I have to agree with OR on this one. The peak of HD was around the time Tark was being opened. WIS was so confident in their user base that they thought they could add a higher-revenue model without hurting their existing one. People were excited about the possibility of two games a day, threads were being made on possible world names, and most importantly, Tark sold out in a crazy 40 minutes or less. That's a measurable data point (someone could argue the same with Knight and Phelan, but the rise of Free HD soon thereafter would refute that).

tdowdy got his account hijacked, lost all of his teeth, had a heart attack at a ridiculously young age, and quit preaching in small town West Virginia to take a job selling tools at Sears. He hasn't been seen around here for years (nor has his alias tdiddy), and is likely still pining for a girl in a multi-colored sweater.

And I was mswilsowned in a championship game, so I do not think he was overrated.

Posted by daalter on 8/8/2010 1:47:00 AM (view original):

You definitively state, "The peak of HD was before Rails and OR were even blips on the map".

But I'm the one who speaks in absolutes and rewrites history to my liking.

Fascinating.

you didnt refute my point.

+1

Posted by cbriese on 8/8/2010 7:50:00 AM (view original):
I have to agree with OR on this one. The peak of HD was around the time Tark was being opened. WIS was so confident in their user base that they thought they could add a higher-revenue model without hurting their existing one. People were excited about the possibility of two games a day, threads were being made on possible world names, and most importantly, Tark sold out in a crazy 40 minutes or less. That's a measurable data point (someone could argue the same with Knight and Phelan, but the rise of Free HD soon thereafter would refute that).

tdowdy got his account hijacked, lost all of his teeth, had a heart attack at a ridiculously young age, and quit preaching in small town West Virginia to take a job selling tools at Sears. He hasn't been seen around here for years (nor has his alias tdiddy), and is likely still pining for a girl in a multi-colored sweater.

And I was mswilsowned in a championship game, so I do not think he was overrated.

tark sold out so quickly because it had been so long since a world had been opened. we were already on the downward curve from the peak by then.

i mean, if WIS were to give notice it was opening a new HD world sometime this week i bet it would sell out within 2 hours. i dont think thats a good barometer on the state of the game.

Recruiting seems to be very competitive in Knight this season. I think that's a good thing. Competition is good--when recruiting is merely a draft ending at 11pm EST the first night, that's boring.

Posted by bert_fischer on 8/8/2010 8:54:00 AM (view original):
Recruiting seems to be very competitive in Knight this season. I think that's a good thing. Competition is good--when recruiting is merely a draft ending at 11pm EST the first night, that's boring.

Competition is good but the available talent is crap compared any other season (atleast in Knight). I had a lot more success recruiting with a D+ prestige 2 seasons ago then I am with a C today. Perhaps it is just cyclical and many teams have an unnormally high amount of scholarships to fill. Or the level of talent available in each class going forward will be comparable to this weak one and it will just take some adjusting to the lesser talent in the pool. Oh well I guess I will just plug away and end up with my lunch palers this go around.

Posted by vandydave on 8/8/2010 8:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by daalter on 8/8/2010 1:47:00 AM (view original):

You definitively state, "The peak of HD was before Rails and OR were even blips on the map".

But I'm the one who speaks in absolutes and rewrites history to my liking.

Fascinating.

you didnt refute my point.

+1

You had a non-point, which was that gameplay didn't change that much after the "glory" period that you're talking about, which is absurd because it changed a lot, mostly for the better. (So many more options ... the old game was like paint-by-numbers by comparison.)

Bottom line is that consistently in thread after thread and comment after comment, you are only interested in acknowledging the time that you were extremely successful as the time when HD was good. Everything since has merely been something to gripe about.

And yes, I was also correct above in that you did exactly what you accused me of doing.

Posted by vandydave on 8/8/2010 8:45:00 AM (view original):
i mean, if WIS were to give notice it was opening a new HD world sometime this week i bet it would sell out within 2 hours. i dont think thats a good barometer on the state of the game.

Tend to agree with this.

However, I think a better barometer is that even when the existing worlds turned over, you often had to be up very early in the morning to get one of the available DIII teams before they were all snapped up.

Posted by daalter on 8/8/2010 10:20:00 AM (view original):

Posted by vandydave on 8/8/2010 8:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by daalter on 8/8/2010 1:47:00 AM (view original):

You definitively state, "The peak of HD was before Rails and OR were even blips on the map".

But I'm the one who speaks in absolutes and rewrites history to my liking.

Fascinating.

you didnt refute my point.

+1

You had a non-point, which was that gameplay didn't change that much after the "glory" period that you're talking about, which is absurd because it changed a lot, mostly for the better. (So many more options ... the old game was like paint-by-numbers by comparison.)

Bottom line is that consistently in thread after thread and comment after comment, you are only interested in acknowledging the time that you were extremely successful as the time when HD was good. Everything since has merely been something to gripe about.

And yes, I was also correct above in that you did exactly what you accused me of doing.

I don't have the exact timeline in my head, but other than halftime adjustments I can't name a single significant change that was added after that. When Hd was in it's glory so was I, no argument there.

You even retired and left the game for a while, so maybe you should step back as the alleged keeper of the good of HD.

I think we all tend to think of the glory days of HD being those when we were most successful.

Good point by daalter on the 3:00 a.m. F5 festival.

Mswilso was overrated? How exactly? Or are we just throwing out opinions and stating them as fact?  Don't answer that, I already know the answer.

the new glory days will come when whatif starts advertising and fills the worlds again

breezie, I think I'm down with it if another CAA-style experiment gets put together.

I picked up this guy in Smith for under $1K because no one else, not even the supposedly talent-starved low DI schools, seemed to want him. I guess you could argue that Big 12 schools signing guys like that just reinforces the idea that low DI coaches can't compete, but frankly if I'd gotten any sort of resistance on him I wouldn't have gone after him - he wasn't a priority target. I think he's going to turn out to be eminently usable, and I just don't subscribe to the idea that low DI and mid DI schools won't have success when they can still get players of that caliber.

They won't have 90/90/90/90 guys up and down the roster, but neither will anyone else.

Posted by sublightd on 8/8/2010 3:20:00 PM (view original):
Mswilso was overrated? How exactly? Or are we just throwing out opinions and stating them as fact?  Don't answer that, I already know the answer.

he built a dominant dynasty in one world and everyone acted like he was the best coach ever. he was very good, but not great.

Posted by antonsirius on 8/8/2010 4:31:00 PM (view original):
breezie, I think I'm down with it if another CAA-style experiment gets put together.

I picked up this guy in Smith for under $1K because no one else, not even the supposedly talent-starved low DI schools, seemed to want him. I guess you could argue that Big 12 schools signing guys like that just reinforces the idea that low DI coaches can't compete, but frankly if I'd gotten any sort of resistance on him I wouldn't have gone after him - he wasn't a priority target. I think he's going to turn out to be eminently usable, and I just don't subscribe to the idea that low DI and mid DI schools won't have success when they can still get players of that caliber.

They won't have 90/90/90/90 guys up and down the roster, but neither will anyone else.

anton, it's hard to judge that player.  Maybe I am still looking at recruits as they were from the old engine (which is quite possible) but this player looks like a player a top DII school would go after, not low DI.  His stamina and speed would eliminate him from my consideration if I was at a low DI school.  Hope he turns into a quality backup for you.