Question for someone from SI

[krlenjushka]

Max wrote in bugs forum:

"FMF files can no longer have dbc extracted as an intellectual property security measure.

This sort of security, as requested by members of the community, was brought in place to stop people stealing people's intellectual property and extracting dbc files would be a way of doing this.

Appreciate this is going to be of disappointment to some of you but I'm sure you'll appreciate that it's not fair for people to have their work spoiled by others. Thanks"

If this is true SI will lose me and many other users also. We simply cant make our files without extraction option. Editor is often broken and only way to do some things is to manually edit xml files.

My question is:

Will you let us to have extraction?

Or will you guys finnaly make fully working editor?

Krlenjushka

R

[Roy Race 9]

why has my post been removed....agreeing with the above

[Roy Race 9]

the ''intellectual property security measure. '' is total rubbish you can still download a file amend it and pass it off as your own

if this was the reason why werent we told when bug was originally reported...it was given the response, we are looking into it!!!! why if you are not going to allow it, stinks a bit

[Roy Race 9]

here is link to original thread for those not knowing what has been going on http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/413385-Cannot-extract-fmf-files-since-update-Reviewed

[MBarbaric]

i don't get it, intellectual property of whom? SI or community members creating files in editor? if it is the community then i really dont get it. Edtior is there for people to do the files for themselves and share them to community. if there is some "intellectual property" introduced how long will it take for introducing the price on community content?

i remember few years ago FMBase did some manual for the game that they sold via their website and SI kicked them out of affiliate programe because the community content must be free. i don't see how one stolen file (which can still be stolen as kigrobbo says) can justify such an oppresive measure...

[forameuss]

i don't get it, intellectual property of whom? SI or community members creating files in editor? if it is the community then i really dont get it. Edtior is there for people to do the files for themselves and share them to community. if there is some "intellectual property" introduced how long will it take for introducing the price on community content?

i remember few years ago FMBase did some manual for the game that they sold via their website and SI kicked them out of affiliate programe because the community content must be free. i don't see how one stolen file (which can still be stolen as kigrobbo says) can justify such an oppresive measure...

It's nothing to do with price I imagine. Seems pretty simple to me - some users have complained that people are passing their work off as their own. SI put this in place to try and stop that from happening. Seems pretty simple to me, although whether it is right or not is up for debate.

I don't know the story behind the user(s) who requested it, but I can sympathise. If you've spent a long old time on an edited file - and everyone on here will know, it can be a long, tedious time for bigger edits - then you don't want someone else jumping in and passing it off as their own. Most will be happy for their work to be circulated around the community, but then again some aren't. That's completely their choice.

[krlenjushka]

this isnt solution for that. i can download your work (fmf file) change some things and release file as my own. if they want to add security in files they should implement some passwords.

[forameuss]

this isnt solution for that. i can download your work (fmf file) change some things and release file as my own. if they want to add security in files they should implement some passwords.

I didn't say it was. I said that whether it was right or wrong was up for debate, but others seemed to be confused as to why it was done. That was obvious to me, and understandable.

[krlenjushka]

sometimes i ask myself- who is responsable for some "great" ideas in FM. they should ask customers what they want to see in game- not just implement some strange options

[Gambit]

I'm as confused as you with this change. Not being able to edit in native XML was one thing. Now, we can't even extract the file to get to the xml data. Unless they plan on allowing us to have multiple rulesets in a single file this ruins all the work I've been doing in the editor since FM15 came out. I now have no motivation to continue working with this version of the editor and will most likely be going back to FM14 and its editor when I want to play the leagues I built.

[Roy Race 9]

this is total BS

they are using excuses, its probably a bug they cant fix or be bothered to fix

[Roy Race 9]

I'm as confused as you with this change. Not being able to edit in native XML was one thing. Now, we can't even extract the file to get to the xml data. Unless they plan on allowing us to have multiple rulesets in a single file this ruins all the work I've been doing in the editor since FM15 came out. I now have no motivation to continue working with this version of the editor and will most likely be going back to FM14 and its editor when I want to play the leagues I built.

this is me too, and I wouldnt have bought fm15 in that case, would be prepared to have it totally removed from my steam directory, and unable to download it again if I got my money back

[Gambit]

this is total BS

they are using excuses, its probably a bug they cant fix or be bothered to fix

I wouldn't say that. Extracting files was working then it wasn't. It was going to get looked into and fixed, now it isn't. Something happened and it was determined that we shouldn't be able to extract the files anymore. It's possible that SI are planning on releasing DLC type updates using the fmf files and they don't want us to extract them. That's fine for them, but breaking the editor workflow for us without any notice just plain sucks.

[krlenjushka]

if they release fully working editor- then its ok. problem is this is only hope- RL is something else. i dont wanna buy game every year and wait until march. if they dont care about customers- why should we??

[Roy Race 9]

sometimes i ask myself- who is responsable for some "great" ideas in FM. they should ask customers what they want to see in game- not just implement some strange options

this....if they took on board the feedback and more importantly properly beta tested the product most of the issues wouldn't be there.

i havent really played fm15(cant as I am once again awaiting a fully functioning pre game editor) but from what I have seen the upgrade on fm14 is mostly superfluous nonesense

[krlenjushka]

For example- why parent competition menu is dropped? now if i have lot of leagues in my system (i have 150 playable leagues in serbian system and over 30 cups) i cant find anything because now every league have 1 row. when i search some lower cup i need to scroll down with mouse and in my case its 200 rows. on fm14 my lower cups was on 1 row- "county cups", leagues from some level was on 1 row and so on... i dont know who invented new view but please dont invent anything for fm16

[krlenjushka]

and of course they wont answer here- they will just close the thread- as always

[Gambit]

As long as we keep the discussion on point they shouldn't close the thread. To that, I'd like to see the editor support multiple league rule sets in a single fmf file(since we're stuck on fmf). That would allow us to keep all the data changes and league rules in one file rather than having them in multiple files. I currently have one file for my data changes and US league, one file for the Canadian league, and one for the continental cups. I would have had more files/leagues, but I had to stop because the file extraction issue. Importing the changing from one file to another won't since it causes data duplication in the game when both files are loaded. The best option would be to have one file for everything.

[Roy Race 9]

there will be no response from SI there never is, they dont care as long as we keep buying the product year in year out why should they

there are bugs going back to 2 years with the editor that have not been addressed

[metal_guitarist]

Thread won't be closed as long as it remains constructive and not abusive, I have been keeping an eye on it even if I haven't posted And no, I had no idea this change was coming either.

[Wolf_pd]

It might also have been done to increase stability in the edited files. Nothing ruins running software as much as having conversions from one file format to another. I completely understand the reactions from you guys, because I prefer an xml file myself to be able to take a look around in a file. But from a software developer point of view this would make sense.

[krlenjushka]

i make manual changes in xml for 5 years. some changes i make 20 times faster than in editor. my files is very complex and with lot of changes but i test everyting for several times. i didnt get crash for at least 3 years with my files-also nobody reported crash with files in last 3-4 years.

i think something else is going on here but i will wait for patch...

[Roy Race 9]

the changes I have made using xml have never caused issues, the issues I get are from the editor...and this version is unbelievable

[magicmastermind124]

It's great that our releases will be protected somewhat from theft, but we must be able to work on our own files unhindered from any technical limitations. What we need are more options available to us. Surely we should be able to work on xml files prior to packaging them into .fmf files should we want to do so in order to protect our work or when we are ready to release our work to the community. I have also mentioned countless times over the years to reinstate the database option, or the ability to collaborate on projects with the use of something akin to the dbc folder you use to make last minute changes to the database.

While I hope you can fix this, past experience with SI is telling me not to expect anything much. Years ago you couldn't fix the tab key being unusable in the Editor, and users were left frustrated until I managed to find a fix. When I reported that one of our projects had been stolen by another community, you asked why I was not pleased that my file was being used by those who downloaded it from that community. The following year when I enquired about the exact same problem, my emails were completely ignored. Earlier last year when reporting problems I was having with my project, you dismissed that the editor or game could be broken as the file had been created for an older version of FM. I later disproved this when I created a new file with no database changes and confirmed there was a bug with the game. The service we are getting is not great, and I'd like to see SI be more willing to improve this. I certainly hope that they do not dismiss this as unimportant.

What has frustrated me over the years is that SI haven't been living up to their name - they are supposed to be Interactive, but I feel like we are being left out and at times cast off as outsiders to the community (especially when they stopped us from discussing use of the Advanced Rules). I look at Paradox Interactive and see that not only do they listen to their fans but they also provide a lot of community content and get the community involved. They even provide a spotlight on user created content. I don't see enough of that with SI, who have a lot of international communities that have their own forums making the entire community look fragmented.

If/when I return to releasing content for FM, I'll have to consider whether or not to use legacy versions of FM that allow me to do the things that newer FM's cannot. Read that again slowly, and you should agree that this is not the way forward. Newer versions of a game should give you more options, not less.

I am compelling SI to come forward and actually start talking to us, rather than sit on the sidelines seeing what we're talking about. Put the Interactive back into Sports Interactive and stop disillusioning your fans (although probably unintentional, that's the way I feel and I am sure many others too). We may be small in number, but we would not be working on providing content for this game if we did not enjoy it. Sadly, you are giving us reasons not to, and that will not only affect us, but also our users, who are also your customers. As you may already be aware, it has already affected me, and given the work I and everyone at FMUpdates has done for the game and for SI (we have been or still are researchers for you), you stand to lose some top editors from doing what we enjoy. Basically you are not helping yourselves and are slowly building a bad reputation within the editing community. I am here to say that we want to help you make this game better not only for ourselves, but for all of your customers. You only need to reach out to us, become more open and engage more directly with your community.

Having said all that, who from SI is willing to start this conversation with the editing community? If you need to contact me you can do so by PM - I have temporarily activated my PM box for you to do so, and I eagerly await your response with kind regards.

[jWaSiMhE]

It's great that our releases will be protected somewhat from theft, but we must be able to work on our own files unhindered from any technical limitations. What we need are more options available to us. Surely we should be able to work on xml files prior to packaging them into .fmf files should we want to do so in order to protect our work or when we are ready to release our work to the community. I have also mentioned countless times over the years to reinstate the database option, or the ability to collaborate on projects with the use of something akin to the dbc folder you use to make last minute changes to the database.

While I hope you can fix this, past experience with SI is telling me not to expect anything much. Years ago you couldn't fix the tab key being unusable in the Editor, and users were left frustrated until I managed to find a fix. When I reported that one of our projects had been stolen by another community, you asked why I was not pleased that my file was being used by those who downloaded it from that community. The following year when I enquired about the exact same problem, my emails were completely ignored. Earlier last year when reporting problems I was having with my project, you dismissed that the editor or game could be broken as the file had been created for an older version of FM. I later disproved this when I created a new file with no database changes and confirmed there was a bug with the game. The service we are getting is not great, and I'd like to see SI be more willing to improve this. I certainly hope that they do not dismiss this as unimportant.

What has frustrated me over the years is that SI haven't been living up to their name - they are supposed to be Interactive, but I feel like we are being left out and at times cast off as outsiders to the community (especially when they stopped us from discussing use of the Advanced Rules). I look at Paradox Interactive and see that not only do they listen to their fans but they also provide a lot of community content and get the community involved. They even provide a spotlight on user created content. I don't see enough of that with SI, who have a lot of international communities that have their own forums making the entire community look fragmented.

If/when I return to releasing content for FM, I'll have to consider whether or not to use legacy versions of FM that allow me to do the things that newer FM's cannot. Read that again slowly, and you should agree that this is not the way forward. Newer versions of a game should give you more options, not less.

I am compelling SI to come forward and actually start talking to us, rather than sit on the sidelines seeing what we're talking about. Put the Interactive back into Sports Interactive and stop disillusioning your fans (although probably unintentional, that's the way I feel and I am sure many others too). We may be small in number, but we would not be working on providing content for this game if we did not enjoy it. Sadly, you are giving us reasons not to, and that will not only affect us, but also our users, who are also your customers. As you may already be aware, it has already affected me, and given the work I and everyone at FMUpdates has done for the game and for SI (we have been or still are researchers for you), you stand to lose some top editors from doing what we enjoy. Basically you are not helping yourselves and are slowly building a bad reputation within the editing community. I am here to say that we want to help you make this game better not only for ourselves, but for all of your customers. You only need to reach out to us, become more open and engage more directly with your community.

Having said all that, who from SI is willing to start this conversation with the editing community? If you need to contact me you can do so by PM - I have temporarily activated my PM box for you to do so, and I eagerly await your response with kind regards.

I am in complete agreement with this. Working together for the benefit of all is the way forward. I don't think the motives are in the wrong place; it's just the methods and/or systems in place to achieve them are causing the problems that a significant portion of the editing community are disillusioned with.

[Roy Race 9]

It's great that our releases will be protected somewhat from theft, but we must be able to work on our own files unhindered from any technical limitations. What we need are more options available to us. Surely we should be able to work on xml files prior to packaging them into .fmf files should we want to do so in order to protect our work or when we are ready to release our work to the community. I have also mentioned countless times over the years to reinstate the database option, or the ability to collaborate on projects with the use of something akin to the dbc folder you use to make last minute changes to the database.

While I hope you can fix this, past experience with SI is telling me not to expect anything much. Years ago you couldn't fix the tab key being unusable in the Editor, and users were left frustrated until I managed to find a fix. When I reported that one of our projects had been stolen by another community, you asked why I was not pleased that my file was being used by those who downloaded it from that community. The following year when I enquired about the exact same problem, my emails were completely ignored. Earlier last year when reporting problems I was having with my project, you dismissed that the editor or game could be broken as the file had been created for an older version of FM. I later disproved this when I created a new file with no database changes and confirmed there was a bug with the game. The service we are getting is not great, and I'd like to see SI be more willing to improve this. I certainly hope that they do not dismiss this as unimportant.

What has frustrated me over the years is that SI haven't been living up to their name - they are supposed to be Interactive, but I feel like we are being left out and at times cast off as outsiders to the community (especially when they stopped us from discussing use of the Advanced Rules). I look at Paradox Interactive and see that not only do they listen to their fans but they also provide a lot of community content and get the community involved. They even provide a spotlight on user created content. I don't see enough of that with SI, who have a lot of international communities that have their own forums making the entire community look fragmented.

If/when I return to releasing content for FM, I'll have to consider whether or not to use legacy versions of FM that allow me to do the things that newer FM's cannot. Read that again slowly, and you should agree that this is not the way forward. Newer versions of a game should give you more options, not less.

I am compelling SI to come forward and actually start talking to us, rather than sit on the sidelines seeing what we're talking about. Put the Interactive back into Sports Interactive and stop disillusioning your fans (although probably unintentional, that's the way I feel and I am sure many others too). We may be small in number, but we would not be working on providing content for this game if we did not enjoy it. Sadly, you are giving us reasons not to, and that will not only affect us, but also our users, who are also your customers. As you may already be aware, it has already affected me, and given the work I and everyone at FMUpdates has done for the game and for SI (we have been or still are researchers for you), you stand to lose some top editors from doing what we enjoy. Basically you are not helping yourselves and are slowly building a bad reputation within the editing community. I am here to say that we want to help you make this game better not only for ourselves, but for all of your customers. You only need to reach out to us, become more open and engage more directly with your community.

Having said all that, who from SI is willing to start this conversation with the editing community? If you need to contact me you can do so by PM - I have temporarily activated my PM box for you to do so, and I eagerly await your response with kind regards.

yes you are spot on mate

but no one from SI is going to respond they never do they are ignoring us they do not care about us at all, it is so frustrating.... but making a hard decision much easier for me later in the year I wont be buying the new product

[magicmastermind124]

yes you are spot on mate

but no one from SI is going to respond they never do they are ignoring us they do not care about us at all, it is so frustrating.... but making a hard decision much easier for me later in the year I wont be buying the new product

I am in complete agreement with this. Working together for the benefit of all is the way forward. I don't think the motives are in the wrong place; it's just the methods and/or systems in place to achieve them are causing the problems that a significant portion of the editing community are disillusioned with.

This really is a last call for SI to open up to us. We are not a bit part and if things do not improve I can gladly warn that SI will have problems in the future.

[themadsheep2001]

This really is a last call for SI to open up to us. We are not a bit part and if things do not improve I can gladly warn that SI will have problems in the future.

Veiled threats is definitely not the best way to get someone to engage with you. Considering its mostly like the run in for the final patch, they are going to be a little busy. But as long as this thread remains constructive it will remain open. Veiled threats and abuse and it will be closed.

[magicmastermind124]

Veiled threats is definitely not the best way to get someone to engage with you. Considering its mostly like the run in for the final patch, they are going to be a little busy. But as long as this thread remains constructive it will remain open. Veiled threats and abuse and it will be closed.

I'm sorry I posted in a threatening manner. I only want the best for all parties involved. I am however fed up of having to raise all these concerns. SI should know it is in their best interests to keep all of their customers happy, and as long as they keep sending their own fans away from their product, they will run into problems in the future. Losing customers is not the way to go!

[themadsheep2001]

I'm sorry I posted in a threatening manner. I only want the best for all parties involved. I am however fed up of having to raise all these concerns. SI should know it is in their best interests to keep all of their customers happy, and as long as they keep sending their own fans away from their product, they will run into problems in the future. Losing customers is not the way to go!

Apology noted, and for what it's worth I think a fair amount of the frustration is merited and I've asked to see if an SI bod can drop in in the near future. That said, given it is that big patch run time, it might not be the quickest, and perhaps the update itself might solves some the issues.

[Roy Race 9]

the sad thing is the people who use this forum are mostly so helpful and knowledgeable, and would/could assist SI with this product in the beta testing etc

it is more than frustration though when bugs going back over 2 years are not addressed with no feedback, and treated once again as a separate issue when a new version is released when it is a known problem,

[krlenjushka]

Waiting for update is not the problem. We will wait as we do every year... problem will be if they set limitation to us.. i cant keep my work without full acces to my xml files- sometimes because editor have bugs, sometimes because editor have limitations, sometimes because its faster way to do something... i never had any issues with my manually edited files because i know what im doing.

Anyway if they want to add security to some files they can do it with some other solution.

And finally they should work with community for future options and features...

maybe only way is to pay for editor...

[Roy Race 9]

Waiting for update is not the problem. We will wait as we do every year... problem will be if they set limitation to us.. i cant keep my work without full acces to my xml files- sometimes because editor have bugs, sometimes because editor have limitations, sometimes because its faster way to do something... i never had any issues with my manually edited files because i know what im doing.

Anyway if they want to add security to some files they can do it with some other solution.

And finally they should work with community for future options and features...

maybe only way is to pay for editor...

I have said this many times ​ its the only way I see us getting the product we should have and deserve,

sadly the old adage money talks is right

[themadsheep2001]

I have said this many times ​ its the only way I see us getting the product we should have and deserve,

sadly the old adage money talks is right

SI don't have any current intention to charge for the editor. And a paid editor wouldnt change much unless they were hiring more people to work on it. Which actually might not have anything to do with the editor as it is now.

[Lucas]

yes you are spot on mate

but no one from SI is going to respond they never do they are ignoring us they do not care about us at all, it is so frustrating.... but making a hard decision much easier for me later in the year I wont be buying the new product

This really is a last call for SI to open up to us. We are not a bit part and if things do not improve I can gladly warn that SI will have problems in the future.

Appreciate you are frustrated. There are always going to be ways we can improve our feature set in the game so that people will find parts of the game they use most, even more enjoyable. Apologies if some of the changes this year have peeved you off, but they were necessary for current and future development. We are always taking comments on board and look to improve things for future patches and versions but we can't read every single thread that there is on the forums or work would never get done... The best places to let us know of the issues you are having are the feedback thread and the bugs forum for bugs. There you can be reassured that you have been listened to and bugs will get addressed, even if we haven't had the time to give you a personal response elsewhere on the forum.

Also remember that we are users of the editor too, not just creating content but consumers of content as well. There have been improvements in some areas and I can see that some feel that they are inconvenienced and would like things to be improved for them. That's what feedback is for, and we are well aware of these things because we do create our own content and we use others' too. We're always looking at ways to improve things, and we are listening. Just because it's made things difficult for you now, doesn't mean it hasn't for some of us or nothing's going to get done to try and make things better for you in future. Let us know what you would like to improve and keep it constructive! Passions do fly sometimes when we are frustrated, I know, but people jumping in, swearing, threats etc do not make it a welcoming environment for us to take the time to reply when we do get the chance to comment back. Please do bear that mind when posting on the forums, thanks.

[krlenjushka]

can you tell something more about xml future? if SI have plans to drop xml on fm16 i dont wanna spend my time creating huge xml databases for nothing. this is not something you need to hide

[Roy Race 9]

SI don't have any current intention to charge for the editor. And a paid editor wouldnt change much unless they were hiring more people to work on it. Which actually might not have anything to do with the editor as it is now.

thats the way we see it ....a free editor doing the basics/ then a paid for advanced one, the result should be more resources to resolve the many issues prior to release etc

it was all said here http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/412154-Heart-felt-plea-to-SI-regarding-the-FM15-editor

[forameuss]

thats the way we see it ....a free editor doing the basics/ then a paid for advanced one, the result should be more resources to resolve the many issues prior to release etc

it was all said here http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/412154-Heart-felt-plea-to-SI-regarding-the-FM15-editor

Ok, so taking that idea and running with it. How much would you charge for an "advanced" editor? Let's say that this one has had extra work performed on it, so more people have been hired. Let's say a fiver for now. How many people would be happy to pay for something that was previously free? Understand there would certainly be some, the ones that can look beyond a price and not throw their toys out before actually reading why.

But the big question, how many copies would you have to sell to make up for having to hire extra resources? At that fiver level, and taking one new developer on even as little as 20k (and that's very conservative given they'd need someone that actually knew what they were doing, and in London), that's 4000 copies of this new editor to break even. Would they sell that many? Take a more realistic salary, and you're looking at upwards of 2000 more copies at the fiver rate. And that's only hiring one person - if they really wanted to do things seriously, they'd probably hire either one person with specific experience in the field, or a couple that don't. That won't be cheap.

Of course, none of this has any kind of fact in it, just conjecture. I just find it hard to see them making enough profit from this alone to break even without it eating into their profits. That won't be an attractive proposition, considering that the free editor has been fine for the most part for years now. It's taken a bit of a dip this year, but will probably bounce back in the next version.

[Lucas]

As I've answered the questions in this thread is going off topic now with wild speculation. I'm closing this thread now because it's not going to go anywhere, and there's no plans to start charging for something we provide for free. Thanks.

[Max Clayton-Robb]

Your feedback has been duly noted and passed on for consideration and improvement.

However, the tone some of you are using when posting is not good at all. We're happy to engage more, but if you want that you need to cut out the hyperbole and presumption as it is not helpful and creates an unnecessarily aggressive atmosphere.

If you want something improved, please use a civilised tone and explain the benefits of what you want and how it would help you in your day to day editing. Anything other than that will not achieve what you want.

As always, we are pleased to get feedback and are glad of your enthusiasm for the Editor but please keep the tone appropriate in future. Thanks