VHL Editorial

[sterling 1,997]

Let's Keep VHL 50 in 50 Going

 

For anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to read through even one of the VHL 40 in 40 articles, you should definitely considering reading some of them when you've got some spare time. The VHL has a rich history over the past nine years and these well put together articles really do an excellent job of showcasing this. Originally this series was started by Detective Zero and was met with a lot of positive feedback Zero has since gone inactive, come back gone inactive again, come back, etc. I'm not even sure where he stands now, but regardless, he doesn't do the writing required for this any longer. Then our good friend Alfie (Victor) took over the role of writing these fantastic articles and the series continued onto 40 with a little help from Victor's friends. Now Victor can no longer write the remaining 10 articles either entirely by himself or in a small detail. That means we need to figure out how we can continue this great tradition.

 

Having assisted in the writing of some of these articles, I'd be happy to split the detail with another member like Phil or Phil and Victor or some variation as I believe this is an important aspect of our league. My only problem is that I don't want to be bother with thinking of topics to write about as the league generally tends to blend in for me after almost nine years here. It's hard for me to think of great original topics, especially as the league becomes more set in its ways over time. That's why I need your help and the help of the VHL community. First off, we need to find a few writers to volunteer to go through this process. Second, I need members to come up with their suggestions for good 50 in 50 article topics. Primarily these articles will be supplemented by interviews with members.

 

This is a really important tradition for the VHL because it's always been one of our best ways to celebrate the great history of this league. I think 50 articles for 50 seasons is probably a nice bookend to this series as well since you know I've advocated for us to make some sort of large change to the fabric of the VHL by the time we hit Season 50. Maybe these articles will remain as a prime showcase of what the VHL used to look like before. For newer members, they certainly provide a lot of useful information as to how far this league has come and some of the great personalities who have made it over time. I can count on one hand the number of members who are left from season 1, so that will tell you just how great the league has been in bringing in new members and allowing them to shape the league.

[sterling 1,997]

For next week:

 

Glorious Memories

 

I'm somewhat curious to hear some other people's best memories from their time here in the VHL. The great thing is that each individual member's memories and classic stories are all different. One person may remember a particular thread or a particular event and view it favorably while other members may think that incident was the worst experience of their time here. Often times the league can be very polarizing. Some people are hated or are the bad guys while others go many seasons without finding success, quietly earning everyone's love and admiration along the way. We've got a vibrant community, that's for sure. One thing I've missed in more recent times is that great sense of humour that has kept our league fresh over the years.

 

Once such incident is long forgotten by most members and it is certainly forgotten by the stains of time (it would be located somewhere on the second generation site and has since been forgotten). Jardy and I devised a brilliant plan (perhaps the first time I've ever used devise and brilliant in the same sentence here) to play on the community one fateful April Fool's Day. Little did we know the joke would work out so great. I had just recently stopped simming the games and Jardy had taken over thus beginning a long stretch that still continues (thanks, in part to his friends) to this day. The plan was settled - I would insult Jardy in a thread about something trivial and he'd mock ragequit the league and not return for several days. I'd take over simming again and he'd leave for a day or two and we'd pretend Jardy fucked off.

 

Of course the ruse set the community into a tizzy as most all people thought the normally happy Jardy had finally been pushed beyond the edge of his normal pleasant self. People were stunned, not really sure what to say as I'd previously never been a huge dick (to that point at least, this is obviously not true now) and weren't sure whose side to take. It was a truly great occurrence even if it was simply for the stunned sense felt over the community for those few days. Eventually we had to call in the fun and end it. That will go down as the best April Fool's joke of all time in the VHL I think. So I ask you about your favourite memories here from the VHL. Maybe yours is a particular time or team in which you won it all. Maybe it's a day that really stood out. Maybe it was winning a huge award. You tell me.

[sterling 1,997]

Two Players

 

Nothing has been more discussed in recent times than the two player idea. I'm saddened to see so much support for the concept since I believe this will go down as the moment in time where the VHL jumps the shark. It's not a terrible idea on its own, but feels like a band-aid solution to me as it truly fails to address our recruitment and retention rates. I actually don't fully understand the benefits of the move for the community other than more players. We aren't adding any new members, which I've long said is our biggest problem and this will continue to be our biggest problem. This proposal does nothing to address our fundamental shortcomings as a league.

 

I had some thoughts that this could certainly be abused by myself as a VHLM General Manager to always have a good player on my team, but aside from that I don't have much interest in creating a second player. To me, I already struggle to keep one player elite in the league and I'd hate to have a mediocre player just for the sake of having a second player around. I supposed I'm just not as enamored with the concept as everyone else, but I do appreciate the ability of folks to come up with a new concept just in time for Season 50. Thankfully this will change the fabric of the league, likely for the better, but to me it seems like a cheap fix to the problem of not having enough members. The other problem I see is that this likely won't be a reason for new members to join since the league is already confusing enough for them, I can't see running with two players making things less confusing for new members, especially the ones who want to focus their energy on making one good player.

 

Perhaps I'm just too old for so many changes to the league, but as Smarch and I were discussing last weekend, I don't feel the desire to continue on with the league for the long-term. Having a second player won't make it more enjoyable for me, it will just make it less desirable because I've never been that keen on quantity over quality. To me, it's more important to see the league continue to grow as opposed to a change that will only stretch the member base thinner. I was a big proponent of not making changes to the welfare system that were too drastic as I felt it was a better solution to allow newer members the ability to earn more TPE. What will the proposed two player system do? I think it will make everything far more complex, which I've always been against.

[sterling 1,997]

A Stupid Idea

 

I had a thought last night while I was walking into my home which really didn't make as much sense once I thought it through, but something I thought would be funny to suggest in this piece this week. My idea: VHLM relegation. I remember having this discussion regarding European soccer leagues with my friends a few weeks ago. It's a good model in those leagues where the teams that move up get a lot of benefits from moving into the big leagues. Obviously it's not a thing that would make a lot of sense in the VHL, but here's the proposal:

 

We bring a team like the Minot Gladiators back from the dead and we give them some free agent rights and draft picks. The team that finishes in last place has to relinquish their roster over to the new team coming in. Essentially this would make the punishment for tanking extremely harsh and General Managers would be stressing not to finish in last because they would lose their spot in the VHLM for a season. That may make the competition more interesting for first and last place! It's not a very good idea, but it's a funny thought in the end.

 

The opposite end of the spectrum is that the Founder's Cup Champion moves up to the VHL the next season after their win and they assume the roster, prospects and draft picks of the worst place VHL team. Then that VHL team would have to go down to the minors and hack their way back up to the big leagues. Wouldn't that be funny to see those tanking teams get sent down to the VHLM? I guess in the end it's not really the fault of the General Managers that have to tank to make it big. There's lots of ways to win in the VHL, but you've go to find that delicate mix of youth and veterans while making good draft picks and good trades. I think we've seen the inexperience of Seattle's new General Manager come back to hurt his team this season while the more experienced General Managers waited to gain the benefits of cap space through mid-season trades. The general fact of the matter is that in the VHLM one can buy a cup winning team by trading future draft picks, but in the VHL it takes a bit more skill. It certainly is interesting to note the differences between the two leagues operating together so well after so many years. I'd say the VHLM has certainly improved a great deal despite David Knight's criticism (dumb fuck).

[STZ 5,360]

I liked that three times for the record.

[sterling 1,997]

Re-Name That Trophy

 

Generally I'm heavily opposed to re-naming VHL trophies because I think it's a fundamental lack of respect to the previous members who built the league. It was stated the other day by that mother fucker David Knight that we should re-name the Grimm Jonsson Trophy for the league's top leader to something different. David, or what I presume was Phil posting on David's account, actually had a point. There's no need for any member to have two trophies named in their honour and I stated that when they originally named the Jonsson Trophy. I don't think there's a better member to name the award after than Phil. Especially since I've now banned him for impersonating his brother.

 

That's why I'm proposing we re-name the Top Leadership Trophy to the Phil Knight Trophy in honour of Phil who has apparently won the award 7 times, which is as many times as I've won it. I didn't know that I had won it 7 times and certainly none in recent memory. I think it is likely suffice to note that I probably haven't won this award in the time of 99% of the active member base today. Meanwhile Phil is the person everyone wants to be teammates with. Most people recognize PHil as one of the ultimate members in the VHL today. In terms of my own leadership, I suppose the biggest problem is that times have passed me by and now I'm old and angry like Gran Torino Eastwood.

 

If you've ever had the pleasure of sharing a locker-room with Phil you'll know that he exemplifies what it means to be a positive and noteworthy teammate. Phil always believes in his teams and his teammates and gets the most out of people by being generally pleasant and respectful. I shared a locker room with Phil way back in the early days of his VHL life and know that he's a quality guy to have around. It's Phil's positive nature that lends him to the respectability of the VHL community and therefore I think it's only fair that we recognize Phil with what I think is the ultimate honour in our league: trophy name recognition. And while we're at it, how about we axe either the Terrence Fong Trophy or the Kanou Trophy. Notable contenders to replace either award could be the Jardy E. Bunclewirth Memorial Trophy or the Victor Alfredsson Trophy. Both those blokes deserve the same honour as Phil. With that said, Phil has to stop logging into David's account to suggest recognition for himself. That's a very unleaderly thing to do.

[sterling 1,997]

Damn Communists

 

Here I am to complain about recruitment again. I suppose you probably think I sound like a broken record and for the most part I am because yet another recruitment drive has fallen flat on its face. I liked the concept with this one - secret prizes that would be unlocked league-wide if X number of players were recruited. Seems like a fun system that could be rewarding for everyone. Unfortunately, we humans are not motivated by the gain of everyone and instead prefer to gain rewards for ourselves. Especially in a TPE based league where individuals are trying to become better than their competition. What's the incentive to put individual work in if everyone gets to eat from the same reward trough as you do?

 

The other problem is that there has been non real urgency to this drive. It has been kind of a pay as you go type of thing over the last month instead of trying to bring a bunch of members in all at once to correspond to a certain event like the VHLM Draft or trade deadline. People seemingly have stopped showing interest in the drive as we're not really sure what's what. No new members have joined in what feels like at least a week. We may even lose some longer term members due to disinterest in the league. Therefore I've come up with another poor idea. Here it is:

 

Since we're happy with the communist system, I propose we knock starting attributes down to say 20 (or less) across the board upon creation and keep the update scale the same. We adjust player careers to be an unlimited number of seasons and players can stay in the VHLM until their parent team calls them up - no more TPE limit in the Minors. Depreciation doesn't start until the player's 10th season (5%) and increases by 1% every season afterward. Then we make the weekly TPE cap unlimited - members can earn as much TPE as they want through extra incentives like jobs, Trivia, Fantasy, etc. while keeping the one point task per week system. First gens automatically start with say 100 TPE to begin their careers so that there is a sense of equal footing with re-creates. Now that's a revolutionary change to the system! Why fix ourselves on a boring 8 season career! Then we are truly rewarding the hard workers of the VHL world.

[sterling 1,997]

Activity Idea

 

Boubabi recently made a suggestion in the Board of Governors that each member receive a nominal reward after every 500 posts on the forum. I actually like the idea as its one of these ideas that can have no negative effect on the community. Even if people are spamming more, like in the good old days of the VHL, it's still activity in the league. I'm under the impression that we could use more discussion on the boards these days. A more active league is more desirable for new members as well when they come here and check us out. Why can't we give this a try? What's stopping its implementation?

 

His suggested rewards were a free week, a double's week, etc. which to me is minimal considering we used to give one of these out almost every season as a community giveaway. I guess in some sense we have fallen away from the community aspect and gotten more into a fend for yourself attitude. Why not put this in anyway? It's not like it will effect a person like me a lot since I only have 7000 posts in the span of three years on this board. I'd get a reward every season or two which would be nice. I couldn't complain, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to spam the shit out of the league for my own small benefit. I think it would be a cool little reward for people to aspire to and if we keep it just a double's week or a season long PT upgrade for a member then we are also encouraging more point tasks.

 

At the end of the day, I think we've got to start saying yes to some things like this that members propose. I don't mean the two player system either - that's far more complex than a simple post more and receive a reward scheme. Why not encourage people and if it doesn't work out we trash it like we have in the past with other ideas. Then a guy like Boubabi, who is on the verge of leaving, may feel more inclined to stick around because his ideas are being heard. It is a problem in the Board of Governors in recent memory as conversations and good suggestions almost always fall on deaf ears almost immediately upon their suggestion. I'll admit I'm not the most keen on post in there all the time, but I make my contributions and attempt to support good ideas. This is an idea I think is simple and still something that I will support because it can't do anything but good.

[sterling 1,997]

VFL

 

Some entrepreneurial young men have set out to create yet another simulation football league and I, for one, am fully supporting their effort. Back in 2010 some VHL rift raft set out to create the Victory Football League - which was supposed to be a twin brother league to the VHL, but for football obviously. It played several seasons and eventually died, but in retrospect it appears to have been a fairly successful league all around in terms of football sim leagues. I guess a lot of times we don't stop to fully appreciate what the VHL is - it's been around since 2007 and now we're coming into our 50th season. Despite some trials and tribulations, the VHL has been very strong throughout the course of it's run and at this point it seems destined to go 10 plus real life years. No sim league before the VHL was ever this successful and I think a lot of times we take that for granted.

 

What the VFL people wanted to do was adopt the stability of the VHL and hope it stuck in the football format. I was a proponent of the VFL then and I am now, an here's why. Despite being a seemingly crotchety old man now in my senile years, you'd be hard-pressed to find a greater advocate of partnerships and growth in VHL history than myself. For a long time I've said that we need to form partnerships with other leagues since the benefit can be substantial if they actually take off, which is rare. If they fail, which they often do, then there's really no harm or foul. People will eventually gravitate back to where they fit in here.

 

Why I support the new VFL and their proposal to cross-post media spots is because it will bring a new flavour to the league and perhaps a flavour that the VHL desperately needs nowadays. That's potential new blood and an interesting new direction. Will the VFL be successful? If the past is any bearing on the future, than likely not. But if they are successful, then they will be tapping into an entire different demographic of people whom are interested in sim leagues. The problem with sim leagues is that you've got to be a bit of an odd sort to get into them and therefore it can be really difficult to find consistent members. Integrating a small part of the VFL here would help give the VFL some legs to stand on, but would also open us up to new recruitment at a fairly minor cost. Because people from here will join over there regardless, much like the SHL. So why not look at ways of taking advantage of this instead of being defensive and closing ourselves off?

[sterling 1,997]

Royal Ascension
 

It's been a few good years, but the build up to the Season 49 Founder's Cup was worth it for the Bern Royals this season. I took over the Royals midway through Season 46 after spending Season 45 with them. Although the previous General Manager Ryan Price had a tremendous roster for those two seasons, the team seemingly didn't find the ultimate prize that we all hope to win as leaders of our teams. The Royals were a disappointment, and even worse, the team had no draft picks and few prospects for sustained success. Therefore, I had to go about winning the hard way, but that's what I prefer anyway. Why jump into a fully loaded team just for one run when you can sell a decent team off and rebuild for the future? Especially when Bratislava had a General Manager who was hell-bent on selling all of his assets for the chance at two Cups? How can a building team possibly compete with that?

 

What I'm proud of, despite selling two firsts in order to bring in two key players this season, is the Royals are well stocked for the future. We have five draft picks going into season 50 and will be able to field another competitive team or rebuild again. How the draft shapes up will show me how to play season 50, but I really do want to compete again for what I can see as the most important season in league history. The VHLM is likely to become a lot worse for new members after season 50 as well so the motivation to continue being a General Manager will be reduced. I still fail to understand how the two player system will help the VHLM, but I digress. Unfortunately this season I was unable to acquire any new members beyond JR95 with whom I hope the league will be rewarding.

 

What I can say is that I'm very happy with the crew assembled this season in Bern. Drafting Eaglesfan wasn't originally in my mind as I wanted to take the best players available fourth and fifth. Eaglesfan wanted to come to Bern and I obliged. Naturally, der meister was a guy I've been with a lot in the past and have enjoyed. I thought he'd be a good fit for the team. My other draft picks likely won't be graduating due to inactivity and for this I am sad. The locker room wasn't as active as it has been in the past, but overall it was an excelent group of people. I was lucky to have picked up velevra, JR95 and Irockstar as the season progressed. Thankfully I also acquired Boom and Gregy to stack the roster. Ultimately, despite our relatively poor showing toward the end of the season, we were too good to fail when it counted. All in all, it was a Royally good season and I've very excited to see what will become of all my little Berns in the big league. Perhaps we will look back on several Hall of Famers one day. Only time will tell.

[sterling 1,997]

Training Camp Sucks

 

I had the thought that after 49 seasons and nine years as of today, our team training camps really suck hard. Not only has this virtually never changed from the beginning, but it is also uninspiring and pretty much a simple 10 TPE giveaway every season. So I say today, what can we do to make training camp more exciting for teams? The unfortunate reality is that we don't have a lot of options out there, but here's a few thoughts beyond a simple 10 TPE dump:

 

Have members of teams post articles, podcasts or graphics about their team's training camps providing updates about what individual players and teams are working toward. Each individual submission gets put into a lottery draw with predetermined prizes such as double's week, free week, 2,000,000 in player store cash, +2 to an attribute, +10 to experience, +10 to leadership, etc. This would make it so each team would get a prize, but the harder working teams would have better odds of getting the better prizes and thus be rewarded for their work. It would also place a little more excitement around the start of the season and make people create training camp specific content instead of claiming a simple 10 TPE for nothing.

 

Another option that was recent brought up in conversation was bonus cash in the form of sponsorship deals. I think the best way to conduct something like this would again be in the form of a lottery. So every member has the right to bid into the sponsorship lottery by writing a media spot about their player's interest in a deal or a graphic with their player doing some form of advertisement endorsement. The entries would be placed int a lottery and say five members would be drawn be season. The endorsement could last that season of three seasons and pay the player 1,000,000 per season. Or say every time the player mentioned the selected product in the form of a graphic or media spot, they could get an additional +1 TPE.

 

These are fairly simple ideas that could make the training camp and off-season processes much more exciting. I for one am tired of the same old song and dance when it come to team training camps and think coming up with new ideas would make the off-season go by a lot quicker. So what are some of your ideas for improving the way we do training camps and the off-season here in the VHL? I'm sure there's a lot better ideas out there than what I could think up in 5 minutes here.

[sterling 1,997]

I'm Back, Now What?

 

I doubt many noticed since I don't post a great deal, but I was gone the past two weeks. I got married and went on a honeymoon. The honeymoon allowed me to put a bomb in the Gow's mailbox whilst I was in Philadelphia briefly. I came back to the league expecting to see a lot of new things and great excitement, but alas I have been disappointed. There have barely been any new recruits to the league (thankfully my woeful neglect of my VHLM team was held at bay) and not a great deal of new discussion. I know they say it's the dog days of summer, but I can't help but thinking the league is still moving too slowly. Even the two player idea/announcement hasn't generated a lot of tangible excitement to date. The ten people who got picked are excited I suppose, but that's essentially it.

 

Looking through the league standings, I see the league is essentially where I expected it to be. Perhaps the biggest dog fight will again take place in North America where the Toronto Legion and Quebec Meute will more or less show down against each other at some point in the playoffs. Toronto has continued to be good, which comes as no surprise and I see Cologne and Quebec have made trades to try and match this. Will Cologne have a free ride to the finals? And will they even be good enough to take out the North American representative? Probably they will stand a better chance than they did last season, but we shall see.

 

In the VHLM, my beautiful Bern Royals have been cruising throughout the entire season. With only six regulation losses on the year and a lot of inactives, this may be the most boring season in the VHLM since I've been involved as a GM. The problem is there haven't been many recreates or new creates and I continue to bang the drum that this is a major problem that the two player proposal won't resolve, but many don't seem to mind because it's the dog days of summer. Almost by default, the VHLM has regressed again to a vacant inactive cesspool, which is unfortunate, but when you don't have a good pipeline of new players coming in, there cannot be corresponding moves made to bring some excitement. Needless to say, I'm disappointed in the amount of nothing that has occurred over the past two weeks and I apologize to my friends for not writing an article over the past two weeks. Thankfully I'll be locked and loaded to provide some good article ahead of Edition 300 - what we have toe acknowledge as a tremendous milestone in this league!

[sterling 1,997]

More Stupid Shit Proposed

 

Now if they haven't driven the final nail in my old bitter coffin with the two player system (the dollar store band-aid fix to our horrid recruitment), they've done it with the player build proposal recently set forth in the Board of Governors. I haven't bothered to read much into it, but essentially what they want to do is change the update scale and make it so everyone has to chose a specific type of player build. For instance, if you want to be a sniper, you start with a specific set of attributes. The only real justification I've seen for it though is that the SHL does it and people earn too much TPE. So instead of listening to a better idea on it's premise as proposed by me not so long ago, they are talking more transformational changes in a plea that sounds slightly similar to the Sask Party's pledge to make everything worse than it currently is with a bunch of butt fucking (cuts).

 

Here's my previous proposal since you missed it:

 

I propose we knock starting attributes down to say 20 (or less) across the board upon creation and keep the update scale the same. We adjust player careers to be an unlimited number of seasons and players can stay in the VHLM until their parent team calls them up - no more TPE limit in the Minors. Depreciation doesn't start until the player's 10th season (5%) and increases by 1% every season afterward. Then we make the weekly TPE cap unlimited - members can earn as much TPE as they want through extra incentives like jobs, Trivia, Fantasy, etc. while keeping the one point task per week system. First gens automatically start with say 100 TPE to begin their careers so that there is a sense of equal footing with re-creates. Now that's a revolutionary change to the system! Why fix ourselves on a boring 8 season career! Then we are truly rewarding the hard workers of the VHL world.

 

Let's say that even the last part is too much for you, which I'm inclined to agree with, the first two sentences make more sense to me than the proposed player build shit. Knock down starting attributes and keep the update scale the same. Seems like a simpler solution to the alledged TPE inflation issue than the current proposal that changes everything that we've done here for far too long. At the end of the day though, these big changes still don't bring in any new members and I find it hard to believe that any changes we make beyond actually doing real recruitment and changing retention aims (see the new VHLM system for instance) will make any positive impact on the league. Because you know what they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I still have a hard time believing that we lose members because of the update scale and the freedom to build players however you want. If these changes come to fruition, I suppose we shall see how they help. Again, the members who get affected most by making the top end higher to get to are the non-elite. AKA any change to the top end of the update scale works in  favour of the top TPE earning members, but I digress and no one cares about  that.

[sterling 1,997]

Good Work Streetlight

 

Even though I have horribly failed at VHL fantasy  yet again, I can't help but be pleased with the program. With 35 plus members filling teams out this season, I'd say it was a success. For a minimal amount of work, it also packs a bit of a payoff at the end (not that I come close to the payout ever). The fantasy program offers members a way of looking at other games and cheering for other players and other teams. I forgot about who I even picked, but if I hadn't, I would have been pretty interested in other team's results. Moreover, this event is a fair amount of work for Streetlight to configure and for that I am most thankful because it does at a good thing to the league without a lot of support from other members beyond them filling out rosters.

 

I think the VHL definitely needs more things like this to keep people's interest. I suppose one could argue that we have a lot of shit going on, but that none of it really takes that long to do so people can log in and spend about thirty second on the league and be done for the day. Point tasks feel stale to me at this point (over nine years) so finding different things to keep my interest is vital. With that said, I can't think of any one thing that we could immediately add to the VHL that would spice things up in terms of point tasks. Small add-ons are generally frowned upon now because there is a misconception that giving away a few TPE is causing huge problems in the league. The bigger problem to me is simply not enough time to do what I would like to do here. I'd like to dedicate more time to thinking up ideas and writing them here, but time is tight. Most other members are in the same boat so how do you find a balance between quality and quickness?

 

I don't know, but what I do know is that we have lots of good members around here doing quality work to help this league along. Streetlight did a good job with this fantasy program and it comes with little to no credit. As do many other jobs around here. Perhaps we have too many jobs, which takes away from quality, but we have a lot of dedicated members doing good work. Like STZ who does a great job with this fine magazine. So as we put together edition 300 in the coming weeks, watch out for what should be a terrific addition to our league.

[sterling 1,997]

300

 

300 editions for the VHL magazine! What a monumental triumph for the little engine that could. That's practically 6 years of content and who could guess how many words and characters over time. We've gone through 4 editors (Ray Funk, STZ, Molholt, and STZ) and despite so many different artists, editors and writers; it's been a damn fine piece of material consistently for nearly six full years. It's added so much to the league over its life and now it's essentially considered as much of the league as simming games. It provides constant job opportunities for new and old members alike and for that we should all be thankful. What I'm thankful for is having three separate opportunities to write for the magazine. At first, from when the magazine was in double digits (including Mag Edition 100), later on again (including Mag Edition 200) and finally now including Mag edition 300. I couldn't imagine a better place to gain TPE in this league.

 

Despite many trials and tribulations, most notably the passing of editors onto new ones, the magazine has remained very constant in this league. At times it has merely seemed like it has never skipped a beat despite the many difference in staff between each article. That's why it seems odd that I want to retire from this gig as I have in the past. The only reason I have considered coming back was to help out previous editors with content because this piece has historically been very difficult to fill and somewhat integral to the magazine as a closing piece. People like opinions and I'm afraid I'm not around enough anymore to provide good ones.  I think we should all be very proud of the accomplishment of this machine. I know I am because I've been a member of the magazine perhaps as long as or even longer in tenure (number of editions) than anyone else. (That's probably a stat someone actually has and can prove wrong).

 

It's most funny to me because the magazine has really not changed a great deal over time. Even some of the original articles exists six years later. Just with different writers, but they still hold strong. It's amazing that this tings has had so much content and so many different writers producing essentially the same shit every week. And yet each editions is beautifully unique in its own way. We've had people like kesler and Zimmers writing for the magazine and yet it has continued on without any disturbances. People actually looked forward to the crazy shit they might find in the magazine.

 

I've also got to give my damn finest kudos to the amazing editors we've had over the years. This is a stressful job in terms of unpaid work for a free simulation hockey league. And yet three brave individuals have taken it on and ran with it so bloody well. These people are all legends here and we should be utmost respectful of their contributions to this league with this magazine.  A hell of a job indeed. Also to the writers and artists who have produced so much fantastic content - written and visual over so many years. Well done all. Be proud VHL because this is a great thing that many of you reading this have contributed to. For me, this may be my last article in the magazine, but it has been a fantastic ride. Thank you all for making this such a great tradition in the VHL.

[Jericho 917]

317

 

VHLM Removal

 

After a nice 17 edition break the VHL Editorial returns to the illustrious VHL magazine. It's had some fantastic writers over the years, leaving me some big shoes to fill. Sterling, Devise, even Robbie if you go way back. I hope to live up to the standards set by my predecessors for many issues to come.

 

For my return I'm going to start off with a very controversial topic, because why not alienate half of my audience immediately. I propose the VHLM be removed. Obviously a lot of secondary things would need to be implemented alongside this, so the next few editions are going to discuss these in greater detail. This one, however is just going to touch on the broad overarching topic.

 

For those who listen to the Pajodcast, you may remember Devise talking a bit about this in our most recent edition. Since then I've been reinstated into the BoG and gotten a more detailed look at the discussion. I have to say that I completely agree that this needs to be done. Dank Memer and all around good guy YEAH!stlemania did some math, and he showed that even with Project 2, we won't ever have the ability to maintain 10 teams even at our peaks. We don't have enough actives to support 6 competitive teams, so we always have garbage teams in the playoffs that give easy wins in the quarter finals. Even at our peak activity, we never really healthily supported 10 teams, and we probably never should have expanded in the first place. We have a two options to deal with this, contracting which is really only a bandaid and feels like a step backwards, or increasing player count.

 

This is where removing the VHLM comes in as a force multiplier. We gets more VHL players because we aren't losing actives to the minor league system, and we make a better initial experience for the first gens. We've done a lot of good things with the VHLM over the years to improve it but let's face it, you can only put so many band-aids on a wound before you need to admit that you need surgery. The VHLM is not a good system to bring new members into, you get placed on a team with low member counts, in a system the majority of the league ignores. It feels awful to spend upwards of two seasons on a project nobody cares about. If you look at a lot of the legendary members who are around today, most of them either had a slow start to their activity or had a weird one-off VHLM experience. I'll give a few examples.

 

Both Higgins and I attribute our activity to the VHLM, and we're probably to of the only members who had a good first experience. Diamond_Ace GMd both of us on the Season 23 Ottawa Ice Dogs, a team he drafted a shit-ton of actives to. It was an amazing time and acted as a catalyst that made us bot super excited to move into the VHL when our time was done. The thing is though, that this was the dream scenerio, and it almost never happens. I was super lucky, and even Higgins had to wait a season for this dream to be realized. He spent his first season on a tanking team with no other players and only the promise of a brighter future to keep him going. What if he deciding that it wasn't worth it and bailed then. Imagine the VHL without Higgins.

 

Devise is an even better example. He had a shitty VHLM experience, one that more falls in line with the average. On a team with a mediocre GM and one or two other guys. He coasted along, drifting in and out of activity as he was drafted to another shitty experience with a clusterfuck of a Riga team. He hung in there until he was traded to New York and finally got a GM that made him realize how cool the league actually could be with Streetlight. A lot of you weren't around back then, but there was a very big shift in the member Devise was before and after his first player went to New York. Before he was a guy who showed up here and there, did PTs occasionally and entered the odd discussion. After he was traded he got super hyped, talked a lot more and did a lot more work to make the league a better place.

 

If we ditch the VHLM we have a much better chance of giving new members that positive experience right when they get here. It's going to take a lot of work, but I think it could be the biggest step forward the league has seen since I joined back in Season 22. Let's cut the dead weight, and move forward into utopia!

[STZ 5,360]

???????

[Jericho 917]

318

 

The League is NOT dying

 

Readers from last week are going to remember a promise to a multi-piece story about why removing the VHLM is ultimately better for the league. I'm still totally going to do that, but sometimes things start creeping up in news that can't be ignored. I'll be returning to my original plan next week, but for now I'm going to address a more pressing issue.

 

Lately we've seen a significant number of people who are loudly proclaiming that the league is dying, and that we need to do something to fix it. Generally this is used to push recruitment, but people historically use this statement to try and push whatever narrative they want. I'm going to be very blunt here. This statement is hot garbage and people need to stop hopping right to it.

 

Let's be perfectly clear, this league isn't dying. I've been around since 2011, and I've seen a lot of different eras in the VHL. Like any community, we've seen booms and recessions. Every time that we stagnate or regress slightly, everyone wants to hit the panic button. I've seen us go through much worse times than we have now. Older members may remember a time where we had to rebuild the entire website from scratch, and it took us like a week. As long as we have people who care about the VHL running it, we're going to be fine. We have always had a strong leadership core, and when one member occasionally steps back we have another ready to take their place. Back in my first days we had Knight, Sterling and Jardy. As they put in their time and did great work, and eventually made way for Victor, for Higgins, for Draper. One day we'll end up losing Draper and Higgins and as long as someone is there take over when their time is done we'll be fine. We always have enough interest for a lot of people to hang around casually. The danger would be if we don't have the people to sim, or to put in the long hours needed to sustain the league. We've had relatively reliable simming for years, and as long as Jardy doesn't die in a ditch somewhere of alcohol poisoning we're probably fine. As long as someone is willing to put in the kind of hours Draper and Higgins do now, we're going to be fine.

 

Now let's talk about recruitment. For the record, I'm totally on board with it. It's obviously something that would benefit us. More members are good, but pushing it with fear of dying is a system that works against itself. If people think we're dying, they aren't going to be interested in joining. We don't need to push our message on a platform of fear, that's not a positive way to move forward. When we push recruitment, we do it because we want to move forward, not because we have to save ourselves.

 

In conclusion I guess all I'm trying to say is that we need to think before we make giant sweeping radical statements, otherwise we're going to sound like brain dead monkeys. Don't be a brain dead monkey.

[BOOM 8,746]

But I'm an idiot that likes bananas 

Edited February 6, 2017 by R.I.P. Boom®

[Jericho 917]

Edition 319

 

TPE Scale

 

Perfect, now that we've gotten through an entire week without anyone saying anything TOO incredibly stupid as to force a deviation on my part, we can return to our regularly scheduled programming. Two editions ago I talked about removing the VHLM, but I didn't address any of the things that would have to go along with it. This week I plan to bring up something that would absolutely be vtal should the removal take place.

 

Without the VHLM, we'd obviously be putting the newly created players right into the VHL. In order to not have them be totally outclassed we'd have to give them more than 30 TPE. I'm not sure exactly what that amount would be, but they'd need to at least be able to skate on the same ice surface as players in their prime. Since we'd be giving players more TPE to start with, we're going to have to address something I feel the league needs now anyway. A harsher TPE scale.

 

When the original scale was made back in 2007, the world was a very different place. TPE was much harder to come by (top players earning around 600-700 during their careers), 3G being top of the line data packages and Kesler wasn't even born yet. Thew times have changed though, and now people are earning over 100 with relative ease. It's not hard to hit 99 in every stat and still have time to bank for depreciation and keep every important stat at 99. I don't think that it should be that easy.

 

This has been brought up a few times, and we've heard strong opinions on both sides. The nay-sayers tend to be of the opinion that this is something that the TPE-whores want in order to fuck over the rest of the league. I see the argument, but if this is done right we can strike a happy medium everyone can live with. I want to live in a world where it's a bit harder to hit 99 in stats, so I suggest we weigh it heavier toward the top of the scale. Make it still be cheap to invest into stats when they're low, and more expensive when they're high. This is already the basis of how the scale works now anyway. Right now, if you were to give 50 free TPE to a player with all 40s and to a player with all 90s you'll see a much more dramatic increase to the former. Each of those points has higher value for Player A.

 

I'm not not suggesting we make it mandatory to earn 9 a week in order to be relevant, but I am suggesting that it should be needed in order to hit max stats in everything. Welfare players should be able to be good, but you should need to put in work in order to be great. The system now discourages creativity. There's no diversity in builds when everyone can get everything to 99, I'd like to see the differences between a guy who puts effort into passing over scoring, because you really only see that with young players, up until they hit cap on a stat and move to the next one. This problem would only increase if we give more TPE to start with, something I'm sure we can all agree is needed if players get fast tracked into the VHL. I understand the resistance, but greatness can only be achieved through risk. Nobody likes change, but change is necessary to grow.

[Jericho 917]

Edition 320

 

Integration Deviation 

 

After covering VHLM removal and the required update scale changes, I feel it only necessary to finish this multi-piece segment with the VHL Integration replacement for the VHLM. Obviously, if we don't have the VHLM as a "holding tank" for new creations before their draft we need to put something else into action. We can't have players jacking off with no team until draft day, so a replacement system would be required. I propose we cannibalize a relatively functional system from the existing VHLM, the waiver system.

 

Anyone who's created a new player recently should be familiar with the VHLM waiver system. Teams are given a certain amount of contract money to try and recruit players to their team. In the VHLM they have a separate money pool for this, but a VHL system could easily be integrated into the existing cap system, which would be a bit of a rubber band system for the shittier teams. Basically the players have complete control over which team they go to, within the confines of whoever makes an offer to them. This should improve the general experience for the players, since they have a bit of control over how their creation season goes. They can go to a competing team if someone can afford them, they can go to a borderline team and try and affect the standings, they can go to a garbage team and get some sick point totals to increase their draft stock.

 

To be clear, I'm not suggesting we use this as a replacement for the draft, mostly because I don't have brain damage. Every created player would go into the following VHL Draft, be it the day before or 6 weeks before. This system would be used for the partial season played until the draft, as something for new creates to do until their draft day. Right now the system in place has a very long gap between creation to VHL interaction. I, for example, created Xander Finn on October 20th, and was drafted on January 24th. This was, admittedly, the longest possible time based on when I created, but that's still a significant gap there. This new system would have creation to VHL team be as little as 12 hours.

 

This point concludes the triforce that is VHLM removal. Obviously this would be one of the more drastic changes we've made in the last decade. A significant amount of planning would need to go into this, and it would make the expansion we went through in Season 31 look like a cake walk by comparison. I feel like the removal, coupled with the update scale change and the new waiver system is definitely slated for a smoother transition than it could be if implemented alone. The will to change has always been one of the VHL's biggest strengths, as shown with things like Welfare and Project 2. Success doesn't come easily, but it's all the more rewarding once it's achieved.

 

**STZ, maybe put a poll in this edition thread to see how the league feels about VHLM removal as a whole. Since this is the concluding part to the 3 piece story it'd be cool to see how the rest of the league feels about this idea. Would be very helpful for the BoG.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Jericho

[Jericho 917]

Edition 321 Retention

 

Well the poll I asked STZ to put in the last mag was eye opening. Apparently only 21.4% of you fucks are in favour of VHLM Removal. It was quite a bit more popular in the BoG and I figured it would gain more traction, but I'll head back to the drawing board.

 

Truth be told, this met with mixed reactions from the league. It was a heavy majority in favour in the BoG, and the same ratio seemed to apply to the vocal members of the league in the announcement thread. Most seemed in favour with a few objections being voiced by a vocal minority. Most big changes in league history have met with some resistance, things like welfare, expansion and Project 2. One thing that was voiced from the opposition was that this was a waste of time when retention is such a big issue. Personally I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but the second part of that statement is one I whole-heartedly agree with. Ultimately the goal of the whole VHLM Removal thing was a tool to help with retention, because most new members don't make it out of the VHLM these days. One good thing did come from this experiment though, we finally adjusted the update scale.

 

Retention is something I think we need to take a little more seriously in the coming months. I'm not going to go as far as those morons with the "The League is Dying" nonsense spouting out of their underdeveloped heads, but it's something to keep an eye on. We aren't ready to hit the panic button yet, but there's no reason to let the problem get out of control. My solution was to cut off the problem at the head, with the VHLM, because it's kind of boring and that seems to be where we lose most of out guys. The ones who do make it past the 200 TPE mark tend to stick around in at least a partial capacity. This is one possible solution, and in my opinion it's the most direct method, but ultimately I'm not the only voice in the league and if the majority is against it then another solution must be found.

 

Devise had an interesting idea in a recent Pajodcast, and a subsequent conversation, about making the league a bit more user interactive. FOr those of you who don't know, he and some of his childhood friends have created the new Microsoft, a web development conglomerate that is likely going to take over the world someday. Because of his new employ, he's learned a lot about the tech side of things from his technical expert. Apparently it'd be relatively simple to program the site to be done more by the user. Have your PTs automatically give you a "TPE Bank" for yuo to update to your own player from an interface. This could not only eliminate the need for most jobs: Updaters, Financier, Player Store Manager etc, it would also make the experience more streamlined for the user, and ultimately help us with retention. I could see this being a bit controversial with the TPE whores, some of the updaters for example have been doing it for 20-50 seasons and might not be keen to the idea. I'm sure some common ground could be found so that those who want jobs could still get that extra TPE, while the basic user could experience an increase in interactivity, and ultimately an improved experience.

 

Truth be told, the method isn't relevant at all. What we need is to get the guys who come to want to stay. Our current system seems to be, bring in as many guys as we can and see who sticks. I'm not saying bringing a lot of names in is bad, but I'd rather have 5 new guys join a month with 4 staying, over 50 new guys join a month with 1 staying.

[Jericho 917]

Edition 322 - Rivalries

 

Contrary to popular belief, I'm actually a very well-mannered person when needed. Those of you who know me only as my online persona would be shocked to meet me at work, just ask @Will, the fuck face who recognized me at my job and said NOTHING! In truth, between 20-35 hours a week I am a perfect gentleman and a genuine delight to be around. The thing with that though, is that life is all about balance. In order to hold this persona I need to go just as far in the other direction for an equal number of hours a week. One of the best ways to act like a hooligan is to invest into a team in some sort of competitive setting, and form a rivalry. I've been known to be energetic when swept into a rivalry, just ask my girlfriend after the most recent NA LCS best of three between Team SoloMid and Cloud 9. I shat on her dreams, not unlike the way TSM Hauntzer shat on C9 Impact in the top lane. I can become vicious, even to those I love, so imagine how I can be to those I don't.

 

Recently a thread of barbs began between members of the Vikings and the Titans. Titan goaltender Trifecta mocked Advantage and I for our opinions about how Greg should avoid trading Joel Jarvi to Higgins in order to go after Scotty Campbell's immortal record. Trifecta assumed that we must be afraid of the aggressively mediocre Titans in order to stoop to such a low. In truth, we just got swept into the hype of #JarviWatch and wanted to see it reach it's natural conclusion, but we would not let Trifecta smear our good names. We reminded him that his goalie performs at the levels of a drunken baby on rollerskates, and soon the rest of the Titans came in to defend their netminder. This lead to the rest of the Vikings hopping in and suddenly we had 6 pages of shots being fired. Now the reason I bring this up is because this brought forth some old feelings I haven't felt since the days I spent on New York. An honest-to-god VHL rivalry.

 

The problem with the VHL's longevity is that our member base has matured a ton in the past decade. The angsty teens of yesterday are the mature(-ish) adults of today, or in Kesler's case, the babies of yesterday are the angsty teenagers of today. That same level of passion that comes from puberty isn't alight within our loins the way it once was, and to be honest I really missed it. For those who weren't around at the time, the 20s harvested one of the better rivalries in VHL history between the New York Americans and the Seattle Bears. Names came and went from both teams but the promiment members were Streetlight and I on the NY side and Greg and Coach Reilly on the Bears side, with others coming and going along with moves the teams made. There was a genuine dislike between these members all around the board at the time, and threads were locked more than once. Since then we all kind of grew up, but looking back those days were some of my favourite VHL moments. Every playoff series had so much more weight to it when we played the Bears, and they meant so much more than just a sim. We haven't seen that in a long time, and I'm not convinced that's a good thing.

 

This recent spat with Helsinki has reminded me of these feelings. The anger has faded, but it still feels good to shit-talk someone. I think both teams have some strong mouthed members (Trifecta and Boubabi for the Titans, Kendrick and I for the Vikings) who can jab at the other team when it suits them. With both teams having a strong young core this could turn into a multiple season rivalry. I think the VHL could use it, a genuine investment in sim results from the member base.

[Da Trifecta 1,899]

Holy fuck. This is an A1 article @Jericho

[Jericho 917]

Edition 323 - Backup Goalies

 

This week there was a bit of a logistical issue in the VHL involving backup goalies. Eight out of ten teams ended up playing a sim with more than their maximum number of games played for their starters, and a bit of a kerfuffle ensued. For those who are unaware, VHL backup goalies are entitled to a minimum of 8 games in the regular season, meaning no goalie should be able to play more than 64 (barring a trade discrepancy). Historically GMs have been choosy about which games to put their backups in for fear of losing playoff seeding. If they didn't decide, Jardy has historically taken them out for the final 8 games of the season.

 

This season we ended up with a small error instead. Jardy went on a last minute skiing trip (read drinking binge) and left Will to do the sim for the 64th game of the season. Understandably he missed that and the original sim left all the starters in for game 65. This put every team in violation of the backup rule, except for New York (who played NYA G over M.T. Power early in the season due to Power's terribleness) and Seattle. The issue was brought up by Beketov and the general consensus was that we'd do a resim. This satisfied everyone with a brain. Unfortunately this doesn't include Banackock who wanted....something...done. Truthfully I wasn't able to follow his train of thought because he was self-contradictory. He thought we should have a re-sim to make it fair for the goalies, but also not a re-sim because that wasn't fair for Seattle and New York. Now since these are mutually exclusive options that's obviously impossible, but recognizing this was beyond the young man's cognitive processes. I think he wanted some sort of punishment given out to the other eight GMs. As I stated in the thread, that's stupid as fuck because Jardy's allowed this for the last 30 or so seasons, so we can't just randomly retroactively apply a punishment for 80% of the league because one guy wants a blowie for doing a super special good job.

 

Now Banana's stupid opinion aside he did lead to something proactive. I do think we should make the GMs actually take care of playing backups in a more active way. Historically it hasn't mattered outside of very close playoff races (in which case those GMs usually paid VERY close attention), but with the influx of goaltenders we're going to see more and more active backups with Project 2 goalies coming in. I don't think we should just leave it to Jardy to attend to. Now OBVIOUSLY this would have to wait a season to come into effect, because people who got to ride the long bus realize that you can't change the rules partway through a season, and especially not AFTER something has happened and apply it retroactively.

 

So moving forward we should definitely have this taken care of in a more attentive fashion. GMs should be sending in lines themselves dictating which games to play backups. If not we give them a stern talking to or a minor punishment of some sort. Nothing major, as it isn't a HUGE deal, but I think we want to send a message that goalie ice time is something for GMs to pay attention to.

 

I don't think this is the biggest deal in the world, but it was a bit of a slow news week, and it did end up getting more of a discussion than necessary. Hopefully next week you dicks can come up with something a little more worthy of discussion. Playoffs leave me hopeful.