Turning moaning into positive energy

Since the latest patch hit the Live Gameworlds, people have been complaining about the new match engine. Too many injuries, too many red cards, too many yellow cards...

Regardless of the fact wether or not these complaints are actually valid or just the result of poor tactics *cough cough*, these complainers have been rather vocal both inside the Gameworlds, using the discussion mailing list and general mailing list, as well as on the forums, where numerous threads popped up where people either did a rage quit or moaned at the supposedly poor Match Engine.

I'm not a big fan of these negative discussions floating around, as they give off a wrong vibe. It's a very vocal and hardcore minority which finds these changes terribly negative, but the majority of the people will just get on with the game, adapting to the new surroundings and conditions.

FM Live is much like, constantly changing and evolving. Don't resist the changes or try to control every aspect, because that won't work. It will generate stress and anger, which in turn poisons the atmosphere inside a Gameworld. For a game so relient on its community and human interaction, this could be fatal.

Instead, go with the flow and experiment to adapt to the new conditions. Try and see the positive in these new situations. Everyone has to deal with this, so why not ask others how they are handling it and you would be amazed at the amount of tips and pointers you will receive.

In an effort to channel this negative energy into something more positive. People complain about injuries and bookings? So let's give them a challenge where they have to get as many of those as possible, with a competition element added as well.

I've created a sort of CPU challenge, where users take on the environment of the Gameworld, preferably against a side everyone will be able to beat anyway. Instead of focussing on scoring goals, which would favour the stronger sides of the Gameworld, I will let everyone have a go at exactly these points they are complaining about, injuries and bookings.

This is the challenge I have issued to the Gameworld:

MISSION: HIT THEM HARD: your team plays . +1 for every yellow card you get, +2 for a direct red card, +3 for every knock you inflict upon your opponent, +4 for every green injury you inflict upon your opponent and +5 for every red injury you inflict upon your opponent.

Now instead of moaning about the Match Engine, people have banded together and are trying tactics to maximise their amounts of bookings and injuries, in an effort to reach the top score in the Gameworld (which incidentally is 29 points).

This is a two-way street as well. If they know what they have to do to get a lot of cards and injuries, they also know what to do to prevent these things from happening.

Trying to channel moaning and negativity into something more constructive, it really can be this simple.

It's been a while...

I haven't exactly been a very diligent blogger. In fact, I've been rather inconsistent these past few months. Mostly because of a combination of a severe lack of inspiration and other work taking up all my attention.

To get you guys upto speed on my activities lately... I have resumed my community activities and have in fact been promoted to the Support Moderator team to boost the community activities throughout GameWorlds.

I have also managed to secure a position within the faculty of the school I was working, which means I have to devote more time and effort towards my work compared to last year.

What can you expect the next few weeks? I hope to write several blogs in the next few days. Some will deal with the constant moaning in the Live Worlds about how bad the 1.6 patch was, some will deal with how the ME seems to have changed and some will just deal with the topic I am best at; community activities.

I hope you will all stick and have stuck with me, since I know I've been neglecting this blog severely.