Painful---Here comes the feedback...

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by KJ Duke:
quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
Thanks to all the Gamers League participants who took my call today and gave me honest assessments of last night's draft. As Mark pointed out above, this league seemed to have more issues with the que and what was happening there than anything we've seen so far and it's something we'll look into. Thanks for the feedback there.

The other points we're looking into now and trying to make three quick changes to help the NFFC drafts immediately. If we can get these done I think we'll be headed in a more positive direction. It involves removing the placement ad and putting in the previous picks and making the top grid more useable. I should have an update soon on all of this and hopefully a timetable.

Again, thanks for the feedback all and for the few owners I didn't talk to today let me know when you're free and I'll call tomorrow. I'll even sponsor a Gamers League 2 with some type of prize once the room has the new features. You don't all have to return, but the gesture is out there for all to take me up on. Thanks for the call Greg. I'll take you up on a sponsored G2 league if/when the draft room is improved as we discussed. What's the prize gonna be ... Ryan in an ice cold dunk dank? My arm feels pretty good. [/QUOTE]Are you sure your tired old arm can still hit the target? Glad to hear you'd consider another online draft. Let's see if the improvements meet the standards yet that you folks wanted and then go from there. When or if it does, then we can set a night to do this and hell I'll even participate as will Tom if all 14 owners can't partake. I'll fight for that prize, whatever it is. Let's do it.

The cool thing about calling all of you folks yesterday was that you knew I wasn't trying to bullsh*t you. I admitted what and why things didn't go well and I have to accept whatever decisions you folks make because of it. But I wasn't going to hide and act like our past friendships would just save the day. Sometimes you have to admit your faults, apologize and promise to make it better.

I asked to make it better and soon. I hope we can do that. But I have to rely on our IT team to get this done and we go from there. I'm not a programmer as you all know; hell, I'm computer illiterate!! I hope more phone calls aren't needed, but if so, I do have all of you in my Circle of Friends service now!! We can talk about this for a looooooooooooong time.

Thanks again and let's see if we can get this right.

[Quahogs]

Wow...the hysteria of it all. Amazing. That and the only thing I got out of the 13 pages was that someone felt the need to post a private email on a public MB. Disappointing.

[Tony Clifton]

Originally posted by Quahogs:
Wow...the hysteria of it all. Amazing. That and the only thing I got out of the 13 pages was that someone felt the need to post a private email on a public MB. Disappointing. On the contrary, my egg shaped Quahogial compadre...I thought these 13 pages were extremely useful. Being out of bathroom tissue, I printed up these 13 pages and brought them to the bathroom. They nearly clogged the toilet, and a few of the paper cuts were extremely odd, but the pages in this thread served it's purpose.

Tony Clifton out.

[Quahogs]

Originally posted by Tony Clifton:
quote:Originally posted by Quahogs:
Wow...the hysteria of it all. Amazing. That and the only thing I got out of the 13 pages was that someone felt the need to post a private email on a public MB. Disappointing. On the contrary, my egg shaped Quahogial compadre...I thought these 13 pages were extremely useful. Being out of bathroom tissue, I printed up these 13 pages and brought them to the bathroom. They nearly clogged the toilet, and a few of the paper cuts were extremely odd, but the pages in this thread served it's purpose.

Tony Clifton out. [/QUOTE]Yah, :rolleyes: blame the paper my SI friend. Sure it didnt have something to do with that late night Taco Bell drive by hit from yesterday ?

[kjduke]

Quahogs AND Tony Clifton check-in! That's alone is worth the 13-page thread.

Q, quit studying baseball and trying to kick my ass in every lge and start your football prep.

Tony, next time u play a club in SD give me a heads up.

[ August 07, 2010, 06:56 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]

[Quahogs]

ahh KJ, this is my football prep for this year

[kjduke]

Originally posted by Quahogs:


ahh KJ, this is my football prep for this year this would be more appropriate ...

[Sandman62]

I've been working extra hours a lot this past week since the GAMERS DC, so I haven't had time to do a thorough review. I'll offer this brief one now tho...

I think the biggest problem for us was not having an electronic draft board. We were manually writing one (and color coding it), which took time. Couple that w/ some of the issues in the draft room (having to click several times to select players sometimes, having the first player in our queue get hidden and unable to select him to draft, etc.) and there was minimal time left to make our pick when it was our turn. Too much time spent navigating the site and not enough left for reviewing our spreadsheets to prep for our upcoming picks.

We're in the slow draft now and w/ the draft board available, I don't even use the Draft Summary anymore. I LOVE the colored grid (which they obviously "borrowed" from fantasyfootballcalculator)!

Overall, once they ditch the ads and tweak a few things, I think they have a pretty slick draft tool. But I agree that a GAMERS 2 DC is in line, as that first experience was a rough ride for sure.

Once I get through this week at work, I'll try to offer more detailed input on some other suggestions.

Also, in the league home page where we view our draft results, is the Draft Board from the draft room available? I find that the easiest way to review.

Lastly, though I know Greg and Tom have heard this a lot already, I'll repeat... had this been released to a small beta test group where no money was on the line, it probably would've been well received and people would be excited about helping it improve. But rushing it out in time for pay leagues wasn't fair to your customers. Offering a redo on the GAMERS league was the right gesture though. This is a devout group of gamers here and none of them should have to feel like they can't compete this year due to the draft tool's inefficiencies.

Thanks,
Mike

[ August 08, 2010, 08:14 AM: Message edited by: Sandman62 ]

[Tom Kessenich]

Mike, when you say electronic draft board do you mean a roster grid or a draft summary? The roster grid wasn't ready for Wednesday nights drafts unfortunately but the draft summary was available and has some very nice features on it. We understand, however, that to utilize the draft summary you had to click off the player list feature which many drafters prefer not to do. We have added processes to the site which now allow you to track the draft, keep the player list open and even use the roster grid and the chat all on one screen. Greg and I have talked about those additions in the thread Greg created on Friday.

Should all of that have been ready for our first pay leagues? Yes and we do apologize for the issues the Gamers League participants had. Nobody feels worse about that than Greg and I because we don't want anyone in any of our leagues to have a bad experience.

We'll see what happens tonight with our next batch of drafts. I've been mocking on the site all weekend and I think the functionality is as good as I've seen on any site I've used and more than capable of providing a positive experience for anyone who participates in our online leagues this year. But I'm not the one putting my money on the line so we'll see how the three drafts go tonight and whether those involved feel comfortable with the draft room.