I think the players deserve a quality night out!

There is the skills system; specific areas around which you base your “manager knowledge”. You can specialise in coaching, tactics, physio, finance or scouting or spread out your skills across them all.

This extra “knowledge” allows you to play the game differently. You could decide you want your club to be youth centric by using the scouting skills and coaching skills to your benefit. You could forget completely about the rankings system and judge yourself by how much money you can make by concentrating on getting to Finance Level 5. Some people like to wheel and deal, bringing in new players every week. Others, like me, prefer to build a steady squad over time.

As manager of the prestigious WubbleYoo in the beta gameworld, Heath, I have a very specific game tactic when it comes to skills and the style in which I play. So at the risk of rendering this tactic useless, I’ve decided to share it with you.

Disclaimer: I by no means guarantee that following this style of play will get you success, probably quite the opposite. In fact I recommend you ignore everything I’m about to write.

As my starting skill, I used “Blackboard Manager” to kick off in the new gameworld. This gave me a good boost in tactics and gave me a head start in unlocking all the tactics sliders I wanted to use. Although I don’t see myself as a tactical mastermind, there’s only so far you can go with the pre-set tactics that are all you can use without learning some skills. Finding a tactic that covers the main areas of the pitch defensively (you don’t want to leave gaping holes in front of the defense) and allows you to break with numbers was what I was aiming for and a modified version of the standard attacking 4-5-1 has done me well throughout beta.

After I’ve unlocked enough Tactics skills to do these modifications I move onto a few finances to make sure I don’t get left behind financially before concentrating on coaching. Although I don’t play a youth team, my general game-plan is to base a team around exciting potential (Dalla Valle, Delfouneso, Benavente, Viudez and Andrejev) and wisened experience (Vicente, Wright-Phillips, Liverani and my new GK Pegolo).

It’s not hugely important to get all these sort of players in your initial squad as with some clever trading you can generally acquire them early on without too much trouble, but obviously getting them first can save you spending a premium in cash later on.

As I’ve said before, I prefer to play a slow game, building up my team over time and only selling players as and when they become surplus to requirements. Massive bids for my star players won’t interest me unless I’ve got a better replacement already lined up for the money and I save up my money to buy one top player at a time in the position where he’s needed most. I generally don’t buy the huge names. I find that, with a bit of effort, you can find a player that will contribute just as much as Ronaldinho, but for half the price and half the wage bill. I do understand, however, that owning these players can be quite exciting which is why so many people try to get them.

Improvement, not success, is where I get my satisfaction from in Football Manager Live. Knowing that I’ve gone one step better than the season before is all I need to keep me bursting with excitement about times ahead. All that said; where do I go when I’m dominating my league and at the top of the rankings? I needn’t worry, there is always another challenge just around the corner.

The stadium is the heart of any club, it’s where the fans flock for every home game and as such provides the backdrop for the battles on the pitch with the fans pouring out their passion, support (and money) from the kick off until the final whistle. Your stadium in FML is no different and how you choose to construct it, and the type of fans you attract to your games, will have a huge effect on how your team develops.

Last time around we discussed supporters and how each team will attract different types of fans so now, with that in mind we will look at how a stadium is constructed, and how to make the most of each type of supporter.

Infrastructure

The best way to think about a stadium in FML (and in fact all of the infrastructures in the game) is as a nested series of ‘boxes’ into which other elements can be slotted in. A stadium consists of 4 of these elements (the 4 stands) into which other elements can be added (seating, corporate boxes, advertising and so on). What type of elements to choose, and what to slot into each of them, will be what characterises your stadium and will influence the sort of atmosphere generated there, the match day income for the team and so on. An example, based on Cracklington Terriers (my GW2 side) is listed below…

My side is a relatively successful one, we have a 3 and a half star reputation and traditionally finish 4th in the XFA Premier League (much like my real life club, Liverpool). As a result of this, and our reputation for flamboyant football we are popular with ‘Sideshow’ supporters and families as well as attracting a significant number of Glory Hunter and Corporate fans. We have a lower than average number of Devoted fans and almost no Die Hard supporters.

With that in mind my first choice with the stadium is whether to cater for my existing fan base and make the most of them, or whether to attempt to influence the types of fans coming to matches simply by constructing a stadium that appeals to them. For now, I think I will build a stadium to make the most of my existing fans, they have played a big part in the club’s (modest) success to date so the last thing I want to do is turn my back on them!

Create your own

So, I know what type of supporters I have, and I know that I can attract around 40,000 fans to each game – I think I’m set to start building!

The first decision to make is in actually building the stands themselves. Each stand has a cost (of course) and a number of the aforementioned ‘slots.’ Looking at the list I decide to build 3 “Two-Tiered ‘Gambero’ Stand I” stands and one grandstand(ish) which will be the ‘Three-Tiered ‘Mercantile’ Stand II.’ Now, with the stands in place I can start filling them up with seating and other bits and pieces.

The three ‘Gambero’ stands each have 7 seating blocks, 2 advertising blocks and one block for Corporate Seating whilst my grand stand has 10 seating blocks and 4 advertising blocks (although the Mercantile flavour of stand has no corporate slots it makes up for it with an extra advertising slot – let the cash flow!)

As mentioned before I have a number of corporate fans so I quickly fill up the corporate box slots, 2 x ‘Flauta’ Corporate Box’ (the basic box) and one ‘Exclusif’ Corporate Box (for the uber-elite.) I also quickly fill up all my advertising slots with Electronic Ad Boards – the devoted fans won’t be happy with all the flashing ads distracting them from the game, but they won’t mind so much when we’ve bought our way to the title….I hope! *gulp*

So now we have seating for a total of *drum roll* 1,406 people, all in corporate hospitality. Hmmm, it may be time to construct some proper seating!

Even though my side attracts a relatively low number of Devoted fans compared to the average for the game world they still make up the bulk of my total fan base. As a result I need to build some relatively affordable seats, comfort isn’t so much of a worry as they’ll be standing up most of the time anyway!

I decide I want as many of my devoted fans in the grand stand as possible so I fill 5 blocks there with ‘Astilla’ Seating – the cheapest of the seats (to buy and in terms of ticket prices.) My grand stand now holds an impressive 20,800 people, with 5 blocks still free for further expansion down the line.

The other stands each have 7 seating blocks so I go for 2 ‘Astilla’ Seating seating blocks in each as well as 2 x ‘Pieghevole’ Seating (nicer seating for the families and glory hunters who spend a little more cash and spend a little longer sat down) and 1 x ‘Di Lusso’ Seating (the best seats in the house for those who are rich enough for the best seats, but not rich enough for the boxes).

Each of these stands therefore has a total capacity of 8,219 meaning a total seating capacity for the stadium of 45,456 and plenty of room to expand. I also have a decent spread of seating to appeal to each type of fan. A breakdown is listed below.

Okay, I’m pretty happy with that, all I need to do now is find the money to build the stadium! I’d better get saving those pennies!!

Want to discuss this blog?

Do it in the official FML forums….

A very warm welcome to the first FML development blog. We thought it was high time we let you know about some of the exciting new features to expect in the first update (version 1.0.1, expected early next year).

To kick off what we hope will be a very community driven item, we’re going to let you in on a couple of little-publicised new features. The first that we’re talking about today will allow you to get to know your team’s fans.

Rob Cooper,  FML developer explains……

“Football is nothing without it’s fans, they provide the support, the passion, the loyalty, and the money a top side needs to be able to continue to compete – without them everything else falls away. In FML this is no different, so it’s about time you got to meet them. .

Every team has a number of fans who will turn up to the games, give their support (or not) and swell the club’s coffers by pouring their hard earned cash into the club. However, in FML, as in real life, not every fan is the same. They each have their own likes, dislikes and things they expect from the club. They also all bring different attributes to the games they turn up for – some fans will cheer and chant from the kick off to the final whistle, whilst others are too busy biting their nails to make much noise at all. Others still are too busy paying out huge amounts of cash for prawn sandwiches and champagne to even notice what is happening on the pitch even though those purchases are paying the players’ wages!

Types of supporter

We have broken down the types of supporters who will attend your team’s games into 6 broad categories which are listed below.

Corporates - Corporate supporters are a mystery to most other fans. They turn up to the games and spend vast sums of money to ’support’ the side but they do not appear to enjoy themselves at all while they are there, offering very little in the way of atmosphere or support to the matches.

Die Hards - Die Hard supporters are known for their extreme level of passion for their team, as well as the incredible loyalty they show to the side. Any side with a high proportion of Die Hard fans at their matches can expect highly vocal support and a fantastic atmosphere at the ground, however these supporters are not known for spending large sums of money and have a reputation for causing trouble.

Devoteds - Devoted supporters are the bread and butter of a team’s supporters and known for their incredible loyalty. Where most people would have pictures of their loved ones, Devoted fans have pictures of their side’s players. Any side with a high proportion of Devoted fans at their matches can expect great support and huge amounts of passion, the only drawback being these supporters do not spend huge sums of money.

Families - Family supporters are important for nurturing the fans of tomorrow. Whilst not as passionate as the Devoted or Die Hard fans they nonetheless make their presence felt (often through use of giant Styrofoam fingers).

Glory Hunters - Glory Hunter supporters are fired up when the team is winning, attending matches, giving vocal support and buying merchandise. However, at the first sign of a drop in the team’s performance, the Glory Hunter supporters vanish.

Sideshows - Sideshow supporters are not content with simply showing up and supporting the side. Instead they don capes, masks, face paint and wigs and generally go crazy greatly increasing the atmosphere at matches.

Club ratings

What each of these types of fans brings to the club is rated in terms of Atmosphere, Loyalty, Passion, Money and Violence, with each supporter type bringing each in different measure.

Of course, every team is unique, so each team in FML will attract a different proportion of each type of fan. A successful, high reputation team will tend to attract Glory Hunters and Corporate fans, whilst a team with a high work rate and loyal players will tend to attract the Devoted fans. Players willing to bend the rules for the team might attract Die Hards but alienate Families whilst a high proportion of Die Hard fans in itself may alienate Corporate fans.

As a result of all these interactions each team will have its own personality which you, as manager will be able to shape by appealing to the types of fans you want your team to be characterized by – Do you want to go down the corporate route, swelling your side’s coffers with all their cash, but risk alienating the fans who provide the passion and support on the terraces? Or perhaps you want to appeal to the devoted fans but risk missing out on all that lovely corporate revenue? The choice is yours!”

 Want to discuss this blog?

Do it in the official FML forums….

As promised in our weekly update, we’ll shortly be talking about stadiums how how this new fans stuff fits together.

The first weeks of gameworld 14 have been frantic to the say the least. With the gameworld being made up of some of the most experienced beta testers from a selection of the original gameworlds, competition was always going to be tough. Even with a brand new database of players to pick from, most managers went into the gameworld with a shortlist already in mind.

Lulinha, Reimond Manco, Steven Defour, Fabio and John Fleck to name a few were all on mine and unfortunately, most had already been snapped up by the time I got to play on opening night. Fortunately Tabare Viudez, my number one target was still available and I signed him immediately, even though he cost me £100k out of my original £500k budget.

My game-plan from the start was to sign a core of quality players who I knew would form the spine of my team for the first season, and then to fill the remaining squad places with low cost, low wage fringe players to keep the wage bill down and allow me to make a nice profit over the first few weeks.

Richard Wright in goal, Adailton in defence, Fabio Liverani joining Viudez in midfield and Gustavo Oberman and Nikita Andrejev up front were the players chosen to form this unit and were joined by Cheikh Gueye and Caju alongside the aforementioned squad fillers in forming WubbleYoo’s first gameworld 14 squad.

The team started very strongly, rising quickly to 16^th in the World Rankings on the first day. Although WubbleYoo sped out of the blocks, the competition soon caught up and within a couple of days the team had dropped to the early hundreds. The cash fund was rising quickly due to the keeping the initial wage low and we were soon able to strengthen the squad once more with the permanent signings of trialist Maurico Isla and Newcastle’s Steven Taylor. Promising Youth Laura Dalla Valle and old gameworld 5 Wubblevites, Cristian Benavente and Nathan Delfouneso also joined the squad leaving space for the original “fillers” to be sold off.

At the time of writing, the first season is underway and WubbleYoo sit comfortably on top of the Casual Weekday Qualifying Group 1 after the first 6 games, winning 5 of them. The media money that is brought in by competing in an FA funded the signing of another gameworld 5 star, Vicente and his signing, coinciding with the promising start to the season has seen the club rise back up the rankings, currently sitting at 21st.

The times ahead certainly look bright for WubbleYoo.

However, on Tuesday night WubbleYoo rose triumphantly from the ashes of what has been dubbed “The Lost Gameworlds” (Michael Crichton comparisons welcome!). With only a short time left in beta, I thought it best to concentrate on just the one team for the remaining seasons so the red and gold shirts will be strutting their stuff once more in gameworld 14, Heath.

The beginning of a gameworld is always an exciting time, and this was no different. You only have 500k to assemble your initial squad, so it’s impossible to go straight for the established superstars and instead have to concentrate on building up a squad generally consisting of unknowns and potential youth players.

Scouting is very important at these early stages, and getting your plans for search filters all ready in waiting for the first few hours in hope of finding one or two of those unknown gems is a useful tip! In the past, my knowledge of the FM08 database had been useful seeing as I already knew who the best potential players were, but as we used a newer database than the last time I started a new gameworld, this didn’t help me as much. I tried asking the guys downstairs at SI for some tips but I wasn’t very successful!

Who will I buy? How will I play? Where will I end up in the rankings this time around? All are questions which, for now, I can’t answer. You will hear step by step accounts of the new re-invented WubbleYoo throughout their new journey in gameworld 14 here on the blog, so stay tuned!

There is one common theme that applies to all three of these headline items and that is the intervention of club owners in the team’s affairs, specifically the transfer market.

Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), upon their purchase of Manchester City on Monday morning, proceeded to make offers worth a reported total of £500 million for players around the worlds, finally succeeding in the British record transfer of Robinho for £33 million. Although Mark Hughes, I’m sure is delighted at the prospect of having an unlimited transfer budget to play with, it is doubtful that he actually had anything to do with their targets. To the extent, that apparently he only met Robinho for the first time on Tuesday when he flew to Manchester for the first time. Expectations will now be high on Hughes to provide the expected top four finish, but how can he be expected to succeed on this if he doesn’t even get to choose his team?

The Kevin Keegan saga and ongoing “discussions” (edit:Now he’s actually resigned) was due to Keegan’s fury at owner, is allegedly due to Mike Ashley’s interference in the sale of James Milner to Aston Villa as well as his refusal to back signings for his replacement.

Alan Curbishley, upon his resignation at West Ham, claimed that the club’s transfer policy represented a “breach of trust and confidence”. The board had sold defenders Anton Ferdinand and George McCartney without asking for his input and left him with no time and money to replace them. Once again, how can a board expect a manager to succeed when there is this amount of interference?

It’s no coincidence that the two most successful clubs of the last ten years, Manchester United and Arsenal, have had one manager at the helm and are allowed complete control over the club’s transfer policy. Even Chelsea, have on their 4th manager in 5 years, with at least two of them complaining of Abramovich pulling rank when it came to signings, the most obvious one being the signature of Andriy Shevchenko.

Have we seen the last of the traditional Football Manager? Or will the role become more a glorified coaching position? I for one, hope not.

In Football Manager Live its how it should be. You, the manager, have complete control over the club’s finances and the club’s transfer policy. It is your club and no-one will tell you otherwise.

If you want to break the gameworld transfer record on an up and coming 18 year old, you can. If you want a club that concentrates purely on youth and doesn’t compete in senior competitions, you can. If you want a squad of 15 or 50 people, it’s up to you. You could even create a team consisting purely of people called Ronaldo from Brazil.

You decide the team colours. You decide the name of the stadium. You have total control. And that is how it should be. The manager is the central figure of a club, not the billionaire playboy nor the cheerleaders recently introduced as pre-match entertainment. The sooner Premier League owners realise this the sooner they might be able to get the success on the pitch they crave.

Pre-Order
As of just after midday on Tuesday 26th August and after over a year of extensive BETA testing, Football Manager Live finally went to Pre-Order. With estimated start dates for the limited gameworlds initially available being in October, it’s not going to be long before the whole world is gripped with FML fever.

This of course all meant that the last couple of weeks have been hectic in getting everything ready. My role has been mainly based around getting the e-mails and text for the website written, re-written and re-written again until perfect as well as helping out wherever else I’m needed. Might not seem like much, but to a newbie in the gaming industry, like myself, and being part of a release like this for the very first time, it’s all been quite daunting. After a few teething issues, it seems to now all be working perfectly, so make sure you get to the website as soon as possible if you want to be one of the original FML managers.

Team FML
As part of our imminent marketing push for FML, we’ve been sponsoring players up and down the country in teams ranging from the Premiership to Non-League, in an effort to build up a starting 11 of sponsored players.

As the SI founders, Ov and Paul Collyer are famously massive fans of Everton FC, The Toffees were an obvious choice to host one of the players. Unlike most clubs, where you can choose which player you want to sponsor, Everton host a lunch where players and potential sponsors are picked out of a hat.

A chance to lunch with the Everton squad was not one I wanted to miss, so after poking and prodding the appropriate boss, I was asked to make the day trip up to Liverpool alongside my esteemed colleague Sarah.

We arrived at Everton’s brand spanking and very impressive new training ground, Finch Farm, early and so were invited to watch the squad in training for the opening match of the Premiership season. After years of screaming at my PC monitor in an attempt to get my FM and FML players performing as I want them, it was an awesome insight into how one of the best managers about does his job. David Moyes is quite a character to see in action. Never, for one moment, quiet as he’s barking orders all over the training pitch until his superstar footballers are performing as he wants them to be. Last season’s 5th place finish in the Premier League shows that the man knows exactly what he was doing, I certainly was frantically taking mental notes for my FML team as he explains to his squad the advantages and disadvantages of the wing backs going forward and where exactly he wants Yakubu to be attacking from certain free kicks. It was an eye opener to say the least.

Next up came the lunch and the draw itself. Treated to the best Everton had to offer, we were joined at our table by Phil Neville, Leon Osman, Tim Cahill and Phil Jagielka. Not being the sort of person who usually hangs around with Premiership footballers, I didn’t really know what to expect. The sceptical side of me expected them to be slightly self-obsessed and a little pre-occupied with their huge salaries but I was pleasantly surprised. Every single player I had the opportunity to chat with was easy to speak to and very down to earth. They were as much fans of the game as I was and it was a pleasure chatting transfer rumours and other footie gossip with them.

The draw itself was as tense as an FA Cup Final penalty shootout with the player’s themselves excited about who was going to be their sponsors that year. We ended up with James Vaughan; currently the youngest ever Premiership goalscorer, one of FM’s famous wonderkids and, according to Phil Jagielka who was sitting next to me at the time, also a massive fan of previous FM titles. A good match then, it seems.

Team FML in full will be announced on the website soon!

It’s been a while since I updated the world on the happenings of the original WubbleYoo team so if you’ve been anxiously waiting you’re in luck.

A whole season has passed since WubbleYoo moved over to the DFA and started their first season in the Championship. After spending most of its history sitting pretty at the top end of the NFA Premiership, the team proved far too strong for their competitors in the second tier of the DFA and stormed to the title losing only 2 games in 46 matches and amassing an incredible 110 points in the process, 20 points clear of second placed NGFC 1986.

Obafemi Martins and Nathan Delfouneso were powerhouses up front scoring over 70 goals between them in the league this season. Fabio had an awesome season as well, averaging 7.46 games over the 42 games he played in.

In the other of the official competitions, The Big League, WubbleYoo also found themselves in the second tier, being relegated controversially for a high AI% (the new job getting in the way!) despite finishing the previous season in the top 10 of the gameworld-wide competition. The drop down didn’t affect the team’s morale and after accepting their fate, knuckled down to finish the league 11 points clear at the top, taking 98 points.

Even though the season was spent in divisions lower than the team was accustomed to, to bring home two high profile trophies is a commendable achievement.

Alexandre Song is the only player to have joined the squad over the season with many fringe players leaving in an effort to decrease the teams inflated wage bill. Song has joined to fill a gap in the centre of midfield and provided the team with some much needed defensive stability in front of the back four.

With the season ending and wage auctions just around the corner, there will be much excitement at WubbleYoo’s Kingfield stadium over the next week. Check back then to see how the team prepare for a season back in the top tiers of gameworld 5.

Over in gameworld 3, the team faltered after their early season winning streak with the AI manager not proving as tactically astute as his real life counterpart. The team still finished the season in CFA Division 2 a respectable 6^th, qualifying for the playoffs. The results of which you will read about soon…

The team has two ambitions; first was to test out what it was like to join an established gameworld and to see how possible it was to build a team that would compete. I have also been playing it from the “casual” user’s perspective of only a couple of games a day.

The second and most important ambition and a challenge set for me by fellow blogger and Dynamo Dave manager, Dave Kempshall was to get ahead of James Schall (swissyellow), my boss here at SEGA, in the rankings before the end of my first season.

The second ambition in particular, felt like a tall order. James’ team Oxford Servette were flying high in the top 100 of the rankings and were sitting comfortably at 85th at the time of the challenge.

The team started its career solidly, winning and drawing three and losing two of its first 8 games, before coming head to head against none other than Oxford Servette themselves. It was a tight match, with many expletives being thrown across the office, but WubbleYoo came out on top with a hard fought 1-0 victory.

This victory was all the motivation that the fledging squad needed to proceed on a 12 match winning streak that saw the team storm to the top of the CFA division 2 table. This run also saw the team rise quickly up the rankings to a high of 66th, completing comfortably the challenge that had been set.

So, is it possible to build a team in an established gameworld that can compete with the best? I would say it is. Football Manager Live has such a massive database of players available to you that anyone who is willing to spend a little bit of time scouting for the right players can still find some gems. Even if the gameworld is 10 seasons old.