If you have a season sitting there doing nothing, at what point do you just take it and apply it to a world that is actually playing? Me, after a few weeks I'm done. Fascinating that many will it there for months.

If having $25 tied up is not an issue and you like the world, or more likely your particular team, there's no reason to pull out. To a point, anyway. I'm stubborn, but think I'd give up after 6 months anyway. But leaving a team in a world you hope fills increases the chances it will eventually fill. How long you wait depends on how invested you are in that team/world.

Guy in my home world just posted that he won two titles back in July and has been waiting for those worlds to fill since then.  I understand that he wouldn't want to walk away from those teams but...

For Life was private with a very specific set of rules.    It was a niche' world and, when asked to join, I told them as much.   I recall playing a season there and really feeling like there wasn't much to do in way of making your team better from season to season.   It was definitely a long haul world.   The inability to fill should not be surprising.

As for how long I'd wait, it depends.    If I had 2-3 worlds playing, waiting is no big deal.   If all my worlds are idle, I'd want to play somewhere.    As someone mentioned a few days ago, the potential biggest problem WifS has is owners realizing they don't miss playing.  There is a "routine" involved and, most likely, all the long-term owners have fallen into one.   If I had one world with 12 openings, I'd be less inclined to check in with any regularity.   Suddenly, I'm not checking in at all. 

Posted by joshkvt on 10/9/2015 8:39:00 AM (view original):
If having $25 tied up is not an issue and you like the world, or more likely your particular team, there's no reason to pull out. To a point, anyway. I'm stubborn, but think I'd give up after 6 months anyway. But leaving a team in a world you hope fills increases the chances it will eventually fill. How long you wait depends on how invested you are in that team/world.

I am in a world that hasn't started for 10 months now. I estimate that I have $14 invested in the season that I am holding on to. That money is not going to change my life so it can sit there. But my team has a great history which I built and I believe it is capable of another run or two if the world ever did fill. So I will wait in the case of this one team. If another situation looked this dire that I did not have the attachment to I would likely be gone after 4-6 weeks however.

A really good Comish can make a huge difference. I was in WIB for a season and we had a 6 month layoff between seasons with no end in sight. Then TDfactory took over and we rolled within 2 weeks. The season after that the rollover was almost imediate. I know not everyone is up for (or is financially capable of) offering incentives, rewards or team swaps with other leagues, but a good commish can make such a difference.

A really good world, or even just a good world, can make a difference.   We focus on the worlds that don't fill when 75% of the worlds are rolling within a week or so and some roll within 24 hours. 

Essentially, WifS has left us to market our product(world) within their product(HBD).   Maybe not the perfect business model but it is what it is.

I'd be willing to wager that there are owners in worlds, who don't visit the forums, who'd be surprised that there's a problem with rollovers.

I believe if they sat down and figured out a way to merge worlds without losing history they would solve some of their problems.Typically owners that are willing to sit around and wait for a world to start up are in it for the long haul. Taking 2 worlds and merging those type of owners together WHILE keeping their individual history should keep that world running better headed into the future.

I know that losing your world's history is a big deal for a lot of owners and that is the main/only reason mergers do not take place. I know this may not be an important issue for some, but it is for most. 

Once they changed their programming and allow for historical data to cross over in mergers, they would have a lot of the openings disappear and create a revenue stream again. 

While I am not a programmer, and it may not be a very easy fix, it is an easy solution to part of the problem. Again, I said part of the problem.

There's nothing to suggest that WIS sees the openings as a problem. If that's the case, there's nothing to fix from their viewpoint and no reason to put any thought or time into it. There are a total of 37 public and private worlds idle. There are 129 active worlds. There are probably 37 worlds that move on to the next season with no delay and another 37 that fill openings within a few days. 13 of 23 idle private worlds have 5 or fewer openings and are likely to fill at some point; how quickly depends on the effort put forth by members of those worlds.

Owners wanting private worlds to fill see 160 or so openings and perceive it as a problem. WIS sees 4,000+ teams chugging along, another 1000 teams paid for sitting around, and says "Cool."

As MikeT notes, an individual business owner would see those openings as something to address to maximize revenue. Fox isn't going to bother a progrmmer for a few thousands bucks.

I'm thinking about leaving after my credits expire and it has nothing to do with the mobile format and everything to do with the gameplay. From my chair the core problem is building a winning team, there are basically 2 ways to do this. Tank your team and outspend on IFA or rip off other owners for their prospects. Its impossible to build through the draft which is very dumb IMO generally draft pools are so shallow if you get somebody that makes a ML roster much past the 3rd round you are doing well. I'm not saying load up the drafts but there should be the random players in every draft that fall into the late rounds that far exceed projections, maybe make it random as it is in real life. Not many teams expect a 10rd pick to make the majors but it happens but in this game it never occurs.  

This is incorrect.  I've done reasonably well in top worlds while doing neither. 

I took a team that had made the playoffs once in 24 seasons to three straight playoffs with one WS loss. Built only through the draft, free agency, and value-for-value trades.

I will admit that doing it this way, you have almost no chance at acquiring shiny MVP, Cy, HOF level players. But you can still win.

I second Mike T.  Only two ways to win?  Trade rape and IFA......laughable.

I am having trouble with the clipboard since the update, but I just drafted and signed in the 20th round a guy who has a current of 62 and projected of 89.  When I drafted him his projection was around 40.  Kolten Cook in the league Majors if you care to look.  That is the first time anything like that has ever happened to me (it probably should be another 50 seasons before I get that lucky again), but to claim that it "never" occurs is false. 

That piece of 20th round luck aside.  I have found the draft to be much improved since the update....if you spend the money on scouting.  In all my leagues I am getting very nice pieces in the 15 to 25th pick area of the 1st round, and the Comp picks have been usable ML players in most cases.  I use 20mil in scouting though.  In addition, in one league right after the update I took a guy with only 14 scouting (1st season) that looked like a true #1 SP.  Turns out the projection was high and he will really only be Long Reliever or maybe 5th starter type.  So it works both ways good and bad which is great.  Good stuff. 

I have noticed that having the public world with fewest openings "featured" (as the only that shows without another click) seems to be working.  The past couple of days I have gone there three times and two different leagues filled.  One of my leagues is Hornsby and it is #2 in the line to be the "featured" league with 7 openings so hopefully we get the "feature" soon and fill up.  

Interesting idea hope it gets those public worlds filling a little faster.  Especially if it is in tandem with a bit more marketing and new folks to the site.