A rather worrying trend, and a bunch of semi-relevant words related to the topic

[jacobcarson877 2,572]

Obviously, this week has been… interesting on the forum. But I won’t be talking much about multis or all that tomfoolery, but instead more about recruitment and user engagement. I’ve read several .com articles and media spots about the general disinterest from long time users these days. It is definitely hard to see people with power within the league or just general long-standing feel this way strong enough to write about it. But as I read through them, the main ideas didn’t revolve around the new hybrid attributes, player, or team success, but community and engagement.

 

 

The three leagues we have today stand pretty much on their own now. The commissioners are responsible for handling affairs within their league and making changes to better the playing experience. And I won’t sit here and harp on them for the things that have been done because quite frankly, I think they’ve done a good job. The playing experience in my opinion is better than it’s been the whole time I’ve been on the site. And that’s coming from a guy scoring at half a point a game. The hybrid attributes are a huge success in my book and with potential incoming goalie attributes we can really nail down the best simulation experience.

 

 

Despite this, there is still a lot weighing on a lot of us. I couldn’t be more excited to join Calgary next season because I know that Ricer and Ben are going to make it a great experience, and I’ve been chatting with the active players as well and they all seem great. This is also the first season I’ve ever been excited about the VHL. I don’t mean this as a shot at any of my old GMs or teammates, who have all been great, at least the ones I actually chose to interact with, but the VHL has always felt so empty for me. People are worried about how the cap will affect teams abilities to be competitive and quite frankly I couldn’t care less about that. The only thing I’m worried about is getting active and passionate members on VHL squads to hang out and enjoy the site together. If teams can’t afford players, they can’t afford members which is way more important. In San Diego and Istanbul right now we have pretty full squads. I don’t interact with all of them regularly at all, but because there are so many, I talk to many of them daily or at least a few times a week. Those communities are exciting for me because there are active members in them. This is not a shot at clickers, because well I’ve been there and I get it. But we have so many active members across the 3 leagues and that’s great, but for many reasons that I don’t have time to outline, and have been talked about at nauseum, so if you’re looking for those just read a few media spots and .com articles from this week, there are hotspots of activity leaving the rest empty.

 

 

I know we’ve just created a new recruitment team and I think they have a lot of great ideas and talent, and I know recruitment hasn’t gone so great recently. Maybe that’s all it is, and we just need more new members to replace those naturally leaving. But honestly, if you look at the VHL rosters it is sad that even the fullest teams have so many roster spaces unable to be used. If the VHL is truly our top product, why aren’t we filling it? We aren’t even going to come close to filling the VHLM this season. The hybrid attributes don’t matter if half of every lineup are bots by the playoffs. When handling team communities, bigger is always better. There will always be people who just sit back and earn and don’t otherwise interact with the site. And that should be fine, but we should also be maximizing the odds of having more active people in our locker rooms to build connections. I’ve been an advocate for a while for ways to fast track returning high-earning members to the VHL regardless of TPE, to sit and enjoy the VHL experience, in a depth role, and developing into cornerstone pieces of franchises later on. And honestly, I don’t even think it’s about the game for most of us anymore. The sim is really just something that we communally experience together, and its who we experience it with that matters most.

 

 

I’ve been lucky recently with the teams I’ve been a part of, and I wish everyone had the experience I’m having now. I know this doesn’t actually solve anything but be aware of the pieces being posted, especially by your teammates and friends.

 

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Edited May 9, 2022 by jacobcarson877