From Desired to Disappeared

[Grape 677]

The amount of engagement felt by the league when you first join, to where you’ve been there for a good bit, is very much different, at least for someone like me. Sure, I don’t necessarily go out there and make myself as known as some other people. I’m not super active on the discord or around the forums. I’m not a GM or have any job in the league, but there’s still a weird feeling now that wasn’t there when I first joined a fair bit back. 

 

When I created my first player, Blake Laughton, I believe it was fairly close to the beginning of the offseason, for the VHLM at least. Even then, I remember multiple GMs reaching out to me, gauging my interest in both the league and the possibility of being drafted to their team. There was a feeling of being wanted, which is good, since you don’t want new members to feel like they don’t exist. That initial engagement drew me to the discord where I was fairly active, for that day at least, and made my name known. I recall multiple media spots involving my player throughout his career. Blake Laughton was somewhat of a nothing character mind you. I was a welfare claimer and didn’t really earn much, yet this seemingly random player in the league got some interest by others. I mean sure, there was some interesting stuff about him. Drafted by an expansion team for the VHLM and the VHL, then eventually traded to another expansion team. It’s a fun path to follow, sure, but not the most interesting of players.

 

When ole Blake Laughton finally kicked the bucket, I created my next player, with a much better name, Shawty Nananana. I didn’t get as much initial interaction as I did with Laughton, which, understandably, was to be expected. I understood how to actually do things now and members were familiar with me. Some did reach out, as it was at the trade deadline so VHLM teams could pick me up as a free agent for the rest of the season. Shawty was a gimmick player, focused purely on passing, could not shoot a puck into water even if they were shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean. Despite being a much more fun character than Blake Laughton, it felt like there was significantly less coverage on this player. Part of the fun of having a player is being mentioned in articles other people write. It adds to the storybuilding and makes you feel like you actually exist in the league. That lack of engagement I felt the league had with my player helped lead to a lack of engagement I had with the league (although I’ll attribute the majority of my inactivity with the league due to getting a job during the summer).

With Shawty’s recent retirement, the reign of Bob Vladovechsenkchushkin has begun. Now I’ll admit, I retired at a pretty poopy time, but Bob received practically no attention. I was reached out for the Junior showcase which I don’t really know if I even played in (idk maybe I’m just stupid but I couldn’t find anything). No GM contacted me. When I was drafted, apparently the Saskatoon GM is AWOL so the Reapers GM had to create a temporary locker room for us Sasky boys. It’s left me in an awkward state to say the very least.

Now, I’ll be the first to say, the lack of interaction is nobody’s fault. I’m not someone that goes out and makes my name known necessarily. I’ll talk in the locker rooms and be casual with my teammates and do the pressers when they come but I don’t get too out there. Nobody is obligated to write about my player or any player. People can write about whatever they find fun. It’s not their fault I’m not that exciting of a guy. This is more or less just a rant. Bob Vladovechsenkchushkin is gonna play out his career with or without people necessarily caring about him. If I want to get more media coverage by the other members, I have to be more fun.

[JardyB10 4,865]

This was a great read! I’ve always felt the league as a whole and all the members within it could be doing a better job with engagement. Of course it’s tough, there’s hundreds of members signed up, and all of them only have so much time and investment to really engage themselves. Still, I think I saw some suggestions in the suggestion drive that suggested encouraging including other members in one’s PTs. All the better if those mentions are suggestive

 

Anyway, Nananana was the GOAT and Poopy Peepants has much to live up to.  

[youloser1337 1,106]

As a VHLM GM, I am so sorry that we didn't have a lot of interactions in the past. Please know it's our job to retain everyone in the league and that includes interaction with players. I feel awful that the Wild situation you aren't able to have a proper locker room experience.

 

With the Junior Showcase, you were on the Warriors. This was our way to help out the new players to get experience with the league because of the ad that went out at the start of playoffs. This was open to everyone who created though. I just looked at your creation page and was the discord link resolved? I was a junior showcase gm too so I feel like I failed if things didn't go smoothly for you.

 

You are always welcome to join the Mexico city kings discord if you want to chat further. Please know that just because you are a recreate that we don't care about you. Im sorry things didn't work out. This is a learning experience and I learned a lot from this.

 

Edit: just a heads up this is unreadable on dark mode. You should use auto color to make it easier to read.

Edited September 24, 2021 by youloser1337

[N0HBDY 1,119]

47 minutes ago, Grape said:

Now, I’ll be the first to say, the lack of interaction is nobody’s fault. I’m not someone that goes out and makes my name known necessarily. I’ll talk in the locker rooms and be casual with my teammates and do the pressers when they come but I don’t get too out there. Nobody is obligated to write about my player or any player.

I'm sorry for my shortcomings o great one

 

But it sucks because lots of other new players go through the same things you do. I think the league could do a lot better job of advertising or creating more awareness for offseason activities that players are eligible for such as the WJC and JST events. It's truly a great community once you get to know it and I hate to see others step away from it because they don't know what to do either.

[N0HBDY 1,119]

15 minutes ago, youloser1337 said:

Edit: just a heads up this is unreadable on dark mode. You should use auto color to make it easier to read.

Unless you manually highlight it all

[mattyIceman 1,213]

I'm waiting for more podcasts from you... 

[samx 1,173]

Really well written and really well said. I have noticed that often times recreates get less attention or less effort put into when scouting or waiver claims comes around usually because you are known but I can also see how that could make a recreate feel less involved and less wanted in the league. if you ever want an invite to Halifax let me know we would love to have you! im sorry your experience wasn't great this time around hopefully everyone can learn from this to change how they approach returning players.

[fromtheinside 1,290]

This was a great piece, and I can totally understand your point of view. I am still on my first player, but it does feel like the best part of the whole VHL process is when you first break into the league and your whole process of being drafted. After that, it does feel like things taper off. As someone who used to write for VSN, I took pride in doing the VHLM Power Rankings as that was an opportunity for me to shoutout alot of the newer members of the community and highlight their players to kind of motivate them or at least make them feel a little special. I know I always used to get excited to see RJ's Draft Class Rankings every week too, to see how I stacked up with others in my draft class.

 

I feel the biggest challenge for everyone in the community, whether it be players like you, writers like me, or GM/AGMs like Dooms who you mentioned is seemingly AWOL... burn out. It's really hard to stay consistently engaged and be 100 percent on top of everything in the league. And this is how players slip through the cracks and go unnoticed unfortunately. I will say however, you mentioned being a welfare earner. This is completely fine, but I also do think to a certain extent you will only get out of the league what you put into it. You said you weren't super active in Discord. If you seek more engagement and interaction, this is definitely a big part of it as well. 

 

Anyways, I hear you loud and clear. I hope you can find some joy in your new recreate, all the best!

[Grape 677]

13 hours ago, JardyB10 said:

This was a great read! I’ve always felt the league as a whole and all the members within it could be doing a better job with engagement. Of course it’s tough, there’s hundreds of members signed up, and all of them only have so much time and investment to really engage themselves. Still, I think I saw some suggestions in the suggestion drive that suggested encouraging including other members in one’s PTs. All the better if those mentions are suggestive

 

Anyway, Nananana was the GOAT and Poopy Peepants has much to live up to.  

I do understand that there's a lot of members and that's fantastic. I have no doubt in my mind that people are doing all they can to keep the league engaging for old and new members alike. I hope the league continues to grow and more people join in and stay, and I hope that engagement stays on the rise. A big problem I see is that we do a great job bringing people in, but once they're in, the engagement teeters off a bit unless you go out and make yourself more known. With all that said, Poopy Peepants is going to be a legend 100%

[Grape 677]

13 hours ago, youloser1337 said:

As a VHLM GM, I am so sorry that we didn't have a lot of interactions in the past. Please know it's our job to retain everyone in the league and that includes interaction with players. I feel awful that the Wild situation you aren't able to have a proper locker room experience.

 

With the Junior Showcase, you were on the Warriors. This was our way to help out the new players to get experience with the league because of the ad that went out at the start of playoffs. This was open to everyone who created though. I just looked at your creation page and was the discord link resolved? I was a junior showcase gm too so I feel like I failed if things didn't go smoothly for you.

 

You are always welcome to join the Mexico city kings discord if you want to chat further. Please know that just because you are a recreate that we don't care about you. Im sorry things didn't work out. This is a learning experience and I learned a lot from this.

 

Edit: just a heads up this is unreadable on dark mode. You should use auto color to make it easier to read.

Thanks for reaching out and no worries. This isn't on anyone specific and is more of a general feeling of my experience than anything else. The current situation definitely feels pretty bad since there was zero communication for anything. It was like I was forgotten immediately after the pick. As for the Junior Showcase, I didn't necessarily believe that I wasn't playing for anyone, it was just that there was no indication. The lines on the discord at least didn't have my player in them and I didn't know really where to find the more current game stats with my player actually there. The ones I did look at didn't have my guy listed. This has been a rare occurrence, I know you and all the other GMs do put in the effort to make new members feel welcome, as well as some recreates. There have been a few times where I have seen some new members not get a single message, on their player created post at least, for hours at a time. I think I saw one guy go without one for almost 48 hours. These things happen and it's unfortunate. It's an oddity but thankfully the staff assembled do a pretty damn good job engaging with the members.

[Grape 677]

13 hours ago, N0HBDY said:

I'm sorry for my shortcomings o great one

 

But it sucks because lots of other new players go through the same things you do. I think the league could do a lot better job of advertising or creating more awareness for offseason activities that players are eligible for such as the WJC and JST events. It's truly a great community once you get to know it and I hate to see others step away from it because they don't know what to do either.

You're all good my man. Obviously the goal of this whole thing is to grow and maintain membership. While, for the most part, the league does a good job in growth, when it comes to maintaining, that's when the quality begins to teeter off. The amount of engagement lacks consistency. At the start everyone's excited about the new member joining and they're getting a ton of attention, but unless you make a name for yourself, either through the league or through the discords, you're not getting much attention a few seasons into your career. I've pretty much come to peace with the fact that, like it or not, where the engagement is at right now is gonna be roughly where it's gonna be for me for a good long while. It's a bummer but I enjoy the league nonetheless so I'll still stick around for the time being. I do feel bad for some of the new guys however. I've seen some not even get any attention when they join for the first time and that really sucks. A good bit fall out after one player because it seems like nobody cares about them after they go through a couple seasons. As long as the community keeps on trying and being engaging to the new guys, we should be in a good spot for a long time.

[Grape 677]

13 hours ago, MattyIce said:

I'm waiting for more podcasts from you... 

Podcasts are out. I hope you're fine with articles instead. Same content, but you actually have to read. If you want I'll make you an audio book version, just for you

[Grape 677]

14 hours ago, Brewins15 said:

Really well written and really well said. I have noticed that often times recreates get less attention or less effort put into when scouting or waiver claims comes around usually because you are known but I can also see how that could make a recreate feel less involved and less wanted in the league. if you ever want an invite to Halifax let me know we would love to have you! im sorry your experience wasn't great this time around hopefully everyone can learn from this to change how they approach returning players.

It really does suck because the league relies on experienced members to manage the team and basically maintain where we are at this point. A lot of people end up getting thrown to the side to make room for new members, and even then some new members don't even get much interaction. It's a bummer but I hope this is an oddity and not a trend. I know I don't really go out there and make myself that known. Pretty much every GM knows what they're getting out of me so there's not much reason for them to reach out. I guess it's just one of those things.

[Grape 677]

10 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

This was a great piece, and I can totally understand your point of view. I am still on my first player, but it does feel like the best part of the whole VHL process is when you first break into the league and your whole process of being drafted. After that, it does feel like things taper off. As someone who used to write for VSN, I took pride in doing the VHLM Power Rankings as that was an opportunity for me to shoutout alot of the newer members of the community and highlight their players to kind of motivate them or at least make them feel a little special. I know I always used to get excited to see RJ's Draft Class Rankings every week too, to see how I stacked up with others in my draft class.

 

I feel the biggest challenge for everyone in the community, whether it be players like you, writers like me, or GM/AGMs like Dooms who you mentioned is seemingly AWOL... burn out. It's really hard to stay consistently engaged and be 100 percent on top of everything in the league. And this is how players slip through the cracks and go unnoticed unfortunately. I will say however, you mentioned being a welfare earner. This is completely fine, but I also do think to a certain extent you will only get out of the league what you put into it. You said you weren't super active in Discord. If you seek more engagement and interaction, this is definitely a big part of it as well. 

 

Anyways, I hear you loud and clear. I hope you can find some joy in your new recreate, all the best!

Definitely understand what you're saying about this being partly on me. I understand that I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to activity, and some may look at that and assume that I may leave because I'M not engaged. That's why I wrote this, and wrote something last week, and am focusing on doing point tasks and claiming more TPE than I used to. I got burned out with my last player, so I'm starting out more fresh. I want to show my dedication to the league, and hope that that dedication is rewarded with some engagement on my end. Discord I struggle with a good bit just because I'm in a ton and it's hard to balance activity with my friends, other groups, and this. I am able to make the time to write several hundred words a week and claim some points but it's hard to find the time to be active with everyone. I do stay somewhat active in the locker rooms, when I can, and that helps build a good bond between me and a few members. Really this is about engagement as a whole. I've seen others get somewhat pushed to the side, hell, I've even seen a handful, although a very very small few, new guys get practically ignored. I know that it's tough for the GMs, staff, writers, etc. to engage with every member, and obviously that's not my expectation. My player was put in a pretty unique situation and it really was what drove me to put this out.