FM 2008 - Anyone still playing?

Basically is there anyone still playing 08?

I've just gone back to 08 cos I'm sick of all the crashing on 10. And also to get me into a save.

Also, what was your best save on 08 and who were the best young players?

Had a great Arsenal save where I only brought players under 21 and turned them into the best team in the world winning everything but due to have a new laptop and with 09 then 10 coming out,the game has now been deleted but you never know again.

I'm about to go back to FM08 while my better laptop is away for repair. My best two ever signings were a regen English forward named Peter Jones, who I signed for a nominal fee at the age of 17 while at League 1 side Chester. In the season I had him, he was frankly superb for his age, and when I left I tried to take him with me. Anyway, long story short, 9 years and 6 clubs later, I finally managed to sign him again for £6m, and he instantly became a Premier League hit. The other was an 18 year old Finn called Hans Borggren, who led my line after Jones' retirement for 12 years, without even progressing beyond basic English! In fairness to him, his strike partner, both my wingers, and one of my attacking midfielders were Finnish, but still....

Anyway, real life players? Am I allowed to name any? My only recollection of a real player is James Chester anyway, who becomes a very reliable PL back-up. I had him on loan from Man Utd for 4 years at Chester, and he did in fact end up becoming my captain.

absolutely not. that game was terrible, especially when compared to FM06 and 07

Had a great Arsenal save where I only brought players under 21 and turned them into the best team in the world winning everything but due to have a new laptop and with 09 then 10 coming out,the game has now been deleted but you never know again.

Arsenal were incredibly overated on that game. many players had some strange attributes like elano

Still do my save on this one, 2041 here I come!

Arsenal were incredibly overated on that game. many players had some strange attributes like elano

As far as I can see, he said his Arsenal side became world beaters after building his team up with youngsters that he'd bought. Plus, as far as I can remember, Arsenal were overblown in FM09, not FM08.

I'll be checking out FM08 again soon. Been playing FM10 v10.3 the past few days - it's been fun, but now and again, my team suddenly fails spectacularly for no apparent reason, and I'm at the end of my rope with it. Plus Stoke came 4th in the first season of my save, and whipped the backsides of the big 4 without any big new signings, which is just ridiculous.

Also, it's good to see someone has something positive to say about FM08's regens. There was a thread on The Dugout where everyone showed their FM08 regens off, and they were all pretty good.

Arsenal are ridiculous in my game - they were overpowered then too. Arsenal have finished in the top half bar twice of the Premier League ever since the start of my game (now in 2040), and only four times have they finished outside the top six. Their bank balance is around £400m. They finished last season in 13th after a dreadful start to the season, a sort of recovery then a spectacular collapse towards the end of the season:

I play in Italy so I generally don't influence Arsenal's season (except when we meet in the Champions League, which is usually in the latter stages - I've only ever drawn them in the quarter-finals and later) - but I do monitor how they do, and this is by far the worst collapse I've seen from Arsenal. A 6-0 defeat to Porto was shocking - I watched the highlights and it really was terrible. A draw with Manchester United (predicted to be relegated) sent morale plummeting and after the 9-2 loss morale was at most poor. They never recovered.

Just some quick summaries of the teams they faced:

Manchester United - Relegation fodder

Bolton - Top Six wannabe (there's no Big Four any more in my game, it's more like Big 2, then Wannabe 4)

Porto - European stronghold, but nowhere near as good as Arsenal (in theory)

Southend - Mid-table/relegation fodder

Swindon - Relegation fodder

Colchester - Mid-table/relegation fodder

Newcastle - Top Six and strongest of the remaining 18

Portsmouth - Top Six wannabe

Aston Villa - Mid-table

Chelsea - Above mid-table

Leeds - Mid-table

Burnley - Relegation fodder

Leicester - Above mid-table

Of course this galvanised Arsenal somewhat and they proceeded to spend around £80m (I think) on players and finished 2nd the next season - that's really how Arsenal keep going.

Regen-wise FM08 definitely has its weaknesses. Physical attributes are borderline bizarre and it's almost as if SI programmed Jumping to fit 15-16-year-old regens with the average height of such players. That said there's always one or two that buck the trend but it's really weird to see countries like Italy produce only 2-3 players with Jumping >16 (there's 3 in my game at the moment). Two-footedness has a staggering effect on players (I had a two-footed midfielder who by the time hit CA 140 had Passing 11!) and it really hurts viewing players' attributes this way. I still need to get down to making a tool which fixes these, I wanted to basically resample every single regen's Jumping upon regen spawn.

Finances are a big issue in FM08 - it's far too easy to break even. There's tons of teams in my game that are rolling in cash and I'm seriously considering normalising the whole thing by knocking a couple of zeroes off balances. Relegation doesn't hurt much either - Real Madrid got relegated in mine but their finances were kept near-level so by the time they got promoted they finished 4th the next season despite no investment whatsoever and no discernable change to their finances or reputation.

Grey (or virtual) teams are horrible on this game too. I didn't load the French league so whenever I draw Olympique Lyon I cringe - they have a ridiculous set of grey players who would be Ballon d'Or winners if they were real, and they're the best non-grey team (reputation-wise second-best in my game, I'm first). Also grey teams treat you differently to others - Sporting CP (grey, didn't load the Portuguese League) are happy to field rubbish strikers (matching Sporting's reputation) against other teams but promptly drop them to the bench against you in favour of two strikers with average physical attribute 15, none below 13, against you. If I didn't have defenders that had Jumping >17 these grey players would be utterly dominant against my back four. I confess to reloading and reducing reputations of teams simply to get by sometimes because quite frankly there is absolutely no reason why the likes of a near-fully-grey Benfica side with a continental reputation have better players than the best of the "real" players in-game. Once I faced a Sporting CP side that had two grey strikers with acceleration, pace, jumping and strength all above 18 and they were tearing my back four to shreds. Horrible.

Arsenal are ridiculous in my game - they were overpowered then too. Arsenal have finished in the top half bar twice of the Premier League ever since the start of my game (now in 2040), and only four times have they finished outside the top six. Their bank balance is around £400m. They finished last season in 13th after a dreadful start to the season, a sort of recovery then a spectacular collapse towards the end of the season:

I play in Italy so I generally don't influence Arsenal's season (except when we meet in the Champions League, which is usually in the latter stages - I've only ever drawn them in the quarter-finals and later) - but I do monitor how they do, and this is by far the worst collapse I've seen from Arsenal. A 6-0 defeat to Porto was shocking - I watched the highlights and it really was terrible. A draw with Manchester United (predicted to be relegated) sent morale plummeting and after the 9-2 loss morale was at most poor. They never recovered.

Just some quick summaries of the teams they faced:

Manchester United - Relegation fodder

Bolton - Top Six wannabe (there's no Big Four any more in my game, it's more like Big 2, then Wannabe 4)

Porto - European stronghold, but nowhere near as good as Arsenal (in theory)

Southend - Mid-table/relegation fodder

Swindon - Relegation fodder

Colchester - Mid-table/relegation fodder

Newcastle - Top Six and strongest of the remaining 18

Portsmouth - Top Six wannabe

Aston Villa - Mid-table

Chelsea - Above mid-table

Leeds - Mid-table

Burnley - Relegation fodder

Leicester - Above mid-table

Of course this galvanised Arsenal somewhat and they proceeded to spend around £80m (I think) on players and finished 2nd the next season - that's really how Arsenal keep going.

Regen-wise FM08 definitely has its weaknesses. Physical attributes are borderline bizarre and it's almost as if SI programmed Jumping to fit 15-16-year-old regens with the average height of such players. That said there's always one or two that buck the trend but it's really weird to see countries like Italy produce only 2-3 players with Jumping >16 (there's 3 in my game at the moment). Two-footedness has a staggering effect on players (I had a two-footed midfielder who by the time hit CA 140 had Passing 11!) and it really hurts viewing players' attributes this way. I still need to get down to making a tool which fixes these, I wanted to basically resample every single regen's Jumping upon regen spawn.

Finances are a big issue in FM08 - it's far too easy to break even. There's tons of teams in my game that are rolling in cash and I'm seriously considering normalising the whole thing by knocking a couple of zeroes off balances. Relegation doesn't hurt much either - Real Madrid got relegated in mine but their finances were kept near-level so by the time they got promoted they finished 4th the next season despite no investment whatsoever and no discernable change to their finances or reputation.

Grey (or virtual) teams are horrible on this game too. I didn't load the French league so whenever I draw Olympique Lyon I cringe - they have a ridiculous set of grey players who would be Ballon d'Or winners if they were real, and they're the best non-grey team (reputation-wise second-best in my game, I'm first). Also grey teams treat you differently to others - Sporting CP (grey, didn't load the Portuguese League) are happy to field rubbish strikers (matching Sporting's reputation) against other teams but promptly drop them to the bench against you in favour of two strikers with average physical attribute 15, none below 13, against you. If I didn't have defenders that had Jumping >17 these grey players would be utterly dominant against my back four. I confess to reloading and reducing reputations of teams simply to get by sometimes because quite frankly there is absolutely no reason why the likes of a near-fully-grey Benfica side with a continental reputation have better players than the best of the "real" players in-game. Once I faced a Sporting CP side that had two grey strikers with acceleration, pace, jumping and strength all above 18 and they were tearing my back four to shreds. Horrible.

I sincerely hope you're not exaggerating, because I just feel like quitting FM altogether after reading that. *Uninstalls FM08*

It's an OK game, it runs really quick and arrows are fun, but I prefer FM07 (but I lost the disk ).