Gustav

*Gustav noises* It is TIME for a NIGHT PHASE! Night 1, more specifically. Everyone's favorite Gustav will be up at 7-something tomorrow, something I'm not particularly happy about but which will at least lead to less wondering where I am and whether or not I'm still asleep at 1. Please join the server if you haven't yet! List of living players (22) @16z @Advantage @Alex_J32 @BarzalGoat @Berocka @ColeMrtz @Devise @Doomsday @Goliathus @Jericho @jhatty8 @MMFLEX @Mr_Hatter @N0HBDY @NSG88 @omgitshim @osens @Ptyrell @Ricer13 @rory @Spartan @WentzKneeFan036

*Gustav noises* It has been a hot minute since we last met. And it also took me a hot minute to set this up tonight because I can't focus on things today. Would you believe that I took two wrong turns on routes that I know perfectly well today? I wouldn't either--despite my usually nonexistent sense of direction, I at least know how to go places I've already been. Whatever. Role list: Player list (22) @16z @Advantage @Alex_J32 @BarzalGoat @Berocka @ColeMrtz @Devise @Doomsday @Goliathus @Jericho @jhatty8 @MMFLEX @Mr_Hatter @N0HBDY @NSG88 @omgitshim @osens @Ptyrell @Ricer13 @rory @Spartan @WentzKneeFan036 Anyway, it's late, so here's your copy-paste. Everyone should have their roles by now; if you don't let me know, and if you haven't joined the server yet, please do so now. Rules are here The wiki is here I'm running out of ideas, but here's some prog metal. -JOIN THE DISCORD SERVER! YOU'RE REQUIRED TO! HERE'S ANOTHER LINK! -I'm going with my usual starting and ending times as a general guideline: WHENEVER THE HELL I WAKE UP marks the start of each day phase, and 10 PM EST marks the start of each night phase. Those will be the times that I'll aim for, but, officially, the start of one phase and the end of another comes whenever I make the announcement. You'll be pinged. I will do my best to give out expected announcement times, but I reserve the right to kick off any phase at any time. -No talking in this thread during night phases. That goes for everybody, regardless of role. I have no power to lock this thread at night, and there's no official penalty for talking in here at night, but if you see one of your fellow citizens doing so, please yell at them for me. -Do not edit posts. I've been relaxed about not yelling at people who have, but editing is a sneaky way to take out potentially incriminating information. If you say something stupid, too bad. Don't change it. -If you are reasonably able to be online at the start of the night phases, please make an effort to do so. The JAILOR (if there is a Jailor) is able to speak with you in their own Discord channel at night, and that is when I will put the Jailor's target in said channel. If it is within your power to do so and doesn't present a huge inconvenience, please be online when the night phase starts and please join the server out of respect for the Jailor and their time. If you know you won't be around at the start of the night phase, it might be helpful to give me a message to forward to the Jailor during the day phase should you be placed in jail that night. -DO NOT PM ANYBODY. All communication must happen in this thread, unless you have already received an invite to a Discord server where you may speak as well. If you haven't, keep everything here. Should you wish to contact someone directly, too bad! Whispers don't exist in this format. -STAY ACTIVE. If you do go two day and night phases in a row without speaking in public, speaking in a private Discord, or sending me a night action (or specifically telling me you do not want to take a night action), I will swing the Mighty Gustav Hammer of Death. You do not want the Mighty Gustav Hammer of Death, and neither does anybody on your side. -NO ROLES ARE OFF THE TABLE. If you play the online game, you may be familiar with a Classic mode being the default, where many of the newer roles are not used. In these games, if the evil faction is the Mafia, ALL roles which are not members of the Coven may be used, and vice versa. This includes Any All and Town Traitor. -Last but not least, friendly reminder that no discussion relevant to this game in particular is allowed in the #general channel of the game server while this game is running. -Just kidding! Actually last but not least--IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CHECK YOUR DISCORD CHANNEL FOR NOTIFICATIONS PRIOR TO EACH DAY PHASE. It might not end well for you if you don't! -And last but not least for the third time, if you choose to change a night action, please, please, send a new message rather than editing your old one. I've missed changes because of this before as an edit doesn't give me any sort of notification if I've already seen and missed the first one...so make sure I've got it right by separating your submissions!

Kinda sorta. I don't feel strongly either way, but I think it's good to have some VHLM stuff mixed in because otherwise I'd literally never look at which teams are doing well in the minors unless I'm writing an article or something. My main idea is more reactionary than anything else. I liked the old format (pick winners, then pick a specific game) over some of the new questions that were put out there this week. Absolutely nothing against trying new stuff (and I think it's important that we do to see what's best), but at the moment I'd prefer the questions staying how they've always been. One thing I'd like to address is something that's been mentioned in this thread: the way EFL runs some of their games (the whole "play every week and every week adds onto your final score) is TERRIBLE (in my opinion) for anyone who isn't super active and won't see things go up every week. As a semi-active, and even as a fairly-active for a while, I found their games very difficult to track and would often find myself losing interest in keeping up with them after missing a week or so, because that meant I could no longer do as well in them as I would have liked--and the best final payout was only like 6 TPE, something I'd be lucky to end up with even half of at the end and nothing I'd stress myself out over trying to get over an entire season. I'd much rather see wins and payouts happen every week than have us experiment with something like that. Yes. I always kind of figured that I liked it because I was good at it, but my team is trash this season and I still had fun. Unpopular opinion: VHFL is mostly fine as is. Certain players will always be favored in certain ways by the sim engine, and that's OK. Knowing which players are going to be favored in which certain ways is and will always be the key to winning, like it or not. EFL ran with a budget-based system for a while, which I thought was interesting. I know @Berocka mentioned this in a recent article and I think it's a cool concept. Instead of they way they've done it--everyone picks their own team individually--I'd like to keep the drafts and add budgets, if we ever try it that way. I'd much rather draft than not. Lower the effect of SB a little. Good defensive play should be rewarded, but not almost on the same level as points. That's about it, though--I'm not super against the way anything else works. I do have a proposal for DQ'd teams, though--I think there's a lot of potential drama involved with missing picks and being removed from the lineup. Our current system is (I think): -Miss a pick, get skipped -Miss two picks, get DQ'd ...while what I'd like to see is something like this: -Miss a pick, get skipped -Miss two picks, get skipped again -You don't go on the clock any time you're up to pick after that; you just get skipped again (and preferably pinged with it). -At any time up to the last pick in the draft, you may come in and make all the picks you missed. Your team then goes back on the clock when you're up to pick. -If you don't have all your picks made by the end of the draft, you're DQ'd at that point. It keeps things moving while making drafts more relaxed and accessible (and it makes others feel less weird about skipping you and takes away the "I don't want to be that guy to say you're out" issue among group managers).

I was thinking of answers and about to write honey mustard when I scrolled into this one. There is only one correct answer and it is K R A N C H

I like how Hulk Hogan Jr was taken so this is the other option (a la Stanley Marsh 3). Now we just need someone to make Hulk Hogan II.

List of players: 1. 16z 2. Advantage 3. Alex_J32 4. BarzalGoat 5. Berocka 6. ColeMrtz 7. Devise 8. Doomsday 9. Goliathus 10. Jericho 11. jhatty8 12. MMFLEX 13. Mr_Hatter 14. N0HBDY 15. NSG88 16. omgitshim 17. osens 18. Ptyrell 19. Ricer13 20. rory 21. Spartan 22. WentzKneeFan036

For the first time in a while... *Gustav noises* I just got home from work, my brain is fried, forgive me for not having much else to say. Here's the copy-paste, and if you want me to format it so it's perfectly tailored to your light-mode screen, TOO BAD! Rules are here The wiki is here CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU'RE NOT IN THE DISCORD SERVER JOINING THE SERVER IS REQUIRED FOR ALL PLAYERS! Non-players are welcome as well. Remember that ALL game-related notifications will be given on Discord! Make sure you join the server, and check it BEFORE speaking in the game thread each day. Also, do your best to be there at the start of each night phase! If you're new to the game, read up on some roles on the wiki and go through some old game threads in this subforum. TRIVIA TIME: HERE IS THE LINK TO TRIVIA! -If you won the last game, you have an automatic 30% chance to receive a role of your choosing, if you'd like to request one. The winners of last game are listed below: @Juice @Advantage @Domg5 @Mr_Hatter @Jericho @N0HBDY @MMFLEX -If you didn't win the last game, you can still request a role! Play trivia, and for each correct answer, you'll earn a cumulative 5% chance toward a role of your choosing, for a maximum chance of 20%. -If you won the last game, you can still play! This possible 20% chance will be added to your 30% chance for a maximum of 50%. -No, you do not need to do this if you don't want to. -If you'd like to play without requesting a role, simply write "Random" in the role request box. Vote for your preferred format up top and sign up down below, as always. Target start date: Friday night!

For the week ending 8/29: 1. With London selling off some of their assets, the 6th-place team in our conference should be expected to drop off somewhat, meaning that barring anything going horribly wrong...we're in the playoffs for the first time since S73! What's the first thing you're doing to celebrate? 2. I've noticed throughout the season that our power play and penalty kill have been consistently terrible, even though I've been experimenting with our setup there just as much as I've been messing with the regular lines. If we had even average units there, do you think it would make much of a difference in the standings, or are Warsaw and Malmo just too far ahead? 3. With today being deadline day, the team directly below us in the standings in Prague has decided to make some roster moves. Though none are necessarily major, they've improved somewhat. Should we be any more worried about them than before, or is it business as usual? 4. Also with deadline day comes the emergence of recreates! Are there any new players (listed here) that you're particularly excited for? 5. What's a musical artist whose appeal you don't understand? 6. Who's someone you admire who isn't from the USA, Canada, or your own country (if it's neither of those two)? @Grape @Berocka@Ricer13@efiug @weekz @KC15 @TheCHEESE @Ahma @PatrikLaine @FrostBeard@Midnite @JardyB10 @tcookie

Week 1

/article

I like this. It's not something I'd actively care about myself, but some things in there could make for interesting article tidbits and I can see why it can add some more depth to player creation.

I'm down for whatever! I do agree that single elimination is a bit too harsh/anticlimactic in some situations, and if we get a smaller pool of people signing up (not that I think we would), I'd probably rather just see double like last time around. Also on board for the round robin thing, anything works so long as someone in "decent" territory isn't out of the whole thing after a bad matchup on the first sig or something.

I like the unofficial awards because I've actually won one, unlike the official ones.

OmG BeRoCka In general I don't disagree with this. The situations you listed are a bit harder to notice than "this GM improved their team" and as such probably aren't noticed as much (even if what the GM did was impressive). Deals made as clear "buying" moves make the goal obvious, while something that's more in the category of shuffling things around will have to be examined more closely and potentially even guessed at if the GM's intentions aren't public. It's also generally considered an award for "who was the top GM THIS SEASON", which can take away from things like keeping a team good for the future or winning a few championships close to each other. So, I can see how that tips the scales even more in favor of "who did the best for their team in this regular season alone".

I suppose I can't objectively disagree with this.

Yes. I like scrolling through media spots here and there, and lately I haven't come across as much worth reading as I used to. ...which is why I think forum activity is an important thing and part of why I've been talking/complaining about it dropping off recently, because if nobody's going to care about what you write, then why write something interesting? And if you're not writing anything interesting, then why would anybody care about what you're writing? And so on. Objectively speaking, it's the same TPE either way. One thing to note, though, and one reason why I'm not super for giving out TPE for solid tasks (even though I think I'm capable of winning in the media spot category every now and then) is that some may overestimate what a small bit of TPE means. We'd probably see a handful of people (certainly not all, certainly not most either, but I think some) doing things like artificially inflating their word counts or ripping graphics from other places to try to win that extra bit, something that violates the integrity of a point task even more than doing the bare minimum that's approvable in my opinion. And with any sort of voting process, as we've seen countless times, comes drama. More influential members could end up campaigning for themselves or their friends in a public vote (just imagine a shady GM rallying their team for that sort of thing), and any decision reached by a committee would be called into question and accused of having been reached due to favoritism or corruptness. I think ANY TPE-related reward would be uglier than it's worth. I do agree that putting an emphasis on doing things well, rather than just doing things, is worth it. Perhaps a "best of this season" article from VSN would be cool, and maybe we could kick off another graphics tournament at some point. It's been about a year and a half since @Nykonax ran his, and I still remember it as a cool event that I had a lot of fun engaging with.

One of my favorites right there. He makes the story way better than the concept makes it seem like it would be. I read Five Little Pigs recently and didn't love it because the entire thing was just dialogue (though I also took forever to finish it and as a consequence didn't really have my details straight). Wondering if it's just a general writing style I don't get or if it's just specific to that book. It is really good, and that's coming from someone who generally finds sci-fi books that try to be funny/relatable stupid (I read Armada by Ernest Cline a while ago and found everything incredibly forced even though someone else I know loved it). There's quite a bit of absurdity in there and it doesn't cross the line into "look at how much of a nerd I am" type of humor, which would have made me instantly dislike it.

I'll throw in some stuff. Between being stressed out over school and working all the time over the summer, I haven't really read for pleasure much lately...but a few things I've read over the past few years that I've enjoyed more than other things I've read over that time: -Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0 by Pat Kirwan. Not much literary nuance to this, but I'm very much into sports books. This is easily the most in-depth look at football and how an NFL team runs that I've read, and I've read a few of those types of things. -Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Yes, that's the Fahrenheit 451 guy, but instead of sci-fi we're talking about a surreal mind trip centered on a traveling circus. Much better than the book we were all forced to read in high school imo. -A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I think this book was written around the turn of the 1970s, and I can't really think of a way to describe it other than that the whole "neckbeard" stereotype was predicted incredibly accurately long before it ever existed. Highly unusual, a bit unsettling, but also funny as hell. -Literally anything by Stephen King...I think I have a problem. I didn't think I'd say this with anything, but my favorites are any book that takes like 800 pages to build up and then ends with an absolutely insane 150-200 or so. -Sab by Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda. Actually a book I was forced to read for a class last year, but the one from that class I actually found interesting. A story of love and heartbreak told from the perspective of a slave living in 19th century Cuba.

Salem noises

Hello all! For the week ending 8/22: 1. This week is THEME WEEK! And the topic is VHL Awards. Our topic can sometimes be controversial--do you think the blue team picked out a fun one this week? Why or why not? 2. Speaking of VHL Awards and theme week, have you done a point task on the topic this week (or do you plan to)? If so, what's it about? 3. We've been losing in overtime quite a bit lately. What do you think other teams are doing differently to keep their composure after regulation? 4. Another opportunity for some extra earning came this week when the commissioners asked us for our suggestions on making the league better. Whether or not you've commented in the thread, what's something you'd like to see the league do to improve itself? 5. More on the topic of suggestions, one of mine was to formally rework how press conferences are done--instead of being asked six questions and answering them all and having to wait for questions to go up every week, my idea was to have every post consist of three answers to previous questions and three questions to be answered by someone else, making it so anyone could do a press conference at any time and everyone interacts with someone different every week. This is something we could do informally as well--would you like us to try it, or are you happy with how things are now? 6. Time for a third question about the suggestion thread--go to the thread (here's the link again, also in question 4) and find a suggestion you like. What is it and who made it? Don't be afraid to tag the author for some positive recognition. @Grape @Berocka@Ricer13@efiug @weekz @KC15 @TheCHEESE @Ahma @PatrikLaine @FrostBeard@Midnite @JardyB10 @tcookie

One of our better theme weeks of the past was "unsung heroes", where we all wrote about a player or a member who we thought didn't get enough recognition. I'm going to do the same thing, because I'm just saucy like that. ...but, because it's awards week and I need to write about awards, I'm writing about awards instead. Specifically, I'm talking about the best current players the league has to offer who have never won an individual award. Team awards like the Victory Cup and Continental Cup don't count, because, well, they're team awards, and neither do all-star appearances (if there are even any active players left with all-star appearances) because of the inconsistency in whether or not we even have an all-star lineup anymore (as well as public voting being absolute garbage time and time again, sorry not sorry). I'm also not including VHLM awards, because it's the VHLM and nobody cares about the VHLM stats from the minors don't count towards career totals and a player's career is usually judged pretty much exclusively on their impact in the big league. Originally, this was just going to be a list, but I figured it would be fun to create a full dream lineup of players who have never won an award for themselves and see where that takes me. I'll pick out 6 forwards (including at least two centers because FO), 4 defenders, and two goalers and we'll leave the debate open on whether or not said team would be able to accomplish much (spoiler alert: it absolutely would). Let's get into it! ...and yes, apologies in advance to anyone who feels left out. My research method (click teams on the portal and look at the stats for names that seem notable to me) is not super exact and I'll probably miss someone somewhere. FORWARDS Line 1: Valtteri Vaakanainen | @Jubo | C | S72 | | 1009 TPA Lee Xin | @Blazzer | RW | S74 | | 827 TPA Gunnar Odinsson | @BOOM | RW | S76 | | 863 TPA Our first line is a tale of the even-numbered seasons, as we see two vets who have already built solid careers joining forces with an up-and-comer in Odinsson who appears to be (so far) a lock for quite a few major awards this season. Save for Odinsson--who seems determined to invalidate that qualification before the season is over--this line consists of players who are over point-per-game status for their careers. Vaakanainen hasn't broken away from point-per-game pace since his rookie season, once breaking 90, and has recently upped his physical game, while Xin has (so far) the highest point total of the group with 109 coming in just last season as the third consecutive point total over 80. To add to that, Odinsson's achievements this season speak for themselves, and we're lucky we get to put him in this article this season--because if I wrote this next season, our probable MVP would be far from qualifying here. Line 2: Taro Tsujimoto | @GustavMattias | C | S75 | | 995 TPA Venus Thightrap | @BladeMaiden | C | S74 | | 841 TPA Timothy Brown | @a_Ferk | RW | S72 | | 781 TPA This line was hard to throw together because there are a few names I feel are deserving of placement on it that don't quite make the cut (Riga's Cabe McJake and Chicago's Julian Nousiainen come to mind as two players who are also over career point-per-game status). While one may be inclined to believe, based on TPE levels, that Tsujimoto or Thightrap would be the main point of this line, as they've had similar career numbers and are the two best players on the line in terms of earning, it's Brown that takes the cake statistically with over 500 career points, including four consecutive seasons of 85 or more entering S79. Meanwhile, Tsujimoto and Thightrap do what they do best--put up numbers as their respective teams' #1 center. DEFENSE Pairing 1: Matty Socks | @fishy | S73 | | 818 TPA Alex Letang | @Spartan | S72 | | 930 TPA Out of all the players I looked at who haven't won an award, Socks and Letang were the only two I found who were both far enough into their careers so a reasonable judgment could be made about their significance and above point-per-game level. While that's something that's come up quite a bit so far in this article, I'd like to make it clear that that isn't a clear requirement for placement on this list--after all, Odinsson is on our first forward line even though he is (at the moment) below that point--it's just a clear metric to use for players whose careers are already in progress as point totals will be different for players from different seasons. Anyway, enough about my stupid justifications. Let's talk about Socks and Letang, in my opinion two of the league's best defenders and two players who I was surprised to learn haven't been recognized individually. Both initially developed very similar styles of play, putting up points and blocking shots all over with little regard to playing a physical game, before Letang went with a more checking-heavy build midway through his career. Though I'd argue that Socks is the superior defensive player despite Letang's physicality, being up there on the SB leaderboards season in and season out, Letang managed to turn on the jets offensively and happens to be on an absolute tear this season, on track to smash his best performance on record. All in all, in a fairly subjective article, there's no doubt about our top pairing. Pairing 2: Tyler Walker | @Advantage | S73 | | 759 TPA Kasper Kankkunen | @16z | S74 | | 838 TPA As obvious as the first pairing seemed to me, the second one was a bit tougher. An honorable mention here goes to Warsaw's Victor Grachev, who I debated putting in this lineup above both of the above and who has a legitimate argument for being here as well depending on how you look at things. I'm very familiar with Walker's career, having traded for him in the offseason prior to S75 and keeping him around for a bit, and as such I'm also very familiar with some of his more notable statistical performances, including a 25-goal, 90-point, 290-hit, 165-SB effort in S77 that would likely have landed him an award had Davos not been an otherwise awful team. Overall, while probably not what we'd think of as top-tier, his stats have been impressive and he's put up a solid career. The same can be said for Kankkunen, with whom I was largely unfamiliar prior to taking a look at his player page today. Likely one of the league's more underrated players, he's coming off of back-to-back seasons over 80 points and could be on track to making it three in a row this time around. GOALERS Zamboni Driver | @Tape-to-Tape | S72 | | 804 TPA Artem Tretiak | @Molholt | S75 | | 831 TPA An honorable mention here would be a bit tough to pick out, because there are many similar players after this point, but mine would go to LA's Doug Dimmadome, who's managed to fight back quite admirably from some woes of his first couple seasons. Which one of these players deserves to be considered the starter is an interesting question, and there are clear arguments for either, so I'll put both out there in no particular order and let the reader decide. On one hand, Zamboni Driver has put up some impressive career numbers, certainly the more impressive of these two, in his long run with Helsinki, and currently finds himself respectably in the starter spot in Riga, a team known for some solid play in net in recent memory. On the other hand, Tretiak put up a very good performance last season and finds himself this season's best goaltender (I say without verifying that statement, but a 30-9-0 record currently is hard to beat). In terms of upward potential, Tretiak has it to infinity and beyond. Why did I write this article instead of predicting this season's award winners or complaining about how a certain award is voted upon? Well, first off, it would be boring to do what I've seen done already this week. But second of all, there's a bit of a stigma around not winning awards. Some think no awards means no recognition as a good player, some think no awards means no chance at making the Hall of Fame, and I've seen many prospects tell me they prioritize winning an award over just about all else. You don't have to win an award to be great. This team (if it could magically fit under the cap) would be dominant, and there are a few players on here who may never win an award but who I'd consider players with a legitimate shot at making the Hall of Fame or being remembered for quite some time after they're gone. To anyone worrying about their own chances--maybe you'll win one, maybe you won't, but even if you don't, plenty of great players are just like you and it's an honor to be in that group to begin with. Apparently this is EXACTLY 1,500 words. Claiming for three weeks starting next week because I already did something this week.