It's Been Fun Boys

[Big Sexy JC]

Now that the ani project is complete, I'm moving on from Links creations. My website will stay active for as long as it remains feasible and I might occasionally add something to it. I'm going to continue my PGA Tour replay and I just got my new Rivals Golf League started so I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes. In other words, I'm going to continue enjoying Links like I always have, but my involvement in the community will probably dwindle down to somewhere around very little to none.

I've enjoyed interacting with everyone the last few years. It's a great community with tons of super bright people that I've been blessed to learn from and mooch off of. Thanks to Andy for giving us all a place to collaborate and talk Links. I do get emails when I get PMs so if anyone needs anything specific feel free to PM me and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Lastly, and hopefully this doesn't get me shunned within the community, but I plan to design courses in the soon to be released PGA 2k25. I also plan on creating an online society to host PGA 2k25 tourneys. I'm very excited for that game to come out in a couple weeks as it looks like they've made incredible improvements in the course designer and gameplay. If anyone is interested in playing along in my society or joining forces on some course design feel free to reach out.

I still love Links, but APCD is just too much of a learning curve and I've always had an itch to design courses and the PGA 2k25 course designer seems to be a great combo of incredible features and smaller learning curve.

Big Sexy signing off!!!!!

[Ian Wells]

Big Sexy,
I hope PGA 2k25 brings you the pleasures that you hope for.
Just as you feel that APCD is too much of a learning curve for you, I believe that PGA 2k25 would be the same for me, so I will plod on with APCD. (You never know I may learn how to use it?)
Good luck.

Ian

[pmgolf]

Thanks for all that you did, JC!

Pete

[fiver]

We will miss you very much. I hope you do some more anis. 1 a month would be good.

Jim

[gu444]

Thanks for all your efforts you put in to bring new life into the LINKS golf game. All your time was greatly appreciated. GREAT WORK!

[Guitarzan]

Thanks for all the great work you have done for us BSJC and I hope you don't become a stranger around here. I too have been looking at PGA2K25 and I'm mildly interested. I've had every HB product up to and including PGA2K23 and I have to say I don't see a heck of a lot of difference. The course designer will be a lot better and the overall look is nicer but, and this is crucial, you still can't play against a created or pro A.I. player one on one. You either play multiplayer or a ghost player. This is the one thing that has not made me a full HB convert and why Links is still my sim of choice. How hard can it be to implement something that has been in golf sims for over twenty five years? Good luck with your PGA2K25 future. I will probably buy it when they have a Steam sale.

[linkster]

I have been keeping an eye on PGA 2k25 as well but there are some issues that prevent me from getting involved. Pot bunkers are still a big omission in the course designer, custom objects still seem to be not supported, and there will never be the ability to import lidar dem data. It takes an incredible amount of time and effort to complete a course in the APCD, but the results can be completely customized to the style of the course. PGA 2k25 and the full 3d environment has much better lighting and moving effects, especially for tournament play.

It is almost amazing that a 20+ year old game still fulfills my needs for a golf sim. There will come a time where I will need to shell out the $$$ for a new computer that may not support Links 2003 and the APCD, but hopefully that is still a few years down the road.

Let us know how PGA 2k25 is going for you JC and keep in touch!

[Jimbo]

Sexy-you'll never be a stranger here...by the way, you're still leading the PGA pool so that should keep you around for a while!
Just wondering...unlike Links will they be updating (especially for tour courses) every year?

[Weeler]

JC: Your contributions to the LINKS community have been amazing ! You've done a LOT of good stuff to make this game better, and we all appreciate it, I'm sure. Like the others have said.....no need to be a stranger to LC. If you get some other ideas , please feel free to share them. Best of luck with
PGA 2k25, sounds like a challenge....but fun at the same time.

Thanks again, man.................Weeler

[Big Sexy JC]

Thanks for all the kind words gents. It means a lot. I want to give some additional info on PGA 2k25. First, I promise I'm not trying to pull anyone from Links to PGA 2k. I really never understood that anyway as I've been playing video games for 45 years and I've played and enjoyed multiple games in almost every genre and sport. For example, I'm a huge baseball fan. I played the game for 20 years, coached the game for 25 years and ran a baseball business for over 20 years. If you asked me what my favorite baseball game is/was below would be my answers.

Earl Weaver Baseball
Tony LaRussa Baseball
High Heat Baseball
Out of the Park Baseball
MLB the Show

I love them all and still try to play them all from time to time. They each offer different ways for me to enjoy them and things that I like more than others. I'm the same way with Real Time Strategy. I have about 5 of those I bounce around with as well.

To that point, I will always love Links and will use it for replays because the ability to create AI golfers that you can put against each other or yourself is the best feature of Links. I'm having an absolute blast with my Rivals Golf League. The player development system is working awesome and the league is very competitive. I can't wait to see how it plays out.

I've spent the last 5-6 days almost entirely playing 2k25. For those that haven't played it yet (it actually doesn't come out until this Friday, but I got the advanced edition) it is fantastic. I've been playing video games and sports video games my entire life and this might be the best upgrade to a video game from one version to the next that I can recall in a very long time.

The new terrain system has incredible balls physics. I think they are the best I've seen in any golf game to date. The MyPlayer model is incredibly deep and allows for an infinite number of player types within the 5 main archetypes. It's almost real time strategy like in that each archetype has certain strengths and weaknesses that balance each other out and prevent you from creating a super golfer. It's not too easy to build up your golfer and you can have a golfer for each archetype, but it would take forever to max them all out. I have two right now. One Technician at an 87 rating and one Powerhouse at a 73 rating.

Being an ani guy in Links, the player maker with all the facial features, body types, hair styles, etc. means that it's almost impossible to build the same player twice.

As for playing the game, this is where the new version really shines. Currently I'm in 2 Societies that have weekly events that I can play at my own leisure. I also created my own Society (BSJC Golf League) if any want to join it. I'm also in two Ranked Tours. They are both Pro-Am difficulty and one has daily events and the other has weekly events. There are also Master and Pro level Ranked Tours. I also started a PGA Career with my created golfer. There are also a lot of mini games (Top Golf for example) that you can also play. Of course, you can always just play a casual round on any of the 1000s of courses. It's just a deep game play system that should allow for countless hours of replayability.

Lastly, the course designer absolutely blew my mind. I've spent time in APCD trying to build the Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course that Linkster got me the DEM for. I watched all of Lez's tutorials and feel like I could eventually take a course to the finish line, but it would take forever. I spent some time in the 2k21 and 2k23 designers and actually completed a couple courses in 2k23, but they weren't very good. This new designer just makes terrain painting and weathering a piece of cake. There are 1000s of trees and rocks and grasses and buildings that can be placed on courses. The need for hours of terrain sculpting has been eliminated. I can't imagine another course designer being any easier to pick up and run with. I'm 9 holes into my first 2k25 course and I can't believe it's something that I've designed. There's just no way I would've told you I could create a course this nice in this amount of time that I could be proud of, but I think it's gonna happen.

If you were on the fence on 2k25 I would give it a try. I can't give it high enough praise. Keep Linksing though. You can do both. It's perfectly Ok to have a love affair with two golf games. I'm living proof. I've attached a pic of my golfer just for some laughs. Big Sexy is, well, Big and Sexy.