FM2010 - Vanilla or Strawberry?

There have been a couple of threads running in here this week, one asking which savegame people are playing at present and another, which is 8 pages long, asking for even more leagues to be added.

I’m of the opinion that the majority of people are like myself, and only manage in the ‘major’ European countries/leagues AND of that group, a majority of them stick to England.

It got me thinking back to the early CM releases which were ONLY English Leagues, and extra leagues had to be bought on separate CD-ROMs, although from memory I’m pretty sure you got more than one extra country/league per CD.

Wasn’t there a special Arsenal FM2009 too?

Anyway, my point being that if FM2010 was released in two ‘flavours’, similar to the vanilla/strawberry demos, which would you buy.

Without getting into a debate about which leagues/countries would be included, generally speaking the two choices would be:

Option A – FM2010 Vanilla version - would contain approx. 10 countries and ONLY major nations/leagues e.g. England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina. This would retail approx. £10 cheaper than the full version at say £19.99.

Option B – FM2010 Strawberry version – Basically every league/country present in FM2009. This FULL version would retail at approx £29.99-£32.99.

Being totally honest here, I would go for option A, I couldn’t even tell you how many countries/leagues are now included in the boxed version of FM2009, and tbh I’ll never play most of them, especially the more obscure non-European ones.

This is silly. Without all the leagues, you wouldn't get all the players, so the two games would end up being completely different. Where's portugal? Also all those amazing romanians you'd miss out on!

Option A – FM2010 Vanilla version - would contain approx. 10 countries and ONLY major nations/leagues e.g. England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina. This would retail approx. £10 cheaper than the full version at say £19.99.

I fail to see how Scotland and Holland are major nations/leagues and Portugal isnt... I mean maybe for marketing reasons Scotland would be included above Portugal but choosing those as major leagues lol. And Id miss even the Ukrainian league... tss tss

Cant really choose any option as the league choice there is rather.....

And what about the db?

I think it would be stupid for SI to do this, majority of people like having that option of playing in a obscure league even if they dont.

For me Just leave the game whole & sort out bugs.

What about the glorious A-League

I fail to see how Scotland and Holland are major nations/leagues and Portugal isnt... I mean maybe for marketing reasons Scotland would be included above Portugal but choosing those as major leagues lol. And Id miss even the Ukrainian league... tss tss

Cant really choose any option as the league choice there is rather.....

And what about the db?

Did you even read the opening post??????

"Without getting into a debate about which leagues/countries would be included"

I put that line in, specifically to avoid post like yours i.e. Why isn't nation A on your list, when nation B is.....Nation A is 'better/bigger' than nation A.

And that's the reason your idea is silly. What if someone wanted the Vanilla version but it had the ONE league they wanted missing? They then have to buy the more expensive one. Face it, it's not a good idea.

Whats going to stop people who buy the strawberry version uploading the database etc. so that people can buy the cheaper vanilla version and then just download this for free

Maybe you could but the vanilla version and, if a league you wanted was missing, you could download it (paying for it, obviously).

Just throwing it out there.

Whats going to stop people who buy the strawberry version uploading the database etc. so that people can buy the cheaper vanilla version and then just download this for free

I would imagine that SI could code into the game not load one DB in the other version. If they can break the cracked versions:) this should be possible.

I like the idea but would probably end up buying the version with the all the leagues as other people have said you could miss out on regens from some of those countries without them. But for some people who only play in one country this would probably work for them. Not sure SI would like the idea of loosing xxx thoundad's of pounds from this though

I know the debate about which leagues are included isn't meant to be discussed but surely thats the whole point of this insane scheme?

Just because some people (myself not included) view the Premier League (as an example) as the be all and end all of football it would just be sheer arrogance to assume everyone else will be of the same mind set.

Rubbish idea .... if you don't like all these leagues, then don't play them. If you mind paying £29.99 for the game with everything included .. then shop around .. you can always find the FULL game cheaper.

This route could ultimately lead to SI charging seperately for extra leagues individually, and therefore lead to a massive overall price for a complete game.

As it stands everybody has the option to start from the same hymn sheet .. and long may it contunue.

i would buy the full version just so the game would grow more realisticly the further you got into your save and there would be more balance internationally

If there was an option C to pay a little more to get the Faroe Islands league included I'd go for that! I don't play most of the minor leagues, esp. Asia, but some I do like to play and I guess that "some" will be different for different people. I like to play in Iceland and Norway in particular.

I know the debate about which leagues are included isn't meant to be discussed but surely thats the whole point of this insane scheme?

Just because some people (myself not included) view the Premier League (as an example) as the be all and end all of football it would just be sheer arrogance to assume everyone else will be of the same mind set.

Looking at it from another angle then, and hopefully this addresses the point about 'you get it cheaper elsewhere'.

Would you be prepared to give up some of the more obscure nations/leagues included in FM 2009 e.g. Hong Kong/India/Indonesia ,if they game was say approx £10 cheaper.

As for database issues, how did it work in earlier versions of ChampMan?

Surely by including full squads from the sides playable in the 10 or so countries included, that would cover the top players from a lot of nations i.e. How many Nigerians etc are playing in to top two leagues in England, how many Senegalese re playing in Ligue 1 etc.

Did you even read the opening post??????

"Without getting into a debate about which leagues/countries would be included"

I put that line in, specifically to avoid post like yours i.e. Why isn't nation A on your list, when nation B is.....Nation A is 'better/bigger' than nation A.

Sorry didnt read that part

But anyways it wouldnt work that well for that reason anyways. In Southern Europe the interest in the Scottish and Dutch leagues isnt all that great (minimal in some cases) so the Southern part of Europe would need a special version with the Portuguese and Greek leagues or something like that. Probably the same would happen in Eastern Europe.

That "version" you specify might work for people who live in UK/Ireland and Dutch people that only play in LLM or their own country but the rest of the countries wouldnt be too happy about the fact that they can only buy the most expensive option.

Adding all of the important leagues to that list (adding Portugal, Greece, Ukraine or Belgium or whatever) would somewhat kill the interest in the Strawberry version..

i voted for option b.

the majority of the time i do play in major leagues. but somtimes i have a go at a league i have no idea of with no chance of becomming the greatest team in the world just to have a challange.

plus i have never been a fan of going backwards. forwardsis the only way we can go so i would hate them to bring out two versions.

By the way, I hardly think that a bunch of "lesser" leagues constitutes one third of the game anyway. You'd maybe be lucky to get £2 off the price for missing off a load of obscure leagues!

Looking at it from another angle then, and hopefully this addresses the point about 'you get it cheaper elsewhere'.

Would you be prepared to give up some of the more obscure nations/leagues included in FM 2009 e.g. Hong Kong/India/Indonesia ,if they game was say approx £10 cheaper.

As for database issues, how did it work in earlier versions of ChampMan?

Surely by including full squads from the sides playable in the 10 or so countries included, that would cover the top players from a lot of nations i.e. How many Nigerians etc are playing in to top two leagues in England, how many Senegalese re playing in Ligue 1 etc.

Personally i wouldn't want to give up any of the leagues that are available. Thats not to say that i would run all of them at once and have an ubergame going on though. The majority of the games i play are starting somewhere obscure and seeing where i end up and i'm sure there are plenty of others like that around.

I think an issue arises in that if this were to somehow one day be implented, who would make the call as to what consitutes a major league and under what criteria?

If there was an option C to pay a little more to get the Faroe Islands league included I'd go for that! I don't play most of the minor leagues, esp. Asia, but some I do like to play and I guess that "some" will be different for different people. I like to play in Iceland and Norway in particular.

Maybe that would be the way for SI go?

Say £17.99 for the dozen or so 'core major nations' (I'm NOT going to even attempt to list any this time), with additional nations/leagues available for download for a nominal fee.

I still believe that the vast majority of people hardly ever, if at all, play any of these leagues which we must ALL be paying extra for.

I had to go onto Wiki to get the list of all nations playable in FM2009, honestly how many people play in some of the countries listed on a regular basis.

We all managed fine before we had all these leagues as options, and most people seem to be of the opinion that ChampMan/FM was 'better' and more fun then as compared to now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_2009#Playable_leagues_and_club_cups

WOOO go Strawberry, so much better than Vanilla Yuck.

This option is already in, you can select yourself which nations you want your game to start with.

No, strange idea, as others mentioned, if you only would have the big nations (whatever they would be) what about the players of the other nations? Load them via a EDT or so, if the players are in anyway then you can also put in the nations and their leagues.

I don't mind paying the extra to subsidise leagues that other people play because it is good for the game as a whole (although I'm very disapointed SI seem to have put a complete halt on any new leagues now).

If people only paid to download leagues that they wanted then loads of the smaller leagues just wouldn't be financially viable for SI to put development time into. Maybe you could say that is fair enough and the sales dictate which leagues should be developed, but I like minority leagues being there and being paid for by everyone.

It's just the same as the BBC license fee in Britain. Lots of people think it unfair they have to pay it to have a TV even if they never watch BBC, but I am more than happy to and I accept it will be used to pay for the making of lots of programs I have no interest in - I accept it because it also pays for some, perhaps minority, programs that I do like that wouldn't be made if it was a 100% commercial decision on every individual program (equiv. every individual league in FM)

Wouldn't this just put SI out of pocket?

There have been a couple of threads running in here this week, one asking which savegame people are playing at present and another, which is 8 pages long, asking for even more leagues to be added.

I’m of the opinion that the majority of people are like myself, and only manage in the ‘major’ European countries/leagues AND of that group, a majority of them stick to England.

It got me thinking back to the early CM releases which were ONLY English Leagues, and extra leagues had to be bought on separate CD-ROMs, although from memory I’m pretty sure you got more than one extra country/league per CD.

Wasn’t there a special Arsenal FM2009 too?

Anyway, my point being that if FM2010 was released in two ‘flavours’, similar to the vanilla/strawberry demos, which would you buy.

Without getting into a debate about which leagues/countries would be included, generally speaking the two choices would be:

Option A – FM2010 Vanilla version - would contain approx. 10 countries and ONLY major nations/leagues e.g. England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina. This would retail approx. £10 cheaper than the full version at say £19.99.

Option B – FM2010 Strawberry version – Basically every league/country present in FM2009. This FULL version would retail at approx £29.99-£32.99.

Being totally honest here, I would go for option A, I couldn’t even tell you how many countries/leagues are now included in the boxed version of FM2009, and tbh I’ll never play most of them, especially the more obscure non-European ones.

this is ridiculous, you would have a stupidly distorted set of leagues, and how would all the national teams run? also tons of the best players in the leagues now come from outside the big leagues. Pretty pointless thread. Too many ridiculous poll's on here recently.

Yeah......

Personally i wouldn't want to give up any of the leagues that are available. Thats not to say that i would run all of them at once and have an ubergame going on though. The majority of the games i play are starting somewhere obscure and seeing where i end up and i'm sure there are plenty of others like that around.

I think an issue arises in that if this were to somehow one day be implented, who would make the call as to what consitutes a major league and under what criteria?

As I've already said above "We all managed fine before we had all these leagues as options, and most people seem to be of the opinion that ChampMan/FM was 'better' and more fun then as compared to now."

Surely by spending less time working on the database to add teams from Indonesia, more time could be spent concentrating on the bugs, 3D match engine etc.

As for who decides which leagues to include, I'm asuming it would have to be a balance between sales figures/revenue and maintaining a decent 'standard' of football. If FM2009 sells really well in say Hong Kong compared to Germany they couldn't just drop the Bundesliga.

Maybe SI could put a poll on this forum listing all countries playable in FM2009 and allow everyone to vote for 10 nations to include in FM2010 version?

Would be interesting?

If you only would have the big nations (whatever they would be) what about the players of the other nations? Load them via a EDT or so, if the players are in anyway then you can also put in the nations and their leagues.

As I've already said above....

"Surely by including full squads from the sides playable in the 10 or so countries included, that would cover the top players (international squad) from most of the top 100 ranked nations i.e. How many Nigerians etc are playing in to top two leagues in England, how many Senegalese are playing in Ligue 1 etc."

In my present savegame I'm managing Nigeria, there is no Nigeria league in the game, yet I have more than enough players to choose a squad from and I'm ranked in the top 20 of the FIFA World Rankings. I've also managed Ivory Coast, much the same situation as Nigeria players/squad wise.

OK....have you not seen in your own poll, that no one really cares for this idea? Why keep pushing it?

Yeah why push it?

OK....have you not seen in your own poll, that no one really cares for this idea? Why keep pushing it?

Surely if someone makes a point, or asks a question in a thread you have started it's only good manners to answer their query?

If you read the whole thread many of the posts are about which league(s) should, and shouldn't, be classed as 'major' leagues, and not about the OP.

Although I will admit that I am surprised at the poll results.

I still believe most people stick to only of a handful of the available nations, mainly the major ones, and that most of them never manage anywhere but England.

Try the Croatian second division, I'm sure I did it once and my team never even had a stadium! That was a great game!! They were called NK Zminj.

I think what we're trying to say is that in the end, no one agrees what leagues are major or minor, so if we add them all in, everybody is catered for. That way if you only wanna manage in England...fine. Or you could have an uber game with all the leagues which takes AGES but is so much fun. PLus on the network side of things, 2 versions would be problematic for compatibility with leagues and databases surely?

If you read the whole thread many of the posts are about which league(s) should, and shouldn't, be classed as 'major' leagues, and not about the OP.

Just checking back....

Three of the first four posts are debating the above, after I specifically put a line in the OP ' without getting into a debate about nations'.

Then another post saying basically 'What if I wanted to buy the vanilla version BUT theyleague/nation I wanted wasn't on it?"

D'oh......u wouldn't want to buy the vanilla version then, would you?

Looking at it from another angle then, and hopefully this addresses the point about 'you get it cheaper elsewhere'.

Would you be prepared to give up some of the more obscure nations/leagues included in FM 2009 e.g. Hong Kong/India/Indonesia ,if they game was say approx £10 cheaper.

As for database issues, how did it work in earlier versions of ChampMan?

Surely by including full squads from the sides playable in the 10 or so countries included, that would cover the top players from a lot of nations i.e. How many Nigerians etc are playing in to top two leagues in England, how many Senegalese re playing in Ligue 1 etc.

As I've already said above "We all managed fine before we had all these leagues as options, and most people seem to be of the opinion that ChampMan/FM was 'better' and more fun then as compared to now."

Surely by spending less time working on the database to add teams from Indonesia, more time could be spent concentrating on the bugs, 3D match engine etc.

As for who decides which leagues to include, I'm asuming it would have to be a balance between sales figures/revenue and maintaining a decent 'standard' of football. If FM2009 sells really well in say Hong Kong compared to Germany they couldn't just drop the Bundesliga.

Maybe SI could put a poll on this forum listing all countries playable in FM2009 and allow everyone to vote for 10 nations to include in FM2010 version?

Would be interesting?

So what you're saying is later versions of the game should (in some respects) go backwards? Do you not think that would show an uncharacteristic lack of ambition from SI and therefore a tad unlikely? These are the guys who have produced a 3D match engine that, whilst not perfect, is passable for a retail game when no-one was expecting it so i doubt sitting still wouold appeal.

Got to ask, decent 'standard' of football? What would you consider that to consist of league wise? I would be willing to bet you wouldn't include the leagues which are covered in the AFC Champions League but others might....

Try the Croatian second division, I'm sure I did it once and my team never even had a stadium! That was a great game!! They were called NK Zminj.

I think what we're trying to say is that in the end, no one agrees what leagues are major or minor, so if we add them all in, everybody is catered for. That way if you only wanna manage in England...fine. Or you could have an uber game with all the leagues which takes AGES but is so much fun. PLus on the network side of things, 2 versions would be problematic for compatibility with leagues and databases surely?

As I've already said above "We all managed fine before we had all these leagues as options, and most people seem to be of the opinion that ChampMan/FM was 'better' and more fun then as compared to now."

Surely by spending less time working on the database to add teams from Indonesia, more time could be spent concentrating on the bugs, 3D match engine etc.

As for who decides which leagues to include, I'm asuming it would have to be a balance between sales figures/revenue and maintaining a decent 'standard' of football. If FM2009 sells really well in say Hong Kong compared to Germany they couldn't just drop the Bundesliga. Maybe SI could just put a poll on this forum listing all countries playable in FM2009 and allow everyone to vote for 10 nations to include in FM2010 version?

You fail to realise though that your very question actually means you have to discuss what the major leagues are!

And it was me who said that about ONE league missing from your vanilla version. What I said was, what if you wanted a smaller slimline version, like your vanilla, but one league was missing. You'd then be annoyed because you'd HAVE to get strawberry but that's not what you wanted. Therefore, we'd have to debate what leagues were major enought o be in it! You fail to understand your own question!

My god, stop pushing this idea, no one wants to just have ten leagues, even if we voted for it, the more leagues the better! I mean we don't have Japan!! (I know why we don't, but it's a big league!)

Got to ask, decent 'standard' of football? What would you consider that to consist of league wise? I would be willing to bet you wouldn't include the leagues which are covered in the AFC Champions League but others might....

Again, see OP.....

The bit about NOT getting into a debate about which leagues/nations to include.

e.g. Why Holland but no Portugal.

By decent standard of football, the only competition which covers club sides from all Confederations is the the recent FIFA World Club Championship won by Man Utd.

Since that tournament started, has any team from Europe or South America been beaten by a team from elsewhere?

Again, see my last few posts, you can't discuss 2 versions of a game in which one lacks certain leagues, without discussing why the leagues in the "vanilla" version are chosen over any ohter ones. Your very question encourages it!!

It's like saying

"Hers my idea for pasta sauce, we should have one with just tomato and onion, and another that adds green peppers and such too.

What about the people who want tomato and green pepper, but no onion???

But if you make one with lots of ingerdients, you can pick out the one's you don't want (like unticking leagues)

You fail to realise though that your very question actually means you have to discuss what the major leagues are!

And it was me who said that about ONE league missing from your vanilla version. What I said was, what if you wanted a smaller slimline version, like your vanilla, but one league was missing. You'd then be annoyed because you'd HAVE to get strawberry but that's not what you wanted. Therefore, we'd have to debate what leagues were major enought o be in it! You fail to understand your own question!

Thought I'd already answered this .......

"Say £17.99 for the dozen or so 'core major nations' (I'm NOT going to even attempt to list any this time), with additional nations/leagues available for download for a nominal fee."

Go on then, give us your list of leagues which you class as 'major enough' for a slimline version. You don't have to stick to 10 or 12, you decide.

Personally, I would much rather SI spent more time concentrating on the actual game itself, freeing up programming time and resources by trimming the excess nations from the database, than adding lists of players from India.

Except that the lists of players from India are generated by volunteer researchers, not programmers. So you aren't freeing up any programming time if you don't include them.

I wouldn't add a list of leagues, because for me, I'd like more (as do a lot of others). There's no Japanese league for instance. And a lot more South American teams could be added, along with African ones. As I said I don't agree with a slimline version, it's a waste of time and resources, to keep a minority happy, when all they really need to do is untick a few boxes. SI haven't added new leagues in a while, so I don't see where your problem is with leagues that have been around for ages. As myself and other's have also said, everybody's opinions on what is MAJOR will differ on their location. It's your choice not to play the Indian league, so don't load it up. Plus, you'd mentioned that people think CM/older FM's were better. These are the moaning crew who only appear here to moan. Everyone else is too busy enjoying the game.

And finally...I'm also not a fan of games doing DLC, beacuase usually it's stuff that should've been in the full game, but is a marketing ploy to get more cash from consumers. SI have been GREAT in the fact that they don't do this, and I hope they never will.

Again, see OP.....

The bit about NOT getting into a debate about which leagues/nations to include.

e.g. Why Holland but no Portugal.

By decent standard of football, the only competition which covers club sides from all Confederations is the the recent FIFA World Club Championship won by Man Utd.

Since that tournament started, has any team from Europe or South America been beaten by a team from elsewhere?

Off the top of my head i have no idea, though would you then think it acceptable for a game based on one of the most widespread sports in the world to blank a few continents worth of teams? Great plan

Oh, and barring people saying 'Great idea' or 'Insane' what responses were you expecting aside from league debates? Mass debates if you will *snigger*

Oh, and barring people saying 'Great idea' or 'Insane' what responses were you expecting aside from league debates? Mass debates if you will *snigger*

I was hoping for a more generalised debate, as to whether a 'slimline' version of FM2010, at reduced cost to us, whilst still containing the leagues that most people play would appeal.

Except that the lists of players from India are generated by volunteer researchers, not programmers. So you aren't freeing up any programming time if you don't include them.

I understand about volunteer researchers for clubs/leagues etc.

Not sure how the whole process works though.

Do the volunteers just upload the data directly into the main game database then?

Are there no checks or quality control?

Surely that would be open to abuse, and leave SI wide open for legal action?

I wouldn't add a list of leagues, because for me, I'd like more (as do a lot of others). There's no Japanese league for instance. And a lot more South American teams could be added, along with African ones. As I said I don't agree with a slimline version, it's a waste of time and resources, to keep a minority happy, when all they really need to do is untick a few boxes. SI haven't added new leagues in a while, so I don't see where your problem is with leagues that have been around for ages. As myself and other's have also said, everybody's opinions on what is MAJOR will differ on their location. It's your choice not to play the Indian league, so don't load it up. Plus, you'd mentioned that people think CM/older FM's were better. These are the moaning crew who only appear here to moan. Everyone else is too busy enjoying the game.

And finally...I'm also not a fan of games doing DLC, beacuase usually it's stuff that should've been in the full game, but is a marketing ploy to get more cash from consumers. SI have been GREAT in the fact that they don't do this, and I hope they never will.

Fine, you are obviously a 'strawberry' guy

BUT

I still think that on FM2010 release day if there were two versions on the shelf of GAME, the only difference being the price and ommision of the minor/obscure leagues & nations, the difference in sales wouldn't be as marked as the results of this poll seem to indicate.

Fine, you are obviously a 'strawberry' guy

BUT

I still think that on FM2010 release day if there were two versions on the shelf of GAME, the only difference being the price and ommision of the minor/obscure leagues & nations, the difference in sales wouldn't be as marked as the results of this poll seem to indicate.

But what leads you to this conclusion? Is it just an assumption or do you have evidence?

I think the problem here is the confusion between "most people want" and "I want"

I think the problem here is the confusion between "most people want" and "I want"

Exactly. The poll results show quite clearly that most people have no interest in this imagined "Vanilla" version of the game.

Exactly. The poll results show quite clearly that most people have no interest in this imagined "Vanilla" version of the game.

I wouldn't necessarily ever trust the results of a poll on this forum, as they are highly unscientific and don't really prove anything. However, what I would say is that this poll nevertheless provides more evidence than what we've seen so far for the idea of vanilla and strawberry editions of the game! The OP seems to have no evidence of any sort for his assertions.