Going Old Skool; WW-Formation Remixed

Lately, I've been feeling a bit silly. I was in the mood to experiment, so I figured I might as well go totally old skool and revamp an old tactic into something new for usage within Altobelli. The concept of that is not entirely new, as we did this before in Miller under the inspiring leadership of Richard Claydon, who is known to most under his forum-guise as WWFan.

I've opted for the re-creation of the classic WW formation, but with a twist. The WW was a development of the WM created by the Hungarian coach Marton Bukovi, who turned the 3-2-5 WM, as designed by Herbert Chapman, upside down. The lack of an effective centre-forward in his team necessitated moving this player back to midfield to create a playmaker, with a midfielder instructed to focus on defence. This created a 3-2-1-4 which morphed into a 3-2-3-2 when the team lost possession, and was described by some as a kind of genetic link between the WM and the 4-2-4. This formation was successfully used by fellow countryman Gusztav Sebes in the Hungarian national team of the early 1950s.

That's pretty much what it looks like. I'm still tweaking the player roles and team instructions, but the basic formation gets you the same effects as the basic 4-6-0. You're flooding the centre of midfield with players and ensuring a lot of high-paced short passing. It's generally enough to drive most opponents mad. I'll get back to this with more detailed stuff as soon as I have more.

Youth Development; An Exploit

I've seen people talk about this on the forums and naturally, it wasn't long before some of our more cheeky managers had a chat with us regarding the possibilities in Altobelli. I'm talking about Senior ranked competitions, set up as private competitions which only allow U17 teams to enter.

This is, in my eyes, an exploit because the system is designed so that players ratings are an indication that you are playing them at a level that they can cope with. The higher level means better progression but only if they perform well. By limiting the quality of the opposition and thus ensuring decent ratings, people are exploiting the youth development system.

Don't get me wrong here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a manager playing their entire youth team in a Senior Ranked competition, as long as other managers are allowed to use their Senior teams in these competitions as well.

In most cases, a youth team entering the fray against senior teams will lose and get bad average ratings so there is no gain and no exploit. If the Youth players are good enough to play well against Seniors (like Arsenal's youths in for example the Carling Cup) then that is fine, but by limiting entries into private competitions to U17's alone, people have found and are exploiting a backdoor of the system.

The issue here is not Youth teams playing in Senior competitions versus senior opponents, but Youth teams getting a good rating in a Senior rank comp because they ONLY play other youth teams. If you are intent on fielding Youth teams in a private competition versus other Youth teams, make the competition reflect the strength of its members by setting it to U21 or U19. These competitions should be YOUTH competitions, not SENIOR ones.

I mentioned this earlier but this acceleration of youth players attributes (and the fact they are playing in "senior" games) clearly affects their Acquisition Fees and as a result their Market Values as well. If their stats go up faster due to them performing well in "senior" games, their ACQ and MV are bound to follow.

It's a way to make youth trading an even more lucrative business. So far, we've already seen multi-million offers for youths and with this stat boosting going on, the prices for youths will become more inflated. This could literally kill off the whole economy.

Imagine if you will the following situation. Spanish midfield maestro Jose Manuel Jurado happens to be one of my players. Valued at 1.4 million, on a 20k a day wage and at only 24, he's a talented and world class midfielder. However, when I see 16 and 17 year olds with an MV of 400k exchange hands for over nearly 2 million, why would I settle for anything less than such a sum for Jurado?

He's obviously five times the player these newgens are, as he is much older, can be fitted into first team instantly and generally has the same wages as these super newgens. If a 400k player can go for 2 million, thus five times his MV, why should I settle for anything under 10 million for Jurado?

Just hypothetically speaking ofcourse. There is no way on this planet that I am selling Jurado, especially not with these inflated prices. Either way, it shows the long term difficulties this exploit might bring.

I've strayed a bit off-topic though and I would like to get back to the original exploit. When I first noticed these competitions popping up, I immediately edited or removed them entirely, whilst asking for an official stance on this subject. Well, I got my official stance for now. Allow me quote a mailing I sent out in Altobelli after receiving word on our official stance.

If it's a senior ranked competition then any team can play in that providing it's not been set to stat pad. If we have proof that it was set for this reason then action can be taken - if we don't have proof but when checking results we see it has happened then we send a written warning saying don't do it again.

It's a grey area with many different parts to it, but playing youths in senior games is not against the rules.

There is a discussion going on about these competitions, as technically they are exploiting the game engine, but until there is no official ruling in place, we have to wait and allow these competitions.

So here's to hoping there's a speedy resolution, either SI coding something new or creating a rule which shows what we are and what we aren't allowed to do.

Combatting A 4-6-0 Formation

As a manager who actually used the dreaded 4-6-0, I also know how to counter it. It really isn't that dangerous as people seem to think and countering it doesn't take that much effort. I usually do the following things when I play against a 4-6-0 formation.

1. Employ a defensive midfielder

I mean a real defensive midfielder, a link between the midfield and defence. This guy is going to man-mark the opposing main AMC and play him out of the match. Or try to anyway. He's supposed to disrupt the attacking build-up from the opposition.

2. Remove all closing down from the centre-backs

The centre-backs are often drawn out of position because they close down an opposing midfielder, leaving the defence prone to a through-ball through the centre. Just have the defenders stand off, the opposing players will run at them and are usually easily muscled off the ball in such cases.

3. Push up the defensive line

Limit the time and space for their AMC's to move in. Basically make it harder for these guys to play their beloved counter-play by either catching them off-side or limiting their passing options by clogging up the centre of the pitch.

4. Harass their defence

When the centre of the pitch is congested, these AMC's rely on a a proper build-up from the back. When you pressure their defenders and mostly their wingbacks into lumping the ball forward, your defenders usually beat their AMC's in the air and win the ball back for you.

Now please note that these tips are not a sure-fire way to beat a 4-6-0. You obviously need a decent tactic of your own and the right players to execute it, but it should help you to get an edge over the opposition. I actually win 80%of my encounters with a 4-6-0 these days.

I Love 1.3

Having been a long term beta tester of FM Live, I've had some time to work with the wizard and the whole system of in-game shouting it brings along. Now initially, I shared your sentiments. I felt that the wizard was unnatural and made FM too easy with all its preset modes. In a way, I even considered they were dumbing the game down for people who didn’t understand the sliders.

After my initial skeptical reaction, I realized I was there to beta test though and I gave the system a chance. It has to be said, it took me a while to get used to it. You have to let go of the slider mentality and various other ideas you’ve been accustomed to using whilst playing FM.

This takes effort, especially when you’re a long-term fan of the series. Once you manage to let go of your old mindset and embrace the new one, you will never want to go back… I’ve always found that the old FM slider-based tactics were understandable but not intuitive. I knew how to set the thing to achieve what I wanted to see, but my intuition always said it should be different.

The wizard offers a more intuitive style of play. It’s not just the creator which does this, but also the system of in-game shouts. No need to tweak sliders, just use the shout that’s available and the game does that for you. It creates more dynamic and intuitive play, in which you don’t have to pause the game for five to ten minutes to think which slider you have to move to where to get the desired effect.

I really think that the shouts like I have seen them in the 1.3 version of FM Live could make the whole game of FM a far better game than it is now, because it actually allows you to translate your real-life views on football to a match without the understanding of theories and translating your ideas into a slider-based approach.

And for those who can’t miss their beloved sliders, you can always overrule the wizard and open the sliders up to manually adjust certain settings, so you really get the best of both worlds. You get a new and intuitive style of play but when needed, you can return to the old-school style to adjust things.

And They Say We Never Do Anything...

Some people I talk to in the Live GameWorlds always wonder what it is we do in the Beta Worlds. They presume I am just in there to learn more about 1.3 so I can rule the Live GameWorld as soon as the new update comes out. That's a nice bonus, but our main objective in Beta is to find bugs and exploits in the new 1.3 patch.

Today's blog covers a nifty but serious bug we found out and had fixed. Since the coding has already changed, I can pretty safely mention it now. There's no longer any risk of people exploiting it and it provides a nice insight into what Beta Testers do (or should be doing anyway...).

In one of the latest builds, SI included the AI teams. Basically, these are bot teams. When there are no human opponents available, you can challenge a bot team, which is always available and will never reject a challenge. This way, you can keep the players fit, try out tactics, give trial players a go and more.

The matches you play don't count towards a players history and injuries don't stick, so they turned out to be ideal sparring partners. Later on, we discovered we could add them to the line-up of our friendly competitions as well. This was pretty nice, as you could add a few weak AI teams to the line-up to ensure everyone got a few easy wins.

This led me to experiment. If I could add them into a normal friendly, what would happen if I would add them into the line-up of a DYM? Would they pay their entry fee like the other teams? Would I be able to make a profit really easy this way?

It turns out I was... With some tweaking, I could make competitions with a 50k entry fee and after playing one match, I could earn upto 250k. That's 200k profit for twenty minutes of work. Ten minutes for setting up the competition, ten minutes for manually playing the game. Not a bad deal eh? Basically free money, as no-one got hurt.

Naturally, I didn't milk this exploit. I ran a few competitions and logged them all with the other moderators, so they could keep an eye on me in case I did decide to milk this little trick. After logging it with the other moderators in the GameWorld, I logged this with the development team.

With the whole logging post, you provide as much details as possible. For instance, how did I find this loophole, which different styles of competitions worked, how bad was the maximum damage it could do, would it be a lucrative exploit, how hard would it be to police this exploit and more things.

It turned out it was a pretty difficult exploit to police, as the Miller GameWorld has over 20 pages of friendly competitions and even when you filter out the free ones, you have 3 pages of money competitions left. Checking all of these competitions for the presence of AI teams is a pretty arduous task, especially in the larger competitions.

Anyway, after two days of policing the friendly competitions, the coding was changed so it's now impossible to start a competition for money when there are AI teams in the line-up. A pretty nice idea basically, you can still spend 10 minutes to set the whole thing up, but you just can't start it anymore.

So yeah, that's the kind of stuff we do in Beta Testing. Remember this next time you slag anyone off for doing testing work. We are helping the development team to make a better game, because I couldn't even begin to imagine the carnage of what would happen if an exploit like this ever came out in a live world.

Class Forum Post

I stumbled across a lovely post on the forums right here. This post should be taken with a grain of salt, but it does show the trouble we have in the new GameWorld of Altobelli. It's not my text, but I do realise many of the issues, as we have some real people complaining about them.

1 - I don't win every game

Im seriously getting annoyed with this, personally I feel my team isn't the best team in the league but really I should be winning all my games. I hate it when we batter a team with long shots and none of them go in, I mean why does the opponents goal keeper suddenly become good, doesn't he know how good my team are???? He should roll over as soon as we shoot! Damn him! Also isn't annoying when the opponent scores? I mean come on my defence is rock solid and I spent ages tinkering with it only to have someone break through and score a goal! He only had chance! OMG!!!111 this never happens in real life.

2 - The transfer markets screwed

Whats going on with the transfer market, we spent the first 3 seasons buying and selling players like there is no tomorrow and now no one is buying, they all want to just better their squads??? Whats up with that? I was quite happy at the start, I managed to get 4 quality players (shame I had to bump their wages so high to get em) but couldnt afford them and had to release them. Now I look in the free agents and theres loads of quality players but with ridiculous wages??? I mean come on why do people ruin the best players by paying them high wages and making them impossible for anyone to afford? I did it for mine but surely not everyone is as stupid as me????

3 - Youth Squads

I wanted to start a youth squad (in the 7th seasons) and i'll be damned all the best players as gone?? How selfish is everyone that they took all the best players?? And when I check the daily influx of new youngsters they arnt all 5 star potential?? OMG SI!!!11 WTF! I finally got a squad together and suffered bad flaw in the ME (see point 1)

4 - Everyone is leaving/the GW is dying

So this guy joined our GW and he was a total noob, but I noticed he had a few quality players, knowing he was a noobie I decided to talk him into taking a few of my crap youngsters off me (I told him they were 5 star potential) in trade for his quality players. While I was chatting to him I also suggested a few DYM comps I was running at the time cause I know easy cash when I saw some. So he found out about this youngsters and was pretty ****ed, I told him to go **** himself and that he shouldn't be so stupid!! He told a mod but I knew they were powerless to stop me ha ha.
So anyway, why are all the teams leaving my GW?? Its stupid!

So what did I do after all this? Of course I did what any normal person would do, I Jumped GW to a newer one.

I quickly got my team together, played a nice 4-6-0 formation and got 2 DC with damn good Jumping/heading. First game I had was against another newbie, we start the game he says "GL have fun" this really ****ed me off! But with my experiance I managed to beat him 4-0 with one of my DC getting a hat trick. He said my formation and tactics were cheating but I explained him they weren't, I pointed him in the direction of a jounalists artical about 4-6-0 and said this proves its not a ME flaw. He soon shut up!

I know unless you sort out all these problems i'm gonna have to jump GW again and again just get some satiffaction from this game!

Come on SI sort it out, its your game and your the one thats made all these mistakes NOT ME!!

So yeah, a good post. The guy was obviously not serious in the issues he raised, as he was obviously taking the piss. He does mention a few serious points though, as these are the main complaints we have been dealing with in-game.

A Change In Strategy

We discussed the hyper inflation within the GameWorld before in an earlier post. To summarize it, wages will explode even further, leading to even more inflation. Your money becomes worthless. The few remaining players on normal wages will be highly sought after because now everyone will try to slash their wages.

This means that the end-of-contract wage auctions are even more critical these days. Players with normal wages will be attracting lots of interest and the desperate managers after them are willing to pay a high wage to get them because of their normal wages. You have to admire the absurdity of that. They are willing to pay a wage five times higher than the current one, because it would still be lower than the wages of some of the players in their team.

Either way, since you can only protect five players with senior contract locks, this means there's roughly six to ten others running around you cannot protect. So basically anyone outside your 5 senior locks and your youth locks goes to a wage auction 24 hours before the end of their contract. This means the highest bidder wins the player, and as compensation you receive their Acquisition Fee (AF) - which is somewhat below the market rate you could get for the player by selling him.

Wage auctions are a thing you want to prevent. You don't want your player to go into a wage auction, because this will most likely drive his price up. To prevent this from happening, you forge an alliance to circumvent this whole problem. There are other managers out there with a similar problem to your own. Their squads might get ravaged by the wage auctions as well. Use that knowledge.

Offer these managers a sort of partnership. Swap players. For example, you could swap your centre-back with an expiring contract for theirs, who is in a similar situation, possibly with some money to make up for the difference in Market Value. This way, both of you keep a good defender on decent wages, without the hassle of a wage auction.

A Throw-In Tip

I received a little in-game message through the mailing lists which I think everyone who reads this blog might appreciate. I'm not going to hog the credit on this one, so honourable mentions for Rui Pintos Xutos and Diogo Martins for their initiative of sharing this.

It's basically a sort of Rory Delap style of tactic, where you have one long throw cannon and a lot of movement around the box. Works a treat if you have the players for it.

Anyway, under Team Instructions, put Throw Ins on Long for both the right and the left side. The individual instructions (based on a 4-5-1, alter according to your own formation...) look like this...

WBR - Default in both

DC - Stay Back in both

DC - Stay Back in both

WBR - Default in both

DM - Go Forward in both

MRC - Right near post Left go forward

MLC - Left near post right go forwrd

AMR - Go forward both

AML - Go forward both

SC - Go forward

If it all works, it looks a little something like this.

As you can see, this leads to one player being isolated in the box, with plenty of time to control the ball and get a good shot or header off.

A 4-6-0 Template

As I promised in the Altobelli Tactics Room, I’d show you all a template of the 4-6-0 I am using. The formation and team instructions are basically enough, since all the rest is down to your players and what you want them to achieve. I’ll do this the easy way by just giving you two screenshots.

The Exodus Is Upon Us As The First Sign Of The Apocalypse

For the illiterates amongst you (you have to appreciate the irony of me addressing illiterates on a blog, really...), an exodus means a departure or emigration, usually of a large number of people. It's named after the biblical exodus.

The book tells how Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God Sinai. Thus, an exodus is the emigration of a large amount of people.In the glorious Altobelli Game World, I have noticed the first exodus of players. With the pre-sale taxes on most players being reduced to about 35% to 30%, people have started to put some of their better players in auctions lasting for 7 days. Odd you say? No, strategic planning...

You see, in 7 days time the pre-sale taxes will have vanished completely, which means these guys get the full profits over the players they sell. It has to be said, most of the guys on auction are actually quite good, so it's a strategy that could have well paid off.

Did you note I used "could have paid off" instead of "will pay off"? Good... I'm pretty sure it won't really pay off and cause a massive inflation of wages and player values, as too many managers are using this strategy right about now.

The managers who were late into the Game World now see a chance to get good players or at least better ones than they currently have. The pre-sale taxes have pretty much stopped insane bids upto now, so most managers have a nice wad of cash saved up. This money is now used to make insane bids in the auctions.

For instance... Let's have a look at Jozsef Kanta. In real life, the lad plays for MTK Budapest and has won two caps. This means he's a decent but not spectacular player in FM Live. With an acquisition fee of 70,000 quid, he's not exactly cheap, but he's not a world class star either.

His manager managed to get the most out of him by fielding him as the main forward midfielder in a 4-6-0 formation. Jozsef bagged 171 goals in 169 appearances and has drawn some attention with this. As soon as he was placed in an auction, bids started pouring him, driving the value upto 450k. That's more than 6 times his market value...

This form of hyperinflation is happening all over the Game World in dozens of auctions. With most managers being smart enough to wait until pre-sale taxes vanished, this will mean a few guys will have a lot of cash to spend come the first series of wage auctions.

Now what do you think will happen? These guys have a lot of money, so they can pretty much afford high wages for the players they really want. The other managers will try to compete ofcourse. Nobody is going to back down to see their best players taken away. This means they will up their own bids for players to match what they think the rich managers are bidding.

This is where things start to become really critical. The concept of a normal auction is that you pay +1 on the second highest bid of a player. Wage auctions don't quite work that way... In a end-of-contract wage auction, what you bid is what you pay, even if the second highest bid was 10k lower than yours (Note: this doesn't apply when you actually OWN said player...).

I can pretty safely predict that the wages will explode even further, leading to even more inflation. Your money becomes worthless. The few remaining players on normal wages will be highly sought after because now everyone will try to slash their wages, thus leading not helping the situation... It may very well be the beginning of the end for the transfer market as we have known it upto now.

Errare Humanum Est

To err is human. Everybody makes mistakes, even moderators. So yeah, I'd like to use this blog to show you a mistake I made. Honesty goes a long way in my humble opinion, so might as well show you this as it gives you an insight in the job of being a moderator in an FML Game World.

The situation was the following. At around 8.00 in the morning, I received a transfer mailing list message from a manager saying he was bored with the game and he was selling his players. I figured he wanted to build a new squad and I signed his keeper Benoît Costil and his midfielder Egidio Arevalo Rios.

A few minutes after confirming the deal, the guy announced he was leaving the Game World... Yup, you can pretty much predict what is going to happen next. I mention this in the Mod Chat and we all discuss what might happen. I end up embargoed, the same as all other users involved in this deal, as this case was forwarded to Richard (the main support mod, the mod leader in a way).

In the end, the decision was made that everyone but me could keep their players. That makes sense, in a bent way. You see, as a moderator, you need to have a whiter than white image (sounds like the advertisement for a cleaning detergent...), which means no-one should have grounds to complain about mods exploiting rules, bending rules or taking advantage.

Thus, my players were released (with a refund) and I was asked to send out a Game World wide apology to all users, to apologise for any inconvenience my actions may have caused. I've also added the apology to my blog.

Hi good people of GW Altobelli,

You may or may not be aware that we have been investigating the fire sale from [TEAM NAME] yesterday.

A number of users, including myself, purchased players from this team before it became apparent that this was a firesale.

Since all deals were at MV, all teams were allowed to keep their players, except for me. The reason for this is simple. Any transfer which could possibly be seen as even slightly dodgy must not be done by a mod.

As a mod, I should have known better and despite the transfers being around MV, my players were released so no-one can accuse me of cheating, taking advantage or bending the rules.

I would also like to apologize to anyone who may have found wrong or not mod-like. My intentions were pure and I just thought I had struck a bargain deal. I had no intention of breaking any rules or gaining an unfair advantage.

As a reminder to myself and others, a last word of advice. Please be very careful in future and remember that purchases from teams leaving the game MUST be for a realistic transfer value. In future please ask a Moderator (not me, hehe) if a deal looks too good to be true (as they usually are).

I do hope this incident will not affect the way you see as a moderator, so things can continue as before.

With regards,

Guido

Altobelli Mod Team

So yeah, that was the end of that. Sort of. Not really though. As I feared, someone used this situation to throw a tantrum as soon as the opportunity arose. Which happened to be not too long ago, as I embargoed his team for a potential dodgy deal. In a private chat, I was told "I was a cheating c*nt" and "handing out embargoes because I had one for being a cheat."

Lovely that was... We had to call in Support to explain this to the fellow. To prevent any such things from happening again, I reckon this is the best way. Just come out into the open with it. My deals were not illegal, but I have to maintain a whiter than white image, hence this decision and hence this blog post and hence the above apology mail.

Old Players; The Concept Needs To Be Re-Vamped

In the Netherlands, you usually retire from work at around 65 years of age to enjoy your pension and do whatever these people do. Play shuffle-board, visit their grand-children and what-not... I am also aware that a footballers active career is generally over as he passes the big 35... There are exceptions to that rule ofcourse, but most players end their active career at 35 or so.

In FM Live, a players date of retirement seems to be even sooner. At around 30, even the best of players are being discarded since they represent no real transfer value after this date. Their wages are generally high, as is their acquisition fee, due to their high reputation.

I do believe these players can be of value though. For starters, they possess brilliant mental and hidden stats, meaning they bring experience to a team, a much needed factor that is often underrated. These guys can captain a side through a rough period in a match without panicking.

The main problem however lies with their high wages and high acquisition fee. Well, and their declining physique... But the monetary issue is the main gripe most people have with older players. Now in my eyes, a combination of two ideas can solve this problem.

The first idea wasn't mine, it was Andy Potter's, who posted it on the SI fora.

Can we please have the option to sign a player on a contract only until the end of the current season, effectively a 0 season contract? I've a few veterans I'm interested in, but I'd only want them for a couple of weeks to get me through the rest of my league season - I definitely wouldn't want them beyond that. A "0 season contract" option would allow for emergency signings for a couple of weeks, without requiring a massive commitment beyond that in terms of wage or release fee.

The second idea was mentioned in the very same thread but has been an idea I discussed with Andy before. As soon as a player (of any age!) is without a club, his wage demand and acquisition fee should start to drop with say, 2% a day, dropping to a minimum of 50% of the original value.

These two ideas would make older players rather attractive as short term solutions too many teams, instead of meaning older players rot away on a free transfer for several seasons.

Wikipedia and Google Scouting

One of the more intriguing aspects of FM Live is the starting squad and the high probability it will be full of unknown players. I'm always fascinated by these unknown names, they give the first few seasons an LLM feeling for me. Plunging myself into the unknown, discovering new names and abilities...

The first thing I do when I sign a new player who isn't very well known, as in not active in the highest division from a top nation, is look up his name in Wikipedia or Google to find more background information and possible footballing relatives and such. I actually do the same for all potential signings (not including newgens...).

An unorthodox method of scouting, I must admit, but not entirely weird. It usually tells you something about a players personality, as those hidden stats are not visible in FM Live and I don't have the need to boot up the FM Scout everytime I want to know such details.

Oh and before I forget, this method is actually used by real-life clubs as well. The tale of Dutch winger Istvan Bakx is one of the more obvious cases where a club used the internet and its capabilities to find and scout a potential signing.

Bakx gained some notability in Belgium with his transfer from the Dutch amateurs of Hoek to Belgian second division side Kortrijk. Manager Hein Vanhaezebrouck was searching for a left winger and he typed the Dutch word for that (linkeraanvaller) into Google. The search results showed a positive report on Bakx. Vanhaezebrouck sent out Kortrijk's head scout who confirmed these reports and Istvan Bakx' transfer to Kortrijk became reality.

As a result of this unorthodox scouting method, Belgian and Dutch media dubbed Bakx "the Google striker." For those wondering if he actually performed well, Bakx impressed during his first two seasons at Kortrijk, earning him a transfer to top-side Racing Genk.

So is there any point in this blog? No, not particularly, besides the fact that I enjoy typing the names of my squad members into Google and Wikipedia to find out more about their careers and personal lives.

Overpaid Youths

Yup, one of my favorite topics to rant about. This generally only seems to happen as soon as people unlock the Judging Potential Ability skill, but in Altobelli, it has struck in week 1. Oddly enough I might add, since technically we are a beginner Game World. Then again, we already established the Game World isn't exactly full of beginners anyway...

Anyway, right now the youth wages are okay in most cases, but the highly rated ones are already a disaster-area. Every newgen that has appeared over the last month with an expected four star or more Potential Ability, is now earning at least 10k a day, if not more. I've seen 15 and 16 year olds with 19k wages. All of this within the first weeks of the Game World launching...

People fail to realise how much money this is costing them in the long run. 10k a day means 70k a week, 280k a season... For a 15 or 16 year old player, whose future is highly uncertain, as you need to nurture and develop this youngster. He won't be ready for regular first team football before he hits the age 20, so you're paying 1,12 to 1,4 million for this youth.

And let's not forget we're still not sure if the youngster can actually live up the high expectations. You're taking a huge, huge gamble when you pay wages like that to such young players. If he fails to develop into a class act, there's no way you'll be able to sell him for the amount of cash you have invested in him.

Last but not least, there's the time of this hyperinflation... The FA's started on Monday, two days ago. That means that most teams barely have any money to spend, yet some are investing heavily into players... Let's not forget you have to pay a signing-on-fee of ten times a players wage as well... That's 50k for a 5k wage, on top of the acquisition fee. For starting teams, 50k is a lot of money...

I'm not sure how this situation will develop, but I can say it's not looking good. If people are investing this heavily in youths without having Judging Potential as a skill, imagine the carnage as soon as JP actually becomes available... I'm not sure I like the prospect of that... Hyperinflation galore and the youth wages might go completely insane...

The Real World Cup

I'm not going to take credit for the idea, as it wasn't mine but Nathan Pollard's, but I would like to advocate the introduction of a Pollard-style World Cup in every Game World as a community building tool.

The setup of the tournament is fairly basic, so there's not really a lot of hassle organising the tournament. Whoever is online on every fourth Sunday morning gets to pick a nation and select a squad of trialists, all from the same nation. The maximum acq. value of an individual player is 30k, but you are allowed two dispensation players with a max total acq. value of upto 750k.

This means you are allowed to sign these players on more permanent deals if you want or even use one of your already contracted players as dispensation players in the tournament. Either way, the total cost of participating in a World Cup tournament in Miller are around 40k in trialist wages, which isn't that much considering the fun that can be had.

Now on the forums, I participated in a discussion about this subject and people were advocating the use of full international squads, no restrictions at all. There are a number of reasons why I disagree with such a concept.

For starters, FM Live is not a realistic football management simulation, it's a form of fantasy management game. The game is designed to be accessible to a broad public, so why limit the opportunities in such a tournament? The restrictions mean it's not just a matter of who gets Brazil or Argentina and can then dominate the World Cup.

It even means it's not necessarily one of the big nations who wins. Muqqy surprised us all with his El Salvador team and we've had other minnow nations causing upsets before. I feel the restrictions and the equality they offer are fairer to FML and the community, as it means that more teams are able to compete for the tournament win and not just those managing the big nations.

Secondly, there's the matter of deciding who gets which team. In Miller, we just let people call their team as they come online, first come first served. Since the restrictions limit the managers, it means it's okay to come online as the 16th or 30th manager, as there are still plenty of nations available with a decent array of available trialists to compete in the tournament.

Remove these restrictions and it becomes a race to get online faster and call the use of Argentina, Italy, Brazil or Spain, which sort of removes the desire of others to play, since they would primarily act as cannon fodder for the big(ger) nations. Why would anyone play if they stand no realistic or even remote chance of winning?

Someone even said that teams should be assigned based on the Game World Rankings. That's quite possibly the worst idea I have ever heard with regards to a World Cup. As the name implies, the World Cup is there for the entire Game World. By basing it on the Rankings, you are creating an elitist competition for the select few dominating the Game World, not to mention the fact that you may end up with people from various time-zones, making it rather hard to actually get them all online at the same time.

The tournament should be accessible for all and then the quality of the manager should make the difference, not the quality of the players at his disposal, because he or she managed to get online faster or because he or she has been #1 for several weeks.

My third and final reason for advocating a Miller style World Cup is easy. Fun and gameplay, adding a sense of community to the Game World. Everytime we ran the World Cup, it was ran by teams online at the time, thus ensuring LIVE matches were played. Other managers joined matches to watch who would win, or they joined the World Cup banter in the Lobby. Either way, it was a busy and active competition, showing to all how good FM Live can be in all it's magnificent glory.

This is the kind of image you want to put in people's heads. This is the positive association people should have when they think of FM Live. They shouldn't be thinking about massive AI lists, players exploiting the system or dodgy same IP-transfers, they should be thinking of fast, competitive matches between evenly matches teams, with some banter on the sides.

So all in all, these are my reasons for going with Nathan's idea, maybe with a raised acq. value of 50k. Implementing a World Cup like this in every Game World will work wonders for the communities.

Beginner Game World? Surely Not...

Okay, so officially Altobelli is classified as a "beginner game world," which basically means that users have to have a brand new account to enter. Ideally, this means we see a game world full of real beginners, who can get used to the game without the hassle of dubious transfers, double your money competitions and veteran managers hammering them mercilessly.

In reality, I see a Lobby chat full of managers reminiscing good times in other Game Worlds, openly discussing Double Your Money competitions and slating people using 4-5-1 tactics. Sure, we have a bunch of genuine new users, but they are being thrown off by the amount of dodgy deals going on.

Apparently, lots of people seem to think that in a beginner Game World, SI and SEGA have appointed beginner moderators, so we're seeing all the dirty tricks in the book. Same IP deals all over the place, deliberately ignoring requests to have transfers validated and genuinely thinking us mods are retarded. I mean, who in their right mind would swap Luca Toni for Kevin Kyle? Who would? Exactly, no-one...

So yeah, not exactly a Game World full of beginners... Within a week of starting, there are already offers for the likes of Ballotelli, who has an 850k acquisition fee, or Miralem Pjanic, on a similar fee. Doesn't really sound like anything a beginner would do, wouldn't you agree?

Regarding youths, things aren't much better... All the 300 quid wage youngsters were gone within hours, as obviously these are the guys who probably have the best chance of being high potential youngsters. Yesterday, I saw newgen players go for over 10k wages... Within the first week of a Game World...

To be fair, I am being a bit of a hypocrit here... I myself am not really a beginner, with over 12 seasons of experience in Miller under my belt... On the other hand, moderators are prohibited from signing any players within the first 24 hours of a Game World opening and I am actively going down the youth path, so I'm hardly doing anything with my knowledge in terms of exploiting others or dominating the rankings.

The point I want to make is this. Don't call these Game Worlds beginner worlds, because they clearly aren't. Half of the guys in the world are clearly not beginners, but experienced or even veteran managers taking a new subscription out to try and dominate the Game World with their already acquired skills.

Altobelli; A New Saga Begins

So yeah, a new saga looks like it's beginning. I haven't really had the time to update my blog, as Altobelli is sucking up most of my available time. Still, it's a whole new experience. In three days of modding Altobelli, I've had more work than in four to five seasons in Miller. Mutes, yellow cards, transfer frauds, match fixing, the works...

Still, I relish the challenge and look forward to the first season starting. Since I'm focussing on youths rather than seniors, my team isn't that good in comparison to the Miller version, which was usually in the top 30 of the GW. Still, my knowledge of the mechanics of 1.2 ensure that even my minnows aren't being disgraced in every game we play, which is good enough as it is.

Regarding the name of the new Altobelli world, some guys in Miller have been asking me about this. Especially for them:

Alessandro Altobelli (born 28 November 1955 in Sonnino, Latina) is an Italian former football player. Nicknamed Spillo ("Needle") for his slender build, Altobelli was one of the most effective Italian forwards of the late 1970s and 1980s. Following spells at Latina (Serie C) and Brescia (Serie B), he was signed by Internazionale, for whom he played 466 times, scoring 209 goals (128 in Serie A) and massively contributing to his team's scudetto of 1980. For Italy he was capped 61 times, scoring 25 goals: the most notable of which is the third goal in the 1982 FIFA World Cup final, won by Italy against West Germany. He became the first ever substitute to score in a FIFA World Cup final (with Rudi Völler being the only one to repeat this feat ever since in 1986). Altobelli also played at Euro 80, the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and Euro 88, where he played as team's captain. He made 4 sub appearances scoring just after coming on in a 2-0 win over Denmark in the group stages. He is currently a sports analyst for the Al Jazeera sports channel, with Cesare Maldini.

So yeah, for so far history.

I'm also looking at introducing my community-building football quizzes. They are received very well so far, but I am worried the questions I have might be too hard for most of the guys in there. Miller has an older crowd, whereas many of the guys in Altobelli are very young.

Saving the worst for last, I am now apparently a racist as well. When we confronted a guy on match fixing, losing a game by fourteen goals because he had no keeper, he claimed to not know teams required a keeper to operate. This was coming from a 16 year old European lad who has subscriptions in several other Game Worlds...

I jokingly remarked that you had to be an American (or someone else with no footballing background) to make a mistake like that, so it sounded like match fixing to me. Having strong American roots within my own family, that remark seemed perfectly valid, but all of a sudden I am a racist and should be taken too court. Ludicrous.

Fortunately, incidents like that one are scarce, but they are annoying anyway, especially when they get plastered on your feedback screen whilst your off-line. Still, despite incidents like this, I have full faith we can make Altobelli into a top GW.

The Catch-22 Of Youth Development

As I have said before, I am quite devoted to developing my own youths, but I have stumbled across an almost impossible situation and rather annoying problem regarding the development of my youths. The developing of stats is becoming harder and harder, to a point where it is turning into a laughable Catch-22 situation.

Now for those who haven't read the novel by Joseph Heller, Catch-22 is a law defined in various ways throughout the novel Catch-22. First, the main protagonist Yossarian discovers that it is possible to be discharged from military service because of insanity. Always looking for a way out, he claims that he is insane, only to find out that by claiming that he is insane he has proved that he is obviously sane — since any sane person would claim that he or she is insane in order to avoid flying bombing missions.

Elsewhere, Catch-22 is defined as a law that is illegal to read. Ironically, the place where it is written that it is illegal is in Catch-22 itself. It is yet again defined as the law that the enemy is allowed to do anything that one can't keep him from doing. In short, then, Catch-22 is any paradoxical, circular reasoning that catches its victim in its illogic and serves those who have made the law.

Breaking this down into smaller portions and translating it to the youth development, you would get a situation like this.

1. Premise: If a youth player is to develop his stats in a decent tempo, he must get decent average ratings in the matches he plays.

2. Premise: If a youth player has decent stats, he will more easily achieve these higher average ratings,

3. Definition of implication: since a youth player who wants to develop further in a decent tempo does not already have decent enough stats, it follows that he will not play to his full potential for quite a while.

4. De Morgan: since this player cannot play to his full potential for quite a while, his performances are lacklustre and will result in decent but not spectacular average ratings.

5. Modus Tollens: since a players average rating is not very spectacular, his stats will not rise very much during the course of a season, causing his average ratings to stay the same, et cetera...

Surely you can appreciate the wonderful circular logic behind this... A player needs a high average rating to develop at a decent pace, yet he can only obtain or achieve this rating by developing into a better player first... By decent tempo, I mean that a player should be ready for first team in his early 20's. Anyway, this dilemma, gentlemen, is Catch-22.

Now of course there are ways around this. You can re-invent your tactics to actually suit a players strenghts more and compensate for their weaknesses a bit, but in general I believe the coaching skills are a bit underpowered.

You see, the coaching skills will boost the rate at which a player improves. This means they boost both attributes and Current Ability (CA). CA is just a reflection of a player's attributes, or vice versa, they aren't really seperate entities as the match engine for example doesn't know about CA at all, it only cares about attributes, which are in turn set according to CA.

Regardless of coaching skills, a player won't improve beyond his Potential Ability (PA), however he is more likely to reach his potential. A 2.5* potential player can only ever become a 2.5* player, no better, however a 3.5* potential player at another club may never reach that level. In that sense it is possible for a player with a lower potential to become better than a player with higher potential. This, of course, is true regardless of skills, but increased coaching skills allow you to get the most out of your players.

The problem is that the coaching skills really only kick in when the average rating is decent as well. So how can we make a youth really live up to his potential? A bit of luck that he faces weak opponents? Or just lots of tactical tinkering until we find a formation to play him in…

What Goes Around Comes Around

Besides this phrase being used in a tacky song by Justin Timberlake, it's also one of the fundamental principles of karma. As you sow, so shall ye reap. What you do to others, you are really doing to yourself for when it comes back to you.

I believe this principle can also be used in FM Live. Over the past few weeks or maybe even months, I have heard people complaining about the Game World Economy, its inflated prices and the reduced chances of selling players to anyone.

When you apply the idea of what goes around, comes around to FM Live, you would see less of this nonsense. If nobody overcharges, the inflation will not be as severe. If you sell for fair prices, people are also inclined to sell players to you at fair prices. Oh yeah, with fair prices I mean a maximum of double MV...

Anyway, the people moaning should also look at themselves. If you don't sell at prices based around MV, why should anyone else be inclined to return the favour? It does work the other way around, as I myself have experienced on several occassions.

When you sell for prices based around MV, you are far more likely to get the same courtesy from another manager when you negotiate for his player. In time, you will establish a network of managers who are all inclined to do the same, which basically makes transfer dealings easy and pleasant for all involved.

People should keep this in mind, next time they start moaning about how bad the Game World economy is. Chances are they themselves have contributed to its present state with their own actions.

A New Style Of Advertising; Endorsement

After my guerrilla advertising, trying sympathy stories, I am trying a new approach to selling players. Linking players to real-life legends seems to work as well, especially if there's any reality in the link. Everybody likes to own the new Ronaldo, Messi, Pirlo or Villa.

Technically, it's not really an endorsement, but it's close enough and since I can't come up with any better terms for it, this is what I'm calling it for now. Point is, I am pretty confident it will work.

Here's my first attempt at it.

Gentlemen, allow me to introducé you to the new Recoba, Aníbal Morales. The boy has a lot in common with the real Recoba, as his strengths are his dribbling, technique, pace and a strong, accurate left-foot shot. He is a free-kick specialist, and has scored goals of great quality before.

His left foot does not only pack amazing power and precision, it possesses an exquisite touch as well. Beautifully balanced and deceptively fast, he can be a classic winger on the dribble, lethal on the turn inside the box or he can be a gifted play-maker in the centre of the pitch, feeding the forwards superb through balls.

Basically, the boy is a talented and fabulously gifted all-rounder, elegant and tough, who can score with his head and left foot. Aníbal Morales is a talented youth, whose attributes are already on par with those of players three or four years older.

Also take in consideration that his wages are relatively cheap. In a day where top youths go for 10k or more, this talented youth has 4k wages and can be youth locked until he’s 22 when you sign him now. I would also like to point out that he’s in an auction starting at a mere 1 quid, so you may be able to get him cheap.

Now you’re probably wondering, what’s the catch Guido? Why are you selling him if he’s this good? Well, I’ll be frank. My reasons to sell him are two-fold. I have too many players, so I need to sell someone anyway. I also want to fill up a new three-tier stand with seating blocks, so I need the cash. Morales should fetch a handsome price, so get your bids in people.

I'm hoping to fetch 300k for the kid, so let's see what happens here.

Work In Progress; My Own 4-6-0 Part Deux

So far, I have basically set up three different formations, all using the “no striker” idea. The first one is the standard one I see most of the times when my opponent plays a 4-6-0. I have dubbed it the normal or standard version. It looks like this.

A solid back-four, complemented by a sort of pyramid-shaped midfield. The three attacking midfielders are the ones generally causing trouble for the defence, whereas the central midfielder is the one starting most attacks, whilst maintaining the defensive balance of the team.

The more defensive version I have seen features a real defensive midfielder and only one real attacking midfielder. It's a more conservative approach to the whole concept, aimed more at people looking to play a counter-attacking style.

This version offers more defensive stability, as there is less chance of players being caught out of position defensively. On the other hand, it's also a formation which has seen me draw a lot, as the offensive potency is somewhat limited.

Last but not least, there's my favourite formation, the most attacking formation of the whole bunch. This version offers nice matches to watch, whilst also ensuring I actually win most of them because my opponent is clueless how to counter it effectively.

With this version, you sort of have a 4-3-3 formation with wingers, just not with a real striker. The forward either runs onto crosses and through balls or lays the ball off for one of the midfielders to try his luck.

Next up, we're tweaking team instructions...

Work In Progress; My Own 4-6-0

Over the past few months, I have heard quite a few people moaning about the 4-6-0 and this tactic being an exploit of the match engine, since it overcrowds the midfield and uses no real striker. The main reason I have heard is that “using a tactic with no strikers just isn’t realistic as no real life team does this.”

I have read this excellent article on the development of tactics throughout history and the 4-6-0 in particular. Apparently it can be done and is done in real life, most notably by AS Roma two seasons ago, as they fielded Francesco Totti to operate in the hole between attack and defence, with no-one upfront.

Operating as a focal point as for example Didier Drogba was for Chelsea, he held up the ball, drifted, and created space for his team-mates to break into. Roma's 4-1-4-1 formation frequently became 4-1-5-0, a formation with no real striker, which resembles the 4-6-0 idea we encounter in FM Live.

Reading the information I have found, I decided to give this a go myself. After all, it’s all about learning new tricks and the concept sounds pretty solid in theory. As was stated in the article, the history of tactics is the story of the attempt to achieve the greatest balance of attacking fluidity and defensive solidity, which is pretty much what FM and FM Live are all about.

With all of this in mind, I started reading up on what others had achieved working with the 4-6-0. There’s no need to invent everything all over again, especially when others have left well documented settings. Threads I found particularly useful were this one and this one, as they provided me with some settings and tips.

As I started experimenting, I quickly noticed that a system with no forwards places a premium on fast, accurate passing through the midfield, which is fine on a good day. However, there will always be days when the passing fails to click, or when a team is forced on to the back foot and needs an outlet for holding the ball and relieving the pressure.

This is where your AMC becomes important. As general fitness improves, so the demands on attacking midfielders and forwards change, not least because defences cannot be relied upon to lose shape as they become exhausted. The AMC in this formation must be a universalist, a hybrid of the old strike-partnerships. He must be quick and strong, as he has to hold up the ball but he must also be able to chase after a through ball.

Ideally, you’re looking for an AM/FC in FM-terms. Players like Stevan Jovetic, Giuseppe Rossi, Antonio Cassano and Goran Pandev are ideally suited for this role. They are hybrids. A combination of the playmaker and the forward. They have the skill and technique to hold up the ball yet they are also blessed with stamina and the running power to move forward to pounce on loose balls.

From what I’ve seen so far, this formation works well enough. Defenders are having difficulties realizing who to pick up, as the running midfielders seem to catch the defenders off guard quite a bit. I will elaborate on settings and formations later on, as this is all work in progress at the moment.

Fifty Player Squad Restriction Is Unfair

Seriously, I can understand the need to limit the amount of players in a squad, as it will lead to hoarding and people trying to corner the market early on. I have no gripe with the rule as such, as I can fully understand why it was implemented. I do have a problem with the number of fifty players.

As it stands, a player is currently capable to create five squad. This generally means one senior squad and various youth squads or maybe even a reserve squad. Generally, the setup looks like this:

1. Senior Squad
2. Reserve Squad
3. U21 Squad
4. U19 Squad
5. U17 Squad

Given that the minimum size of a healthy squad would be around 16 players, that means you have 80 players running around the club.

I have neglected the fact that players can feature in more than one team though. A very good youth player might feature in more than one youth team and maybe even in the senior team as well.

Still, as you can see it takes considerably more than 50 players to run a team with a full on youth academy effectively. Please SI, can't you raise the limit, so we don't get punished by poor morale and players rejecting their auto extends, whilst they actually do play enough games and have no realistic reason to complain?

Another Quiz

Another Quiz was organised tonight and we had a record number of participants. This was the final score.

1. Abdul Muqsit 17
2. William Hall 11
3. Neill Smith 9
4. Tom Delgado 8
5. Nabz Khan 7
6. Paul Hills, Padraig Doherty 5
7. Bernard Tapie 4
8. Mike DiAmore, Sune Nielsen, Juan Manuel Cobos 2
9. Rafael Affonso, Dan Hyde 1

More Crazy Advertising

This stuff never get's old... Another one...

Won’t you let your heart speak and help fulfill a young boy’s dreams?

This is Andreas Weiß, a young German boy. Despite having a German last name, young Andreas has a British heritage. He is the illegitimate son of a British airman who was posted in Germany.

From his father, young Andreas got a great passion for football and for the English Premiership. Since the father didn’t become a professional football player, he hoped his son would be and he infused the boy with his passion for the game and for England. The boy dreamt of playing at Old Trafford, Anfield and Stamford Bridge, he was obsessed with becoming a professional football player.

Like any real father, Andreas’ father was his biggest fan, despite him not being able to acknowledge his son due to his family back home. During the long period he was stationed in Germany, his father barely missed a game young Andreas was playing in. Now if that isn’t true love…

Anyway, when a tragic accident caused the death of Andreas’ father, he vowed he would try to become a professional football player in England. Young Andreas is already halfway there. He is currently a professional football player, active in the Fortuna Aeternitas academy. Will you help him make the final step and fulfill a life long wish?

Andreas Weiß is a tenacious young midfielder, gifted with a strong physique for a lad of his age, an excellent professional attitude and very decent passing skills. Won’t you help this lad get a transfer?

For those wondering if my advertising works, this player was sold a few minutes after the advertisement was sent out.

Tom Delgado: I Salute You

For those of you who were never in Game World Miller, allow me to introduce Tom Delgado and his enigmatic Red Devils USA. In Miller, we have a bit of a running gag that involves Tom and his team's rather poor performances. When people think they have hit rock bottom, we point towards Tom, who has been struggling far worse over an extended period of time. A very extended period of time. Like five seasons.

Ever since winning some Manager of the Season award in season 1 (God knows which bug/fluke caused this ;-) hehe...), Tom and his team have been unable to perform decent in any official competition. His team have shown consistency though, but mostly in crumbling horribly and getting hammered by their opponents.

As you can imagine, this was a cause of great frustration for poor Tom and a source of great amusement for the rest of us. Bad luck for someone else is always a good form of entertainment, especially when that someone goes off on long rants in the Lobby of the Game World.

Despite all of his bad luck and our constant taunting, Tom has stuck to the game though. Many others would have given up, had they performed as bad as the Red Devils USA over the course of five full seasons. Tom hasn't and I respect him for that, it shows determination and courage.

Over time, several managers, including myself, have tried to help Tom. We gave him advice, we helped him with his tactics, we loaned him players and we pointed out bargain deals for him. Not that he wasn't capable of doing that himself, but I felt genuinely sorry for his bad luck and what can I say, I have grown to like the bugger...

Anyway, despite our best efforts, his team remained unable to win anything decent. In fact, the Red Devils USA trophy cabinet was still empty, despite the fact that he had actively played in six seasons. We even set up a non-ranked tournament he could win, as we all promised to field weak(ish) teams. He wouldn't participate, which was probably the honourable thing to do.

I realise now that, despite our good intentions, this offer was quite degrading. We probably insulted his honour as we sort of implied he wasn't good enough to win a tournament on his own. For this unintentional insult, I offer my most sincere apologies to Tom, since I know he actually reads this blog.

Last season however, things looked like they were changing for Tom's Devils, as the team actually won a trophy. They won the OFA Youth Cup over two games, beating Vulcan Lee's BB City with a 2-1 aggregate.

I can honestly say that this was one of the happiest moments I have had since playing FM Live. I think that there was probably no-one in the Game World who wasn't rooting for Tom to break his long spell of bad luck and unlucky defeats. So yeah, this post is a bit of a tribute to Tom and his endurace. Chapeau old boy, you deserve that trophy.

I Think I'm Hooked

I am actually pretty sure of that... I am hooked to FM Live. Last week, my laptop blew up on me. Not quite literally, but the darn thing refused to start. In the week it took me to fix the bloody thing, I was unable to play FM Live and I was starting to show signs of withdrawal.

At least several times an hour, I started wondering how my team were doing in their respective leagues and cups. I was wondering which players I was going to lose in an auction because I would be unable to protect their contracts. I even bothered to log in at the SI fora at work and ask one of the other mods in my Game World for a status report on my team.

Quite literally, I was obsessing over my game. I think that's good news for SI and the community of the Miller Game World, but it's not so good news for me and my girlfriend, as she won't be seeing a lot of me the next week or so, as I try to repair the damages done to my team by the evil wage auctions (I lost two first teamers, [/whine mode] ).

It also makes me wonder what will happen should I ever decide to quit FM Live... Is there some sort of rehabilitation program to prepare us addicts for the real world? Going "cold turkey" obviously didn't work for me...

Dictum Meum Pactum

My word is my bond. I'm a firm believer of the so-called gentleman's agreement. When I orally agree to a certain deal, I live up to said deal because I feel my reputation is at stake when I don't. In a community-based game like FM Live, your reputation is all you have, so therefore crucial to your success in the game. Managers deemed unreliable or not trustworthy will have difficulties signing players or getting bargain deals done.

Still, whenever I strike an agreement which revolves around trust, people seem genuinely surprised that I actually live up to my end of the deal. This means there's something fundamentally wrong with the community, when you're not able to trust another manager on his (or her, I'm not biased) word. It might even be a reason why the transfer market is not always going as smooth as it could be, some people do not live up to their promises and others become reluctant to make deals because of previous bad experiences.

The gentleman's agreement really helps when making deals. Only yesterday, I struck a deal for a Mexican wingback for 1.4 million. In exchange, two of my youths were loaned to the other side to cover for his loss of a first teamer. The guy seemed genuinely surprised when I actually accepted the first offer and promised him he could loan the second youth next season, because the auto extension of his contract was within the next 7 days.

Since the gentleman's agreement seems to be failing, I feel that either the First Option or Future Transfer clauses from FM should be imported to FM Live. Some managers are reluctant to sell during the season, but they would be willing to settle a deal once the season ends. A Future Transfer option might liven things up, as managers could really start their long term planning this way.

Google Quizzy?

Despite several people's accusations of googling answers, loads of fun were had by all involved whilst playing. In response to the googling, the average response time is below 10 seconds, which makes it almost impossible to accurately google for an answer.

Anyway, last nights final score...

1 - Nathan Pollard 30
2 - Tom Delgado 18
3 - Nick Megarity 15
4 - Alec Sora 7
5 - Abe Roddney 4
6 - Glen Fyrth 2
7 - Jocke Grundberg 1

Also, feel free to respond to the blogposts more often, possibly with new quiz questions...

Patience Is A Virtue

FM Live resembles real life in many way, even more than we realise. In real life, patience is a virtue because it makes us better people in general. This principle also works in FM Live. Patience really is a virtue and important to have, both in the real world and in the virtual Game Worlds we are in.

The definition of the word "patience" is to tolerate delay. This implies self control and forebearance as opposed to wanting what we want when we want it. Applied to FM Live, think of realistic situations where you splash your entire transfer budget and overpay considerably for a decent player, only to find out a cheaper alternative is a available only a few days later. How many times have we jumped the gun and found out it it would have been better to tolerate delay or had self control?

Also a nice one, what did we miss out on? Couldn't we have built a nice stadium with that money? Did we sell that youth player too soon or too cheap? Should we not have had more patience with that talented forward, instead of flogging him off?

Did we hurt someone else or ourselves (or our team) because of lack of patience? Did our lives just change completely just because we couldn't control ourselves? Patience is not only a virtue but a necessity for a happy exisitience.

The reason for this semi-philosophical rant is clear, I'm one of these more patient managers. This doesn't mean I don't get annoyed at times though and I need to let off some steam. I'm still pretty pissed because I had to flog off most of the U17 generation relatively cheap, instead of being able to watch them mature.

I also invested a considerable lump of cash into the acquisation of central defender Ryhor Filipenko, the tall Russian beast-man. This very morning, right before his auction ended, someone else swooped in and outbid me.

I could have gotten angry. I could have panicked. I could go out and throw enormous amounts of cash around to find a similar player. Instead, I will try my patience. Another opportunity will arise soon. Maybe not for a defender, but I am sure a more profitable situation will soon arise. Patience is my main virtue.

More Quizzing

Another quiz last night. To my shame, several questions were wrongly phrased or plain incorrect. Yes, even I am human. I am very very ashamed. I am. Really.

Anyway, the results from last night.

1 - Nathan Pollard 20
2 - Tom Delgado 13
3 - Muzzy 9
4 - Nick Megarity 7
- - William Hall 7
6 - Sean O'Connell 2
7 - Matt Legend 1
- - Volkan Ozkan 1

I do feel the need to add that Tom Delgado was comfortably leading the whole thing, before he had to leave prematurely. He would have probably been the first to reach 20, had it not been for some unforeseen circumstance which prompted him to leave.

Scouting Talents Without Judging Potential

Probably one of the best and most insightful things I have read in a long time took place in a secluded part of the SI fora. It's about how you can scout top youths without the use of the judging potential skill. Potentially, if you get this right, this means you can start your academy in the very first season, when the competition for the top youngsters is less fierce.

Apparently, it's all about setting up the right filters. As the world is quickly swamped with newgen players, you can't go trawling through long lists of players, so you want to set up good filters as fast as you can to start scouting.

One of the tips I picked up, was filtering on wage. Most newgens appear with a wage demand of 200 quid. The ones with higher wages generally have a better chance of becoming better players, if they possess the proper stats as well, so filtering on wages is a smart idea.

Naturally, wages alone are not an indication of a players potential ability. It could just mean his current ability is quite high, but his development chances are limited, which means you still have nothing useful to work with.

We also have to look at certain stats. As I stated in an earlier blogpost, players with decent values for Work Rate and Determination are far more likely to live up to their PA. There's less need of splashing loads of cash on top PA players if there's not a very big chance of them living up to that potential. Looking at these two mental attributes will give you a pretty decent idea if a player will be able to live up to his potential.

One last important thing to look at was basically natural fitness. I suppose that makes sense, especially if you're in the development business for the long haul. You don't want a youth with top stats but who tires after 45 minutes of football, so it is important they have the natural fitness to develop their other physical skills.

Summing it up, these are the things we should be looking at in a filter:

• wages: over 200 quid;
• determination: 10+;
• work rate: 10+ (preferably even 15+);
• natural fitness: 10+.

I put this theory to the test by looking at several teams who were signing the top youths very early on in Miller Beta. Teams like the Tallinna Piraaja and AZ Bruntsfield were reknowned for picking up the youths even in season one, before JP skills were unlocked and when I look at the players they signed who turned out great, they all seem to match the profile described above. So yeah, I think this might help out a lot of people.

Inflation Of The Youth Wages

As we all know, inflation has struck our merry little Miller Game World. For those of you with no basic grasp of economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.

When the general price level rises, each unit of the functional currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation is a decline in the real value of money—a loss of purchasing power in the internal medium of exchange which is also the monetary unit of account in an economy.

Translated into FM Live terms, players are becoming more expensive, in both wages and transfer sums. You have to pay more money in wage auctions and more money in transfer auctions to acquire decent players, which means less transfers are taking place.

In a post on the Developer Blog, Rob Cooper stated the inflation levels for every Game World. Miller and Coppell are on an average of 39.78%, which isn't that bad considering the fact that we've started out with 1.2 and the stadiums, which brings extra costs from the very start.

Anyway, I'm trying to look at the cause of this inflation. I think it's generally caused by people who don't know how the transfer market functions or people who are desperate to have a certain player (generally a top real-life player, someone who plays for their real-life club or a highly rated youth). They bid excessive amounts to persuade the player to transfer or the contracting club to sell.

Naturally, this causes some inbalances, as some of the wages have gone insane. The senior wages have pretty much stabilised, but the youth wages are a disaster-area. Every four star or more Potential Ability newgen that has appeared over the last month, is now earning at least 10k a day, if not more.

People fail to realise how much money this is costing them in the long run. 10k a day means 70k a week, 280k a season... For a 15 or 16 year old player, whose future is highly uncertain, as you need to nurture and develop this youngster. He won't be ready for regular first team football before he hits the age 20, so you're paying 1,12 to 1,4 million for this youth.

And let's not forget we're still not sure if the youngster can actually live up the high expectations. You're taking a huge, huge gamble when you pay wages like that to such young players, which is, in my eyes anyway, one of the main reasons for the current inflation.

I refuse to shell out these kind of excessive wages for every player, my top youths earn around 8k a day, but he's already playing regular first team football and he's developing quite nicely, with a Market Value of around 850k at the moment.

The one exception in my team is a Brazilian newgen, but his stats are so good that I don't consider him a youth player anymore, even though he is only 18 years old. He has proven that too, by getting 6.9 averages in the senior games he has played so far, in which case 14k isn't an excessive amount to pay.

Is there any way to curb this inflation of the youth wages? Can we stop this madness? Unfortunately, I don't see any way how to achieve this goal. I have actually thought this through (for a change...) and this is what I came up with.

Wage caps initially sounded like a good idea. Restrict the maximum bids. But these salary caps would be unfair, as it would be a matter who gets the maximum bid in first. Even with a more random distribution of youths time-wise, this would not work.

SI tried to hide the number of bids in the 3337 build of the Beta, but this didn't really help as people just bid high anyway to ensure they get the player. In a way, this measure was even restricting some teams. If you don't have a lot of cash, it's useful to be able to see how many bidders there are so as to decide where to spend your pennies, so in that sense it's not very friendly to weaker/poorer teams.

I considered removing all money from youth competitions, but I quickly realised most teams are not in the youth business for the prize money, since this is generally very very low and hardly worth the effort.

Most teams seem to be in it for the development of players and the chance to sell on their talents for huge fees. I have to admit that this is a lucrative business, as I have recently sold two youths for a combined value of 1,4 million quid. Since their combined wages were a mere 7k, they are cheaper than any of the newer newgens, which probably drove the price up.

Many other managers fail to realise this and they think these players only went for such excessive fees because of their superb Potential Ability. They therefore assume that signing top PA youngsters will guarantee them a lot of money in the future, when in reality it's the combination of superb PA, decent stats, chance of development and normal/fair wages that makes transfer sums sky-rocket at times.

The Demise Of A Generation...

With the wages for 15 and 16 year old players rising to absurd figures, I have decided to retire the Fortuna Aeternitas U17 team. The best five prospects, those being the ones who might realistically develop into first team assets, are added to the U18 selection, the rest of the squad will be sold in auctions starting at one pound.

I feel sad I have to break up an entire team, but with the current inflation, I don't think I can afford to replace the current U17 team come next season. Well, I could replace them, but it would either be a squad full of extremely expensive talents (10k or more wages pro player...) or cheap dross no-one else picks up.

This season, I experimented with that last option in the U17's. A team full of relatively cheap Africans and Asians was able to do okay, but not as good as the other Academy teams I have. Also, I have noticed the wages in the regions rise to well above my acceptable level as well. I refuse to shell out excessive wages (5k or more) for average players who are used to fill the squad and even more excessive wages (10k or more) for the top stars of a generation.

The current inflation of the market has prompted me to disband the U17's. This decision is effective as soon as the tournaments they are currently in, have ended. Most of the current squad members have been placed in auctions, which end Friday. I'm sad to see the lads go, but I just cannot afford to keep hold of them.

It is sad that I have to break away from the tradition of home-growing my first teamers, right at the same moment that the first Academy graduates are being induced into the first team. Players like Marko Damjanovic, Jack Cleverley, Angelo Antonucci, Carlos Amaro and Velimir Jovanovic were all part of the academy for three or more seasons, but this proud tradition of training my own youths will end in a few seasons, as there are no new Academy teams coming.

Quizzy Again

Ladies and gentlemen, we have witnessed a miracle tonight... Tom Delgado won something... In FML... Granted, it wasn't a tournament (or a match), but he won tonights edition of the footy quiz. The most notable absentee was mister Nathan Pollard by the way. These were the final scores.

1 - Tom Delgado 20
2 - Muzzy 13
3 - Volkan Ozkan 8
4 - Srinath Murthy 5
5 - Dan Hyde 1

Sob Story Numero... I Lost Count...

I think it's four or five... Anyway, my story-style advertising is working out pretty well and I decided to use my blog as a holding pen for all drafts and such... I'm not sure how many people actually read this, but this way I can always re-use my old stuff with a new name and location.

August 17th 2007, just another day in Lima. Willy Pellny followed the routine practiced by thousands of homeless children in Lima every day. He took out a handkerchief, dipped it into a bottle of paint thinner, put it to his nose and inhaled deeply. Asked what he was doing, Willy replied: "Dinner."

Willy was sniffing paint-thinner to suppress his hunger and ward off the cold. An estimated 60,000 children live on the streets of Lima, and almost all are addicted to some sort of inhalant.

The city has targeted glue-sniffing as a focus for its resources, and social worker and part-time Fortuna Aeternitas scout PJ has met scores of young addicts like Willy in his work. "These are boys who should be playing games at recess and learning their multiplication tables. Instead, they're living on the streets of a slum and spending most of their time in a delirious buzz."

PJ has been supporting street children for the past 30 years, and his achievement was recognized on Friday at an opening ceremony for a new headquarters, attended by the country's Vice-President. This was due to be followed on Saturday by a football tournament for street boys, opened by rehabilitated glue-sniffers.

It was during this tournament that young Willy was scouted by PJ and recommended to the academy of Fortuna Aeternitas. Unfortunately, Willy came in at the wrong time, as Fortuna manager Merry had just decided to cancel the U17 team.

If he is sent back to Peru, he will almost certainly fall back into his old habits. Can you not spare a quid, put in a bid in the auction and save him from a future of drug abuse and extreme poverty?

It's heart-breaking, I know... I couldn't stuff more clichées in there than I already did, but it's a good read...

Newgen Distribution and Generation A Bit Unfair?

Seeing as I consider myself a talent spotter and developer, I invested quite a lot of time into developing my scouting skills. These skills increase the amount of players you can bid for in the world by 5% per level.

Without this skill I would not be able to approach some players in order to sign them. Players you don't have the scouting skills to sign aren't visible on the player search panel. You can also click on links posted by someone else, but the approach button will be greyed out. If you hover over this button it will tell you the reason, like you don't have the required skills.

Within the scouting skill-set, there are area specific skills that improve the amount of players you can see by 5% in specific regions. Famous players can be seen by all players regardless of their scouting abilities. This means that the main benefit of scouting is the ability to find regenerated young players who enter into the gameworld as older players retire.

Now allow me to quote a piece of text from the FM Online manual.

If everybody has a certain skill there is no advantage in having it – think about learning something obscure such as the Oceania region scouting skill, which would give you a unique advantage.

Source: FM Live Manual

I followed SI’s advice, as evidenced by one of my previous blog posts.

I'm changing my strategy to keep my wages low but maintain a certain level of quality. I've noticed that most these high wage players are either European or South American. Most managers have focussed their scouting skills in this region. Admittedly, it's where most talents originate from, so it makes sense too.

It also means that most managers have not bothered scouting in Asia and Africa. Admittedly, there's less talent originating from these regions, but they are there and they're still fairly cheap because they're not spotted by most managers, meaning the competition is less fierce and the wages are fairly normal.

Source: my own blog

But looking back on that decision, I can’t say it has paid off. The main reason for this is an unfair newgen distribution by the game itsself. Both in quantity and quality, the game heavily favours South America and Europe.

I’m not saying there are never any decent African or Australian newgens, but for every African four star newgen, there are six or seven South American and six or seven European newgens, so the quantity is not balanced.

The same can be said for the quality. Almost all of the top youths PA-wise are European and South American, there are barely any four or more star African or Asian youths in the game.

To a certain degree, I agree that is realism, as there aren’t that many Asian and Australian superstars, but surely Africa deserves a more worthy faith? It’s not like they haven’t produced anything decent, some of the worlds best players are African or of African descent.

In total, I feel the newgen distribution and generation isn’t quite balanced and even a bit unfair. Learning the African and Australian regions for scouting takes the same amount of time as the European and South American regions, but the pay-off is considerably less in quantity and quality of players.

The one advantage I have noticed is that the competition for these players is less fierce, because not every player is visible to all managers. Unfortunately, the moment a top African newgen appears, he is visible to everyone with five star scouting, so I would still have to shell out 20k wage offers.

Perhaps this is something that can be looked at by Sports Interactive?

Alternative Advertising

I'm actually taking pride in coming up with original ways to to promote certain players I'm trying to off-load. "They" always say that sex and scandals sell. I'm not sure who "they" are, but I'm willing to test this hypothesis in a new advertisement, by including a celebrity scandal.

I'm sure we've all heard of Julio Iglesias. Julio is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million albums in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music he is one of the top 10 best selling music artists ever.

While Iglesias rose to international prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer of romantic ballads and as an iconically suave Spanish gentleman, his success has continued as he entered new musical endeavors. Thus far, he has performed approximately 5,000 concerts.

Not many people know that Julio was actually quite a decent football player. In the early sixties, when he was a law student in Madrid, he briefly was goalkeeper for one of Real Madrid's youth teams; however, a 22 September 1963 car crash truncated his footballer's
career.

According to many people, Julio Iglesias has 8 children with
two different wives. However, much to the dismay of Julio, none of them have inherited his passion and talent for football. The Iglesias talent was deemed lost forever.

But ladies and gentleman, I have unearthed the truth. I have found an unknown Iglesias son, one who has inherited his father's football talent. Born out of an affair with a Brazilian beach soccer beauty was a son who was unknown to the world so far.

I present to you: Germán Iglesias. Every bit the suave gentleman his father is, he will almost certainly pull huge crowds of screaming young girls to the stadium.

Please take a chance on young Germán, who just wants a realistic chance to live his fathers dream of becoming a professional football player. Wouldn't you give the lad a chance? If not for his obvious talent, why not for his smooth looks and his ability to charm the female fans?

Here's to hoping this actually pays off...