When did current actives join the league?

[Victor 10,525]

A couple weeks ago I went through every active player in the VHL above 100 TPE (i.e. S60 to S69) and put down the usernames of those players. I then added a few other members who don't have players but still pop in occasionally. Finally, I added their first player's draft year (or first relevant player's draft year as a few people only properly joined the league on their second attempt) and actual real life year that draft took place in. Then I pivoted the fuck out of it.

 

Here's the result.

 

So what does this show us? Well, for one, the absolutely insane recruitment effort which has taken place since the start of 2018 (S60). Now naturally, a table of S60-S69 players will be skewed towards the last two years as even inactives count towards the total and a similar snapshot at any point in time would have resulted in the more recent years being dominant. That said, this is still an unprecedented influx of new members, with roughly 75% of the league still on their first players. Even if only half the new joiners stick around for several years, 2018 and 2019 will still be the most popular join dates of active members.

 

Aside from that obvious trend which has directly contributed to the revitalisation of the VHL after a really rough year or so, you can also see why the league was down in the dumps for so long. The pivot by year shows the continued retention qualities of the VHL as roughly the same amount of people have stuck around from each year, whether that be the guys here since S1 or anyone more recent. However, the last real good recruitment year before this boom seems to be 2013, with guys like CowboyinAmerica, boubabi, Tagger joining the league after expansion and keeping the momentum going through the 30s. Then the talent stopped trickling in. You look at the five members who joined in 2016 and still have players today – 2 of them are inactive, while the other 3 actually only just resurfaced. Essentially, before Beaviss and Spade joined in S57 towards the end of 2017 and then completely rehauled the league's recruitment efforts, the last 3 major contributing members to join the VHL were hedgehog and Bana in S42, and jRuutu in S43, all now over 4 years ago.

 

That therefore paints a pretty good picture of why by S50 we were looking at artificially increasing the player pool with Project Player Two and when that didn't help / sucked the energy out of the dwindling member base we still had, we ended up with contraction by S58. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is the recruitment effort after that lowest of low points has been absolutely immense. I retired my “last” player in S52 and genuinely had no intention to come back on a permanent basis throughout 2017. Even when I did, I still found myself zoning in and out of the league in Cast's first two seasons – S60 and S61. But activity has picked up massively, I'm now in charge of an expansion team, we're expanding to a level we never came close to reaching at any point in the Cologne/Quebec era, and I might even be hooked enough to recreate for the foreseeable future. That's a job very well done if you ask me.

 

Well done @Beaviss and the @Recruitment Crew

[STZ 5,279]

You had one doozy of a weekend Victor

[Victor 10,525]

6 hours ago, STZ said:

You had one doozy of a weekend Victor

I definitely did this on a weeknight

[Tagger 2,722]

This is some good shit!

 

Think the most telling thing about the struggles we had pre-Beaviss/Spade recruitment/retainment is that only 6 stuck around from 2014, given how hyped up those S40 and S41 draft classes were (in part because of their first-gens).

Edited September 2, 2019 by Tagger

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

#partofthe9ine

[Kyle 667]

Were we 2007 or 2008 @Victor

[Victor 10,525]

35 minutes ago, Kyle said:

Were we 2007 or 2008 @Victor

2009 although you had an inactive earlier so maybe 2008 for you.

 

6 hours ago, Tagger said:

This is some good shit!

 

Think the most telling thing about the struggles we had pre-Beaviss/Spade recruitment/retainment is that only 6 stuck around from 2014, given how hyped up those S40 and S41 draft classes were (in part because of their first-gens).

Yeah those drafts got us to peak post expansion parity by S44/S45ish but then the collapse was huge, as too many of them were SHLers who didn't stick around. The super unbalanced conferences (S49/S50 NA vs EU) pretty much started when that generation retired without getting replaced.

[gorlab 4,321]

Very interesting information tbh.

 

Salute VHL recruitment team.

[diamond_ace 3,106]

what real life year was s19 in

[Victor 10,525]

17 minutes ago, diamond_ace said:

what real life year was s19 in

2010, although I put you down as 2011.

[Quik 4,113]

Not gonna lie, more than a little surprised to see 2007 is the 2nd largest group still around, pre-2018. That's people who were drafted S1-3

[Beketov 8,639]

33 minutes ago, Quik said:

Not gonna lie, more than a little surprised to see 2007 is the 2nd largest group still around, pre-2018. That's people who were drafted S1-3

Once you’ve been around 12 years you’re hooked for life.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,705]

On 9/2/2019 at 3:18 AM, Victor said:

However, the last real good recruitment year before this boom seems to be 2013, with guys like CowboyinAmerica, boubabi, Tagger joining the league after expansion and keeping the momentum going through the 30s.

 

The S33 Draft was actually really solid in retrospect with a mix of recreates and new people who are either still around or at least stuck around for a while. Aside from me and Boubabi, think that was Molholt and Doomsday's first player, and even Collier was a GM for a while.

Edited September 4, 2019 by CowboyinAmerica

[JeffD 648]

#2007Gang

[JeffD 648]

1 hour ago, Beketov said:

Once you’ve been around 12 years you’re hooked for life.

Or you just leave for eight years in the middle and find your way back.