Sworn to secrecy, it was a brutally honest discussion overall and I was left in no doubt that SI / Sega have the commitment and the conviction to deliver a game that achieves it's huge potential.
The day itself was fantastic, it was 'lets talk about FM Live for a day', my favourite subject, with the actual guys who code the game, a1. Did feel envious of them imagine having a job that involved football, games, lots of stats, gah to be 18 again I'd beg them to take me on as a 'gofor' :)
I think I missed the fuss over at Gameworld One about it, I think council was an unfortunate choice of words, focus group would have been more fitting. SI record for making games is second to none and I think they'll go their way with it, but needed input from managers who were prepared to be critical.
Got the impression that perhaps some of the Gameworld One guys felt we would be deciding the future of FM Live, which wasn't what it was about.
I can't really comment on anything more until announcements are made I had to say something about the day, so I apologise if your reading this and thought I'd be revealing all but NDA prevents me saying more.
I've been really active on the rep and injury changes coming in 1.4 and will be free to discuss these and naturally groan or cheer the various teams.
Clough - Division Five champions, still on a limited budget with stadium payments however I'll go overdrawn if the right player pops up. From being in many Gameworlds season 3/4 seems to be the grinding seasons getting the stadium finished before you can crack on.
Shearer - A £1.4m Aq Fee right back at 26 on low wage was just the ticket so £4.5m poorer we should have a decent enough team to stay in the NFA Premier League. Started the season badly and have had decent results since so can't complain.
Beta - We were limping a bit here as we missed out on wage auctions. Spotted a £500k 30yo for 1.5m on auto so pounced. That sounds a lot but with players ageing end of season now he's really 29 in old money:) Could do with a striker now to really push. In saying that we have finished 2nd and 1st in the top league in the two stages so far so not too bad at all.
2 comments:
Jak, I absolutely agree with you that a "focus group" would have been a better term to call it - and think *that* was definitely a good initiative by Sports Interactive to take in their developmental feedback process.
The fears expressed over at Gameworld One were based on the *perception* by the community that the "council" was more than just a focus group. From the looks of the forums, it felt like many were viewing this as a democratic process similar to a government's legislature... which is what the initial SI announcement made it seem like, but I knew that it wouldn't be. (it's the company's game, so they have every right to design it in any way they see fit.)
My attitude expressed a view that if the council was *indeed* as perceived, then it would be a redundant process that was unnecessary. Seeing what it actually *was* though, I definitely support SI's endeavor.
My only criticism is that as a "focus group", this could have been accomplished privately without any community announcement or fanfare. Sure, it sounds hypocritical of me to say "keep it a secret" after rallying about the transparency of information... but if you're going to portray something in a way that it's not, it can end up having an even more detrimental effect when the FML community's expectation and perceptions are shattered.
Yes the chosen term council was unfortunate although by choosing the people that they did was a decent focus group.
From a GW1 pov and as reporters of the game then I think actually courting controversy isn't a completely bad thing.
As I said in the blog post I was left in no doubt to three things
a) The commitment to see the game through was there 100%.
b) The ability of the personnel they have is just so good it's amazing.
c) They do have plans in the pipeline that will fix the game.
I guess you could accuse me of being star struck :) In saying that I'm a chopsy Welsh git so said my peice.
If I was to be critical it would that things I have been saying since day three of being in the beta came as news to some during the day.
Finally make sure the podcast is out this week!
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