically be at your draft, or you may not be able to stay for the entire draft. That’s when the Draft Queue becomes essential. Simply queue up all the players you’d like to be on your team, place them in order of preference, turn off your PS3 system and walk away. The server will handle the rest. Not only will it put priority on the picks you have queued, but it will make certain you have a logical team…25 players, equally balanced between starters, relievers, infielders and outfielders.

Once the draft is over, set your lineup, have the commissioner activate the league and start playing your league games!



Online League Flex Schedule:
Finding opponents and playing games should be much easier this year. We’ve incorporated a Flex Schedule for all leagues (Draft or non-Draft leagues). No longer do you only get one series and opponent to play when you log into your league. Depending on the size and length of your league you can play ahead in the schedule. The Flex schedule is never smaller than 3 series/opponents, or never larger than 15 series/opponents (that’s right, 15!).

Not only are we offering the Flex Schedule, but we’re also offering a far easier Schedule Screen. The new online Season League Schedule screen has the same look and feel of the offline season schedule screen. We’ve added a Series countdown in schedule screen. This lets the league know when the current series expires and how much time they have before the Commissioner can resolve games. Get those games played!



We’ve also added a true League Lobby. Upon entering the League Office, you will automatically be given a seat in the League Lobby of that particular league. It’s called a persistent Lobby, and we’re very excited about it. Now you can hold a seat in a lobby, but navigate around the lobby. You’ll see a new Lobby Icon in the hot bar this year. It’s the text bubble with three dots. Once you see that blink, you know that chat is taking place in the lobby/game room you have a seat in.



There is also now the Draft Day and Time in My Leagues and League Office, which helps ensure league members won’t miss the draft.

Online Improvements:
Along with the major changes to The Show League system, we’ve made a number of general online improvements. Each year we listen to community feedback and do our best to address every issue. Since most of these are relatively self-explanatory, I figured the best thing to do would be to create a bullet point list:

  • SportsCast Live now with Live Play-by-play audio while viewing a game (fka View Game Status)
  • Set Lineups in Online Season Leagues (vs. RHP, LHP)
  • Ping indicator in Team Select screen, before entering an online game
  • New Legend skill level, requiring a user to reach 4500 points
  • 4 options for Guess Pitch settings (Default, Classic 1/4, Classic 1/6, No Feedback)
  • Addition of 30 sec for each extra inning
  • Square to forfeit opponent instead of X (not allowing accidental forfeit)
  • Ability to select a jersey in an online game
  • Ability to mound visit
  • Access to Quick menu (up on D-pad)
  • Online steals addressed
  • Quick pitch exploit addressed with a delay
  • Allow both players to view the replay when one player enters replay mode via pause menu
  • No pausing when ball is hit in play
  • Persistent Chat - ability to maintain a seat and interaction in a game room, even after leaving. This is perfect for League Chat rooms
  • Online Player Options in far more areas in the SportConnect Lobby. This is the pop-up that allows for a Challenge, Send IM, Invite to Buddy, SportCast Live, etc.
Click to expand...
 
One week guys...one week! By the looks of it, the Fantasy Draft seems to be implemented really well. I'd really like to try to schedule a live draft for us (that way everybody would have the MOST control over their team), but at least they allowed reasonable concessions for people who can't be there. I just think it would be fun to say "DestroVega is now on the clock" haha :)
 
Downloaded the demo on xbox live for 2k9. It was a sad day for baseball enthusiasts when MLB sold its license exclusively. That game is still a piece of trash.

If it wasn't for Sony coming up with this great game, there'd be nothing to play. 2K should look at everything they do right with the PowerPros series, and put some of that back into their official game. Dump the engine, and start again...enough ranting.
 
Yeah, the 2K9 demo is... hmm. It's not insulting like last year's version. The lack of polish is jarring, however. I just got into a pickle between 2nd and 3rd and players were teleporting all over the place. At one point, the runner and 3rd baseman warped towards the pitching mound, some sort of sliding sound effect played, then they both appeared back on the baseline. I made it back to 2nd safely despite being touched by the 3rd baseman but... whatever.
 
I like the atmosphere of the 2K9 demo. It seems more hyper and amped up. Other than that it's garbage. I don't know if it's just my PS3, but I was playing it over component on a SDTV (480i) and there was NO ABSOLUTELY NONE anti aliasing. Like, worse than the PS2. Dreamcast Aliasing.

The commentary reminded me of NHL 08 though, but I think that's cause its the same guy. But I wish the show had the atmosphere and high energy (as much as I love Vasgersian) as 2k9. Oh well.
 
[quote name='BostonCollegeFan']I like the atmosphere of the 2K9 demo. It seems more hyper and amped up. Other than that it's garbage. I don't know if it's just my PS3, but I was playing it over component on a SDTV (480i) and there was NO ABSOLUTELY NONE anti aliasing. Like, worse than the PS2. Dreamcast Aliasing.

The commentary reminded me of NHL 08 though, but I think that's cause its the same guy. But I wish the show had the atmosphere and high energy (as much as I love Vasgersian) as 2k9. Oh well.[/quote]

It's strange, but if you look at the promotional video on the x360 marketplace, it makes the game look awful (worse than the actual demo). I'm not sure why any company would allow such a horrible piece of video be used to promote their game.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']Got a nice package today:

[/quote]

:applause::applause:Hmm, where from? If you allowed to say that is...
I'll check around the neighborhood to see if I can get it as well.
 
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