Expanding the challenges forum to cover all save game discussion - opinions please

[Cleon]

GPTG forum is for discussing players, if this is happening in here, then its the wrong forum sadly and should be moved to the correct one. If not, its confusing and defeats the object of having a GPTG forum at all, if the discussions are happening elsewhere. This is something that all forums should do, make people use the correct forums. Lets get interacting with each other and be open to accepting new users who could enchance the forum you enjoy the most.

[bermybhoy]

Does anyone else agree with my belief that the community forums (as I call them) of FMS, CSE, and LLM add more to the game, and improve and enhance user's experience of the game and keep people coming here, and therefore deserve greater prominence.

Agree completely with this. SI are really missing a trick if they don't recognise it. I've said before, beyond Ter starting the San Marino double challenge, I can think of no instances of the SI staff coming up with new challenges or otherwise truly adding to the experience of playing the game. Surely, that is what the whole purpose of the forums is. I can appreciate the input they give to various disussions and probems in GQ, but not particularly of demonstrating ways of getting more out the game.

There's some really interesting ideas floating about in the CSE forum that I'm sure they could look at and give more input to.

I have no real bones with the basic idea; I think people have raised the main issues already regarding the risk of it turning into a good player discussion, and therefore becoming absolutely something to avoid if you want to feel it an achievement to have accomplished success of your own accord.

The other main problem would be, where exactly do you start posting if you move clubs within the game? Would you have a situation of people suddenly posting in the Man Utd thread asking who they should buy in 2018 because they just got the job? "Oh and by the way if you want to know how I got on at Celtic and Lyon to get the Man Utd job take a look in those threads...." It could be messy.

The thing I would however really like to see in part because it would bring some decent posters out of 'FM related' exile in OTF would be just a general LLM-without-the-LLM-guidelines thread. It is of course, effectively what the career thread already is, but I guess there is maybe a call for (an even less) structured way of doing it.

[Cleon]

Agree completely with this. SI are really missing a trick if they don't recognise it. I've said before, beyond Ter starting the San Marino double challenge, I can think of no instances of the SI staff coming up with new challenges or otherwise truly adding to the experience of playing the game. Surely, that is what the whole purpose of the forums is. I can appreciate the input they give to various disussions and probems in GQ, but not particularly of demonstrating ways of getting more out the game.

There's some really interesting ideas floating about in the CSE forum that I'm sure they could look at and give more input to.

I have no real bones with the basic idea; I think people have raised the main issues already regarding the risk of it turning into a good player discussion, and therefore becoming absolutely something to avoid if you want to feel it an achievement to have accomplished success of your own accord.

The other main problem would be, where exactly do you start posting if you move clubs within the game? Would you have a situation of people suddenly posting in the Man Utd thread asking who they should buy in 2018 because they just got the job? "Oh and by the way if you want to know how I got on at Celtic and Lyon to get the Man Utd job take a look in those threads...." It could be messy.

The thing I would however really like to see in part because it would bring some decent posters out of 'FM related' exile in OTF would be just a general LLM-without-the-LLM-guidelines thread. It is of course, effectively what the career thread already is, but I guess there is maybe a call for (an even less) structured way of doing it.

Id like a LLM like that too, maybe thats something me and Dafuge can give you all then and expand on? see how it went for a while and go from there, if it was popular imo you'd have claims to have your own specific space on the forum. Especially now you have the spoiler tags etc.

[weeeman27bob]

Really there are two issues up for discussion here. Firstly the issue of carer topics, and where they should be. Secondly, what seems to have been an ongoing issue since we changed forums, the activity of the CSE forum. I'm not sure that if carer threads are in the CSE forum it will solve this problem in any way, in fact i think it would make it worse.

[McMaster#28]

I started off thinking it's a good idea. However as the thread continued I just got more confused as to what the makeup of the new propsed forum would be.

One idea I do like though is having seperate threads for each team. e.g. everyone who plays as York City has a "York City" thread.

[dafuge]

bermybhoy - another one of those multi quote responses coming up here, sorry.

Agree completely with this. SI are really missing a trick if they don't recognise it. I've said before, beyond Ter starting the San Marino double challenge, I can think of no instances of the SI staff coming up with new challenges or otherwise truly adding to the experience of playing the game. Surely, that is what the whole purpose of the forums is. I can appreciate the input they give to various disussions and probems in GQ, but not particularly of demonstrating ways of getting more out the game.

There's some really interesting ideas floating about in the CSE forum that I'm sure they could look at and give more input to.

I completely agree with you here and this is something that I am intending on working on. Myself and Cleon have been discussing a big project involving short term situation based challenges and if I get my way then the people at SI will be involved one way or another.

I have no real bones with the basic idea; I think people have raised the main issues already regarding the risk of it turning into a good player discussion, and therefore becoming absolutely something to avoid if you want to feel it an achievement to have accomplished success of your own accord.

That's where the job of myself and Cleon come in, we need to make it perfectly clear to users what is expected in both forums before it potentially happens. Hopefully we can make it perfectly clear from the start but if things start to cross over we can always use the 'move posts' function to move things between the threads.

The other main problem would be, where exactly do you start posting if you move clubs within the game? Would you have a situation of people suddenly posting in the Man Utd thread asking who they should buy in 2018 because they just got the job? "Oh and by the way if you want to know how I got on at Celtic and Lyon to get the Man Utd job take a look in those threads...." It could be messy.

Thw 'who should I sign' posts would be exclusive to the GPTG forum. I think people should post in the thread relative to their starting point, so you could get someone posting about their achievements with Man Utd in the lower league thread because they have worked their way up and earnt their right to do so.

The thing I would however really like to see in part because it would bring some decent posters out of 'FM related' exile in OTF would be just a general LLM-without-the-LLM-guidelines thread. It is of course, effectively what the career thread already is, but I guess there is maybe a call for (an even less) structured way of doing it.

This was really the thing that started all this off, I wanted a place on the forums for people to discuss their game whoever they are managing without the restrictions of the various forums.

[dafuge]

Really there are two issues up for discussion here. Firstly the issue of carer topics, and where they should be. Secondly, what seems to have been an ongoing issue since we changed forums, the activity of the CSE forum. I'm not sure that if carer threads are in the CSE forum it will solve this problem in any way, in fact i think it would make it worse.

What do you mean by 'the activity of the CSE forum' as an issue and how these proposals could make it worse?

[dafuge]

I started off thinking it's a good idea. However as the thread continued I just got more confused as to what the makeup of the new propsed forum would be.

One idea I do like though is having seperate threads for each team. e.g. everyone who plays as York City has a "York City" thread.

In a nutshell, there is no new proposed forum. The proposal is that this forum absorbs the current need for a place for people to discuss their games.

The separate thread idea is still just an idea, currently I think the best move would be to have general threads that cover groups of teams then move to individual threads when the need occurs.

[Cleon]

I completely agree with you here and this is something that I am intending on working on. Myself and Cleon have been discussing a big project involving short term situation based challenges and if I get my way then the people at SI will be involved one way or another.

Aye and its something I've done on and off in the tactics forum for 2 years. They appeal to a lot of people, but it would be much more fun giving them to a wider audience. Until I spoke to Dafuge I didn't really think any of the other mods would want to assist in maybe setting something up and helping run it.

In the few chats we had, me and Dafuge seemed to agree on everything and had basically the same ideas on which way we'd want any sort of 'scenario' challenges to go.

And at the same time, we wanted to intergrate both this forum and the GPTG and moderate the content closely and make clear any rules we decided upon and ensure everyone followed them and that they are clearly visible. If we keep the player discussions of the team threads for the GPTG and the career aspects in this forum, then this forum gets the better discussion prospects and the hardcore users who like to follow a teams progression.

I know it might sound comlicated and I figure we confused a few people with our wordings, so if thats the case I do apologise, as its not easy trying to type what you think at times:)

But keep the feedback coming and we not gonna make any rash decisions or radical changes, we just put the idea out to you lot, to get opinions

[canvey!!]

I'm against it. Not 100% against it, because the publicity raised to both forums would be valuable. Give me some time and I'll have a good argument. I'll also need to fish through some of the GPTG.

Not to trivialise anyone's efforts here but I think this is just too simple an attempt at a solution. Really thinking it through can bring us to a much better one.

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Ok well now I have started from the beginning of this thread with an open mind, but after having read all the points and then having a glance over at GPTG seen as I have never ever been there. I really don't like the idea of moving all the stuff from there to here. My first look suggested that some of the threads were really career discussion, but when you look into them they seem to be career discussion for the benefit of showing Good Players for teams. This to me is in part in the GPTG forum and should probably stay there.

Now moving on from that we currently have at least one thread discussion players directly...Nep's Youth Player Project. Now this is clearly not supposed to go to the GPTG, it is part of a challenge and none of the players discussed really exist at all. As for in general, all the threads in here have discussions about players, Super Kyle, and Patrik Burda to name 2 everybody knows. These are part of the challenge they are in and grow as such. So should when we want to discuss a player in a challenge thread direct it to GPTG? That seems crazy.

Now for the idea of general career discussion I have no problem with it coming here, but I want a clear structure to it. And there is NO way I want a thread for every major club that is played. I think there are a couple of simple solutions, a Career thread for each major nation (England, Italy, SPain, France, Germany, Scotland) and then a series of other thread for other areas, European Careers, Asian Careers: Including Oceania, American Careers: Including South Africa, And a final Career thread like we have now for discussing any games that do not fit the set-ups above.

This would be fine, but most of the threads in GPTG (I couldn't seem to read all of them) will then be full of links saying go here to see why you should get this player. And then we would have the opposite going the other way, "I had this great player Tom Burton go look at him at this link." It just seems to be redirecting traffic in circles.

So to lay it out.

1) Keep any career discussion that is for discussion players in GPTG

2) Keep any player discussion related to CSE in CSE

3) Create a series of Career threads that have no rules on career progression posting

I think that should make it all work the best I can see and it should prevent a lot of the clutter, if it is seen after having only the 9 threads for careers that there might be something to pull out then it is a good idea. But otherwise i say as few threads as possible.

So my mind is not so open to the actual moving threads idea anymore

[Cleon]

In a nutshell, there is no new proposed forum. The proposal is that this forum absorbs the current need for a place for people to discuss their games.

The separate thread idea is still just an idea, currently I think the best move would be to have general threads that cover groups of teams then move to individual threads when the need occurs.

Yeah I like that idea too, as some clubs might not become popular until someone sees someone else doing well, or fancy a change.

[dafuge]

So my mind is not so open to the actual moving threads idea anymore

Maybe I didn't explain my ideas completely, I don't want to move any threads directly between the two forums. I'm suggesting that an alternative for the career discussion element of the GPTG threads should be available in this forum.

[canvey!!]

An alternative? So the similar threads are going on in both forums?

[Cleon]

Ok well now I have started from the beginning of this thread with an open mind, but after having read all the points and then having a glance over at GPTG seen as I have never ever been there. I really don't like the idea of moving all the stuff from there to here. My first look suggested that some of the threads were really career discussion, but when you look into them they seem to be career discussion for the benefit of showing Good Players for teams. This to me is in part in the GPTG forum and should probably stay there.

Don't be too put off by what you see, that forum isn't properly moderated atm and I have to take the blame for that. I am the only mod for it and was away for a few months a while back and things sorta got just left.

All the player stuff would be staying over there, don't worry. But the people who do want to post their career updates ( and believe me there are a fair few who would, but just dont atm) would be directed here. It wouldn't turn into a 'naming players' or a 'show off' in this forum, as thats what GPTG bit is for.

So to lay it out.

1) Keep any career discussion that is for discussion players in GPTG

2) Keep any player discussion related to CSE in CSE

3) Create a series of Career threads that have no rules on career progression posting

Basically thats what we wanna do and our ideas/proposals are not disimliar

[Cleon]

An alternative? So the similar threads are going on in both forums?

Thats already happening and imo and Dafuge's its kinda pointless/a shame that its happening. I might aswell redirect the people who want to write career stuff to here.

[bermybhoy]

bermybhoy - another one of those multi quote responses coming up here, sorry.

No, thanks - I really need to learn how to do a bit of multiquoting myself.

Regarding the short challenges, I'm more than willing, if I can make the time, to get involved in any project you have on the go. I think it's a great idea that could really change the way people go about the game. It's something you see in other strategy games (well, I'm thinking the likes of Civ, I haven't played anything else for years) and FM could truly benefit.

Back to the main point, I hope this would be initially at least restricted to just a few threads, and allowing them to develop. Otherwise it would possibly engulf the existing forum and the existing challenges may be slightly lost. As you indicated earlier, it might however in fact lead to more people coming to the forum and therefore increasing participation in the challenges and sign ups...that's really impossible to say, hence, keep the number of threads down to start with and let it evolve.

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Maybe I didn't explain my ideas completely, I don't want to move any threads directly between the two forums. I'm suggesting that an alternative for the career discussion element of the GPTG threads should be available in this forum.

Ok that sounds good to me, now I am going to test multi-quoting.

Don't be too put off by what you see, that forum isn't properly moderated atm and I have to take the blame for that. I am the only mod for it and was away for a few months a while back and things sorta got just left.

Ok that explains the chaos then, thanks for pointing that out.

All the player stuff would be staying over there, don't worry. But the people who do want to post their career updates ( and believe me there are a fair few who would, but just dont atm) would be directed here. It wouldn't turn into a 'naming players' or a 'show off' in this forum, as thats what GPTG bit is for.

Ok I think my main problem here was that there will end up being a lot of links back and forward between the two which will just result in huge numbers of posts to player links etc.

Basically thats what we wanna do and our ideas/proposals are not disimliar

Ok, glad we are on a similar wavelength, the only issue I have left is a massive restriction on the number of threads. I think clearly we cannot have too many to start with, maybe even start with one for each continent and expand a bit at a time slowly from there, with one thread which is for career games encompassing more than one continent.

WOOHOO my multiquote with different posts worked how I wanted it too

[canvey!!]

At current there are 61 linked club threads in the GPTG. Short answer: don't do this. All these threads will clog up the CSE Forum and they seem to be the thing that one can identify about the GPTG at the moment. I think the route you want to be taking is to make the GPTG Forum an environment more suited to this sort of thing.

*(References to he in this post are purely for simplification and can represent a he or a she)*

Taking all these threads to the CSE Forum will undeniably have an impact on both forums. Let's look at the impact on the Good Player and Team Guide. People at the moment can stay in that forum for a good while reading up on how people are doing with the different clubs. Take this away and people pop in, ask a question about a player/who to sign, etc., wait for an answer, and then leave, making the forum an as-you-need-it forum, other than those who hang about to answer people's questions.

Then you've got those who go to the GPTG just to read up on the threads for their favourite team, and post their own updates, ask about good players etc. All of these people go over to the CSE Forum where the thread now is and see no further use for the GPTG: they are only playing with the one team and any questions they may have can be answered in the club thread.

So this in turn may mean that people asking good-old fashioned questions on players wait longer for a response, and some of those best fit to help them are elsewhere. For example, someone comes onto the GPTG having just been appointed as manager of Manchester United in 2012. They are asking who they should sign, but all of the people that know who is best to get for Manchester United are off in the Manchester United thread in the CSE Forum and not paying any attention to the GPTG. This person either doesn't know about this thread or doesn't feel apt to post in this thread because the opening post describes Manchester United in the here and now and the Manchester United he is managing are distinctly different. If he were to want to post his progress he may not feel that he should start four years after the game begins. If he doesn't, where does he post? People who are experienced in signing players for Manchester United are off in the Manchester United thread and if the rookie poster asks in the Manchester United thread who they should sign, they are told to go to the GPTG as this is just a career-style update thread, or they are told to provide more detail if they want to be taken seriously in their request for help.

So, will there be two Manchester United threads? One in the GPTG where people ask who they should sign, etc. and one in the CSE Forum where people update their progress, and people post who they want to buy there knowing they are posting in the wrong place but also knowing that's where they are going to get the best answer. If you ask me, that defies the logic of this whole idea.

So, let's move onto the effect on the Challenges, Sign-ups and Experiments Forum.

No matter how you do it, at some point there will be significantly more club threads in the forum than actual challenges, sign-ups and experiments. And even if you decide to phase it so you start out with e.g., Big Four Thread, Other Premiership Thread, Championship Thread, when a team becomes so popular it requires a thread of its own what do people do. Does the person who has posted 20 seasons worth in the Big Four Thread on their Manchester United thread have to repost it all in the Manchester United thread? If there is a way to individually move posts to the new thread, consider how much work, time and effort this takes on the part of the moderators, especially if it takes a while for people to realise there is another thread. And you can't move them all in bulk. That would mean this poster with 20 seasons worth will have all of his Manchester United posts in a row in the new Manchester United thread which pretty much covers everything he's done in such a short space of time.

And then, there's the idea of clubs in the same thread that would be unworkable. Perhaps this wouldn't be such an issue at Championship level or below mainly due to there being less players, and more players playing for the lower league experience rather than being a supporter of the club. But if there were a Premiership thread, and say Manchester United and Manchester City or Everton and Liverpool are the two most popular teams being managed. There's no way that would co-exist. And a big four thread, that would be so volatile it would explode. Arsenal fans dislike all other Big Four fans, Chelsea fans dislike all other Big Four fans, Manchester United fans dislike all other Big Four fans and Liverpool fans dislike all other Big Four fans. And every other fan dislikes all Big Four fans meaning that those who were to post in the Big Four thread are actual fans, die-hard or not, of the clubs being managed. This wouldn't be a question of adding one, two or three more moderators; it would mean adding five or six moderators so that the forums are covered by at least two moderators round the clock. It would be far too much work, even though there is a high standard of moderation in the CSE Forums at present.

But there is a prosperity for the CSE Forum to gain from this. A greater number of users hitting the CSE Forums means that the current threads get more attention, and there is potential for more ideas to be generated once people realise the wonders of the CSEs. However, is this neccesarily a good thing? Of course it is, but metaphorically, if you have a banana crop, a certain number of your bananas are going to be bad bananas. If you increase the size of your banana crop by buying the land of the neighbouring banana farmer, you will have more good bananas, yippee, but you will also have more bad bananas. This metaphor can work in two ways: users and ideas. Let's look at ideas.

Currently, I see that there are a few ideas that are being repeated. Basically, they are "Create your player to go in this new team", and there is also "Create your striker: let's see how he does" which is relatively new but is already starting to do the rounds. I have to say, the first scenario is one of the most boring ideas for a sign-up, and has been done so many times and generally doesn't even make it to the third season. I think it's excellent now that people are creating sign-ups with managers and assistant managers because that adds so much more variation and IMHO is going to be a lot more exciting than creating players no matter what the situation is.

There is of course the infamous AI Experiment "Let's flip the English leagues on their head and see how they do", or "Let's put the Big Four in the BSN/S" and see what happens. These don't tend to last very long either, and personally I'd like someone to do this really well so that it lasts, and others can look at it and realise that it has already been done. I have no doubt that if there were a significant new influx of users to this forum, these AI Experiments would crop up, and flop.

Now, let's look at the banana crop scenario in terms of users. Right now we have very little trouble in the CSE Forum. All we have is some maturity issues, with people posting for no apparent reason other than perhaps to boost their post count. This flares up when they are close to reaching a posting milestone. I'm not going to name and shame (even though it is really tempting) them but I am going to say that people generally know who these people are and these people know themselves. However, do this big merger and we get more bananas. So some will be good, nay, a lot will be good, but there will be bad, and that means more work for the moderators. One large city of population 3,000,000 has a greater crime rate than two smaller cities of population 1.5m each. In the cities paragon, the police forces are also working seperately, and put them together and no one knows what they are doing: what they are supposed to be covering and what the others are. Strong communication links between moderators and also between members to moderators are essential if this thing is to even think about succeeding without massive problems.

I'm getting way to in-depth and philosophical here (hands up if you're still reading), but here I will remind you and myself of what I have mentioned so far. I don't want to repeat it all. Ideas are repeated and created, particularly the bad ones. There are more users, which generally means there are more abusive/immature users.

Now, if we end up having 61 threads on clubs, and a further 20 or so on leagues, all active of course because they wouldn't have split from the main thread if they weren't a popular club, that leaves 19 spaces by my settings for Challenges/Sign-ups and Experiments. The forum becomes much harder to navigate and access, and over time people give up trying to read up on the quirkier challenges which have dropped to the second page in favour of playing the Manchester United club thread which they know will always be very near the top (sorry for using Manchester United so much here as an example, I'm actually a Liverpool fan ). So these challenges/sign-ups/experiments flop. The other threads, e.g. the Lyon thread, the Legia Warsaw thread, the Russia thread, all die because they are also being superceded by the Big Four threads. The forum stagnates and dies. The craze of the moment is popular before the user decides his Manchester United game (seriously, I can't help it), is more important, and the thread dies (hooray for hyperbole).

And people here are saying that they are going to only allow a club thread when it becomes so major that it needs to split from the main thread. But what if a user posts a sensational post (rather like this one to open their Newport County thread. Do the moderators close it? The user is well-known on the forum (of birdy's calibre) and we all know he's going to stick with it and post regularly, but only a handful of other people will. Do the mods close it? Seems a bit harsh, but what happens if they don't? If it is just one user posting their progress match-by-match say, why not put it in the FM Stories forum (I'll move onto redirecting later. That's right, there's more!). The policy will have to be extremely strict, and even then, go to page 5 or something, you see a bunch of club threads that have all been closed over time and their hanging there like rotting fish. Also takes up a lot of forum storage space.

And as NepentheZ mentioned before, say someone manages Canvey Island in the Conference thread (covering both level 5 and 6), but gets them up to League 1. Do they continue posting in the Conference thread or do they go to the Football League thread? If they post in the Conference thread, you'll have them posting there while in the Premiership, which could encourage others, but then could discourage others. If they post in the Football League Thread, when they get to the Premiership they'll be posting there, as will everyone who is managing in the Premiership. Everyone. That's a lot of people. It's a lot to handle. Loads.

And finally, lets have a look at the impact on moderation. So, we'll need new moderators. And we'll need an ultra-strong infrastructure for moderators to communicate with each other. I'd even say we would need some power-users, not having the rights of moderators but being able to control the forum when the moderators aren't there. Those who attempt to control abuse would have the weight behind their actions that they need (that's actually a good idea: perhaps I'll go into more detail about that one day). And the teething period would be immense: it would take a long time, and I mean metaphorical eons for the threads to be sorted out so that we know which teams are going in their own threads and which in the league threads. Sure, you could give people editing rights/modship temporarily to handle all this, but that's toying with feelings, and confusing. It's also dangerous (more people with editing rights = more chance someone will cause irrepreble damage). All these new power-users will need to be looped in on the communications system. Of course this is theoretical, it's either this or trying to cope with the current moderators and those appointed in the coming weeks on their own merit.

Then there is the endless redirecting. So, good player talk goes in the GPTG, and updates go here. Not only could club threads deteriorate into one or two lonely users (lonely as there's no help in the GPTG) asking about who they should sign, but whenever a thread goes off topic or onto signings, does it have to be redirected? As said above, this would mean a thread in each forum on a club (which in itself confuses people - what gets put in which thread?), but it's work for those doing the redirecting. It also makes people seem arrogant and snappy, which is entirely the wrong forum ethos. However, if it isn't done, it makes the moderators seem lazy, not just lenient.

A lot more moderators will be needed. As Cleon already said, the GPTG is understaffed. If this wasn't done, but there was a sudden change in attitude and mentality in this forum, a second moderator would be needed. But mixing them both and keeping the GPTG means extra extra moderators. As said, that could be dangerous and confusing. It also makes the strong communications paramount.

So that's that. As you can tell, I'm against this change. I'm surprised I was able to write this much, but it's kept me up until 1:40am. Please read it. :o <- Begging emoticon.

WORD COUNT: 2,457 CHARACTER COUNT: 13,580 - and I've only just reached the maximum allowed images (wink)

[Peljam]

Can't say I'm a big fan of the idea as I understand it.

Whilst I think having somewhere to post general save game updates is a good idea I'm not sure if this forum is the place for all of them. I can't see many of the threads being particulary 'healthy' and I can't see them improving activity in other threads.

This is just an idle observation, and as such isn't proof in anyway, but big club save games tend to have a fairly limited shelf life. Personally I tire of winning everything with just one big club and I know the same is true with some others. So I think you may find many threads will be quite stop start, and low quality. One of the great things about alot of the challenges and threads (dafuges, Gundo's, the career thread) is the diversity of teams and experiences with them. You won't get that with threads devoted to single teams.

I think they'll become quite insular as fans congregate to their own team's thread. There'll be Man U fans patting each other on the back and bemoaning other teams, and the same will be true in the Chelsea thread, Liverpool etc. I don't see there being much venturing of users from their own thread to other challenges. I can however see more cases of wind ups and idiotic arguements. Even, or especially, if there was one 'big club' career thread.

As an example, have you seen the average exchange between users on the BBC's 606? I think thats what we could end up with except with the occasional update.

I think the current career thread should be protected too. I mean, I'm big fan of the current Career Game thread (thanks Birdy123!) but it's a slightly different kettle of fish to just general save game updates. Although the rules are few what seems to have become important, at least unofficially, is an attempt at realism and an actual career. So you don't get people starting at hugely successful clubs, or at their favourite clubs. You get a hard earned and varied career as people work their way from one club to another. If we suddenly get people posting in it who just start at a top flight club not only would I be a little irritated but it would also bore me.

I like Challenges and Sign Ups as it is really. It might not be overwhelming in terms of activity but it is a case of quality over quantity. Also it does allow the more esoteric ideas to flourish, or at least have a chance of being spotted. If there's a sudden influx of individual or big team threads it could push some really good ideas and threads out of contention before they have a chance to be noticed properly.

And....sorry I'm rambling a bit, if we do get more activity from the single team save game users on other challenges then I'm not sure whether the quality of their posting will be up to standard. I know, it's a long winded and sweeping generalisation but a User who's experience is drawn from a limited game experience with their favourite team would be one I'd probably find boring and pretty useless. I know it's quite snobbish of me but someone who has had a fairly sheltered FM experience has little to say that I'd actually care about.

Can there not just be a seperate forum, or subforum for the single team updates? The people who want them will go to them regardless of where they are. Those who want to broaden their horizons and do some of the challenges here will come here eventually anyway.

[dafuge]

Ok, I fell asleep half way through that, but thankfully I woke up and read the second half.

What about if I threw a curve ball and said there may be the possibility of a brand new forum?

[canvey!!]

Short answer (who's breathing sighs of relief?): That's all that needs to be done if there's a current problem with the GPTG. I don't see that there's any problem at all, but I may be wrong. I'm guessing a GP forum and a TG forum? (Good Players, Team Guide).

EDIT: I'm off now, I deserve a sleep.

[Peljam]

Good post Canvey I read it all and now have an odd craving for Bannanas.

I think a new forum would work. That would keep Challenges and Sign Ups relatively safe and still give people a place to post about their save games if they wanted to.

[Jimbokav1971]

I haven't worked out how to quote with tis new forum yet, so I agree with the idea dafufe and I think that a seperate "Update Forum" is a good idea. (insert thumb up smiley here ffs!)

[dafuge]

I must admit I am liking the idea of a brand new forum, but this is something which is out of my control...

[Wegason]

So please, don't implement this. Create a separate forum for them, and move the community forums of CSE, FMS, and LLM further up and see the difference, because it would be huge.

I must admit I am liking the idea of a brand new forum, but this is something which is out of my control...

[rlipscombe]

i'm sure i could write a lot on this subject, but i'm going to try and keep it brief:

As someone who does go into bothe forums, i do like the idea of club specific threads, and have created a couple myself. if i am playing a game as a specific team, i like to have somewhere i can post updates on my game. this sort of thread deserves it's place for sure.

now i'm not a 'veteran' of the CSE forum, having only really discovered and immersed myself in it for FM08. i have to say that i think it's a great little forum, pretty much free of the 'idiots' that can be found in general discussion and a little in GPTG, which i like. the main challenges here are great, and offer the player a varied option of games to play. an influx of new users to the thread could be good for certain challenges, but to lump club threads in here, say for lower league games in england, would surely detract players form Dafuge's game. is this a good thing?

if it was to have the club threads transferred here, it would have to be heavily moderated IMO, as i can envisage a lot of people who have games in the club threads posting general messages into the main forum. this could well be despite then knowing not to, as they may be too lazy to jump to another thread to ask people who they should buy for "Wycombe in League 1 in 2012...." one thing i do notice in the GPTG thread is that on an almost daily basis, a new person will ask for good players to buy for a certain team. almost without fail, the player will be given the same names every time, as they are the 'known great young players'. with the user doing a quick search, there would be no need for their own post. i do not want this sort of pointless thread littering up this good thread.

i could go on, but i'm going to draw this to a conclusion.

i suggest giving the club threads a forum of their own, should that be possible. if it has to be in here, then it must be via a sticky link at the top of the page, linking through to a list of threads. i fear that if the club threads moved into CSE, and went in the main body, it could be the first act in the slow death of dafuge's, Gundo's et al's challenges, as they would be suffocated by the club threads.

not exactly short as promised, and it went a bit stronger than i had imagined, but hey ho. it's how i feel i guess.

[ToMexico!!]

Again, I'm all up for the idea as long as the new threads are patrolled and are to the guidelines of the forum. If posters are asking questions on how to improve their team/tactics etc they need to be moved on to the Good Players/Tactics forums. These new threads if they go ahead should be for sharing season experiences and updating their progression with a particular club.

Maybe a trial period is in order? Lets say give it 2 weeks and then see how things have gone...

[Terras-FM]

Just wack it on here im loving the saved threads plus this is the busiest forum bar general discussion so my ipinio is put it in here

[dafuge]

Just wack it on here im loving the saved threads plus this is the busiest forum bar general discussion so my ipinio is put it in here

When you say 'here' do you mean the challenges forum or GPTG?

[Terras-FM]

GPTG! Defauge

[Guest mikeytwigge]

i think a brand new subforum would be best as with a lot of new threads for clubs and various leagues we could quite easily see some of the challenges and sign ups dropping lower down the list and therefore maybe being used less

[canvey!!]

In response to your PM, dafuge (I'm posting it here as this is a public opinion), there isn't a problem with the CSE Forum that this could solve. If there is a problem with the GPTG, doing this would not be the way to solve it.

[Cleon]

There isn't a problem with GPTG. The problem is, people using other forums for certain discussions, when a forum for almost everything already exists. All player discussions should be in GP forum, all tactics in tactics forum and so on. At the minute its too spread out imo and defeats the purpose of specific forums, if people are allowed to post wherever.

[canvey!!]

I'd agree with that. But I always feel arrogant when I try to redirect people. I think some sort of education needs to be done. New users need to know where to post and there needs to be a zero tolerance policy meaning that in time everyone will post in the correct forum. Watch this space.

[dafuge]

In response to your PM, dafuge (I'm posting it here as this is a public opinion), there isn't a problem with the CSE Forum that this could solve. If there is a problem with the GPTG, doing this would not be the way to solve it.

It wasn't long ago that people were complaining that a lack of activity in the forum was killing the challenges, sign ups and experiments.

I think you're right in that this possibly isn't the best way to do it, perhaps the plans for the short term challenges could be the thing to boost the popularity in the way that would best benefit the forum.

[dafuge]

I'd agree with that. But I always feel arrogant when I try to redirect people. I think some sort of education needs to be done. New users need to know where to post and there needs to be a zero tolerance policy meaning that in time everyone will post in the correct forum. Watch this space.

I don't see anything wrong with politely pointing a new user to the correct forum with a link to help them on their way.

The last thing we want though is a situation we had a while ago in GQ with the 'forum police' who would just post something like 'wrong forum' within seconds of a thread being started. Pointing someone to a new forum is great, but if it's done in the wrong manner it does more harm than good.

[canvey!!]

It wasn't long ago that people were complaining that a lack of activity in the forum was killing the challenges, sign ups and experiments.

I acknowledge that, but I wouldn't say they were killing them, and I certainly wouldn't say that this would help: probably quite the opposite. The way this debate has been structured implies to me that the main reason for this is to help the GPTG, which a new forum could do and leave us alone (), and of course it's NIMBY. I'd welcome anything that I think has a good chance of fixing the quoted issue. Sorry for sounding so argumentative, I just want you to know that I know about the issue you quoted and that I don't think this will solve it.

[dafuge]

I acknowledge that, but I wouldn't say they were killing them, and I certainly wouldn't say that this would help: probably quite the opposite. The way this debate has been structured implies to me that the main reason for this is to help the GPTG, which a new forum could do and leave us alone (), and of course it's NIMBY. I'd welcome anything that I think has a good chance of fixing the quoted issue. Sorry for sounding so argumentative, I just want you to know that I know about the issue you quoted and that I don't think this will solve it.

The main reason for this idea was that there isn't currently an official place for people to go to discuss their games, and I think there should be. Adapting this forum to take that on was my idea since it is an area of the forums that I am interested in and I thought it could fit in here quite well. After some of the great arguments put up here, I'm starting to think that this forum perhaps isn't the best place to host it.

Keep the argument/debate coming though, it's what we were hoping for by opening up this idea to the members of the respective forums.

[Cleon]

I acknowledge that, but I wouldn't say they were killing them, and I certainly wouldn't say that this would help: probably quite the opposite. The way this debate has been structured implies to me that the main reason for this is to help the GPTG, which a new forum could do and leave us alone (), and of course it's NIMBY. I'd welcome anything that I think has a good chance of fixing the quoted issue. Sorry for sounding so argumentative, I just want you to know that I know about the issue you quoted and that I don't think this will solve it.

It wasn't structured to help GPTG, its just this forum atm covers some stuff that belongs in GPTG. All me and Dafuge wanted to do, wa smake sure stuff goes in the right place where it belongs, thats why we decided to ask for feedback before anything hapepned to see what response we got and work from that. As the careers threads could be classed same as the club threads and maybe should be an extension of the club threads already. But we are just looking at ideas/solutions

As for the scenario's idea, thats something I will push for too as I've done it for a couple of years now in the tactics forum. So if a new forum was created for that, I'm sure I could contribute loads for FM09

[canvey!!]

I have to admit as an initial idea it was good. The threads seem to be the sort of quality and style that fit in with current challenge updates, particularly those in the career thread. But you let us pick holes . It would fit in, but there are so many other issues it isn't worth it. If the objective is to find a place for people to post general updates on their game create a forum, it's distinct enough to be given one. But then in terms of us here at the CSE it's a NIMBY so that's something Cleon should be most concerned about.

[Andyh60]

I think that career discussion and the challenges go hand in hand, especially the way people have taken to reporting on them in this forum. Whilst a brand new forum might be good it would probably kill off this forum completely.

This would be perfect for my liking. What I really dont like is the challenges forum since 99% of them are just "stupid" to put it politely and unrealistic e.g. win world cup with San Marino or something.

The way this thread sounds is that you'll have each team and people discussing how they have done etc and within it challenges could be set e.g. Win Champions league in first season with ..., get soem low premier league team into europe etc etc. At least these would be worth a shot at.

[rlipscombe]

This would be perfect for my liking. What I really dont like is the challenges forum since 99% of them are just "stupid" to put it politely and unrealistic e.g. win world cup with San Marino or something.

The way this thread sounds is that you'll have each team and people discussing how they have done etc and within it challenges could be set e.g. Win Champions league in first season with ..., get soem low premier league team into europe etc etc. At least these would be worth a shot at.

the "stupid" challenges, such as 'winning the world cup with san marino or something" are exactly that - challenges. that's why these challenges are popular in here. i, for one, would much rather thake on a difficult challenge like this, thus proving myself as a good manager, over playing for 10 years at Manchester United winning everything every year because i buy all of the best players, who i heard about on the GPTG forum. This way, you find your own players, achieve the 'impossible' and get much more enjoyment from it.

[dafuge]

This would be perfect for my liking. What I really dont like is the challenges forum since 99% of them are just "stupid" to put it politely and unrealistic e.g. win world cup with San Marino or something.

The way this thread sounds is that you'll have each team and people discussing how they have done etc and within it challenges could be set e.g. Win Champions league in first season with ..., get soem low premier league team into europe etc etc. At least these would be worth a shot at.

I think what you've said here is a good example that backs up the reasons a lot of people have put forward for not combining them. I think a lot of people here like the 'stupid and unrealistic' challenges and would much rather play a game that has a challenging (maybe even impossible) aim than one with a much shorter lifespan.

[PaulHartman71]

I think that's what the challenges are about. Anyone can win 20 odd premier leagues with Manchester United, but not everyone can take a previously unplayable team to Premier League and Champions League glory

[Jimbokav1971]

It's quite refreshing to come back here afre so long and find such a reasoned and balanced argument/duscussion continuing with very different views and yet not turning into a slag-fest.

I wonder is there another forum in all of the SI boards where this would have been the case also.

I've commented a couple of times already, (and refrained from doing so another couple of times while I considered the recent responses.

I seem to be completely on the other end of the FM playing spectrum to Andyh60, (not that that's an issue), because I absolutely love the "impossible" style challenges like the dafuge and Gundo ones. That I have never completed either of them, (or am likely to), makes not one bit of difference to me.

I get as much enjoyment out of the "camaraderie" generated in each of these threads as I do my game itself, and I struggle to do one without the other.

Playing FM can be a pretty boring and isolated past-time and theses threads really help the "growth" of a save game during the early stages.

With that in mind, I can completely understand why someone not playing in any of the challeneges would like to post info about their progress somewhere, and how this woudl benefit not only them, but also others doing a similar thing with the same team, (or just in the same league or part of the World).

My initial reaction was that I did not want these new update threads in this forum, however I would like to take this point to clarify that I am also against stopping updates being posted in the likes of the dafuge and Gundo threads. These 2 threads, (along with the kipfizh thread), are probably the 3 most valuble threads in terms of posters/readers/content/return visits across any of the SI forums that I frequent, (ie not T&TF/GPG/Editors Hideaway).

I gather that the reason for this is that there is significant "crossover" in terms of content between various forums. I understand and agree that this neds to be adressed.

Cleon I think, (I'm not 100% sure about this so apologies if I have got the wrong end of the stick), that as updates are an important, (even vital), part of this forum, then we should keep all the "updates" together in here. (That point, if true, was lost on me earlier in this thread so apologies). The best thing about the dafuge/Gundo threads is the "team ethos" and "community spirit" that is engendered by the regular posters in these threads and they are just about the most helpful places I have come across on the forums for anything from Tactics to Graphics and everything in between.

If it is being suggested that the content of these threads be limited to discussing the progress of your save within the challenge, and comments such as Tactics/Graphics etc etc be limited to their specialised forum, then I am absolutely and completely 100% against this idea.

I hope that I have just got the wrong idea about this and apologies if that is indeed the case.

Basically, I would like to see the following.

1. CSE forum to remain as is. Threads such as the dafuge & Gundo threads to continue as is and all content related to that challenge, (including players/tactics/graphics), should be allowed.

2. A new forum created specifically for "update threads" who do not have a position elsewhere. ie any team or Nation or Competition that doesn't come under an existing challenge.

Player names and tactics should be allowed to be discussed, (in general terms) in here, but that in depth discussion should be made in T&TGF & GPGF.

Rather than 1 thread for each new update, it could be done in the following, (similar to that used in the Data forum). Unfortunately I have just gone to look at and post a link to the system used in the Data forum but it is no lonoger in place. I am guessing that when the new forum was started it had to be scrapped.

It basically worked as follows.

1 Thread, (stickied), at the top of the forum which has the following links to the following individual threads.

England

--------

Premiership. When clicking on this you are taken to another thread which lists all Premiership teams individually.

If a thread is yet to be created, then it can be created and a MOD advised to update the "Premiership thread" with the link to the relevant teams thread.

Then you do the same thing for the following.

Championship.

Leagues 1 & 2.

Conference Nat, North or South.

There could be 1 thread created for all of the big/popular nations and some of the more obscure Nations lumped together for ease.

This would stop multip;e threads being opened for the same club/nation/league and it would be easy to find what you are looking for.

Anything else would be a disaster in the making with thread after thread after thread cloggging up the forum with no way of finding what you are looking for.

Even with the system in place as described above, (which is probably time consuming to start off with and takes man ghours to moderate which is something we should be trying to avoid), then it will still be a bit of a mess and not very easy on the eye.

If these threads were allowed to be posted in CSE forum, (even with a well moderated systen as described above), the sheer numbers of threads would mean that many of the existing challenges. sign-ups would be relegated to obscurity lower down the page.

That is my main reason for being so opposed to these type of threads being allowed in CSE.

[dafuge]

My initial reaction was that I did not want these new update threads in this forum, however I would like to take this point to clarify that I am also against stopping updates being posted in the likes of the dafuge and Gundo threads. These 2 threads, (along with the kipfizh thread), are probably the 3 most valuble threads in terms of posters/readers/content/return visits across any of the SI forums that I frequent, (ie not T&TF/GPG/Editors Hideaway).

I gather that the reason for this is that there is significant "crossover" in terms of content between various forums. I understand and agree that this neds to be adressed.

Cleon I think, (I'm not 100% sure about this so apologies if I have got the wrong end of the stick), that as updates are an important, (even vital), part of this forum, then we should keep all the "updates" together in here. (That point, if true, was lost on me earlier in this thread so apologies). The best thing about the dafuge/Gundo threads is the "team ethos" and "community spirit" that is engendered by the regular posters in these threads and they are just about the most helpful places I have come across on the forums for anything from Tactics to Graphics and everything in between.

If it is being suggested that the content of these threads be limited to discussing the progress of your save within the challenge, and comments such as Tactics/Graphics etc etc be limited to their specialised forum, then I am absolutely and completely 100% against this idea.

The content of the current threads in here is not an issue and I would not want to move any of it elsewhere. The original idea was to give people somewhere to discuss their games if they were not following the strict rules and aims of a challenge, a bit like the career thread is at the moment.

[Andyh60]

Great to see that people understand my point of view but not necessarily agree with it. End of day yes of coruse there should be some near impossible challenges but I cant spend 24 / 7 trying to acheive them Id just love say a weekly challenge of something that may or may not be done.

e.g. qualify West Ham for UEFA cup, Spurs for Champions league, win the league with Liverpool, keep Hull in premiership etc etc

I mean lets face it if any of these came true for season 08/09 in real life Id be amazed would you?

[dafuge]

Basically, I would like to see the following.

1. CSE forum to remain as is. Threads such as the dafuge & Gundo threads to continue as is and all content related to that challenge, (including players/tactics/graphics), should be allowed.

2. A new forum created specifically for "update threads" who do not have a position elsewhere. ie any team or Nation or Competition that doesn't come under an existing challenge.

Player names and tactics should be allowed to be discussed, (in general terms) in here, but that in depth discussion should be made in T&TGF & GPGF.

Rather than 1 thread for each new update, it could be done in the following, (similar to that used in the Data forum). Unfortunately I have just gone to look at and post a link to the system used in the Data forum but it is no lonoger in place. I am guessing that when the new forum was started it had to be scrapped.

It basically worked as follows.

1 Thread, (stickied), at the top of the forum which has the following links to the following individual threads.

England

--------

Premiership. When clicking on this you are taken to another thread which lists all Premiership teams individually.

If a thread is yet to be created, then it can be created and a MOD advised to update the "Premiership thread" with the link to the relevant teams thread.

Then you do the same thing for the following.

Championship.

Leagues 1 & 2.

Conference Nat, North or South.

There could be 1 thread created for all of the big/popular nations and some of the more obscure Nations lumped together for ease.

This would stop multip;e threads being opened for the same club/nation/league and it would be easy to find what you are looking for.

Anything else would be a disaster in the making with thread after thread after thread cloggging up the forum with no way of finding what you are looking for.

Even with the system in place as described above, (which is probably time consuming to start off with and takes man ghours to moderate which is something we should be trying to avoid), then it will still be a bit of a mess and not very easy on the eye.

If these threads were allowed to be posted in CSE forum, (even with a well moderated systen as described above), the sheer numbers of threads would mean that many of the existing challenges. sign-ups would be relegated to obscurity lower down the page.

That is my main reason for being so opposed to these type of threads being allowed in CSE.

I think what you've described here would be my first choice as well after this discussion. Originally I hadn't thought a new forum would be a viable option, but if it is possible it could be an ideal solution.

[bermybhoy]

Great to see that people understand my point of view but not necessarily agree with it. End of day yes of coruse there should be some near impossible challenges but I cant spend 24 / 7 trying to acheive them Id just love say a weekly challenge of something that may or may not be done.

e.g. qualify West Ham for UEFA cup, Spurs for Champions league, win the league with Liverpool, keep Hull in premiership etc etc

I mean lets face it if any of these came true for season 08/09 in real life Id be amazed would you?

To me that's kinda just playing the game as opposed to a 'challenge' per se. I mean, if you start as Hull, of course your aim would be to keep them up. By nature most of the challenges are long term efforts with very distant goals. Dafuge and others have spoken already about setting up short term challnges, which may or may not take the form you're suggesting; I would think however they'd be more specific and situation based. I think what you're talking about would be better suited to the 'club threads' that have been discussed above.

That's not intended as a criticism at all, it's interesting to see what different people get from the game.

With all that said, I'm now very much coming round to thinking that if a seperate forum can be made, that's the best place for this kind of thing.