Login

***_Blitz_*** · 03-28-2023, 05:41 PM

Hey everybody!

I mentioned in the State of the Sim that we were looking at changes to be made to the way that the sim team works and the simming process works. Some of you might have noticed the first of those changes kicking in yesterday.

Firstly, I forgot to close out the hiring thread, but the sim team is very happy to add @Duga, @HabsFanFromOntario, and @iStegosauruz as our newest members. They did some training and preparation through the WJC and IIHF tournaments, and while Duga and Steg will be going back and forth a bit, HFFO will be simming more on the J side. I also want to give a shoutout to our long-time simmers, @Air Crou, @Caleb_H, @HoltzFan10, and @blix900. They've been great and have brought a lot of good ideas and points to the discussions we've been having on these process changes.

On to the big stuff: we are going to a shortened schedule this season, cutting off Saturdays. The season will run 4 weeks, Monday to Friday in both the SMJHL and SHL. This is for a few reasons. The most obvious is that our team has been really patient over the last couple of seasons and really kept everything together, but the burnout is on the horizon. We're trying out shortening streams, cutting days off the schedule, and working more around real life stuff to avoid burning out our veteran simmers. Part of that is acknowledging that Saturday scheduling... sucks. No one really has weekends available right now, including me. Looking at the analytics, there's a been a noticeable drop in viewership on most Saturdays in the last 3 seasons. The obvious downside is that it means we can't schedule in a more Euro-friendly stream without hiring a simmer that works in one of those time zones. I think we'd be happy to do that if we had availability to do so.

We're also not doing live sims for all of the streams. To clarify some terms, a live sim refers to a game that is played out with the 2D engine, as opposed to a quick sim, which is auto-playing the game and showing the box score. We've heard many complaints about the live sim; it's been too long, it's ugly, the replay glitches are annoying, etc. Looking at that and the analytics data to get an idea of what has been working for the sims, we think the best solution for right now is to go to a 3-2 schedule of days with live sims versus days that are quick sims only. At present, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will have the first 4 games played out live at Normal Speed with Few Highlights. Tuesdays and Thursdays will have more games played out as quick sims. The long term goal is to get sims down to an hour or less, so that they're a bit easier to watch and hopefully more engaging. This will be re-evaluated, the numbers are a little weird at the moment, so we may move to live simming more games on those days, we may shuffle around some schedule days. We drew some inspiration from the PBE simming system, but this is new for us too.

Lastly, it was asked if the schedule as it is could be posted publicly. I'll be posting that in the Games section threads, which I'll link here after the sims tonight. I'm not going to have a chance to post that before the streams go up. It took a little longer than intended, but here are those links:

The SHL Schedule
The SMJHL Schedule

If you've got any questions, please feel free to ask here or on Discord.

***Caleb*** · 03-28-2023, 05:55 PM

I approve of this.

***Frenchie*** · 03-28-2023, 06:05 PM

Great work sim team!

***Ace*** · 03-28-2023, 06:18 PM

I appreciate the transparency and the communication.

***CapnCooper*** · 03-28-2023, 06:30 PM

Keep up the great work sim team!

***Anthique*** · 03-28-2023, 06:38 PM

All good to me!

Thanks for telling us.

the5urreal · 03-28-2023, 06:54 PM

Sounds good to me!

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 03-28-2023, 07:01 PM

Those sound like good changes. I think it would be a good development in general to spread our seasons out a bit more, the ratio of "time where there are games" vs. "time where there are no games" has become kind of absurd with how condensed our seasons have become, especially for everyone whose teams doesn't go deep in the playoffs - while during the season, there are so many games in such rapid succession, that it's hard to follow along and the individual games lose a lot of their meaning. Slightly longer seasons but with a slower pace and more breathing space within a season could go a long way without adding to the peoples potential burnout.

Mutedfaith · 03-29-2023, 01:05 AM

03-28-2023, 07:01 PMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: Those sound like good changes. I think it would be a good development in general to spread our seasons out a bit more, the ratio of "time where there are games" vs. "time where there are no games" has become kind of absurd with how condensed our seasons have become, especially for everyone whose teams doesn't go deep in the playoffs - while during the season, there are so many games in such rapid succession, that it's hard to follow along and the individual games lose a lot of their meaning. Slightly longer seasons but with a slower pace and more breathing space within a season could go a long way without adding to the peoples potential burnout.

100% this

***_Blitz_*** · 03-30-2023, 02:11 PM

Schedules posted, sorry for the delay.

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us