Majalah PowerPlay

I've been told that based on the percentage of Canadians who play PPM there should be at least one person who plays in the Northwest Territories. As it happens there is one; NovaCollision. For this article of PowerPlayManager magazine I would like to share a peak into the life and game experience of this fellow very isolated PPM player to our readers.

Hi NovaCollison. By way of introduction why don't you let us know a little about yourself. What do you do for a living up in Yellowknife? Are you from the NWT originally? Are you married? Any children?

NovaCollision: I'm from Calgary, Alberta, and lived there when I first started playing PPM. I grew up in a small community outside of Calgary and aside from a year in Vancouver, this is the first time I've lived away from where I grew up for any length of time. I came up here to work for a big telecom and I do technical support for our clients. I'm not married and have no children, which is probably a good thing considering the circumstances with which I moved up here during the summer of last year.

I see. While I count myself as one of the few who have spent more than a year north of the 60th parallel, maybe as a more recent permanent resident you could tell us a little about the experience of living so far north in Canada: Weather, local culture or personalities, unexpected quirks of living so far north, pastimes, that sort of thing.

NovaCollision: I was as apprehensive about the weather as I'm sure most, if not all, people are when coming up here for the first time. I was fortunate in that during the winter it never got colder than about -38 if I remember correctly. It was a mild winter, so a good time for me to come up. Summers here are beautiful. One of the odd things is the transition from summer to winter and vice versa: There is almost no spring or fall. Once the snow really gets melting, things warm up quickly and it takes less than a week for trees to go from completely bare to solid green. The same thing is reversed in the fall. The leaves barely have time to turn colour before they drop and the first snow hits. We just had our first snow of the year on Friday and it snowed a lot. I'm expecting this winter to make up for last. I should be ready for it, though. Because of how dry the climate is the cold doesn't really set in as long as you're dressed for it.

The city has a small but heavily developed downtown core with 10 story buildings and the military headquarters for Canada's northern defense. This is all bordered by Frame Lake, so it can be very picturesque.

Fishing is big up here and I recently picked it up. I haven't done a lot of it yet and the last time I fished I was 16, which was literally half my life ago. There's some great spots to go and I'm hoping to give ice fishing a try in the winter. I also started golfing up here, which is challenging. Because grass has such a hard time here, so the golf course is a giant sand trap. The golf course runs a midnight golf tournament every year in July when there is 24 hours of light. I'm hoping to participate next year.

Interesting, and that sand trap golf course must be good for some laughs. So, I gotta know which professional hockey team do you support? Why?

NovaCollision: I'm a total Calgary Flames fan. Home team. Montreal is my second, though the reasons are a little less defined. They're original six and of course, it's always nice to see a Canadian team win, but I think a big part of me cheering for Montreal is me thumbing my nose at all the anti-Quebec sentiment that exists in Alberta.

Nice, if a bit risky I suppose. So, I've been a bit of a fantasy hockey pool junkie for probably 15 years and my quick adoption of PowerPlayManager was not surprising when it was first introduced to me. How did you discover PPM, and are you surprised by how much time you give it?

NovaCollision: I'm a pretty active member on a gaming forum that has a significant number of hockey fans. They turned me on to PPM and I've been playing it ever since. I am absolutely surprised by how much time I give it, or even that I'm still playing after nearly three years. The developers have done a great job of making the management of the same team season after season really dynamic and involved. Even though you only need to put in 10 or 15 minutes a day, I've found myself spending upwards of several hours just making a series of little adjustments to try to squeeze as many wins out as I can.

I can see with almost 800 manager experience points and some competitive success under your belt it's clear you do enjoy PowerPlayManager. What is it about the game that keeps you coming back?

NovaCollision: Wanting to constantly improve. There is so much depth to the progression that simply wanting to climb the ranks keeps me interested. I'm hoping that once I make it to tier II I'll be matched up against some of the other Canadian players that I know from that gaming forum that still play. Of course, tier III is proving a significant hurdle as I haven't really improved my end of season standings much since I was first promoted. My biggest problem has been getting a goalie that isn't nearing the end of his career and still has a lot of growth left. The Academy finally provided me with a skilled goalie a couple seasons ago and he's just about to become my starter, so I'm hoping to see big things from him.

I see, so conversely what about the game would you like to see improved?

NovaCollision: The one addition that I would like more than any other is a tool to change everyone's practice pre-sets at once. I tend to set my players to a standard and if I need to adjust it for all players I have to go through them one by one, even if I'm setting them all to the same preset. About the only other big thing I can think of is for the developers to actually do the Formula 1 manager. I have been super interested in how they plan on doing that and it's the only other sport in their list of available and planned sports that interests me.

I agree, F1 should work really well. You're probably aware that the forums on PPM go to great lengths describing and discussing strategies for being successful with your team. What strategies have you tried? How would you rate your success with them?

NovaCollision: I haven't spent much time on the PPM forums, though I have done some research using Google to try to understand the game's mechanics more. I tend to evaluate each team I'm coming up against in league games and try to take advantage of any weaknesses they have, or try to minimize my own shortcomings against stronger teams. My offense is better developed than my defense, so, I tend to keep my team playing an offensive game as a way to keep the puck out my own zone. This backfires sometimes, though, and I have had a few blowouts. If a team has a really poor offense, then I'll play a more defensive game to keep the scoring chances down. I've also seen a lot of improvement after putting less focus on the three main player stats and developing all the stats for all the players to various levels.

While you live in a geographically isolated location I live in a very isolated location in terms of Canadian culture. Soccer is a very popular sport in Laos but perhaps unsurprisingly hockey is not. I have invited a couple of friends who are among the very few other hockey fans I know here to PPM but so far nobody has accepted the invitation. Have you tried inviting fellow hockey fans in Yellowknife to PPM? Why or why not? What was your pitch? Have you been successful?

NovaCollision: I haven't, though I do talk about PPM. Every so often I'll talk about my team's progress or some new recruit that has amazing potential. I figure that if they are interested enough to want to play it, they'll ask what to do to get started. I'm not much of a proselytizer or salesman so I don't really push anyone to play. A couple people I work with may eventually become players, though, so perhaps there'll be others in my area in the near future.

I'm more or less the same. So, one last question. What's the story behind your UserID? I picture a '70's muscle car wreck, but I somehow doubt it.

NovaCollision: Yeah, people associate my name with either the Chevrolet, or the character Nova from Planet of the Apes. The story behind it is probably less interesting. When I first got onto the internet back when 14.4 modems were the bleeding edge and IRC was the big thing through networks like dal.net. I went through a few nicknames, but they were always taken. As the internet grew this became more and more difficult. So sometime around 2000 I had enough and put together two cool sounding words that others were unlikely to put together. I've yet to come across a site or forum where someone has already taken the name, so I've kept it all these years.

Sounds much like my experience with Yahoo! back in the day. Alright, that was really great. Thanks for taking the time and being generous with your experiences to the readers of PowerPlayManager magazine. Best of luck in the game, but be forewarned given the opportunity my Lao national players will kick your Canadian national players butts!

NovaCollision: Hah, I look forward to seeing you on the ice! Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the magazine and for your work to make PPM a better place for all the players.

You're most welcome.