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Board » General Discussion » Sailonline Yacht Club (SYC) Rankings

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<quote>
What is next? We will be discussing the rules to get promoted or demoted?

</quote>

Either that, or we will be discussing where to do our online sailing. Forgive me if I sound blunt, I don't mean to be. But let me juggle some numbers for you as a wake up call.

One year ago in August we had the New Zealand offshore race. For that race 645 boats registered and 506 actually set sail. The August Transat 2009 boasted 891 registrations of which 832 set sail.

This year's Auckland Regional drew just 254 registrations with only 183 departures. The Transat received 398 registrations, (about) 342 of which are active.

In one year's time, SOL has lost well over a hundred of its paying members. About one hundred more paying members have not been active during the last 25 - 30 races, that's going back to April or May. Changes of those renewing their subscribtion are slim. Also, the number of non-paying participants is down by a lot, which means attracting sponsors will be harder than ever before. AFAICT, Sailport management is down to just two persons and for all intents and purposes development has ceased.

Evidently, Sailonline in its current form has lost much of its appeal to too many of its past participants. I can never be sure that game dominance is the cause, but I'll bet you a nickel it is a major contributing factor.

Change has to come, if it's not too late already.

Cheers,
Philip

Alright I sense a topic drift. Schakel, you are right that Sailonline needs to continue to evolve. Some agreements and disagreements:

1) I do agree that we should try to find different ways to make the races even more engaging, divisions and "clans" are good ways to do this IMO (we can still have an overall leaderboard in addition).

2) Sailonline is keeping a steady activity, but we're not growing which I agree is a problem. SYC membership has been steady (except for a while when we didn't invalidate outdated memberships for about 5 months). Not growing is not good but we do not have a decline either. Web statistics are same as last year during this period.

3) While we do not do revolutionary changes, the system does evolve, during this week I've released two new versions of the client with fixes contributed by brainaid. We have also recieved much help from RainbowChaser for the race setup and planning (and a lot of other things, thanks!).

4) Just using this point to say that please don't see this post as me being defensive, I just want to clarify a few things, I do read and listen to what you say!




--- Last Edited by Kalle Haglunds at 2010-08-09 14:42:42 ---
Thanks for the clarification, Kalle, as well as for easing some of my concerns.

Cheers,
Philip
Definitely two topics overlapping...

"Do we want to adjust the way the SYC ranking works?" - simple discussion, but no real consensus emerging, and fleet will probably be happy with whatever option is implemented. Divisions (rank only, no split in fleet) might spice things up a bit. No risk.

I think it's clear from a number of responses that people are concerned about participation rates/health of SOL, and maybe feel that playing with the rankings isn't enough to revitalize things, or that it will make thing worse. This should probably be split off into another discussion, but it's a topic that does come up anytime rankings/routing/races/changes are discussed.

SOL has the stats of course, but if SYC membership is static, surely overall participation is down? Also membership numbers may lag participation by up to a year. Horses/barn door.
Attachments
In theory I understand the appeal of classes in practice though I think it will be very difficult to define who belongs to each class.

The ones that are so insecure with themselves will not rest until the fleet is sliced and diced in a way they get the glorious podium. Big deal.

By them the membership will be so diluted that the podium will mean nothing. It is just like inflation. In a third world country we all are millionaires but all that million buys you is a cup of coffee.

I rather know that I am 20th or 50th or 200th in the raking against the very best than the winner of class Y or Z or W.

What else you need a diploma with your name in bold letters to hang in the wall?

Come on guys I tought we are all grown ups here way past the age of discovery.

Keep SOL the way it is, simple, clever, elegant. There are other ways to increase membership.

Regards,
Antonio (zero)















I love racing with all experiences of IRL and SOL sailer.. I personally would have had no incentive to stay with SOL last year if, as a newbie, I was relegated to race only with poor racers. I wanted and still want to race against the best - that I nap and dog-walk and sleep through updates and don't understand routers means, simply, that I get the best result I can expect to get!!

One thing I think WOULD be fun is if there were a race for those who are the top 50 maybe in rankings??

Lets see the top guys, routing or not, duke it out!!

:-)

Hi All,

I personally think that the homepage needs to be spiced up to attract new players.
When I first looked at SOL when I was playing the other game I went to the homepage and all I saw was a small screenshot map and couldnt make out to much detail. I think a decent screenshot or at least a link to a full page map would have got me interested alot earlier.
Sell the benfits of SOL and tell people WHY they should be playing. SOL has alot to offer real sailors and gamers so pointing out the features and benefits may get more people interested. Some Google optimization of the homepage may help people searching online sailing games find SOL. Its a numbers game so the more people that see the game you at least have a chance of some playing.

Cheers Undercover
<quote>
I love racing with all experiences of IRL and SOL sailer.. I personally would have had no incentive to stay with SOL last year if, as a newbie, I was relegated to race only with poor racers. I wanted and still want to race against the best -

</quote>

Please read my proposal again. You would NOT be relegated to racing only poor racers. As I wrote earlier, class racing is an ADDITIONAL ranking system that would exist next to the current one. Everybody would still be racing everybody, however, it would create space for some of the other options I outlined.

It is not aimed at the every race sailor competing for top places nor is it intended to reduce any of their efforts. It is intended solely to give the sailor who has to work full-time with little or no internet access, needs 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, has to take their kids to soccer practice, walk the dog, mow the lawn and do all sorts of other stuff, an incentive, a purpose, an opportunity to keep racing against competitors of similar fate AS WELL AS against the addicted, alarm clock setting top performers.

My final comments on the subject.
Philip
hello all!!!!;-)
I do agree with zero!!!!!
Come on guys we r having fun all together!!!!!
I dont understand where the problem is??? we r having the ranking that we deserve!!!!!!
You cant pretend being on a podium if you r not good !!!! that's the game guys and sport is the same!!!! so we r all together having a great time : racing, talking about diffrent strategies..meeting great sailors and making jokes!!!!!
It s a game!!!!
So please dont change anything!!!!!
OH yes you could do a special "girl ranking" we will be in pink!!!!( than I will be number one!!!!lollllll ) IT S A JOKE!!!!! lollllllllllllllllllllllll
kathleen
MO-PAYEPAYE
hotstuff is my cousin!!!!! that 's for the answer who is the mysterious hotstuff !!!!! lolllllllllllllllll
MO-PAYEPAYE

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As there is a lull in the calendar, your PRO has decided to risk an experiment – a balloon race over land, using a workaround to eliminate the recognition of water/land transitions. If it fails, the server may crash, and we abandon PDQ, hopefully after leg 7 of the ABS race to Suez has been decided, and before the start of the 1st OCC of Q4. Camel or Balloon – c 1000 nm from a field on the north bank of the Blue Nile at Khartoum to a field on the north bank of the Chari River at N'Djamena!
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