VHL Wrapped 2022: jacobcarson877

[jacobcarson877 2,536]

2022 has really been quite a year. As this is my last Media Spot for the year, I figure what better way go finish it off than a recap of all of the things that happened this year.

 

Jacob Carson was auto retired on January 17th, after claiming welfare for most of his career. Nowhere near the best debut, and probably could’ve been the end of my VHL career.

 

After a dramatic absence, I decided to recreate, and thus Landon Wolanin was born. Surprisingly, for the first time in over 3 months, I put out a Media Spot. That last Media Spot, a 1000+ word monster, last claimed week of October 10th, ended saying that “I hope to get to know you all better my next time around”, and to be honest I had no idea how true that would be.

 

I joined the San Diego Marlins via the draft, as I created in the offseason, but after the JST had finished, and was scooped up by Frank. We were stuck in the unfortunate position of having lots of great pieces, but couldn’t get enough waivers to fill the holes needed to take out the top teams. I was traded to the Aces, and finished off my season with 99 points and a lot of excitement.

 

That offseason I took on GMing for the World Juniors, and joined Frank as AGM of the Marlins. I can’t believe it hasn’t even been a year yet of GMing.

 

When Frank moved up to Vancouver I got to take over San Diego. It has really been a dream come true so far. Although I’ve spent most of that time rebuilding, it gave me the opportunity to hoard the leagues next first-gen class. Between the JST and the VHLM I got to personally oversee so many future and current VHL stars. It has been incredibly fulfilling and I’m so glad I took the opportunity to do that this year.

 

Real life certainly hasn’t been the easiest this year, as I reach the end of my leash before I have to dig in and actually become a productive member of society. There are lots of unknowns coming in the next year and all I can do is hope that the VHL is still something I can enjoy.

 

Landon is pretty well set now, just grabbing those last few stats before banking until his deathbed.

 

What am I hoping for in 2023? Well pretty early on I’m hoping for a Marlins championship. My little Marlins over the last few seasons deserve to see all the hard work we put in pay off. I’m not sure we’ll ever have as good of a chance as we do now, and I just hope Simon feels the same way. I’d love to see the Wranglers continue to show off, and one of these times escape the clutches of a top goaltender. Some personal awards would be cool, but honestly the least of my concern now.

 

I’m sure my time as a VHLM GM will probably end sometime this year. As much as I’d really love to be able to draft my next player to the Marlins I just can’t see that happening. There has to be a reason turnover is so high in the VHLM and with so many unknowns in my future, and so many liberties I have now, something will probably bring that to an end. All I can hope is that I can find a nice VHL franchise to take over and get some GMing fix without the constant attention a VHL team requires.

 

I suppose it will be the end of Landon Wolanin sometime this year, if I can do math, and while that’s insane to me, It will definitely have been worth it. If it ended today it would’ve been worth it.

 

 

[Gustav 6,421]

42 minutes ago, jacobcarson877 said:

If it ended today it would’ve been worth it.

 

Good to know I can ban you now.

 

I've always been curious, though never actually asked--what was different for you (if anything) in your second time around? Might be valuable info from a recruitment/VHLM standpoint.

 

I also like that you're conscious of how your own life is changing and wondering where that's going to take your VHL career. I know you're a couple years or so younger than me, and if you do your share of digging through the forums you'll see a hell of a lot of overly sentimental posts from me over the past 1-2 years where I wondered the same stuff as college was wrapping up and I had a lot of big decisions to make about where to take my life next. While everyone's situation is different, and I haven't had some of the same experiences as many others here (kids, serious relationships, etc.), it takes surprisingly little time commitment to be pretty darn active once you take the pressure off of yourself to be super-ultra-next-level-active. So while I'd never tell you to consciously reduce your activity, just know that it's not as all-or-nothing as some might think.

[jacobcarson877 2,536]

11 minutes ago, Gustav said:

what was different for you (if anything) in your second time around?

 

Well my earning activity was never really amazing just because I constantly felt like I didn't know anything so that translated to me not feeling as though my work was up to par or worth taking up the space on the site, which in hindsight is hilarious.

This then led to there being no starting jobs in the VHL, especially for someone as low earning, however consistent, that I was. I had less and less reason to check the sims, Discord and the forums in general. I would get my twice a season tag when I would get a few games and then really have no reason to interact at all with the VHL other than to claim my Welfare and PF out of habit.

 

Nothing against the GMs they were simply giving me what I gave them, and lets be honest no one was really expecting much from me back then.

 

I knew when I made Landon I could make something up, tell a little story about him and get 500 words, catch a GMs eye at a key time and get drafted, and then it just kind of snowballed from there. I definitely wrote a few Media Spots rambling about my stats and stuff with my first player so the format was easy and with a forward I actually had things to talk about. I was playing every game, scoring well, and had the VHLM hype again. @eagle_3450 was also definitely a contributing factor, as between the 2 of us we had enough activity to fuel a few Discords.

If the higher ups are going to learn anything from my story, are these:

- The VHLM is already hype enough. Barring a few rough situations with teams having no players (which have had changes to remedy that obviously), players leaving in the VHLM were going to leave regardless, we don't need to beat ourselves up about that. With that being said, retention is almost entirely on the VHLE and VHL. I keep track of my hits and misses in the draft, waivers and free agency and I'm confident that I can get most players to 200TPE assuming they give the time to make that happen. And honestly at a pretty high rate too. And obviously some people are just going to disappear overnight, but too often do I see people fizzling out then going IA once they leave the VHLM. And quite frankly I think I'm lucky that I didn't go entirely IA.

 

- What did keep me going was the habit. People are going to earn at their own rate. Once people are in their groove, retention is honestly most of the way done. That's also why I'm not so worried about the VHLM. We get people into their habits and send them off. If they have the resources to keep those habits up, you've got someone who will likely stay consistent for a long time. Transitions are hard, and if it messes with your habit you can lose a player very quickly. Timing of press conferences, pings for special TPE (but not too many pings in general), reminders at the end of the week etc. keep people in those habits. If someone sits down and does all their tasks on Sunday when they remember from a ping, and that ping never comes, or the press conference wasn't posted then guess what, they break their habit. Jacob Carson was a Welfare+ player until I had a GM who didn't post a press conference when it was convenient for me, or never pinged me or something. I stopped getting uncapped opportunities because I wasn't pinged for them. I forgot welfare a few weeks by the end, even after gaining a starting job, because I just broke my habit somehow with school or something. Landon Wolanin has earned every TPE under the sun because my GMs have kept me updated, I found time each week to set aside for all my points and I always knew what was going on.

 

36 minutes ago, Gustav said:

it takes surprisingly little time commitment to be pretty darn active once you take the pressure off of yourself to be super-ultra-next-level-active.

Yeah I'm not as worried about the TPE, I know I can write 500 words about Landon Wolanin's week in about 20 minutes, and throw together some PC answers, a .com and some game reviews in another 20-30. At some point I won't be sitting in front of my screen all the time (ideally), so that kind of just seeing and knowing everything will go away eventually. Ideally I can get a job that lets me be a good VHLM GM for a while longer, but I wouldn't want to watch that aspect of my activity go down just due to the importance of it to the league. I don't have to be as hands on in the VHL and I can use my activity to plot and plan rather than inspire the younglings to be stars.

I know I've talked to some people about their steps back from activity and I'd rather it be the "something amazing just came up in my life and well I won't have as much time to waste staring at the forum all day" rather than the "I knew things were changing in my life but I forced myself to push through them to the point that I no longer enjoy this like I used to".

Ideally the changes coming won't affect me much lifestyle-wise but if something wonderful comes my way I want to be at peace with moving on from where I am in the league now.