Posted by tzentmeyer on 12/26/2013 10:34:00 AM (view original):
SimLeague Baseball owners,
We’ve received several support tickets and emails recently regarding the state of SimLeague Baseball and the lack of updates to the game. SLB has not seen an update (other than annual import of teams/players and minor bug fixes) in several years. It is long overdue.
Technology has changed substantially since SLB was originally built in ~2001. We added features and improved the game through the end of the decade. But in order to truly grow and improve the game, we had to rebuild from scratch in new development languages to best take advantage of all the new browser features and tablet/smart phone trends. We began the project in early 2013 and made significant process but the project was put on hold midway through the year.
Over the last five years, our development team has grown, both in terms of size and scope. We have more on our plate than just the games and features on whatifsports.com. Many of these other tasks have hard deadlines due to the seasonality of the associated sport and they occasionally interfere with our ability to update our WIS games as frequently as we’d like to.
Several of us have been at WIS for over a decade and still love the games we’ve created here. We continue to discuss game improvements for all our games on a daily basis. We still enjoy playing the games ourselves. And we’re excited to rebuild SLB because we all know how much better it can become.
Once it’s in the new development environment, it will be significantly easier for us to add new features including a new Live player. We have been maintaining a list of user suggestions for years and many will be incorporated in the new version. And we’re sure once the new version is out, suggestions will continue to arrive. It’s that direct relationship with our user base that has always made working at WIS so rewarding – knowing we’re making the games the way you want to play them.
We anticipate re-starting the new SLB project early this year. The plan is to open it up for testing during significant phases of the project (theme wizard, draft/player search, Manager’s Office, GM’s office, etc.) During those testing phases, we hope to work with as many of you as possible to help make the game as good as it can be when we release the new version.
Once the project re-starts, we will update the Development Blog forum thread to keep everyone aware of our progress and timelines for testing.
Until then, we sincerely thank you for continuing to play the game. We continue to investigate support tickets, read every suggestion that comes in and fix bugs that are brought to our attention.
Bueller? ... Bueller?
1/7/2015 12:50 PM (edited)