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+---- Thread: *The First Week as a Sim League Rookie (/showthread.php?tid=44704)
*The First Week as a Sim League Rookie - Chicken Lips - 04-06-2023
How I found the League
I first found out about this league from a reddit post in the college football subreddit. At first it sounded like silly way to pass the time while I waited for college football to start back up. But as I read through the post and began to dive into the whole process, I realized how complex and developed this sim league actually was. Let me state that before seeing that post I had no idea sim leagues even existed. I only recently got into college football, probably 2.5 years ago, but have been playing Dungeons & Dragons for many years, so this foreign hybrid of football and character/story building intrigued me right from the get go. I have been known to find new hobbies and just dump all my free time into them, though usually they cost me money so thank god this is free.
Player Creation and Getting the Hang of Things
The first starting point for everybody is the Rookie Guide and damn if that isn’t one of the most thorough starter guides I have ever read. @SwagSloth and whoever else worked on putting that together did such an amazing job. It goes over all the necessary steps for player creation and getting you your first TPE. It also touches on media and graphics post to give you a taste of what being active is, without overwhelming you too much.
I was able to go through the process of player creation without much struggle, making a Tight End (didn’t realize at the time this was such a contended position). Started on my wiki page and developing some backstory and trying to develop the player’s personality. The Google Sheets Wiki Editor template was very robust and well explained, I was a little overwhelmed at first, having never done anything like that before. Though, once I did my first run through and pasted the material over the wiki page it all started coming together. I am still having issues with uploading a photo but am working on resolving that. Along with the Wiki page I worked through the Rookie Point Tasks to gain some sweet, sweet TPE. At this point I can see if you had no forum experience navigating around the site could become a challenge, but all the directories are well laid out and labeled. Overall, the Rookie Tasks both PT I and II were an excellent introduction to the point task system while displaying the functionality of the site and processes to claim rewards.
Currently Hank is sitting at 50 TPE with 58 TPE awaiting approval in the update portal. Also have a few other irons in the fire that need to be approved before I can claim them. Has been a lot of fun chasing the tasks around trying to accomplish as much as I can before the draft starts.
The Community
I have previously been involved in other forum communities for runescape private servers (anyone ever play Near Reality?), circa 8 years ago. This group has the same feel. So far everyone I have talked to has been incredibly nice, supportive, and most importantly active. The Discord is so robust and offers a lot of features for rookies. I have made a fool of myself several times already in the #help-channel. There are also so many of y’all with talent when it comes to creative writing and graphic design. Have really enjoyed reading through everyone’s articles and looking at forum signatures.
The Draft and Gameplay
At this point I have participated in one night of the prospect bowl. Hank did a great job over two games with 1 completion on 5 targets for 12 yards lol. Definitely can’t wait to see those stats improve. Speaking of the robust indexes and TPE tracker tools that have been put together, whatever you guys make to put those together deserve double. So handy. Watching the games live in the discord was also a blast with everyone laughing at their poor performance, can’t wait to see what the non-prospect games look like.
Since I have joined the discord several scouts and GMs have reached out to gauge my player and what I plan to do with him. I didn’t event consider that this would be a thing but it so thematic, it got the dopamine rushing whenever I would get a discord PM. Was a great opportunity to poke in each team’s discord. Some of yall are playing with fire by giving us rookies access to those counting channels, all it takes is 1! The chatter back and forth with the scouts and GMs has got me so -hype for the actual draft and the presentation. I have a few top teams in my head, but there are still a couple that haven’t reached out, so who knows.
Overall Feedback
I completed the Rookie Survey but figure I could give a pros and cons list of my Rookie experience so far and offer some suggestions as to what may make it a more enjoyable experience.
Pros:
- Rookie guide provides all the information and more that you could need to dive right into player creation.
- A wide range of position variation by including the archetypes, along with robust trait choices and skill development.
- Incredibly rewarding for the effort put in.
- Active community, truly made by the people. Can’t wait to snag my first job to help out and earn some $$$.
Cons:
- The initial complexity may deter new players from joining. I ended up spending 4 hours just reading threads before I attempted to make my character.
- Due to some positions being more popular it is often asked if you are comfortable switching your player to a different position during scouting, which is generally not a big deal.
- That’s literally it.
Suggestions:
- Only potential suggestion I have is the addition of an “Athlete” role for people who don’t have a preference on position they play, allowing them to be more flexible in the draft. I know rookies get a free position swap but this way you could avoid the “are you willing to change position” conversation with team scouts.
- The video guides may be need an update for clarity sake, but are still pretty good.
Overall, the team behind the ISFL has built an insane sim league that I am excited to participate in for many seasons.
Special Thanks
I wanted to take the time and shout out a few people who have particularly helpful in my introduction into the league. First off all of the Rookie Mentors have been founts of knowledge. I’ll shout out @"RussDrivesTheBus" and @Painted specifically as I’ve interacted with those two the most, but I have seen the whole team active in the Rookie Discord answering questions, memeing and generally being good people.
I’d also like to give a shoutout to my fellow rookies who I have seen grinding away at point tasks and building their characters up. I was able to bring an irl friend in @DangWookie and he is hooked too. Justa Ol’Shoe has been great to talk to, he even made me a forum signature. I can't forget @swoosh, I think we all know Dino Nuggets has a bright future at CB.
Thanks again everyone, again this has been such a wonderful experience over just the past week can’t wait to see how Hank Mardukas progresses as well as my involvement in the community.
RE: The First Week as a Sim League Rookie - Frostbite - 04-06-2023
This is a great article
RE: The First Week as a Sim League Rookie - swoosh - 04-07-2023
Anyone named Chicken Lips is a friend of Dino Nuggets. Be great, el pollo.
RE: The First Week as a Sim League Rookie - MMFLEX - 04-07-2023
Nice article. Welcome to the league!
RE: The First Week as a Sim League Rookie - Kotasa - 04-07-2023
Hey I made those videos! Would love to hear from a newbie what we could do to improve them! Please feel free to hit me up on discord! Kotasa#6412
RE: The First Week as a Sim League Rookie - Painted - 04-07-2023
:love: