Is FM Live Doomed?

Well there's a happy title for a Monday evening:)

I really thought that FM Live 2.0 would be a rag to riches type game in some way. The more I read the more it seems that Si seem keen to keep a GW as flat as possible, as I said in my last update.

This could be a 'I told you so' post. I've read back through my blog, well skimmed through it and here are some posts I did in August.

Still lets revisit:-

28/8/08 More FM Live server downtime
However looking back at GW6 (these figures are pulled from memory) then we’ve had around 3000 users in the last six months and only around 300 remain active.

A retention rate of 10% doesn’t bode well so I’ve two concerns from this. First, if you play a long term game with a youth policy you could quite easily be playing in an empty gameworld in a few short months.

24/08/08 Servers Break
Overall I don’t think these are the biggest issues facing the game but rather longevity. The cause of this is that there isn’t much sense of progression in the game. I’ve said this countless times but the pyramid is too shallow, if you don’t get into the top 50 with in a few months chances are your not getting in the top 50 period.

The high churn rates are down to users losing I'm convinced, there are just not enough that want to play a LLM / Simulation type game. Countless times I've said you can't make a game where everyone is Man Utd you can make a game where everyone becomes Man Utd for a time.

At the council Marc Duffy opened the meeting with 'the Live worlds have died the same way as Beta'. Come on SI, it's right there staring you in the face!

Today then I thought I'd pitch my 'lead a youth team to glory idea' but alas no backers. The thing is I think the current crop of managers are either top managers and intent on staying there or actually pretty happy with being an also ran.

So I kind of think that I'm Winston Churchill during the wilderness years :)

Anyway time to move on again from this, I started saying these things on the old forums after being in the game for a week and after nearly two years it's time to let it go.

So do I think FM Live is doomed? I really hope not it's got massive potential, it's target demographic though is the FM player although that in it's self is something I think SI still need convininging of!

My straw polls of 5/6 real life FM managers well they just don't play FM as Fulham for twenty seasons, the either play as Man Utd or Barca or..... rags to riches.

The game surviving depends on just one thing, how many LLM types there are, if they can get enough of them then rock on, otherwise this time next year I'll be posting memories of FM Live.

Now for something completly differemt

You know I've often thought the original vision for the game was pretty solid.

Lets make Fantasy Football using the FM database and Engine

So why don't SI just do that? This is radical, get rid of cash. Yep you read that right, get rid of stadiums, youth players, get rid of it all.

Just have once a season open seven day wage auctions with no cash. The only cash you spend is your wage budget.

A player retires just bring him back according to the latest database.

Simple to code easy to maintain, can make the game very cheap and actually that would appeal to the fantasy football type.

The End of The Worlds

Now before you start reading this I've always enjoyed FM Live so whatever happens I'm sure I'll stay playing although I have cancelled all subs.

Well I think I get it now. SI's vision for the game is one of a flat pyramid structure where every team is pretty much on the same level.

The big plus to having a GW set up this way is that it's pretty easy to catch up and no one gets ahead.

So old GW's are just as attractive as old ones.

It's the total opposite of the direction I think SI should go.

The big downside of course is that SI HAVE NO CHOICE but to reset the GW's to do this.

Will it work?

The short answer is no.

Although I think their target market is still for the non-gamer who doesn't play football games. In other words not me or the current crop of managers, that's why their not worried about losing us.

Can you believe their still chasing that dream?

I can't.

The thing is though I stand alone, most current forum users can't come up with anything better than 'boost new managers' which gives you the same thing that SI are doing just from the other direction.

Clearly my vision of managers playing through a long deep GW isn't one that's shared by SI or much of the community. Maybe the newgen worlds will have some different features. I'm sure I read that SI expect the real worlds to be more popular.

Predictions time, sometime soon stadiums will get nerfed and the cash you get will be much lower than we see currently.

We might see wage tax and a new level, £150k ish. Not sure how their going to stop teams amassing massive amounts of cash with trading.

Might even see some limit to income so it's % over current wages like we see at low level rep levels.

All this will come in c.1.5 Feb March for relaunch with these controls in place.

Newgen worlds will be more popular than real by 3:1 ratio.

Some tight control on hopping GW's.

The worlds will start and bleed members like they always have. The tight controls won't work.

Some will get ahead some way most won't. The dreadfully slow pace of the game will continue and a total no no for any form of way of 'grinding' your way ahead.

The hardcore will get frustrated as they can't get anywhere, the non-gamer fantasy football type won't even show up.

After a summer of marketing the game by Autum the churn rates will be unavoidable. Finally after years of development the game will close or be sold.

Wow, reading that back it's pretty doom and gloom from me. I'm not even upset about a reset!

On the more positive front, well a fresh start is going to be exciting although it looks as if you won't be able to pick your starting squad. So maybe it won't be:)

What else errr I've enjoyed the game so far, enjoyed being in the beta. FML 3.0 will rock!

Out of Beta

Felt recently that there was a undercurrent of resentment of my beta involvement did get somewhat stuck into the rep and injury system changes.

That combined with a personality clash has left me in a position where I will effectively leave the beta development process and just limit myself to bug finding.

Be great here to GW1's podcast next week with Marc Duffy. Maybe they could get one of their harshest critics who's going nuts on forums onto the show as well. Oddly though many are not so critical in the real world, had a few nasty blog replies here, it's all good fun!

I do feel for the SI guys, they are trying to make the game better and if you listen to some of the moans you'd think they had done it out of spite.

Treat the Disease not the symptoms

Well this could be a fairly epic post and it could be titled 'High Ho Silver' as I'm going to get on my high horse.

Ok two big posts by Marc Duffy lets start with reasons for leaving.

1. • Need to devote too much time to be good - People on here all the time/not fair against hardcore/can't play once a week to be successful.
2. • Lack of things to do - Boring/ I want more to do/ repetitive/ I won everything now what?
3. • Prefer FM - Don't like online/no real teams/not realistic
4. • Wanted to start again and no new world - I want to start again/new world please/
5. • Frustration at losing - Why do I lose/win 2 games then lose 10 /ME is bad/too hard to win against AI
6. • Empty GW - No one online/All my friends have left/ no one to play during the mornings

So 1, 4, 5 you could read as 'I'm losing I'm off'. I'd hazard a guess that some of the reason 3 dudes are in that category as well.

In this post by Marc we see discussed that to level the playing field the draft system will be introduced aka 'Returning stars'. They think that this will be the most popular GW in the long term.

So now you can bounce around the few GW's that will be open and from season 3 get a tasty boost. If success doesn't come then 'I'm losing I'm off' or bounce around some and eventually your regen will be so awesome that it'll level the playing field a little.

The newgen GW is for the 'long term manager' yet does little to cover how this retains it's long term appeal. Logically draft system for youths makes sense, otherwise these GW's will suffer the same fate as the existing ones.

I'm not at all upset about the reset if it fixes the game. I'm not seeing it though, if a draft system exists for youths in a newgen world then fair enough but otherwise no.

Then there is this treating the symptoms, in the second post today Marc Duffy said 'users spread too thin' so we'll reset. Woah that's a big jump if that's the case close GW's and pack em into old ones but the cause of this thin spread is outlined in the numbers leaving.

So apart from the draft system how does that change anything. 100% convinced that managers leave cos their losing.

Look lets look at facts, if it was a casual issue then the casual FA's would be empty, if it was real players then you'd just leave servers run with the draft system kicking in later, if it was cos their losing then the lower rankers would be leaving. Guess what, they are!

The roadmap said 'bigger and better competitions' this solves this issue of lower rankers getting LLLLLL records. Yet where are they? Ok works fine in Clough but I've an account in Muhren and FA's are not set to promote FA hoppers to relevant position. Same GW a rejig of FA's and their running qualifying leagues again!

There is nothing in 1.4 that changes the game to suggest that you'll hold on to low rankers, the worse teams will still lose a lot the managers will still leave.

SI's solution and thinking to solve this issue is to level everyone up.

Look:-

Post:- http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=4327259&postcount=1352

There are multiple reasons why we're not resetting sooner, we wanted to give people notice of such a major change but most importantly there's no point doing the reset until the changes are in place to stop gameworlds becoming inbalanced from day 1.

They are always going to good managers and bad managers are we suggesting that this won't happen? There will always be inblance lets not fight it, embrace it.

Millie is on the same page as me, deeper pyramid, there needs to be a bigger depth of teams.

http://jakswans.blogspot.com/2008/03/broken-dreams.html

The game needs a deeper pyramid structure to it's competitions and a kinder way to climb through the ranks.

Nearly TWO YEARS AGO now.

It's grinding on me now, I said in beta there are series issues with this game I've been banging on about it for ages, too many leaving why? Why opening so many GW's? Why did beta server with 3000 previoulsy active managers fall so quickly? Why do low ranked teams leave?

My Fix List

It is essential to get the game set up so the top teams play the top teams the middle teams play the middle teams and the bottom teams play the bottom teams.
To have progression there has to be regression, either do it with a draft youth system or get the top teams to leave.
Stop chasing this nonsense dream that there are hundreds of subscribers out there that don't play FM that will want to play FM Live.

I know this sounds negative so now for positive. Subscribers, good grief you'd swear that SI had literally held them at gunpoint and robbed them. I've paid for the game for a year I've enjoyed the game for a year.

Skills why is there such a massive hang up about this? RELATIVE skills are, if you've got JP and every other manager has it's not worth much is it.

Finally does anyone think that someone is going to leave their megastar team to go and be 300th in the Elite GW?

Shearer Season 15

Well not really planning on doing much with this squad this close season. The Galacticos have arrived!

Might be worth noting a player I picked up WAAAAY back, couldn't get in the team at 24, started doing some good things at 25, at 26 he's playing regular, at 27 ok fair enough. Finally now at 28 not many teams would say no to him:-


He was signed the same day as a regen went for £40k on Shearer and he's never been over wage demand.

Reset!

At last I can talk about the council. Of course the big news was the reset.

When they told us I thought oh my, that's not good, and I did say that there were GW's that could get the draft system and survive. Heck I reckon there are some that just carry on to be newgen worlds.

I got the impression this was a done deal though, and when you think back SI have been very coy for a long time about plans for old worlds. So I suppose there has been much soul searching over it but in the end a painful decision has to be made.

Personally I've enjoyed playing FM Live, my harshest criticism of SI has been that their long term vision has been lacking. When they started opening worlds way back I think it was nuts then the new manager only thing just was plain daft.

The presentation from SI at the council was opened with 'we dropped one and opened too many worlds' so kind of took the wind out of my sails. Fair enough that's progress I thought.

The draft system for the 'real' worlds I think will work in keeping old GW's attractive and if we get a draft system in the newgen worlds for the youths then happy days. If we don't the game is going to be in trouble.

The second biggest complaint I have over FM Live is it's so goddam slow and boring. Made to suit the pace of the slowest casual manager, it's a great game but this area really frustrates me.

I'm writing this on the eve of the announcement and I'm guessing many will go off the deep end. The theme will be 'I'm winning now! Look at my toys fly out of this pram.'