Archive for the ‘Editorials’ Category
During my time playing FML I’ve noticed a rather interesting trend that usually starts to appear towards the end of a season. That trend is the sudden appearance of players ‘of a certain age’ on the transfer market auction page. Now what do I mean by a certain age? Well I mean they are hurtling at breakneck speed towards that milestone point in a footballer’s career, the tombstone that marks the slide towards a life breeding race horses and piling on pounds whilst commentating on how ‘it wasn’t like that when I played’ under the hot studio lights of a television studio. Yes that’s right I mean (and lets whisper it) ’turning 30’. Now whilst…
One of the biggest challenges for FML into the future will be making the game attractive to new users. The current trend of ever opening new worlds cannot continue for long, if nothing else the cost of hardware and staff to constantly grow the number of worlds will become prohibitive without a stable long term viable base. It’s therefore reasonable to expect that the day of no more new worlds is fast approaching, so attracting new users to older worlds is a necessity for long term survival. From day one of launch the exploit of new users has reared it’s head in a variety of ways, from the simple cases of prior knowledge of the data base and game mechanics through…
The original title for this article was to be ‘Coming Soon’, but one of the peculiarities of FML’s constant development model is the reaction to consumer desires as opposed to a confirmed timeline to any new developments. When something is advertised as ‘coming soon’ then everyone wants to know exactly how soon. There is a road map of future development, and at some stage there is the hope to include this in the game itself. But for similar reasons any published road map of future developments creates an amount of pressure to stick to that plan, instead of having a degree of freedom to react to the needs of the current users. Yeah I like this idea – it…
Let’s put one myth to bed. Playing the AI in Football Manager Live is not the equivalent of playing Football Manager 09. It just isn’t. It might be annoying to you, it might go against the ethos of Football Manager Live, but it is not, never has been nor could ever be comparable. I can’t cover every difference in a short column like this. But I can shed some light on some of the subtle, but important tactical issues that arise in a MMO vs a computer simulation. It may be the same match engine as FM1, but there is far more to consider when setting up your side. This is, I must admit, a theoretical piece this week. I can’t really offer many concrete tips, but…
You like entering weird competitions but no-one is offering you a competition that is different enough to all the others to get your pulse racing. Why not create your own? If you go to “world” – “competitions” you’ll see a button on the bottom right of the screen. Click on that and you will get a wizard to assist you in creation of your first competition. Here are a couple of ideas to get you started… more to follow. “Seasonage” Format Total 48 Clubs. All start in First stage split equally over four leagues. After the first stage, the top 9 are promoted to the Second stage and split into three leagues. After the Second stage, the top 8 are promoted to…
There can be benefits as well as problems with merging federations. On the one hand, having larger and deeper federations provides more competition and keeps the various and numerous tiers of the federations more compact in terms of the talent gap between the top and the bottom. It also gives more scope for specialised competitions, a larger community and more chance of catching someone from your fed online at the same time as you. On the other hand, it can take some of the soul away from smaller federations which, although small, often have their own unique character, a hardcore of devoted fans and a sense of belonging that monolithic fed just cannot provide. So….
Months ago, I wrote this post on my blog A Mod’s Life about common misconceptions that we mods have to deal with on a regular basis. As it turns out, most of these are still relevant nearly half a year on! On the mod forum we’ve been hammering out a list of common misconceptions about FML, and I thought that I’d list a few of the key ones here. This may wind up as a feature on the official site, in more depth at some stage in the future – another reason to keep an eye on that one! 1. Moderation Mods work for SI – no, we don’t. And we don’t get paid either. We do it for the love of the game and the betterment of its community. Mods should be good at the game/are…
According to the FML development team at Sports Interactive, more skill points have been spent on tactics skills than on any other. So, they must be important, right? Well, I suppose that all depends on when you spend them, why you’re spending them and if you’re spending them in the right way. Jordan, here, doesn’t have any tactics skills and he’s flying at the top end of his game world. He’s managed to put together a reasonably cheap, American side with pace to burn in a classic 4-4-2 formation. He lets the players do the talking, allowing them to run themselves in to the ground and nicking goals on the blistering counter attack. The defaults work for him…
