6) Write 800 words or more on something about anything in the league that interests you. It could be related to statistics, a league issue that you take seriously, or a niche part of history that doesn’t fit neatly into either of the above categories. This must be directly related to the league, so don’t wax 800 words about your team’s participation on a Werewolf server or something.
This is something that took me a bit by surprise a few weeks ago. As I was thinking up a way to earn some money during double media week I came upon the idea to take a look at some of the actual game results, from week to week, throughout the season. As someone that typically tunes in just to watch my teams’ games, I was fascinated by one of the results earlier in the Liberty season when we lost on a last second ~30 yard touchdown throw to end the game. It was at that moment that I realized there were likely a lot of really great sim games happening right beneath my nose that I wasn’t picking up on.
As I sorted through the wins and losses, and dug deeper into the play-by-play within these great matchups, I found myself becoming really engrossed in the players, the decisions, and the endings. Taking the next step from there, I found it actually pretty fun to take what I saw from the dots, and extrapolate the raw data into a story of sorts. As someone who is not as active on discord, the media and graphics forums, or grading and league office tasks, this was one of those moments that kind of finally drew me in. I don’t necessarily think I’ll be jumping in head first to a new age of activity, I can say that I’m actually looking forward to keeping a closer eye on scores throughout the week and creating my next media post about the best endings of the week/year.
However, there is obviously a huge wildcard that will factor into the content of my next media post, and that is the new sim engine that is being instituted starting this league year. Now, shockingly, I haven’t familiarized myself too much with the various new factors this year such as archetypes and traits, or the new presentation within the play-by-play of each game, but even I know things are a changing. From the 2 minutes I watched of the new sim engine game presentation, it looks like there will be a lot more shown, within each play. Such things as, I believe, a flight pattern of the ball when it’s thrown, when the ball is kicked by punters and kickers, and defensive and special teams returns. While it may take away from my creativity a bit, this will no doubt make the games even juicier as we can watch kick returners hit a hole, hug the sideline, and burn down field for an 85 yard kick return touchdown. Or a defensive tackle causing a fumble in the backfield and a linebacker scooping and scoring from 20 yards out. It seems like a small change, but there’s so much lost in translation when you see the dots throw an incomplete pass on third down, followed by a green font telling you “field goal is good.” Something as simple as a flight pattern on a kick should make watching the games much more enjoyable.
I think that directly relates to my media interest of “the best finishes of the season.” So many of the games that qualify for this media consideration end on things such as a missed or made 50 yard field goal or a 70 yard pick six in overtime, and the only thing you see is the play before, followed by a notification that someone scored on a non-offensive unit play. Now I find it fun to kind of create that play in my head, visualizing the settings and the pressure in the moment, along with the reactions of players, but a lot of that can still be introduced despite being provided a bit more information by the sim.
Something that’s a bit less straightforward or clear is how these new player archetypes, stats, and traits may play into my media articles for best finishes. At first glance, seeing things such as newer and more archetypes should lend itself to more unique players. Further, added things such as player ‘competitiveness’ and traits including such things as leadership and player specialties will contribute more to varied player builds and impacts. Also not to be forgotten is the unknown. Users haven’t created and established the ‘meta builds’ yet as there’s so much to be tested with an actual season, so we’re likely to have more build diversity than in years past. While this sounds and is exciting, without seeing any of this information within the sim game presentation itself means that the unique player builds will have to be manually reviewed in order for myself to include a related anecdote in my media write ups. That’s just kind of a whiny complaint from me, a lazy writer, but that’s just additional information that’s there for me to utilize if I feel like it.
All in all, I’m very excited for the next season, both for the sim presentation and for the feel of the games as well, and can’t wait to write about some of the best of the season.
(842 words)
This is something that took me a bit by surprise a few weeks ago. As I was thinking up a way to earn some money during double media week I came upon the idea to take a look at some of the actual game results, from week to week, throughout the season. As someone that typically tunes in just to watch my teams’ games, I was fascinated by one of the results earlier in the Liberty season when we lost on a last second ~30 yard touchdown throw to end the game. It was at that moment that I realized there were likely a lot of really great sim games happening right beneath my nose that I wasn’t picking up on.
As I sorted through the wins and losses, and dug deeper into the play-by-play within these great matchups, I found myself becoming really engrossed in the players, the decisions, and the endings. Taking the next step from there, I found it actually pretty fun to take what I saw from the dots, and extrapolate the raw data into a story of sorts. As someone who is not as active on discord, the media and graphics forums, or grading and league office tasks, this was one of those moments that kind of finally drew me in. I don’t necessarily think I’ll be jumping in head first to a new age of activity, I can say that I’m actually looking forward to keeping a closer eye on scores throughout the week and creating my next media post about the best endings of the week/year.
However, there is obviously a huge wildcard that will factor into the content of my next media post, and that is the new sim engine that is being instituted starting this league year. Now, shockingly, I haven’t familiarized myself too much with the various new factors this year such as archetypes and traits, or the new presentation within the play-by-play of each game, but even I know things are a changing. From the 2 minutes I watched of the new sim engine game presentation, it looks like there will be a lot more shown, within each play. Such things as, I believe, a flight pattern of the ball when it’s thrown, when the ball is kicked by punters and kickers, and defensive and special teams returns. While it may take away from my creativity a bit, this will no doubt make the games even juicier as we can watch kick returners hit a hole, hug the sideline, and burn down field for an 85 yard kick return touchdown. Or a defensive tackle causing a fumble in the backfield and a linebacker scooping and scoring from 20 yards out. It seems like a small change, but there’s so much lost in translation when you see the dots throw an incomplete pass on third down, followed by a green font telling you “field goal is good.” Something as simple as a flight pattern on a kick should make watching the games much more enjoyable.
I think that directly relates to my media interest of “the best finishes of the season.” So many of the games that qualify for this media consideration end on things such as a missed or made 50 yard field goal or a 70 yard pick six in overtime, and the only thing you see is the play before, followed by a notification that someone scored on a non-offensive unit play. Now I find it fun to kind of create that play in my head, visualizing the settings and the pressure in the moment, along with the reactions of players, but a lot of that can still be introduced despite being provided a bit more information by the sim.
Something that’s a bit less straightforward or clear is how these new player archetypes, stats, and traits may play into my media articles for best finishes. At first glance, seeing things such as newer and more archetypes should lend itself to more unique players. Further, added things such as player ‘competitiveness’ and traits including such things as leadership and player specialties will contribute more to varied player builds and impacts. Also not to be forgotten is the unknown. Users haven’t created and established the ‘meta builds’ yet as there’s so much to be tested with an actual season, so we’re likely to have more build diversity than in years past. While this sounds and is exciting, without seeing any of this information within the sim game presentation itself means that the unique player builds will have to be manually reviewed in order for myself to include a related anecdote in my media write ups. That’s just kind of a whiny complaint from me, a lazy writer, but that’s just additional information that’s there for me to utilize if I feel like it.
All in all, I’m very excited for the next season, both for the sim presentation and for the feel of the games as well, and can’t wait to write about some of the best of the season.
(842 words)
![[Image: haywoodsig.png]](https://i.ibb.co/jWrrj2B/haywoodsig.png)
