Bug Maybe

Shearer Normal Service resumed and StJohn Galacticos

Logged in to find one player injured and three suspended so no surprises that shearer form took a dip.

Finally found a player matching my requirements in StJohn, 28 year old DM £800k Aq Fee with a wage demand of £30k, bagged him for £900k with contract neg he's on £24k thats cheaper than if I signed him wage auction (would have paid £800k + £240k).

He was at a team that was around 150th ranked so not overvalued. I've noticed that players playing for top teams seem to get a lot of rep as a result of the team their playing for, so always nervous about signing from them :)

Well pleased with that, we might just sneak out of trouble in the Premiership 17th goes down and I played the team that's 16th solid 4-1 result could just about save us. Either way I'm confident of bouncing back should we go down.

The projected is there now so I don't really have too many concerns about using the overdraft we'll have to see if I can spot a bargain or two.

Si are doing a series of blogs this week about their roadmap and hopefully news will be good. Beta users already have had a slight knowledge of what is to come but can't discuss that yet.

FM Live Stadium Guide Again

Have just done another podcast with the guys over at Gameworld One (link on left), this time about stadiums as I'm a 'stadium expert' don't think I deserve that title. My wife sure was puzzled anyway :)

Assuming some linkage when the show comes out. Something to go with it then, I thought I'd recount the StJohn story, when I built things and why, finally what would I do different.

Phase One Seasons One & Two - Minnows
StJohn was about to start it's fourth season could I progress?

• First Season - Wages £40k, not an exploit team either, i.e. full of cheap youths but 28yo - 31yo players with a bit of rep, if I could get on low wage it was a done deal! Stadium: One Tier Aziendale Type 1 supports a Exclusif Corp box just seating just 80 fans which you should be able to bring in if you have rep heading in the right direction. Towards the tail end of the season two started 2x2 Tier Aziendales. Finished 8th Casual Div 1
• Second Season - Wages £56k. As the stands finished slowly started to fill up seats, basically the most expensive seats for the fans, so Pigeons (hah, that's a keeper) for the devoted, De Lusso and a few Diasgio, covers devoted and sideshow fans. Tail End of this season two Exclusif corp boxes added, on our way to 3.1/2 star rep. Still bargain hunting but the team strengthened actually put together a youth team. End of season a 3 Tier Aziendale started. Finished 3rd Casual 1 - Promoted

Phase Two - Seasons Three & Four - Delusions of granduer

• Third Season - Wages average £80k It becomes pointless for a while spending on the stadium as rep has stopped rising I need a few high profile players, so secure a few cheap ones so push hard to get away from being 'just' a 3.1/2 star team. By the end of the season Corp fans coming in numbers so the big one! A Exclusif stand in a 3 Tier stand costs £4m thats got to hurt, for a while £5m is being spent in the 28 day projected. Still manage to sign the odd bargain. Win the Casual Championship
• Fourth Season - Wages £108k. A few of the players are starting to age now and it's starting to show, stadium payments are down to a reasonable £3m and the projected starts to look healthy. I know it's going to be a tough call to stay in the Premiership but the really hard times are behind me. To stay up I need a name but as I've always said right player wrong price = wrong player. I resist panic buyin,g but it looks like we've just a brief stint in the Premier League.

Planned Phase Three Seasons Five & Six - Flirting with greatness

• Fifth Season - Throughout this season I'll still be paying off the massive corp box but I'll be generating a steady £250k a day. Wages can now pick up but due to age of starting players a big clean out is needed. Already secured £150k Aq Fee striker, 30, for £10k (yes £10k) but I need a two DC's, an AMC, a full back, a goalie. Around £1.5m to get them wage budget I can support £150k Wages
• Sixth Season - Bulk of stadium is paid for still likely to be putting money in but only around £1m a season. Wages should be upto around £200k.
• Seventh Season - Hopefully we'll be in the same situation as Shearer, minted and high rep players, high wages etc.

Mistakes
The biggest single mistake was that Three Tier Aziendale, 20 days to build the stand and 20 days to build the corp box takes a long time to pay off. What I would have done is build a two tier Ospillata (eesh how do you spell these things) which can hold 500 Corp fans with two corp boxs, the entire thing would have been done in 20 days.

Then much later I would have built a Three Tier Mercantile in place of the little stand I built right at the start.

Overall going into an old gameworld the pressure is off, I've always felt I was behind in Shearer due to the stadium (not so much now) and the pressure was on to do better. The casual FA doesn't suffer from normal FA problems of good teams being relegated due to AI so the FA is properly tiered, i.e. your not left playing way out of your league.

Old Gameworld Conclusion
In Shearer we've bounced around the top 100 for eight seasons (currently 8th, a bit dizzy) but in the FA's I've played in the top tier throughout I've finished 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 4th, 10th (Xavi Alonso sucks!), 4th. One Silver Cup final. Mostly disappointing.
In four seasons in an old Gameworld I've been promoted twice and fought a hard relegation battle once and hopefully can bounce back next season.

It's just more exciting!

Grinding & Form Theory

Well so far looks like we're going to be safe in the CFA Premiership in StJohn results are very mixed but very occasionally we grind out the odd 1-0 to suggest we can stay safe. My crazy theory on form or whatever seems to pretty much pan out.

Basically form theory goes like this players as a result of their own ability and as a result of their teams overall ability have an idea of the team over or underachieving. As they get closer to underachieving they slowly become tighter and more focused until they force a result or just play better. The opposite happens to a team that is over achieving.

Ok mix this in with perhaps ambition, professionalism etc and you have a rough idea of how FM Live works on form.

Taking this into account in StJohn I've got a honest bunch of players, they battle hard and that is why they do as well as they do relative to their Aq Fee. Had been on run where results were fading so I picked a team that I felt were high for their squad. The result an early goal for us and hung on for the win.

Conversely the Beta team are really high relative to the strength of the squad and yesterday we lose three games back to back.

Can this be exploited, I think bottom line better players = better results, the match engine, although it does drive me slightly crazy at times is as close to football as your going to get.

Betfair

Ohh the football season is coming and I may just go for football betting again. I was a major gambler, betting as much as £2 a time :)

Seriously it was good fun especially as I have a liking for stats etc. Tell you one thing managers of FM Live might think that the match engine is random you out to try the real thing.

Anyway I had a system which I thought I'd go on about basically on you can bet on games live. So here goes odds for a game starting are say 3.3 for the draw, 3.3 for home, 3.3 for away.

So follow my logic.... if the home team scores their odds go down, if the away team scores their odds go down, in both cases the price for the drawer goes UP.

Ok so on betfair you can 'lay' a bet, dam didn't want to do screen-shots. I guess I'll have to.


So that's how I would set a game up, I take a bet on the drawer, either side scores and I bet on a draw. So this is how it would look:-

If your with me so far then your better than 90% of the people I've tried to explain this to. I found early this kind of worked but there are two flaws in this plan. The first is a 0-0, the odds on the drawer will trickle to nothing so you'll never be able to trade out and a sure fire favourite.

Normally price on a 0-0 is around 8-10 so I tried to counter my 0-0 loss's with a bet on the 0-0 but I could never get it to pay out consistently.

There are loads of weird and wonderful ways to try and find a system and I found it pretty good entertainment as long as you kept on a very fine budget.

I think the biggest danger is convincing yourself you have a sure fire system only to find that you don't at the worst possible time!

Anyway it would be interesting to see how 'the Match Engine is broken totally unrealistic crowd' would get on.

New Blog

This could be mega boring but I started my own personel blog. It's a view from a middle aged white male with 2.4 kids. Ok I admit I failed on the .4 only managed 2, doh.

Anyway have a look at http://www.jakswan.co.uk/

Youth in FM Live

Youths had always previously been my thing in FM Live, GW6 lots of seasons in the top 3 on a tight budget. I even started Shearer in the same mold, sadly though commercial reality of their perceived value by the gameworld at large (high) and their final value (low) meant the youth team was left, a luxury I couldn't afford.

Being fairly well minted these days I thought I'd keep an eye out for some value in the youth market and have now managed to patch together a half decent U21 / U19 team. I then got curious about the old youth team and where it was these days.

Take into account that this team was mainly U17 in Season 1 and I kept them until they were around 19/20. This squad won the following SFA titles:-

SFA U17 3 times, SFA U19 All of them SFA U21 - Twice.

So a very successful squad now 23/24 years old where are they now?

Not one of that team is High Profile! Figures really I would expect them to get to High Profile 25/26 world famous much later at 27/28. No real wonderkids though, I'm so glad I don't do £20k a day for youths!

I do enjoy the youth side of things though so it's a pity the other managers overvalue them like they do.

Shearer - The Destination

Well it's taken a long time and I kept my wages low for what felt like ages but we've arrived.

Here is my projected income for 28 days with WAGES OF £240k!


Now bear in the mind the condition of the transfer market, Sebastien Frey Goalie at 35 (one of the top goalies in the game) £200k. A million buys you a lot and every ten days I make a million.

This long term approach sure does pay off but you also have to bear in mind the cost of the stadium was around £14m. So relative to someone who has not invested we're £14m behind so takes a while to catch up.

Still plenty to take the odd dabble in the youth market now.

FM Live: Spiderman plays against T-Bag town

This is really well done, T-Bag has led the way in StJohn but form and some off results have driven him to rage, his blog is brilliantly written, read the latest match report where Spiderman appeared in Goals" FM Live Spiderman Goalie.

Stadiums - Over the hump in St John

Aaron Hullet came up with a new way to look at stadiums the guide can be found here.

To summarise the cheaper seats and corp boxs give a ROI (time for investment to pay off) so quick that it effectively costs you nothing if you take the 56 days to pay it back. Still have to pay the stands etc.

The downside to his guide is it is a little limited on how high you can get the income at lower rep levels. My ideal is to generate as much cash from the fewest fans so should reputation be low then the income doesn't suffer so badly.


Not too bad for a 3 star team eh! Actually I think we're borderline 3.1/2 star but you get my point.

We're just about over the hump in StJohn now, pointless spending money on the stadium as I haven't the reputation to increase income.

Will have to get shopping!

Doom and Gloom

It's all a bit doom and gloom on the forums currently. A lot of Match Engine complaints some justified some not, I think the Match Engine is dam fine and WAY better than any other used in any game. Nothing is perfect though and 'super keepered' seems to be in the term of the moment.

There are a lot of complaints about GW activity, SI managed to keep these quiet during May / June as they were announcing something 'soon'. The announcement came in the form of free trials, that kept the mob at bay for a few weeks. I think there is a slow realisation that in fact trials are not going to do much so the posts are getting angry again now.

Some are a bit over the top and fairness SI / Sega have said this is top priority and they have plenty of ideas just nothing concrete yet. Taking my fanboy hat off this has been an issue since beta for at least a year. With the best will in the world having a few good ideas but nothing concrete is that good enough?

I'm quite happy with the game though I've said before that it isn't quite what I would say is perfect, and sometimes feel a bit frustrated as it could be stunning but I enjoy playing it so it offers value at the end of the day.

The Teams Update
St John - By rights we should be fighting relegation in the Casual Premiership but have thus far won enough times to suggest we could do mid table. Too early to have any sense of security about it at the moment though. Six weeks the bulk of the stadium is done and we can look at adding to the squad.

Beta - Division 1.1 saw us add another title and were rampant at one stage. Reo Coker was a major close season signing and has taken us up another level, inflation remains high in this Gameworld. Been in the top 10 for a while now.

Shearer - Slight upturn in form with Falcoa being devastating in FA games, money piles up quickly but wages at £220k so I need a HUGE name really to improve this squad so might just use the £3m I'll have by seasons end. Do have to consider Holiday in August so might just wait till I come back.

Busy

We had to cut back in work so I went out looking for a little extra to pay the mortgage, the wife, who seems to delight in telling me how much she's saved by spending lots, grrr, and the kids who just seem to grow and always want shoes or clothes or something.

Anyway I thought I'd speculate a little so negotiated a deal with a business I'd previously quoted selling Limestone & Marble Fireplces. It's a LOT of work, the website, photos, PPC, logos, blah blah.

Bottom line not much time to play FM Live.

Falcoa

Well I've money pouring in with the Shearer team so Falcoa at 30 for his wage demand / Aq Fee adds another threat up front, with Welbeck hitting maturity we should be pretty decent now. Still can't seem to really get anywhere with the team though, I'm on hols for two weeks in August so might do a soft reset in Shearer and see what I can do with a lump of cash on my return.

The beta team just seems to destroy everyone and been around the top 15 for a while. Still don't know why :)

Painful season ahead in St John with over £5m going into the stadium over 28 days it's really killed any plans to improve the squad so I'm just going to have to do what I can.

We won the CFA Championship which was great and remain in the top 100 so it's not going too bad.

Big Podcast with Ov Collyer

The podcast is almost a must, Ov Collyers Gameworld One Podcast.

I did get the impression that the game has come from Fantasy Football to more MMO but also its like SI are not yet quite convinced. Still pretty positive overall and nice to see Jordan / Millie duo.

Youths - A Waste of time?

OK to recap, apart from the ever under performing Jakswans in Shearer, we're 15th with wages of £160k in beta (thats just gone up a lot though) and 80th with wages of just over £100k in StJohn. The market in beta is pretty shocking but the stadium is about 2 weeks away from being paid off allows me the luxury of wage auction bids for the 29yo's+.

A long time ago very early in my FM Live career I asked Robert Webb does age make a difference? His replay was 'Yeah their stats go up' but there is more to it than that I think.

Lets take M'Villa was at one time a 21yo with an Aq Fee of £400k looks great on paper and in fairness does ok, but £400k Aq Fee you'd expect a bit more than ok wouldn't you? A £35k Aq Fee Striker who is 29 does the same job, just imagine what a £400k 29yo would do!

In saying all that the Shearer team once again is going through one of it's periods, i.e. lets dominate games for 20mins, miss a load of chances, concede a goal, then throw the towel in. I did sign Frey (GK) mid season and signing a player like that is always going to rock the boat so I think I'll take a break from Shearer rather than stare hopelessly at the horror show gradually getting frustrated:) It might be a bit lame but I honestly have no idea how to break the spell other than time :(

My plan in Shearer is to go Galacticos for one season and unless totally bombing take a season out with a soft reset, on holiday in August anyway.

Sadly StJohn team now has £5m going into the stadium over the next 28 days so we're just going to have to cope next season.