With FML gone... will FM Online get better?

Hello,

Just really wondering for FM12 if there will be vast improvements of the Football Manager Online experience.

Firstly the extended processing times dont do anything or make any difference and it would be great if there was something that stopped it processing every 15 minutes and stopping and starting. It takes hours upon hours to get through pre season due to this. Surely with internet gaming growing this would be an area that really does need improving and even more so with Football Manager Live going down.

We currently play with about 20 managers or so across the premiership and championship. (as seen in OTF thread). We holiday from the end of the season to 30th May for english contract and then to budget day and then again to newgen day to save as much time as possible and it still take an age!

Its great but there is so many things that could be improved.

Great idea to have european games all played ont he same day and also having all fixtures on a saturday. Thats a great idea but we need more Speed is the main issue and as I said the main improvement which would enable this to be alot more enjoyable and popular woudl be longer processing times say moving 6 hours a continue or half a day or something. Yea there would be more news to read between continues but it woudl be better for the long run.

Also the continue timer, it would be good if you could specify the timer. During pre season we have a 2 minutes timer when I think ideally a 1 min 30 sec timer would be ideal and then we move to a 30 second timer outwith pre season when something like 10/15 seconds would be better. It sounds petty and as if it wouldnt make much difference but in reality when you spend 6 hours on a Sunday and 6 on a Thursday playing the game and the number of continues in that time the time save would be huge and surely it cant be hard to code something like that in.

So, is there any plans to improve FM online??? Please say there is!!!

- A more customisable timer instead of 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes.

- An option so that processes only stop a maximum of 6 times a day, especially during transfer windows instead of stopping every 15 minutes game-time.

- An option to kick Network Clients for the host.

These are things I'd like to see off the top of my head.

We have a 20 person online game going on and those options alone would improve the game and the game speed massively.

I would love to see a bit more time go into FMO especially not that FM Live has gone.

Like JamboLad said speed is the big issue for me as well and a lot are put off of this as a result. I would to see the game stopping maybe three times a day. Once in the morning, afternoon and evening for managers to see their news etc. For me it would be much quicker and especially during pre season where currently it takes an age to get through it.

I would love to see a bit more time go into FMO especially not that FM Live has gone.

Like JamboLad said speed is the big issue for me as well and a lot are put off of this as a result. I would to see the game stopping maybe three times a day. Once in the morning, afternoon and evening for managers to see their news etc. For me it would be much quicker and especially during pre season where currently it takes an age to get through it.

Are you still playing FMOs?

Pre season for 20 of us probably takes about 12 hours to get from June 26th to August 15th - something like that.

It would be great if SI got involved in group sthat play this and get ideas of how its running. Right now someone just suggested things like the exploitation of money, not really noticable with the AI but when you have 20+ human manager you shoudl see the money flying around, very unrealistic!

Another, minor, thing for me is the in-game chat which is pretty useless as it stands and as a result we use IRC, Mibbit, Chatzilla add-ons to talk. It isn't easy to find and when you do know where it is can be a pain in the backside going in to it each time if you're not using shortcuts.

My suggestion would be to a put a chat button on the opposite side of the breadcrumbs near the bottom. Make it so that it's noticable that people have been talking and even more noticeable when you have a PM. For example chat in the main window reverses the colour of the button and text but is a still image and if you receive a PM it flashes or changes to another colour.

Speed definitely is a major issue for playing FMO, especially for large groups.

Yes, oh god please yes!

FMO has been neglected since.. well.. since it was introduced.. painfully slow!.. the things that annoys me the most is when you're not the host and you negotiate contracts.. each click is sent to server and therefore there is a little delay on every single click.. surely this is pointless.. there should be NO data transfer between entering the contract negotiation screen and submitting your offer..! this would make that whole process alot easier! (I haven't tried FM online in 2011 and 2010 so it might already have been improved..)

Host to have a bit more power over the game might be nice. If you can add a new manager profile into a job and it automatically just sacks the previous manager (& coaching staff may leave etc), why couln't the host move an existing manager profile into a job using the same game mechanics? Means he keeps reputation, player relationships etc, but it'd be so useful in an online game where you might want to keep everyone in the same league for competition's sake.

Are you still playing FMOs?

Pre season for 20 of us probably takes about 12 hours to get from June 26th to August 15th - something like that.

It would be great if SI got involved in group sthat play this and get ideas of how its running. Right now someone just suggested things like the exploitation of money, not really noticable with the AI but when you have 20+ human manager you shoudl see the money flying around, very unrealistic!

Not anymore just not got the time to play these days and the games running play either too long or far too often for me to commit properly too but I mod the FM Online forum still.

Thought about starting a game up but just put it into practice.

Hmmm....this thread is the first I heard about FML closing. I didn't play it much after the Beta ended. Wasn't my cup of tea, still sad to see it go. What was the reason for it? No one playing?

Hmmm....this thread is the first I heard about FML closing. I didn't play it much after the Beta ended. Wasn't my cup of tea, still sad to see it go. What was the reason for it? No one playing?

pretty much, miles said it wasn't sustainable with the current number of subscribers.

Would ruddy love the processing to be sorted, say only having 3 or 4 a day, especially during transfer windows. This alone would pretty much overhaul the online aspect and give it a much more attractive feel. Currently unless you really get the FMO bug the speed of play is ridiculously tedious and makes it hard for new players to enjoy, think Sandy touched on it that it takes us a good 12 hours to get through a pre-season.

Was also going to touch on the transfer deals done over 48months but I guess that would deserve its own thread

Anyone any further thoughts or know if this sort of thing could be introduced to FM12? Id love to know!