A New Members' Experience: Lessons Learned

[LilHCorny 55]

I joined back right before the VHLM S76 Dispersal Draft.  When I joined, I was confused about what to do.  A friend had invited me and none of this made sense.  Now I'm having a great time in Miami and understand everything, here's how I got there...

 

The First Day 
When I first joined it was a Sunday.  The first thing I did, was what I think everyone does first, I created my player.  I named him based on two jokes from my robotics team and saw that VHL had right-wingers as the position with the least people, so I created a right-winger.  Had I looked at the draft class more, I would've definitely been a defenseman, which there was a run on in the draft due to a loss of them.  I then went to play saxophone and snuck my computer up to my room with me, so I could figure out what the heck this VHL thing was.  The first thing I did, look at the Earning TPE section of the rulebook.  I immediately saw that this thing called practice existed, and I had my first 2 TPE.  Then looking through, I didn't want to figure out any of these tasks but this thing called "welfare" looked easy, so I claimed it, applied it, and then went to bed.

The First Week
Well, the night before was the last night of the week.  When I got on the forum in the morning during class, because I was fully virtual.  An off-season schedule appeared to be posted, so I looked at it, saw the date of the VHLM draft, and decided to get right to work on a graphic.  It was probably my second worst people, but apparently, people thought it was good and that I did some logo and color swapping (breaking news, I just took a transparent image of a hockey player and copied and pasted it).  It was, meh honestly.  But it was a graphic nonetheless and I got what I wanted, that precious 6 capped TPE.  Then, I saw a draft class ranking for the S77 VHL draft, and I was in a decent spot.  This was a further motivator for me to get even better, and get more TPE.  My next graphic was horrific and was a VHL.com graphic.  Let's just say that it looked like a kindergartener made it, I have no clue why I was proud of it at the time.  It was around this time that I got my first interview with a team from none other than my future gm, @Ricer13  I'll go more in-depth with lessons on this and other stuff later.  I got tasks done before the draft and got more interviews done, I was more proud of some than others but that's just the way it goes.

 

The Draft
Somehow, some random American 68TPE players called Trevor Wallace ended up going in the late third-rounder.  I was not expecting that whatsoever, but I wasn't gonna complain, in fact, I was ecstatic and was ready to get to work.  Though the commentators for the draft were wondering what the heck @Ricer13 was doing drafting me.  So what?  I just needed to prove them wrong.

 

VHLM
Well, once I got drafted, I dm'd my good friend @Viperxhawks19 who invited me to the Miami locker room before @Ricer13 even got a chance to.  A quick note: @Viperxhawks19 had helped me throughout my first few weeks and I'm forever grateful to him, so thanks Viper.  Anyways, the Miami locker room was amazing.  @Ricer13 was always so helpful whenever I had a question on my build and what to upgrade, or just wanted to figure out how our team was looking.  The rest of my Miami teammates have been great to talk to so far and have provided support when need be.  The whole team really has been great to me, so to those newcomers... once you get drafted VHL really gets amazing.  Anyways, in my first game, I was the first star, that had me over the moon.  Though I didn't do much in our second game.  Then came the time where I was moved up to the first line, while my TPE remained low, I had little to no production.  Though as weeks came and went and my TPE went up I made more and more of a contribution and am now feeling very good about my build and my player (aside from those couple of TPE in leadership). 

 

Lessons Learned
So, what'd I learn from all of this and what would I do differently.  Honestly, I would've had better draft interviews.  As I look back at my Miami draft interview while writing this piece I'm cringing at how short some of the answers are, and I'm honestly wondering what Ricer looks for in these answers because mine were shorter than I honestly think they should've been.  Another note is that having a contact in the league is great, @Viperxhawks19 as mentioned above helped me a lot, I believe he might've actually put in a good word for me when it comes to some teams and that meant a lot because with him I might not even know what a media spot is right now.  Also, DO NOT PUT TPE IN LEADERSHIP.  If you're reading this as a newcomer, I highly suggest that you do not put TPE in there and read a bit about builds before just going willy-nilly and putting TPE wherever you want.  Seriously, if you look back at your player and see TPE in leadership you want to, and you will cringe at yourself.  Finally, I want to address the importance of making sure to get tasks done and setting yourself apart.  There are certain things that a gm will look at in a draft and I think that when it came to drafting me, @Ricer13 thought I could be a hard worker.  I hope it was at least, or else he seriously ought to figure out a better strategy for drafting players, because 68TPE doesn't seem too attractive at all.  Anyways, make sure to get every single task done, average 12 capped TPE a week, and do not join on a Sunday, or if you do, send me a message please, so I can hopefully help explain everything to you and you can get that 12TPE all done in one day!

 

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1064 words

Claiming for the weeks ending on 2/7/21 and 2/14/21

[Bobo 472]

Great article.

[Ricer13 2,646]

Awesome Job man. Drafting you was a very smart decision on my part. Your activity and draft interview stood out above most others in that third round and that’s why I took a chance on you. 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Ricer13

[Gaikoku-hito 1,780]

Ah, How this rings too true for many. I know I had a similar experience when I first started but I didn't have a friend to reach out to. And Yes, Starting on a Sunday usually means a welfare start, uh!!

 

Overall, Don't under estimate what others see in you or your player as it sounds like you understand a lot more then you give yourself credit for. Keep working hard and have fun with the game.

 

It was a great read and look forward to other in the future.

[Viper 530]

Glad you like it here.

[Vat 234]

19 hours ago, LilHCorny said:

I joined back right before the VHLM S76 Dispersal Draft.  When I joined, I was confused about what to do.  A friend had invited me and none of this made sense.  Now I'm having a great time in Miami and understand everything, here's how I got there...

 

The First Day 
When I first joined it was a Sunday.  The first thing I did, was what I think everyone does first, I created my player.  I named him based on two jokes from my robotics team and saw that VHL had right-wingers as the position with the least people, so I created a right-winger.  Had I looked at the draft class more, I would've definitely been a defenseman, which there was a run on in the draft due to a loss of them.  I then went to play saxophone and snuck my computer up to my room with me, so I could figure out what the heck this VHL thing was.  The first thing I did, look at the Earning TPE section of the rulebook.  I immediately saw that this thing called practice existed, and I had my first 2 TPE.  Then looking through, I didn't want to figure out any of these tasks but this thing called "welfare" looked easy, so I claimed it, applied it, and then went to bed.

The First Week
Well, the night before was the last night of the week.  When I got on the forum in the morning during class, because I was fully virtual.  An off-season schedule appeared to be posted, so I looked at it, saw the date of the VHLM draft, and decided to get right to work on a graphic.  It was probably my second worst people, but apparently, people thought it was good and that I did some logo and color swapping (breaking news, I just took a transparent image of a hockey player and copied and pasted it).  It was, meh honestly.  But it was a graphic nonetheless and I got what I wanted, that precious 6 capped TPE.  Then, I saw a draft class ranking for the S77 VHL draft, and I was in a decent spot.  This was a further motivator for me to get even better, and get more TPE.  My next graphic was horrific and was a VHL.com graphic.  Let's just say that it looked like a kindergartener made it, I have no clue why I was proud of it at the time.  It was around this time that I got my first interview with a team from none other than my future gm, @Ricer13  I'll go more in-depth with lessons on this and other stuff later.  I got tasks done before the draft and got more interviews done, I was more proud of some than others but that's just the way it goes.

 

The Draft
Somehow, some random American 68TPE players called Trevor Wallace ended up going in the late third-rounder.  I was not expecting that whatsoever, but I wasn't gonna complain, in fact, I was ecstatic and was ready to get to work.  Though the commentators for the draft were wondering what the heck @Ricer13 was doing drafting me.  So what?  I just needed to prove them wrong.

 

VHLM
Well, once I got drafted, I dm'd my good friend @Viperxhawks19 who invited me to the Miami locker room before @Ricer13 even got a chance to.  A quick note: @Viperxhawks19 had helped me throughout my first few weeks and I'm forever grateful to him, so thanks Viper.  Anyways, the Miami locker room was amazing.  @Ricer13 was always so helpful whenever I had a question on my build and what to upgrade, or just wanted to figure out how our team was looking.  The rest of my Miami teammates have been great to talk to so far and have provided support when need be.  The whole team really has been great to me, so to those newcomers... once you get drafted VHL really gets amazing.  Anyways, in my first game, I was the first star, that had me over the moon.  Though I didn't do much in our second game.  Then came the time where I was moved up to the first line, while my TPE remained low, I had little to no production.  Though as weeks came and went and my TPE went up I made more and more of a contribution and am now feeling very good about my build and my player (aside from those couple of TPE in leadership). 

 

Lessons Learned
So, what'd I learn from all of this and what would I do differently.  Honestly, I would've had better draft interviews.  As I look back at my Miami draft interview while writing this piece I'm cringing at how short some of the answers are, and I'm honestly wondering what Ricer looks for in these answers because mine were shorter than I honestly think they should've been.  Another note is that having a contact in the league is great, @Viperxhawks19 as mentioned above helped me a lot, I believe he might've actually put in a good word for me when it comes to some teams and that meant a lot because with him I might not even know what a media spot is right now.  Also, DO NOT PUT TPE IN LEADERSHIP.  If you're reading this as a newcomer, I highly suggest that you do not put TPE in there and read a bit about builds before just going willy-nilly and putting TPE wherever you want.  Seriously, if you look back at your player and see TPE in leadership you want to, and you will cringe at yourself.  Finally, I want to address the importance of making sure to get tasks done and setting yourself apart.  There are certain things that a gm will look at in a draft and I think that when it came to drafting me, @Ricer13 thought I could be a hard worker.  I hope it was at least, or else he seriously ought to figure out a better strategy for drafting players, because 68TPE doesn't seem too attractive at all.  Anyways, make sure to get every single task done, average 12 capped TPE a week, and do not join on a Sunday, or if you do, send me a message please, so I can hopefully help explain everything to you and you can get that 12TPE all done in one day!

 

---

1064 words

Claiming for the weeks ending on 2/7/21 and 2/14/21

9/10 informative and even taught me some new things, also liked how you added a little bit of humor into it.  You put the tags of the people nicely! Also really liked how you split what you have written in several parts.

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Vat

[NSG 495]

The whole article is really just a testament to @Ricer13 and his amazing-ness. He made a crazy decision to sign me (I mean, who was I? A green first-gen who didn’t know anything about TPE and such). I also recall getting Leadership up to 50 (oof) and claiming Welfare my first day. Ah, good times, good times, anyways, I loved this article, @LilHCorny. 

[Xflexz 158]

As someone whos rather new I can relate to a lot of this. Now that i know what im doing everything seems so easy comapred to when I first jumped in. Great job! 10/10 maybe next we can get a new what i've learned after your first season the the VHL

[LilHCorny 55]

31 minutes ago, Xflexz said:

As someone whos rather new I can relate to a lot of this. Now that i know what im doing everything seems so easy comapred to when I first jumped in. Great job! 10/10 maybe next we can get a new what i've learned after your first season the the VHL

Might need to figure out something for another mid-season article, but that sounds like a great idea!

[LilHCorny 55]

Claiming 2 of 2

[LilHCorny 55]

Ignore this message, I was gonna delete it because it didn't make sense, but I can't delete it

Edited February 10, 2021 by LilHCorny