Stepping Down As Quiz Master

This has probably been a long time coming, but I've decided to stop hosting quizzes in my Live GameWorld, which is currently Nuñez.

The quizzes are supposed to help build community spirit and bring the community together. What I've seen in the last quizzes is something quite the opposite. Several mutes because people wanted to disrupt progress. People ignoring other people's requests and the moderator's requests to play the quiz or leave the chat room.

When you take into account that a sixty minute quiz takes about the same amount of time in terms of preparation, you can see why I'm not in the mood to have it ruined by a few buffoons.

Last night's quiz wasn't even my own, but it was symptomatic to what the community has degenerated into at times. Some random shouts and "humorous" attempts at an answer.

I suppose we have to accept "Abu Hamza" as a valid guess to the question "Who was deemed the Asian Maradonna, before the Iranian government forced him into retirement?"

The same applies to answers regarding Germany, where it's apparently perfectly acceptable to name Hitler or other nazi party members.

Under the new guide-lines, we have to be pretty lenient with that, so we didn't even mute on first offence, but only used this on repeat offenders.

This usually stops the trouble, but the fall-out means we have to deal with adding mod notes to someone's dossier, as well as dealing with the muted user after the quiz.

To be fair here, most acknowledge their mistake and just move on, but there's always one who vehemently protests his treatment and claims victimisation on our part. A bit of a mail contact between me and a user is below:

(User X)

i never swore.. kum is a player ive been offered by jim !!!!!!! i can prove it !!!!! unmute me <:emoticon#67> and i want compensation

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(Guido)

Mind your language and you wouldn't have been muted in the first place.

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(User X)

unmute me i was discussing a transfer with jim <:emoticon#3> i dont pay money for you to be an idiot 

It's this general shift in attitude that gets to me, as this attitude is becoming more and more common. You know there's a quiz in place.

Picture the situation if you will. You've been asked several times to discuss your transfer outside the Tactics Chat (which makes sense to begin with, quiz or not). You persist anyway. You get muted and then you proceed to call the moderator in charge an idiot, demand compensation and hurl in some abuse in the Lobby as well?

Oh haha, Guido! Grow a sense of humour. The player is called Kum! That is bloody hilarious.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but when it's clearly disrupting an activity which seems to amuse about twenty or so other managers and you are asked to stop it, why do you insist on continuing?

People seem to enjoy challenging the guys with the badges a bit too much for my liking, as well as trying to get others into trouble or disrupt whatever chat is going on in the GameWorld with inane drivel and spam-like comments.

No more of that for me, please. When running a quiz means we have to have a second moderator tag along to clear the debris and fall-out from users going berserk, I feel we've taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line with our community approach.

It's not cheating if SI don't fix the bug, right?

I think they coded this bug out of existence by now, but the effects can still be noticed in Miller, which is running a follow-up of codes. Basically what happened is this, some users were buying up Returning Stars and waiving them to gain a higher position in next year's draft.

What they did was exploit a small loop-hole in the code. They signed cheap and not very good Returning Stars from teams who were glad to get rid of them for a bit of cash, they kept these players for a few days and they waived them to gain rank in the draft, ending up ahead of genuine new players and the legion of regular restarters we have every season.

This meant for example that a club with a Level 12 reputation was ending up in the list of Reserved Players. These Reserved Players are basically the very best stars returning and they are reserved for a reason. These players are allocated to users who are new to the GameWorld. You could end up with guys like Pato, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Xavi for example.

Our exploiting friend ended up in this list three seasons in a row. Even after the bug was fixed, he still ended up there, presumably because he waived so many Returning Stars before that he lodged himself into the top 20 of the draft for some time to come.

Despite this being an exploit, it isn't entirely a bad thing. After all, the nature of beta is that you try to fix bug like this one and the only way to know that they are there is to try and see if you can bend the system in a way it wasn't designed. Naturally, your obligations as a tester would require you to actually log such attempts if successful, so that the development team can fix it.

For example, about nine months ago, I discovered an exploit where it was possible to invite CPU clubs into competitions with prize money and basically hammer them into oblivion whilst gaining money at the same time. It was basically the ultimate DYM, when properly ran, you could potentially make 450k profit pro half hour by hammering a single CPU club. Not a bad deal I would say.

Naturally, I logged this bug with the development team when I noticed it was working and it is now no longer possible to use this exploit to boost your club's finances. I did what any good beta tester would do when he discovers an exploit, I logged it and provided the developers with a load of evidence of what I did exactly so they could fix it. As a sort of reward, I got to keep the 200k I made with these competitions, as I had ran them in a small scale form

Unfortunately, our exploiting buddy I mentioned earlier did no such thing. He didn't report the bug on the forums, he didn't flag it in-game, he kept it quiet and continued to exploit it for about two to three seasons. By that time, we as a moderator team had noticed him climbing the ranks of the draft in an odd way, but we needed the time to gather evidence of what he had done exactly before we finally logged the bug. At around the same time, a regular user also flagged this on the forums.

So, what do you do as a moderator in such a case after the bug is flagged? We looked into the situation and because the exploit was never flagged by said user, we issued a warning and took his Returning Stars allocation for that season, hoping that would fix the situation.

Next season, he ended up in the top 20 of the draft again, so naturally we repeated the process, which apparently angered said manager. He was furious at the moderator team for taking his Returning Star again, as he failed to see that he was still benefitting from his exploiting efforts several months before.

He failed to see the causality between waiving a bunch of Returning Stars and climbing the ranks when he shouldn't have been able to and him ending up in the top 20 of the draft, above genuine newcomers from Beta Coppell, so he vehemently protested what we were doing, claiming it wasn't a cheat if SI didn't fix the bug.

That brings me to a rather interesting point and a flaw in his logic. How can they even know there's a bug if you didn't report it? You are saying you're not cheating because they never fixed a loophole you didn't report in the first place. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?

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.

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.

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.

The Start Of A New Season

People often wonder what a moderator actually does in FM Live. They sometimes see us muting players or checking up on transfers, but as most would put it: "That's easy, any trained chimp could do that..."

That's probably true, as checking transfers is little more than setting up the right filters and views and checking current affairs daily. However, there is more to a moderators job than just checking transfers and keeping the chat rooms clean of filth.

We have a lot of work during the final days of a season and at the start of a new season. People sometimes underestimate this. Once the Football Association Organisers (FAO's) have set up the new competitions (which is a lot of work in itsself, well done lads), we have to check all of the FAO's work.

It's not that we don't trust our FAO's... We appointed them ourselves so we have full faith in their capabilities as organisers. We have to double-check everything, because if they accidentally make a mistake, the whole season goes tits up. And believe me, as mistake is easily made when you have to set up so many different competitions.

The slightest error in the calibration of a single competition can cause the entire season to delay for all federations, as a season can only end when all FA competitions have ended. As you can see, the double-checking of the competition length is rather important.

Because we believe in equality, we also have to check the financial settings for every federation. The bottom team in the bottom league has to earn at least 250k and the rest of the cash should be distributed accordingly.

Essentially the leagues and cups are already set up in terms of %’s for places so it’s only numbers of teams that will affect whether this is still correct. Suggest starting with the Prem and adjusting the total prize fund until the winners get exactly £1m. Then suggest adjusting all bottom tier leagues total prize money so that the minimum prize money is £250k. Adjust other tiers total prize money to suit somewhere in between. All leagues are to pay out daily, not as a lump sum.

Finally, we have to edit and approve all leagues before the FAO's can start them. Because of the lockdown of the FA's taking place only 24 hours before the seasons start, a moderator has 24 hours to manually check, edit and approve all competitions and cups in every federation. Believe me when I tell you it's quite a stressful task...

Still, the fifth season in Miller has gotten underway now without any problems, thanks to some excellent teamwork. With almost all of our FAO's and two mods online at the same time, we managed to check and approve all competitions in a little less than 3 hours time. Special thanks to Jordan by the way, for his last minute entry as "Super-FAO" to save the day for the OFA.

To serve and protect?

To serve and protect. It may not be the “official” motto for moderators across the various Game Worlds, but it certainly should be and in most cases is the driving force of their service to the public.

Trying to live up to this credo, I sometimes encounter situations that strike me as very unfair, but there are no rules against it, so my hands are tied. I encountered a situation like that this very morning.

Imagine if you will, a new user that only joined the Miller community last night. He built his team and he was ready to start playing. Three games later, his illusions are probably shattered and the new user has logged off, probably never to be seen again.

As soon as he confirmed his team, he was pounced upon by a number of high ranked teams. Unsurprisingly, he didn't stand much of a chance and he was crushed. Three games were played, all three were lost with humiliating numbers. 5-0, 5-0 and 7-0... Not a very nice way to welcome a new user and most certainly not a very good way to ensure a new user remains active in the Game World.

To me, actions like this are unfair and even counterproductive to the good of the entire community. Why pounce on these poor new users? For a few measely ranking points and some extra goals for your strikers?

In the end, most new users who encounter situations like this will lose all hope of settling into a new Game World. Losing your first matches big time is not very motivating to continue playing and it will just drive these new members away, leaving the in-game economy as dead as it was before they came along.

Where am I going with this rant? I feel we should add a bit of newcomer-protection for teams entering an established Game World. Some sort of protection for new users, which means they are given adequate time to settle into their new Game World, without being harassed by much stronger opponents looking for an easy win.

There's a few possibilities to achieve such a goal. We could opt for a protection system based on the team reputation, meaning the new teams with 1 and 1.5 stars are only capable of playing each other, ensuring they can easily settle into the Game World. As a team gets stronger players, its manager can opt to play stronger opponents as well.

A second way would be to add all these new players into a special federation for newcomers, which means they would mainly be playing each other in the first season, allowing them even more time to settle in. After the first season, they would be cleared from this federation and allowed to pick their own federation.

I'm sure there are other ways to achieve this, but that is not the point I'm trying to make. The current situation simply isn't working and it needs improving, before we succeed in driving away all new users...