Welcome back to MLB Manager Online on the blogs! It’s been a while since we’ve been able to update you on the game from this space, but in the meantime, we keep on rolling, just as in real life the MLB season has moved past the All Star Break and the trading deadline, and pennant races are heating up.

In case you’ve been away from the game or are just curious, here’s some of what’s been going on.

New Limited-Time Sale!

First things first – starting tonight, there’s a sale for MLBMO! Here’s what’s discounted:

If you’re not familiar with those options, here’s a quick recap:

• Arcade B: Contract Extension tickets — keep your MVPs around for another cycle! Also home to some of the best player support cards in the game …
• Arcade C: The much-sought-after CH Player cost tickets (allowing you to use CH Players) as well as tickets to let you use extra team boosts and player support slots (and more)!
• Training Slot Upgrade: Sneakily, this is one of the most valuable in the game. Finally drew that Albert Pujols or Tim Lincecum card? Don’t want to wait a full season to open up extra training slots? Perhaps 50% off unlocking a new training slot will entice you!

Update: Changes to player scouting, trade search, and more!

Some minor-seeming changes that actually have a significant effect on the game, both in terms of how you play and day-to-day convenience.

• Scouting a duplicate player (player you already have) now not only improves their condition greatly (making them perform better), but adds +1 to all their stats, permanently! Scouting that same player additional times will make the +1 bonuses cumulative.
• It will no longer be possible to scout a duplicate player via the “special scout” option.
• The trading interface has been vastly improved to make it easier to narrow your search in many different ways!
• Want more points to spend on those scouting bonuses? There’s a new bonus system for logging in consecutive days, which also adds bonuses for how many friends you have!

Update: New teams to play for points, Rookies promoted from AAA!

Haven’t checked in to MLBMO in a while? Or maybe you’ve been playing and haven’t checked the CPU teams? These are important since you can play them for easy points. The real MLB teams reset every cycle, and new NPC teams are added all the time, including “Team June” and “Team August” (players born in those respective months — Team August is particularly nasty), as well as “Right-Hand Men” (you guessed it, all righties).

My favorite of this bunch is “The Ex-Presidents” — all players with a name (first or last) that’s the same as a former U.S. President.

Also, we’ve had our first influx of new players! The game has now added current MLBMO rookies — as well as the surprise-stars of the year, like pitching dynamo Ryan Vogelsong (who was drafted way back in 1998, bounced around the Minors, played in Japan, and is 2nd in ERA in the National League as of this writing).

Winners: World Tournament and World Champion Tournament

Now, our congratulations to last Cycle’s World Tournament winners:

US101: ‘Freakin’ Daemons’ over ‘Spiders’

Freakin’ Daemons got all the offense they needed from their sluggers in the 2nd and 3rd innings, including Albert Pujols knocking out a 2-run home run, and Matt Holliday following with a solo home run.

Spiders rallied in the 8th inning with a series of 2-out singles, bringing the score up to 4-3. The game wasn’t over, either: With one out in the 9th, Shane Victorino walked and stole 2nd base. Michael Wurtz, however, shut the door, getting Jim Thome and Yadier Molina to ground out and end the threat.

US102: ‘Dreamer’ over ‘The Fasts’

The US102 server World Championship also ended with a one-run game, this time with a come-from-behind victory: Leading 2-1 after the 5th inning, The Fasts held the lead until the 8th, when Dreamer turned it around with two solo home runs from Albert Pujols and Hanley Ramirez.

Hong-Chih Kuo took the loss for The Fasts – but achieved redemption, of a sort, when – also on Dreamer’s roster – he came in to close out the game for the save and preserve the championship.

World Championship Tournament: ‘Four Seasons’ over ‘Trolls’

This cycle the WCT winner was Japan – a sure thing once it came down to the championship game, which was between two Japanese representatives, avenging their loss to the U.S. from the previous cycle. Congratulations to winner Four Seasons and better luck to our U.S. players next time!

Last week, both the US and Europe had press preview events for Rise of Nightmares! Lods has the lowdown on the London event, and I’ll cover the San Francisco event.

London

An event for Rise of Nightmares took place in ’24 London’, a swanky club in Kingly Street, (centre of London), where we were able to show off Rise of Nightmares to press and community journalist, giving them the chance to literally get their hand on the game.  We had the pleasure of Ito-san, from CS1 in Japan, in attendance who was available for interviews.

To set the mood we hired an electric chair, which was positioned immediately in the entrance, placed spiders with human skulls around the venue, used spider webs to help divide up the booths had eyeball cocktails and blood energy drink refreshments on offer.  The game and the event seemed to go down really well, getting a positive reaction from everyone who attended.

San Francisco

Later that same week, we had our preview event in San Francisco. We were in the basement of Club 6, and it definitely set the mood right. It was dark in there (great for the game, not awesome for photos), but we had fun props in addition to the gaming stations. Like the London event, we also had Ito-san on hand for interviews.

To help us demo the game, we had blood-covered zombie nurses. If you’ve seen our recent trailers, you know that this is inspired by the game itself. As we were there early to help set up the event, I watched these girls be transformed into what you see above. It was a few hours of makeup, but I think you’ll agree that they look amazing.

Everyone got a chance to play a few levels of the game, including a boss fight. It was great to see people getting right into the game, and instinctively understanding how the controls worked. Everyone seemed to have a great time with the game.

When they weren’t playing the game, people were having fun with the props and zombie nurses. I think Jon Carnage from Destructoid was fearing for his life!

Luckily for him, Greg (from the SEGA media lab — he works on our trailers and videos) got the chainsaw and started exacting some pretty epic revenge.

Other SEGA employees came to hang out and support the event as well. This is Mary and me — Mary (on the left) is our Production Manager, and she helps us make the swag, logos, game manuals, and stuff that you see at SEGA events and in our games.

More Rise of Nightmares Info & Goodies!

We’ve got more photos from the San Francisco event on our Flickr. Rise of Nightmares is out on September 6th in North America, and September 9th in Europe. Don’t forget to pre-order at Gamestop or Amazon to receive a special item. If you are at PAX and pre-order at the show, you’ll get a bonus gift! Just come to the reception desk at the SEGA booth and show me your pre-order confirmation to claim your gift.

Tweeting about Rise of Nightmares? Use the hashtag #riseofnightmares !

Binary Domain is in attendance at this year’s Gamescom event and with the show comes new info about the Consequence system as well as new screenshots! The consequence system is by far the focus, as this new feature shapes the experiences you have with your squad during the course of the game. You’ll have to be careful and make decisions you think are best, with direct results that follow. If this seems similar to other games, you’ll be happy to know it’s actually a fair bit different and to help describe this, we a mini-FAQ about the Consequence system to share with you.

What is it?

Consequence is a gameplay system unique to Binary Domain that combines gameplay elements and AI to create different in-game experiences based on your actions, your choices and your words. The fundamental element of The Consequence System is trust. Certain actions will raise a characters trust and others will lower it. These reactions take place both in combat and when talking to your team outside of the missions.

Conversation can be divisive, often setting one squad member against another, and your choices will have an impact on their opinions of you and their actions throughout the story of Binary Domain. This isn’t a simple choice of go it alone or work as a team, each squad member has a different personality and will respond differently to your actions, meaning there’s no right and wrong, just your way of play.

How do you influence it?

The Consequence system allows you to speak to characters directly using a headset: Issuing orders, responding to dialogue and holding conversations. The game features voice recognition in 6 languages. And for those who need a little quiet while they play, you can also use the controller to issue orders and hold conversation.

It’s also as much about what you do as what you say. Charging forward alone, covering your friends or leaving them exposed can have different consequences beyond the obvious. Some characters might respect you acting alone, proving yourself as a leader. Others will damn you for breaking ranks and not following orders. It all depends on you reading your team, and their opinion of you.

What makes it different?

Unlike other games with dialogue or personality systems Binary Domain’s Consequence System is not a simple choice of good or bad or right and wrong. You’re not being asked to choose between a clearly good and a clearly bad response at random plot points. Your constant attitude to the people in your squad and catering to (or Not) their personality in both dialogue and combat affect their views of you.

Consequence is an iterative system that builds based on your actual in-game behavior, aggression, courage, cowardice, pace and your dialogue with the other members of your squad.

Virtua Tennis 4 will be available on the new handheld console from Sony the ‘PS Vita’, and from the new screenshots and trailer below it matches up with graphics from the previous release and in my opinion looks great.
Check it out for yourself…..

Flickr Video
Virtua Tennis 4 Gamescom 2011 Trailer

New Match Play View

Rock the Boat Minigame

Match Screen

Touch Screen Match

England Tennis Futuristic

The King Of Players

England Tennis Vintage