(S27) Ultimus Week

[GoonerBear]

11) What is it that keeps you interested in the league? Is it your love of dot football, your locker room, a specific job or role you play, or something else? What do you like most about it? What could be improved?

The competitive aspects of the league plus the mutual excitement of being able to keep track of these games together with teammates keeps me interested in this. Plus, the locker room I've been part of the past three years has been pretty great as well - the SaberCats have been good to me across two different players now. I like that it can be a place for some faster-paced seasons of football. I had been part of a different sim league that, while I loved competing there as well, being in a bad season or a bad situation all season long was a six-month drag. After four seasons there across two years, it was too much. Here, have a bad season, oh, well, it happens, next one starts in two months and I can be patient and develop my player until then. And if I were to ever enter free agency, it would be for some actual incentive and I'd have a bit more choice dependent on that and pay isn't tied to skill or attribute levels.

I like most that it's forged a locker room where we can sweat out close wins together, bemoan losses together, and complain very loudly about getting simmed hard every season. What could be improved, in the gameplay perspective, is to hopefully, one day, find a sim engine that feels like it resembles modern football that humans play. There's only so much that can be done with dots on a screen, though it's kinda tough the dots don't seem to have a sense of clock management or going out of bounds and that things have to be tuned so finely. What is a timeout? What is a pass when the situation calls for it? What is proper aggression and calling up 4th down plays when the timing makes sense? It gets frustrating sometimes for me as an armchair playcaller to watch a team like the SaberCats try to run their way down the field when they have neither the time, the proximity to the lead, nor the timeouts, especially when we have a decently capable QB. Or in any case, the situation would call for passing. Though, that would be something Wolverine Studios would take care of. If any such program existed and could provide the same game and season pace, that would be great. I'd also appreciate a few more options to make a little cash here and there. I'm not big onto Twitter and I've seen things like community game nights in PBE that have been fun and add on $500k per event. Not a game-changer, but it buoys the bank account. The saddest thing about multiple affiliate sim leagues is that cash isn't transferrable.

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15) Write about another sim league you are in and which parts of it you enjoy. If you are only in the ISFL, write about your ideas for a sim league with another sport.

I've been part of the Simulation Hockey League for three years now. I first joined the league when someone had recruited me out of a small EA NHL-based league. Right away, I took to it and the challenge of playing, building a player, and trying to navigate and understand deeper the hockey world, plus connect with more hockey fans online since there's a...distinct lack of such fans out my way. There are some, though since we're losing our local hockey team now, that's thinning out. I made up a completely new character on the spot and away we went. I found it interesting as it played into two interests I'd had for as long as I can remember - sports and roleplaying. Getting into a character felt easy enough, but it was the out of character interactions with the people behind the players and GMs that drew my real interest, especially at a time when I was otherwise seeking employment in a tough market.

I enjoy things there similar to what I enjoy here. I love the communities I've fallen in with, the teams I've been drafted to, and found a place to anchor in where I made my first player a lifer there. I've made some pretty good friends there, as good as online friends can be. They've provided a place where we can shoot whatever shit's on our minds. We give each other a ton of crap come NHL time, and I got a good back and forth with our GM when the Stars and Avalanche played each other. Plus another when the Stars advanced to play the Lightning for the Stanley Cup. And every jab opportunity to comment on the absolute STATE of the Ottawa Senators, courtesy of Eugene Melnyk. We've been part of each other's big life moments - highs and lows. Getting to be part of our GM starting a family. Seeing others take a step back from the game as he started one. Navigating school and work.

Plus, having a good on-ice team during the actual play is fun, though it didn't have to be that way to be enjoyable. I was part of the Rage's rebuild under its then-new GM, JayWhy. It took until my player's 11th season with the club to win the championship, and when we got there and took it, it was a thrill ride all the way. We still ride that title a real year later. Even though we can't win it all every year, we can still rally around those defeats and setbacks. We can enjoy each other's company. We can share about a ton of interests. And we keep each other whipped up, hyped, and going on development, even if it gets to be a slow slog later on in our careers.

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