Hello Magical People!
I'm very excited that we are actually live with signups for The OWL League! This has been a game that has been brewing in the back of my mind for the last year or so, and it's exciting to see it out in the world and hearing all the wonderful feedback I've been receiving since launching.
I wanted to get a few thoughts across for folks thinking about signing up or just more interested in the process and what has been going on behind the scenes with the development of The OWL League.
Play at Your Pace
We've been getting a lot of feedback over concerns about the amount of time required to play this game. My ask is minimal: 30 minutes every other day. You may put in more time into the game if you would like, but you do not have to.
Megagames have an inherent commitment of being in a place and exhaustively interacting for the entire length that you are at an event. That would be impossible for this game. We are not in a physical setting and we are not playing over the course of 8 hours. The purpose of playing over two weeks is to give people time to breathe and come back to it when they are able. It's not to force people to be on and active for 15 consecutive days. We are not expecting anyone to have to take zoom calls everyday or answer every message at all hours of the night. In general, the experience is meant to be fun not another job.
If you're like me, you may get obsessed with looking at stats, following reports and listening to hours of podcasts and TV before meeting up for my Fantasy Football draft. If you're like my wife, you may roll up to the draft and just pick which players have the coolest hair. My hope is that both types of players can feel comfortable playing this game. (sidebar: my wife went on to the Championship match that year. I didn't make the playoffs😂🙃).
Fun Earns You The Most Points
If there is anything I want folks to come away with is a sense that they had fun playing this game. That may seem obvious, but sports in particular can sometimes cause unnecessarily heated exchanges and a distinct lack of fun. The hope of this game is to allow for a space that can provide healthy competition and a let people pretend to be wizards for, like, a second.
So the title to this section is meant to describe one of the key pillars of The OWL League: Fun Earns You The Most Points. Players that come up with fun ideas will be rewarded. Players that come up with ways to hurt other players will not.
I've always believed that there were so many fun parts to sports that people avoid because of jocks and toxic culture around games. This game is my way of bringing out what's fun about sports to more people. We're here to make sports as nerdy as possible. They're going to be fantasy, witches, and dragons, and things that you would not expect would go with sports. But I hope that after you play this game you'll find more similarities than differences.
New Horizons
Some of what we are trying will be new for all of us. There have been Megagames in the past that have tried to persist for multiple days and for even longer than two weeks. But we are also trying some things with technology that we're hoping will help enhance the experience. In some cases this may fail. I simply ask that you roll with the punches with us and we'll do our best to keep things on track when things falls apart.
We're hoping that some of the features of Discord will actually allow for helpful communication while also giving players the space away from the game as needed. Players should be able to set notifications for the Discord at their convenience, so that they do not feel the obligation of having to answer every message that comes their way. We're also looking at some ways that discord has to make things feel less harried or overwhelming. More on that when the Discord Server goes live.
If you've made it this far down and you're still interested in playing, you can sign up here! We'll see you at opening day!