Subject: I.1

Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that I've scouted all 3 of your original guys. It's a little tricky to compare Vickers and Moreland since one is a center and the other is a winger, plus people train to different ratios.

It wouldn't be fair for me to say anything about Vickers' qualities, but I don't mind saying that Moreland has the following:

O: 84
S: 69
P: 46
T: 86
A: 75

Not bad, but setting aside positional needs, I'd rather have Vickers.

I don't want to seem like I'm complaining too much. Like I said, I'm more curious about how the starting teams are generated, and what (if anything) is done to make sure teams are balanced.

I still think that the concept that the teams are generated balanced or that their is overall "fairness" is a myth perpetuated by us the users.

I don't think i've ever seen PPM claim that everything is perfectly balanced and fair, nor should it be. Did the Penguins deserve to draft Crosby AND Malkin? Did the Thrashers deserve Patrik Stefan to be a bust?

Part of the challenge of the game is overcoming those gaps. Am I ever going to catch Leggman and the irresistable force? I don't know, but i'm certainly going to try, and I certainly don't expect him to be handicapped so that I can!

I knowse this guy...

Well there is fair, and there is some teams starting out with 4-5 studs and other teams having 0. I found myself in the middle in soccer and in hockey. I agree that it takes some talent to weed your way through the mire but at the same time why would you not make things halfway balanced? The pens got to draft those players because their team sucked horribly.

And don't forget they drafted MAF the season before malkin and 2 before crosby.

I somewhat agree. I've never seen anyone explicitly claim that the starting teams are balanced, but then I don't spend much time on the forums either.

I don't entirely agree with your last point. If new users perceive that more established users have a nearly insurmountable advantage, and they begin to think that the only way they can realistically climb into the top leagues is for older players to lose interest in the game, then most of those new users aren't going to stick around. The game will never grow that way. I don't think it is fair to say that people complaining about the gap only have a selfish interest.

But here we are getting back into a topic that probably no one wants to rehash.

True, I understand what you mean about new users, and i'm just saying I find it interesting when people are worried about what is "fair" is all.

We're getting into the argument of is it better to have a game based on the european system or on the north american pro sports system, I guess. This game is based on the former. Looking at the current state of european sports, I think that there will be top teams for a while even here. If you're a league 2 team, it's going to take an awful amount of time invested in the game to reach a level established by the top teams. Look at the football leagues there. The teams most likely to demote after a season in the top teams are the ones that just promoted. In that sense, perhaps it's best to set personal goals each year. I believe that this will be true in the future as well, as the gap between teams' OTR increases. Now, I don't say this to blame anybody, certainly not Leggs and other top teams in other countries. My only concern is that I'd like to see a different market system. The way we are going now, it's way out of hand. I want to get a good goalie, since my team is just one great goalie away from being a 1.1 league playoff team. But at these prices that's never going to happen. The other thing would be to perhaps do something about teams folding and great players being lost. What happened last season with the fire sale was just wrong.

Edit above:

The teams most likely to demote after a season in the top *leagues* are the ones that just promoted.

Jojo, I have no issue with the Euro system honestly, i was just using the comment about American players as a common ground since we would all know them. I don't know Euro hockey well enough to make a comparison, but i do know the Euro soccer well enough to say like Leggman is the Man U or Arsenal of hockey in our world, and some teams are the Blackburns (i think they are the ones that keep going from Premier to Div 1, but don't quote me on that)

I was thinking about the other day, they have talked in the past about introducing a loan system in teh future, that alone will probably neccessitate a change to the market. After all, who would "loan" or accept players when you can buy them and sell them and it makes more sense?

Will staff members retire? That was the original plan, but it was suspended/not implemented during the beta.

12 players, 6 starters, 3 subs, 3 expendable.

I think staff retires at age 61 if I remember correctly.

The loan system will have to be well thought out. My guess is that the player will train at the new team's standard. So will bigger teams sacrifice training for experience? Not sure how that will work out. How would you bid for a player to bring to your team as a "loanee"?

Exactly what I was thinking. And even then, if you are say Leggman, and you have a guy that isn't playable on your team anymore, but would be an all-star for 95% of the rest of the playerbase, why would you even loan him out?

From what I know of loans and the way they work "for real" right now, I just don't see an incentive.

Maybe if the owning team gets to train him and the loanee team gets to play him so both teams profit? Otherwise I have no clue.