Future rule change proposals

Johncassy40 wrote:The 7 days a sim is good for me,I am not much for the salary cap I believe the managers should have control over there teams finances and the game manages that pretty well now. If you don't have the cash for players your owner will not let you spend.Slack is a good way for managers to talk and communicate and discuss the league. I am a big fan of that. And writing about your team and posting it on website would be fun to. Brings out the realism of a major league. Just a few suggestions but I do like this league.

Johncassy40 wrote:Yes I believe Slack is free. Again these are just suggestions this league is pretty good. I am just giving  some ideas on how leagues function in other leagues I am playing in.

WhoDat wrote:SLACK: We have started using Slack in the TMBU.  About half the teams in the league are signed up and a few are using it.  But I don't know that it has encouraged anyone that wasn't active before to be more active.

It is free. I didn't set it up for our use so my knowledge is limited.  Slack allows communication on PCs, MACs and portable devices.  You can have multiple "Teams" (it was developed for use in business so you could have development teams and such).  We have the 'OOTP TMBU' teams set up. You could set up teams for each league you are in.  WIthin the teams you can have group 'chatrooms' (for lack of the correct term) or you can have individual chats with other people.  We have several 'rooms' set up; General, Trade Talk, Random, Draft talk etc.  You can also share files and images.  I have it set up on my iphone and my PC.

It is a nice tool but I don't think it will get more people more active.

Salary Cap:  The TMBU uses a $85mil salary cap.  I can work with/without the cap, just changes the way I would do some things.  That said, I don't believe the cap is a big issue in the NABL.

Contraction:  We contracted 2 teams in the TMBU (we are at 26) because we just couldn't keep a couple teams filled over several seasons.  We are now full (for now).  If we have to do it in the NABL so be it but you need to plan things out well.  There is no guarantee that we could keep a smaller league full either.  

I think if we could get someone, or a bunch of someones, to maintain a 'Dynasty Report' on the OOTPD forums that that could add to the ability to recruit.  I'd envision this as GMs contributing to the ongoing story of the NABL.  SOrt of like having people write in the forums but having it done over at OOTPD.  This could add to visibility and maybe we could draw in some GMs who like the NABL 'Story'. 

OOTP17:  There is little in the new version that has me excited though I have pre-ordered and will use it.  Not sure whether the TMBU will upgrade and if we do it probably won't be until the All-Star sale.  The one thing to watch if we don't upgrade is that could affect the ability to recruit since most new people want the latest and the greatest.

SIM: I like the 7 day sim.  I would suggest that the playoffs be done a bit quicker (maybe 2 or 3 sims per round max...though I think we have moved in that direction) and we look at moving the off-season a bit quicker.  I think the league runs fine for the regular season but then drags through the playoffs (especially for those not in the playoffs) and into the off-season.  In the TMBU I have the off-season down to just a little over 3 weeks and we generally get the playoffs done in a week (I can send you the schedule we use if you want to see it).

SCOUTS and COACHES: Scouts is a must for me, I like that there is a fog and we don't know the actual ratings of players and that each GM sees players a bit differently.  I would not stay around if we eliminated scouts.  As far as coaches go I can live with them or without them.  I'm only in 2 leagues that use them so it does give me some variety but if we wanted to eliminate them I'd be fine with that.

RATINGS: I'm OK with the the 1-20 though I do tend to like them to be a lot more granular (1-100)

DH: IRL I detest the DH but in OOTP I have grown to like it.  I am in leagues with it and with out it and can deal with it either way.  If we were to eliminate it it would have to be done slowly because some teams may have invested in DH types (Mahoney  ).

TALENT ONLY: In the TMBU we only see 'Potential Ratings' for pitching/hitting stats.  You have to judge current ratings based on performance.  It is sort of a hybrid Stats Only.  It is different and requires GMs to work a bit more.  One thing I'd like to try in a league is to eliminate the overall ratings, the Stars, because I personally think they are misleading.  I find it bothersome when talking trade with someone and they try to justify their offer based on the 'Stars' of the players involved.  I have see '1 Star' players who are studs and '5 star' players who are stiffs.  To me the Stars and a crutch and a weak one at that.

WRITING/STORIES: I'd love to see more articles written by GMs about their teams or the league but I don't know how you make that happen.  Generally either a GM likes to write or doesn't and there isn't anyway to get non-writers to write more. I get inspired some times and will write but I have to be in the mood.  I think this just has to happen, I don't think it can be made to happen.  Maybe we could do an OOTPD forums 'Dynastry Report' as mentioned above.

Bumstead wrote:Let me think aboot the dy-nasty....I like doing that stuff, but only if there is some other types of feedback, which is kinda why I don't write here.  I imagine that I would do the dy-nasty more from a Tacoma point of view if I did it.  Not sure I know how to post the pictures and stuff like some of these guys do.  

If someone, like that girl that runs Maine, decides they want to write the dy-nasty, then go right ahead.  I did write a Fast Break College Basketball Dynasty for a period of time.  It was kinda fun.

Jeff

KMcBride wrote:Goddammit, Palin!  


Writing/Dynasty/Forum -  I don't know exactly what you mean by "Dynasty," other than it's a soap opera from the 80s which Palin probably has firmly entrenched in his mental "spank bank."  But, I think one way to encourage more writing is by better organizing the forum for that use.  I think we used to have a forum for each team where GMs would post team-generated content, aside from the forum where the OOTP-generated content gets posted.  I like writing and I definitely would do more of it.  But at this point, I don't know where I would even put such an article.

Recruiting:   Rich, I am glad to give you a hand with this.  But, honestly, I don't know how to go about it other than by hanging around the OOTP message boards and pestering people who post that they're looking to join a league.  I've \created some short tutorial videos on how to set up the league, for people who have never participated in an online league before.  I think they're helpful, but I'll let our Denver GM comment on that . . .

Stars/Ratings:   I think at this point, if you haven't learned to take these with a grain of salt, then you're really on your own in this league.  And by that, I mean that you're going to make a lot of mistakes.  Ditto with scouts and NBL ratings.  I've had guys that my scout loved who never did shit, and I've had guys who my scout hated but had high ratings according to the NBL who were excellent,  and some who were crap.  There's no way to know for sure, just like real prospects.  I guess what I mean is that I don't see why taking them away improves or harms anything.  I'm not opposed to removing them, I just don't see why.

Coaches:  This was a nice experiment, but I think it's safe to say it failed.  I would like to keep Asst. GM, and major league coaches.  I think we can do without the rest.  Maybe only minor league managers?  I would be willing to discuss that.

Scouts:  I like having scouts.  My preference is to leave them alone.

Contraction/Open teams:  If we have to contract, then we should be careful to do it evenly between divisions.  If one division has 5 teams and another has 4, then that doesn't seem entirely fair.  Maybe go to 2 divisions of 5 teams each in both leagues?  20 teams total?  We'd have to re-structure the playoffs and wildcards to accomodate, but . .   Something like this:
Big East:  North Division
Montreal
Whitby
Thunder Bay
Maine
Boston

Big East:  South Division
New York
Hartford
Savannah
Key West
Chicago

Wild West:  North
Detroit
Tacoma
Portland
Missoula
Wisconsin

Wild West:  South
North Shore
Las Vegas
Denver
Death Valley
Charming

Just a thought.

Cap:   I personally like having a salary cap, but I would be in favor of having regular increases.  We can be super technical and base it on average salaries or whatever (like the NFL does), or we can just agree to increase it by $5 million every 3 years or something like that.

Rich wrote:

Bumstead wrote:Let me think aboot the dy-nasty....I like doing that stuff, but only if there is some other types of feedback, which is kinda why I don't write here.  I imagine that I would do the dy-nasty more from a Tacoma point of view if I did it.  Not sure I know how to post the pictures and stuff like some of these guys do.  

If someone, like that girl that runs Maine, decides they want to write the dy-nasty, then go right ahead.  I did write a Fast Break College Basketball Dynasty for a period of time.  It was kinda fun.

Jeff

not too familiar with it other than its on the ootp forum.  I think its a good idea.  Free publicity .  I don't know if there are specific rules on what to post.  I'll have to check it out more.

Pete_Keegan_Denver_GM wrote:

The reality, however (not the old loser hippie spaced out reality) is that this site, basically... uh... sucks. Again, not my opinion. Actually it was another GM (Chicago?) who kept wanting me to talk to him on AIM (which I still don't have because I don't like AIM) because he was the one who hated using this forum site for chatting. So don't blame me. It's his fault... I swear.... um.. 

Pete_Keegan_Denver_GM wrote:I assume Bumsted is joking (about Maine) & that is good. We need more light humored posts in NABL (other than the serial killer humor from the lovely Charming franchise & the semi-political humor from a couple of other unmentionable figures on our forum here.. (no slam intended). We also need a few other new things (see below) to spruce up this league. If there was such a thing as a stylist who is hired to come into an OOTP online league, we need such a person. Of course I only suggest this because our esteemed Commish, Rich, has created this thread for improvement suggestions and, in particular, has made a point about our league needing to bring in more GMs.

Note: A stylist is used by people who are interested in appearing more fashionably attractive.

There are a number of online OOTP leagues to choose from & so that means whoever is running such a league needs to make theirs as attractive as possible.

As I was searching & getting picky about which league I would join (not too long ago) my experience with that may be helpful to share here.

There are a couple of basic esthetic things I discovered, which apparently cause one league to be more popular than the next.

1) Professional presentation (writing, promo, visual)
2) Leagues with black night background are more popular than leagues with lighter (white, beige) background for some reason. I personally disagree (I prefer lightness of being  ) in my choice of online league to join, but that's just me. 
3) Leagues which use real life teams are more popular. Again, I tend to enjoy the more creative places in life. But.. the people have spoken. So, just for you to know. Not that I suggest changing that here.

Note: It just may be (not that I agree) that the predominance lately of Charming's death metal esthetic on this forum could maybe sorta kinda be the reason some people are turning off to NABL???   Again, not my opinion. But maybe it's easy for Mr Commish to recognize the ever so slightly possible hazard in this fact of life on our wonderful NABL forum, since this forum is what potential GMs are going to see first. How to solve that problem without cutting Mr Charming & friends off from freely expressing themselves? Answer: Bring a lot more different stuff out on the forum so death metal skulls don't seem as prominent in the, uh, esthetic personality of the NABL as it appears for the first time observer. D'ya think? lol.... excuse me, that's 

This is an important point, in terms of recruiting new GMs. That is, what do potential joiners first see when they come to visit NABL for the first time in their sorry excuses for a life. --->Sorry: because they haven't yet chosen to join NABL, after which obviously their lives will be forever improved & the light of joyous, uh, enjoyment will then be placed into their, um, lives. (sorry, it's getting late here) 

Let's stop beating around the bush & get to the most important point. That being, the problem with this site we use for a forum. Now, personally I love the place. As it speaks to my funky, hippie, loser side. It's kinda old fashioned and has silly little smileys that I can mess around with when I write here. Ex:   and  .

The reality, however (not the old loser hippie spaced out reality) is that this site, basically... uh... sucks. Again, not my opinion. Actually it was another GM (Chicago?) who kept wanting me to talk to him on AIM (which I still don't have because I don't like AIM) because he was the one who hated using this forum site for chatting. So don't blame me. It's his fault... I swear.... um.. 

Actually, the one thing that does bug me about this site is...

ALL THE LETTERING IS WAY TOO SMALL


I'm constantly flipping the screen zoom to read the small print (the only print) on various posts & other important messages which I need to see in order to find out what is happening in our wonderful NABL.

Remember, all this weak visual is a reflection on whoever owns/runs NABL. So that's my main suggestion for improvement: update the visual by revamping the entire place & making it more engaging for NABL users & those all important looky liouews (French Canadian spelling) who visit as potential GMs.

Speaking of Canadian, this is a Canadian league, right?

ha ha ha ha ha 

But seriously       that's actually what I thought when I first arrived to check out the league. It's called North American Baseball League ... ...   ... .. subtle, ay. The North American continent, as compared to just America, or USA, or, um... Northern Mexico. 

Then there's all the teams in Canada and the plethora of Canadian players. Hey... ya can't fool me.   You guys are Canadians, huh.

Well, that's cool. At least it's something. As in, a particular esthetic, personality, M.O.... S T Y L E. Kinda cornball, kinda separated out from the mainstream & hanging out with a moose & a mountie in a cabin snow drift thing.  But all that is alright. Because at least it's saying something stylistic.. and something is better than nothing at all . . (the stylist approves... ya know)

I think you (we) should revamp the NABL website/forum/etc and create a new look. When people click on the link you post at OOTP forum for recruiting purposes, it should take them to this opening page where they don't see our old NABL logo and a boring white page with too small lettering. Instead, they see some great fonts/artwork for the logo/lettering and a large picture of a moose in a fantastic natural northern setting. (or something similar, in the northern theme)


Now, you're gonna need some reference point to begin getting creative. Something to inspire you to move on to bigger & better visuals for your great online league website. 

I suggest you go to BING. That's a search engine website like Google (in case you've never heard of it). Notice how Bing's front page is always a great photo that takes up the WHOLE PAGE. As opposed to Google's front page, which is not nearly as interesting visually. This is the new fashion, guys. (as of like a few years ago, actually) BIG, SNAZZY, WOW the viewer. So get with it, right?

Now, there's another online OOTP league that I was in for a short time. Truth be told, I would have chosen to stick with that league instead of NABL. Why? Because they have a better visual look & their chat forum is much better visually too.. . faster, easy to post quickly and.. most importantly.. you don't have to join AIM.

See, I got this sticky thing about having to join something else after I already just went through joining something. As in I HATE THAT. (needless to say, I despise MacIntosh... lol) So that's why I totally dug the online league called International Baseball League IBL.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Nice front page, ay?

We need something like that. But the main thing we need that they have, is the chat page that comes with joining the league.

Oh, btw.. the reason I chose NABL over them is because their commish is a bonafide asshole.. . . . lol . . . . anyway I didn't seem to get along very well with that dude. But I think you'll agree with me about how much nicer their site is compared to ours. 

On Rich's behalf, I should say that the site has improved since you cleaned up all the years old junk that was sitting around. But still, you might agree that it's time to revamp the visual of NABL. Especially since that is the sure way to recruit more GMs.

As to the writing dynasty issue, D E F I N I T E L Y. We need good writers. BUT..... don't make good writers express themselves on a cornball looking site with tiny lousy fonts. 

Honestly, I wont even read the dynasty writing you linked to above. Why? Because it's on OOTP & that font has become boring to my eyes. Get it?

If you want to get people to appreciate what you got (listen to the women on this) you gotta work on making your look, you visual more up-to-date and sexy.  .  hmm?

Look at the dynasty (league news) on IBL's website. . . N I C E....

Big lettering on a page that looks 
like a PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE.

Cool, action styled photos, big, big, big. 

You know? Don't make people squint to see yer chit, dig?

Put yourself in their faces. It's not that hard to do. 

You just need a good web designer. Hell, I'll bet there's one right here in NABL (one of the GMs) who has that kind of talent. (not me... he he... I'm just the piano player)

So get it together you guys. You've been here a lot longer than I have. It's your responsibility to make NABL as good as it can be, isn't it? I'm just one of the new guys. Besides, I don't know nothin about web design. Chit, I was lucky I was able to figure how to download NABL on to my goddamn mac. (still don't have a lot of icons & unis)

Note: I will be willing to contribute with writing (news) on one condition: somebody has to give me assignments. Because I'm just really lousy at self-motivation.. or whatever that's called, when you're resourceful & figure junk out yourself. I can arrange music for your band, no prob. That's what I do: music. But when it comes to basically anything else, I suck. Just a total lost in the dark idiot. Give me an assignment, however, with detailed instructions, then I will give you more than you asked for. Just can't get started by myself. Sorry, it's kind of a personality type. So, yeah. Somebody in charge of the dynasty news page giving me writing assignements & you got it no prob.

KMcBride wrote:Goddammit, Palin!  


Writing/Dynasty/Forum -  I don't know exactly what you mean by "Dynasty," other than it's a soap opera from the 80s which Palin probably has firmly entrenched in his mental "spank bank."  But, I think one way to encourage more writing is by better organizing the forum for that use.  I think we used to have a forum for each team where GMs would post team-generated content, aside from the forum where the OOTP-generated content gets posted.  I like writing and I definitely would do more of it.  But at this point, I don't know where I would even put such an article.

Recruiting:   Rich, I am glad to give you a hand with this.  But, honestly, I don't know how to go about it other than by hanging around the OOTP message boards and pestering people who post that they're looking to join a league.  I've \created some short tutorial videos on how to set up the league, for people who have never participated in an online league before.  I think they're helpful, but I'll let our Denver GM comment on that . . .

Stars/Ratings:   I think at this point, if you haven't learned to take these with a grain of salt, then you're really on your own in this league.  And by that, I mean that you're going to make a lot of mistakes.  Ditto with scouts and NBL ratings.  I've had guys that my scout loved who never did shit, and I've had guys who my scout hated but had high ratings according to the NBL who were excellent,  and some who were crap.  There's no way to know for sure, just like real prospects.  I guess what I mean is that I don't see why taking them away improves or harms anything.  I'm not opposed to removing them, I just don't see why.

Coaches:  This was a nice experiment, but I think it's safe to say it failed.  I would like to keep Asst. GM, and major league coaches.  I think we can do without the rest.  Maybe only minor league managers?  I would be willing to discuss that.

Scouts:  I like having scouts.  My preference is to leave them alone.

Contraction/Open teams:  If we have to contract, then we should be careful to do it evenly between divisions.  If one division has 5 teams and another has 4, then that doesn't seem entirely fair.  Maybe go to 2 divisions of 5 teams each in both leagues?  20 teams total?  We'd have to re-structure the playoffs and wildcards to accomodate, but . .   Something like this:
Big East:  North Division
Montreal
Whitby
Thunder Bay
Maine
Boston

Big East:  South Division
New York
Hartford
Savannah
Key West
Chicago

Wild West:  North
Detroit
Tacoma
Portland
Missoula
Wisconsin

Wild West:  South
North Shore
Las Vegas
Denver
Death Valley
Charming

Just a thought.

Cap:   I personally like having a salary cap, but I would be in favor of having regular increases.  We can be super technical and base it on average salaries or whatever (like the NFL does), or we can just agree to increase it by $5 million every 3 years or something like that.

Rich wrote:

KMcBride wrote:

Writing/Dynasty/Forum -  I don't know exactly what you mean by "Dynasty," other than it's a soap opera from the 80s which Palin probably has firmly entrenched in his mental "spank bank."  But, I think one way to encourage more writing is by better organizing the forum for that use.  I think we used to have a forum for each team where GMs would post team-generated content, aside from the forum where the OOTP-generated content gets posted.  I like writing and I definitely would do more of it.  But at this point, I don't know where I would even put such an article.

you would write articles here - https://nabl.forumotion.com/f252-articles - I hink I've said this.  If you want your own folder - I can create one for your team.  We used to have one for each team.  20 of them where empty.
(  )

Rich wrote:What I would like would be a forum with a shout box/IM type and a private chat room.  I think we had that on the ahiba forum but I haven't been able to find it and/or add it to this forum.  The Shoutbox is good for quick conversations but we need to take the trade talk private in real time once things click.  Also they have there on app which I haven't looked at yet but might make it easier for everyone.

Pete_Keegan_Denver_GM wrote:Again, Rich you ought to join IBL just to see how well that site works. On site chat/pm/place for news & articles written by GMs. Good esthetic layout. Fast. They use a "points" format for writing incentive: people who write articles get points that work like cash for upgrading stadium etc. 

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

They will let you in before you have to pick a team & commit.

Pete_Keegan_Denver_GM wrote:

Rich wrote:What I would like would be a forum with a shout box/IM type and a private chat room.  I think we had that on the ahiba forum but I haven't been able to find it and/or add it to this forum.  The Shoutbox is good for quick conversations but we need to take the trade talk private in real time once things click.  Also they have there on app which I haven't looked at yet but might make it easier for everyone.

Try shoutbox. Copy/paste this url into this forum site & let's see if we like it.

Begin with "<" ..then add:

script type="text/javascript" src="http://www4.yourshoutbox.com/shoutbox/start.php?key=403869887">

The password for the account (free: BASIC) is nablcommish