So, it's the second week of March...

And SI are still yet to fix a game for the season 2010/2011; that is over in two and a bit months. The season is nearly over, yet, you're still faffing about trying to get the game to work properly. And this isn't even the first time. They have done it for years now. Release the game late October/November, then don't it working to a reasonable level until the season is nearly over.

You should be utterly embarrassed and apologise to your customers. Don't give me all that rubbish "at least they are trying to fix it". I don't care. Don't release a game that doesn't work properly, then. Especially when the problem is the match engine; which the game pretty much relies on.

If you had any respect left, you'd not release a new game for the 2011/2012 season, but only a patch that will update the database of the current game for next season. Meanwhile, you can get your house in order and construct a fully working game for the beginning of the 2012/2013 season.

Absolutely shambles. There is nothing much left to say. I fully expect the staff at SI to not respond in any way. As long as the money comes in, eh?

That's a pretty poor post if I'm honest.

That's a pretty poor post if I'm honest.

Maybe so.. but I do kinda agree.

The man has a point. I love FM however, and will play it no matter what. It is never gonna happen though, op.

The best thing SI could do is have one game which they release paid for patches each year which contain new features. Then it is up to the owner of the game if they wanna buy it, think of it as the Call of Duty map packs! Data and bug fixes are free though....lol.

If it bothers you that much, just don't buy the game anymore. Sell your current game and go and play something else.

I too wish games were complete before being released. But this is the way almost all computer game companies, not just SI, operate these days, unfortunately. But that said, as far as being in shambles, I disagree. I don't understand why so many people keep yelling about FM being unplayable. I have been playing it since November and I have found it to be very enjoyable and only a few minor issues.

They have done it for years now.

so you already know how the process works, i don't believe SI promised anything different this time, so whats the problem?

maybe SI try to make FM2011 11.3 run like real life season.... barcelona will eventually win 5-0, fools will beat manyoo 3-1 etc...

;p

Other than the players at the pre 11.2 getting unhappy and leaving every 5 secs ( which is fixed) is wrong with the game? The things that do need fixing are things that are found after 10,000 hours of playing by random people (us) and little problems that can't be found by programmers and testers. The game works, yes some matches are random but thats football, I would dare say its too realistic because of that. Stop complaining, nothing is broken.

i find the game fine as it is. Yes, there's some things that need fixing but so does every other game on the face of this planet.

Prefer this thread gets closed right away. It's been discussed over and over and we know where it leads to.

for those who sair the game is fine and nothing broken, i beg ro ask, how many offers and how much money for your players have you received from the very first season ?

to love this game is alright. but to defend it blindly is simply wrong. if nothing is wrong and perfect as it is, SI wouldn't need to release 11.3 and thus no delay since the transfer market already closed.

Your frustration is understandable, but SI's patching plans were fully disclosed at the game launch and are the same as they have been every year, so you have the consumer choice before purchase, if you don't approve of how they do it. There are few posters who say the game is perfect ( because it never will be ) but equally there are many thousands who are playing the game without issue.

Keep this thread civil or else it will be closed.

I totally agree with you, but honestly, i'd rather SI release the 11.3 patch with no mistakes or bugs and i'm able to freely play it until 2012 comes out than releasing a buggy version to satisfy a few people and then a quick fix after that.

Of course its not right to be **** at the SI, but when you pay 89$ AUD for this game and having to WAIT for the SI to release the patch is pretty poor. Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem? They should aim to finish at a DEADLINE which they dont really have, instead of having to wait until theyr absolutely sure its fixed, thats pretty unprofessional isnt it? but hey, other than that I have all the respect for you guys.

Your frustration is understandable, but SI's patching plans were fully disclosed at the game launch and are the same as they have been every year, so you have the consumer choice before purchase, if you don't approve of how they do it. There are few posters who say the game is perfect ( because it never will be ) but equally there are many thousands who are playing the game without issue.

Keep this thread civil or else it will be closed.

Further to this, the choice is clear. If this is getting a regular thing that annoys you year on year, just buy the game annually in March instead of when it is released in November and then you'll be able to play it for 12 months fully patched.

I agree that there are problems with the game out of the box, and I'm sure SI are as unhappy about that as you are, but they are a business and I think I'm right when I say that releasing FM once every 12 months in the quarter that they do brings in the majority of their income. If they were to 'skip a year to get their house in order' thats a significant amount of income that they would lose. It doesnt make business sense.

Absolutely shambles. There is nothing much left to say. I fully expect the staff at SI to not respond in any way. As long as the money comes in, eh?

you just answered why they will always release a new game every year.. business is business!

Of course its not right to be **** at the SI, but when you pay 89$ AUD for this game and having to WAIT for the SI to release the patch is pretty poor. Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem? They should aim to finish at a DEADLINE which they dont really have, instead of having to wait until theyr absolutely sure its fixed, thats pretty unprofessional isnt it? but hey, other than that I have all the respect for you guys.

COD? Are you kidding? Are you not aware of the problems that have been experienced with their latest game and playing it online?

Its been said before and I'll say it again. The problem is that SI are comparitively a small company to the makers of both of those games (although I think EA make, or at least own the makers of, both games). Add to this the fact that FIFA/COD are primarily console games with fixed development packages for fixed hardware, debugging is much more straight forward. SI's games are MAC/PC compatible. There are billions of different possible combinations of software/hardware that can throw up bugs that SI were never aware of because they cannot possibly test the game on every combination.

Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem?

Because FIFA and COD are different types of game with different coding needs. FM is pretty complex because it tries to simulate reality as well as let the user control a small part within it. With FIFA and COD, it's more about direct user input only. They don't include the need for sustaining a realistically simulated universe, and when user input collides with the rest of the game world, there can be huge knock-on effects which can take ages to fix.

Of course its not right to be **** at the SI, but when you pay 89$ AUD for this game and having to WAIT for the SI to release the patch is pretty poor. Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem? They should aim to finish at a DEADLINE which they dont really have, instead of having to wait until theyr absolutely sure its fixed, thats pretty unprofessional isnt it? but hey, other than that I have all the respect for you guys.

Why not wait till the final patch is out in March-time every year (isnt this when the Aussie season starts anyway?). This way you often get the game at a discounted price and its fully patched and ready to go.

Look I'm not saying SI is right with the way they do things, but you dont have to buy the game on release day. If less people did, SI might look at their business model/release date/patching policy more closely. Why should they change the way they do things when its working from a business/financial point of view.

Of course its not right to be **** at the SI, but when you pay 89$ AUD for this game and having to WAIT for the SI to release the patch is pretty poor. Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem? They should aim to finish at a DEADLINE which they dont really have, instead of having to wait until theyr absolutely sure its fixed, thats pretty unprofessional isnt it? but hey, other than that I have all the respect for you guys.

Are you kidding me, are you seriously comparing FM to FIFA and COD? hahah, dear god.

I'm actually enjoying FM now, even with the problems. I reloaded my first save. It had crash-dumped on me and cost me 6 weeks of matches before 11.2 was released so I hadn't played it since. Reloaded it and am really enjoying it, Hereford are playing some top quality stuff! Just nervous about crash-dumps now, I don't want to lose loads of games again but I don't want to save it every 5 minutes either...

I honestly cant see what the OP's issue is here. As has been stated by others SI told you the patch strategy at the begining. They have also released a statement in the 11.3 sticky at the top of the page to let us know why it is taking a bit longer to release the patch than normal.

The game is far from unplayable/incomplete straight from the box without any patches. i would say that 99.9% of the so called bugs are only brought to my attention, and others, when i/they read about them on here. most of the time i am blissfully unaware of these so called game breaking bugs. I made a desicion this year to ignore any threads that relate to bugs and haven't noticed anything that makes the game unplayable for me.

I am currently playing on the 11.2 patch and having a thouroughly enjoable time of it.

Please dont get me wrong here, i am not saying there are no bugs and the game is perfect. I am merely stating that, in my opinion, the game is perfectly playable out of the box and with the latest patch.

I personally think the game is fine, but I wished they would release the data update and the patch separately.

I don't have any major need for the patch (it'd would be nice to have) but I've been sitting on waiting for the patch to start a new game with the new data.

I don't really see why it is necessary to bundle the data update with the patch when they are two separate things (and the patch supposedly save game compatible).

By bundling the patch with the update, SI is making two groups of people unhappy:

- Those that think the game is fine but want the data update

- Those that think the game is broken

This makes up quite a significant proportion of those on this forum and hence all the negativity.

PS. I know I can look else where for data updates but I want the official one.

^^ I think this would definately be a good idea.

SI have lofty standards.

I believe that they probably dropped slightly below their own lofty standards with this release. Their new ideas and implementations are enjoyable and in the spirit of their game, but I think that the game, out of the box, was probably a bit below what SI normally deliver. They'll bounce back.

I have found the game, nonetheless, quite enjoyable. Just waiting on thepatch to start a new game the the game isnt disrupted too much by their tweaks.

I agree, to me, 11.2 is playable and enjoyable.

There's quite a few workarounds but nothing is significantly broken to me (or at least I don't realize it's broken).

What annoys me currently is that I want to start a new game, but I can't because I don't have the new data.

There's probably a large crowd that doesn't NEED the new patch but is annoyed because they can't start a new game until the patch is complete.

Hence the increase "demand" for the new patch - myself being one of them

By making the patch is a "MUST HAVE" (for the new data), SI created inflated demand for the release of the patch - hence all the noise.

What i have heard from inside source via friend that after they fixed that "crash bug" it has caused lot more serious problems with the patch. The reason why SI say patch coming out maybe next week and constantly delaying it by one week is just because they don't want any more anger in forums than it is now. Same source says the most likely release for patch would be maybe at end of March if all goes well. So it looks like that patch will be a real bug fix patch which fixes bugs of bugs. I only wonder what this will do to game source code and for next years game.

What i have heard from inside source via friend that after they fixed that "crash bug" it has caused lot more serious problems with the patch. The reason why SI say patch coming out maybe next week and constantly delaying it by one week is just because they don't want any more anger in forums than it is now. Same source says the most likely release for patch would be maybe at end of March if all goes well. So it looks like that patch will be a real bug fix patch which fixes bugs of bugs. I only wonder what this will do to game source code and for next years game.

For some strange reason, each new version is never based off the final patch of the last version.

We constantly see the same bugs (fixed in previous patches) appearing in each new version.

HOPEFULLY SI will learn some day

"End of March if all goes well" = Mid April... nothing ever "all goes well" with development and testing (I'm a programmer by trade).

Your frustration is understandable, but SI's patching plans were fully disclosed at the game launch and are the same as they have been every year, so you have the consumer choice before purchase, if you don't approve of how they do it. There are few posters who say the game is perfect ( because it never will be ) but equally there are many thousands who are playing the game without issue.

Keep this thread civil or else it will be closed.

Are there really thousands of people playing the game without issue or are they playing it without noticing the transfer problems or without caring about them.

Don't play the game then?? To be honest, I've not had much problems with mine. They're perfecting things. If you don't like how SI work, just go play Champ Manager or something and leave them to it. Idiot.

I would play a match without a chance rather than create 10+ one-on-one chances without a goal.

That's what broken in this version, IMO.

Don't play the game then?? To be honest, I've not had much problems with mine. They're perfecting things. If you don't like how SI work, just go play Champ Manager or something and leave them to it. Idiot.

the o/p is entitled to his opinion and if you are not getting game problems then you are very lucky:confused:

we all pay our money and take our chances.....SI do not have to release any patches so good on them for doing it.........however the rate it is going patch 11.3 will soon be called FM12:rolleyes:

At the moment, we have a fairly simplistic system that for many customers is proving unsatisfactory, and which leaves precious little time for SI to concentrate on new features. The reason the game is released late and still getting patched in March is because SI is continually playing catch-up. Releasing the next season's edition is of course a lot of work, and costs a lot of money, but there is a huge expectation to patch the previous edition, which typically takes 3 patches and involves a lot of work and many delays. This is a huge waste of manpower and no doubt a huge headache for the development team, and the customer.

So how about a new system?

Step 1 - release a game called simply Football Manager. No season attached, because it's going to form the framework for a lasting game.

Step 2 - update ONLY that game. Release a database update every season, as a paid-for DLC update.

Step 3 - continue to patch and hone that version, charging money for expansions such as a huge and detailed stadium pack, huge and detailed face packs, new functionality etc.

This means a few things:

Firstly, SI break out of the dated cycle of : rush to release -> stagger through a series of patches -> develop "new" game in parallel -> face wrath of customers.

Secondly, DLC can be made available optionally. So perhaps some people don't care about an update that makes the crowd super realistic with streamers and drums and so on, so they don't have to get it. But other people would happily pay money for this kind of thing (like me, sad I know).

Perhaps every 3 seasons or so SI releases a paid for expansion, in the same way so many games companies do these days. This would provide an influx of cash and allow them to update the graphics engine and make larger changes that constitute more than just a patch.

The DLC would be a steady drip-feed of devlopment, but in the background a team works on a replacement engine and are given two or three years to perfect it and test it.

Just a thought anyway. And before people say "I refuse to pay for DLC", what's the problem with paying £3 here and there compared to £30 on a product that doesn't work for 8 months?

I think we can all agree that waiting this long for a "finished game" after buying it isn't good enough. However like other posters have said, the problem is SI have never promised anything different, and this is how they usually are. We can all complain and get our bean out about it but it won't change anything, I'm sure SI get this every year before the patch comes out. It's just a patience exercise, I ordered a new laptop espcially for this, I saw another post where someone had booked a week off work for it! Just wait in there for it to come out and hopefuly it'll be good enough to forget the wait.

That's a pretty poor post if I'm honest.

I think its a great post. The game isnt released until the season is almost 3 months old. Kinda ruins the whole excitement of a new season.

I find the game perfectly playable. Only issue I have is inability to get proper transfer fee for my players. For example playing with ManUtd, I decided to sell Nani in my fifth season. He just finished the best season for me, averaging 7.4 and had like 15 goals and 18 assists. 28 years old, with Navas by far the best right winger in the game at this point. His market value was set at 13.5 mil which I think is ridicilously low. And I couldn't get more for him. I just don't find that realistic at all because he was one of my best players in the squad that won 3 championships and 2 european cups. Let's face it, in real life he would cost a bit more than 13 mil, wouldn't he?

So if they just fix that part of the game I think it would be perfect and best FM ever.

Other than the players at the pre 11.2 getting unhappy and leaving every 5 secs ( which is fixed) is wrong with the game? The things that do need fixing are things that are found after 10,000 hours of playing by random people (us) and little problems that can't be found by programmers and testers. The game works, yes some matches are random but thats football, I would dare say its too realistic because of that. Stop complaining, nothing is broken.

Wide play is broke; 4132 makes you almost unbeatable. SI needs to bring in people who have a sophisticated technical knowledge of the game and really improve the tactical aspect of the game; both from the perspective of human tactics and how the AI sets up and responds to human tactics. The AI in my games will often play players out of position in more unusual formations...this just makes AI teams far weaker than they should be.

I find the game perfectly playable. Only issue I have is inability to get proper transfer fee for my players. For example playing with ManUtd, I decided to sell Nani in my fifth season. He just finished the best season for me, averaging 7.4 and had like 15 goals and 18 assists. 28 years old, with Navas by far the best right winger in the game at this point. His market value was set at 13.5 mil which I think is ridicilously low. And I couldn't get more for him. I just don't find that realistic at all because he was one of my best players in the squad that won 3 championships and 2 european cups. Let's face it, in real life he would cost a bit more than 13 mil, wouldn't he?

So if they just fix that part of the game I think it would be perfect and best FM ever.

I find its best to wait till clubs are interested or list him first then see if theres a decent amount of clubs are interested if they are you will get more for the player.

I did this in my current game with arsenal and got double value and more for Vermaelen, Ramsey, Nasri, Van Persie and a couple of regens i had.

I am pretty positive that some people come on this forum looking for what bugs have been reported just so they can start threads and have a whine. I am playing the game 11.2 and I can honestly say that It's running like a charm. If you don't read about the bugs then you won't see them in the game, Keep the faith people and remember that the alternative is not even worth mentioning.

Of course its not right to be **** at the SI, but when you pay 89$ AUD for this game and having to WAIT for the SI to release the patch is pretty poor. Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem? They should aim to finish at a DEADLINE which they dont really have, instead of having to wait until theyr absolutely sure its fixed, thats pretty unprofessional isnt it? but hey, other than that I have all the respect for you guys.

Ha ha HA not sure what format you play cod on but the ps3 version as had 3 patch updates already i traded mine in few weeks back it was that poor

It is interesting that every negative comment is perceived as whining by some people. Negative comments and demands are part of a product/service transaction. While I do believe that SI guys work hard to make the game better, I also think that there is no real alternative to FM in the game world. Otherwise, things would be very hard for the SI. That's called competition, which does not exist in the football manager games sector. Any other managerial game is nowhere near as good as FM. I don't even check if there are any other FM-like games because I don't care about any other game. Therefore, whatever fault/bug exists in the FM, many people tend to ignore them and continue to play. (and I am one of them)

I have been waiting for the patch for months now and had to stop playing. That's especially because transfer system is broken so that takes all the fun away for me. Therefore, IMHO, the game is not playable right now. Some people may think otherwise and some may find match engine to be broken (which I disagree and think that it is the best ME ever). However, when I mention this, it does not mean I am whining about it.

I just hope that the patch will be released soon as I can't find any other games to play lol.

What i have heard from inside source via friend that after they fixed that "crash bug" it has caused lot more serious problems with the patch. The reason why SI say patch coming out maybe next week and constantly delaying it by one week is just because they don't want any more anger in forums than it is now. Same source says the most likely release for patch would be maybe at end of March if all goes well. So it looks like that patch will be a real bug fix patch which fixes bugs of bugs. I only wonder what this will do to game source code and for next years game.

I really, REALLY hope you're wrong mate.

Now the context of what this bloke is saying is true. It is appaling how long its taking si to sort all this out. and lets be honest if there was another management game that challenged this then there wouldnt be the problem. 1) si would sort it much quicker or 2) they wouldnt realse with any problems.

the main thing for me is that the game should be realsed at the START of the season at the moment your only got 5 months of the season then transfers start to happen and it dont keeps its appeal for me. Personally i think the creation of fm live and other ventures has taken their eye of their bread and butter. I know they are different deartments but the wonga now gets split to the ventures.

For a transfer update to take over a month from the shut of the window is ridculas. It took me and hour to do one league in the editor. So how can it take SI over a month to do them all???

For a transfer update to take over a month from the shut of the window is ridculas. It took me and hour to do one league in the editor. So how can it take SI over a month to do them all???

Simple. It wouldn't take them that long mate. It's shows how ineffective those guys are when they make a patch that is supposedly going to fix all of the problems people have and they create one that apparently causes huge bugs far worse than in the first place and apparently that's how programming goes according to Miles. Is it? Ha ha. Well I'm a software programmer myself and I've never heard of such incompetence. People who have paid are waiting here guys.

Miles Jacobsen and his team are a joke, that's the problem. Making up excuses for a complete lack of effort where effort needs to be. It would be worth a bet that these let downs will not have the patch out by the end of the week as he said and that will soon turn into the end of next week and the next week. FM fans deserve a hell of a lot better than the crap these losers have gave us so far and it's gone beyond the point of mods whinging "don't talk about the patch please" and posting a link to Miles' ridiculous lies expecting that to satisfy us. We paid for this game so sort it out RIGHT NOW Miles or you aren't worth a penny. If you can't do that then admit that yoiu aren't up to it and let someone who CAN sort it out do it.

That's the problem, whatever way you look at it Miles and his team are incapable of doing this the right way and certain people need replacing before the promsises that have been made to the people that actually matter (US) are broken and the integrity of this once great game is lost.

Wow, some people are so impatient. Do you really think it is as easy as you say it is? Do you really think that if they could sort it out so easily then they wouldn't?

The game is not unplayable as it is. If you're wanting to wait for the release of the 3rd patch before starting then surely that's your decision but it doesn't mean that the game isn't playable as is. There is a ridiculous amount of hyperbole every year and this area of the forum is notorious for it. Bug reports take on the tenor of a major natural disaster and then a frenzy surrounds those reports to people are pretty much foaming at the mouth. I don't quite know why this is maybe it is just reflecting the commodifcation of everything in society these days, but some people are getting so het up here it's not even funny. That's not to say there aren't bugs in the game as there are, but at least they're getting fixed. I've played console sports games that never get fixes while other games need a dedicated community just to make them playable.

A few Rafa style fackts for the end of my rant.

1. The patching strategy was clearly communicated at release.

2. When major problems have occured SI have released hotfixes to make sure they are patched up

3. The SI promises regarding the patch was for February or March. So far (and today according to my calender is the 7th of March) this promise has not been broken.

All we want is to get the whole game when its released and not have to wait 6 months to be able to play it properly ffs. If it were up to me SI would release an FM game every 2 years, patching the current one every couple months and making sure the next game is ACTUALLY FINISHED before release. cuz this system just isn't working. not fair towards your customers SI, get your sh.t together or people will start getting fed up and stop buying the game. Stop taking us for granted.

Ha ha HA not sure what format you play cod on but the ps3 version as had 3 patch updates already i traded mine in few weeks back it was that poor

There was yet another patch for COD released a few days ago to finally try and get rid of the huge bug that crashed the game constantly at the end of an online multiplayer game, which in turn made you lose all the XP you had gained for that game, and guess what, its still there, maybe just not as regular, anyone who thinks FM is unique in its patching to try and sort issues needs to pay more attention to what goes on in the entire computer game world now a days.

Wow, some people are so impatient. Do you really think it is as easy as you say it is? Do you really think that if they could sort it out so easily then they wouldn't?

The game is not unplayable as it is. If you're wanting to wait for the release of the 3rd patch before starting then surely that's your decision but it doesn't mean that the game isn't playable as is. There is a ridiculous amount of hyperbole every year and this area of the forum is notorious for it. Bug reports take on the tenor of a major natural disaster and then a frenzy surrounds those reports to people are pretty much foaming at the mouth. I don't quite know why this is maybe it is just reflecting the commodifcation of everything in society these days, but some people are getting so het up here it's not even funny. That's not to say there aren't bugs in the game as there are, but at least they're getting fixed. I've played console sports games that never get fixes while other games need a dedicated community just to make them playable.

A few Rafa style fackts for the end of my rant.

1. The patching strategy was clearly communicated at release.

2. When major problems have occured SI have released hotfixes to make sure they are patched up

3. The SI promises regarding the patch was for February or March. So far (and today according to my calender is the 7th of March) this promise has not been broken.

That's some nice sucking up and kidding yourself there Wavelberry well done. And it's ironic that you chose to emulate Rafa because it seems you too seem to have mastered the art of pulling the wool so far down over your own eyes that I'm suprised you are able to see your keyboard to type.

If anybody has any realistic points as to why these guys are on the verge of failing us all catastrophically rather than copying and pasting the pointless crap we've already been fed many times by the stooges that are paid to hide any negative opinions please feel free.

the thing that makes me very upset, disappointed and angry is the fact that the patch now is ready but we must wait friday because they are superstitious

i think it's incredible! in 2011!!!!

we can wait all the time you want but for a real reason... not for superstition

the excuse "the people then don't go to work".... but what you say?! how many fm players' stay close at home only for the new patch?! i think, if there are same, not all or indeed few

i think you must stopped this state of mind and let out the game and the patches when they're ready.... and not on friday.... came on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i hope will be this next year

p.s. sorry for the english but i'm not an english man

bye bye

I don't usually post on here a lot, but the following post made me!

Of course its not right to be **** at the SI, but when you pay 89$ AUD for this game and having to WAIT for the SI to release the patch is pretty poor. Why dont FIFA and COD users have this problem? They should aim to finish at a DEADLINE which they dont really have, instead of having to wait until theyr absolutely sure its fixed, thats pretty unprofessional isnt it? but hey, other than that I have all the respect for you guys.

You obviously don't play COD and FIFA then. I play both avidly, as I do with FM. FIFA and COD's patches are usually horrible. They come out, with things not fixed that they say was going to be fixed. With additional errors. I've always been amazed with the FM updates. They take their time, and get things right. Kudos SI in my eyes.