Europa League? where are you?

[git2thachoppa]

Ah Man City finally get a relatively easy group.

Man Utd's group is the kind of group that gets a manager finally sacked. I thought Mourinho would stick around, but walking out of press conferences only happens when a manager is going to be sacked or 'not kept on' by the end of the season. I think of Van Gaal, McClaren, Pep anyway

[Rien102]

If any of you guys knows anything about Canonbury district in London, could you send me a shout please?  It would be appreciated...  I would need it for my story...

Cheers

Benoit Lacombe a.k.a. rien102

[CFuller]

I do wish I could help you here, Benoit. Even though Canonbury's in north London, and I'm an Arsenal fan, I'm not familiar with the area. (I'm from east London.) 

[Diego Imposta]

8 hours ago, CFuller said:

I do wish I could help you here, Benoit. Even though Canonbury's in north London, and I'm an Arsenal fan, I'm not familiar with the area. (I'm from east London.) 

I was born in east London (also a gunner, must have been the local boys playing at Highbury at the time) and never heard of Canonbury until today. I would imagine you wouldn’t know you were out of Islington until Stoke Newington though? 

[Rien102]

il y a une heure, Diego Imposta a dit :

Islington

That station is in Canonbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highbury_%26_Islington_station . 

il y a une heure, Diego Imposta a dit :

never heard of Canonbury until today

what would be the name used then? Do you guys use the name of the borough only?  Than it would be Islington..., Canonbury is a district in borough of Islington... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonbury

[Diego Imposta]

8 minutes ago, Rien102 said:

That station is in Canonbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highbury_%26_Islington_station . 

what would be the name used then? Do you guys use the name of the borough only?  Than it would be Islington..., Canonbury is a district in borough of Islington... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonbury

You get some really loose areas in London, not as clear as say arrondissements, so while it is Canonbury you might find it’s more of a suburb that people live in rather than anywhere you would choose to visit/have a night out (Islington and Stoke Newington are). Sorry I can’t be much help!

[git2thachoppa]

Discuss.

[Diego Imposta]

Anyone else going to get FM19? I'm going nowhere fast in Spain and will look to tie a knot in that save over the next few weeks. Licensed Bundesliga/appalling World Cup for Germany sounds like a great way to reinvent myself and try again

[CFuller]

I probably will buy FM19, after skipping FM18.

The plan is to start with a short-term save at Fiorentina during the beta, and hopefully bring take them back to the top. It's been far too long since I managed in Italy - in fact, I haven't been there since the CM era.

After that, I'm planning a longer save with Shrewsbury. It's coming up to 20 years since I started playing this series, so what better place to celebrate that milestone than by returning to my first club (in the CM3 demo)?

[mark wilson27]

On 22/09/2018 at 23:34, git2thachoppa said:

Discuss.

And that is why he left United

[mark wilson27]

As for FM19, I will be getting it (Only because the missus is buying me a new laptop for my 40th) and will have to go for an England national save as always. Then will probably try for another career save as I've really enjoyed the one I'm doing at the moment.

It would of course be rude for me not to do a 15-1 style story with you lot again

[Diego Imposta]

42 minutes ago, mark wilson27 said:

As for FM19, I will be getting it (Only because the missus is buying me a new laptop for my 40th) and will have to go for an England national save as always. Then will probably try for another career save as I've really enjoyed the one I'm doing at the moment.

It would of course be rude for me not to do a 15-1 style story with you lot again

I've been catching up on a lot of the shorter stories of late - waiting with bated breath to see if my consistently dire Imposters can topple tenthree in the cup final!

[mark wilson27]

Five hours left to get your votes in for the FMS Awards. Quite a low turn out this year

[CFuller]

It was quite a low turnout last year as well. 

I know FMS is a small part of the SI Community nowadays (certainly compared to FM Career Updates), but for only 6(?) to vote in the annual awards is very disappointing. If 13 people vote in the Preliminary Round, but less than half can be bothered to vote in the Final Round, something is not quite right.

I will at the very least be hoping for a decent turnout at Sunday's awards ceremony (even though I will have one eye on the World Grand Prix darts tournament). It wouldn't feel right if it was just Mark, 10-3 and me talking between ourselves for a couple of hours again.

[Rien102]

For FM19, I should wait a very bit (i.e. last update) if I ever by it.  Will most probably wait for next one.  I came to FM with FM16, skipped FM17 and got FM18 only because of the Dynamics tree...For FM19, I should wait a very bit (i.e. last update) if I ever by it.  Will most probably wait for next one.  I came to FM with FM16, skipped FM17 and got FM18 only because of the team tree...

EDIT:  I have to admit that the, in my opinion, extremely poor UI of FM18 is making me pause a lot and to get FM19, very significant UI changes would need to come in and make me buy it because of an irepressible itch...

il y a 26 minutes, CFuller a dit :

I will at the very least be hoping for a decent turnout at Sunday's awards ceremony

I will try my very best but got a family event...  Will make sure to at least drop by to say hello but you know the drill with family..

 

Stupid question: Sunday 30th September 20:00 BST ... BST=GMT?

[mark wilson27]

It becomes GMT on October 28th 

[Rien102]

il y a 2 minutes, mark wilson27 a dit :

It becomes GMT on October 28th  

ok, so BST is 5 hours in front of North America East coast

[CFuller]

Just now, Rien102 said:

ok, so BST at the moment is 20h24?

Yes. So 20:00 BST would be 15:00 in Quebec, I believe.

[mark wilson27]

 

1 minute ago, Rien102 said:

ok, so BST at the moment is 20h24?

yes mate

 

[Rien102]

à l’instant, mark wilson27 a dit :

yes mate

Mr. Wilson let out his Australian heritage? lol

[Rien102]

sorry, couldn't resist!  Yesterday, while zapping before going to bed, I stumbled on Corcodile Dundee! :P 

[mark wilson27]

Just now, Rien102 said:

sorry, couldn't resist!  Yesterday, while zapping before going to bed, I stumbled on Corcodile Dundee! :P 

Crocodile Dundee is one of my favourite films

[CFuller]

9 minutes ago, Rien102 said:

EDIT:  I have to admit that the, in my opinion, extremely poor UI of FM18 is making me pause a lot and to get FM19, very significant UI changes would need to come in and make me buy it because of an irepressible itch...

I also found the user interface in FM18 very annoying when playing the demo, It was one of the big reasons why I skipped a version, having bought the previous three.

1 minute ago, Rien102 said:

Mr. Wilson let out his Australian heritage? lol

We say "mate" a lot in England as well, particularly in my neck of the woods in the south-east.

[Rien102]

Almost went into my Simspons box of DVDs just to get the episode when they go to Australia!  "You call that a knife? THIS is a knife!» and Bart to respond: «That's not a knife, it's a spoon!"

[Rien102]

il y a 1 minute, CFuller a dit :

I also found the user interface in FM18 very annoying

UI was really bad but, it got combined with UX a lot too (i.e. User eXperience) when you need to do zillions of clicks just to go back to the match after changing something in your tactic, etc...

[Rien102]

And just for the record, I have a fair number of Aussies and Kiwis as friends (thank you p2p gaming) and I love those blokes a lot!  When you want to have fun, they are a great bunch to have in your corner of the bar, lol  Almost like the Irish when it comes to drinking Guiness!

[WLKRAS]

2 hours ago, CFuller said:

It was quite a low turnout last year as well. 

I know FMS is a small part of the SI Community nowadays (certainly compared to FM Career Updates), but for only 6(?) to vote in the annual awards is very disappointing. If 13 people vote in the Preliminary Round, but less than half can be bothered to vote in the Final Round, something is not quite right.

I will at the very least be hoping for a decent turnout at Sunday's awards ceremony (even though I will have one eye on the World Grand Prix darts tournament). It wouldn't feel right if it was just Mark, 10-3 and me talking between ourselves for a couple of hours again.

I'll admit that I don't have the time any more to read much of the works on here, which is a shame, but it doesn't feel right to vote for things when I don't know which is good and which isn't. As for writing, God, I wish!

Might be able to pop in for the awards though

[mark wilson27]

Anyone got  a potential humourous title stroke venue for the Awards Venue

git2dachoppa came up with a good one, lets have a few more ideas

[Diego Imposta]

Live from Maurizio Sarri’s smoking room?

[EvilDave]

I won't be able to be around on Sunday night (church events) but I can see the Salisbury Cathedral Tea Room and Gift Shop being an ideal location. Or if that's a little too political, the Jose Mourinho Centre for Relationship Counselling...

[mark wilson27]

3 hours ago, EvilDave said:

I won't be able to be around on Sunday night (church events) but I can see the Salisbury Cathedral Tea Room and Gift Shop being an ideal location. Or if that's a little too political, the Jose Mourinho Centre for Relationship Counselling...

Hahaha...nothing too political round here...Like both ideas.

Don't worry about not being around, I'm sure you'll catch up with events once everything is sorted

[BenArsenal]

'Ello mates.

Am I too late for the awards?

I'm back in Singapore this week so might have time to pop by for a bit.

EDIT: Sorry I missed the voting. I usually support things like these but being in China makes Internet access a bit difficult. Sorry @mark wilson27

[mark wilson27]

No worries @BenArsenal, for the voting you are late but the ceremony isnt till Sunday 30th September 20:00 BST

[mark wilson27]

Its awards day.... see you all at 8pm

[CFuller]

Well... I feared for a moment that I would have to miss tonight's ceremony. Not only did I plan to watch a darts tournament on TV this evening, my desktop computer chose today of all days to keep freezing when booting up.  Thankfully, I've managed to fix it without having to reinstall Windows.

As you were.

[mark wilson27]

6 minutes ago, CFuller said:

Well... I feared for a moment that I would have to miss tonight's ceremony. Not only did I plan to watch a darts tournament on TV this evening, my desktop computer chose today of all days to keep freezing when booting up.  Thankfully, I've managed to fix it without having to reinstall Windows.

As you were.

Thats good Chris, don't think it will be that interesting with just me there

[Diego Imposta]

Just chugging a Robert Lewandowksi energy drink to make sure I’m awake for it

[mark wilson27]

Regarding the Awards last night....Next year we will be only having a preliminary round for the Story of the Year and the Hall of Fame.

It seemed that when a few knew that their story wasnt in the running they decided not to vote.

Thanks to those that attended the ceremony

If anyone has any ideas to bring to the table let me know

[CFuller]

That's FM19 pre-ordered. Can't wait. 

9 hours ago, mark wilson27 said:

Regarding the Awards last night....Next year we will be only having a preliminary round for the Story of the Year and the Hall of Fame.

Sounds like a good idea to me. By all means keep the final Story of the Year vote down to the very best, but it makes no sense to have prelims for some categories that have few nominees. From what I could gather, there were only four stories that were even eligible for Short Story of the Year this time around.

Will those preliminary rounds for SotY and the Hall of Fame be separate - like they were this year - or will we do them at the same time?

[git2thachoppa]

9 hours ago, mark wilson27 said:

Regarding the Awards last night....Next year we will be only having a preliminary round for the Story of the Year and the Hall of Fame.

It seemed that when a few knew that their story wasnt in the running they decided not to vote.

Thanks to those that attended the ceremony

If anyone has any ideas to bring to the table let me know

More votes in the preliminary and barely any in the final was a problem the year before. The more 'casual' participants aren't gonna like voting and then being told thanks but vote again. I would've taken their preliminary vote as their final vote also, or just had one vote.

And I've always thought having to vote to be eligible to be awarded/voted for was iffy and inclusive.

Just being really honest here but there was so much talk last year about things we need to do to improve to Make The Awards Great Again, and then every suggestion was brushed off as basically being against tradition, and then we got like 4 people voting in the final round this year (and probably the same names as every year).

[mark wilson27]

I have to disagree with the comment about every suggestion being brushed off and ignored.

The whole preliminary round was asked for to whittle down the number of stories in each catergory.

A few catergories were lost after people said there was no need for them

One vote per catergory was brought in as requested.

Only one of those wont be returning next year amd thats the preliminary round for all the awards.

The rule of if you dont vote you dont win is to encourage peole go vote, this year two people didnt get through the preliminaries because they didng vote and one lost out on a shared award i  the main due to not voting.  For md that rule works and has worked for all the time I havd been here. Its one tgat will only change if all the mods on this part of ths forum agree.

It did used to be alot stricter in previous years.

 

[Diego Imposta]

What’s the chance of adding polls to the forum, say amending the options quarterly?

I think mods should choose the entrants and categories as the selection committee if you like, and let people be able to amend their votes (I think it’s proboards that does that?) and choose which categories they want to vote in. If you get to a position where there are no votes in a category then the committee decide the winner.

Or maybe move the awards to when there’s the most traffic on the forum which I’m guessing is release day onwards. 

[git2thachoppa]

4 hours ago, Diego Imposta said:

What’s the chance of adding polls to the forum, say amending the options quarterly?

I think mods should choose the entrants and categories as the selection committee if you like, and let people be able to amend their votes (I think it’s proboards that does that?) and choose which categories they want to vote in. If you get to a position where there are no votes in a category then the committee decide the winner.

Or maybe move the awards to when there’s the most traffic on the forum which I’m guessing is release day onwards. 

I'm not sure I like the idea of a 'committee', but the same few people are voting already so we kinda already have that.

How many stories are made in a year? I wonder if it's few enough to just include every story.

[CFuller]

3 minutes ago, git2thachoppa said:

I'm not sure I like the idea of a 'committee', but the same few people are voting already so we kinda already have that.

How many stories are made in a year? I wonder if it's few enough to just include every story.

A quick count tells me that ~60 stories (not including competitions, YouTube redirects or very quick career summaries) have been started on FMS in the past year, many of which have not got beyond a few posts.

[git2thachoppa]

21 minutes ago, CFuller said:

A quick count tells me that ~60 stories (not including competitions, YouTube redirects or very quick career summaries) have been started on FMS in the past year, many of which have not got beyond a few posts.

So I think, once you exclude the non-starters, you could totally just include everyone.

Even for stuff like best story or writer which would have all of them in it, people will know who they're gonna vote for already.

[BenArsenal]

I think part of it is the general decline of FMS in general. It's not a slight against anyone, and those that do work here (Mark especially) do a great job. But I feel that in recent years we've lost quite a bit of people due to general life and stuff (myself included), so it's not hard to see why there's been very little support for things that used to keep this community alive and going.

I'm not sure what will fix it, whether we attempt to win back those we've lost (difficult I reckon) or try to liven the place up by attracting new people. Either way, it won't be easy.

[WLKRAS]

2 hours ago, BenArsenal said:

I think part of it is the general decline of FMS in general. It's not a slight against anyone, and those that do work here (Mark especially) do a great job. But I feel that in recent years we've lost quite a bit of people due to general life and stuff (myself included), so it's not hard to see why there's been very little support for things that used to keep this community alive and going.

 I'm not sure what will fix it, whether we attempt to win back those we've lost (difficult I reckon) or try to liven the place up by attracting new people. Either way, it won't be easy.

I think part of the problem as well is the advancement of the game. The game has expanded massively, which means it has slowed right down (for me anyway). It also doesn't allow for anywhere near as much colour commentary because you can see everything that's happening on the pitch already. Back in the hey-days of text commentary or even 2d, there was still an element of story writers' imagination required to bring the games to life. It's not so hard now and that has probably affected both visitors and writers.

It does allow for more depth in stories, but that slows your writing down even more. Take my last proper story for instance, The Outcast, was 56k words, but didn't get past October of the first season. It's leaves you feeling like there's no progress.

Anyway, that's just my 2p's worth

[Diego Imposta]

11 minutes ago, WLKRAS said:

I think part of the problem as well is the advancement of the game. The game has expanded massively, which means it has slowed right down (for me anyway). It also doesn't allow for anywhere near as much colour commentary because you can see everything that's happening on the pitch already. Back in the hey-days of text commentary or even 2d, there was still an element of story writers' imagination required to bring the games to life. It's not so hard now and that has probably affected both visitors and writers.

It does allow for more depth in stories, but that slows your writing down even more. Take my last proper story for instance, The Outcast, was 56k words, but didn't get past October of the first season. It's leaves you feeling like there's no progress.

Anyway, that's just my 2p's worth

This is all very true. I've loved honouring my first and only save as I've never been able to stick it out before let alone write about it. Maybe the onus is on the writers to find a way around telling the story of the full fat game in manageable chunks, possibly at key points of the season. There's generally not a lot of feedback on this forum either which makes it hard to gauge what people like and what they don't.

Some people play the game then write about it after, which in hindsight is what I should have done. I think it was displaced_seagull who did these great BBC match reports so that's an idea, and I guess you could go down the media route and create opinion pieces in the style of certain websites to change it up a little. Or come up with fan phone-ins, MotD assessments, press conferences etc. Certainly some things I'm thinking of.

[mark wilson27]

On 01/10/2018 at 18:49, CFuller said:

 

Will those preliminary rounds for SotY and the Hall of Fame be separate - like they were this year - or will we do them at the same time?

Sorry Chris, re-read through the last few comments and realised I never answered the question above. I will probably do them at the same time as we wont be doing preliminary rounds for all the categories

[CFuller]

9 hours ago, BenArsenal said:

I think part of it is the general decline of FMS in general. It's not a slight against anyone, and those that do work here (Mark especially) do a great job. But I feel that in recent years we've lost quite a bit of people due to general life and stuff (myself included), so it's not hard to see why there's been very little support for things that used to keep this community alive and going.

That's true, and I would also add that the appeal of purely text-based FM stories is not really there. These days, many FMers who want to share their stories online would perhaps be more keen to use screenshots and even video. Some do that either on FMCU or on their personal blogs; others chronicle their exploits on YouTube and/or Twitch.

The old LLaMa sub-forum died a few years ago, arguably because of its strict rules and unwillingness to change with the times. I don't think FMS will fall by the wayside so gracelessly - indeed, the likes of Diego and Rien102 have breathed new life into it recently - but we can't get complacent. While we must keep the ethos of FMS largely intact, we also mustn't be afraid to adapt.

6 hours ago, Diego Imposta said:

This is all very true. I've loved honouring my first and only save as I've never been able to stick it out before let alone write about it. Maybe the onus is on the writers to find a way around telling the story of the full fat game in manageable chunks, possibly at key points of the season. There's generally not a lot of feedback on this forum either which makes it hard to gauge what people like and what they don't.

Some people play the game then write about it after, which in hindsight is what I should have done. I think it was displaced_seagull who did these great BBC match reports so that's an idea, and I guess you could go down the media route and create opinion pieces in the style of certain websites to change it up a little. Or come up with fan phone-ins, MotD assessments, press conferences etc. Certainly some things I'm thinking of.

That sentence I've bolded is pretty much how I approach my stories. I play a few games in one session, have a break, and then write later.

You also make a good point about writers mixing things up. Excellent writers can comfortably adapt to various styles, and EvilDave is arguably the best example of that. His Owain Williams stories are very different from "Another Final" and "Minnows No More", which in turn are very different from "Idiots Abroad", which in turn is very different from "A Continent From The Couch".

From my perspective, I'm most at home when writing long, first-person match reports, as I do for my FM13 stories. Truth be told, that gets a little tiring and sometimes even repetitive after a while, so I've done different things for other stories of late:

I wrote "Sometimes Love Is Not Enough" more like a book (after reading 'I Believe In Miracles' by Daniel Taylor), but I also heavily incorporated music into the story (after being inspired by the video game 'Life Is Strange'). Quite a few readers seemed to like that originality.

"An Impossible Man" is part comedy, part tragedy, part political satire. The limited feedback I've got on that story in particular has made it hard to gauge whether it's turned out well or not.

One story I'm particularly proud of, though, is "Heart of Asia", where - as @WLKRAS suggested - the text commentary of CM00/01 gave me more creative freedom and allowed my imagination to run wild.

I wrote in my Daggers thread a few days ago that I have no plans for any new stories on FMS. If I do return, I'll probably change things up once again, and maybe even write a much shorter story than you're perhaps used to seeing from me.