Rin

I will gladly fly my team flag so elitist Canadian hockey fans can bully me for enjoying a sport Joking aside, I think it's a great idea

this is based af Would league commissioners not suffice for this kind of perspective? Would they not be close enough to the GM situation to represent them?

"The Beauty and the Beast" I can absolutely get behind this

It's been a hot minute since I did anything graphic-wise, de-rusting with an image to accompany pressers

Absolutely-- this is a good spot to mention that I don't necessarily think that everyone needs to be doing things the way I did. Everything about how I approached Houston was both different and contained within that team; it gave us an identity and a reason to play for Houston as opposed to anywhere else. If that wasn't a good match, then incoming players had the option to accept a different offer or request a trade elsewhere- both completely fine options if the vibes weren't there. The goal with Houston was to specialize in engaging a specific type of person (and to create the environment I would have wanted as a new player), and in that case I think we succeeded. This is definitely the greater takeaway from my anecdotal rambling. I feel like it's way too easy, as a player, to feel more like a pawn in the chess game of GMs rather than an individual helping to create a whole.

So when I decided to drop ~450 words on a .com article last week about recruitment, I should have stopped myself and kept that writing off to the side in anticipation for theme week. I was entirely convinced that this was coming, and didn't heed my own foresight whatsoever. Now, I face the consequences of my own actions. So while my primary thoughts on recruitment are summarized here, I'll use this media spot to dive into some thoughts on the back half of recruitment- that is, player retention. I've been vocal in saying "oh, the 13-14 year old EA sports crowd doesn't wanna write essays, so they leave" but that doesn't mean we can't do our best to keep them here anyway. I want to harken back to the before times, where I was a hyper active member that was chosen a few times to be the general manager of the Houston Bulls. I was put in a unique position to set the tone for an expansion franchise right out of the gate, though I'm sure the management and handling of the Bulls has changed drastically as ownership has passed between hands. Knowing that the #1 goal of the VHLM was to retain players, I set out to set the Bulls apart and really try and focus on the roleplay/immersion aspect of the league. At the time, I was of the opinion that this sort of an approach was really lacking throughout locker rooms. I know most everyone at this point votes on captains and reserves jersey numbers, but I wanted to take it a step beyond. I had team members submit and vote on various options for goal songs, then edited the winner into a video to "hang up" in the locker room. I'd link it here if I still had it, but I think it's lost to time. Early on, I mocked up a "jersey reveal" featuring some of the inaugural members of the roster, and was quick to get people some graphics and sigs featuring their chosen player and number in a jersey swapped Houston uniform. Making some pretty graphics and putting together a goal horn were just the initial, smaller parts of my retention plan, though. I really set out to engage my players and encourage them to do whatever it is they wished to do creatively. When a few players started to really buy in, writing over-the-top articles back and forth about their players and interactions within the fictional world of the VHL, I made sure to start including stories within the articles in weekly pressers. It got to a point where the team was collaboratively writing narratives that would last a few weeks, with users responding to each other through their articles and then having to face the media about them when it came time for the weekly press conference. A lot of it was over-the-top goofy, like the time a player's smell caused the entire arena to be shut down for an emergency cleaning, but everyone was having a great time without even checking the results of the sims. That's the kind of focus I really wanted to push with my LR, and I'm happy to say that we definitely got there (especially when the on-ice product wasn't all that much to write home about). Looking back on the tenure as a whole, there are a good number of names that went on to hit the big leagues and find success in their own ways. Eventual cup champs, hall of fame players, taking up league jobs and being positive, active contributors to the community as a whole. I'd like to think that a big part of that was a good first impression from their early days as a VHLM signee/draftee. First impressions are everything, after all. So before I get too rambly, I'll go ahead and wrap things up by re-stressing the need for good team-based engagement in the VHL, especially when it comes to lower leagues. There's a lot more to the VHL than just upping stats and checking sims, and I wish more squads openly embraced that the way some of our rosters were able to to in Houston. I've especially thought back to those days while reflecting on my current VHLE situation- a completely dead LR which is written off with a dismissive "nobody really joins their E locker rooms, anyway." It's a shame, because that kind of an attitude is what would honestly drive me to give up and stop participating in the VHL. If I wasn't on my 3rd player already, familiar with the league and how it runs, I would feel a lot more discouraged and ready to quit.

This is exactly what capped TPE is. No user can earn more than 12 capped TPE per week, and very few (if any) receive "special perks" to put their earning potential above other members. Whether you earn 12 capped TPE in 2 hours or 7 days, you still only earn a max of 12.

NEW YORK AMERICANS PRESS CONFERENCE (We REALLY need a cute graphic for this) 1) Happy theme week! This season's theme is, fittingly, "Recruitment." Do you plan on submitting something for theme week, and if so, what's your idea? 2) Speaking of recruitment, how were you first introduced to the VHL? 3) How big of a hockey fan are you? What first got you interested in the sport? 4) For those in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving! Seeing as we are the New York Americans, how should the team celebrate the holiday? 5) How does your player like to spend their days off? 6) In your opinion, when SHOULD the Christmas season officially begin?

This is a great thread.

Hello! I'm Mr. Recruitment Opinion Man #473, and I'm here to claim some TPE for a thought I've already posted elsewhere on the forums. Joking aside, I do want to just openly think about something I mentioned in one of those threads that blew up. When it comes to bringing in new members, it feels like we tend to gravitate toward hockey-centered communities first- EA NHL advertisements being a pretty big one on that front. Of course, it makes sense to advertise our hockey sim league to hockey enjoyers- it's one of the most important connections we can make with incoming members. I like hockey, they like hockey, we like hockey, so let's do that hockey. But aside from that...all of our activities center around things that an incoming hockey fan likely won't find appealing at first. Writing essays, photoshopping graphics, checking the daily text-based sims, and arguing over how our processes should be changed are all internet nerd activities. Better yet, they're all roleplaying activities more than anything. We sit square in the middle of a Venn diagram of roleplayers and hockey fans, and we honestly skew closer to the roleplaying side of things. I'm an internet anime nerd, I have no shame in admitting I've been fairly active in RP circles. Not so much these days, but I used to be huge on FFXIV where the roleplaying community has always been prominent. Everything we do here reminds me of similar stuff that RP communities typically do- we create our own characters (players), write about them, design or represent their appearance in some way, and then work together with others to expand out some kind of world for them to inhabit. While a lot of our writing and discussion can skew more towards meta discussion than outright worldbuilding, I'd argue that changing rules and designing gameplay systems is still worldbuilding in its own way. So just some food for thought, I don't really claim to have answers about what to do or what not to do when it comes to advertising and retaining new members. I can offer up the thought that we're a lot nerdier than we're willing to admit sometimes, and maybe we should let that factor in to how we approach our outreach. Some 13 year old playing EASHL on XBox isn't likely to enjoy writing Media Spots or answering presser questions, but a D&D player with passing familiarity or interest in hockey might be willing to explore a new interest by combining it with something they partake in and enjoy. Reddit was an effective recruiting tool, after all.

NEW YORK AMERICANS PRESS CONFERENCE (We need a cute graphic for this) 1) At 30 points, the Americans are hypothetically one good stretch away from being in a playoff spot. Do you think we have that kind of a run in us? 2) After the most recent defense-heavy draft, what would you consider the team's greatest needs? 3) With those needs in mind, do you think they can (or should) be addressed at the trade deadline? 4) Does your jersey number have a story behind it? If so, what is it? 5) Does your player model their game after another player? Maybe one they grew up watching, or a peer that they want to emulate? If so, who is it? If not, who would you consider a good comparable? 6) If you had the choice, what would the Americans goal song be?

Yeah, this is a pretty based take. Running an ad on EA NHL channels hits a demographic of teenagers that play video games. Bring them over to the VHL and inform them that they're going to need to write essays and put together decent graphics in order to make their player better and you run into a retention nightmare. Combine that with the letdown that they can neither watch the games being simmed, nor can they directly impact them in any way, and you've got an incredibly hard sell. It's a good idea if you're looking for pure numbers, and you're certainly bound to find some needles in the haystack, but the literal ONLY commonality between us and EA NHL players is "hockey good."

I certainly don't envy the task of recruiting players-- we're essentially trying to hit the middle of a Venn diagram consisting of "sports enjoyers" on one side and "roleplaying nerds" on the other. We live in a niche within a niche

Stop, I can only get so hard...

Given that this season is basically a wash with the E being...underwhelming...I've been looking even further ahead to my eventual VHL call-up and what that might entail. I've already poked someone about having an NYA Rin drawn, an artist with a super cute style that I've gone with before for VHL related Rin artwork. You could definitely say that I'm ready to be a part of the VHL organization. I'll be joining the roster alongside Callum Gary Jannick Janser (@Daniel Janser) as a complete shakeup for the defensive core of New York, which was absolutely the biggest draft need for the squad heading into the s91 selection. We'll join the up-and-coming...ahem-- WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ( @rory ), who easily projects to be the goalie of the future for New York. If I had to guess, I'd say that the number of W's in that name is the number of cups this core will end up winning. A quick look through VHL history shows that the New York Americans haven't claimed the Continental Cup since s53. It's been nearly 40 seasons since this franchise was on top of the world. A number like that is a huge target for me, you'd love to be a part of the squad that breaks a curse and defies all odds. I'll absolutely have to do my best in earning to make sure we're poised make history. I've been lagging a little bit in my TPE earning, but joining the Americans has put a little bit of wind in my sails. I've been getting ready to knock some career PTs out of the way, eyeing up some player store purchases to help give me a nice boost, and of course-- getting a new Rin render for some thematic graphics. Davos got theirs, now it's time to go get ours.

Clear giveaway, nobody has ever muttered this sentence before

1) I'm...ready to be on the Americans, honestly. The E experience has been beyond abysmal so far. 2) Hoping to see Rin excel more in the offensive facets of the game, which does appear to be happening so far. It's definitely what I've been investing towards, and it looks like it's starting to pay off. 3) Loose and hanging, can't be too worried about looks when you're out there on the ice. Just gotta throw the sweater on and go! 4) Easily-- listening to and, in some instances, performing music. Rin is still a wildly talented vocalist, and she tries to incorporate that love for music into her hockey career as much as possible. 5) Definitely some kind of collection of sheet music/transcribed songs, especially if there are pages left blank for you to write your own compositions. Being able to practice and browse through a huge list of songs to practice would be plenty to keep her occupied, should it be the only book she's allowed to read. 6) B is not applicable here, I think she passes for sure. Maybe hops in on a prank if it's harmless enough, but certainly wouldn't initiate one on her own.

Finally got an LR invite, nobody is talking in there and nobody has even assigned me a player role. I don't know if anyone even PLAYS for this team Is this what the E is about? I get to hang out in VHLExodus for a season, serving a one year prison sentence until I get the call-up?

Sorry for quite the CTA in the title, but I do want to use my .com article this week to vent about the early experience in the E. To start, there's definitely already a bias against the E for me personally-- I feel like it's just another minors season to half-pay attention to while I wait to get back into the majors. It doesn't really feel like it's worth much career-wise to me, but those are all just personal takes from someone who hasn't been through the process yet. Even forgetting the bias, though, the start to my E career has been...awful. I was contacted by all of one GM about the draft (and I feel bad for not being able to respond in time), so the draft was a crapshoot. I was drafted by a team that hadn't communicated with me, immediately traded to a team that hadn't communicated with me, and hilariously still have received minimal communication even after the draft. The only contact so far? A single DM that says "here's a link to our Discord server," which includes no text other than that. Not even...y'know, the link to the server. I sent a DM back because it was a funny mistake, whoops forgot to paste the link, but the DM hasn't been checked by the other party since they sent it. This was on October the 22nd. I sent a follow-up, still no response. So my question...does anyone give a shit about this league? Am I just a trade pawn/NPC to be used on a defensive line? Can I be traded to a team that actually cares? I've been in the E for all of a few games and I'm already not a fan. This will be a fun season.

1) Obviously a great decision, I feel like he was the consensus #1 pick and it would have been crazy to try and look elsewhere. When you have that high of a pick and a wide assortment of needs/you're just trying to build a future, picking the BPA is always the right call. 2) It'll be tough, but I think the focus should be on incremental improvement and finding positive takeaways from losing seasons. Tracking individual performances is usually how I prefer to go about it, keeping an eye on personal growth so that it might turn into team growth in the long run. 3) I believe it was the s76 Chicago team that ended up winning the cup. That was just a special group of members coming together at just the right time to build a powerhouse. I honestly don't know if anything will top that LR experience. 4) The only thing left is to take a deep breath and mentally prepare for another drastic scenery change- from Japan, to North America, and now over to Europe. 5) It's kind of cheating, but anything I've posted along with weekly VHL.com articles. As a virtual singer, there's a VAST amount of songs that would be on her playlist, and more songs will revealed over time. 6) Being able to walk just about everywhere you need to go, if you're talking about the city proper. Maybe you have some fateful encounters along the way, but the convenience of walking travel just can't be beat.

In a rather unexpected turn of events, Rin Kagamine will eventually be heading to one of the most American cities of all- New York- to play with the aptly name Americans. Heading into this draft, I was entirely unsure of where I would end up. As a returning player who hasn't been entirely active, and already left once, I could see arguments for either end of my draft stock to be emphasized. Truthfully, I didn't expect to have a player taken in the first round, though I'll also admit that I forgot just how big draft rounds are these days. I was contacted by a fair number of teams with picks right around the middle of the first round, but was a little surprised to see that none of them ended up reaching with their picks. In the end, I was drafted by a team that I hadn't even spoken to before the draft; much to the surprise of our GM @thadthrasher as well, who assumed I would be off the board by then. I certainly haven't been keeping up with the highest-tier TPE earners, but I feel like I've also been fairly consistent with what I've set out to do, and that's really the biggest key over the course of a career. On that note, though, the floodgates have certainly opened for my VHL to-do list. I can now submit two different career PTs, I'll need to make at least one new signature (one for the VHL and one for the E I suppose), and I need to solidify a plan for builds going forward.

That's a badass logo for Asia.

Some of the initial draft interviews are starting to come through, which means it's almost time for the double draft offseason! Kind of weird to be drafted not only twice in one offseason to two different leagues, but three times overall throughout the course of a career. It was kind of a quiet season in Saskatoon despite a fairly dominant stretch of play, so hopefully one of my two new squads will be able to pick up where we left off and get Rin over the finish line- both in terms of build and results. I'm honestly still not thrilled about the detour in the VHLE. I know it's a solution for the issue of coming up into the majors when TPE differentials are still so massive, but I feel like I'm just going through the motions in a second league whose purpose is to maintain balance in the league rather than provide meaningful career achievements or accolades. Almost like inactivity gatekeeping, part 2. Another smaller thing I've started to think about is earning- I knw I used to be one of these people, but it's wild to see how much TPE people are able to accrue so quickly. There's almost an insecurity that comes with NOT being at the top of that list within your draft class, but I've opted to keep reminding myself that it's a marathon and not a sprint. The last thing I want to do is burn out from something I'm enjoying passively. Being a bit more under the radar does still come with benefits, though- the last time I was drafted into the VHL everything felt like more of a formality. It was obvious that I would go 2nd along with @McWolf to Davos, and while it was an awesome experience, it did remove a little bit of the mystique and mystery that comes with the draft. I truly have no idea where Rin is going to end up, and that beings a fun excitement to draft day that I haven't experienced yet.

I still haven't had a player win the Founder's Cup, and with the Saskatoon Wild bombing out just before the finals this season, that trend will unfortunately continue through my 3rd player. It's a shame to see a finish like this after what was an incredibly successful regular season for the Wild- despite a slow start. While Rin didn't become a defensive point leader in the M like I had initially hoped, she definitely seemed to come into her own offensively as the regular season came to a close. Continuing even into the playoffs, she started to find the back of the net a lot more frequently as shooting the puck became a more focused element of her game. With 7 points (3G, 4A) in her 9 games of playoff action this season, she showed flashes of being a more offensive powerhouse if given the room to grow and develop. All in all, I'd have to consider the season a cautious success; I can't objectively call her performance bad in any way, but I certainly wish she made a bit more of a splash in hindsight. Now, all heads will turn to the draft, where Rin will hear her name called not once, but twice as she's drafted into both the VHL and VHLE. I'm excited to see her grow even further with (likely) a full season in the E, and while my preferred franchise and GM no longer exist within the league, it'll still be a fun time acclimating to a new environment. Posting a CLASSIC for my Rin song with this one: Tengaku, which has become a staple of my rhythm game setlist no matter what I'm playing.