OFFICIAL* Blog Feedback - Miscellaneous Part 2

This is a thread for feedback on today's blog, which is now LIVE here - http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/275309-FM12-blogs-miscellaneous-(pt-2-of-3)

There aren’t too many changes to the network game this year, but you are now notified when you get chat messages from other managers and you aren’t in the chat room. And we’ve made it more obvious on how to start a network game, by adding a “start new network game” option on the main menu screen.

The network side has needed a revamp for years, and I thought the thread started by Ov Collyer in the the network forum discussing this would change things, aparently not. Nobody uses the in-game chat anyway because it's pi** poor. Shambles

Looks nice.. love the ability to "freeze" player stats history!

But, yet again the network part is neglected.. Hopefully FM is playable in online networks in 2020..

And finally for today, have you ever wanted to compare your star striker in 2040 with your star striker in 2015, only to find the player has long retired and you can’t see his stats anymore? Well, you can now set any player in the game to have their history “retained” by the game, meaning that their player history won’t ever vanish. All you need to do is click on a little tick box, and he is immortalised in the game forever – the game also chooses some key players to keep stored too.

Yahooo!

keeping player histories is fantastic, SomeGuy! will be chuffed as well, good stuff!!

Rather disappointed that the network side isn't getting a total make over, we can live in hope i suppose.

like the additions on the friendlies, as have often managed teams with no reserve team league so not able to actively play new trialists, or players coming back from injury and get feedback on their performances.

Nice work !..

apart from the Steam Activation idea, not seen anything I don't like the sound of yet.....counting the days down...bring on FM12.

First blog so far that's actually got me a little bit excited for the game, some excellent new additions in there.

If you "freeze" a player so to speak, does it also keep a screenshot of their attributes? I've always wanted to be able to compare players in different stages of their career without having to make my own screenshots.

Anyway, good blog. Lots of nice little features.

Yahooo!

Agreed This, and friendlies against 'best of the league' teams.

If you do enter your reserves into a league, can your assistant still arrange friendlies for when they have a month and a half off over winter?

In FM12, should the country you are playing in have reserve teams, and should you decide not to enter them into the reserve competitions, and should you have your assistant manager set in the team preferences to arrange friendlies, throughout the season you’ll find reserve team friendlies being added to the calendar.

Was hoping something like this would be implemented, Southampton withdrew from the reserve league last season irl and it was a long and boring process to arrange a full fixture calender for them in FM11.

I'm also disappointed that the network game amends merit barely two lines, especially after Ov's threat which was started a few months ago.

There are so many minor tweaks that could be made to make this way of playing much more efficient and also enjoyable.

In game chat options - no thanks, we already use Skype.

What about the length of time it takes to get through a transfer window, due to everyone having to click through news items every 15 min game time.

Setting up basic parameters human managers must adhere to?

Preventing the use of "dodgy" tactics such as 4-3-3 narrow?

Still looking forward to FM12, as we as a group missed out FM11 to give our network game a decent amount of seasons, but the blog has turned out to be a bit of a damp squid today

Del

how does the tick box that saves players stats work?

for eg. If you ticked the box when the player was 20, would it save his stats as they were at 20 years old, or would it continually save all the way until the player retired?

if its the later, that would kinda make the option redundant as the player stats degrade with age - so i dont think it would be that.

if it saves on ticking, we would have to remember when to tick the box, which i dont think is a big problem. could we then save a single players' stats multiple times? so i could compare the stats for striker john smith as a 20 year old to the stats of the same player as a 28 year old?

actually, come to think of it, the blog first mentions player stats and then player histories. does it save both? to quote:

'And finally for today, have you ever wanted to compare your star striker in 2040 with your star striker in 2015, only to find the player has long retired and you can’t see his stats anymore? Well, you can now set any player in the game to have their history “retained” by the game, meaning that their player history won’t ever vanish. All you need to do is click on a little tick box, and he is immortalised in the game forever – the game also chooses some key players to keep stored too.'

I read it as the history gets stored, by 'stats' I assumed it meant appearances, goals, ratings etc.

Not bothered about the network but the other changes sound good especially match analysis tool re comparison over two matches.

Never have a long enough game to worry about the history of a player but a nice touch.

Disappointed to hear that there will not be any changes to the Network game.

Along the same vein as the ability to retain player histories... I'm wondering if it's possible to lure player's out of retirement. For example, although I'm managing a European club, Brian McBride retired after my first season and I was interested in bringing him on for a coaching role. But, when he retired, he vanished from the game and entered the netherworld. Is this now possible? Thanks- looking forward to FM12.

Was hoping something like this would be implemented, Southampton withdrew from the reserve league last season irl and it was a long and boring process to arrange a full fixture calender for them in FM11.

But how many friendlies and how often is what I want to know.

Would the ass man arrange a friendly if we get a triallist in and put him in the reserve team? Would he arrange a friendly if we have a first team player put into the reserves until match fit? Would he arrange a friendly to keep the reserve players match fit?

In FM12, should the country you are playing in have reserve teams, and should you decide not to enter them into the reserve competitions, and should you have your assistant manager set in the team preferences to arrange friendlies, throughout the season you’ll find reserve team friendlies being added to the calendar.

Will having your assistant manager set up friendlies for your reserve team work for Italian teams as well? (since there is no reserve league there, though they have reserve teams + youth teams (though the youth teams do have a league))

It always bothered me to see players rot away in the reserves when refusing to go out on loan etc, and setting up friendly matches throughout the season is such a bother.

Guessing this news on network means that the lag in network games will remain?

And finally for today, have you ever wanted to compare your star striker in 2040 with your star striker in 2015, only to find the player has long retired and you can’t see his stats anymore? Well, you can now set any player in the game to have their history “retained” by the game, meaning that their player history won’t ever vanish. All you need to do is click on a little tick box, and he is immortalised in the game forever – the game also chooses some key players to keep stored too.

Great It would be nice if we could export data like that league tables, transfer histories Etc in a handy little file we could share with other players so they could see what happened in our game.

This has probably been the first Blog that has left me disaapointed...but seeing as i have liked all the others things cant be that bad!!!

Are they any numbers about the amount of users that play network games in FM? Perhaps they are very few... and thats the reason why network games didn't get much attention in the last years.

yes finally, i can scrap my reserve rubbish and play teams in friendlies i want!

thank you SI! this is huge for me

yes finally, i can scrap my reserve rubbish and play teams in friendlies i want!

thank you SI! this is huge for me

I like this as well.

Bad thing didn't read anything new about network games

Bad thing didn't read anything new about network games

That doesn't mean it hasn't had work.

Hoping we get the chance to tick the little "immortalize this guy" checkbox from his retirement news item, or that his profile will still be active from that news item so we can go to his profile and immortalize him....

Great It would be nice if we could export data like that league tables, transfer histories Etc in a handy little file we could share with other players so they could see what happened in our game.

You can export the league tables etc. In the FM menu there is an option to Print Screen (or Similar) - One of the options in here is text, which will save it as a simple text file, this can be opened either in Notepad (or Other Text editor) and cleaned up, or you can pull it into Excel and edit it in there to make it cleaner.

Like the sound of friendlys against a league XI and also the idea about keeping a record of players stats although like a few have mentioned, I'm not sure this will work well in practise, either it will just be appearances, goals and assists or it will be a record of player attributes which won't be that good as they decreas as the player gets old

That doesn't mean it hasn't had work.

Sure, but i would expect some news in this feature... so, let's see in FM 13 =/

Well this is not the first year so many are disappointed that the network side has been pretty much left alone again yet they continue to ignore people, will they ever do anything about this???

There is nothing more annoying than trying to mess on with ports and additional downloads to be able to setup a network or multiplayer game.

I can live with the long waits, I can live with the manager chat as I know some will still use this and you don't have to but please sort out how easy it is to setup a game with a friend.

As this has to be on steam is there no way of using steams friend system to join them in a league????

The setup of a network game is easy.. the problem is the 1-5 sec delay on every single click you make (unless you are host, of course).. it makes it unplayable for me (although I have managed to play a few network games..) - it simply takes too long time to play.. it can really infuriate me!

The setup of a network game is easy.. the problem is the 1-5 sec delay on every single click you make (unless you are host, of course).. it makes it unplayable for me (although I have managed to play a few network games..) - it simply takes too long time to play.. it can really infuriate me!

you've got to remember the huge spectrum of football manager players' computer abilities. The ease of opening ports and other rubbish for one, is rocket science for another. The main thing that came out of another thread was the need for less 'stops' per day in the transfer window, where now we get a stop every 15 minutes in-game, it's just not viable for a network game. Fully expect a revamp in next years version, maybe the final end to FML was a bit late in coming to get any knowledge transfer and impotus to the network side of FM12.

you've got to remember the huge spectrum of football manager players' computer abilities. The ease of opening ports and other rubbish for one, is rocket science for another.

Oh, I totally agree.. what I meant was that the delay on clicks in network games is so annoying that I rate it as a much bigger problem than the setup. A quick install of hamachi or other similar vpn tools makes it very easy to fix.. even for computer illiterates

But of course, other people may feel the opposite as they perhaps can live with the delay, but are unable to connect to network games..

But in the end SI should really give the whole network side of the game a huge revamp.. It is desperately needed since online FM is 100 times more fun than singleplayer.

Something else that’s become noticeable over the last few years has been pre-season tours where high profile clubs will go to far flung countries to have friendlies against international sides, or “best of the league” sides. And you can now arrange these in Football Manager 2012 too (should those nations have “best of the league” sides, of course).

this year we’ve added the option to load all players from a particular league too.

Wernt these two already there? I mean yes the ability to play friendlies against very low profile national teams or "best of the league/all star" teams is new, but it is nothing better or different than playing against clubs right? Instead of playing against Juventus, i might be playing against Malaysian national team (of course playing against Juventus may be the better and more lucrative option) Was really looking forward to a slightly different Tour proposals with high profile clubs getting financially lucrative proposals to play in countries such as China, Korea, Japan or the United States...with extra money given to the clubs for playing the friendly and a rise in both the club profile and merchandising during that period. Just checked out on the tour business and found that playing three friendlies as Arsenal on tour to US against LA Galaxy, DC United and Columbus nets me just 425k (in pounds) We have had the board imposing money spinning tours to the far east and in the US and i dont think they did this just to get that extra 500k?

Regarding loading players from a particular league...we have this too i believe...loading players from top divisions from that country?

A good thing to hear :-).

However:

What about the national teams? In my case (being from Denmark) our national side every year arrange friendly tours with players based in Denmark that are out for Winter break. Will such tours be included also?

immortalising player stats gets a big thumbs up from me

I wonder if the problem of international sides not arranging pre-tournament friendlies has been fixed, even though I do not manage national sides it has always bugged me that a side would not play any matches between Feb/Mar & the start of a World Cup or European Championships.

I wonder if the problem of international sides not arranging pre-tournament friendlies has been fixed, even though I do not manage national sides it has always bugged me that a side would not play any matches between Feb/Mar & the start of a World Cup or European Championships.

That annoys me, whats more annoying is when sometimes they do, and others they dont, i managed scotland for 4 seasons, for the EURO champs i was not allowed to arrange a friendly but for the world cup i was, but only one game!! I gave up after that, international management is quite poor in FM11.

That annoys me, whats more annoying is when sometimes they do, and others they dont, i managed scotland for 4 seasons, for the EURO champs i was not allowed to arrange a friendly but for the world cup i was, but only one game!! I gave up after that, international management is quite poor in FM11.

Agreed in one long-term save i managed England and then Spain...if arranging friendlies was left to Assman nothing would get done however if i tried to arrange the friendlies myself no-one was available as they already had matches organised. I ended up playing sides rated 100+ in the world before a tournament which wasnt helpful and the fans/FA slated me for organising pointless friendlies...

This blog (and the others besides), has made it almost impossible for me to chose whether to buy or not... I absolutely hate the Steam Activation thing, but for everything else, it looks amazing... I've got exactly 4 weeks to make a decision... damn.

This blog (and the others besides), has made it almost impossible for me to chose whether to buy or not... I absolutely hate the Steam Activation thing, but for everything else, it looks amazing... I've got exactly 4 weeks to make a decision... damn.

Come to the dark side, young padawan!

This blog (and the others besides), has made it almost impossible for me to chose whether to buy or not... I absolutely hate the Steam Activation thing, but for everything else, it looks amazing... I've got exactly 4 weeks to make a decision... damn.

do it, do it!!!

What I want to know is! what about when you choose to manage a team that DOESNT have a Reserve/B (or C Squad), and after a few promotions you would like to have one? I normally play with Marbella, and work my way up to the Liga BBVA. However I need to create the B squad in the game editor prior to making the game, and I havent yet been able to succesfully make it work 100% as its supposed to (I.e its a selectable b squad within my team, except for teh fact that my control of said squad is very limited, and not to mention frustrating, as players that I'm "growing" for the first team often get sold without my consent) Ideally I'd love to create the B squad when I need it, in game, and register it in the lowest playable league in my nation.

Either that, or I hope they've made it easier to add and setup said b & c squads in the in game editor

I hope the friendlies are more realistic. I am managing a second division team in Hungary yet i can travel to Brazil to play against some of their best sides??? Seems strange to me.

I cannot for the life of me work out how to play a "Best of League" team during pre-season in the demo. Has anybody else worked out how to set this up? I've tried arranging tours but no "Best of League" team ever appears anywhere, neither can I find them to propose such a friendly whilst away on tour. I know it's only certain countries that do it, but I've tried the USA, China, and other such countries that I am fairly certain should have them.

Any ideas?