DD and I have been discussing ways to make team buying a little more streamlined and less "fastest finger." We've pretty much figured there is no way we will ever get ahead of the demand for teams. We need to keep them at a consistent level with the number of players in the game, so as not to ruin the player market too much, which means we can't just add a huge load of teams all at once every season, like we did last time.
So, here's what we came up with, after reading some of your suggestions and talking it over (this hasn't been added yet - still in formative stages):
UPDATE: Everything's set up and ready to go, so I plan to upload this tomorrow night (May 20th) at around 8pm PST after the last sims are done.
- We will remove the current version of the "buy team" page from the Flex Points section.
- We will add an "I want a team" waiting list.
- It costs 1000 FP to hold your spot on the list.
- The list is ordered by account creation date, up to 30 days back. If two accounts are at least 30 days old, it's ordered by the day you add yourself to the list.
- You cannot get on the list if you already have a team.
- If you've sold a team, you can only add yourself to the end of the list (account create date doesn't matter anymore)
- If you go inactive for 3 days, you will be skipped over if a team comes up for sale.
- You can pull yourself off of the list if you want, and receive your 1000 FP back.
- When you click to be added to the list, you choose the top 3 regions you want to be in. The options also include "any region," or "none" for the second two (in case you only want one region).
- Whenever somebody sells a team, the first person on the list with that team's region as one of their options will get the team automatically at the end of the day.
- When we add new teams for this off-season, they will be added as CPU-only leagues. We will then release them to new owners over time, throughout the season, following the same rules as above. This will allow the teams to have a full 16-game schedule, but also allow us to control the team market a little better.
- When a team is given to you, its chemistry is automatically reset to 70/70/70.
- All teams will have to maintain a minimum roster of 40 players. You will not be able to cut players to get under that number. If, for whatever reason, you have under 40 players at the end of the day (expiring contracts, etc), random CPUs will be added to the team. This helps new owners to be ensured a team with enough players on it, and helps out with inactive teams as well.
- You will no longer be able to sell teams to other players via admin intervention for 1000 FP. The only way to sell a team will be to sell it back to the game. This helps us to avoid the "black market" aspect that we don't really like, and keeps it fair for all prospective owners. It will also encourage some responsibility with your team, since you can't get 100% of your purchase price back.
- The only exception to the resale is for inactive owners. We will still give an active GM the option of taking over the team, to encourage continuity on the team. If they don't want it, though, it goes to the top person on the wait list.
- We are discussing increasing the initial purchase price of teams by a little bit for next season, to help encourage responsible ownership. We'll let you know ahead of time if we decide to do that, and how much it will be.
We talked about the lottery idea, but we really want to reward the players who have been playing and waiting for a while, have learned a lot about the game, and have stuck around even though they don't have a team yet. They will probably make better owners than somebody who signed up yesterday, too.
Questions, concerns? Let us know.
So, here's what we came up with, after reading some of your suggestions and talking it over (this hasn't been added yet - still in formative stages):
UPDATE: Everything's set up and ready to go, so I plan to upload this tomorrow night (May 20th) at around 8pm PST after the last sims are done.
- We will remove the current version of the "buy team" page from the Flex Points section.
- We will add an "I want a team" waiting list.
- It costs 1000 FP to hold your spot on the list.
- The list is ordered by account creation date, up to 30 days back. If two accounts are at least 30 days old, it's ordered by the day you add yourself to the list.
- You cannot get on the list if you already have a team.
- If you've sold a team, you can only add yourself to the end of the list (account create date doesn't matter anymore)
- If you go inactive for 3 days, you will be skipped over if a team comes up for sale.
- You can pull yourself off of the list if you want, and receive your 1000 FP back.
- When you click to be added to the list, you choose the top 3 regions you want to be in. The options also include "any region," or "none" for the second two (in case you only want one region).
- Whenever somebody sells a team, the first person on the list with that team's region as one of their options will get the team automatically at the end of the day.
- When we add new teams for this off-season, they will be added as CPU-only leagues. We will then release them to new owners over time, throughout the season, following the same rules as above. This will allow the teams to have a full 16-game schedule, but also allow us to control the team market a little better.
- When a team is given to you, its chemistry is automatically reset to 70/70/70.
- All teams will have to maintain a minimum roster of 40 players. You will not be able to cut players to get under that number. If, for whatever reason, you have under 40 players at the end of the day (expiring contracts, etc), random CPUs will be added to the team. This helps new owners to be ensured a team with enough players on it, and helps out with inactive teams as well.
- You will no longer be able to sell teams to other players via admin intervention for 1000 FP. The only way to sell a team will be to sell it back to the game. This helps us to avoid the "black market" aspect that we don't really like, and keeps it fair for all prospective owners. It will also encourage some responsibility with your team, since you can't get 100% of your purchase price back.
- The only exception to the resale is for inactive owners. We will still give an active GM the option of taking over the team, to encourage continuity on the team. If they don't want it, though, it goes to the top person on the wait list.
- We are discussing increasing the initial purchase price of teams by a little bit for next season, to help encourage responsible ownership. We'll let you know ahead of time if we decide to do that, and how much it will be.
We talked about the lottery idea, but we really want to reward the players who have been playing and waiting for a while, have learned a lot about the game, and have stuck around even though they don't have a team yet. They will probably make better owners than somebody who signed up yesterday, too.
Questions, concerns? Let us know.
Last edited May 19, 2008 19:29:27
