The OFFSEASON SUCKS....Not Sorry

[Horcrux 322]

25 minutes ago, Beketov said:

As a simmer you can pry off-seasons from my cold dead hands, it’s literally the only time of year where I don’t need to sim every single day.
 

That’s kinda the issue (and I get that it was touched on), everyone wants faster off seasons or more to do or whatever but anything we add gets either minimal interest or adds way too much additional work. We moved the WJC from the middle of the season to the off season to kinda put more eyes on it but ultimately it adds to the same problem: staff are burnt out and off-seasons are busy. Like @JeffD said we had a shorter one a couple of seasons ago and anyone that has stuff to do during the off-season was basically killed by the workload of it.
 

2 weeks, generally, is the sweet spot. I’m not saying its perfect and I’m not saying there’s always 100% stuff to look at but those of us who have to run everything are people too, people who are on here 7 days a week making sure sims happen and whatnot. That small off-season break is literally the only break we get from being sim-bots.

 

As for non-sim related stuff, the issue is two-fold. If something is too minimal you get the same problem of it not lasting long enough to fill any void and if something is too substantial it ends up adding too much extra administrative overhead or worse it adds extra off-season time which is the opposite of what people want. I also recognize people want TPE for everything but just throwing more uncapped TPE (when the off season already has a lot) at a problem doesn’t necessarily solve it.

 

Ultimately I think it comes down to what @bigAL and I have tried to preach for a few months: people are more than welcome to do things without having the league need to run them. You wanna have the ProAm again, go do it, I never stopped it before. You want game nights or whatever, have at it. The staff are tired by the off-season and are dealing with a lot of turnover stuff so piling more onto us isn’t going to make the off-season any shorter but in most cases we’re more than fine letting a member take the reigns on something they want to do. I’ve always said the VHL is more about the community than the sims, embrace that and enjoy the community aspect rather than demanding more numbers to stare at.

 

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

I thank you for your hard work and dedication to the league and the site. 

I was just spitballing stuff and giving ideas. its interesting to see the timetable on certian things and the perspective of an Admin so thank you <3

[Laine 1,361]

44 minutes ago, Ricer13 said:

DM me if you’re serious about this. I’d be willing to help bring it back to life. 

ProAm Revival Season?

[thadthrasher 1,692]

 

When I first joined the league I remembered how long the offseason felt. I remember the hype and excitement building up in my locker room as we approached the start of the season, and I remember all of us being really excited. As time has gone on I've seen players who have been around lose the excitement factor and for them the offseason is a time to almost disengage from the league for a little bit. Speaking as a GM with no other jobs in the league, I can tell you that the offseason adds some work and stress to the job. As it was highlighted earlier we have to work through drafts, scouting, reaching out to people, and trying to keep our locker rooms engaged as well. I don't have much else to worry about. 

 

With all of that being said, I understand the two sides of the coin, and echo the balancing sentiment that was brought up earlier. 

 

But, there is a comment that I really want to highlight.

45 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Ultimately I think it comes down to what @bigAL and I have tried to preach for a few months: people are more than welcome to do things without having the league need to run them.

 

We have an entire community of people who have interests all over the place. Some love to game, others might like a certain genre of movie, and others may love engaging in political debates. Whatever the case may be, every single person here has the ability to create something new and amazing and can lead the way there. One thing that stemmed from the VHL was a chess club created by @bigAL and now run by @Ricer13. Maybe @Horcrux can start a SAW (gross) watch party during the offseason, or @Esso2264  can host a LoL tournament. Maybe....well, the list is endless.

 

It's good to have these discussions, and I hope it prompts people to use their imaginations!

[hedgehog337 3,483]

Nothing much to add here, but I remember either Devise or Quik had a tourney where members could build their team how they want, even build of their players. Was a cool thing, could be interesting to have it again. 

[bigAL 2,176]

You guys know me, I hate dwelling on the negatives and reasons not to do something, but here I am. I think, unfortunately, the last thing we need is more off-season spreadsheet hockey. There’s already a ton with the Lotto tourney, the WJC/WC, and honestly, as a commissioner for WJC and WC (and helping with Junior Showcase and being in Pro Am), it’s hard enough to get people excited about those things. I get it - if your player isn’t in it, you won’t give a shit. But the solution isn’t to create so much off-season hockey that every player is playing somewhere. Pro Am has so much overlap with the World Cup, because obviously managers are choosing the best players (though I do like that people have to explicitly sign up to play in that one). Juniors Showcase only worked because it hit a specific niche (undrafted VHLMers), and I could see that being a big asset. 

 

Otherwise, like Thad and Bek were saying I was saying, let’s do *other* things during the offseason. I said this somewhere else today (Nodesode?) that we are truly looking at scheduled social events, and just have to figure out logistics of who and how to run it. Let’s have a movie night. Let’s have a jackbox night. Let’s plan for a game of codenames. Let’s run a Pokémon battle tournament. Let’s do a gfx tournament. For real, if you have an idea, let me know and I’ll help you make it happen. But the blues, GMs, commissioners, mods, we can’t do it ourselves. 

 

Also, I see so many people shooting shit in gen chat that I’m not even sure it’s exclusively the sims that keep people around in-season? 

[JardyB10 4,869]

Here was a thought I had even before I had heard of a Pro AM and before I read all the staff WHINING in this thread (jk guys I love and adore you. I was staff for a long time and took a three year off-season: I get it)  

 

Anyway: What if we hired an off-season Fun Time Commissioner? We throw up applications for all those disgusting unemployed people and/or those who have spare time they’re willing to dedicate to the league. We hire this “third party” OSFT Commie, and give them like a 50 TPE budget which would go toward paying themselves, whatever staff they might want to hire, and prizes for their OSFT games.

 

Then the OSFT Commie can come up with their own schedule, where they organize activities for the league, like a VHL Drinking Game party, or a movie night, or a trivia day, or a secret admirers chocolate delivery service, or all of the above, or whatever! 
 

The idea would be to give someone who isn’t already busy as balls the incentive to keep the off-season exciting, while also giving staff little extra responsibility.

 

The downside to this idea is that staff would have to do the OSFT Commie interviews, which is exactly the extra work we don’t want. So I suppose the alternative would be to set a precedent of rewarding members who take it upon themselves to drum up off-season hype and create activities. For example, I don’t know if the Junior Showcase Tourney organizers were paid, but they should have been!

 

At any rate, great discussion, great article, I liked the part when I spoke. 10/10

[dasboot 521]

As a hard hitting player in the VHL, I need the off season for my temple of a body to recover. I say we push it to a month for more time off. 

[Victor 11,027]

If anything they aren't long enough. Need to be at least 3 months for appropriate immersion

 

17 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

I was staff for a long time and took a three year off-season: I get it

and then you also went inactive for another three years!

[Doomsday 4,143]

What about an off-season themed PT available during the two weeks of the off-season worth some uncapped teepz?

[Horcrux 322]

I love the discussion happening. and Uhhh @thadthrasherthanks for exposing my love for SAW you dick  

[fishy 1,757]

i hate to say it (like seriously, i really do), but i have to agree with bek & al on this one. (for real though, how can i claim to be anti-institution and then 1) agree with blues on shit and 2) literally be part of the institution? so annoying)

 

anyway, i don't see the value of offering TPE opportunities to incentivize activity or keep people engaged. theme week exists already, and there are enough challenges coming up with a topic of that week each season that i highly doubt adding another one would be a groundbreakingly wonderful idea. i like the point that the blues (UGH, INNER TURMOIL, STOP RAISING GOOD POINTS) are getting at–the core and foundation of the VHL and its appeal is the community, not the TPE opportunities.

 

so yeah, let's have folks organizing game nights or trivia activities, vhl-themed or not, for funsies. this community is fun but i don't want to drown myself in vhl/sim hockey content because it leads to faster burnout and boredom. it can't be too difficult for an impassioned member/crew to organize a game night!! with some planning, we could use the event feature in the discord to let people know that things are happening.

 

we also have some members that are interested in this community that can't use discord because they're under 13. there have been other great ideas thrown around in this thread that could easily happen on the forums. let's do things that are fun and interesting and engaging that are not spreadsheet hockey

[thadthrasher 1,692]

2 hours ago, dasboot said:

As a hard hitting player in the VHL, I need the off season for my temple of a body to recover. I say we push it to a month for more time off. 

Forget a month, let's go 2 months!

[Beketov 9,103]

1 hour ago, fishy said:

STOP RAISING GOOD POINTS

I refuse.

[atw2592 286]

I had to review this media spot because of the headline, I joined late in the off-season process (like 2 days before the VHLM draft) so I am impartial here. While reading the piece I did feel like you kind of explained why it seems like it has to be so boring for the casual user. The admins have lots of things to do and I'm sure they want a break from the grind of the season too. I do agree with you about the drafts though, they definitely sucked and while I was busy during the VHLM draft, I tried to follow the stream a bit on my phone and missed my guy getting drafted which is fine, but I still haven't been able to find a link anywhere with a full list of where everyone went in the draft. That would have been cool to see.

 

10/10

[Victor 11,027]

3 hours ago, atw2592 said:

but I still haven't been able to find a link anywhere with a full list of where everyone went in the draft. That would have been cool to see

https://vhlportal.com/teams/drafts

 

Then select the relevant league at the top left corner.

[The goat of hockey 107]

completely agree