Why Sim Leagues are Addictive

[WildfireMicro 420]

 So why are sim leagues so addictive to those who get deep enough into them? Why are so many people do dedication to this niche little hobby that they make complex graphics, podcasts, lomg stories, and even entire sim engines all in the name of sim leagues? Well there are a lot of answers to that question, but I think I will be talking about the main ones I can think of right now. This won't be a ranking of these reasons just a collection of thoughts I had about it along with how it connects to the VHL itself.

 

 First off let's start with the community. I know that I did say that this is not a ranking article, but I will say the community is probably the most important aspect to a league in the end. When you first join a community discord, you are greeted by the community welcoming you to the league and showing you around. When you make media and graphics, the community will comment on them to tell you what they think and maybe how to improve. The community is always there in a league, so it pays go get to know them all. A sim league user that doesn't take the time to get to know the community won't get far.

 

 A good community in a sim league keeps people in the league. For the VHL, I'd say that the community is pretty welcoming even though I am not the most knowledgeable about hockey itself. But when you join VHL and make a player, especially after the draft but before the trade deadline, you are greeted by the people here. You are given free reign to ask any questions and concerns you have. That's not even talking about team discords which are also insanely helpful. 

 

 Never be afraid to ask questions because in a league no request for advice is a bad one. A lot of people here want to help you get off the ground running and get used to how things work around here. Now getting onto a different topic, another thing about sim leagues that makes them so addictive is the media. Whether is be reading media or creating media, those who enjoy create stories and backstory or talking about a league topic really enjoy doing it. Media such as mock drafts can also help get you an idea of where you might be going if you are in a draft.

 

 The same could be said about graphics even though you could say that getting extremely good at graphics is insanely difficult. Unlike typing and proper grammer which hopefully improve as you go through school, using programs like Gimp and Photoshop require you to learn the program and that can be difficult. So those who get really good graphics can become addicted to doing those pretty quickly. Also the people who have the graphics of thier player can get pretty invested in seeing how other users would do those graphics as well.

 

 Well that is all I want to talk about for now. This was inspired by another media I saw about what a sim league, and by extension the VHL, is. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you all on the ice!

[Masu Chan 456]

Review:

 

I think this is really well written and you have some great points. I agree that the community is the most important thing and it's so amazing how much effort everyone puts in for the VHL to be an enjoyable experience. Besides that I only noticed one spelling error and it's in the first paragraph you put lomg stories instead of long.

 

10/10

[nurx 914]

Super interesting for someone to try and articulate what we all feel about this league. Great article overall and is super awesome for you to point out how welcoming this community is because I could not agree more with you. It could help if you were to separate your article into sections, but I understand with shorter articles it can be hard to separate them. 9/10

[MetalToday 266]

I think this was a good article, the dedication is definately crazy for some of these hobbyists! I think getting some quotes from people really dedicated would help your argument more, but that's being more picky. I  think this article was not too lomg but it was sweet. 9/10

[Hogan 1,423]

I hate sim leagues 

[Beaviss 4,957]

Review: Community is probably the one thing that keeps me coming back. The time in-between sims are the quiet area and that quiet area is the bulk of the time spent on the site which means most of the time you are here for the community. Love the article and I love the format. Keep articles like this coming and ill keep reading! 9.5/10!

[JardyB10 4,865]

On 10/25/2021 at 2:19 PM, MetalToday said:

I think getting some quotes from people really dedicated would help your argument more, but that's being more picky.

"I love doing this shit!" - JardyB10

[Thunfish 72]

As someone who has done other things in the past and been to a pretty large number of communities, I will note that the sim leagues I have been to (very much including the VHL) have had a really good track record in terms of characters, behavior and overall acceptance to entry. I feel your argument is strong but there are things that could've been mentioned. Things such as an user's passion for the sport itself, the normalization of being around a community tied to a single activity (which helps with events that would otherwise sound dull and uninteresting) or just a love for writing and creating.

 

Overall, I liked the article and I think you're correct in your opinion. 9/10.