[Suggestion] Sense of culture and atmosphere

[Ventricity]

As someone who loves learning about other cultures and experiencing them through food, music, football etc, I think this is an area Football Manager can improve alot. By incorporating a stronger cultural experience unique to the league you play in, it would make the game feel more fresh each time you play in a different league. This would be easy to implement for the big leagues at least. 

Now this experience is not one thing. A sense of culture is many things that adds up to a unique experience. I'm no anthropologist so there are probably many more ways to add to this. 

First off, i'm guessing the reason there aren't that many pictures in game of footballers and stadiums etc has to do about copyrights. I get that. But how difficult is it to make some backgrounds and pictures that has some connection to the league and country you play in? Small things like that adds up so much on a user experience level. I can't stress this enough how important the interface experience is, especially for bringing new people into the game. New people, or even most veteran players never download the facepacks and interface coustomization packs. Making custom packs with culture specific images is therefore not an optimal solution. As it is now the only visual clue you get in game is that the colour on the navigation bar is set depending on the club you choose to manage(red for arsenal, white for tottenham).

For instance, If i'm managing Barcelona I would love to see a low hanging, orange sun over the city in the backround once in a while(If you think that is silly you are wrong). Of course you should always be able to turn it off or modify it. If you lack the resources to get hold of pictures; use the community!

Which brings me to another point; There is absolutely no sense of time passing in game! This point is about culture and it's about atmosphere. This is far more important than you obviously think it is, not only because the game is all about time passing. As it is now I click continue and I see a short calendar that disappears when done loading and that's about it.  It's fine day to day, but there is no sense of change. I would also like to see a difference in day and evening. When playing a game in evenings in champions league or a late game in La Liga - those should bring about a bit of a different feel than other matches. The same with finals(the only thing indicating a final is special is some confetti at the end of the match in game).  But I'm not talking about the game engine, but the look of the general dashboard views.

This does not need to be done on the nose. Allthough a small picture in one corner with a sun/moon dotted with time and weather would help. A daytime picture of a stadium and a nighttime picture as backgroud could work also(or something more subtle or artistic). The same with a bit of change for each season(spring, summer, fall, winter).

I have no idea what "boxing day" is, but I would like to see info on that in game, not on wikipedia. I'm sure there are many such culture specific words and traditions in each of the big leagues. Furthermore, it would add to a feeling of importance that thus would be different in each league. The FA cup is big in England, but I don't feel that in game at all.

A sense of time is important, but what is unique is a sense of time and space. That is why I want to see markers for time of day and season(fall, summer etc). Add a map where we can see where the next game is going to be played, and you have a much better sense of propulsion throughout each playthrough. You can have one general map of europe and one more detailed for each of the big leagues. Before each game you see a small cutout highlighting the city where the game takes place, Click it to see the bigger map with all the cities in the league.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.