Warrior General Games

Starts today against Papua New Guinea.

I was going to make this announcement closer to the end of the season, but I'm getting enough questions from team members about next season already, that I have decided now is as good a time as any . . .

This will be my last season as owner of Tonga.

This has been mulled over for a few weeks now, but solidified with this season's bortifications and DC recent turnit's retirement from Tonga's DC position. There are been a couple of different reasons for making this decision.

1. Frustration with the state of the game. It simply takes too much time and energy and research to reinvent the wheel every season . . . and doing so has stolen much of the joy of the game.

2. Declining agent participation. I'm not blaming anyone. I understand agent's frustrations, and the lack of excitement as players age and the team struggles in the playoffs. A large reason why Tonga started was as a fun outlet for a bunch of Seahawk's fans, many of whom are still associated with the team. But I sense that it has ceased to be "fun" for many of us, and I can't feel good keeping many of them hostage to team expectations.

3. Turnit's resignation. While I appreciate the efforts of my GM's to fill some of the gaps, I have come to view Tonga as a partnership between Turnit and I, and without his involvement, it feels incomplete in some sense. In no sense is Turnit to blame for selling Tonga, but it is simply more than one person can handle, especially when Turnit has played such a vital role in building Tonga.

4. Real Life issues. We are all living in a different world than 8 months ago when we started this thing. Money is tough to come buy, and choices need to be made. FOr me, this reality is complicated as I am finishing graduate school and looking for (get ready for this) pastoral positions in churches. It simply is not a good time to be focused on anything other than finding God's call on my life, as well as seeking out some stability for my family after three and half years of utter chaos.

There's probably more, but basically it comes down to the fact that I do not want to invest the time, money and energy into an enterprise that no longer gives the payout it once did.

Ideally, there would be someone on the team willing and able to purchase the team and keep the dream alive. Barring that (and I'm guessing most of them are in similar circumstances as myself) we will disband the team at the end of the season. We have a Circle of Owners I am associated with and I am trying to steer players towards those teams, so try not to get your hopes up too much as you vulture the dying corpse, and at least have the decency to wait until the end of the regular season.

Beyond that, I want to finish this season strong. I am committed to getting Tonga as far as we possibly can. With the help of GM's and a few active agents, I know we have the talent to do some damage.

Feel free to ask questions, vent, weep, scream, and laugh hysterically at my sappy goodbye . . .

Good Luck, GG . . . and I expect everyone to take it easy on us and let us win the championship

Post Script . . . a note from Turnit (permission granted to copy and paste from our team forum):

Guys, I wanted to chime in here as well.

Real life has tapped me recently so I didn't really have much choice, but it's killed me to have to relinquish the D. I've been very proud of the work we've all done and have become quite attached to the Tonga D as it's evolved.

Through conversations with Mcgruff and hints he's dropped in the past, this outcome was a known possibility. That doesn't make it any less sad. I really wish I had the time to pour into things here as I have in the past - it's been a joy and a challenge to roll with the game's changes and try to keep this team contending with the best. Looking into the future of the game makes the decision to step away that much tougher as I see it getting even more strategic and detailed and, eventually, more stable.

My vision for this team was to carry it much further along and had initially expressed interest in purchasing it from McGruff should we reach this point. I cannot do that now though.

I'm still struck by the dumb luck I had to stumble onto this bunch back in season 1 when I didn't know any of you KFFLers and how fortunate I have been - how fortunate we all have been - to end up with an owner that had his head on straight from day 1.

My guys will likely continue on in GLB for a while - where ever they end up if Tonga does disband - and someday down the road I hope to make a comeback as a DC again ... Tonga 2, Electric Boogaloo??

Anyway, thanks to all of you that have made this team what it is and for making it so easy to succeed.

Good luck to everyone.

Turnit

I have to say I'm very sorry to see this happen. We're the noobs on the block, but have quickly developed a lot of respect for you guys in a short time frame.

It's been awesome, Gruff, Bmore and Turnit really know how to run a team.
It might be end of Tonga, but as a group we stay together, no matter where we'll end up (thank god for private forums )

Dam biggest loss in Oceania Pro History

Originally posted by McGruffHawk
Starts today against Papua New Guinea.

I was going to make this announcement closer to the end of the season, but I'm getting enough questions from team members about next season already, that I have decided now is as good a time as any . . .

This will be my last season as owner of Tonga.

This has been mulled over for a few weeks now, but solidified with this season's bortifications and DC recent turnit's retirement from Tonga's DC position. There are been a couple of different reasons for making this decision.

1. Frustration with the state of the game. It simply takes too much time and energy and research to reinvent the wheel every season . . . and doing so has stolen much of the joy of the game.

2. Declining agent participation. I'm not blaming anyone. I understand agent's frustrations, and the lack of excitement as players age and the team struggles in the playoffs. A large reason why Tonga started was as a fun outlet for a bunch of Seahawk's fans, many of whom are still associated with the team. But I sense that it has ceased to be "fun" for many of us, and I can't feel good keeping many of them hostage to team expectations.

3. Turnit's resignation. While I appreciate the efforts of my GM's to fill some of the gaps, I have come to view Tonga as a partnership between Turnit and I, and without his involvement, it feels incomplete in some sense. In no sense is Turnit to blame for selling Tonga, but it is simply more than one person can handle, especially when Turnit has played such a vital role in building Tonga.

4. Real Life issues. We are all living in a different world than 8 months ago when we started this thing. Money is tough to come buy, and choices need to be made. FOr me, this reality is complicated as I am finishing graduate school and looking for (get ready for this) pastoral positions in churches. It simply is not a good time to be focused on anything other than finding God's call on my life, as well as seeking out some stability for my family after three and half years of utter chaos.

There's probably more, but basically it comes down to the fact that I do not want to invest the time, money and energy into an enterprise that no longer gives the payout it once did.

Ideally, there would be someone on the team willing and able to purchase the team and keep the dream alive. Barring that (and I'm guessing most of them are in similar circumstances as myself) we will disband the team at the end of the season. We have a Circle of Owners I am associated with and I am trying to steer players towards those teams, so try not to get your hopes up too much as you vulture the dying corpse, and at least have the decency to wait until the end of the regular season.

Beyond that, I want to finish this season strong. I am committed to getting Tonga as far as we possibly can. With the help of GM's and a few active agents, I know we have the talent to do some damage.

Feel free to ask questions, vent, weep, scream, and laugh hysterically at my sappy goodbye . . .

Good Luck, GG . . . and I expect everyone to take it easy on us and let us win the championship

I completely understand where you're coming from. PNG really needs a win today.

We've loved our time here as a part of O-Pro and will be watching and rooting for you all in the future.

will you be keeping some of your personal players active and under your control?

It is getting very tough to run a team, with all of the changes that constantly take place you have to invest a lot of time into keeping up. I see a lot of people that express the same problems with ownership. Until this game settles down to a finished product it is only going to get tougher. I won't go into how hard recruiting is, if you have ever done it you already know.

I have enjoyed being with Tonga even if for a short while and look forward to working with gruff and all the Tonga guys in the near future

Is this another MTD-style ruse? I hope so.....I really hope so

wow that sucks, HUGE loss for O Pro.

totally understand though, hope you dont disappear entirely.

Originally posted by SCACE
Is this another MTD-style ruse? I hope so.....I really hope so

me too

Not a joke.

... and many of our agents will be keeping players active - I don't know which agents or which of their players. I know most will probably be retiring some older players to fund younger ones for a while.

Originally posted by turkishkamel
wow that sucks, HUGE loss for O Pro.

totally understand though, hope you dont disappear entirely.

HUGE loss. Anyway another Gm can step in and take things over to keep club together?

Originally posted by nautilus
HUGE loss. Anyway another Gm can step in and take things over to keep club together?
Explored that, didn't work out.