Playing with "fake" players

Has anyone tried unticking the "Use Real Players" option when starting a new game? And if so, what do you think of it?

It looks like it hasn't really changed over the years. I'm looking at the FC Copenhagen squad and the names are new, nationalities are also changed often, but I can still spot the players from real life. Age, CA/PA, attributes even squad numbers are the same! It's even easier to spot big players such as Messi, Ronaldo, etc.

I had hoped that this feature would have been more randomized now, but that's not the case. As FM has included "Add players to playable teams", why not extend this option to the fake players option? I'd really like a game where I don't know any player at all.

Oh and I do know that there is the option of holidaying for like 20 seasons - I'm not so keen on that

I'd like to see this too. I'm a big fan of the idea of starting a new game with completely new, randomised players to mix things up a bit. Obviously I know it wouldn't make too much sense to have 8 world class players in Darlington's squad, and a League 2 quality squad for Man Utd - there'd need to be a general structure to it still. But as you said, literally the only thing that changes is the nationality and sometimes the age. A little more of a mix up would be great.

I can only assume that the game has to have a basis for the players so it uses the editor but just changes names and nationalities. To make up hundreds, or thousands, of new players would be extremely demanding.

I understand even newgens are based on the players that are currently in the game, such as picking names from those in the editor at game start. You could get Carlos Messi, but not Engelbert Humperdink.

If anything the one game I started without real players in fm12 seemed ever worse i literally didnt see a member of a big team i didnt recognize (though it was only a quick look so its not conclusive!).

I would love an actual random players option rather than the half arsed feature we have now.

In my fake player game, Barcelona had a 24yo argentinian playmaker called "Damiano Blanco" who won worlds best player a few seasons in a row. Would've been nice to have him as a different nationality and maybe even a different position cause he was very easy to spot.

I never tried that, looks strange if FM does not have anyone that is 'real' in the beginning.

I remember doing it on CM Italia back in the day with AC Milan and bought a Danish forward called Per Laudrup who became a complete legend!

I also did it on one of the CM3 versions and the players in my Arsenal squad were totally random (i.e. it didn't just change the names of the existing squad, most notably there wasn't a Bergkamp-esc forward). It was pretty enjoyable, I remember signing an italian striker for £20m who was an absolute goal machine.

Haven't done it since though.

I tried this years ago. I was playing in Scotland with Dundee and actually managed to win the league ahead of both sides of the old firm. I'm not a great manager by any stretch of the imagination but I found having fake players in teams made the normally weaker sides more competitive and the normally stronger teams were less dominant.

I understand even newgens are based on the players that are currently in the game, such as picking names from those in the editor at game start. You could get Carlos Messi, but not Engelbert Humperdink.

Additional names are loaded into the editor for each nationality I think, sure I remember a thread ages ago where someone was asking about that. There's a "common names" type thing somewhere in there.

Agree with OP. Started up a game recently but lost all motivation after I noticed Man U had a 38 year old world class left winger with Welsh and Sierra Leonean nationality...

The worst is that all favourite staff and clubs are in place too. There was a 30m Spanish striker at Chelsea called Felix Borraz, who has At. Madrid and Liverpool as his favourite clubs... guess who?

Yup, I agree that this would be a great addition - it would really add a new dimention to the game when it gets to the "so what do I do now" stage usually around May/June when I've won everything etc. The only thing is, and I think I mentioned this in another thread - is that it would take an absolute age to generate thousands of players (not to mention staff) if you did it using the current game set-up. It takes me around 30 mins to set up a game with all leagues/players loaded - imagine if FM needed to create 308,000 new players then randomize the clubs/player teams and balance out the teams so the best teams are in higher divisions etc.

It would be quite a task to design a system capable of doing this, but I think it would be more than worth it and it would extend the life of the game (to me anyway) and add a new twist when you've ran out of ideas for things to do next.