New Developments for Diamond Mind

03/12/08 – Forum  (Dayne Myers)

2008 Projection Disk

The 2008 Projection Disk will be released on March 19, as previously announced. We are accepting pre-orders now. For those of you who play our online game, the projection disk information will also be added as the basis for a new online game as well, starting next week.

2008 Roto Projections for all MLB players available March 13

Since some of you told us that you use the Projection Disk to help you draft players for your roto leagues, we said we'd try to make projections of player performance available earlier than the March 19 release date. So, Luke has used the 2008 Projection Disk data to simulate the 2008 season hundreds of times on our internal systems and generate a spreadsheet of projected statistics for all MLB players to help you get an edge when drafting your fantasy baseball teams for the upcoming season. It will be available via an email link we will send to Imagine Sports and DMB-PC customers. Tell your friends, too… all they need do to get the spreadsheet is register at ImagineSports.com with a valid email address.

We hope this gives you that edge to win your roto leagues! Thanks for inspiring us to do this.

Announcing the Debut of "Diamond Mind Live - Beta"… available later today

Tom once told me that his real dream with DMB was to have a version of Netplay that was totally server-based, thereby avoiding some of the inherent issues of Netplay, and he hoped that the combination of Tom and Luke's expertise in the DMB software with our Web capabilities would allow that to happen. So, we looked at doing that some time ago but came to the conclusion that it would be too difficult.

However, when we conducted the survey and subsequent focus groups of DMB customers last year, one of the leading requests -by far - was for a server-based version of Netplay. In fact, the only thing that was requested more often was adding better graphics in a DMB version 10. Given that level of interest in a server-based Netplay and knowing that adding better graphics would take awhile, Tom said he would like to take another shot at how we might do a server-based Netplay. After some brainstorming by Tom and the team, they came up with a way that we thought would work and not take too long to program. Al (our CTO, who was also co-founder of evite.com) then went to work on modifying our internet systems while Luke programmed in the necessary changes to the DMB software.

Thanks to their hard work and many late nights over the past couple of months, we are happy to announce that DMB Live - Beta will actually go live within the next 24 hours. Like Netplay, you will be able to manage your teams live during games against either the Computer Manager or another human opponent. This Beta version will allow you unlimited free play of individual games. Essentially, the current product is like "exhibition mode" in the PC game. It is just a Beta version, so you can only use any of your standard league teams if you've played Diamond Mind Online or choose from various franchise team templates we will have available. Sometime in April (depending on testing), we will release version 1.0, which will enable you to draft your own new team using any players from the AGP disk or the DMO player pool or the 2008 Projection Disk.

The 1.0 version of DMB Live will allow you to play leagues - and on your schedule. This was something the DMB surveys and focus groups indicated would be very important, as it eliminates the need for one person to host games. You will be able to set deadlines for completing games and have the computer manager run a game if you can't make it. The goal is to give you all of the capabilities of Netplay without the problems… and even keep games in order to maintain fatigue and injury status. League members will be able to check on the most up-to-date standings and stats. Also, games hosted on the Imagine Sports servers will ensure the integrity of results. We will provide you with more details on these formats as the time approaches.

Like Netplay, DMB Live allows you to manage every pitch or play-by-play, and you can switch back and forth if you like. There is also a "Quickplay" option, and you will be able to let the computer manager take over for awhile (not available until April).

This is a Beta version, so your comments and suggestions are welcome, and we ask you please to report any bugs. We tried to make the layout similar to the DMB UI, but there are some differences caused by the need to accommodate internet programming. However, the next version will allow you to customize UI layouts and add team colors and logos. We will also be doing much to enhance the look and feel of the game over the coming weeks, so we'd appreciate your input on that as well.

We have not yet determined how we will price DMB Live, but for now it's free.

Please keep in mind that, though this is an internet-based game and requires you to play it at ImagineSports.com, it was inspired by your requests and input. This is not some attempt to force you to play online. To the contrary, it was inspired by the DMB-PC customers (there was no push for this at all by DMO customers, nor was it a significant request in the DMO customer surveys), and it was built with your input in mind. We hope you will now test the Beta version and give us your feedback. We know it will feel strange at first because of the inherent differences, but we would appreciate your feedback.

We believe DML takes the Diamond Mind experience to a whole new level, and we think you'll really enjoy it.

CPS Upgrades and 1920-26 Season Disks

Another significant piece of feedback from your surveys was the desire for us to upgrade more Classic Past Seasons. We will start with the 1974-77 seasons, then work on other seasons where there is enough data to do so. We will also start work on season disks for the 1920-26 seasons.

There will also be a newsletter going out in the next 24 hours with all of this information. Many thanks to Tom, Al, and Luke for their hard work on DMB Live and to Tom and Jim for their efforts on the Projection Disk, and thanks to all of you for your input via the surveys and focus groups that inspired DMB Live and our new efforts to get out CPS upgrades.

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