Isau's Mid-Career Thoughts

[Eynhallow 412]

Isau’s Mid-Career Thoughts

 

Every now and then I wax a bit philosophical about the VHL and the site as a whole.  I will attempt to get together some of my thoughts that have occurred to me over the last 10 months of my being here.  Firstly, let me tell you how I very much enjoy the site, the people, and the overall operation of the VHL.  If it wasn’t a lot of fun, I would have abandoned this a very long time ago. Having said that, there are some pitfalls that can pop up periodically.

 

The Flame Wars

 

 

I enjoy reading the forums and go to the new content as much as possible.  There are some really good articles and graphics produced by our members.  But with every open forum:

 

 

They happen.  When they do, despite what I KNOW about this stuff, I am inevitably drawn to them like a moth to a “FLAME”.  I look at flame wars as a source of entertainment.  I have to read what everybody says and snicker at a lot of the opinions that are aired.  It is sometimes a real struggle not to participate.  I try to hide my keyboard somewhere until the feeling passes.  If a person MUST say his/her/its piece then be prepared to be squished like a bug on a windshield.  We have some very brilliant, quick-witted folks here who can do the “one up” stuff very, very well.  The wisest move is to stay uninvolved and watch the soap opera play out to its inevitable end, or at least until the next episode.  Maybe instead of the off-season “Town of Salem” games, there should be an open “Flame Off”.  Good for those who love that stuff both as a participant or as a lurker.

 

Patience is a Virtue

 

 

Joyce Meyer said that patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.  So how does this apply to the VHL ???  Well,  I know how some folks want their newly created player to be an instant rockstar.  That attitude may very well be a product of our times...instant gratification and the like.  It doesn’t work like that in the VHL.  There is only a limited number of TPE that a person can earn at any one time.  Even with donations and purchases from the Player Store, your new superstar centre just is not going to be an overnight success.   Hence patience.  You have to max your earnings each and every week.  Apply the TPE in such fashion that your player will succeed in the role in which you cast him/her.  If things have gone horribly wrong, you can always retire your player and recreate a new one, of course trying at this point not to fall into the same traps as you did before.  There are also some very knowledgeable GM’s out there that can help you get your player off on the right track.  Not every player will score 100 points a season nor will every player make the Hall of Fame.  Have fun with what you got. 

 

Participate

 

Over and above doing the things that get you max TPE, I think a person must participate in some of the other social aspects of the game to really get full enjoyment from their time spent here.  Offsite there is Discord should you wish to participate there, or there are the on-site Locker Rooms which can be equally as busy as Discord. Most teams post the TPE earning opportunities on their Discord channels, so you won’t miss an opportunity or forget to do something that is time sensitive (i.e. Training Camp).

 

Of course, if you are interested in team organization or a role with the league as a whole, there are opportunities for jobs such as these posted as they become available.  Although I am not interested in doing these jobs, I certainly appreciate all the work that goes into making the VHL run.  Heartfelt appreciation to all those individuals, from the Commish to all the AGM’s.  A job well done !!

 

The Whiner

 

Don’t be THAT GUY.  All too often I have come across a newer player who wants it all right now.  That person has just joined the league and expects his player to win the scoring title.  Now, having expectations is OK, but THAT GUY will whine about it.  THAT GUY will say, “Why can’t my player perform and score just like Aloe Dear right now ???”  It all goes back to what I said earlier about patience.

 

Another source for whiners are those who don’t read a bit and think things through before creating their first player.  Most notably those who create goalies.  The whine is always “Why isn’t my player starting or playing more games?”  Those people haven’t yet realized that there is less opportunity for a starting goalie than there are for any other position.  For example, a team will start their backup goalies 6 times and play their starter 66 times.  Whereas, that same team will carry 6 defenseman who will all play in 72 games. Choose wisely, grasshopper !!

 

Another great source for the occasional whine or rant are the vagaries of the sim engine, commonly referred to as STHS (SimonT Hockey Simulator).  This is the sim engine we use and that’s all there is to it.  It is unpredictable in a lot of ways, but that is, perhaps, how it duplicates the unpredictability of real life.  I personally whined and ranted about this when my player who was playing on the second line was actually on the ice less than our fourth line guy.  All to no avail.  Nothing was going to change, so why waste a lot of time complaining ?  (Unless, of course, its for a bunch of TPE !!)

 

The Facilitator

 

Be THIS DUDE !! Now here is the kind of player you want to be.  It seems every team has a p[layer that reminds others of all the TPE earring possibilities there are each week.  It reminds you to make those season predictions that you can easily forget. This same person will always help you out with trivia answers and, most likely, will post the answers on Discord.  In addition, this person is likely in charge of your team’s weekly Press Conference. Overall, The Facilitator works for the good of the team all week, every week.  I can see where this role can be time consuming and lead to burn out quite quickly.  Perhaps we should make an effort to help reduce the workload that The Facilitator takes on and not just take it for granted that someone will do all this.

 

The TPE Whore

 

This means trying to wring evry last TPE from the system that you possibly can.  I do this for two reasons.  Firstly, as mentioned above, to make my player as competitive as possible.  Allowing him to benefit his team in the best possible way.  Secondly, when your player retires and you want to create a second player, you get a 4% TPE carryover from Player # 1.  The maximum carryover is 50 TPE.  To get the max it seems that you have to retire with 1250 TPE.  I missed this thinking early on in my VHL career and didn’t do very much for the first 6 weeks or so.  This has cost me at least 60 TPE.  I have a feeling that this will come back to haunt me at retirement.

 

The Reactor

 

There are quite a number of articles and graphics posed on the forum.  Ya, you can choose to ignore them and just do what you have to do in order to get from week to week.  However, some people have put a LOT of effort and thought into what they have created.  Because of this I try to read or view as many of these submissions as possible.  Sometimes I might make a comment, but at the very least, for those good articles or graphics I will hit that “REACTION” button.  I think people like to be recognized for what they do outside of just the TPE earnings.  I don’t know if those reactions count for anything in particular, but it is a nice touch !

 

So to conclude my thoughts about belonging to the VHL.  I have to say that I had a lot of fun creating the legend behind Isau DaMoose, Nikki Starr and Gale Force.  If you managed to read the interviews with Isau, Moose Tracks (or Droppings !!)  you would know that all of the places mentioned are, in fact, real places here in Northern Ontario.  I used mostly ghost town sites that I had visited at one time or another.  Nikki Starr (under another name) is, in fact, my partner and many of the stories about Nikki are (embarrassingly) true.  The Gale Force character was pure fiction.  But I needed her as an agent to present the interviews with Isau and Nikki. 

 

Despite a few wobbles, this is a well run site with many great people.  Thank-you.

 

Word Count:  1507

[mattyIceman 1,230]

10 hours ago, Eynhallow said:

Well,  I know how some folks want their newly created player to be an instant rockstar.

@InstantRockstar thoughts on someone trying to assume your identity?

[Eynhallow 412]

Claiming Week 2

[Eynhallow 412]

Claiming Week 3