Ground variety in the 3D match engine

[Guest]

For me, one of the most satisfying things in watching the 3D match engine develop has been seeing the range of different stadium/stand styles expand and improve. But, this is all well and good until the game is taken to extremes; the grounds at the highest level and the lowest level in FM seem to lose that range of different styles and possibilities and with it a great deal of realism.

I've just got back from watching my current local team, St Andrews United, play at their Recreation Park ground. It has a capacity of 2000, no 'official' seating (wooden benches and the occasional school-style plastic chair) and is probably set in the database to be in poor condition and have relatively high delapidation. It looks like this:

In the game, such a stadium would be generated to have the stand on the left of this screenshot on each side of the pitch (unfortunately I can't take screenshots from FM on my computer, so I can't give a shot of what that would look like and this is the best google can offer):

Obviously that would be wildly innacurate. There are two tiny areas of cover on one side of the pitch, and no stepped terracing at all; very few grounds so small would look anything like that - so why does FM do this?

Ok, so you might think this is irrelevant; St Andrews are an unplayable team with a tiny ground who would never pop up at all in-game except if you arranged a friendly with them.

But the same problem occurs with small grounds that are playable. Take, for example, Solihull Moors' Damson Park, of the English Conference North (I'm going to start linking images now, to stop this post being too long):

Damson Park, Solihull, 3050 (500 seated)

There's a seated stand that would be accurately represented as one of those short seated stands that straddles the middle of the pitch you sometimes see in FM, and there's a long covered terrace, like the ones you see around small grounds in FM. But - crucially - there's bugger all else. Nada. Just hard standing. Yet FM puts in two more covered terraces - you can check it out for yourself, I'm afraid I can't find an appropriate screenshot.

Likewise, most grounds at this level and sometimes even above will have one side of just hard standing, or a small uncovered terrace rather than the covered ones generated in FM:

Greene King Stadium, Hinckley, 4329 (630 seated)

Court Place Farm, Oxford, 3000ish? (250 seated)

Rivacre Park, Ellesmere Port (Vauxhall Motors), 3300 (350 seated)

New Windmill Ground, Leamington, 2300 (c.250 seated)

Surely it's not beyond the wit and imagination of SI to add in the possibility of a concrete area with people standing in it, or a roofless terrace, just for a bit more accuracy and variety?

Equally, at the highest level, once your stadium is above say 25000 capacity and all-seater, you tend to get the typical oval arena 3D stadium:

Here's a slice of one from one of the pre-release screenies. You know the ground shape I'm talking about...

Except, big all-seater grounds don't all look like that, do they?

Goodison Park

St Andrew's, Birmingham - bit of a hybrid between the FM 3D oval and the more traditional square type

Villa Park

The City Ground, another hybrid

Carrow Road

Just to be clear: this isn't a moan at all. The background detail in the 3D match engines is moving forward really nicely with every release, even though it's not all that vital in the gameplay. I just think the next step needs to be that proper detailed tweaking at the highest level so that it doesn't get all that generic; or at least it gets accurately generic. I don't think it would take much solving either; the game already has several variables that it takes into account when decided the look of a ground: capacity, seated capacity, build date, delapidation, state from v. good - v. poor - all these things could be presumably be tweaked to give a ground hard standing, open terraces and small seated stands rather than the typical one long, tin-roofed seated stand and 3 long covered terraces, or to give a traditional square, tiered all-seater rather than the modern oval arena. It's just a thought, anyway, and something that bugs me a little when playing the game at the very highest and the very lowest levels

The other minor thing on a similar topic is why clubs in towns with catchment areas of 10000+ seem to play in the same field in the countryside next to a church by a big hill - what's that all about?

[Bobble2002]

one thing that has always bugged me is when you get the message the fans have seen enough and are leaving but the amount of fans drawn inside the ground never changes .

[Matt_no_7]

It would be nice to have downloadable stadiums, i mean we can download kits, logo's, balls, boots and god knows what else. Would be nice to be able to personalise the match view experience further