Worlds can be filled.  Commissioners actually have to go out and recruit.  Or, how about this?  Prepare for your openings before the end of the season by creating a waitlist.  I have been in a couple worlds now where the commissioner has said publicly,  "no one has contacted me". 

We have a commissioner who has actively recruited.  We also have players who are recruiting.  We also had the best retention rate in HBD for 10 seasons (according to WIS).  And now we have 7 openings and can't fill them.

Something went wrong.  Why did so many people leave?

Just that time for some people.  Nothing changed that I can tell.  There wasn't any talk, at least not on the world chat about any reasons in particular.  One guy had too many papers to write at school.  Others were just too busy.  So even if those were lies, it doesn't seem like anything in league changed.  

We actually only had 4 (I think) to start and it's been like a month and a couple others made the decision they didn't want to wait.  

And I can't remember there being more than two in any season in the past ten, and it never took more than a day to fill.

We do have a new commish, so maybe that's an issue, but it does seem like he's trying.

We had a similar problem in a world I'm in.  18 seasons of clear sailing.  The commish had never had to try too hard to get the world filled all that time, usually just 2-4 openings/roll, and usually filled within 2-3 days.  Then, this past roll, we had 11 people drop out, for what seemed like no reason.  Nothing happened, it was just that all those people decided to drop that world.  Despite keeping the classified ad at the top, we waited for almost 2 months to fill, and had to go public to do it.  I hope this isn't the beginning of the end of HBD.  As much as MikeT likes to claim that this is just the down part of a yearly cycle, I can't say that I've seen a down cycle go this deep and last this long in my five years here.   It's been almost 10 months since the last update.  It's a bad sign that the amount of openings is "down" to 153 right now.

I am a believer in the commish is responsible for getting the people lined up. In Doubleday I had the openings covered before the end of the last season only for 3 others to decide not to return for whatever reasons. Took me a couple days but I found people to take the teams; active recruiting can fill most worlds.

Posted by isack24 on 10/21/2012 10:02:00 PM (view original):
We have a commissioner who has actively recruited.  We also have players who are recruiting.  We also had the best retention rate in HBD for 10 seasons (according to WIS).  And now we have 7 openings and can't fill them.

And to have the highest retention rate compared to worlds like Moonlight Graham, Cooperstown, Shoeless Joe that's a pretty good track record.....

Posted by tomhighway on 10/22/2012 12:48:00 AM (view original):
I am a believer in the commish is responsible for getting the people lined up. In Doubleday I had the openings covered before the end of the last season only for 3 others to decide not to return for whatever reasons. Took me a couple days but I found people to take the teams; active recruiting can fill most worlds.

I think you have done a fine job Tom.   EVERY world that I am now active in, seems to have the best commisioner's around.

It seems pretty obvious there are some awesome commissioners in HBD.  If HBD has reached the point where it takes an awesome commish for world to roll in under a month, that's probably not good for the future of HBD.  Most people are not going to be exceptional.  Sort of the definition.

I recently left a world with a poor commisioner.  I left 2 weeks ago and they still haven't realized I left.  That's pretty sad.

I just found this game and I feel like I missed it's prime. With so many openings and even during a current MLB playoff it just makes me think this game is dying. It's a bit too expensive for what you get. I should be able to buy a 1 time sub to Whatifsports then pay like 5 bucks a season for any game. I can't see any reason to renew my HDB team when itll be months upon months before we roll over.

Although there are a lot of worlds with openings right now mezirah, don't get discouraged. There are also a lot of worlds that regularly don't have high turnover or long rollover times too, even in the current HBD climate. The last three worlds I'm in that rolled over all did so within a day and we were going agin. The next team if mine that gonna roll will do so too. It's not all doom and gloom.

Posted by mezirah on 10/23/2012 1:46:00 AM (view original):
I just found this game and I feel like I missed it's prime. With so many openings and even during a current MLB playoff it just makes me think this game is dying. It's a bit too expensive for what you get. I should be able to buy a 1 time sub to Whatifsports then pay like 5 bucks a season for any game. I can't see any reason to renew my HDB team when itll be months upon months before we roll over.

That is why you make sure you join a good world with a good reputation for having a fast roll over with quality owners. Don't let the openings cause you to stop playing the game; just find a good world.