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.