The game has so many pros about it. It’s a really fun baseball sim – with lots of cool intricacies about it. It’s got a nice stat system, and has league and world playoffs. The community is fairly large (maybe 50-100 active managers as of Jan 2017) and while it can totally eat your time, you can get by spending maybe 15-20 min per day on the game. The owners/admin are constantly making adjustments and adding new features to the game – and they do listen to the community when possible. Also – if you’re a paying member – you can win $$ if you win the World Series. (low odds, but a fun way to think about it)
The cons – well – there are definitely cons. For one, in order to be competitive you have to be a paying member. There are some free members that maintain their competitiveness but most of the world series winners are paying. It’s not expensive – but it’s an unfortunate aspect of the game.
The admins have a list of things they are working on, but many members feel they are working on it in the wrong order (fix issue A, before issue C) but the Admins are fixing the ones that are easiest to fix first (issue B, issue C then issue A). It leads to some unnecessary drama. Frankly – the Admins are doing their best – and since this has the “small side-project” feel to it – I completely understand and appreciate the efforts of the admin all-together. I mean – you can choose to play this for free! That being said – the game is a bit unbalanced. It’s definitely hitter heavy – and over the last 2 years the average ERA has risen nearly 1.5 points. There is clearly some other gameplay issues, but I consider them minor because while maybe frustrating and maybe not 100% like a true baseball game – it’s still incredibly fun to play.
Overall I give this an 8/10. It’s definitely not perfect, nor is it groundbreaking by any means. But it’s a really fun online sim – that can be free and is captivating. I suggest playing a season or 2 as a free to play manager before deciding to buy-in, but that’s each persons personal judgement. The 2 points removed are 1 for some minor gameplay balancing issues, and 1 for the fact that half the community whines like their dog just got kicked. Those 2 things are minor and this game still has me coming back! Of all the sims I have played over various sports, this is the only one I have played consistantly for 18 months plus!
Cheers FB!