Archive for the ‘Editorials’ Category
In this third instalment of the series, we continue to look at the issues around the death of Football Manager Live game worlds. This week: it’s time to take a look at the Football Associations and other competitions that are taking place in the game worlds. Do we need more? Is there any purpose behind them? Can we fix what we have? By taking a look at each of these areas we can try and establish what needs fixing, what needs changing, and whether we are heading in the right direction. DYM and Other Cash Cows Double Your Money? Seriously, what were you thinking? How the communities let this get so out of control is beyond me – so many people who had no chance…
The dust has finally settled and most Football Manager Live users have upgraded their clients to the newest build. It was a pretty hectic release day for FML v1.3 on October 7th – the usual characters on the official forums eagerly checking in every few minutes for a status update, when game worlds would finally be up and eventually, of course, coming on to vent about their inability to patch the game properly. After the debacle that was the v1.2 deployment that made late June a frustrating experience for managers, we were satisfactory with the response from Sports Interactive as they admitted “it was’t good enough”. Given the opportunity to correct their short-comings…
Last week we started this series, looking at the reasons behind the perception of dying game worlds. As mentioned, this week we’ll take a look at the common suggestion of game world mergers or larger game worlds. Both of these are touted on the forums as the obvious ‘wonder cure’ for dying game worlds. Are they? Would it make any difference? Is it even feasible? We’ll look at those questions and more this week, as we continue to unravel the fundamental issues behind the perception of dying gameworlds. Larger Game Worlds Are they possible, would they solve anything? “Larger GWs is something we certainly want to try, though we need to do further…
Over the course of the last few months there is one common thread theme that continues to crop up, a quick look over any page of the general forum will show at least one thread dedicated to a discussion about the death of game worlds, if not the death of FML itself. Is there any point to them? Is there any truth to them? There are certainly enough of them, and enough people commenting in them to suggest an issue worth looking at. What they don’t have though is a united common reason; there is no resounding single issue that identifies why the game worlds might be dying. Instead there are a number of different issues around the game play and the activity levels…
The Soul of a Gameworld – The Community Football Manager Live (FML) has always been a game in which the more you put in the more you get out. Each person in the GameWorld (GW) plays their part in making the community and the community is the one thing that holds the GW together. If you’re active in the chat rooms, be it the lobby or your Football Association chatroom then you can talk to other guys from all different backgrounds. The more you immerse yourself into the chatrooms, the more you’ll find banter. Banter, not to be confused with abuse or heated arguments, is for me the very heart of why FML is a success. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good argument – if…
I’m talking to all of you who complain about AI percentages. I’m talking to all of you who say “this is Football Manager Live” as if this catch phrase gives you moral authority. And I’m especially talking to those of you who think that incredibly harsh AI penalties will make the game fairer. You’re wrong. It’s OK to admit. I know it’s not your fault. You hear the people moaning in the chat rooms, it snowballs, and before you know it you’re thinking the same. People who play with their AI aren’t trying, right? They haven’t done anything to deserve their results? They might as well play FM09? You’re wrong. Hate to break this to you, but…
The last couple of weeks have shown some unprecedented debates in the general forums, beyond the usual moans about moderators or specific areas of game play like the match engine. Now the masses have turned their focus upon the development process and the levels of communication between the games developers and the playing customers. “The Customer is always right!” Sorry to disillusion you all, but that’s simply not true. If we walk away from the service counter for a bit and step into the back office you’ll find more often than not that the opposite is the reality. It’s a saying that is trotted out to the masses to keep them appeased keeping customers…
In this recent post on The Fernandez GW Blog, Tanel Tursk comments on the crisis in quality regens in the live gameworlds and asks what that holds for the future of FML’s long-term playability. I and obviously many other managers are quite convinced that for FML to be able to hold gameworlds that go on for more than 10 seasons, the regen model needs a huge fix: and that should really be the main issue for the game developers. In this recent post on the official forums, I gave my view on this issue. It does not really take a Einstein to see how every gameworld gets fewer and fewer quality players over time. There are many reasons for that; but I think solutions…
