I want to continue my savegame in the next FM!

[Eborg]

Are there any other people that share my wish that at least our FM savegames are compatible with the next FM editions?

It is really heartbreaking to part with your team when you buy your new game, especially if you play long-term games. I really want to try the new features and play with them but all that hard-work goes to nothing when we have to start all over again each year. I agree that there is a certain amount of fun in starting over but I also think that there are quite a lot of people who think that their teams and players should be playable in the next FMs so the savegame could be stretched for years to come. I don't want to give up on my FRED/newgen club icons every year!

I'm proposing that players, clubs and the database are exported and imported in the next FM by some tool or something and everyone is happy. Then we would have our old team and history with the new features and would just continue from let's say 2025.

What do you think?

[Jamie543]

i dont think it will be possible as data changes etc

[Suzie MUFC]

It would be great if there was a new "backwards compatible" savegame feature.

[Eborg]

i dont think it will be possible as data changes etc

If I'm not mistaken the only difference between the databases in 2009 and in 2030 is in values. All the changes are made "between the fixed walls" and it does not affect the gameplay in any way.

The only difference between a FM 2010 savegame and FM 2011 database would be that some clubs are created/deleted but I believe that can be fixed.

"Backwards compatible" feature is something that I have been hoping for years!

[Jamie543]

not just them changes players stats change each year on fm so if you wanted backwards capability you would have to include the previous years database etc making the game larger

[Eborg]

Maybe you haven't understood my point exactly. I'm not proposing that the game starts from 2010 again with your old team but rather continue from the year you've reached in your savegame (so your first season in new FM could be in 2025 maybe).

So if player John Smith is an average 20-year-old in 2010, in your 2020 savegame he's maybe a good 30-year-old player or maybe already retired. So there is no point of taking stats changes that happen every year into account. The savegame records the current situation in the game world and just projects it to the next FM edition if you want to continue your savegame.

[Jamie543]

yes which would still require the old database how else would the game look up the info?

[Eborg]

From the new database maybe? It would load clubs, cities, nations etc. and only those players who are still active "pasting" their 2025 abilities & stats on their 2010 profiles. And it would add FREDs/newgens from the savegame.

[Jamie543]

yes but your not understanding regens are random they wouldnt exist on the new database therefore you would have to use the old database

[Eborg]

I am aware that my knowledge of the game engine and database in general is somewhat limited despite the fact that I'm working on it for several years.

I thought that the game records the newgens and the game world directly into the savegame. How else do you explain one savegame playable on any computer in the world?

[Taunton]

Would love this too.

[Jamie543]

yes providing they are on the same database version for example you couldnt play a fm 9.0.3 game on a fm 9.0.2 database

[Eborg]

I see. Well, I would really like to hear someone from SI and their viewpoint on this.

Would it be possible to create a whole new database from one savegame by exporting all the data from there?

[Jamie543]

basicaly if si was to include an old database into a new version of fm then alterd some coding it could be possible

[Eborg]

Thanks! I still believe that there must be a more elegant solution, I really hope that someone from SI will join us in this discussion.

[Snaps]

This would be a great idea, and I personally believe its really easy to setup!

If a new FM game comes out, then you import your save file into that game. This should be really simple, as the team you are will keep exactly the same stats as before! Same money, same staff, same players with same stats etc. Everything you have done including cup wins should be in that game.

All the new features, and updates stats of other teams would actually change to the new database

It could also import the same stats and league positions of other teams too?

But at the very latest, your team stats should stay the same, and then the computer can generate any changes automatically (such as lets say Notts County are now in Prem league in your game, but irl they are in League 2 according to the new database, so they stay in league 2 in the new database while your team remains the same as in your last save)

Surely this shouldnt be that hard

[SCIAG]

yes providing they are on the same database version for example you couldnt play a fm 9.0.3 game on a fm 9.0.2 database

Yes you can. I'm doing it at the moment.

Why not just keep playing the first game?

(Yes, I would love this feature).

[Eborg]

This would be a great idea, and I personally believe its really easy to setup!

If a new FM game comes out, then you import your save file into that game. This should be really simple, as the team you are will keep exactly the same stats as before! Same money, same staff, same players with same stats etc. Everything you have done including cup wins should be in that game.

All the new features, and updates stats of other teams would actually change to the new database

It could also import the same stats and league positions of other teams too?

But at the very latest, your team stats should stay the same, and then the computer can generate any changes automatically (such as lets say Notts County are now in Prem league in your game, but irl they are in League 2 according to the new database, so they stay in league 2 in the new database while your team remains the same as in your last save)

Surely this shouldnt be that hard

I would like EVERYTHING to be copied to the new FM so we can take advantage of the new features. Tables, current rankings, average ratings, everything! Like you're just playing your old savegame but suddenly have new features to play with.

[Snaps]

I would like EVERYTHING to be copied to the new FM so we can take advantage of the new features. Tables, current rankings, average ratings, everything! Like you're just playing your old savegame but suddenly have new features to play with.

That would be awesome, and I dont see how hard this could be (although its likely that it will take HOURS to transfer all that data!)

[Eborg]

How hard can it be to leave your computer to process the data while you go and grab a bite or go out for a drink with your friends?

[darshie76]

The problem here is i think, the database itself.

I speculate that the game saves the deltas only (like id3305 has +5 for one stat, +2 for another and so on, using the database of the game as starting point); this means that if you put players from another db that has different stats, it will mess everything up because you could end up with numbers that are not realistic or correct (take for example Pato from AC milan, start a game in FM 07, write down the stats and play up to 2011; then get the stats from 2011 db and compare what would happen if you apply the difference in values on the various stats to the 2011 version of Pato...you can do the same with any young player that is today a multi million dollar player, and with players that retired).

Now if you see the problem, multiply it for millions of players, and you will understand that getting a value out of bound is a very easy event that could cause any kind of inconsistency or even crash to the game (without considering that maybe not even the ID of the players and staff are the same, so you would add even more mess :P)

SI could resolve the problem just letting the players to load the savegame, use the db from the previous version of the game, so it keeps consistency, then it jumps on the new game, and start to see if the team is still in that division, the players in the team and so on; and then starts to move around players in your team (with the choice if you wanna move also all the other players in the other teams of your league, nation or even ALL the players); replacing them with randomly generated new players if these are retired or have passed an age that would be considered acceptable....this would let you keep players that you signed when they were not champions (messi, ronaldo, etc) but that you could never buy with your team now, due their impossible price and requirements to play in a team.

Not sure if this would fix the things, but at least would give me enough will to at least get something achieved instead of starting all over again every time that a new copy of the game is out; took me 2 years to put together a team and make it play as i want; and if i gotta start all over and wait 2 more years in the end i will always play the same career

SI please think about a way to make things easier for who has previous versions of the game...i would not mind to have the new game crunch the old and new database and savegame for an hour or 2 while it does it's magic; if then i can play happily with my beloved team.

[jxd]

You can sort of do this by re-creating your team with the pre game editor before you start a game with the new FM, but yes, I agree with you in principle.

[lucas95]

DB Is in the save, so there is no problem with that. But it's very difficult because other reasons, like new features, changes, etc.

For

[RazvanRat]

I think it would just be cool to have, along with the editor, a tool called something like 'save game translator'. This would read save games from the previous year's version and extrapolate the data to be readable in the new game. So that values like 'dribbling 86' would translate directly, while some new thing, say 'personal intelligence' could just be set at 50 for all existing players and generated properly for newgens.
All the processing and reformulating might take a while, but I for one would be pretty happy to wait for 8 hours while m computer updated my save. I think SI would probably benefit from this finacially since I imagine that there are a few people every year who don't buy the new FM due to being so immersed in an old save.

I now await people enlightening me as to why a dedicated program that converted save games from version to version could not be designed and implemented.

[RazvanRat]

*bump*

would love to see some discussion on the plausibility of this with regard to FM12. I have a great FM10 save that I'd love to be able to carry on...

[Ackter]

Would it be good? Hell yes.

Would it be plausible? Unfortunately not.

The code changes within the game itself are too drastic between versions. They could probably get an "import save" feature similar to Mass Effect working, but that would just be importing your team into the game, possibly to replace another team (or your original team in the new game). But to get the game to the point where you could load an FM11 save in FM12? Just not going to happen. Would be similar to trying to load a Mass Effect save game into Dragon Age.

Patches work because the changes are relatively small.

[Boroboy100]

I feel the need to put my thoughts across.....it is from a very basic knowledge of game design and programming, but never the less I feel it is valid. Surely if it is possible for a game like Mass Effect to transfer character data from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 and on to the amazing looking Mass Effect 3, it must be possible to transfer save game data from one version of FM to another.

[Ackter]

No. It would be possible to transfer manager data, player data etc

The info transferred from ME to ME2 is very limited, very trivial and mostly cosmetic.

The best example would be loading your ME save into ME2 but then playing the ME storyline instead of the ME2 storyline. It's just not possible.

[Keyzer Soze]

Yes, i refuse to believe that its not possible, or plausible.
Maybe it will take a couple more years, but one day it will be implement in FM.
And i trully think that this ideia as already cross SI guys mind. after all, it's the ultimate feature, imo.

[Ackter]

It's not possible or plausible yet.

Would need some major restructuring to make it possible, and I'd hate to have to be the person testing it.

[MBarbaric]

absolutely the way to go. at the moment i just continue the games with the team that i have been at in previous fm and set myself reputation i have gained there. unfortunately it is far from satisfactory substitute for the real thing.

i have no clue how to do it, but i believe SI should start thinking about it. not because they like it but because they are missing big revenue every year from people who continue to play their old save games.

there could be steps to achieve the ultimate goal, importing whole save game from old fm's with all the players, data and history in a way you just continue your game at the date you closed it in old FM.

in meanwhile i believe we can get at least a small step at getting your club, or managerial profile with history to new game.

beside constantly upgrading the game with new additions, i believe this should be highest priority for si as peole who even dont think about it, would love it.

[Wiitastic]

well, FM12 is the 1st time it will let us add/remove leagues from our saved games so i guess this would be another nice step

[x42bn6]

I think it would be difficult, but not implausible. Ideally, the game should be able to function independent of what data it has - we know this is roughly possible, since we can create our own custom databases and the game will react accordingly. There are likely a few hard-coded things that cannot be changed within databases that the game relies upon.

Remember, there is little logic within a game save itself - it's just a dump of what the world looks like. If I somehow managed to open my FM save in a hex editor and changed one of my player's attributes, it would be different when I opened it in FM.

If you think about it, players' attributes themselves haven't changed meaning for a long time - Long Shots 20 in FM10 is Long Shots 20 in FM11, for example. I think a lot of the data is simply a 1:1 translation. Some data will need to be extrapolated or interpolated, such as if the financial module is improved.

The save itself should really be independent of the engine that created it - it even helps for patching.

As an example, it is possible to design data schemas for a database and isolate them from the application that uses that database. Two teams then maintain the database and application separately. Occasionally backwards-compatibility will need to be broken but this will be agreed upon by both teams when necessary. This means that the application team can release as many releases as they want - as long as they follow the schema, they will be able to communicate with the database.

A similar principle could apply here. FM could design a schema for their save files to follow and as long as it is followed for each version, it is guaranteed to work. Any features that do not fit the schema will need to be interpolated or extrapolated but I strongly suspect we don't see much of that within our save files - the majority of the data is merely "presentation" data - player data and histories, club data and histories, league data and histories and match data.

As an example, for FM12, here's what I think actually needs to be saved into our save files:

Transfers & Contracts – significant changes to the transfer and contract systems, including loyalty bonuses, better implementation of amateur and youth contracts, an improved transfer centre and the ability to lock areas of the contract negotiation when you aren't prepared to budge. This helps you to manage your budgets and gives you flexibility in what you offer money hungry players, or agents, as incentives.

Loyalty bonuses will likely need to be extrapolated. The rest don't need to be saved into the save file.

Scouting improvements – using several real life scouting reports, a new in-game report has been devised which includes squad analysis, tactics information and information about goals scored and conceded alongside lots of other scouting improvements, giving you all the information you need to prepare before kick-off and throughout the season.

Reports need to be extrapolated, or simply ignored and the user recreates them.

3D Match Improvements – new animations, a whole new crowd system, improved weather system, more stadiums, plus two brand new cameras - "Behind Goal" and "Director Cam" as well as all other camera angles being reversible - meaning you can watch and analyse every aspect of every game.

Graphical changes that are not stored, except for configurations that can be the default settings initially.

Manage Anywhere, Anytime – the ability to add or take away playable nations in your saved game as often as you want. Manage in that country at the start of the next season- meaning you don’t have to stay in the nations which are chosen by you to be playable at the start of your career.

In this respect, an FM11 save file is simply an FM12 save file with no additional leagues nor no removed leagues. FM11 save file doesn't need to be modified in a major way.

Tone – a whole new level has been added to team talks and conversations, with the new tone system, which allows you to specify the way you want to say things – be as cool as a cucumber by saying things calmly or throw tea cups around by saying things with passion. There are 6 different tones to choose from with specific comments per tone.

Likely not stored.

Intelligent Interface – a new adaptive layout system, which means the higher your screen resolution, the more info is easily at your fingertips. The new interface also contains new filters, customisable columns, a new tactics screen, and lots of new overview screens.

Graphical therefore no major change or a minor configuration one, or import default.

Brand New Tutorial – standing separate from the main game, a mode to help new players find their way around the game easily, whilst also offering tips to experienced managers on how to get the most out of the game, as well as a new in-game “how to” system.

Likely minor change.

----

In short, I suspect that it's not as implausible as some think, although it will require a fair bit of work anyway (defining a data schema can take months or even years for large databases). Personally, I'd love it if it happened.

[MrPompey]

This facility has NOT been present in any earlier FM edition. I very much doubt it will be available in the next

[Buzzur]

I would love for this to become a feature. I think I've wanted it to be a feature since the last century actually!

I could even accept that not ALL data from the old savegame was imported.

[stevie_G_32201]

I see no worthwhile advantage to it.

[rancer890]

It's a feature I would love to have but it's not possible now.

But on a smaller scale, OOTP have a compatibility feature in their games where you can import saves from the previous OOTP game. But FM probably deals with a lot more than OOTP so it'll take a lot more work. With the introduction of some interesting features in the past FMs like DLR and the ability to add/remove leagues, this is probably something next SI will try to do.

[stevevdm]

It's possible, SI just need to find the time\resources to do it if they feel it will bring in sales. It's not rocket science to move data over from one place to another and where new features have been added set defaults for the new fields. Although, like it has been said, it can be a lot of work to do because of the amount of fields that would have to be "copied" to the new save game file.

[r0x0r]

It's not possible or plausible yet.

Would need some major restructuring to make it possible, and I'd hate to have to be the person testing it.

If I sat for a few thousand hours with a saved game editor and the pre-game editor, I could transfer my FM10 save world over to FM11. I'd just have to edit all teams to their "new" budgets, stadiums and rosters. Every player to their new ages, stats and the like. Delete retired players, add newgens.

I could then load the game up in FM11 and "continue" my FM10 save.

Why couldn't an in game tool do this, only much faster and more elegantly? Perhaps changing the start year to match too?

Add in another feature where entering the same name, nationality and dob of the current teams manager makes you him (rather than taking over from him) with all the good and bad that comes with it, which wouldn't be a huge undertaking in itself, and we have saved game transferring.

[magicmastermind124]

Anybody with knowledge of creating computer programs could do this.

Having had a look inside the FM save files, all you would need to do is transfer some of them over into an FM12 save file, recompile them and load it. Sure there will need to be a bit more to it than that but it wouldn't be that difficult for someone who knows what they are doing.

Now I might be good using the editor but I haven't a clue about software development (but something I'm going to get into).

[r0x0r]

Actually, saves between games may be structured totally differently.

That said, raw data is raw data. All SI need to do for the most basic form of this is allow us to grab all the raw data in a saved game and create anew database with it. Add in the ability for databases to start at later dates and it's fully working. To make it ideal we also need a way to "take over" an AI manager.

[RazvanRat]

People have objected to the plausibility of this idea on the basis that new elements of the game wouldn't be present in the format of the older saved game. As I said in one of the old posts before this on was bumped, I think most people would be happy to have any 'new' data-categories set to default in the converted database, ready to evolve as the converted game went on. So let's say that FM12 has a new game-engine element where all players have a value for 'alcohol tolerance' between 1-100: the objection seems to be that in the FM11 saved game, no player has this value, so it would be impossible to convert. But surely a dedicated tool for saved-game conversion could have a component that just added this value to all saved player profiles and either randomised it (if it was a permanent attribute) or set it at 50 (if it was something like morale which would fluctuate as the game went on).
I don't therefore see why changes in database format between the saved games of different iterations of FM should mean that SI (or some super-entrprising software hobbyist) wouldn't be able to create an application that could convert the saved-game world from FM11 to be playable in FM12. Not having any background in programming, I'd be interested to know what kind of barriers there might be...

[furiousuk]

It's totally possible and loads of people around the world get paid a good amount of money to work out file conversion algorithms. Saving a non-transparent JPEG to a PSD file with transparency is perfectly possible even though the PSD has more information. You create the new format (SI will already have done this when FM12 ships), you load up the old format (FM11 loads fine so code exists for this), you save the entirety of the old format to the new format (this is the sticky point) and then everything that is left is the default for the new format. There are problems however.

The biggest problem is how the old data saves onto the new data. It doesn't matter if the old data is in a different format to the new data as the loading and saving algorithms sort this problem, the actual problem is what if the old format contains data the new format doesn't. SI might just add things onto their data format each year, in which case the old format fits directly onto the new one (barring additions to the new format), but I expect they change their data format to exclude previous areas or amalgamate areas - they probably don't subsume those areas. A series of caveats for novelties between the old and new data formats would need to be created and this list could potentially be very long and prone to error. The reason that games ship with errors is that fixing those errors might create more errors and deadlines are deadlines.

The other problem has been addressed above - how to initialise new data items that are unique to the new data format. Again, a series of rules would need to be created for these occurencies which would potentially harm the gaming experience for the user and that is something SI will be wary of.

I would love to see this feature though, I currently only buy FM every 2 years, mainly because I am continuing a save. If I could import that save satisfactorily into a new FM then SI would make more money out of me.

[rawhide1983]

I would love this to happen as it always breaks my heart having to start fresh after all the hours spent on your previous save,I am in no hurry to play 2012 beacsue of my love for my current saved games

[Eborg]

Yeah, that's it. I'm still holding onto my save, too much work and emotion put into it only to abandon it just like that. No new FMs for me then.

[Eugene Tyson]

Saving a non-transparent JPEG to a PSD file with transparency is perfectly possible even though the PSD has more information.

I'd love to hear how? As I haven't heard such nonsense in all my life. Could be possible by ignoring white areas and making them transparent, but that relies on the clipping algorithim, the complexity of the image and the quality of the original image (jaggies from lo-res, or smooth lines from hi-res).

Any jpeg conversion I've seen that's automatic, to transparency, has been terrible and often leaves white edges close to the image, where it should be transparent.


=========

Does anyone know that the game goes through database changes, and that's not the same as a Microsoft Excel or Access database!


They need to invent new modules for new features. And they also tweak old modules to work with the new features.

If you brought your save from FM12 to FM13, then how should say, unhappy player responses work with the new unhappy player algorithims?


It's a nice idea - but there's way too many potholes from old modules to new modules. And I'm not talking about 1 old module not working with 1 new module.

Most modules would be intertwined, so you'd have 1 module would have a knock on effect with another, and probably 500 others, and then you have 1 new module that has no way of interacting with the 1-500 older modules. Thus the game won't work.

[vlobben]

IIf you brought your save from FM12 to FM13, then how should say, unhappy player responses work with the new unhappy player algorithims?

Only initial happiness and likes/dislikes is carried over to the new version. Once the player start playing, the new happiness module takes over (which generates the unhappiness messages). Sometimes the result will be that a player becomes more happy or more unhappy, but most of the times there will be no difference.

I think people overthink the problem. Yes, there are differences in structure, but SI knows how to read both the old and the new database (and thus convert between them). Yes, there might be additional data needed for a new version, but data can be semi-randomly generated. Just look at the add league option. It fills in the blanks by generating thousands of values that can later be played with.

[Nocuous]

Why did people always complain about this? If your enjoying your game on FM12 by the time FM13 comes out, then just keep playing your game. It's pretty simple.

[Neil Brock]

I'm no coder but this would be an incredibly difficult time-consuming thing to do. I can't see it becoming an FM option at best, any time soon, at worst, ever.

[Eugene Tyson]

Only initial happiness and likes/dislikes is carried over to the new version. Once the player start playing, the new happiness module takes over (which generates the unhappiness messages). Sometimes the result will be that a player becomes more happy or more unhappy, but most of the times there will be no difference.

I think people overthink the problem. Yes, there are differences in structure, but SI knows how to read both the old and the new database (and thus convert between them). Yes, there might be additional data needed for a new version, but data can be semi-randomly generated. Just look at the add league option. It fills in the blanks by generating thousands of values that can later be played with.

I think people don't understand the differences in the structures of the old and the new. It simply doesn't work that way, especially with a program that relies on databases.

FM is a huge database. Every action in FM causes a transaction within the database, and all these transactions are saved for FM to be able to read. A database structure is very difficult to alter after it's constructed. If FM wasn't able to change the database structure, it would make it very difficult to add new features and making optimisations (say to Match Engine, or fixtures) would be impossible. I'd imagine each version of FM has its own database structure, so it can be properly optimised. Newer versions of FM can't read the older version of FM as it's a different structure. Older version saves wouldn't be able to interact with a newer database structure because the newer version didn't exist when the older version of FM was released.


That's my understanding of it.

They probably could make some sort of tool to optimise older databases to the new structure, but as Neil Brock said, it would be time consuming, and from my point of view haphazard.


I feel there's far more important things to be doing within the game than making files cross-compatible between versions.


For what it's worth, I think it's a fantastic idea - I just don't see it as being a plausible use of resources when there's many other things to be address.

[x42bn6]

Optimise? Do you know what you are talking about, Eugene?

It's just data migration to a different schema. While it has its own issues it's not that difficult in itself to migrate data. ETL has been in place for years.

It just requires lots of testing because any derived attributes from the data might not be sensible in the new schema.

[Gazza88]

How about making FM backward compatible with the databases?

For example loan up fm10 database and load an fm2010 save. Or start a new game using the fm10 (or maybe earlier versions) database. Now THAT would be awesome.

[Nocuous]

Now I do agree that that would be pretty cool. Although even that I imagine would be very difficult. Although infinitely less so that the idea of have savegames compatible between editions of FM.

[Bababui]

I'm no coder but this would be an incredibly difficult time-consuming thing to do. I can't see it becoming an FM option at best, any time soon, at worst, ever.

Ex SI man Markus Heinsohn does this with every new version of OOTP though. If a two man team can make this work, surely SI can too.

[Keioel]

I would also love this feature.

[Themer]

I think most people will see the benefit of having the feature and its one I'd definitely use but I can imagine how difficult it'd be to get working and the possible bugs.