Ultimus week responses:
2) Holiday Bowl. This year’s Ultimus lands right in holiday season. What changes are made to this year’s Ultimus game to reflect the time of year?
It’s holiday season! Who doesn’t love watching some good football while enjoying fine rum during the holiday season? The tops of the stadium are decorated with colorful lights and those weird inflatable Santas can be seen all over the walkways outside the stadium and even in a few of the concourses around the stadium. The fans enter through security only to be bombarded by hundreds of mall Santas and those pushy bell-ringers from the Salvation Army at the gates. At least the kids in attendance get to tell about 100 different Santas what they want for Christmas, just to make sure he knows for sure what they want. The smoke from the planes during the flyover is red and green and the more suspicious fans subtly slip on masks, praying desperately that the chemtrails in these planes won’t make them gay frogs or something like that. The cheerleaders are all dressed like sexy elves and have festive themed pom-poms and dance routines for your halftime entertainment, all choreographed to holiday music! Firework shows follow the halftime dances, with even more epic fireworks in a mix of team and holiday colors comes during the postgame. All players in post-game interviews exchange their helmets for Santa hats with the team’s logo barely visible on the front. (214 words)
3) Revenge. Write 200 words about a team you’d like to get revenge on next season and why.
I’d love to see Myrtle Beach get revenge on Tijuana. They’ve sat atop the South since S14 and I think it’s about time that a new king arises in the South. Myrtle Beach seems as good a challenger as any. The turnaround has been epic and rapid and is hopefully going to continue into next season. Myrtle Beach and Tijuana split their regular season series 2-2 and were the top two teams in the DSFL power rankings going into the playoffs. Were they not in the conference, it could have ended in an epic clash in the championship round. Regretfully, they are in the same conference and Myrtle Beach was knocked out in round one, thanks mostly to Tijuana’s impressive defense. With some drafting and more of those impressive waiver claims that the Myrtle Beach GM staff seems to be so good at finding, I’d love to see us get some revenge next season. Maybe we don’t win the division, but a nice underdog style knockout in round one of the playoffs would certainly go a long way, in my humble opinion, to establishing the start of an incredible dynasty in Myrtle Beach, which would make the perfect setting for the grand opening of the Myrtle Beach Rum Co., the (soon to be) best selling rum around. (217 words)
9) Brotherly Love. We always talk about what teams and players are our rivals. This seasn, give me what team or player you have a soft spot for.
My soft spot is for Mr. LaVert. He was another one of those after-draft waiver pickups the Myrtle Beach gang have been so good at. Perhaps some of my soft spot for him comes from the fact that I also was not a draftee, though I did get picked up before the season started and got to play all year. But Vert was a great addition to the locker room and almost immediately became one of my favorite guys to have around, even though we only got him for about half the season. Upon joining, he was immediately a favorite and rivals me for the locker room chatterbox. In fact, I think he’s surpassed me and may even be the most talkative rookie. How dare he…just kidding, we’re talking about how much we like him. He also made an impact on the field on a big stage. Despite being a new create and a midseason pickup, he was one of the more impactful players in the secondary in our playoff matchup against those evil Tijuana folks. He had a huge pick six in the second quarter that kept the game interesting for a while. Almost as impressive as my back to back drive kills with my own interception and then a sack on the next drive! LaVert has been a great guy to have around and we love him. I hope he sticks around in Myrtle Beach so I don’t have to hate him next season… (246 words)
10) Commissioner. ADwyer, long time commissioner, is stepping down in the new year. If you were to replace him, what changes would you make to the league?
I would like to see some changes implemented that would make the forum easier to navigate and the process easier for rookies. I think most people know that sim leagues are tough for first-timers to get into. That’s just an unfortunate fact of sim leagues and this one is no different. As a first time sim-leaguer myself, I would have gone inactive had some folks in the Myrtle Beach locker room not basically held my hand and walked me through every step of the process. Even though I’ve completed a season, I still struggle on occasion to navigate the forums. I think it would be quite nice if there was a sidebar with some direct links to some of the most used areas of the forum, including activity checks, the team transaction pages, and a couple other places that are used at least once a week or more frequently for all players. Adding this would make navigation a little bit easier and would help rookies explore and become familiar with the forums in a less confusing and more direct way. Additionally, I’d like to see creating a twitter and making a tweet become part of the rookie task list. This is honestly the easiest way to make money and I think it deserves to be something rookies get extra benefit from because of this. It is a great way for them to connect with some other members of the league, create additional engagement, and get them a little bit of cash to start off. Finally, it would be nice to reduce some of the redundancy of completing certain tasks. Players should not have to complete a task in one area of the forums then go to a totally separate page to say they’ve done it, then link the page saying they did it to the update page. This is another confusing situation for rookies and one that isn’t, in my mind, totally necessary. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. (330 words)
2) Holiday Bowl. This year’s Ultimus lands right in holiday season. What changes are made to this year’s Ultimus game to reflect the time of year?
It’s holiday season! Who doesn’t love watching some good football while enjoying fine rum during the holiday season? The tops of the stadium are decorated with colorful lights and those weird inflatable Santas can be seen all over the walkways outside the stadium and even in a few of the concourses around the stadium. The fans enter through security only to be bombarded by hundreds of mall Santas and those pushy bell-ringers from the Salvation Army at the gates. At least the kids in attendance get to tell about 100 different Santas what they want for Christmas, just to make sure he knows for sure what they want. The smoke from the planes during the flyover is red and green and the more suspicious fans subtly slip on masks, praying desperately that the chemtrails in these planes won’t make them gay frogs or something like that. The cheerleaders are all dressed like sexy elves and have festive themed pom-poms and dance routines for your halftime entertainment, all choreographed to holiday music! Firework shows follow the halftime dances, with even more epic fireworks in a mix of team and holiday colors comes during the postgame. All players in post-game interviews exchange their helmets for Santa hats with the team’s logo barely visible on the front. (214 words)
3) Revenge. Write 200 words about a team you’d like to get revenge on next season and why.
I’d love to see Myrtle Beach get revenge on Tijuana. They’ve sat atop the South since S14 and I think it’s about time that a new king arises in the South. Myrtle Beach seems as good a challenger as any. The turnaround has been epic and rapid and is hopefully going to continue into next season. Myrtle Beach and Tijuana split their regular season series 2-2 and were the top two teams in the DSFL power rankings going into the playoffs. Were they not in the conference, it could have ended in an epic clash in the championship round. Regretfully, they are in the same conference and Myrtle Beach was knocked out in round one, thanks mostly to Tijuana’s impressive defense. With some drafting and more of those impressive waiver claims that the Myrtle Beach GM staff seems to be so good at finding, I’d love to see us get some revenge next season. Maybe we don’t win the division, but a nice underdog style knockout in round one of the playoffs would certainly go a long way, in my humble opinion, to establishing the start of an incredible dynasty in Myrtle Beach, which would make the perfect setting for the grand opening of the Myrtle Beach Rum Co., the (soon to be) best selling rum around. (217 words)
9) Brotherly Love. We always talk about what teams and players are our rivals. This seasn, give me what team or player you have a soft spot for.
My soft spot is for Mr. LaVert. He was another one of those after-draft waiver pickups the Myrtle Beach gang have been so good at. Perhaps some of my soft spot for him comes from the fact that I also was not a draftee, though I did get picked up before the season started and got to play all year. But Vert was a great addition to the locker room and almost immediately became one of my favorite guys to have around, even though we only got him for about half the season. Upon joining, he was immediately a favorite and rivals me for the locker room chatterbox. In fact, I think he’s surpassed me and may even be the most talkative rookie. How dare he…just kidding, we’re talking about how much we like him. He also made an impact on the field on a big stage. Despite being a new create and a midseason pickup, he was one of the more impactful players in the secondary in our playoff matchup against those evil Tijuana folks. He had a huge pick six in the second quarter that kept the game interesting for a while. Almost as impressive as my back to back drive kills with my own interception and then a sack on the next drive! LaVert has been a great guy to have around and we love him. I hope he sticks around in Myrtle Beach so I don’t have to hate him next season… (246 words)
10) Commissioner. ADwyer, long time commissioner, is stepping down in the new year. If you were to replace him, what changes would you make to the league?
I would like to see some changes implemented that would make the forum easier to navigate and the process easier for rookies. I think most people know that sim leagues are tough for first-timers to get into. That’s just an unfortunate fact of sim leagues and this one is no different. As a first time sim-leaguer myself, I would have gone inactive had some folks in the Myrtle Beach locker room not basically held my hand and walked me through every step of the process. Even though I’ve completed a season, I still struggle on occasion to navigate the forums. I think it would be quite nice if there was a sidebar with some direct links to some of the most used areas of the forum, including activity checks, the team transaction pages, and a couple other places that are used at least once a week or more frequently for all players. Adding this would make navigation a little bit easier and would help rookies explore and become familiar with the forums in a less confusing and more direct way. Additionally, I’d like to see creating a twitter and making a tweet become part of the rookie task list. This is honestly the easiest way to make money and I think it deserves to be something rookies get extra benefit from because of this. It is a great way for them to connect with some other members of the league, create additional engagement, and get them a little bit of cash to start off. Finally, it would be nice to reduce some of the redundancy of completing certain tasks. Players should not have to complete a task in one area of the forums then go to a totally separate page to say they’ve done it, then link the page saying they did it to the update page. This is another confusing situation for rookies and one that isn’t, in my mind, totally necessary. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. (330 words)