STADIUM CREATOR

For the first time, gamers can let their imaginations run wild when building a home turf. Luis talks to Kasabe Kompiles about how he does it so well

One of the biggest additions to MLB The Show 21 has been the oft-asked-for Stadium Creator. In some of the other sports games, stadium creators are very cut and dry. You have a limited number of options to change the color of a limited number of elements (seat, floors, sidelines) as well as limited changeability on other elements such as scoreboards, press boxes, etc. What SDS has released in game is something beyond all of our dreams. Its interface reminds me of the customizability of Disney Infinity with a touch of Minecraft. With a library of over 1,000 props at launch, it has excited the creative community within The Show. My Twitter timeline is full of new amazing creations by game players.

I recently sat down with one of these star creators, Kasabe Kompiles, to break down the stadium creator and some of the creations he’s most proud of.

What has been your overall impression of stadium creator in MLB The Show 21?

I’m actually very impressed—for the development team to have such a tight deadline with next gen, adding Xbox, dealing with Covid and all that, it’s very in-depth. A lot of sports gamers would think similar stadium creators would be comparable to those of Madden or 2K, where there’s a set number of choices you can scroll through and pick your favorite, and maybe choose some team colors here and there. While there’s a few menus like that, the brunt of MLB’s stadium creator allows you to take control on a 3D plane and place things around the canvas similar to Sim City or Minecraft. It allows you to set your creativity and mind to work, and see how you can finesse the props together in some instances to create something new. Obviously it could be more fleshed out with additional props, but seeing as they had to introduce it first, the fact they have 1,000+ props is astounding. My opinion has also shifted significantly more positive since the vault added a search tool! That was a huge quality of life addition.

Luis downloaded The Hideout designed by Kasabe_ on PSN for Scuffy's Bronze Bandits. It's a high altitude stadium, so he's been hitting homeruns nonstop. Going a less dramatic route, Kasabe_ also designed this version that's more like a local park.

How long does it take you to create an original stadium (on average)?

I’d say anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours, based on the stadium. A lot of that is tweaking the seats and walls more than anything, though. The props are a lot more easy to use once you get the hang of it. With the stadium dimensions and fans, you have to be a lot more precise for it to look good.

What is your favorite stadium that you have created, why?

As fun as recreating some stadiums from popular media are, ultimately you feel a small bit of unrest with it not being exact. Sure, the stadium creator has its limitations and I’ve come to accept that and create some of those stadiums in more of a “recreation” so to speak—but personally I enjoyed making The Hideout for Scuffy’s Bronze Bandits most. There weren’t any limitations to fi ll and adhere to, and my creativity was free to go wherever I wanted. I decided to really go over the top with some mountains, train tracks, and a treasure pile in left fi eld. It was the time I felt like I really couldn’t add anything more and the most satisfi ed I’ve been with the fi nal product.

Did you grow up playing other sandbox type games (Minecraft, Disney Infi nity, Terraria, etc.), if so which ones, and what was your opinion of them?

Not as much as other people might’ve, really. I’ve dabbled in Minecraft and the Sims and whatnot, but I don’t think I’d consider myself an expert in any of those games. All of my experience I think comes from making logos in Black Ops 2 and MLB over the years. After a while you start to have an eye for looking at something and thinking, okay, how can I recreate this? Or how can I take this specifi c item and break it down into chunks that I have available at my disposal? It’s helped me out with stadium creator quite a bit. I would eventually like to see stadium creator maybe take a page from Minecraft and maybe give creators some colored blocks where they could perhaps build something out of it, but I could also see where that could lead to some questionable stuff going on.

What advice would you give other creators making stadiums?

First of all, save often. Stadium creator is offl ine and you likely won’t get booted off or get a blue screen very often, but there’s been times where the little fl oppy disk appears in the top right corner with the strike through it, and I don’t entirely know how to fix it every time. That icon means you can’t save your work because something is wrong with the field. And it’s hard to know what, sometimes. I’d also recommend people mix it up with the props! If you have a building that’s a rectangle shape, and you want to make it an L shape, then you can place two props together to make a L shape. For one of my Backyard Baseball stadiums I wanted to recreate a car in the street, but the only car props are parking lots. I got creative and used houses and hills to disguise the cars I didn’t want to be seen.

Where can people find you?

To find my stadiums, my PSN is Kasabe_ but I’d really like to invite people to check out reddit.com/r/ MLBtheShowStadiums. There’s a whole community of great stadiums by other users and they would be happy to give even more tips and advice if one were to want to learn more about creating stadiums.

SHOW FAVORITES

I grew up playing Strat-O-Matic baseball with my brothers. I became a statobsessed baseball fan. This obsession carried over into collecting baseball cards and playing every baseball simulation video game I could get my hands on. My current baseball obsession is MLB The Show 21.

My favorite baseball player growing up was Don Mattingly. My favorite baseball card series ever is Topps 1987, the faux wood grain border with simple circular logo in the corner and the player name in the bottom right corner set in the team colors. In a convergence of my favorite things, MLB The Show just released their "2nd Inning Bosses" and it’s none other than 1987 Don Mattingly with the Topps wood grain border. As an added bonus, they also released Tom Henke (the Terminator, my favorite reliever of that era) from the same Topps '87 set.

While not the best fi rst baseman available in the game, Mattingly will be in my lineup for most of the game cycle. He’s the best fi elding fi rst baseman in the game and offers a ton of contact versus both righties and lefties. The only thing lacking, is Mattingly’s power. Mattingly hit 31 homeruns in 1986 and another 30 in '87, but this card's power levels don't refl ect that. So even though this card isn’t entirely refl ective of Mattingly in that era, I’m still thrilled to have it and even more thrilled that's its in the '87 Topps style. —LV

CARDS CRISIS

Not a lot of industries flourished during pandemic. One of the rare winners was the collectible card market. The price of hobby cards (MLB, NBA, NFL, WWE, and Pokémon) exploded. Grading services have an almost year-long wait for cards to be graded. This boom led some brick and mortar stores (Target and Walmart) to first limit the time and days of card sales and then ultimately stop selling cards entirely. The craziness of card flippers has elbowed out the casual card fan. Reports range from shoppers fighting each other to a car running over a line of consumers. I remember being able to run to the corner store and buy a pack or two of cards... Now you can’t even find cards in stores and the second market has pushed out casuals. Thanks, collectors. —LV