Saturday 30 January 2010

On a Break

I left Miller due to a few personality clashes, seems I'm not a popular chap in some quarters:)

Did join in with the test GW launch in Horton which I think is going to be reset soon so without a proper active team there isn't really much more I can contribute to beta & blog.

So see you in March for the relaunch!

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Why are Wage Auctions dirty?

It's odd if you ask me, a manager gets all uptight about wage auctions then you look at their history and 90% of their players have come from wage auctions!

I think their fair enough to be honest and with recent changes it's the way things are going to go.

I have asked several times that SI should make wage auctions easy to find. We have a new tab in 1.4 that says wage auctions but only players that you've bid on are there.

All the talk of helping casual managers, yet screw the new managers! Surely their more important than casual, hardcore, whatever type of manager. It's pretty shocking to favour the old school in such a way I think.

Still I've asked a few times and can't do anymore than that.

Back on topic wage auctions a pretty fair system even if it hurts. The game should be about here is your cash go make a team the one that does the best with the cash moves forward.

Monday 18 January 2010

Men are Needed Now

Now then what will happen in the future, let me show you a player first.


Quite nice ok he's not amazing but £13k and world famous at 22 so I paid £2m (I had £6m at the time) last seasonI could lock him away on low wages and over time he pays for himself.

New system I can lock him, at £35k wages, doh, not worth £2m now is he!

In my view he's not worth £35k wages, I think he will be at 27 but he'll go to wage auction next season so I doubt I'll still have him at that age.

Add to this that now I have to get results if I fail to get 15/16 rep next season I'm going to start to fade carrying a boy on the pitch isn't going to work, men are needed now.

The Big Questions

Crazy was the weekend on the beta forums, not sure why this wasn't discussed in Dev forum really as it's public knowledge exactly what SI plan to do.

The new wage system has come in to beta and resistance to the idea falls into four main categories.

1) It's not fair I want to lock my players and not have to sell them or put them through wage auction.
2) I'll lose all my players and it'll get silly
3) It's too complex I need to be able to plan
4) There must be a better simpler system

1) It's not fair I want to lock my players on not have to sell them or put them through wage auction.
I really like FM Live pretty much as it is and I do have sympathy with this view. As MHeadHurts explained though the reason for the reset was inflation and one of the symptoms of this was that managers had players locked on contracts under wage market value.

Wages will go as high as market forces dictates and the system will protect against this event happening again.

So essentially this needs to happen to ensure we don't end up back with GW's being unblanced again in 12 months time.

The fairness thing I'm not really convinced about though, currently in Miller I have a left back who's quite nice £1.6m Aq Fee Wage £18k with a demand now of £55k next season his demand will go to £76k.

Now I don't think he's worth that so why shouldn't he go into auction and the GW as a whole can decide what he's worth.

After all I retain the advnatage as someone has to stump the cash up for him and I get to bid +1 what they bid.

Wage auctions are a dirty word sometimes but I think it's quite a neat system.

2) I'll lose all my players
I was told in beta by a manager that he would guarantee every single household name name would go in wage auction above their new wage demands.


So 6/6 so far 100% wrong:)

3) Need to be able to plan
The system isn't yet bug free and there certianly needs to be better info provided to managers as to what the wages of their players will climb to.

4) There must be a simpler system
Well there could be in fairness, one beta tester wanted to impose a global multiplier say x2 all players and would instantly go to this level except if they went to wage auction.

So this would work that every player you signed would be at say x2 for a rep 20 team or 1.7 for a rep 17 team.

Thing is value of players is what someone is willing to pay, personally I don't value players much more than their base wage demand. I certianly don't value your 3.5star squad player at 1.7!

So in the end personally I would only ever sign players in wage auction.

It could be worked on that idea so it's a little more flexible, but you very quickly end up needing complexities that are ptoentially even more complex than the current system.

It didn't help that the chap advocating the idea wouldn't be drawn on the practical issues that would come up. That might been unfair as he was trying to get his points across but I couldn't get what he was saying, in the end he assumed we were being obtuse, said we were on some sort of ego trip and decided to walk away from the debate.

Next update: Oldies will have their day!

Monday 11 January 2010

Like a Flash

If your following the Development forum then Si haven't dragged their feet, we've seen an early draft on of the proposed new system in beta.

Basically as your rep picks up you are going to be forced to put your top players in wage auction to basically ensure that your paying market price for them.

Now it's dam hard to try and work this all out as a new finance and rep system is due to kick in as well.

I have no doubt this system will not be popular with some, my tactic in Live was build a stadium get to 3.5 star rep and bobs your uncle. Earning rep now isn't going to be as easy as just signing the right players you have to have had some measure of success. As you start it's nice and easy ride with unlimited locks on players.

The downside is you'll not have much cash, as you climb it'll slowly get harder as you won't be able to keep extending your players without it costing a lot. It gradually forces you to rotate your squad.

Couple of things spring to mind there are going to be managers going up, unable to cope with the wages and will go back down, their going to be on the forums going ballistic. There will be some that will be able to cope and stay top without an issue and some of us (me more than likely) that'll bounce around being one of the also rans.

One of the posters said it'll cause GW hopping as it'll be much easier to progress so they'll climb then move to do it again elsewhere. DELIGHTFUL!

I'd take that any day of the weak rather than no progression and managers leave the game in frustration. Should keep the subscribers up.

I think the next thing to sort is the FA's. I'm a heavy user by nature but have played casual in many worlds. I would like to play in just one gameworld and whilst the youth side of the game sort of keeps you occupied I would like to play more games.

To be honest the biggest issue as a heavy user is that the game moves too slow, the ladder leagues do kind of sort this as things move faster. I suspect a hybrid of the ladder league and normal leagues will suit me quite well. So 16 team leagues running 3 times a season, 90 odd games.

Don't give a monkeys about AI or live games, I can quite understand a manager who's having a torrid time not wanting to watch the horror show:)

This will allow me to always me to have games at whatever level I'm at whenever I log in, I've never been bothered about there being mega teams in GW's relative to my team, as long as I don't have to play them! Not having enough games means your then forced to go looking for games and then the frustration starts as you get battered 9-1:)

I know there are CPU teams but their pretty meaningless affairs.

Friday 8 January 2010

Development - A New Age

On a positive note the Development forum has now discussed starting squads, the finances, and how to stop teams getting too far ahead.

Starting squads Ov seems to have enough feedback to do what their going to do:) The economy a little bit more debate I'd say, there seems almost widespread support for a low inflation model, a few disagree but I would say generally not many against.

Then by adding more depth to the strength of the teams it's hoped that there is a clearer sense of progression. Ov seems very clear what he wants the system to achieve and now seems really focused on how the game should play.

The big idea coming out of the finances thread was a MyHeadHurts post which suggested to have unlimited locks on players but over time players would ask for more and more cash dependant upon the rep of the team that they were playing for.

Now when I first heard this I thought it was just plain crazy, my initial reaction was it wasn't needed and the lower ranked teams would have their squads torn apart in wage auctions as the top ranked teams looked to dump their overpaid squad players.

Aha but the unlimited locks prevent this from happening, nice twist! So the further you get the harder it gets, I think teams will remain top IF their good enough but now it's not going to be a race to sign Pato and job done for 13 seasons.

As you enter a GW low down it should be pretty plain sailing, then as the success comes the challenge of managing spiralling wages kicks in. There will be constant pressure on you to find the best value the higher you get. You'll have a little security in that you'll have more cash but it will get harder.

If a manager comes into a GW late and it better at playing the game then he will overtake you, if there are no managers better then you won't get overtaken.

To this idea there is resistance, low ranked managers are saying it'll be impossible and some high ranked managers say it'll be impossible so that overall suggests to me it's a great move :)

Not sure yet if it'll make it into the game or when but it's encouraging to see Si post we want to the game to play like this and need a system that allows that.

Wednesday 6 January 2010

Poor bad form

Didn't I always say the ME sucked:) Joke! We were on an amazing run and it's ground to a halt sharply. The team seems to be playing well but just not getting the 'rub of the green', it might not even be bad form as such more that the good form was so good it just makes it now look especially bad.

I think it's easy to slip out of the Division One so I'm a little wary. I've spent a lot of time on the youths in Miller now I even think with some tweaks I might be sold on youth academys, well not sold, lets say mellowed:)

The youths I have are still pretty awful it seems to take around 3/4 seasons before I really can get them to kick on.

Free Domains
Whilst working (Marketing in Furniture) I noticed there were two domains I came across that were free. www.dwellfurniture.co.uk and www.g-planfurniture.co.uk are these companies nuts?

These are big search terms, not sure if I'm allowed to keep them but we'll see:)

I know this is way off topic but we recently tried to buy bedroomfurniture.co.uk, it went for £33,000! Wow.

Saturday 2 January 2010

2010 Not Boring

I suppose whatever happens in the coming year it's going to mean some interesting times ahead for Football Manager Live. Speculation now that a new finance system is coming and the Beta GW I'm in will be the first to see it.

It doesn't look like it'll need to be reset either which is something I was dreading, if it was going happen lets get it done my attitude. On the pitch things seem to be going ok with a first stage title win. I'm expecting form to turn eventually but the rep from that stage is 18/4 (4.5) so barring a disaster which should be able to sustain 16 rep going into next season (roughly 4star in old money).

Looking at the squad and stadium even with the new finance in place we should be able to strengthen further, we'll be making a lot less cash but if the economy crash's you won't need more cash to move forward.

Once again been told my forum persona isn't popular, this is understandable some can't seperate debate from an argument. I suppose I do go on about some issues I shall have to try and resist posting so much.

I'm not going to change though if I think SI is wrong I shall say it and same for the community, not a popularity contest I just want FM Live to hit it's potential, if it does I help and everyone hates me that's a result in my book:)

Around the community Alex has been working like a demon on updating the manual for 1.4 (FM Version 1.4 Manual). Gameworld One are back up and running with a first early look at what FM Live v2.0 is going to look like (Gameworld One's early look at FM Live 2.0), One the better communities out there was always going to be Hoddle as Rik Stewart is an A1 mod so it's always worth paying a visit to the Hoddle Gameworld Blog.

If I get chance I might do my own look at 1.4.