aqualizard

I am a team player and fine with whatever decision. But I do hope people understand in the situation I outlined, I would not have a Dream Team. I would retain only a single Keeper. That is, my team would be reduced. In the situation I outlined, Jer_33 would keep 2 guys, and (likely) have a similar team to what he does already. The bottom guys only would get a boost, and (essentially) A guys that make the finals would get nothing. My suggestion creates parity -- more teams in the middle -- it does not foster Dream Teams. For welfare teams that make finals, starting from scratch again seems strange (cruel and unsual), whereas "knocking them down a notch" back to the middle seems fair.

I have been thinking about the Keeper situation. Originally, I (and some others) thought that once you have a Keeper, you have him permanently. Coach Mac mentioned that he doesn't want an all star team accumulated, like the Oilers were, and you don't get any permanent keepers. Every year is a new year, with only 1 or 2 carried over from the year before. And the finaists get zero. Well, after pondering this, I have found (what I think is) a flaw in that scenario. I will probably make the playoffs this year. And there is an outside chance I could even make the finals. For hypothetical reasons, to illustrate the flaw I see, let's say I make the finals with King Raph. ---> START OF HYPOTHETICAL (Though entirely possible!) SITUATION For me to make the finals it took me assembling a Dream Team, with two keepers (66 and 88) and a high draft pick (starting with Roy) because I did so poor the year before. For Raph to make the finals, it took... nothing but his insane talent; no keepers and a low pick. I got where I am because of medium skill and a lot of "welfare", Raph got there with no "welfare" and all skill! This is great and makes sense. For THIS year. BUT! As I understand it, the two finalists will then get a low pick, and no keepers next season! Raph will do just fine. But if a weaker player (me!) then loses all of his keepers, and gets no advantage the next season, I will absolutely be starting at the bottom again. Even worse than expansion teams. (Because I will be picking even further down than they did.) This is not good for anyone. We want parity, right? ---> END OF HYPOTHETICAL (Though entirely possible!) SITUATION Here is what I suggest. We take into account how many keepers a person currently has, and factor that into the next season. If someone makes the finals, that team is strong, and they should definitely not get an "extra" keeper. But if they got to the finals because they have "some" keepers, to strip them all away is too drastic. And even though Jer_33 had two keepers this season, he still didn't make playoffs, so I think he should get at least 2 keepers still. After all, his advantage wasn't big enough to boost his team to the playoffs, so why take that advantage away? What I think is fair is something like this: Finish top 2: You are allowed a max of 1 keeper, but if you never had one you get +0 Finish 3-8: You are allowed a max of 2 keepers, but if you never had one you get +1 Finish 9-10: You are allowed a max of 2 keepers, but if you never had one you get +2 Yes, this is more complicated. But it is not *that*complicated. Basically you are never allowed more than 2 keepers. But there is a "legacy" component that allows people that need them to keep 1 or 2. In this scenario, it is possible Raph will never get a keeper. (The dude doesn't appear to need them!) And it is possible a weak player will always have 2 keepers. But I think it would make things much more even, overall. What do you think?

Wow, can't believe WPG fell to you at 10th pick! Nice one!

B1-02 will take WPG.

But you used to play. What happened? Did you move?

EDIT If you see a ? below, and know the reason, plz let me know. ------- This Fall Classic is thick for Bs (many new guys -- hurray!) but thin for As. Why are A guys leaving? What can we do to retain them? For Plabax and Uncle Seth, they left because they got frustrated with the "Slacker Mentality". I get it. Also, for a good percentage, life just gets in the way, and priorities change. I get that, too. Here is a list of A guys from a year ago, and when I knew, I stuck the reason they aren't playig regularly. (I will add more guys as I think of them...) PLAYER REASON FPB busy Brutus still here / busy AngryJay busy Kingraph still here tomkabs moved JV ? hokkeefan ? zeppelin still here Plabax fed up with slackers Tex still here Uncle Seth fed up with slackers Depch laggy donnybrook ? Icestorm still here vocallycaged bored swos had kid Zalex bored Carse bored EA ? kgman ? smozoma got old Evan ? Edit: Added more A guys from the past...

Season is going great, Coach! So is the situation for next season: Final 2 get no keeper Other 2 in playoffs keep 1 player Remaining 6 keep 2 players Or is this still yet to be determined?

No need to apologize! I will read over the newsletter more carefully and give feedback. I do think it should go in the new "Latest Info" section, since it will always be latest info! Also, we need to figure out a way to send this to subscribers through email, as well as have it hosted in the forum. Thanks for doing this! Edit: Maybe there should be another subforum called "Newsletter: View from the Booth"? And then have dates like "2017-10" for each one? Edit 2: Ok I read it! I like it. Definitely think you need to say the results of Kof94 II, and have a short paragraph on the event? Would be cool to have some sort of small general interest article on some angle of the game? Looks good overall. (The blue headings wrap on my monitor, btw?)

I would DM some new guys, like Scamy, AdamWoodrow, Leif and Buc? (Basically cherry pick from Fall Classic Waiting List here: http://nhl94online.com/html/waiting-list.php?lg=47)

I dunno, I feel like if it was a league, or if games somehow seemed more "official", it would be better. I know I take "real" games a lot more seriously than exis. (Yes, I know you could say "Well play these as if they are real," but it seems different to me. Especially if I just do the odd one here and there, as opposed to during a dedicated "Ladder League Season".) I am probably just being nitpicky, but I thought I would share my OCD thoughts. On another note, I think you should should come up with a name for the person who asked to be removed from the list instead of "-------". I think "Mr.Contrarian" or "Doogie Howser" or something would be more fun.

Yes, I would be much more interested if it were a league. Also, if it was running during down time, like after Classic is complete (or at least when it is winding down). Just my $.02...

Ideally, you could have a flyer with more info at your tourney. But, hey, you have a million things to do running the tourney, so these cards are a great Plan B. (For when you inevitably run out of time to make a flyer :P.) If you are a people person, or a known name in the community, I can also mail some out for you to have in your wallet. Just PM me your address. Also, I will soon refine what the "Joinus" URL says, making it even better. But for right now, there is *something* there, and it is *good enough*, and certainly easy to remember.

If you are running a tourney and want an easy way to recruit people, I can send you some dead simple business cards to hand out. I just bought 1000 of them, and it will be easy for me to mail them to anyone who wants a stack. They just say: The idea is to funnel potential recruits into a page tailor made for them. There is already info there. See: www.nhl94.com/joinus PM me your address and I will mail a whack of them out! Edit: They will take 2 weeks to be delivered to me, so there is a bit of delay. But I already paid, so this will happen! Edit 2: If you PM me your address, I will delete the PM after I mail them, to protect your identity.

Hey Halifax, FYI I added this event to the Upcoming Events thread. It is a simple URL: http://nhl94.com/events The idea is, we can check out all the upcoming events (live and online) with one easy URL.

Yes, I have done extensive testing. Conclusion: Nothing works for me, and I almost came in last. (Last time around Mario had 2.0 PPG -- a record low, no doubt! Yes, he was on wing.) I will play around a bit, and may change it up when I compete. I do appreciate your remark. My logic is, Mario has 6 stick handle and 6 passing, so would "drive the bus" so to speak handling the puck, and feeding Lindros (or Muller) at Center? But the *main* reason I have 88 at C is because I love plopping him in the middle defensively. He is a checking behemoth that clogs my zone up, when I can get him back there... Edit: PS: I welcome all comments from anyone regarding my lineup. I am a thick skinned lizard.

LA Kings LW - Mario C - Lindros RW - Janssens LD - Duchesnse RD - Featherstone Xtra Attacker: Muller

7.2 LA Kings take Old Timer D-man Tom "Tomcat" Johnson

6.2 LA Kings take Brad Marsh

4.2 LA Kings take Steve Duchesne

3.2 LA Kings take Glen Featherstone

2.2 The L.A. Kings select Kirk Muller

1.2 The L.A. Kings select Patrick Roy Edit: Is there a place where I can see only the retro guys? There are 10 of them, right? (I know they are in the Google Doc, but I would like to see them separated to help me strategize.) I see, the whole 1956 Retro Rom. (Thx, Lupz)

Last updated May 27, 2018 Part 1: Wifi Versus Wired The Short Story Plug In! (And disable wifi) The Long Story No matter how great your wifi is, or you think your wifi is, you are always better off wired. Period. The reason why boils down to interference and packet loss. A wired connection has a shielded cable that all but eliminates any local radio interference. A wifi connection, no matter how modern and how close you are to your router, will always be prone to interference. If you live in a city, even your neighbor using their microwave oven could interfere with your wifi signal! Nevermind all of the electronic gadgetry that we use all around us every day ourselves in our own homes. If you have the option, and even if it means buying a 50' cable and running it up the stairs from your basement to plug in, do it! (You don't want to be the guy that everyone dreads playing because you have a spotty connection.) Another option, mentioned by Smozoma below, is Powerline Adapters, which use your existing power outlets and wires to create a wired connection, all for less than $100. People sometimes convince themselves that wifi is "good enough" because they see their ping rate, and it looks good. Heck, if you can stream Netflix in HD how the heck can't you play this ancient videogame. Why not? Because it is not the same thing. At all. Among many difference, video streams like Netflix get buffered, so there is a lot of "wiggle room" to make sure you get what appears to be a smooth feed. In online games, there is no wiggle room. You want your button presses to register NOW! This is all about ping and latency (which can be disrupted by radio interference), and has nothing to do with bandwidth. When you do a ping test with wifi, you might see your connection is great, and it is: At that very moment, with no interference. But then, at seemingly random times, you will get lag spikes, even though things started off great. These are not really random. They are the microwaves, baby monitors, various electronics and even other people's wifi, interfering and grinding your games to a halt. Ethernet Versus USB Versus WiFi For our purposes, any wired connection -- whether Ethernet or USB (via an Ethernet to USB adapter) -- beats WiFi. Again, because of the interference. Nowadays there seems to be a trend to design laptops with fast USB ports but no Ethernet port. If you are in this situation, do not be tempted to use your laptop's built in WiFi, or to plug in a USB WiFi adapter. Use a USB Ethernet adapter to get that shielded cable plugged directly from your router to your computer, staving off any possible radio interference. Part 2: Overcoming Great Distances The Short Story You can't overcome great distances. The Long Story: If someone in North America plays someone in Europe, you will feel it. There is simply no way to overcome the great distance. While light travels in a vacuum superfast, electricity through (copper) wires is much slower. It is slower in absolute terms, but it is also slower because wires zigzag, and repeaters, switches and routers all conspire to grind things down significantly, as well. Because you cannot defeat the physical reality that long distances will slow things down, you need to do everything within your power to help a tough situation. Here is a thread worth reading: Overseas Games and Laggy Connections. Part 3: Cable versus DSL versus Fiber The Short Story People are successful with any of them. A Note on DSL For the lowest possible Ping rate, it is a good idea to have your ISP "disable interleaving". In a nutshell, "interleaving" is some extra error correction, which will add a small bit of time to your ping rate. This correction is probably helpful for streaming videos, but a real annoyance for playing NHL94, where we want our button clicks to register *now*! You can read more about it here: https://www.gpforums.co.nz/threads/292343-Interleaving-Explained Unfortunately, you will have to have your ISP turn it off for you; you cannot do it yourself. ...More to come - tips on how to have better connectivity - minimum speed requirements (anything faster than dialup usually good enough) - hamachi vs client server connection - anything else any networking peeps can think of? See: http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed-limit-of-ping/

Ok. Glad I asked, because I had it all wrong.

Hey Leif and other new guys! Check out the Guide For New Members I just wrote! Lots of tips for how to take part in the community and join online leagues! Welcome!