diamond_ace

I gave you questions back when this discussion originated. I've paid the toll when I entered the roadway - I'm just now continuing along the same.

So far I'm only seeing melee, no ranged

@Phil I'm just starting watching a guy play Witcher on Youtube so I can get an idea for the gameplay, see if it'd be something I enjoy. Definitely giving it a fair shot now, but also don't want to just jump right into spending the money without a little bit of an idea

This is always valid. #RaphaelIsTheBest

Oh, and just to add: #GiveMeMyTPE #GMMT

Pics will be added. I'm at work, and wanted to make sure I didn't lose the post. It's just over 1000, so it's two weeks PT. EDIT: 1027

The Give Me My TPE movement, or GMMT for short, has begun in full force. The first player on board, wishing to make himself publicly known to the league, is Ottawa Lynx center Vaclav Hrdina. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as Hrdina has only recently returned to the league and his position is quite tenuous as he's only a borderline talent at this point. If the movement fails horribly (as many such movements do) Hrdina could be pushed out of the league in disgrace and forced to return to the Czech league where he played between his two stints in the VHLM. We've caught up with Hrdina to get his thoughts on the matter. "Give Me My TPE is a voice for the little people, a voice for those who are going unheard due to the recent tyranny of player agency KGR. You don't have to be a star, with the best skills in every category, to have an opinion on the issues in the league and the direction it faces. Everyone has the right to be heard, and it's about time KGR heard that. Could it affect my position in the league? I mean I suppose it could, it's possible they won't want to have any issues boiling to the surface and will silently buy out my rights behind the scenes or something like that. I don't know, there are too many good people in the real positions of power, so I kind of don't expect it, but you never know what decisions people will be forced to make when they feel like they're backed into a corner. That whole thing goes back to how it affects me though. I feel backed into a corner so I've created GMMT to fight for my right to discuss league issues. I think the league is in a pretty good position at the moment and honestly, I don't think they're particularly inclined to change much of anything right now. Every few weeks another issue is brought up, and someone puts forward something they would like to see implemented. Except it's usually not put in those terms - I would like to see this implemented. It's usually said in a tone more along the lines of, do this or the league will die. Most of them don't happen, and where are we? 57 seasons later, as a still functional league, without most of these knee jerk reaction changes people insist are necessary. The sad part is that I was actually trying to help KGR. I'd put forward an option that was somewhat of a compromise between what he wanted and what the league currently had, even though I didn't necessarily feel like a change was warranted at all. Then, rather than taking my compromise as another possible option, he chose to come after my right to even comment on league issues, just because I only came back from the Czech league prior to this season. His hard line stance is going to hurt his proposal going forward, and his inability to allow even the slightest deviation from exactly, word for word, the proposal he wants will see it die on the discussion table if it even makes it there. It's sad, really. Another member had actually come forward with the idea and seemed receptive to a real discussion on the issue at hand, and had that member been the one spearheading the debate, things might have gotten somewhere. I still maintain no change is needed, but at least he understood the notion of debate. KGR took over, pushed it forward like a bull spotting the color red for the first time, and in essence might have ended things before they got a chance to leave the ground. We'll see what the people with actual, real power think of it though." Well then... that was quite the rant there by Hrdina. Time will tell if he actually has some semblance of a point, but at least he's fired up about the league, something we haven't seen from him even before he left the first time. This is exactly the type of fire his mentor Clark Marcellin had been trying to instill in him for some time, and despite the early morning and all day practices, nothing ever really seemed to click. Now, maybe it has. Hrdina is absolutely too late in his career to become another version of Marcellin, solely for the sake of longevity, but if he can make a career at or above the success rate of agent diamond_ace's former player Kerkko Hyvarinen, that would be a decent career for someone starting so late. Hyvarinen was a defenseman so it would be hard to compare him statistically to a center such as Hrdina, but the two can be compared in terms of general overall skill, seasons in the VHL, and approximate overall contribution to their respective VHL teams (assuming of course that Hrdina ends up playing for New York, who he is currently contracted to for a single season, rather than somewhere else. He could definitely contribute somewhere else as well, should he end up there, but at this time New York is his choice). Having wasted so many years of his potential eligibility for the VHL by playing in the Czech league, there's obviously only so high of a ceiling for Hrdina. The floor, presumably, is only slightly above where he is now. If GMMT produces no other members, but pushes Hrdina nearer his ceiling than his floor, will that be considered a success for the movement on the whole? It's likely Hrdina will want backing for any major movement, if he wants to make it a true movement rather than just his own rantings against the system. At this time, it's unlikely we can project anyone else joining GMMT, though. If nothing else, it has achieved one goal: Hrdina's voice is heard. People in the league are now aware of him, far more than perhaps even he wanted. What else will come of the GMMT movement remains to be seen, but it'll be an interesting thing to watch as it either grows or dies.

you're acknowledging that I exist

According to one source (a league member who will be unnamed for the sake of this article), the league has implemented a new rule, where the only people eligible to discuss a topic are those who have met an arbitrary activity goal over the past certain period of time. Where exactly the activity goal stands, both in terms of amount of activity and length of time, are to be set unilaterally by this member and are not to be questioned by any other member, up to and including those actually in charge of the league, who have heard of no such rule. As people who have studied the American Revolution know, there is no greater motivator than the removal of one's rights, so expect this new rule to be met with backlash from those whose opinions are now discounted. As one such member has stated, who wished to be interviewed under the auspices of anonymity, "I have an opinion and will be heard, if not by this particular member then by the league on the whole. I've created a movement against said member, called 'Give Me My TPE' wherein members who feel strongly about their voices not being heard are encouraged to let the fire rage inside them for several seasons, solely for the purpose of earning TPE and proving said member wrong. Proving people wrong is a great stress release, and has a habit of quieting those in question." #GiveMeMyTPE #GMMT Unrelated: I'd just like to point out, my parents made a few offhand comments when I was in high school cross country that I couldn't do a marathon. I pushed through months of training 8 years later, solely built on rage from those comments, and have now done 7 of them and an ultra. 8. YEARS. LATER. I still remembered what they said and used it as fuel. Rage motivates me to no end, and I don't easily forget - you want to say I'm not getting to your cap, I'll get to your cap just to shove your tongue back in your mouth. Now give me my TPE for this post. +1

Ruutu: I have a newfound respect for you today. Seeing the thread derail around you and maintaining topic, that takes a lot of patience, something the internet on the whole sorely lacks.

Paging Dr. Hasabrain, please come to the thread immediately. I repeat, Dr. Hasabrain. The thread is crashing, it needs help stat.

If you're not trying to downplay my opinion, then why exactly did you feel a need to bring up my activity? What purpose did you feel that particular fact served in this discussion?

Better get a time machine then, because you've been doing that throughout the thread, or you'd have had no reason to mention my activity (a fact, sure, but as I've said - a fact that matters about as much to this discussion as the Penguins winning the cup).

I turned nothing into nothing. You commented on my activity, and heavily implied it restricted my ability to speak on the topic at hand, when it did nothing of the sort. You spouted "facts" that have no bearing on anything. I then did the same, to prove the ridiculousness of your claim. It's funny though, you keep bringing it up even after I've pointed out it means absolutely nothing in the context of this discussion. You're stubborn, I'll give you that, you think that repeating it over and over again might actually make it mean something. Have I ever told you the definition of insanity? Trying the same thing and expecting different results.

You also didn't read the rest of it. I fixed more than just changing obvious to irrelevant

While we're on the topic, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup. I deem that as what happened as well. I suppose that means anyone who's not a Penguin can't talk about this idea. I can talk about things that happened but aren't pertinent to the topic as well. Still doesn't mean there's a point in saying it

FIFY

You did read what I wrote - a page later. You instead spent the first few comments going after me, then finally got around to the idea that maybe, just maybe, I had a real idea in there somewhere and it might be worth checking out.

Another term for "watered down" is compromise. Not everything has to be fully implemented exactly as you want - I'm coming up with solutions in the middle, for the sake of compromise. Stubbornness and an inability to grant even the smallest concession from your original point is more likely to just get the whole thing thrown out. Do you think the people in charge are more likely to fully change this in a major way, or implement a compromise? I'm helping your end goal here, of making players diversified.

Because SHL caters more to the people who want to be members just for the sake of being members. Activity is good, but pure post count just for its own sake doesn't really do much.

I don't want to change the update scale. I never said a word about changing the update scale. Read what I've been replying to Ruutu with (the person on your side who's been debating my views, rather than me as a member). I think permanently capping a skill limits your options for getting out of a shitty player, to either doing what you can and basically being stuck with him, or retiring and giving a different weakness to your new guy. You can force variation by instead putting unlockables, which is what I said. Here, I'll describe my idea in a little more detail: You can develop any stat as far as 60. You must initially specialize to an extent, by developing only three stats past 60 at a time, the rest are temporarily capped at 60. Once you get a stat to 80, you unlock the ability to either a: develop that stat to 99 or b: develop one additional stat to 80. You can choose whatever stats you want, but at any given time (beyond the 60 mark) you're only working on 3 stats at a given time. You can change path later on in your career, and it's as simple as hitting 80 for a stat that's between 60 and 80, or 99 for a stat that's between 80 and 99. If you discover your player is shit, and you think developing X would fix it, hit a barrier, unlock the stat, and then focus on it. You're not stuck with it just because you called it a weakness at the beginning of your career. It's an idea. It might be good, it might be bad, but it's a contribution. A contribution you're ready to dismiss out of hand because my opinions are irrelevant to you, but a contribution nonetheless.

The way it was phrased, it implied both of us, but I'll give you credit for the clarification

I did that in the first post, the one you so conveniently glossed over so you could instead take a jab at my activity. I also came up with the basic outline of a solution that would solve your desire for differing players without telling a guy he can't put more into a stat for the rest of his career.

You've been hearing it from Kendrick for seasons. You can't possibly have been hearing it from me for seasons, because according to you, I haven't been here for seasons.

So you still refuse to believe that I have a right to discuss the topic?