TooSerious

Related to the Tennis Post - which I encourage you to put views forward with - the thought was raised, what makes Supercoach a great fantasy game, which of course it is, otherwise we wouldnt spend so much time playing it.

Ive had a crack, along with Fester at developing a list of things. Heres a few reasons. What are yours? Feel free to add things from a game players perspective, from a league/general perspective, or prospective investors.

Heres a short list...
1. every quality possession matters
2. even dud games matter when you play it
3. competitive leagues which are free to enter
4. good prizes
5. regular event-driven competition
6. different goals for different players
7. skill needed to win

8. a layered game approach where there can be multiple winners (overall, league, multiple leagues, weekly)
9. language that transcends the sport and becomes part of the lexicon (‘he got 100 SuperCoach points tonight’)
10. media that promotes the game, which feeds the sport and media, which feeds the game…
11. live interaction – akin to SimCity and all control games that have come from it – you can make changes during the competition
12. a wider community than just your local ‘tipping competition’
13. greater interest in the overall game, because to be good you need to know even the teams/players you don’t want to get to know!
14. good option for branding of sponsors with continual page refreshes
15. akin to 8 a game that encourages different tactical alternatives to win

Contribute if youre still online!

So, week 1 has finally been and gone and now everyone has some idea of how their team is shaping up.  I had intentions of writing an introductory post but time got the better of me, however I will do my best to get a round review up every week.  Anyway without further ado here goes nuthin...

The first game saw the AUSSIE BATTLERS come up against TEAM STOWIE.  This was an all Eastern conference matchup which saw Team Stowie take the chocolates with a handy 18 point victory.

Next up was BOLDIN SHOWERS against DOOBIA DOOBS , both these teams coming from the western conference.  Showers, led by all-star QB Payton Manning were too strong for Doobs by a healthy 32 points, with Manning providing 29 points of his own, the third highest individual score for the week.

The third game saw the closest battle for the week, both teams coming from the East with TOO SERIOUSESES up against ADELAIDE MAGGOTS.  This was a ding dong battle with the Maggots from Adelaide holding out to a slow finishing Seriouseses by only 5 measly points.  TS was not helped by Greene  from the Jets putting up a shocking -1 to start the season.  A week on the bench should teach him a lesson!

Game 4 an all Western affair, saw the biggest win of the week with THE PACK smashing SAM CROW to the tune of 43 points.  It was always going to be hard for Sam to overcome The Pack boasting Arian Foster, the highest scorer for week 1 with a whopping 41 points of his own.   Poor Sam was not helped with his starting QB getting injured and the 49ers D/ST getting belted and managing a score of  -1.  Sam things can only get better, right? Hopefully!

Finally my boys, MR WIGGLES came up against UNDER ACHIEVERS in what turned out to be the only cross conference matchup for the week.  Happy to say my Pats heavy team dominated the UAs by 42 points, with RB Matt Forte the second highest scorer for the week putting up 30 big ones and everyones favourite QB Tom Brady an excellent 22.

That rounds...

Alright, time to get this discussion back on track. Monday night is brownlow night. The night of nights, where the big names of footy come out to play, maybe even cause a little bit of a stir(ven seagal?- no, that play on words is even bad by my standards!)

Now, I believe there has been some interest in gathering round, with our betting stubs, and cheering on our picks as at least one of us goes on to win thousands.

Well, thats the dream anyways.

So- the question comes back to- where? and what time? should be do this thing. Being a married guy with three kids who lives out in the sticks, Im completely out of the loop when it comes to making the call on a location here, so Im hoping that you lot can work out somewhere, central, that we can all congregate.

Also of note- its my birthday the day before, so you all owe me a beer. Cheers, that is all.

On the strength of the entries to the informal comp, heres our best team. Knowing that none of us are as smart as all of us (and forgiving my demotion of Selwood...):

B,Enright,Lake,Frawley
HB,Hodge,Taylor,Goddard
C,Montagna Swan,Judd
HF,Didak,Pavlich,Chapman
F,Le Cras,J Riewoldt Hall
RUC,Sandilands Selwood Ablett
INT,Pendlebury Boyd,
,Franklin,Hayes/Kelly,

If you want to put a late entry in, heres the spot.
The side is announced tonight.

We have now set the draft date and time for the 30th September at 10pm AEST, and not long after, the first trade was accepted!

Firstly, thanks to everyone who replied to me about the draft date. 18 coaches gave some input, and there was overwhelming support for the 30th, however unfortunately ElBonz will most probably not be able to make it live.

Out of all that replied, ElBonz was the only one that could not make it on the 30th; and one other said that they preferred a weekend but could still make it on a Thursday evening. Yesterday I sent an email out to all that were happy with the 30th and asked if everyone could also attend on the 23rd if we had it that day, however 2 people out of the first few that replied could not do the 23rd, so i decided to stick with what we first planned, and go with the 30th. Also, as pointed out by Steve, the Grand Final Footy Show is on the 23rd September, so it probably wouldnt be a good night for us on that factor alone.

So at the time of writing this, we have approximately 17 days, 4 hours and 7 minutes to go until our draft begins!


***  Now, the next thing i want to organise is the conferences.

As some of you have realised, the league is set up into two conferences. Originally they were called East and West, and then changed to Fez conference and not fez conference after Fez had complained about being in the West ... Then I changed them to A and B. In my opinion, the names are not so important, however we can choose names for them so we may as well discuss it in the comments.

** What is important, is who is in each conference. This is important because, contrary to what i first thought, Im pretty sure the top 4 teams from each conference make the playoffs, as distinct from the top 8 teams in the league.

At the moment the first 10 teams that i sent invites to are in one conference and the other 10 are in the other. We can leave it at that, however Im interested to know what everyone thinks...

So, were moving towards the shiny new version of TooSerious. New and Improved are the two thoughts that come to mind. But as always, I cant go into a redesign without shaking up whats there.

So Im doing two things. Firstly, Im giving you a sneak peak into what Ive been working on, and two, Im asking for the input of any budding designers out there.

Ive got a layout which Im fairly happy with, maybe even a colour scheme that Ill be sticking with- what I dont have is a new banner to run with.

So if there is anyone out there who might be interested in helping out, I would love for you to drop me an <a href="mailto:too.serious.team.management@gmail.com">email[/url]

Anyways, the new design is over the page
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<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TS30_example.png" alt="" />

Same live chat time.

Same live chat place.

Well, technically- different live chat place, cause its in this post- not last weeks post.

So, only two games this week- I gotta say, it felt weird going through last week without putting up all the usual posts.

Ah well- who do we think is gunna take it out? Last week I predicted a Geelong romping... maybe I was just a week off? (Though I will be rooting for the Dockers tonight! Carn you underdogs!)

Also, the NFL is kicking off shortly, so those involved in that- yay!. By the way, Im currently trying to pick a team to support over in the NFL, so if youve got any suggestions/reasoning- let us know!

The EPL is back this weekend, so dont forget to get your trades done (and you IKTSs in!)

I had planned to fire up the discussion on Tennis fantasy sports this week, but time wasnt my friend- so I hope youve had youre thinking caps on, cause youve got a couple of extra days to think about it.

Anyways- its certainly a multi-sportual world now that the AFL is winding down isnt it. Still not enough to fill the gap properly though!

Just thought Id point this out to you guys, cause entries close on Monday.

The AFL are running a quick little comp based on putting together the best AA team of the last decade. As judges by Scotty Lucas.

You can sign up for it <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/aflhq/awards/allaustralian/allaustralianteamofthe2000s/tabid/16550/default.aspx">Here[/url]

For the record, Ive gone with the following-

Fletcher, Scarlett, Wanganeen
Archer, Leppitsch, McLeod

Buckley, Black, Voss
Cox, Goodes, Judd

Carey, Tredrea, Hird
Ablett, Lloyd, Johnson

Sandilands, Ricciuto, Brown, Cousins

So get in there.

<a href="http://www.sideways.com.au/"><img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sideways.jpg">[/url]

Well, it appears that while I keep getting distracted, theres still two more competitions on this site that I need to give away. So were gunna clear one of those up right now with the announcing of the Sideways cup winner.

Now as a remind for you all, the sideway cup is awarded to the Supercoach team who posts the highest score throughout the year. Entrants must have entered their tid code into the system and then I was picking up your scores on a weekly basis.

The grand prize was a $500 corporate event voucher from the good folk over at <a href="http://www.sideways.com.au/">Sideways[/url]. And hey, even if youre not a winner, give them a look-see, it really does look like a hell of a lot of fun, in fact, Ill be passing their details onto the social club when I get back to the office cause hey- it does look like fun.

But, there can only be one winner (And boy, I sure hope they are Melbourne based ) - and that winner is none other that TeriakiAnarkiSaki, whos score of 2689 in round 12 was the highest round score of anyone on this site. It was a big round that round 12, with the majority of our top 20 scores coming from it. I guess a combination of having just completed all your upgrades, before getting too struck by injury, with a pair of 200+ scores and big scores from Swan, Rioli, Bartel, Hodge, Kelly, Goddard, Dal Santo, Cooney, Malceski, Giansiracua, Sandilands, Podsiadly and Hall were enough to get many squads up there in the ranking.

Congratulations mate, that was one heck of a good score- you can expect an email from me in the not too distant future to get your details.

Once again, I would like to thank the guys at <a href="http://www.sideways.com.au">Sideways[/url], it was a good competition to have running throughout the year.

Welcome to Game Week 4 all, hope the International break wasnt too boring for everyone.

I just want to start by again mentioning the <a href="http://www.arsenalaustralia.com.au">Arsenal Australia Club[/url] for all you Victorian based gOOners out there. We have meets at the Celtic Club (corner of Queen St &amp; La Trobe St) in the city and there is a meet this week for the game at the Emirates to Bolton on Saturday night. I will be there a bit early to watch the last half of the Manure game but I encourage everyone to come down as there is a fantastic atmosphere and we have a great time. I was the only one representing TooSerious last week, so get down there and support the Arsenal, sing a song, have a few pints and have some fun with us. Let me know if you plan on attending so we can catch up for a beer or two.

Now the news is that Lampard is a certainty to start against his old club; West Ham United, which can only make it even worse for the Hammers who are rapidily shortening with the bookies to be relegated. Terry is also available and Bosingwa is ready for a return as well. Dirk Kuyt from Liverpool is out with a shoulder for 4 or so weeks and from Arsenal, we have both Walcott and Van Persie (again) are out for 2 and 6 weeks respectively. Schwarzer and Duff from Fulham are expected to return this week, while Andy Carroll is in doubt for the Jordies.

Alex Baptiste from Blackpool is doubt with a hand injury, while Richards, Balotelli and Boateng have all been cleared to return for City. Frasier Campbell has been confirmed as being out for the season with a knee injury for Sunderland, while Dawson is out for 8 weeks with a knee for Tottenham. Thomas Hitzlsperger is right to return for the Hammers while Steven Ireland is out for an extended period with a hamstring for the Villians. Rio Ferdinand and Anderson are both right to return for Man Utd, while Sorrenson and Saha are both out for extended periods with elbow and knee injuries for Stoke and...