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1993 Total Classic Mod – Nearing Completion


HAWK233391

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First, let me introduce myself. I’m a new comer to the MVP Baseball series, but not a novice to online gaming and modding. Some of you may have seen my work as I founded/created (with the help of some others of course) the very popular Ultimate Base Roster Mod Pack for NBA2K12 and NBA2K14. This mod contains every NBA season from 1960-2014 with complete courts, jerseys, cyberfaces, portraits etc and can be found/downloaded at http://www.UltimateNBA2K.com for those interested. In fact, I collaborated a bit on some NBA mods with MVPMod’s very own, Stecropper a couple of years ago, and must say I’ve enjoyed downloading his work for MVP in recent days too!

I used to be super into baseball growing up in the early 90’s. The 1993 White Sox was my favorite team. I was a huge Frank Thomas fan. I can still recite the starting lineup and pitching rotation for that team (like I’m sure many of you can do for your favorite teams). When the strike hit in 1994 I kind of fell off the map with baseball and turned my attention to the NBA (which was easy to do since the Chicago Bulls were so great). Somewhere in the late 90’s, after the Bulls had their run and Sammy was slammin’ homers, I slowly got back into baseball (just in time for the 2003 Cubs meltdown). I remember owning Triple Play 2000 and High Heat 2003 and then being so disappointed when they discontinued making the games (I think they did anyway – during my college days I wasn’t into gaming as much).

These days, as evidenced by my mention of NBA2K, I’ve gotten back into modding and PC sports games. It’s always been a hobby of mine, I take enjoyment out of doing it and sharing what I’ve created. I’m really happy to say I recently stumbled across this site, purchased the game, and have spent most every minute of my off-time from work the last week coming close to completing what I believe to be a pretty accurate representation of the 1992-1993 Season.

Now, I know modding can, at times, be a delicate and touchy subject with work being “stolen” or credit not being given. So before I release any work I’ve done I want to get the blessing from the MVP Forum Community and administrators. What I’ve done, to create the 1993 Mod, is I used Hory’s 1994 Rosters as a base. He and everyone involved did a tremendous job on this mod. The major leagues, the minor leagues, it’s wonderful! From there, I used a very methodical process of utilizing baseball-reference.com’s 1993 team pages and searched each player that played a game for every team and moved them to their accurate team using the MVPedit program. I created players from scratch who were missing, I’ve imported some players I found in other rosters, I edited batting orders and pitching rotations to reflect 1993. Trust me when I say, if a player played for the major league team at any point during the season they will be found on the major league team or, depending on number of games played, will be found in one of their minor league affiliates. Because I’m taking such a procedural approach, and because of the awesome original work done by Hory and his team, the Minor League systems are also pretty accurate. I’ve been transferring minor leaguers to their correct affiliation throughout this process so the minors is not scavenged through and left in a disaster (in fact this probably takes the most time – moving the minor leaguers to accurate teams – there was a ton of movement between 93-94 in the minors). However, I have not taken the time to differentiate between players who should be in AAA or AA – my logic is, as long as they are with the right Major League club affiliation that’s close enough. It has taken me between 60 – 90 minutes per team (I’ve completed 17/28 teams).

In addition to the roster work I’ve also made some custom art updates to give it that “1993 feel”. Thanks to Kyleb’s help through PMs I was able to make these following art files (that look great!) for the game:

  • 1993 Splash Loading Screen
  • 1993 License Screen
  • 1993 Click to Start Screen
  • 3 different backgrounds for the main screen (Thomas, Griffey, Lofton)
  • Roster Management background
  • Game Mode background
  • MVP Baseball 1993 Logo (on all screens)

The other thing I did, to pay tribute to Hory and his team who was able to make this possible, was I dedicated the Credits screen to him. I changed the background and wrote out a few paragraphs crediting him and his team. I also left the scrolling credits screen intact which lists individuals who had worked on various parts of the 1994 Mod.

I went ahead and made a video preview of the mod to give people a better feel of what has been put together. In the video you will see the new splash/loading screen, backgrounds, credit screen, and batting orders/pitching rotations for the completed teams. Here’s an exact run-down of what you will watch:

  • 0:00-1:00 = Loading Screens / Backgrounds
  • 1:00-3:00 = Batting Orders
  • 3:00-4:00 = Pitching Rotations
  • 4:00-End = Credits Screen / Rolling Credits

http://youtu.be/EFpvFLduTP0

Things you may be wondering about after watching the video:

  • As mentioned I’ve done 17/28 teams – in the video I scroll (backwards) from the Cubs to the Rangers (these are the completed teams). I skipped the Dodgers through the Pirates because they still need to be done.
  • You’ll notice when I leave the Roster Management screen the game will give me a bunch of roster notifications (this is because I have yet to set the minor leagues and there are still 11 teams with players all over the place that still need my attention).

As I said, modding can be a touchy subject for some. I’ve always believed in the collaboration-style philosophy of crediting others where it’s due, and creating and releasing unique content for others to use. I did reach out to Hory through e-mail to see if he would give his blessing for this, but from what I’ve been able to gather, it seems pretty well documented that he doesn’t visit here much anymore. As I mentioned earlier (and as seen in the above video) I’ve gone through and credited him extensively in the game, and would also do so in any readme files or forum postings. There has also been an extensive amount of time put into this on my end with the rosters and new art files to differentiate it from the original 1994 Mod.

My main reason for making this post is to ask the MVP community, specifically the administrators or people who helped work on that 1994 Mod, how they would feel about a release of this well-intentioned 1993 Total Classic mod for others to play.

A second reason for me posting is that I wanted to ask to see if there might be a person or two out there who would like to help make additional loading screens (when you begin matches), music, or more importantly, prominent player portraits who changed teams between 1993 and 1994 (Ricky Henderson in a Blue Jays cap for example). If someone were to volunteer, I could give you a shortlist of portraits that would be nice to have.

For what it’s worth, I would also be open to any community members adding onto this or improving it in any way in the future. This happens to be my personal favorite MLB season, so I figured why keep it for myself when I can share it with other baseball lovers.

P.S. It would also be highly rude of me to not give great thanks to the forum member/admin Yankee4Life for answering question after question of mine over the past week or so. This modding stuff comes pretty naturally to me, I’m a quick learner and I always do my best to read the forums before pestering people, but I must admit I asked him A LOT of questions and he was extremely helpful and patient! I feel I was able to learn a ton about this game and how to mod it (in a short period of time) from his help, Kyleb, and reading the helpful threads!

Thanks guys – let me know what you think - if you're willing to help out with some of the remaining tasks please post!

Edited by HAWK233391
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Very awesome! Love your work on UBR and I'm sure this will be awesome as well.

I can't contribute a whole lot at least until MVP 15 is finished, but feel free to PM me for any advice as you take on each aspect of this. I might be able to save you some time and headaches!

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I had a feeling that this project would be looked at favorably. I especially liked the part where Hory and everyone who helped were given credit in this front and center. The guy spent eighteen months making this mod and he was very proud of it. With good reason of course.

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Jim/Yankee - glad to be given the "green light" on this - thanks! I'll probably need some more help along the way, especially in a couple weeks when I anticipate being finished with a V1 to release and need to pack it up. I'm not familiar with .exe installations where it automatically puts files into the correct folders.

Kyle - thanks man. I'll probably shoot you a message once I try to add a few portraits to learn the process on that. I think I'll also need some help editing the AL/NL All-Star teams.

Laroquece - I liked that Rockies team too - they had a lot of great hitters - I'll post every once in a while on where I'm at with progress.

If anyone out there would be interested in helping out with creating any additional original content for this mod please post or PM me - especially someone good with portraits - that would be great!

Edited by HAWK233391
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Thanks Homer!

More good news:

#1: I finished three more teams in the past couple days: Padres, Phillies, and Pirates so that's 20/28 teams down.

#2: RisingSon has volunteered to make some updated portraits for this mod. I gave him a list of approx. 50 players that he has agreed to do. These are players that either have no portrait (because I had to create them) or a portrait with an outdated uniform/cap (Rickey Henderson, Julio Franco, Rafael Palmiero etc). The players I gave him were either players in the starting batting orders, 5-man rotation, or closer role. I didn't want to overwhelm him, so this will be a solid start. I will list the full list of portraits once I receive them.

Thanks again RisingSon!!

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Okay we should all be very grateful for RisingSon. In less than 2 days we was able to create 53 new portraits for significant players that changed teams between 1994 and 1993 so they are now wearing their accurate uniform and cap. Here is the full list he made. They look great in the game! Hopefully he will be willing to complete some more for the remaining 8 teams once I finish them!

Cubs:
Dwight Smith
Greg Hibbard
Jose Vizcaino

Brewers:
Kevin Reimer
Juan Bell
Ricky Bones

Braves:
Otis Nixon
Ron Gant
Sid Bream
Damon Berryhill
Pete Smith

Blue Jays:
Rickey Henderson
Tony Fernandez
Jack Morris

Athletics:
Dave Henderson
Lance Blankenship
Shawn Hillegas

Astros:
Eddie Taubensee
Mark Portugal
Doug Jones

Angels:
Luis Polonia
Rene Gonzales
Tony Lovullo
John Farrell
Steve Frey

Yankees:
Dion James
Spike Owen
Steve Farr

White Sox:
Ellis Burks
George Bell
Bo Jackson
Tim Belcher

Twins:
Brian Harper
Willie Banks

Royals:
George Brett
Mark Gardner

Rockies:
Alex Cole
Jerald Clark
Butch Henry

Tigers:
Mark Leiber
David Wells

Reds:
Bip Roberts
Roberto Kelly
Chris Sabo

Red Sox:
Tony Pena

Rangers:
Julio Franco
Rafael Palmiero
Charlie Leibrandt

Pirates:
Bob Walk

Phillies
Terry Mullholland
Mitch Williams

Padres:
Guillermo Velasquez
Gene Harris

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Here's a quick progress update:

Added 7 new menu songs (kept 2 from the 1994 Mod that were too good to get rid of)

Finished all 28/28 teams as far as putting players on the correct major league teams

Finished all 28/28 Pitching Rotations

Finished 20/28 Batting Orders

Still To Do:

Batting Orders for Dodgers, Expos, Giants, Indians, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Orioles

Need to clean up the minors a bit (specifically AAA)

Need to set any minor league rotation/batting order issues to avoid notifications

Awaiting another pack of 1993/fresh portraits from RisingSon

Edit the Jukebox text in the game

Need to shoot Kyleb the roster to fix one minor all-star mistake

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Update 4/7:

Stecropper showed me how to decrease everyone's age by one year using the global editor. So now everyone's age is one year younger than that found in the 1994 Mod.

Still To Do:

Batting Orders for Dodgers, Expos, Giants, Indians, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Orioles - completed 4/6

Need to clean up the minors a bit (specifically AAA)- completed 4/6

Need to set any minor league rotation/batting order issues to avoid notifications- completed 4/6

Awaiting another pack of 1993/fresh portraits from RisingSon

Edit the Jukebox text in the game

Need to shoot Kyleb the roster to fix one minor all-star mistake- completed 4/6

I may still tweak the minor leagues a bit while waiting on the portraits, but I'm basically satisfied with where it is at for the moment.

Edited by HAWK233391
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Update 4/8:

I went through and ensured all teams had the correct manager (there were a few I had to edit)

I also went through and changed a bunch of jersey numbers for accuracy

Still To Do:

Awaiting another pack of 1993/fresh portraits from RisingSon

Edit the Jukebox text in the game

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Update: 4/10/15

Roster is 99% done. Basically all I'm waiting for is a monster pack of portraits from Rising Son. Waiting for these portraits has kind of been a blessing in disguise as I was able to do A LOT of work (way more than I ever anticipated) working on the minor leagues. I've probably added ~30-50 minor leaguers from scratch the last few days. I'm happy to say that there are probably 6 or 7 accurate starting lineup players per minor league team in the lineups and the remaining positions are mainly filled by guys who were actually on the team too.

I'm putting together a small list of people (2-5) to test out the 1993 Mod before I release it. I'll be looking for feedback on anything/everything ranging from the menus to music to rosters to lineups/rotations. Most feedback I receive in the "testing" phase will probably be added/included in the final release. If anyone out there following progress on this 1993 Mod would like to be one of the few to test it out before release please post below or send me a PM. I'd especially appreciate anyone who would want to bring some batting order advice to the table (I did my best with baseball-reference's lineups / orders - but the more minds the better).

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Update: 4/10

RisingSon did an amazing job adding approx. 200 new portraits. These additions ensure that every single player on the major league clubs will have an accurate portrait with correct uniform and cap. Here is a complete list of players he did. They look amazing in the game!

Angels:
Luis Polonia
Rene Gonzales
Tony Lovullo
John Farrell
Steve Frey
Stan Javier
Phil Leftwich
Julio Valera
Gene Nelson
Ken Patterson

Astros:
Eddie Taubensee
Mark Portugal
Doug Jones
Eric Anthony
Casey Candaele
Rick Parker
Jose Uribe
Xavier Hernandez

Athletics:
Dave Henderson
Lance Blankenship
Shawn Hillegas
Jerry Browne
Rich Gossage
Rick Honeycutt
Ed Nunez
Kelly Downs

Blue Jays:
Rickey Henderson
Tony Fernandez
Jack Morris
Turner Ward
Alfredo Griffin
Danny Cox
Mark Eichhorn

Braves:
Otis Nixon
Ron Gant
Sid Bream
Damon Berryhill
Pete Smith
Deion Sanders
Francisco Cabrera
Jay Howell

Brewers:
Kevin Reimer
Juan Bell
Ricky Bones
Tom Brunansky
Dickie Thon
Tom Lampkin
Kevin Seitzer
Rafael Nova
Jesse Orosco
Jim Austin

Cardinals:
Rod Brewer
Erik Pappas
Rob Murphy
Les Lancaster
Les Guetterman

Cubs:
Dwight Smith
Greg Hibbard
Jose Vizcaino
Steve Lake
Eric Yelding
Shawn Boskie
Bob Scanlan
Chuck McElroy

Dodgers:
Lenny Harris
Jody Reed
Darryl Strawberry
Ricky Trilcek
Pedro Martinez
 
Expos:
John Vanderwal
Randy Ready
Frank Bolick
Delino DeShields
Greg Colbrunn
Dennis Martinez

Giants:
Will Clark
Trevor Wilson
Jeff Brantley
Dave Righetti

Indians:
Junior Ortiz
Jeff Treadway
Carlos Martinez
Felix Fermin
Mike Bielecki
Cliff Young
Jeremy Hernandez

Mariners:
Omar Vizquel
Dave Magadan
Greg Litton
Bret Boone
Mackey Sasser
Erik Hanson
Tim Leary
Dwayne Henry
Dennis Powell  
Norm Charlton

Marlins:
Henry Cotto
Greg Briley
Walt Weiss
Jack Armstrong
Rich Rodriguez
Joe Klink

Mets:
Jeff McKnight
Chico Walker
Howard Johnson
Eddie Murray
Vince Coleman
Dave Gallagher
Charlie O'Brien
Sid Fernandez
Frank Tanana
Jeff Innis
Anthony Young

Orioles:
David Segui
Harold Reynolds
Mike Pagliarulo
Fernando Valenzuela
Rick Sutcliffe

Padres:
Guillermo Velasquez
Gene Harris
Tim Teufel
Dave Eiland
Kerry Taylor

Phillies:
Terry Mullholland
Mitch Williams
Wes Chamberlain
Bobby Thigpen
Roger Mason

Pirates:
Bob Walk
Dave Otto
Mark Petkovsek
Joel Johnston

Rangers:
Julio Franco
Rafael Palmiero
Charlie Leibrandt
Doug Dascenzo
Mario Diaz
Gary Redus
Butch Davis
Don Peltier
Bob Patterson
Craig Lefferts

Red Sox:
Tony Pena
Rob Deer
Ernest Riles
Bob Melvin
Bob Zupcic
Paul Quantrill

Reds:
Bip Roberts
Roberto Kelly
Chris Sabo
Gary Varsho
Dan Wilson
Juan Samuel
Bobby Ayala
Scott Service
Jerry Spradlin
Greg Cadaret

Rockies:
Alex Cole
Jerald Clark
Butch Henry
Jeff Parrett
Gary Wayne
 
Royals:
George Brett
Mark Gardner

Tigers:
Mark Leiber
David Wells
Gary Thurman
Dan Gladden
Tom Bolton
Rob MacDonald

Twins:
Brian Harper
Willie Banks
Gene Larkin
Terry Jorgenson
Lenny Webster
Mike Hartley
George Tsamis

White Sox:
Ellis Burks
George Bell
Bo Jackson
Tim Belcher
Steve Sax
Mike Huff

Yankees:
Dion James
Spike Owen
Steve Farr
Bobby Munoz
Roch Montelone
Paul Assenmacher

FREE AGENTS:
Dave Stieb
Bryn Smith
Ken Dayley
Frank DiPino
Wally Backman

Thank you again RisingSon!

Right now we're in the testing phase as I've sent the mod to a couple of people for feedback before the official release!

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4/12/15 Update:

I edited some player ratings and in turn this has reflected nicely and accurately in the overall ratings for teams in the 1993 mod.

Here is a picture... real 1993 MLB Standings on the left and the 1993 Mod Overall team rankings on the right:

29yh1j8.png

*As you can see every single team (with the exception of the Blue Jays and Mets) are within two slots of each other.

*I actually like the Blue Jays being ranked first, as they won the World Series so it makes sense.

*I don't want to play around with the Met's ratings anymore, as I feel like they are pretty accurate as they are right now.

There are a couple of last tweaks I need to take care of and then we should be looking at the release within a week or so!

Edited by HAWK233391
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Update: 4/13

  • I went through every single player MLB, AAA, AA, and A to ensure there were no missing issues with cyberfaces causing crashes
  • I tested every team (started an exhibition game) as the home team and away team and every game loaded correctly
  • I also successfully simmed a season
  • I've created the Readme file
  • Jim and I have PMed back and forth and he is ready to pack the mod up

The very last thing I'm waiting for is a small portrait pack (5 players) from Rising Son. These 5 players would guarantee every single player on the major league rosters have correct portraits with their accurate team uniform.

If I don't hear from him in the next 24-48 hours I will just create them myself and send it off to Jim!

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wow, looks impressive

Congrats and good luck with this

Hey this is great to hear from you Hory! I'm very glad I've gotten your personal blessing for this mod. You did great work on 1994! Thanks for allowing me to share my 1993 work!

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Just a quick note for anyone waiting for this mod to be released.  It's been in Jim's hands for about a week now, but with the site maintenance there are still a few things preventing its release.  Be assured that Jim and the other admins are working on things and it should be released ASAP.

 

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