Pool of players/online leagues dwindling?

[mistahjoe]

Hi all, I'm sure this could be a candidate for the online leagues subgroup, but I think this is more of a plea than an advertisement.

Let's face it -- our pool of GMs for the freeware version is dwindling. I feel like I'm in a fantastic league but we struggle to get GMs. Do other leagues feel the same way/have the same problem?

Any thoughts about how we can combat this problem? Do we need to look at GM-sharing, outreach, etc? I feel like this is one of the best games I've ever played and I'd be upset if leagues continue to struggle with GM activity or fold altogether.

[GHL]

It does appear to be dwindling now and if you look across the leagues its the same faces in each league, which is good in some way and not so good in others. With the commercial version of EHM and the Franchise Manager game I think new player gravitate towards them and dont realise the fun that can be had playing against 29 other managers.

It would be nice to find a way for the current leagues to interact a bit more with each other and help build the community up. Needs to be simple to manage and use though.

[nino33]

With the commercial version of EHM and the Franchise Manager game I think new player gravitate towards them and dont realise the fun that can be had playing against 29 other managers.

EHM05 had such play (and online and available to players 24/7 too) & the new EHM (released in 2015) does too and there are multiple online leagues (EHMreddit currently shows 8 different leagues)

[Primis]

With the commercial version of EHM and the Franchise Manager game I think new player gravitate towards them and dont realise the fun that can be had playing against 29 other managers.

EHM had such online play back in 2005, and the new EHM (released in 2015) does too and there are multiple online leagues (EHMreddit currently shows 8 different leagues)

At least some of the previous versions could not handle a full complement of human GM's to fill a 30-team league actually, IIRC. There was a hard limit at like 16 human GM's or something. The freeware had no such restrictions because it was a completely different method of doing online leagues.


That said, freeware league almost always struggled to keep a full 30 (or even just 20-some) human GM's because of the investment in time. It always seemed like once or twice a month a GM was quitting and needed replacing. That gets old in a hurry. Even a high profile league like the SHL (that was touted as an all-star league) had a terrible time keeping 30 GMs.

Also now with the NHL moving to 31 teams and the freeware having a hard limit of 30 teams, there's absolutely no way to mimic the real NHL. That is going to hurt the freeware community even more in terms of interest.

The freeware version itself as a single-player game/experience is not going to completely go away (because there' something incredibly appealing about be able to go through seasons as quickly as you can compared to the newer EHM's) until it simply no longer runs on newer computers, but Freeware Leagues are very much dying. There are too many people out there that have played 2007 or 1 that have never touched the freeware or don't even know it existed, and those people that played the freeware and were active in leagues have moved on with their lives, and can no longer invest the time and effort. I was in two freeware online leagues for a while and that was well over a decade ago, closer to 15 years than 10 now.

In the end, the lack of EHM 2007 or EHM 1 leagues though speaks to the biggest reason the freeware is hurting: nobody wants to do it regardless of the version. In its heydey there were maybe 20- or 30-some freeware league going strong simulataneously. I don't know if 2007 or 1 leagues have *ever* reached those levels, even though online GMing should be an easier process now compared to the freeware. The gaming community and playerbase has just changed. The hunger for it was there in the freeware, and it isn't now in 2017.

[mistahjoe]

Wrangling 30 people in real life is so difficult -- trying to do it in an online league is probably even tougher. I think not reaching that 30 mark is a sore point for leagues, but the reality is even with 15-20 active GMs, you can have a successful league. Roles can be filled over time. People will come and go. Can't do much about that except keep teams "warm" while we await someone to fill the role.

I think you are correct in that we can no longer mimic the real NHL from a team perspective, but I do believe its easy to modify existing teams. If we wanted to add Las Vegas, perhaps at the expense of a team like Phoenix, it can be done. No, it's not perfect, but if the desire is there, it can be done.

We're having a lot of conversation right now in our league (GHL) about the freeware version and the state of leagues. No doubt the number of users has dwindled and continues to do so. But we're also not supporting it in any way, which is something I would like to change. For instance, TBL has a nice community here, but since FHockey went down I think the desire/interest from GMs really fell. And leagues work somewhat independently -- we're off doing our own thing when in reality, some cooperation and communication between leagues may help to fill vacancies, have more GMs playing/investing time, etc.

I think people play in online leagues because of the community created from a league or a set of leagues. If we approach this problem differently, instead of saying "it's dying" and seeing it as an opportunity to engage existing GMs, perhaps pull in new GMs (are other games similar? Could we use Steam for outreach?), and start building a strong community via Facebook or TBL, or some combination -- we might be able to strengthen the current crop of GMs and add some past GMs/some new ones.

Ultimately I think this all requires some cooperation amongst existing leagues, TBL and its members (e.g. are you in a league? Which one(s)?). I floated the idea of a conference call to discuss some of these issues, it would be awesome to have interested parties from TBL, league commissioners, interested GMs, etc, in one spot to discuss topics and seek out items for action. I would be really sad to see freeware and the leagues die on the vine; I think we have an opportunity to act and put together a plan to reverse or stall this trend, versus saying "oh well, its hopeless, its going to die at some point" and just letting it go.

[archibalduk]

I agree - I don't think I have ever seen EHM 2004 or onwards reach the same sort of activity that the freeware game has seen. I think in part this is because EHM 2004+ is more time consuming to play when compared with the freeware version (and therefore demands more commitment). Like Primis says, you can blitz through seasons much quicker in the freeware version. Also I don't think the Freeware forum on TBL is in any way a true replacement for FHockey. I'd love to properly bring over all of the old guides, etc but I struggle to find the time (I want to upgrade the whole site and forum when I can find the time).

I'm all for helping freeware leagues, etc. So if there's something that can be done then I'd be interested in seeing if or how TBL can help. That said, I'm really not a fan of users registering, making a single post advertising their league and then disappearing off. This is why we have clamped down on advertising like this over the past few years. Plus, we have had a few abuses as well.

[mistahjoe]

Hi archibalduk -- completely agree and I get that frustration. You're building/have built a community and having people just drop by to advertise and then walk away defeats the purpose. If that is you're line of thinking, I completely agree. How can we build a solid base of EHM Freeware players if all they see is random adverts and there is nothing else to draw them in?

This is something I brought up and I am warming my commissioner (from GHL) up to it -- hosting a conference call with other commissioners, TBL staff, etc, aimed at ideas/action to shore up what community we have, fill roles in leagues, and whatever other ideas we can come up with to keep this small but active/knowledgeable group alive.

[Juddy2288]

Hello all, I am in HSSL and we are expierencig some of these issues. We had 30 GMs for a while but slowly guys left or just went inactive, we currently have about 15-20 active guys with our 5 most active controlling 2 teams. With the 31st team issue our idea was to take Arizona out and add Vegas. Arizona kept all its players and all Vegas players were in free agency and we had a bid type program to get them. Only 1 Vegas free agent per team, almost a backwards expansion draft. To boost activity we also let a few teams move, Carolina went back to Hartford and New Jersey went to Quebec. The commish was also open to other teams but no one decided to move their team.

I skimmed through this thread and I think the biggest thing to help these league grow is to keep the community Alive by supporting each other and advertise for the other leagues. All leagues should have an affiliate tab that is updated ever time a team opens up or a new event is happening. Joe pap (or something like that as his username) has suggested a conference call for this, I think that’s a little extreme, but maybe have a discord chat, or a post here where people can say hey I’m interested in a league or a potential GM, or something else (that I’m not thinking of) where as a community of GMs and simmers we can have a chat to know if a new league is open or a team opens up in another league.

I currently can not do any file leagues because of my computer situation (McDavid-ing macs suck lol) so I’m in non file leagues and have actually really enjoyed them, and still love doing the online leagues. I am here to help anyway keep the community strong and alive. So any help needed let me know and I’ll be there.