I am not against the idea of "temporary" ownership but have not been convinced that it is worth our limited programming resources to create the changes necessary for this to work.

Were I capable of doing the programming, I would probably engage in a lot of temporay "fixes" to improve the leagues. What I am faced with is deciding what do we have the resources to do and what will get us from point A to point B.

At this time job one is to first get the system in shape for new people and to create a marketing tool (a new game capable of attracting baseball and fantasy baseball fans to SIM) that will attract new managers and fill the holes in the leagues.

We are working on redesigning the web site and on the free (or very resonably priced ) "instant" game.

Our team is limited in the time they can devote to the projects and although PB managers have stepped forward and offered their time---the time needed just to coordinate new input is not even available.

Certainly it must seem we are hopelessly inept in dealing with these problems and that a little code here or there would solve all problems, but things here on the inside are not that cut and dried.

First of all there is the issue of old code and the desire to stay away from using resources to "fix" old stuff that we have already decided needs total replacement.

Although I am very concerned that the vacant teams are a very negative factor in the PB experience, I try to stay focused on the future health of the leagues. I am afraid that short term fixes are not going to keep PB afloat.

One last thing.
When most of the network side of PB was programmed it was done under the auspices of TELESCAN because they felt the project was financially worthy. There were people whose full time job was improving PB.

Without outside investment we have had to resort to the sort of guerilla warfare that brought the actual game about with little cash outlay---before Telescan was even in the picture.

The only way I see to bring back investment dollars is to focus on the basics of the project and a viable marketing plan.

There have been calls for advertising the game on the discussion board but I feel that at this time we woudl be wasting the money in large part.

We need an introductory game to "convert" fans to managers and we need a state of the art and stable baseball environment to keep them.


Mike Bravard (PB)