Private worlds going public?  No problem with that, but I would hate to force that down the throats of owners who were willing to wait to fill and didn't want to go public.

Creating new worlds to give n00bs somewhere to go?  No thanks.  We don't need to add a new world with 32 freaking open spots.

There hasn't been an opening in a public world in over a week, and the next 2 have 5 and 9 days remaining in their seasons, so it'll be a week before any slots open up there.  I play in the world 9 days away, and we have only 12 of 32 clubs that have turned over in the last 5 seasons, so there are not many spots there either.

At the same time, as an owner who plays 1 private world and 1 public world, I personally like the fact that my public world rolls very quickly, and would be really ****** off if it started sitting for 2 weeks at every rollover because of a glut of new public worlds.

Also, if new worlds are created now, and 3 months from now, due to a glut of openings, some private worlds take 3 weeks to fill, you know their Commishes will come on the forums and pitch a fit about how the new worlds are keeping the from filling, etc.

You're looking at it from your personal POV.

Go back to when you first discovered HBD. 

"OHH!!!  That sounds fun!"
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Crap.  I've been waiting for a two weeks just to play this game.   Screw this." 

It wouldn't be forced down anyone's throat.  If you have more than 7 openings on a regular basis you are eligible to be transferred to a public world.  It is nonsense for guys to say "CREATE A NEW WORLD!!!!  THIS IS HORSE TURDS!!!! I HAVE HAD 7 OPENINGS IN MY PRIVATE WORLD FOR TWO WEEKS.  ALL THESE GUYS SHOULD GET TEAMS IN MY WORLD!  Oh and by the way I get to screen them." 

The easiest way to keep the private worlds full is to get actual noob's to start playing HBD.  Of course you will have attrition, but one guy out of three who likes the game may take on 3 or 4 private teams in the future.  Not having public world openings creates a barrier to entry that seems like a flaw in the business plan.

I don't really care whether they create new public worlds, or convert unsuccessful private worlds to public.  There just shouldn't be a period where there are 40 openings private and 0 public, and none no public openings for 10 days in a row. 

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/9/2012 2:21:00 PM (view original):

Forcing worlds to go public, under any set of circumstances, is a flawed business plan.

+1

Posted by tecwrg on 2/9/2012 8:53:00 AM (view original):

A better solution would be to implement the "training worlds" that we've talked about in the past.

Single season world, maybe 12 teams per world (two leagues of six teams), accelerated off-season, abbreviated schedules (6 ST games, 20 regular season games, 1 round of best of 5 playoffs), and it's free.  When one training world fills, another one gets created, so there's always one available.

Gives n00b's a place to cut their teeth and get a taste for the game before joining a regular world once a spot becomes available.

This.  Best solution presented in this thread.

Better than nothing.  Better than creating new public worlds which, in the long run, will most likely be unsustainable.

There's a reason why WIS has tightly controlled the creation of new worlds at their discretion after initially allowing any yahoo to create them at will when HBD first went live.

Horrible solution.

Sustainable or not, there will be several public worlds available at any given point in time.    When people want to try something out, they don't want to try it out 4 weeks later.

Hey, tec just quoted himself and said it's the best solution...

Is that allowed?

Yes.  Any other questions?

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/9/2012 1:34:00 PM (view original):
You're looking at it from your personal POV.

Go back to when you first discovered HBD. 

"OHH!!!  That sounds fun!"
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Can I join your world?"   "Run along n00b."
"Crap.  I've been waiting for a two weeks just to play this game.   Screw this." 

I totally get that, Mike.  There are too many private and too few public worlds.  I would be all for encouraging some private worlds to go public.  Maybe find some public worlds having trouble filling and offer a credit to go public.  It's not good for attracting new owners not to have available public slots.

But let's not forget that you're also coming at it from a personal POV, that being "Private worlds are real worlds, and I don't care about the quality of public worlds. Owners there get what they deserve for being in public worlds."  That's been your (approximate) position for as long as I've been on this site.  Just trying to point out that there are established customers of this site (lots of us) who would indeed be unhappy if a large glut of public world slots caused disruption in rollover in our long-standing public worlds.

Also pointing out that available slots go up and down.  Not a very good idea to add a large number of permanent slots that will create a large glut and cause problems filling worlds at a time of lower demand.

Also, there seems to be a simple problem of public worlds being "bunched" in terms of when they are rolling.  There are 6 public worlds with between 9 and 19 days remaining.  There are just 2 with between 20 and 37 days remaining.  There are Zero public worlds with between 40 and 60 days remaining. There are 7 public worlds with between 61 and 83 days remaining. I gauranteed you that when 4 public worlds roll in a 4 day span in 2 weeks, someone will post that we should contract because there are too many slots in public worlds out there.

Yes, I won't deny that I think worlds that don't screen owners get what they deserve(and public worlds fall under that broad umbrella).  

I also understand that there are lots of established owners who would be rather unhappy if their world, public or private, isn't filling in a timely manner. 

That said, HBD needs to attract, and keep, new owners.   Telling them that they have to wait an extended period of time to play isn't going to lure them in. 

Open slots go in waves for sure, but by in large the public slots when they are open fill much faster than the private ones.  Two weeks ago there were 11 public openings (4 slots was a private world that went public) and something above 20 in the private.  The 11 public slots filled within three or four days, and there haven't been any since.  That just doesn't make much sense.  Today there are 30+ private openings, and they aren't being filled all that fast.  If two of the worlds with 5 or more openings went public I bet they would be filled by Monday.  People when looking to be entertained don't always want to "apply" for membership.  Private worlds are extremely important to keeping the game running.  But paying the bills means when somebody comes looking to spend $25 that they get to do that  right away.  

Tec saying you want WIS to use their development time and money to create a new game, and then give it away for free is not a solution.   

The fear of slow rollovers with the addition of new public worlds could probably be handled by WifS giving trusted "caretakers" a credit to join the slow-rolling public worlds. Make it where they aren't dropping worlds to run "free" teams instead but that would work.   If WifS approached me and said "Mike, PublicX has been unfilled for two weeks.   Would you run a team if given a credit?", I might do it.   And don't let people create aliases to do this sort of thing.   Alias = no accountability.   You can be an ***, ruin a team, sign huge long-term deals, etc, etc. secretly but most of us aren't going to "wreck our standing" in HBD to jerk around a bunch of public owners.   

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/9/2012 2:48:00 PM (view original):
Yes, I won't deny that I think worlds that don't screen owners get what they deserve(and public worlds fall under that broad umbrella).  

I also understand that there are lots of established owners who would be rather unhappy if their world, public or private, isn't filling in a timely manner. 

That said, HBD needs to attract, and keep, new owners.   Telling them that they have to wait an extended period of time to play isn't going to lure them in. 

I would have no problem with my world not filling if it became tardy.  I would have a problem if WIS started creating new public worlds now, and then half the owners dropped out after 1 season, and 6 months from now there were 87 openings in public worlds and good public worlds with relatively little turnover failed to fill.

I also basically agree with your stance on worlds that don't screen.  I won't be joining any new public worlds, but will keep the team I love in the world I'm in.

All I'm saying is that there are several solutions to keep public worlds available without causing problems for established public world owners.

1) Offer an incentive to slow-to-fill private worlds to go public.

2) Offer an incentive to private worlds that don't screen to just become public.

3) Create Training Worlds.

4) Break up the log jam of public worlds over the next few months by putting a hold of a few days on a couple of worlds to space them out better.

5) Some combination of 2 or more of 1-4.

That's much better than creating new public worlds for n00bs to join  (bearing in mind that the new world will still take weeks to start because it will have to wait for 32 owners to sign up, and many of the n00bs who are the first to sign up will bail before it fills so you might need 40 signups to actually fill).  Then, as there become too many public worlds, veteran owners start dropping their public world teams because the worlds don't roll in a timely manner, and two things happen. 

1) The veteran public world owners who you all-private owners rely on to keep public worlds halfway decent so that n00bs have a good 1st experience with HBD will be gone, and the worlds will all look like Foxx looked 2 years ago, driving many of the n00bs away after their 1st season, and

2) The drop in demand for public worlds by veteran owners will result in there now being too many public slots, forcing contraction, leaving us back where we started.

Put another way, there need to be enough veteran owners who stick around in public worlds to fill 20-25 slots in each of the public worlds, in order for those worlds to fill quickly so the n00bs can plays.  Regardless of what WiS does, some public worlds will get 'tardy.  But WiS should refrain from doing things that will actively drive public worlds into 'tardiness, which creating new worlds every time there are no public openings would certainly eventually do.