Devlin

You can create portraits in any good image editor, but you need a hex-editor to get them into the game. At least until someone more skilled than me comes along and writes a tool that makes life easier. But I wouldn't hope for that. Are you familiar with editing 256 color images (and hex-editing)?

Those fastballs with an exclamation mark are very hard to hit, if you’re not ready for it. If the pitcher has one of those, I always look for it, but do recognize most of the times, if it’s something else. Sometimes I am way early on a changeup, but that’s the name of the game. With the strike zone enabled, I rarely strike out. Definitely some more, if it’s off, but mostly because I am at least trying to work the count and it’s something the game unfortunately wasn’t made for. If a pitcher has a sinker and a changeup it gives me the most trouble. Both pitches look almost identical, but are thrown at different speeds. You could give a pitcher a 95 plus fastball only and try to time it in practice mode. There is also an option named "pitch to center" or something like that, so you can concentrate on timing only. McDermott's ERA is way too low, by the way. Just checked his ratings: Nothing that stands out except his 96 rated fastball and the 64 against left-handed hitters. So he should have success against them, but struggle a bit against right-handers. It’s obviously not working. I simmed a season and his ERA was much too low again. 2.79 against lefties and 1.06 (!) against righties. 😕 I never simmed a season, to fine-tune those ratings and it seems that those in the Legends League generate more pitcher-friendly results (compared to the default 1995 League). How about that? With some of those ratings that you can change in the player editor, I'm not even sure if they work at all or are just there to pretend more depth. Like "home" or "clutch". Others however, like "streak", seem to work very well.

Then I misunderstood. I have to admit that the Box Score surprised me and made me a little nervous. I very rarely get results like this. Normally it's more those 4-3, 4-6 scores with 8-12 hits for both teams. Of course it also depends on the difficulty settings. But the reason I got nervous was because one of the last things I worked on was changing game play values. One resulted in up to 10-12 Ks against the CPU per game and at least 3 hit batters. 😉 Anyway, I just wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally put this in circulation.

A little update to the 1950s season: - 20 new portraits - minor changes to lineups - a more classic looking Fenway stadium If you haven’t started a season yet, simply replace the port.bin, the 1950s.lgd and the hardball.bin (to change Fenway Park) in your 1950s game folder. If you already started a season, please read the instructions in the zip file first and do not replace the 1950s.lgd! Have a nice weekend! 😊 1950s Update.zip

The moment I read that batters were hit, I thought I had uploaded an hb5.exe by mistake that I changed a bit, to get rid of the pinpoint command. But that does not seem to be the case. I tested the exe-file I uploaded. Works fine for me. Anybody else having that problem? How many batters were hit? In exhibition games, sometimes the scores seem to be rather high. Within a season it’s much more balanced. Do you have pitching crosshair for both teams enabled? I have it on, only to identify borderline pitches better and get at least a few walks per game. It needs some getting used to, hitting without it. Especially against a pitcher with a 99 rated fastball like Lefty Grove. Pitches rated that high are very hard to hit with success in this game. And about that 7-run inning: Did you change pitchers without warming them up?

Thanks for the tip! I tried Baseball Mogul but ultimately ended up with Out of the Park. I checked the pitchers and their arsenals in it and the pitches given to them are the same as in the Neyer/James book I have. Haven’t created a player since playing OotP, but if I ever return to it, this will save a lot of time! The batting splits in the deadball era I run were balanced, however. But it’s all in baseball reference.

Thank you, that's very kind of you! I feel the same way. For me the game is also childhood and youth. Every time I work on it, I recapture some of the magic I felt back then. I also have many unfinished stuff ... I still have 2k14 installed just to play with the mid-90s Knicks every now and then. Well, I am working since 2012 on this Hardball thing. 😆

I never heard of it before. Found it on ebay. Looks gorgeous! I use the “Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers”. There are also mainly the more well-known ones in there. It’s German. Well, I am an avid reader and a writer. That probably helps me out a bit (google translate doesn't hurt either). I still can recite most of Poe’s “Raven”, “Annabel Lee” and Keats “Ode to a nightingale” in English. But this doesn't get you very far these days. Alas! Must have been a crazy amount of work. I still have my MVP disc, but unfortunately I never really found a datafile that worked for me. I win far too many games on the highest difficulty. It’s one of the reasons I always returned to HB5. The last time I played a season it was with my 1995 Jays. I started the season 10-18. And I enjoyed it. Well, I got a bit frustrated by the end … 😄 Thanks! Well, you can’t have your eyes everywhere. It’s in the past. But there was a point in time, where I actually played with the idea to open a thread. If only things had gone a little more smoothly with the 2k mod … I told her. At first she was confused and then laughed at the fact that she was mentioned in a US baseball forum. She said: "Gern geschehen." It's propably best translated with: My pleasure! Back to the game: I just replaced the color palette of Fenway Park with the one of Sportsman’s Park, to give the former a bit of a vintage look. Just copy & paste. This worked much better than I had hoped. Here’s a comparison:

Great! If there are no portrait requests, I would turn my attention to this one. You don't need to send it to me first. I’m just happy someone other than me finished it! 😀 For a release it’s always better to have accurate rosters for one year or those playing it wonder why it’s seems to be such a mess. Some of it also had practical reasons. Like making sure, that good photos of the new players were available, as I planned to create portraits for all of them. And I figured out very late in my HB5 modding carrer how to expand the league to 16 teams. That’s why Willie Kamm played for the Indians. I simply had no White Sox back then but wanted the player to be included. I also kept the original 1924 Senators because I was happy about every portrait I don't had to create. And it’s a damn good team I’d like to face too. Only one question comes to my mind: What source did you use to decide on which pitches pitchers throw? It’s very easy to share. I’ll write a little instruction and upload it later this week along with the new portraits. It does not affect a season already under way. At least not if you don’t mind importing 10 players manually. Well, that’s not easy to answer. Various factors came together. The main reason simply is that I'm a notoriously shy person and feel very, very uncomfortable writing in forums and stuff like that (especially in another language). I am an introvert. That was the main hurdle all the way. Still is, to be honest. I am also always very busy and try to keep everything else to a minimum. And then some contributing factors: It’s unfinished and I originally really did not want to release it in this state. Ask ballfour about his 98 MVP mod. It’s probably the same. It has been a very long process. Sometimes I touched it not for a whole year only to make 30 portraits at once and abandon it for some months or another year. I never worked towards a release. I always worked on a part that was enjoyable for me. I also was in contact with the guy who made the modern day rosters. I uploaded everything I had made to this point to dropbox and sent him the link, but he never reached back out. So I thought that if he’s not showing any enthusiasm about it, nobody will. You very rarely see anybody mentioning this game at all and I honestly thought radio silence was the answer I would get if I opened a thread about it. You made portraits for such an old game? Congratulations for wasting your time! I made the last big progress during the Corona lockdown, but it was also the time I discovered Out of the Park Baseball. I stayed with it and HB5 stayed unfinished. And finally, for some years I really did not want to contribute anything to this very forum. I made a mod for 2k12. During a short vacation I tried to figure out Blender and spent countless hours on the first few faces, uploaded them finally and a couple days later another user uploaded some models of it in a mod of his own without any credit at all. Considered the time I spent on it, I was pretty upset. The years after it, I did not want to contribute anything here, because of it, to be honest. I’m over it. It’s forgotten. But it was a factor back then. And just to make it clear: 2k12 wasn’t my cup of tea. Sold it a long time ago and haven’t made anything else for it. But if I really had wanted it, it would always have been possible to upload the mods elsewhere. So it probably comes down to me avoiding to post in a foreign language forum. It’s way out of my comfort zone. It needed my wife in the end to convince me. After I told her, that you mentioned the game favorably and that it could be a good way to finally find out if somebody is interested in my mods for it, but that I was not sure bla, bla, she was the one pushing me to let the cat out of the bag. I would be so lost without her. 😁 Long story short: I’m just a very shy guy with a wonderful wife who worked very long on a very old game only very few people still enjoy.

No, unfortunately that doesn't work. It would mess up the dates of the seasons, the structure of the legends league, the portraits and sound files. And maybe even more (that I am no longer aware of). The files are not identical. Yes, like I wrote earlier, I wasn’t looking for accurate 1929 rosters and Sisler was the face of the Browns. Another example: In the ‘51 mod, I put Roy Sievers on the Senators roster, albeit he played 2 or 3 more years for the Browns after 1951. Haven’t checked it, but something like that. I believe he was rookie of the year late in the 1940s, but played mediocre after it for the Browns. I did it this way, simply because his main breakthrough and impact came while playing for Washington and the ratings I gave him reflect it. But these rosters reflect my personal taste first and foremost and were not supposed to be released. I would have created them right away accurate for one specific year, if I had had a release in mind. 😅 Having said that, keep it going and do whatever you think is necessary! I highly appreciate it. 👍 Your feedback and passion are the main reasons I am motivated again to create more portraits and why I stayed awake a little longer last night to get these done:

Thank you! After some posts I already feel a little bit more fluid again. Wow, that’s great! Thank you so much. And don't let the other lineups confuse you. I started with the intention of a 1927 roster, but fell in love with the 1932 Diamond Stars cards. I intended to recreate them and added more and more players of that time. In the end I wasn't too happy with the quality. Especially with the faces. Travis Jackson of the Giants is a remnant of it. Long story short: That’s why it became more of a roster of the best of that time span and I chose 1929 as a compromise. Same with the 1951 roster, by the way, but I needed to give them a date other than the default 1995. I also have a little progress to report: For the first time in years I made new portraits (all for the ’51 season) and really enjoyed it again. That’s the main reason why I made so many back then. It really relaxes me. So you are welcome to request portraits. 😃 With the very limited interest there is for it, I'm sure I won't be overwhelmed. 😁

I'm very happy to hear that it works and that you like it. ☺️ I never had any issues with my controller in dosbox. You need to plug in your controller before starting dosbox. Maybe check your dosbox configuration file. If you use the one I uploaded, you’ll need to edit this one. If not, search for “dosbox-0.74-3.conf” (if this version is installed, of course). Mine is located in: c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\DOSBox\ Open it with a text editor and search for joystick. It should look like this: And maybe the dosbox manual can help: https://www.dosbox.com/DOSBoxManual.html#Joystick

I meant that you should install the main game. I can’t upload the whole game as Hardball 1 & 2 just recently popped up on steam. It seems it’s no longer "Abandonware". But we are now approaching the matter step by step. 😉 Install HB5! 😉 You already have it installed? Great! You can use this installation. Now check your version. Start the game, enter Setup in the main menu and take a look at the version number. 5.12 is the last version with the Legends League and the classic stadiums. You will need this version for the 1920s and 1950s rosters to work. The other two mods work with every version. My old disc is already patched to 5.12. It probably doesn't even matter which number is listed there as long as it's not 5.13, since my mods contain a modified .exe and also the hardball.bin, which is changed during patching. But just in case, here is the patch: HB512.ZIP Let’s start creating the folders that we need. For this example I make a games folder on my c drive. C:\games\HB5 Now create 4 subfolders within the HB5 folder: HB1929 HB1951 HB1995 HB2015 Now copy the game files of your already installed HB5 (the game files, not the folder!) into the HB1929 folder. It should look similar to this: As you can see, I underlined one important file. Make sure, this one is in the games main folder. In the mods I uploaded, I put it in a separate folder, because I thought in the beginning that you’ll need to define a cd-rom drive in dosbox, but actually you’ll just need to copy the HB5cdrom.bin into the games directory. Sometimes it’s so easy … Use the HB5cdrom.bin that you already have for the 1995 and 2015 mods and the ones I uploaded for the other two. Do not copy the folder I uploaded, just the file within it. Now test the game. Open dosbox and type in the following: Mount c c:\games\HB5\HB1929 C:\ HB5 It should look like this: Start the game. If it’s not working, replace the INSTVARS.BIN with this one: INSTVARS.BIN It contains the installation path. In our case, it’s simply: c:\ Try again. The game should start now. Now it’s time to copy the first files from the mods I uploaded into your game folder. Open the “Late 1920s” folder and copy these 4 files to your game folder: Overwrite the hb5.exe and the hardball.bin. Then open the HB5CDROM-folder and copy the HB5cdrom.bin to your games folder as well. Start dosbox, type in the same as before and you should time travel into one of baseball’s best times as soon as you change the league and choose the 1929.lgd. Notify me, if it's not looking like this: Repeat these steps for the other roster-mods. In the mid80s-90s & 2012-2017 folders are two different exe-files. If you have the Hardball 5 Enhanced Edition (5.13) installed, use the exe file from the 5.13 folder. If it’s 5.12, use the other one. To start the games, always mount the game folder as C:\ To stick with the examples I outlined above, it’s: Mount c c:\games\HB5\HB1951 Mount c c:\games\HB5\HB1995 Mount c c:\games\HB5\HB2015 If it’s not working, remember to replace the INSTVARS.BIN I haven’t installed something in dosbox in a long, long time. There might be easier and better ways, but this one should work. To make life easier, you can copy a dosbox.conf file into the respective game folder and put the commands I posted at the very end under [autoexec]. Here is one for the 1929 mod: dosbox.conf Now create a link of your dosbox.exe. Open its properties, go to the target path and add the following behind “… dosbox.exe” "-conf "C:\Games\HB5\HB1929\dosbox.conf" Confirm the changes and start the game with the link. If dosbox is installed under program files it should look like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -conf "C:\Games\HB5\HB1929\dosbox.conf"

First of all: I'm sorry to hear that you had trouble with the installation. What's worse is that I'm the reason for it. But first things first: The ugly: I'm neither used to writing nor speaking English. 😳 I don't have any problems understanding it, but of course expressing yourself in a language is much different than understanding it. I'm very rusty. You'll have to bear with me. The bad: Well, my bad. I just saw that I uploaded the installation guide as an office document. It should have been a pdf-file. I work all day with office and it was the force of habit. The good: I'll write a step by step instruction how to get it to run and I’m sure we will get it to work. 👍

Have fun with it! HB5 Mods.zip I hope everything works.🙏

☺️ I hope you're feeling better now. Mine too and the reason I became a fan of the game. 😊 More? How about him? Or him? Or ...? Or how about if I just upload the mods right now? 😁

A long time ago … me and my reliable hex-editor found a way to mod the 1995 game Hardball 5. Some of you were kind enough to express some interest, so here we go! What I have: From the golden age of baseball: - An unfinished roster with players (and many new portraits) from the late 1920s/early 30s. 4 teams still need to be done from scratch. Some of the portraits are rather ugly, because I had no clue back then, how to get the uniforms to look like the other ones of the Legends League and I was restricted to the file size limitations of the original portraits that I could only replace at the time. It took me a while to figure it all out. It's also crazy how much has changed in terms of the availability of high-resolution photos. When I started in 2012, it was much harder to get good ones of players from the first half of the last century. Most of the NY Giants players (like Mel Ott and Bill Terry) have their names called by Al Michaels. If I remember correctly, some of the Pirates players too. I made a terrible Lloyd Waner and don’t remember if I ever fixed him. Now I am too afraid to listen in. - One roster with players mainly from the early 1950s. Rather complete, but 6 teams have very few or zero player portraits and I kept most of the 1960 Pirates players. The NY Giants were once again provided with sound. Nothing better than to hear Al Michaels announce Monte Irvin! The Legends League was extended to 16 teams (instead of only 12). I wrote a 154 game schedule and it works, but unfortunately the World Series will not be triggered at season’s end. No matter what I tried, I could not get it to work. So you can play a full season and win (or lose) a Pennant, but that’s about it. You also can’t reset a season or start a shorter one. I had to overwrite those. Always keep a copy of both rosters to start a new season! Don’t be surprised, if you meet the Giants in an interleague series. Without a World Series in sight, they did not want to play against the same teams over and over again and John McGraw himself was eager to defeat Babe Ruth once more — all by himself of course. 😂 And last but not least: I reskined Tiger Stadium (with exception of the pitchers view) and changed the colorful modern crowd with the one seen at 1927 Yankee Stadium. I renamed Seals Stadium to Crosley Field. I intended to mod it, but Tiger Stadium was a nightmare to do and I successfully avoided going through this experience again. But at least I got rid of the TV-ad in right field. Modern baseball: - One roster with players from the mid to late 1980s. I just replaced some of the players from the default roster. Maybe 4 per team. Originally I wanted to add a lot more, but never found the time to do so. - The default mid 90s roster with many portrait enhancements. That’s the only one you can start right out of the gate with. I added players from the HB4 players-disk (along with the sound files). In the end I mixed 1993-1996, so don’t expect a 1994 roster (for example), albeit I changed the date of the season to 1994. There were so many players that begged for a starting job, I had to get a little creative. One important thing: All the logos (with exception of the Blue Jays) were done by someone else. I probably downloaded it from simcentral. So many thanks to those who created them! - A complete roster with players from 2012-2017. This was mainly done by a nice guy named bigjim28 at tecmobowl.org. All credit for the roster goes to him! He made nearly all the players and logos (?) and I originally wanted to publish this roster with the portraits I made, but I always had too much to do and never got it into a final version. I tried to keep it updated for a while and created nothing but chaos. On top of that, I pretty much lost interest in modern baseball. I hadn't looked at this roster in years. However, I was now not only surprised how many portraits I made back then, I was stunned. Unfortunately, many of them don't look as good as they could be because I didn't know how to add portraits back then and (as I wrote earlier) was tied to the small sizes of the originals. Now I know how to add portraits of any size, by the way. It is as annoying as it is beautiful in its complexity. But once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy to do. This last roster is probably not too hard to fix. When I find some time, I'll clean up my Blue Jays a bit. But unfortunately I don't have time to look for the rest. So you are on your own to make it work in a way that is enjoyable for you. 🙂 If anyone has the time and energy to work on these rosters and cleans up the mess I bring upon you, I would really appreciate it. I haven't done much with it in years and probably won't spend much more time on it. That's why I'm releasing all of it now and in this unfinished state. It’s probably now or never. If there's some interest in it, I might be motivated to contribute more portraits, but unfortunately good ones take time and I usually don't have much of it. Enough said. Now I'll get everything ready for upload. It might take me a little bit. Those who are interested in all rosters listed above can install HB5 to four separate folders in the meantime. Make sure that the Hb5cdrom.bin is on a local drive (not CD or iso) and that the game is accessing it. You’ll respectively need to replace this bin file with the one I’ll upload. I only use HB5 patched to 1.12. The so called Enhanced Edition (1.13) got rid of the classic stadiums and I didn't notice any improvements to the game play, to be honest. I could be wrong. But all of my uploads will require HB5 1.12. Since I have to upload the main files (classic stadiums & executables included), it might also work with 1.13. Not sure about it.

I'm glad you like it! Yes, I still have everything, even though I haven't really touched anything for the last couple of years. But if there is interest, I can upload it. In order to not hijack this thread, I'll probably open a new one and sort through it there.

When I read this I had to log in and write something about it: I modded Hardball 5 a bit. Added a lot of player portraits and extended the legends league to 16 teams. Was a pain to figure it out. Unfortunately, walks and strikeout are not really present in Hardball 5 and the CPU hits too many home runs. Other than that, the simulation is pretty good and you lose your fair share of games. The perfect game for me would look like HB5 or Oldtime Baseball with a simulation like High Heat or OOTP. Maybe an AI-tool can add something like that in the future.😄 Here are some of the players I added/updated. I just love the art style.