The update detailed in the previous post is now in place.

As a reminder, any world that was in the regular season at the time of the update (3/10/2008 AM) will not be impacted by the ML Years portion of the update. That is, any minor league days under 20 days will not count towards ML service days for the current season.

Minor league days will be counted going forward for all worlds so if a player who has less than 3 options racks up 20 or more days in the minors for the season, an option will be used. So, if a team is at game 100 of the minor league season, the player's next game will be tracked as minor league day #1 moving forward so it's not retroactive for the season.

Today's Update:

• Improved the logic for the "Other" PH hiearchy recommendations to better incorporate fielding skill. That is, your best def rep has a less likely change to be your top PH option in this category so he can be used later for def purposes.
• The minimum Prospect Payroll budget on the Set Budget page has been changed from $5M to $6M to be consistent with the minimum throughout the rest of the game.
• The logic for tiebreakers in determining the Amateur Draft order has been changed, so that the tiebreaker winner (as described in the Playoff Brackets help page) now receives the lower draft pick order since they were deemed the "better" team the previous season.
• Corrected a bug where adding a player to the playoff roster cound result in two players at the same position or batting slot in the lineup.
• Made the player name references links in the coach advice correspondence.
• Fixed a loophole involving player contracts. There were a few instances where owners signed players to big league contracts without a salary for any season, only a bonus meeting or exceeding demands.
• Improved the engine logic involving double switches and player rest following a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner.
• Improved the logic for deciding to PH for a Tandem B starting pitcher in relief.
• Improved the logic so that def reps or player rest can occur following a double switch involving a PH/PR. Previously, if a double switch occurred involving a PH/PR, then def rep / rest would not occur.
• Added a link to the Trade Needs page to initiate a trade.

Today's Update:

• The Player Statistics and Team Statistics page are now opened up so you can view previous seasons.
• The Franchise Profile Statistics page also lets you view previous season's statistics
• The Commissioner's Note on the main World Office page will now contain the status of a world's batch run. It is updated when the cycle starts and when it ends
• Made a couple minor modifications to player aging. Training budget now plays a slightly larger role in preventing age related rating drops for the raw rating categories (speed, range, arm strength, power, velocity).
• Improved the Free Agent report so that the search criteria majors/minors now pertains to the actual type of contract being demanded during the current season (as opposed to previous level).
• The player profile now contains big league service time. If you hover over the ML Years value, you'll see the days listed.
• Adjusted the stolen base attempt ratios. They have been brought down to a more realistic level. The perfect baserunner will now attempt 130 steals over a season instead of the astronomical values being seen in some worlds today.
• Players that retire and become coaches will now be eligible in the rehiring stage.
• Improved the logic to determine a coach's outlook. Coaches that want to move up a level or move to a more significant role will now provide the former club with the first crack at rehiring them before testing the market.
• Corrected a bug involving trade formation where the query string could be hacked and players from different franchises were included in trade offers. These trades could never go through, but now they can't be built either.

We hope everyone enjoys the update. There's some great stuff in there. Thanks to those users who made some of the suggestions.

Minor Update this morning:

• When evaluating waiver claims after the transaction deadline and when a player is set to be automatically pulled back, franchises no longer need to meet the financial requirements to take on the player since he won't actually be added to the team. This is signficant because the franchise awarded the claim can work out a trade for this player.
• Corrected the bug that resulted in the Home Run Derby not being played every now and again
• Closed a bug related to initiating a trade from the Trade Needs page
• Corrected a display bug for a franchise's waiver wire rank if two teams tied for the top spot after the first month of the season. It was showing 0 instead of 1.
• Changed some beind the scenes code when a world rolls over to cut down on page load slowness (and time outs) during the time worlds roll over. This was seen during 10 minute windows around 9:45 AM EST and 9:45 PM EST each day.
• Slightly increased the # of AAA and MLB caliber players available in each season's amateur draft cl***.

Good luck in all your worlds!

Today's Update:

• Improved the distribution logic of errors for 1B.
• Corrected a bug involving non-bunt infield singles. Up until this time, speedy hitters were not seeing their proper share of infield singles -- they were always outfield singles instead.

We have also temporarily disabled the ability to create private worlds. There have been a handful of worlds waiting to roll over for an extended period, so we wanted to shift focus to filling these worlds up rather than creating new ones.

We will start coding the changes for the Advanced Roster Moves mode within the next 3-4 weeks.

Thanks

We have a favor to ask all our users that maintain a blog for Hardball Dynasty -- could you please include the 3 text links for HBD from our affiliates page within your blog?

It will help with our search engine traffic which should result in more new customers willing to try the game.

Thanks so much for your help!

It has been awhile since we have made improvements at a regular pace and I'm pleased to let you all know that we have several updates in the queue that are strictly focusing on improving the game. These updates will be rolled out every other week for the next 6 weeks. As always thanks to everyone in advance for their suggestions!

Today's Update:

• You can now set your own auto-rest recommendations for starting pitchers, relievers (excluding mopup pitchers), and position players via the management console! Simply head on over to the management console and set the values in the drop downs, click the save button, go to the player settings pages, click "Show Recs" and you will see your values applied. This should be a huge time saver for you guys.
• Position players and pitchers are now available in one display on the waiver wire page.
• Clear all functionality has been added to the defensive replacement hierarchy, player rest hierarchy, and the pinch hitting hierarchy.
• Trades that have been proposed to you are now visible in the world office.
• We have added an indicator to the franchise profile that will tell you when the MLB AI has been turned on for a franchise.
• The Arbitration Report page will now automatically insert commas in the "Team Offer" text field.
• Player name is now included in the confirmation window on the Options Report page so you can better identify which player you just clicked on.
• We closed a loophole that allowed you to view projected ratings when you shouldn't have been able to via the arbitration report page.

Stay tuned, we have a lot more coming in the next several weeks. We hope you all enjoy it!

It appears as though we have had an improvement that has snuck its way out the door. It was supposed to go out in the next release, but hey we'll put something else in its place.

So without further ado:

The Free Agent Targets are no longer constrained. You may now add at will and for the entire season.

Please note that the salaries are incorrect right now, that has been fixed and will be going out in a build shortly.

We updated the position and talent distribution we use for creating the amateur draft cl*** each season.

Based on the results from the past 3 drafts, we made a few adjustments. There has been a reduction in the number of prospects generated at 1B, 2B, 3B, LF and RF, a slight increase in C and CF and a more significant increase in the number of pitchers.

If your world has not had its draft crop created yet, then you will see the results of this change when the player pool is created.

Thanks

Today's Update:

• Errors when setting a lineup will now be maintained with an error message rather than having all the changes lost!
• Most trades that have been processed can now be removed directly from the Trade Proposals page without having to review the trade first.
• Players will now exercise their no trade clause immediately upon submission of the trade. The trade will no longer have to process before the no trade clause is exercised.
• If a trade will violate your payroll in any season, a pop up will now display letting you know how much money you need to free up for the trade to be completed.
• If the ML AI is turned on for a franchise, it will automatically turn on the AI for all of the minor league levels as well.
• A bug in the home run derby was corrected. The logic for LF/CF/RF hit distribution was off for the derby.
• Lastly, the chat for a blocked user will now show as a regular "-", no more red lines of text.

Much more is on the way, look for the next update sometime next week. We hope you guys enjoy!

Today's Update:

• Extended the period in which you can rank your amateur draft prospects from 4 days to 7 days! This change is in effect for worlds that have yet to have their schedule generated for the current season. For worlds that already have their schedules generated, the message appearing in the World Office page titled “Prepare for Amateur Draft” will incorrectly state that the draft is “1 week away” as opposed to “4 days away”.
• Added an option for "All Positions" on the Amateur Draft Player Pool page.
• The rules for transferring money from your prospect budget have changed slightly. The rule that enforces you to maintain $6M in your prospect budget will now be lifted once you have signed 15 players from the current season’s Amateur Draft.
• Next game fatigue for pitchers is now displayed on the Edit Rosters page.
• Added an option to view a team's depth chart without secondary positions on the trade build page.
• New user interface for the trade chat page.
• We have also updated ballpark effects for the 16 big league parks created in 1990 or later. We have updated the effects to include the last 3 seasons of MLB data. Yes, this means that Coors Field will lessen a bit as an offensive park and Petco will lessen a bit as a pitching park. When a season rolls over, franchises with one of these ballparks at the big league level will automatically be synched to the new ballpark information. Owners joining a world will see these new ballpark details immediately. It will not affect worlds in progress.

Sorry for the delay guys, I got married and subsequently went on my honeymoon for two weeks. Anyway, everything else is back on track and we should have something more for you all in the next couple of weeks. We hope you enjoy the updates!

Hello fans and friends of HBD!!!

We just wanted to let you all know that on Monday, November 17th, we have a very significant update planned for Hardball and we think that everybody will enjoy every piece of it in some way.

So, without further ado:

ADVANCED EDIT ROSTERS MODE IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You will be able to select one or more players and the desired roster move without having to view the intermediate page. This means much less clicking and much more flexibility. In order to be able to use this mode you must have played in three or more previous seasons (that's all worlds combined) of HBD. If you meet that criteria come Monday, just head on over to the Management Console and select the option at the bottom of the page. Don't worry, if you don't want to use this mode (why wouldn't you?) you can still use the basic mode which has not changed at all.

We also improved the manner in which the Designated for ***ignment roster move works. Now, when a player is DFAed, you have the option to place the players on waivers right away rather than it happening automatically. This gives owners more flexibility to work out trades. If the player is not moved within 7 actual days, he'll be waived by the AI. After 10 actual days, he'll be released.

Players without options can now refuse an ***ignment to the minors. We've always had the text in the game, but it can now happen. The decision by the player is based on his patience, temper, makeup, health and overall rating.

We also improved the playoff roster logic so the playoff roster can only change in between rounds if a player is injured.

In addition to one of the largest and most requested updates out there we have also been busy with the following:

• The Free Agent Report page now contains a second criteria filter which will allow you to be able to drill down on the data even more.
• The Free Agent Report page will now have fixed headers so that when you have to scroll through large amounts of data you won't lose what the numbers correspond to. This is very similar to how the "Freeze Panes" command works in Excel for all that are familiar with that program.
• On the Free-Agent report, Player’s with Type A/B status will now have that information displayed as a tool tip so that you don’t have to click on the negotiate link to view that.
• If you have a player on the DL and he is eligible to come off, the icon will now appear green. This will make identifying who is eligible to return much easier.
• The “Save to All” button on the Edit Lineups page will now save players set to rest properly. Previously it would save players set to rest to the bench causing them to play in games when they shouldn't have.
• We fixed a bug where you could view and vote on the Award Voting page if you changed worlds. It didn’t have any adverse affects but you shouldn’t have been able to view the page unless your world was ready to vote.
• The trade needs page now includes dynamic sorting.
• If you are in a private world the commissioner of the world will now display in the content box on the World Office page when your world rolls over.
• The difference column on the Development Report page now sorts correctly.
• “All Positions” option is now available on the Rule 5 draft player pool page.
• When there are no results for the Rule 5 draft (i.e. it hasn’t occurred yet) the no data message will now tell you exactly what date it will occur on.
• The schedule page now includes a team's record and profile link for the first game of all future series.
• Player’s will no longer be eligible to make the All Star team at multiple positions.
• The line under the WS Trophy has been removed.
• Free agent targets will no longer be cleared at the end of the free agent negotiation period.

We hope you all enjoy the new advanced edit rosters mode and everything else that has been included both past and present. We do plan on having a developer chat some time in the near future and we will keep you posted as to when that will be.

As always we appreciate your continued support and suggestions and have a safe and happy holiday season!!!

World M.L.H.B. was the first world to be contracted.

It's historical retention rate after 6 seasons was 57%. The most recent season saw only 10 of the 32 owners return. It was originally a private world and has been waiting to fill for over 1 month.

A few fixes this morning:

Offering a string training invite a contract has been corrected for standard GM roster mode. This had been inadvertently broken with the previous update.

***igning a Rule 5 Draft selection to the big league roster now displays the proper message when using standard GM roster mode. The move itself had been working correctly, but the on page message had been incorrect.

Corrected a typo in the engine that was allowing a runner to attempt to steal third in the 9th or later when trailing.

Hey guys, we just wanted to let you all know that we have an update planned for Hardball on Tuesday. There are a lot of great things in here and the first three stem directly from our previous dev chat.

In addition to the update we will be having another dev chat on Wed. starting at noon and running until 2p. That chat is now live and you may start submitting questions at your leisure.

Enjoy!

• You can no longer re-***ign a player that has been designated back to the big league club. He can be traded, released or ***igned to the minors if he clears waivers and accepts the demotion.
• Players will now opt for free-agency over signing a long-term contract at a much higher rate. It’s based on the player’s overall rating and patience rating. It also has a few other logic checks in place. In addition, a player forced to go to arb three times will have a much higher chance of opting for FA.
• Improved the logic so that players still suffering from an injury at the time of rollover will heal properly. Previously, it was only doing this for players who fully recovered during the rollover and accidentally ignored those that partially recovered.
• Corrected a bug that was allowing players on the DL to continue to heal and see rating improvements even after they were healthy.
• New “Quick Offer” UI on the Amateur Draft results page.
• Rotating interleague schedules.
• Game log totals now reflect the totals being viewed.
• Waiver claims now include a check to see if the player will violate future season’s payroll.
• Owner's can now edit their rosters immediately after the Rule 5 draft without having to wait until the next day.
• The green DL icon now only displays if the player is eligible to come off the DL and he is healthy.
• Stolen bases have been added to the award voting page.
• Average stat line added to team stats.

Next up we will be looking at some data changes. More specifically fine tuning the overall rating for pitchers, looking at SB attempts, and looking at free agent demands.