Kenu

But what if - and I don't mean to trash talk your design, because I'm very impressed with the amount of work you've put into it - but what if the best players from 8 teams in the 2nd division put together a team? 2nd division I guess, no matter what their skill? I don't actually question that now that I wrote it down, but I'll put this up for debate anyways. The hypothesis I had in mind was that most teams - even lower ranked teams - often have that one good player. I guess they should still earn their spot before they could all get to the first division no matter how many points they accumulated during the previous season. I guess the only major worry would be that a team can't pick up good players from the "minors" because their grade from the last season might way down their overall team grade. Then again it might help keep teams together, as the temptation for roster changes might be slightly reduced. Sorry, I'm rambling on, sort of answering my own questions. I hope they stir up some discussion nevertheless.

Hi Robsom, Thank you for joining the site! Please feel free to create a team thread with this information, as that will also help generate interest towards your team!

I'm very much interested in this division idea, but if we say division 1 only has 8 teams - that means 7 opponents. 16 games and then the best 4 go to the playoffs? That's semi-finals already. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's very different from what the community is used to. I agree it's not optimal for teams to take breaks, but in some cases small teams might have 2-3 people that can't play for a specific amount of time and I think that's understandable. I'm not saying there needs to be a rule to allow that, but if divisions is the way we'd be heading, this is absolutely a thing that should've been discussed and agreed on up front. Are you guys saying that the bottom 3 teams should automatically be moved one division down and the top 3 moved up, or did you mean they'd match-up (#1 vs last spot, #2 vs second to last and #3 vs 3rd to last) in a best out of seven to compete for the spot? My personal opinion is that it should be determined through these teams facing each other. An alternative to what I described above, it could be a group of 6 teams where all meet each other and you see how they rank up after that. The downside is that it would theoretically allow teams to help other teams by losing on purpose towards certain opponents, once they've secured their own spot. Overall, I think this division thing is one that you either love or hate. It might be a bit complicated for some teams to digest. I think that it would definitely bring a lot of depth into the hockey simulation experience that we're trying to build. Please note that no concrete decisions have been made regarding the format of future leagues and we're just as excited as you to see where these brainstorms take us. I don't think it would be fair to start the ECL by placing teams in different divisions without giving everyone the chance to show us what they've got. Thus I think we should be using a more traditional approach for the first league and perhaps using the data we can collect from there to place teams into divisions for the next leagues (if that's what we agree is the best thing to do).

Hey guys, please note the great MultiQuote feature that we have here at the forums. You can click the +-icon next to the Quote button to pick a post to be multi-quoted: When you do, a message will appear in the lower right corner, and you can click it when you have selected the posts that you want to multi-quote. It's better to do that than replying to each quote separately.

Hey @gendlik, nice to see you here! It has been briefly discussed. So far we have no solution, other than: Investigate the issue further throughout the community and share best-practice to minimise the lag for everyone.Hope EA fixes the issue.Hope the invite version of drop-in somehow works better.Have every team play an equal amount of home and away games and randomise which teams plays the first game at home.Any other ideas are welcome.

Wow, I'm blown away by the quality of the discussion we are having here! Well done guys! @Billy44205: We will not call anyone TGMA at NHL Gamer and that was decided before your outburst. I will have to return to discuss this more once I can find the time, but here's the real question regarding the divisional system we are discussing here - What will happen if a Division 1 team (or whichever level really) wants to take a break and not play for one season? Can skip one season? Will be dropped one division? Have to start over from the lowest division?

Hey @xMrazek, happy to have you as a part of our community!

Hey guys - sorry I didn't have time to release the news yesterday, but here is our official news about the case: http://www.nhlgamer.com/news/50

What other stats do you need from Console Hockey? We will of course have our own system for the new stats.

I really tip my hat to @Klaus for the positive attitude he has had towards our website. I guess the cat is out of the bag, but we have been offered to import the stats from Console Hockey, so no history will be lost! We are really grateful for this! It probably won't be implemented by the time the first league starts, but we will work the old stats in there in the future. We should also have the old Finnish Cup stats secure for Finnish players who played in those old leagues.

Very well said @gzell60. I agree we have all the time in the world. As long as our design is smart, we can manipulate data even after leagues have been finished. That being said, I appreciate your thoughts @Billy44205. You are right that we have thought about most, if not all of the things that have been mentioned so far. The thing is though, that our opinions are not the absolute truth, so we want to hear what the community wants and how they respond to these ideas.

Hey @gzell60, We will make our own announcement later today. We did talk to each other and I'm happy to say that the discussion was very positive. No drama. Kind regards, Kenneth

Thanks everyone for your great thoughts and ideas! The first league will not have a higher and lower division. We might end up having to go to groups of some kind, but the first league will (in my opinion) be a fair starting point for all teams and then we can (hypothetically) divide teams into higher and lower divisions.

Hey @milesizdead! Cool to see you here! Thanks for sharing your story!

Hey @tokFan and @Dexrion - really appreciate the feedback! These are questions we are thinking about as well and things we have to tackle if (and hopefully when) more and more teams start joining. I have a question for you guys (and everyone else) regarding the division system: How would you make it work? As this is not professional sports, teams fold very easily and let's say a team ends up in a lower division and the team folds. Some of the players together with some of the best players in the world create a new team - do they automatically start in the lowest division, even if "everyone knows they will demolish everyone else"? ideally, I think this is how it should work - new teams will have to earn their spots and it will help familiar team "organisations" stay together for a long time, at least in the higher divisions. What I'm worried about, is that lower division teams fold all the time and everyone just tries to join a division 1 team. One option is of course to simply have small leagues. Let's say Division 1 would have 10-14 teams, and the lower divisions would likewise. Seasons would be shorter and we could play more seasons during the year. For this system to work, I think there should be a minimum of 4 seasons played per year. Otherwise there's the risk that the next NHL comes out and people think we should scrap the whole system. I hope I'm making sense with my explanations. I would love to discuss this some more! I think this is the type of steps we can take to create a more exciting and "professional" style of gaming community.

Hey everyone, Please use this thread to let everyone know that you're looking for a team and what kind of player you are. We want to help create new teams. The website will have some features around this, but for now, let's use the forums for this.

Thanks for the great and insightful reply @Juizki! You are allowed to suggest whatever you want and we'll take all ideas into consideration. We love feedback and ideas! Regarding the amount of teams, my impression (assumption based on the past) is that the majority of teams will want to play on 3 days of the week - but we will see what the poll says and how everyone feels. I don't think more than 4 is realistic for most people. Regarding the team amounts etc. I agree with you. This is a fresh start and everyone should have the right to make a name for themselves. This is what we're aiming for. When we see the amount of interest we can attract, we will know how to set the league up. Again - keep the feedback and ideas coming. Please share the link to our website with as many potential players as you can think of.

NHL Gamer welcomes you to the ECL! Hey NHL Gamers, It's great to have had so many of you join the site this early on and the amount of support you've shown is greatly appreciated! Without further ado, it's time to announce our first official 6 vs 6 league for both Playstation 4 and Xbox One - the European Championship League - ECL! League details: All games are played 6vs6 - no exceptions!A minimum of eight (8) players is required for a team to be eligible. We are willing to bump this up to if the community feels that helps reduce teams quitting/not being available to play (please vote on the poll).Games will be played through the invitational Drop-in Mode.Exact format of leagues will be determined by the amount of participating teams.Schedule will be set for specific days (based on feedback), but teams are allowed to negotiate and move games.The leagues are set to start on 16.11.2015.Full rules will be released later. How to join? Register to the forums.Read this post entirely before registering.Follow the link to the ECL for your preferred platform: Register for the ECL Playstation 4 -tournament here Register for the ECL Xbox One -tournament hereCreate a thread with the subject "ECL Registration - Team Name" and use the following format in the post itself:Team Name: Example Team NameTeam Abbreviation: ETNTeam Captains (up to 3): Example Captain1, Example Captain2, Example Captain 3Team Roster (at least 8 players):Example Player 1Example Player 2Ecample Player 3etc.Tell us about your team (optional): Here you can mention any accomplishments or specific reasons why your team should be selected to play in the league. We aim to select all eligible teams for the league, but we will have to see how many teams are interested in the first place. Don't forget to vote on the poll! On behalf of the NHLGamer.com development team - thank you for your interest! We look forward to seeing you on the ice! Kenneth

I edited this for you @Jnmxxx. Usually the button is below your post between the "Quote" and "Options" buttons. Perhaps there is a setting that you can't edit a topic that is more than X amount old.

Thanks @OODAP! We need all the support we can get.

Definitely. At least most of the active Nordic community has moved. Sadly, as I prefer the Xbox One controller.

Hey Billy, and thanks for your interest towards our project! We are indeed building the tournament engine behind the scenes. It's only myself and Samuli (aka Lurkins) working on the code in our spare time, so the development has been slightly slower than expected. We're very happy with our plans though and hope people will like our ideas and find their way to our website. I wish I could give you a time-frame, but I'll hold off on that until we can give an accurate estimation. We hope to throw together a little bit of a sneak peak as soon as possible, but at the same time we want to be happy with what we're showing off before showing it to the public. In the mean time, please feel free to write us what you would like to see on our website (or what you wouldn't like to see), what you've liked on other sites and what you've disliked. We really appreciate your feedback, so even if you think of something small, like "Custom line-ups for teams, so we don't have to select every player separately when reporting a game, even though playing with our #1 line-up" - just let us know!

This is because I wanted some feedback from you guys, who signed up for the newsletter, before posting it for everyone. I will add a link during the weekend.

Thanks for the feedback Billy! I believe at the moment you can only view members that are online. I definitely agree with you that this is a feature we want and will work towards.

Please post any feedback about the forums here. What do you like? What don't you like? What would you like to see?