Barnstormers and the "invite" feature. Waiting for Semi's.

SOM's soon to be released INVITE feature will be a welcome addition to Barnstormers. It is quite possible that we may try this out on the next Event #4 - a 60 Mil Event.

What does this mean ? Instead of just creating a bunch of leagues and saying - here is the password - go join a league - the Commish or league creator can create a league and INVITE players by having an email address OR a SOM username. This is to curb the possibility of "league shopping" or as some have suggested, some players jumping into what appears to be a "soft" league with alleged few strong players.

I would look to develop some kind of randomization of all those who are still on my "active" list and once I have this randomization completed, to create leagues and send out the invites. What does this mean to YOU ? You'll get an email to join your league, you wont need a password and you wont need to know if it's DH or NO DH or even the cap. If you need to buy a credit, you'll be prompted. Once you have your invite, you can populate your draft card, select draft order and stadium and once you have this done - you'll be dropped into your league.

I don't have all the details of how this will be presented to you the players, but I hope I will be able to get my hands on a test before event 4 and see how it plays out. I'm anxious. This will be great for all of us who create theme leagues on a regular basis, Barnstormers, Players Championship, Mystery Card Tournament - and the many of us who regularly create themes.

My randomization method could be as simple as lining up an alphabetized list of "active" players and requesting that someone do a RANDOM RUN to put next to it and then sorting the list. For example, 232 active players right now, I request a random run 1 to 232 by a non Barnstormers player and list that NEXT to the randomized player list. 1-12 go into the first league and then so on and so on. In the NEXT Event, I may put the "Z" player first in the draft order (Zimharry) instead of starting with "A" - (just a thought)

If a player that was supposed to enter a league is a no show or a dropout, I can invite a replacement or a filler. 232 players is 19 leagues PLUS 4 - so those 4 spillover players can be prime candidates for being a replacement.

As you can see, the logistics isn't fully formed yet but I hope to be able to present an update soon. I welcome your comments and suggestions on what I have detailed so far. I hope to have more news soon.

Happy Independence Day to you all !

Hi Moose,

Cool idea but I do have a concern. It sounds like if someone has already created their team before they get the invite, they won't be able to use that team (or those credits they already spent) - that you'll have to create your team after accepting the invite?

Here's the issue - I already queued up my Event 4 and 5 teams - I had some free time on vacation last week. I've commonly been creating teams at least a week in advance so I'm not scrambling last minute when the passwords are posted. I can't be the only one in the habit of doing this. In the future we could make sure everyone knows not to do this (if it is an issue), but it may be better to not change the 2020 tour midstream...

I'm pretty sure you will be able to use any team you have in your active teams for the invite feature but we will see how it goes when I get my hands on a test league. If this isnt ready in time for Event #4 then the goal is to have it ready for Event #5. This is too important NOT TO USE to both make it easier and more random (fair).

Great, if I can use the teams I already created, then I'm all for it! And if I can't use the teams I already created, I'm all for it for future events!

Moose,

I like the idea of random assignments, but one other thing to consider. You have 2 start dates listed for both events 4 and 5. If you use the invite feature, and any 1 person randomly assigned to a league wants to use the 2nd start date, the whole league will be using that 2nd start date. it seems likely that almost all leagues are going to have the majority of teams sitting around for 2 weeks waiting for the last couple teams to join.

Chris

A few adjustments/tweaks to consider, yea, but overall this is a *great* improvement in any tournament of this scale.

Thanks for the work put into this.

Moose,

I like the idea of random assignments, but one other thing to consider. You have 2 start dates listed for both events 4 and 5. If you use the invite feature, and any 1 person randomly assigned to a league wants to use the 2nd start date, the whole league will be using that 2nd start date. it seems likely that almost all leagues are going to have the majority of teams sitting around for 2 weeks waiting for the last couple teams to join.

Chris

We have two start dates for people that have a vacation coming up but we do want people to load up "as soon as possible". I could forsee people "claiming" they have a vacation just because they jumped into their league (or somehow "saw the people in it" saw nasty tough players and decided to back out) - If this means to avoid this issue we have to delay the entire league, I don't know what else to do. If there is a way to cheat or break the rules, people will find a way.

just a thought but could you not ask people which week they will be on vacation prior to setting the invites this would maybe eliminate some of the potential conflicts.. if people don't know at this point when there vacation is then you would at least have an idea were the issues maybe....of course that's probably just alot of work.. and no guarantees they will be straight with you away.. its just a thought?

Not sure that it is a great idea to implement this feature in the middle of the tour. In theory it may be a good idea but it is a significant change to how events are joined. As of my writing this only three people have entered a team in all of the 19 leagues created for this event. Normally we would have already filled a league and be waiting for the draft at 9 a.m. I was "invited" into League 1 so not sure if that was random or not, seems like the odds are about 19 to 1 against this happening, yet it did. Additionally it could take a whole week to fill the league and as I like tinkering during these events there may be very limited time left to do that.

Just a minor issue, but it would be nice if the invite feature specified if the league is DH or No DH.