Football Manager Live Comments by Kristan Reed

Stunning. :o

Serious competition to WoW. Seriously.

Can someone please explain in a nutshell what this is about?

It's about to remove what little was left of my life by the sound of it ;)

/enters nutshell

It's a football management game.

/exits nutshell

:o

*please be better than sky sports football manager*

No word on subscription fees?

BlizeH - ripped off from our "frequently asked questions" guide, which you can find on our website (http://www.sigames.com)

"Imagine a cross between Football Manager, fantasy sports and an auction room and you’ll get the basic idea.

It’s a massively multiplayer football management game, using the Football Manager match engine. The main game has been written from the ground up, whilst it utilises some of the features from its older brother.

Up to 1,000 managers can play against each other to try and be the No 1 manager in their particular gameworld. There will be many gameworlds and the exact number of players in each will be subject to balancing - we'll be working on that during the first stage of the beta-testing process."

\does happy wee

Hmmm.

As a huge fan of the old Championship Manager/Football Manager games for as long as I can remember, this has surprisingly left me somewhat cold.

Almost.....meh.

I think this could be awesome... but depends how they organise stuff in each "Game World". There has to be some sort of league structure in each world? Cos one ginormous leagu is gonna be a bit of a pain, but if you had a number of leagues with divisions allowing for promotion and relegation, cup competitions, etc, then I'm definitely interested!

I suspect the main draw for football management games was tobe able to manage the real life football teams. But SI know more about this stuff and no doubt have done their research, so I'm sure they know who wants to play this :D

How quickly are we going see players being ebayed?

lol E-Bay? You can imagine it now can't u?

I got Rooney for a knock down price of £100!
Ronaldinhio? £300! Muahahahaaa

"Hmmm.

As a huge fan of the old Championship Manager/Football Manager games for as long as I can remember, this has surprisingly left me somewhat cold.

Almost.....meh."

I utterly fail to see how someone who likes this kind of game cannot see the potential of this. Its not my kind of game - doesn't mean I can't understand why this would be amazing for fans.

Better still... you pay 300 quid for him and he gets injuried for 6months. Awesome.

Can you set up your own private league, say with just one team? That way I can always be number one.

there is great potential here, but the guys at SI have been on top with CM/FM for decades now, so I'm sure they'll manage to put out something as good in a years time :D

"I utterly fail to see how someone who likes this kind of game cannot see the potential of this. Its not my kind of game - doesn't mean I can't understand why this would be amazing for fans. "

Because we already play FM07 online... for free.... with all FM functionality :)

The one issue I worry about, after my initial rush has subsided to just joyous humming, is the lack of any "real-world" context to each game.

If you're basically playing in a series of friendlies in an ad-hoc fashion, how are games supposed to take on any wider context? The must-win 6-pointers? The second-leg deficits? The last-day-of-the-season title-grab? Is this going to be fun-but-meaningless CounterStrike to Half-Life's superb single-player?

This game will destroy people's lives.

If you're basically playing in a series of friendlies in an ad-hoc fashion, how are games supposed to take on any wider context? The must-win 6-pointers? The second-leg deficits? The last-day-of-the-season title-grab? Is this going to be fun-but-meaningless CounterStrike to Half-Life's superb single-player?

Good point. Conclusion... this will suck.

Ikari - ripped from our FAQ.

"How does the league table work with 1,000 teams in each gameworld? In the main gameworld rankings, it’s not a case of three points for a win; you are awarded points for winning (or losing points for losing) based on a lot of different factors including, but not limited to, the position of the two teams, whether the game has been played home or away and the size of the win. There are all sorts of clever bits in there to ensure that teams that play hundreds of games a month don’t get a “levelling” advantage over those that play a couple of games a day, so it’s possible for any team to do well, not just those that play the most games.

Do all of the teams have to play one another? No, not at all. You can play friendlies against any team who happens to be online, or you can join or set up competitions.

How do competitions work? For the most part, competitions will be user generated. They are very easy to set up, with lots of parameters available. You can have cup or league competitions, or a combination of the two, set how many points for a win (those points are separate to actual rankings points) and also define what rank of team can enter said competitions. There are deadlines by when each match has to be played to ensure that the competitions don’t go on for ever.

There may well be some official organised competitions inside the gameworld too, but if there are any, they will be optional."

I'm not saying it will suck, I love CounterStrike. But I love football manager not for the matches' tactical battles (anything deeper than formation changes is a bit over my head), but the drama that comes with each. I hope this game finds a way to replicate that.

Afray - user generated competitions. Leads to all kinds of "must win" games, not just one competition.

Ah, Miles has stayed my fears a bit. But if most competitions aren't official, they won't carry the bragging rights of, say, winning the Premiership proper. There has to be a feeling of progression, rather than only your ranking going up ten places.

EDIT: Progression's the wrong word. Maybe a 1000-player league can set up a UEFA-style body, to provide "official" top-flight competitions? Otherwise it might end up in a boxing/darts muti-competition situation. Actually the politics of that is getting me interested. :)

Why does it have to be that ugly?

afay's posts pretty much nail the reasons why I have little excitement for this. You're not taking control of a real team, you're not really battling for anything other than a solitary win. I've never really enjoyed the whole 'Fantasy Team' aspect some sports games include either so the whole either which doesn't help.

user generated competitions. Leads to all kinds of "must win" games, not just one competition.

Good point. Conclusion... it will rock your world.

Bye bye world.

There are official competitions, in the current test world we have the SI FA Premier and SI FA Cup. Each with a lot of prize money for the winners (and some prize money divided up depending on your position). We will create more I'm sure.

Some users have created a Champ league styled tournament as well. With all of these there are six pointers, there are some classic finals (which you can either view live or watch a rerun when you login)

All of this adds to the fun. You can create any type of tournament you like

Alray - that depends what the prize money is. And depends on what other competitions that one you have played links to. The possibilities are endless :)

StarchildHypcrites - you are missing the point entirely. Why not read what I've written? But if it's not for you, it's not for you - I don't personally like FPS', but it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate that others do.

Sounds like SI are way ahead of me. Can't wait.

Miles_SI: Was banging away at my keyboard while you'd posted. The ability to add competitions makes it sound a lot better. Fair enough. Still might lack the emotional bond I can develop with my FM teams, but I can appreciate that it's something a little different. And I'm sure there are plenty of people that will enjoy it, fear not and untwist those knickers :P. I think I'll just have to keep an eye on it for a while to see how things develop.

I take it tho there will be only one world where you can obtain players, right?

Abnormal Late Fog
Flagrant Male Boo
Balloon Fart Game...?

I'm gonna steer well clear of this one. For the sake of my family.

Not my sort of game but I can seriously see people losing serious amount of hours with this. Also it seems to have a huge potential with the mass market.

The final point i'd like to make is kudos to SI for having employees actually read forum comments and respond in an open and honest way (not a xmas-psp way). It's always good when a company listens to your fears (or rathe afray's) and tries to do something about it.

This sounds absolutely brilliant!

I prefer playing single player FM to be honest... not too interested in this, but I'll keep an eye on it.

I'm sure there are more like you who are too much in love with the single player mode and who wont make the switch.

This game is ideal for those with time constraints (women, kids, jobs) who want to dip in and out, get SMS messages when on the move to stay abreast of the latest developments in their world.

All I saw in the comment above mine were the words 'abreast' and 'women'.

Still, looks like a corking game.

This reminds mea little of Pure Fantasy Football, a play-by-mail game I participated in about 10 years ago. It's still going, afaik.

The final point i'd like to make is kudos to SI for having employees actually read forum comments and respond in an open and honest way

Yes, the SI comments have been very helpful and make a refreshing change from the normal attitude adopted by game developers.

Sounds like hattrick only better in alot of ways but, in hattrick they have it all split up into divisions of 8 teams which does give you that 'six pointer matches' and cup competitions. I can see where SI are coming from with their system though as it means you can play matches all day and not have to wait a week for each match.

The 'e-bay' style bidding in hattrick is fantastic, I sat up to all hours of the morning to wait for that special player. If they can implement the same sort of system it will be excellent. Not sure about letting people have immediate transfers as this will be open to all sorts of abuse.

Yawn

So it's Sunday League then? Except not free.

Sorry, that's a bit glib. I'm just a typical FM fan, I fear change!

FWB - there will be multiple game worlds.

Lets go - FML is a very different game to playing FM online. But you may prefer the latter, and that's fine - as long as we're entertaining you somehow, we're happy :)

RexRunti - thanks for that. It's nice to be appreciated! As a company, we try and be very community driven, and are more than happy to post here and on other forums to give people answers that they want about our games.

Stickman - not just glib, but wrong too :)

I'm not knocking Sunday League, as it's a lot of fun, but FML is a very different game. It's worth looking at the FAQ on our website (which I'll also post later tonight in our Eurogamers group if I get a chance) to see why. Oh, and it's got the FM match engine, which no other MMO's have, and that's a big difference in itself.

Scanning through this, I was just wondering if the following was in theory possible.

If I set up a website as a governing body, and invite people to join my sanctioned leagues and cup competitions. Would I be able to keep track of all of them and organise my own promotion and relegation battles and stuff?

I'd like to do something with more of a rigid structure if there is scope to do it.

Hey you guys like hockey eh? NHL Playoffs eh?

/Runs.....

The full Football Manager just scares me but playing a couple of hours a week on this with mates could well be something I'm interested in. Good work SI.

cannibal : You can do all of this in the game. You can create your own competition with it's own set of rules. You can make it private by inviation only and go around and pick the people you want to participate.

You would set everything up ranging from the competition name and how it will work right through to prize money, points for a win (league) or 1 or 2 legged matches (cup)

Once people are in and you start the competition when it's over you can change things around, move teams in and out as you see fit, and begin the next competition season.

You have the power

@ Miles_SI

There are no sections on your site with 'how to deal with a disgruntled missus 'cos you've crawled into bed at 5am for the fifth consecutive night due to this game'

A link to good divorce lawyers would also be a potential winner...