How To Play HollyStock
You're just a few minutes away from becoming a HollyStock Tycoon!
1. Create or Join a League
Once you have created your free HollyStock account, you need to create or join a league. This can be done from the My Leagues page.
If you Create a League, you will be the commissioner of that league and can create the rules and invite friends to play. If you Find a League to join, someone else will handle the commissioner duties so you can concentrate on your team.
Clicking on Find a League will bring up the open leagues screen. It's important to note that leagues can be either Public or Private. Anyone can join a Public league and some Public leagues are "Official HollyStock Leagues" where the money you earn can go towards winning the annual championship. Private leagues require a password and are by invitation only.
When you find an available public league that you want to join, click the Join button. Your league can be made up of friends, family, or complete strangers (but hopefully not strangers for long!). These are the people that you will be competing against for the duration of your league.
2. Start Building Your Team
Every league has a start date and time along with an end date. Nobody can begin buying or selling celebrities until the league officially starts. When you visit the My Leagues page, you will see a countdown for any league that hasn't begun yet. Once your league "opens", you can start buying celebrities.
Once your league is officially open, you can begin to buy and sell celebrities. Think of your team as your stock portfolio. There are 2 ways in which your Net Worth is calculated. First, your available cash is calculated. When you sell a celebrity, you will get that celebrity's current value back in cash. You can only buy celebrities with the cash that you have.
The second factor that goes into determining your Net Worth is the current valuation of your portfolio. This means that HollyStock will add up the current values of any celebs that you currently own. That current value plus your available cash make up your Net Worth. The person with the highest Net Worth in your league when your league ends is the winner.
You can change your team name at any time during your league. Click on the pencil icon on the right side of the page to edit your team name. You can also quickly look up the availability of a celebrity by clicking on the Celebrity Quick Search button on the right.
3. Your Team Page: Buying and Selling Celebrities
On your team page, you will see your portfolio listed like below:
Each league has it's own settings, but you can only own as many celebs as your league allows. Only 1 person in your league can own a celebrity at one time. In this example above, Angelina Jolie is owned by your team. Her current value is $152,000. If you clicked the "Sell" button, you would receive $152,000 in cash for her. Beneath her name is a link to view her chart and read up on her current news. Underneath that is the price that you originally paid for her and the date that you bought her. This is useful to know whether or not you made or lost money on this celeb.
If you have an available spot in your portfolio, you will see a "Buy" button. Clicking on that button will take you to the buy page.
Buying a Celebrity
1. Search Options
The current HollyStock index is displayed by default. Here you can page through current celebrity values. You can also search by specific price ranges, celebrity names, or 30-day total values. The 30 Day Totals is the amount of money a celebrity has earned over the past 30 days.
2. Celebrity Availability
A "Cannot Afford" icon next to a celebrity means that you do not have enough cash to buy this celeb. A "Waiver" icon means that this celebrity is not available for purchase right now but will be later. A "Taken" icon means that someone else in your league already owns this celeb. A "Select" button means that this is a celebrity that is available for purchase.
3. Current Cash
This is how much cash you currently have to spend. If you need to raise cash, you'll need to sell off celebrities that you already own.
4. Buying Block
This is the celebrity up for purchase. If the celebrity's current value is $0, you may purchase that celebrity for the league minimum of $1,000. Clicking the BUY button here will put that celebrity into your portfolio and remove him/her from the league's market.
Helpful Questions
A commissioner is someone who is in charge of the league. Any disputes can be handled by the commissioner. This also means that a commissioner has authority over any player in the league and may, at his/her discretion, modify portfolios, add/subtract cash amounts, remove players, change league settings, and monitor league messages on the message board.
A Waiver refers to the fact that a player has sold a celebrity (waived his/her rights to that celeb) and that celebrity is currently unavailable for purchase. By default, a celebrity is unavailable for 24 hours from the minute he/she is sold, but this can be changed in the League Settings by your commissioner. Once the waiver period is up, the celebrity can be purchased by anyone in the league. A league can also be set so that a celeb can only be purchased once...ever!
What is "Banking"?
Banking is the term given to the selling of a celebrity and keeping the cash. For example, as you progress in your league, you may find that you now have enough cash to purchase any celebrity on the market. When you sell a celebrity, you are "banking" that cash and stabilizing your Net Worth. The celebrities in your portfolio are volatile and can go either up or down in value depending on the day. Your cash reserves don't fluctuate.
