Subject: I.1

It wasn't just that. He knew what Leggmann was making. And despite being the second best team in the country most of the time, mj wasn't making anything close to that. The disparity is huge. Much bigger than I expected.

Something extreme needs to be done. Unfortunately, PPM is too scared to upset the long time paying customers who are winning everything. So instead of doing something drastic right now to help even things up, they will probably make changes very slowly over the next decade.

OT: I don't know if I added wrong or if something changed while I was out of town, but I'm only making 15.8M not 16.6M. That's about what the 20th place team can expect if you have a decent stadium.

Me and you ended up finnishing pretty close last season and I'm getting right around 14M a week, that's with a much smaller stadium. I don't see how any team could have a prayer of taking down the Goliath's with such large gaps.

The forgot to take demotions and promotions into account for offers initially so offers were adjusted accordingly on Sunday. I had a raise in my totals instead which was a nice surprise...

What if the general sponsor offer was correlated with a team's performance relative to the team's expected performance (it would have to be more complex than just comparing team strength from a single date and generally prevent the gaming of the system). Perhaps increasingly difficult checkpoints would need to be achieved to obtain a better range of offers.

I think that in the end, some sort of a cap on player salaries (or expenditures) might become necessary.

Perhaps something like a level 16 training facility or something comparable can be created - except that to take advantage, one would have to bid against other players, and possibly have to remain the highest bidder continuously, to maintain the benefit.

It seems that the market is really high for good players. I haven't purchased in a little while, so I was kinda shocked to see that $40 mil wouldn't buy an OR 961 defenseman with 4/6 C/L. Maybe I am just dumb. I was just hoping that with the flood of better and better players, such guys would go for less, not more. I suppose everyone making more money might inflate prices, but hopefully that will be temporary (as people spend all their season-ending prize money).

I just bought an OR 927 defenseman with 4.6 CL for 11.8 million 20 days ago (he is already 24 years old though). There was also a lot of good players on the market when I bought the defenseman.

Guess I need to look harder then :>

It's all about luck, really. I saw an 880 3/6 defenseman go for 6 mil yesterday, and not even two minutes later, a player almost exactly like him went for 22 mil. It's just ridiculous!

So who's next? Is it Psycos, Razor, You leggy? There aren't many form the orginal set left. We've seen Americans, Miami Rage, Swamp Foxes, Yetis, Vowels, Africville, Notso, Manville, Philadelphia Warmachine, & now Red Wings. I'm sure there are still more that I can't recall off the top of my head. Either people are tired of you winning or just gave up!

I know I am going to be beating a dead horse with much of what I am about to say....

I think it has more to do with the problems many have already brought up. I enjoy this game as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that someone who just recently started (within the last 100 days) doesn't have much of a chance of being overly competitive for a longtime from their start date. If you go the build infrastructure route you get your head kicked in constantly and eventually the lack of improvement in your funding will catch up and your progression slows to a crawl. If you go the buy players route... well same problem as mentioned above. Add into that the ability of extablished teams with a much larger budget to just outspend you to death because they having nothing else to spend on b/c facilities/arena are maxed out or close to it. While these aspects are great and much like real life you are always having to budget, plan, etc, in a simulated enviroment too much is a bad thing.

The financial disparity has newer teams either hoping guys who have been around a longtime quit, praying they get lucky all the rich guys are either asleep or to cheap to spend to pick up the increasingly rare bargain on the market, or facing the prospect of losing for a VERY longtime.

Let's be honest most people don't have the patience to get their head kicked in on a constant basis. We're all competitive.. everyone wants to win.. but it is harder to stick around when the curtain is pulled and everyone sees the wizard. There isn't much of a suspension of disbelief aspect for the weaker guys. It becomes extremely frustrating and many as we have all seen just give up. I can't speak for the experienced players, but from what I have read some of their concerns echo similar statements as well as other issues.

Now, I'm not going to claim to have the exact answer to fix the problems. I believe many of the suggestions that have already been brought up are perfect. They just need to be examined, tested, and implemented. Bottom line is the economic and financial aspects need to examined very closely to create a balanced and more fair product for everyone. Parity is completely out of whack.

Sorry for being long-winded... just needed to vent.

Someone help! I was just robbed!

Obviously there are some problems with income disparity, but should someone who just joined really be expected to challenge long term players right away?

If I've been a member since 07, and playing hockey since the day it opened, someone who joined 100 days ago shouldn't be able to touch me.

That's the point of different leagues. If you join today and get placed in the lowest league, you are competing against other people who joined recently, not the big dogs up in I.1. The goal shouldn't be to rise to the to immediately, but consistently improve and be competitive in your current league.

This may be easy for me to say as someone who has been competing since day 1, but I joined a similar hockey game well after its inception, where the top teams were already well established. For multiple years, I was thoroughly entertained by competing with rivals I made in the lower leagues, and after many seasons, was able to rebuild and promote to the II league. My time for these games has greatly diminished, and I spend very little time on this other game, but if I had the commitment, I could rebuild again and make it to the I league.

Again, I agree that there are aspects of the game and its economics that need fixing, but new players shouldn't be expected to compete with the veterans for a long time, and playing in lower leagues against users in a similar position can be a fulfilling gaming experience.

This isn't really about new teams being able to compete immediately. This is about the second best team not being close to the top team because sponsor money is so out of whack. But...

I didn't go through season 11, but I did go through every playoff for every I.1 league in the whole game before that. The 'youngest' team to win a title joined a month after it started. The next youngest team started within the first week. That's after 10 seasons. 3 real years. I can't even begin to guess how long it would take a team starting today to win anything.

If you want a frame of reference, I started just after the midway point of season 9. I just last season managed to build a team that could win Division III while also building up facilities. I had the best record in the regular season and went undefeated in the playoffs but have yet to win a game in Division II and am preparing to be relegated at the end of the season. It is definitely a practice in patience and I'm not sure how many people will appreciate finally finding success only to turn around and immediately find themselves on the bottom of the pack.

I started in the middle of season 7. I got automatically promoted to Division III when they regrouped all of the teams. In season 10, I promoted up to Division II, where I finished 10th in the regular season and playoffs. This season, it's looking like I will have a playoff team, though I doubt I'll go far in the playoffs.

So I could realistically make it to Division I after a few seasons, but I doubt I can survive. And there's no way I'll be able to beat Leggman for the top spot any time in the near future. MAYBE in another 10-15 seasons. But I agree, there aren't that many people that have enough patience to wait so long to have a chance at the top.