RLHL Future

I would like to do whatever in order to keep the league going. I like several of the proposals so far, I hope other help flesh them out.

If we have two or three hockey sim parties through the year, I would like to see them at someone's house when a game is on. Maybe Hockey Night in Canada, or the Winter Classic, or something else. I think if these are parties with a hockey theme, and we sim games too, it will raise the fun quotient, especially for those who like the social aspect of the league.

Ya, keep in mind I don't exactly see the sim parties taking more than a couple of hours. I mean people can hang out as long as they want obviously, but we're only going to have so many trades to discuss, and I don't think it takes long to sim the games at all, and then analysis of the data and more trade talk... ya, I don't see each 'sim day' as taking more than a couple of hours. The draft day would still be the largest time commitment by far.

In fact I don't really see Sim days as more than 'be available for trade discussion'. So you know how your players are doing and what value you place upon them at the very least. Prep-work for this would be minimal I imagine as rather than having to scout the entire undrafted league you just have to be aware of how your own people are doing.

I really like the core idea of Sim Parties. Some of the details I may have issues with, but the general idea of keeping this demented and sad, but social really appeals to me. Thanks Bill and Ryan for thinking this up.

I believe Ryan's suggestion has improved upon mine, so I actually prefer his at this point. In fact, i would be more than willing to sign up to host one of the standard events (be it draft or a sim party). For instance, i'm happy to sign up to host on new years day during the winter classic every year. I'm always in front of my tv anyhow... might as well make it an annual sim party event.

Also, it's not too late to implement Ryan's suggestion for this year. We could just combine the sim parties 1 and 2 into one sim party that takes us to the trade deadline (with trade deadline in effect at the first game in sim party 3). This isn't too much of a stretch since a chunk of the games that would have been part of sim party 1 have been played. And i am willing to host if it helps.
So, i recommend we establish a day in March for the combined sim party 1 and 2 and get things rolling again...

Bill

I am all for continuing the league, and if we go all sim then obviously I have no issues with that. I really like following my players and seeing them evolve and would miss that if the league folded. I also like the idea of expanding rosters and games played. If we can get enough commitments to continue the league, I think we should all buy copies of the game and we would each be responsible for simming our home games (or however it would work).

Just to explain how it can work.

There are generally two main types of leagues out there. Leagues where everyone sims (or plays) their home games, and leagues where the games are centrally simmed.

The first one, everybody has a copy of the game, they create their strats, and create a strat export file and send it to the league, the other players import it, and use it to sim or play the games. At the end of the block of games (usually a month) each player will create a STATS export with teh results of their home games and send them to a league coordinator who will import all of them, then that person creates a league update file, sends it to everyone, adn they import all the results from all the implayers in one shot. Rinse and repeate


The second option is fairly similar. everybody has a copy of the game, they create a strat file, and they send it to the league coordinator, once he has all the strats, he sims the entire block of games for everyone, creates the league update export and sends it out. rinse and repeat.


In my opinion the first option is the most fun as you can play your games if you want to do so.
The second option is more fair as all games are quick simmed (if you play a game yourself, you are undoubtedly a smarter hockey coach than the computer AI, this leads to generally better homre records)

If we do a mixture of playing live games and simming it gets more complex as there is currently no method to input game results manually into the game. This is something I could add however to future versions if we are going to go this route, but I would need alot more notice than it just being decided on draft day.
Altenatively we could add the results of all the SIMMED games into our current web page, but with a large schedule that could be painful.

The advantages of having an 82 game schedule in the simulator is that there are rules in place that will stop you from using a strat if it will overplay anybody. (although this rule only really works well in a centrally simmed league for obvious reasons)

Hope that short explanation helps.

What I had intended to propose is that the season is centrally simmed, everyone can input their strat before the simming occurs at the "Play Day" or they can have emailed the strat to whomever would be centrally simming the game. I do think it is important for everyone to buy the computer game so Brian doesn't have us arrested.

So we have heard form everyone but Bob on this go around. Revisiting Geoff's post...

Geoff, if you don't want to participate you shouldn't have to any more. I suggest we immediately make the Moose Factory Mechanics a league run team for the remainder of this season. Geoff, thanks for being an enjoyable part of the league for 10 years or so.

As a replacement, Sung has expressed an interest to me in returning if he is allowed to sim all his games. He has said that he is willing to take over right now too.

Brian wrote:The advantages of having an 82 game schedule in the simulator is that there are rules in place that will stop you from using a strat if it will overplay anybody. (although this rule only really works well in a centrally simmed league for obvious reasons)

Instead of an 82 game season, what if everyone played each other team 6 times. If we simmed our season in 3rds, each team could play a home & home vs. everyone else each sim session. Nice and even. Assuming a 12 team league, that would be 66 games (22 per session). Then we could change the "magic number" from 63 to 66 with a 1-1 ratio, i.e. 66 or more NHL games = RLHL full season, 50 NHL games = 50 RLHL games, etc. That would also take advantage of the sim not allowing you to overplay someone, right?

I too prefer the central simmed option, which seems in line with the pre-arranged "play day" strategy we've mentioned. I'm entirely in favor of what Ryan stated about entering the strats at the "play day" (or emailing them to the central sim individual) ahead of time. In addition, i really like Eric's suggestion about a 66 game season. You can't be any more fair than always playing everybody in a home-and-home each of the 1/3 sections of the season.

As for Geoff mentioning his desire to depart, that's unfortunate... but i concur with Darren in saying thanks... and Geoff, if you don't want to continue for whatever we do with this season, i'm in favor of transitioning the team to Sung.

Bill

Eric wrote: That would also take advantage of the sim not allowing you to overplay someone, right?

that only works with an 82 game season, but that isn't a big deal, we can still track it manually, there are reports aplenty for that.

Sorry to hear you are leaving Geoff, I know you have been thinking about this for a while. I was hoping Eberle and E. Kane would be enough incentive for you to stay

I also agree that Sung would be a fine choice to take over the Mechanics. First myself and then Sung... I heard Britt and Kurgas were thinking about coming back too...