Online League Desires - Questions

[tarmer]

All.... this may or may not be the best place to post but wanted to get a pulse on what online players are looking for in a league

With perfect league starting and filling online leagues gets harder and harder to do and with so many open leagues and more opening all the time, what is it that people want...

There was once a day where leagues with great webpages ( Mark Cooley and a few others always had them) You had a website that was updated with graphics and news and you had a forum.... Now with stats plus and slack those are becoming more archaic and rare... and forums are almost totally unused.....

Rules vary from league to league, players are historic, fictional, current - finances, scouts, ratings - real teams or fictional teams

So many options - now knowing there will be no consensus on this as different leagues and rules appeal to different types - but if I was to start a new online league right now -

Would a slick webpage, wordpress and a forum if done well be a selling point or would it not matter, (or is just Stats+ and slack all that is really wanted) what features of a league really make people want to not only join but be active.... a great concept and backstory can only go so far

So tell me what would you guys look for in a league

[quillenl]

Me personally by priority most important to decreasing importance...

1) GM is passionate about his league and what makes it unique. Always felt like a lot of GMs are running a league they think will be popular instead of running a league they are personally excited about.

2) Friendly / social / casual
Leagues come in all sizes, so no one type will appeal to everyone. I've been in a number of leagues (all having rules against basic being insulting to other members) where some are filled with pretty toxic trash talking, some are void of chat altogether, and some are almost all off topic conversation... and I lean towards enjoying chatty but casual. That said I know a lot of folks enjoy more aggressive trash talking which is fine... but I think a lot of potential GMs are turned off when they join a "casual social" group and proceed to hear people insulting each other about both the game and politics.

3) Equalized finances - almost no one does this and I have never really understood why as the engine can handle this with little no no manual adjustments needed.. This is especially frustrating in leagues that lean towards trash talking. Always came across as bush league to me when someone with a 200 mil budget is trash talking someone with a 50 mil budget over how much better he does each year. it's fantasy, keep it competitive even if casual. It is not fun to me to take a small market team in a competitive league where there is a ton of trash talking ... or no banter at all.

Non competitive environments are just fine where the be all and end all is not winning the world series. Plenty of leagues with a writing focus, or other more casual nature where market size adds immersion.

4) Simple rule set handled as much in game as possible. Gotta have some house rules, but it has been getting tougher to be in more than one league the last few years. I've had to reference a 20 page rule document before and then go to a calculator to offer extensions to ensure I didn't violate one of many extension clauses. That's not fun to me. If the engine can handle it adequately... let it handle it. For example I've seen a rule where we were not allowed to offer extensions longer than 5 years... but the game was set to allow 10 year extensions.

5) Clean / organized league. By clean I mean not having stuff in the file that is not consistent with the rest and kills immersion. I've been in leagues where all but one team were actual MLB teams with crisp logos and then there's one team called buttmunchers with a generic logo. By organized I mean it's clear the commisioner knows the mechanics of OOTP well enough to keep things running smoothly... and a lot do not.

6) I look for real MLB teams (past or present) or fictional teams with some flexibility (I don't want to be locked into a fictional city/name that I am not vested in).

Lot of opinions and I hope you get more feedback. At the end of the day I think if my personal preferences are niche enough to maybe fill one league. These are just things I look for and not criticisms of existing GMs as I respect the amount of work and dedication it takes to keep a league running. I take a month off every year for work (70 hour weeks) each year and it's always stopped me from running my own league... it's a tough gig and I like to see existing commish's succeed.

[tarmer]

Thank You for the insight - I am right there with you in all those points.

The reason for asking is like several others that have been around for a long time - OOTP leagues and players have changed as has the way the game is played.. Used to be online leagues were the only way you could play ( if not playing solo) - a lot of those leagues were very well run and very well attended. Some of them had been running for years and the real good leagues always had waiting lists.

Now with the onset of Perfect League - people no longer need to be in online leagues, and with Stats+ no website, no real graphics or effort is needed to open a league ( no offense to ANY leagues out there - just an observation not criticism) but this has led to online leagues popping up by the dozens and some have the most complex set of rules -

So as a long time OOTPer who has been and run leagues - I am trying to really gauge what would differentiate leagues in this modern slack, stats+ type leagues....

[stevem810]

Originally Posted by tarmer

All.... this may or may not be the best place to post but wanted to get a pulse on what online players are looking for in a league

With perfect league starting and filling online leagues gets harder and harder to do and with so many open leagues and more opening all the time, what is it that people want...

There was once a day where leagues with great webpages ( Mark Cooley and a few others always had them) You had a website that was updated with graphics and news and you had a forum.... Now with stats plus and slack those are becoming more archaic and rare... and forums are almost totally unused.....

Rules vary from league to league, players are historic, fictional, current - finances, scouts, ratings - real teams or fictional teams

So many options - now knowing there will be no consensus on this as different leagues and rules appeal to different types - but if I was to start a new online league right now -

Would a slick webpage, wordpress and a forum if done well be a selling point or would it not matter, (or is just Stats+ and slack all that is really wanted) what features of a league really make people want to not only join but be active.... a great concept and backstory can only go so far

So tell me what would you guys look for in a league

1. GM base that is knowledgeable, competitive, mature, friendly. No drama, but GM's who are passionate about baseball and the league.
2. Stats+
3. Graphics that are attractive and creative, if fictional
4. Fictional, historical, and modern in that order of preference
5. No forum, not needed.
6. Slack, or the equivalent.
7. A modest web page that has rules, settings, starter file links, etc.
8. Rules that are well conceived and only change when they need to. GM's like to be able to count on the playing field not changing.
9. An off-season that concludes in not more than 2 weeks, give or take a few days.
10. A commissioner who doesn't have his own team.

Hope this helps.