The Future Is UFL

Wow it's been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened since! Sadly we witnessed the demise of FML and I wasn't sure how to write a goodbye post, a shame as I really enjoyed FML and writing on this blog.

Anyway, I'm glad to say that we have something bright on the horizon in terms of an MMO Football Management game! Something I am very proud to be working on as well.

Founded out of the ashes of FML, a group of ex-FMLers came together to work towards a new game, titled Ultimate Football Live (UFL). At first many people were skeptical, but recent developments have shown that we are very serious about the project.

We are not aiming to make a copy of FML, of course we will look at FMLs finer points but we are designing the game in a way which will maximise its chance of success.

I also want to note that a company is formed, Netsports Software Ltd and we hope to have a website for it soon.

I just want to list some links of interest:

UFL Website

UFL Forums

UFL Development Blog 

UFL Facebook Group 1 & Group 2

UFL Twitter Page

UFL Chat Room

It's been great to see lots of discussions and feedback on the forums and game development is coming along well. At the moment we are in pre-Alpha stage and the target for the commencement of Alpha Testing is Q3 2011, with Beta following a few months after that hopefully.

For the Alpha testing stage it will mostly consist of the development team, but also those who contribute greatly on the forums may be invited. For Beta, we will certainly be needing many testers and closer to the beginning of Beta testing there will be a Beta signup page on the website.

One thing that I want to mention is that there is still space on the development team. In particular we are after another Java developer, a C++ developer and a Financial Manager. If you feel you could offer anything to the project for any of these roles, or in any other way please contact us here or here.

Lastly I want to show you some screenshots of the Pre-alpha User Interface Layout. 

Would be great to hear more feedback about them in that thread.

Thanks for reading and please come visit us on the forums and help us spread the word about UFL!

World Cup Roundup

Another great night! Thanks to everyone who participated - from the 50 competing managers to everyone who loaned out players or even watched and enjoyed some of the World Cup matches. Congratulations to Dew who led Turkey to winning the World Cup and Jussi who took Austria to the final!

In the end it was an epic 4-2 win for Turkey with Sercan Yildrim scoring a magnificent hat-trick to win it for Turkey!

Prizes below:

Winner - Dew receives 450k
Runner up - Jussi receives 200k
Highest Goalscorer - Pato. Martin and James receive 75k
Highest Assists - Miralem Pjanic. Daevid and Edward receive 75k
Highest Avg Rating - Sergio Aguero. Mark and Alex receive 75k

Best Asian Team Peformance - Israel . John recieves 75k
Best Americas Team Peformance - Argentina. Alex recieves 75k
Best European Team Peformance - France. Stephen. recieves 75k
Best African Team Peformance - Nigeria. Dan recieves 75k

Lucky member from the crowd - Lee Jackson receives 100k

Those who reached expectations:

Turkey - Dew
Austria - Jussi
Russia - Doyun
Nigeria - Dan
Norway - Mark
Slovakia - Jonny
Ireland - Neil
Belarus - Dean
Ukraine - Roy
Seychelles - Danny
Israel - John
Australia - Rob
Switzerland - Olof
Ecuador - Scott
Romania - Ian
Mali -Chris
Liberia - Noel
Central African Republic - Nick
Senegal - Vince
Saudi Arabia - Stu
Jamaica - Malc


Well done guys for reaching your expectations!


That's all for now. Hope you guys enjoyed the WC as I certainly did! Looking forward to the next one in two seasons time... :)

Remaining Teams for the World Cup!

Currently we have 44 managers building their team for the World Cup.

Me along with Louis King decided to check out what teams were remaining as it was often asked. Louis tried to find the best remaining teams available, and I checked how many decent players were available from the country.

Using all players search (checking trial-able free agents and loan-able contracted players) I came up with this list. It only includes players with Signing on Fee greater than 50k. Keep in mind it is not 100% accurate but should be quite close.

For the contracted players I discounted any players who had Early Sale Tax and were either > 25yo or >10k wage.

Paraguay ~ 90
Montenegro ~ 40
South Korea ~ 40
Egypt ~ 50
Hungary ~ 30
Belarus ~ 30
Honduras ~ 75
Cameroon ~ 75
Iran ~ 35
Guinea ~ 23
Tunisia ~ 27
South Africa ~ 46
Peru ~ 129
New Zealand ~ 7
Morocco ~ 47
Senegal ~ 58
Finland ~ 30

Let me know if you want to control a team! :)

Information about Nunez World Cup!

This is mainly for those who are in Nunez and keen to participate in the World Cup on Sunday night!

Bidding For a Country:

Up until 8PM tonight (8th April) you may bid for any nation you choose.

Between 7PM and 8PM tonight (8th April) live auctions will be held for 6 nations:

        - 7.00PM Germany.

        - 7.10PM Spain.

        - 7.20PM France.

        - 7.30PM Argentina.

        - 7.40PM Brazil.

        - 7.50PM England.

Keep in mind that if you can't be online for the live auction you can still mail me a pre-bid for these countries :)

You can bid in this format:


1st. England - 900k RP
2nd. Australia - 300k RP
3rd. Senegal - 30k RP

If you are the only team bidding for a certain country, you sign them for 50k RP!

If there are multiple teams, you pay what you bid!

After the teams have been announced, any manager-less nation may be automatically signed for 50k RP!

Teams will be announced at around 8.15PM tonight, 8th April.

Making Your Team


Once all the teams have been announced you can begin making your team which can consist of your own players, trialists or loans.


Anyone who is loaned for the World Cup will have their loan cancelled promptly after the WC finishes so they can rejoin their club team.


I recommend you make loan bids at 0% wage. Also, it may be wise to talk to the manager you are trying to loan from. If they know that it's only for the WC they are more likely to loan out their players :)


Unfortunately due to loan restrictions (28 days, over 10k wage etc) their is a chance some of the top players from your country may not be able to participate. A real shame I know but don't worry as everyone will be in the same position!

Preparing for the World Cup


As soon have you made a squad of at least 14 players from your country, please mail me so I can send you an invite to the competition.

PLEASE make sure you have set up a separate squad for the WC and set the correct squad when you enter the competition. We will check every team however it makes life so much easier if you set it up correctly :)

If your team is not ready by Sunday afternoon there is a chance you may be removed from the competition!

World Cup Kick-Off


The World Cup will kick-off at 8PM on Sunday night.

There will be a significant CASH prize fund, depending on how many teams enter the competition!

For every team that enters, 30k will be added to the prize fund. Last WC the prize fund was 1.3m.

The breakdown of money from last WC:


Winner recieves 400k
Runner up recieves 200k
Highest Goalscorer (player) receives 100k
Highest Assists (player) receives 100k
Highest Avg Rating (player) recieves 100k
Best Asian Team Peformance recieves 75k
Best Americas Team Peformance recieves 75k
Best European Team Peformance recieves 75k
Best African Team Peformance recieves 75k

One lucky member of the crowd won 100k!

Also, for every player of your team who plays in the World Cup final, you will earn 1 IFA point... Up to a max of 5. However potentially your FA could win 32 IFA points through this!

Lastly, I will send out a mail of FA expectation for your country. If you reach them, you will be refunded the RP you bid to get them :)

All in all, the originial Nunez World Cup was a great success and an awesome night. Please take part and see how well you can do! Anymore questions, please mail me!

Season 10 Review

What a disappointing season!

After being relegated the season before I was quite sure I could bounce straight back up to the Premier League :(

After a very promising start I managed 10th position in the Championship with a 17-10-13 W-D-L ratio. The star of my season was my favourite Iranian Striker, Vahid Amraei:

Sadly I think we're nearing the end of an era, for Keisuke Honda, and soon, Takayuki Morimoto. They are 34yo and 32yo respectively and both of them had poor seasons compared to previous ones. It was actually a tough decision to decide whether or not I should re-sign Honda! However after considering his attributes are still very good, his wage is only 8k yet has World Famous reputation and that he's one of my two favourite players in South Pacific Striker's history, I decided to keep him!

After realising how old these guys were getting, I decided to check the rest of my team only to find it even more worrying!

If I kept my starting 11 from last season, this is what I was looking at:

1 x 34yo
2 x 33yo
1 x 32yo
1 x 31yo
1 x 30yo
2 x 29yo
1 x 24yo
1 x 26yo
1 x 22yo

With two 29yo on the bench. 

After seeing this, I realised it was time for some major team overhauling!

Not long after, I received a great bid for one of my best youth prospects, Vladimir Akbarov. It was a very tough choice to accept but I'm hoping that my games record holder Jin-Woo Jang can have a great season as keeper :)

Apart from Arkabov I do have some nice kids coming through to the first team.

22yo D/M L - Ian Smith

22yo ST -  Danny Fleming

20yo DC - Yushi Endo

 21yo ST - Tatsuya Takenaka

These four will hopefully play a lot this season - how odd that they all are left footers! 

I've also got quite a few good younger kids coming through, will be interesting to see if any of them can break into the first team. 

Season 11 Expectations:

- Gain promotion to the Premier League, I don't care if I finish 1st or 5th.

- Reach the final of the U17 Champions Cup.

- Ensure qualification of U21/U19/U17 teams to the Champions Cup of each age level for the following season.

- Continue to develop and bring as many kids through the first team.

 

New FML Blog!

Just found out Abdul, one of my good friends from the beta GW Miller has begun writing an FML Blog: http://thesundayfootballerstimes.blogspot.com.

He certainly knows a lot about FML so I am looking forward to seeing what he has to say about the game... :)

10 useful yet often unknown features of FML

Overall Progression View Tab

This view tab is very useful when you want to find out how your players are developing. It's especially cool as it can give you a hint that your player is close to reaching his potential - for example if his overall progression shows as dark green for a long time, and then drops down to yellow, you know that he's near his peak. You can find this view under customise view - attributes - overall progression. Keep in mind that as soon as you have signed him he will start on 'okay' - this will hopefully change after 10-15 days.

Email Alert

If there is a certain type of mail you want to receive however you can't sign on, then this is perfect for that. It allows you to filter what type of mail you would like to receive to your email, so it doesn't overload your inbox. For example, I get the news item about any youth academy graduates I get. I can then read them on my phone at work :)

Include Other Players

This is useful if you want to see all of your players on one page. Maybe you want to see a list of all u18s in your team, or would like to compare players from different squads. Of course you can do this by using All Player search, but I find this quicker. My main use for this is when checking another managers team, I can click include other players and then filter for Asian nationality.

Role Filter and Show Filter Columns

One of my favourites. Great if you need to quickly work out who the best player on your team is for a certain position. You can even then save views for each position - eg. ST, GK, DC etc.

Archived Mail


Because of time difference, I used to lose track of a lot of mail when I signed in after midnight. Then I noticed there was an archived mail tab which stored all the previous weeks mail which I now check every day.

Leaving Managers


I very very rarely bid on players in wage auction who are from managers who are not deactivated. So an easy way to see who has recently deactivated is to check the mail item you get about the manager leaving UFFA. For me, it shows in the ignored folder but I am not sure if it set to ignored by default.  Either way, you can filter for it easily - as seen in the screenshot below.

Minimise To Tray


I always wondered what this setting meant until I found out that when you minimse the game, it hides it from the taskbar. Very useful if you want to play FML at work/school and not get caught :)

Transfer Alerts


Transfer Alerts are really useful if you don't want to check Transfer Auctions/Transfer List/Loan List all the time yet you want to see the good players who appear on these lists. You can filter the players however you like.

Contract Renewal and Projected Income


As you know, in FML it's not your current cash that matters, it's your projected income. During the season you may be eying a great signing, however not have enough projected cash to make a bid. What you can do is turn off the contract renewal on some high waged players for a few days so you have enough projected money to make the bid. It's important to turn the contracts back on as soon as you can however because you don't want to spend too much and then not have enough money to renew contracts when they expire... :)

Orging Competitions


The last one of the list is primarily for FA organisers. One really time consuming thing can be checking squads for official competitions. The first screenshot shows how you can very quickly check to make sure each team has enough players specifically for the competition. The second screenshots shows you how to make sure that   the manager has picked the correct squad for entering into a specific competition - this is particularly useful when hosting a World Cup or other community event.

Skill Re-Spec Info!

As I discussed in this post, 1.7 seems to be not far away. 

One of the big features is the skill re-spec where you can completely redistribute all your skill points.

Now the tough question is where to specialise in, especially considering that Coaching/Scouting Reports are coming in, and replacing Judging Potential.

I've decided to attach imagesto show how long it takes to learn some of the important skills. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Management:

Physiotherapy:                                

Coaching:

Scouting:

6 Youth Academies:

Hopefully you will be able to look at those screenshots and have a rough idea of what you can afford, and what you can't. 

Don't forget that you can only specialise in two fields. For any skill-set you are not specialised in, any skill of 4 or higher takes 5 times as many points to learn.

For example, Scouting Level 5 would cost 2,000,000 skill points if you have specialised in scouting. If you have not specialised in scouting, it will cost you 10,000,000 points.


I joined Nunez on the 18th July 2010 during the first season and I have around 9,500,000 skill points.


I am really keen to get Judging Potential Progression Level 5 so I will get that and as high in Academy Expansion as possible. Anything left over will go toward Coaching :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is some info about the new skills coming in 1.7:

Player Report Suitability - Each level of this skill grants an increase in the accuracy of the Roles component of a player report whenever a Scouting report is undertaken.


Level 1 : 2.50% Boost
Level 2 : 5.00% Boost
Level 3 : 7.50% Boost
Level 4 : 12.50% Boost
Level 5 : 25.00% Boost

Coaching Report Efficiency - Learning this skill will grant a 10 % reduction the amount of time it takes to compile or refresh a coaching report.

Injury Analysis - Improves the accuracy of identifying the amount of games your player will be out injured for.

Level 1 : 10.00% Boost

Level 2 : 20.00% Boost

Level 3 : 30.00% Boost

Level 4 : 50.00% Boost

Level 5 : 100.00% Boost

Injury Proneness - Each level of this skill grants an increase in the accuracy of the Injury Proneness component of a player report.

Level 1 : 5.00% Boost

Level 2 : 10.00% Boost

Level 3 : 15.00% Boost

Level 4 : 25.00% Boost

Level 5 : 50.00% Boost

Judging Potential Progression - Each level of this skill grants an increase in the accuracy of the potential component of a player report. From 75% accurate. 

Level 1 : 2.50% Boost

Level 2 : 5.00% Boost

Level 3 : 7.50% Boost

Level 4 : 12.50% Boost

Level 5 : 25.00% Boost

Judging Relative Ability - Each level of this skill grants an increase in the accuracy of the ability component of a player report. From 75% accurate.

Level 1 : 2.50% Boost

Level 2 : 5.00% Boost

Level 3 : 7.50% Boost

Level 4 : 12.50% Boost

Level 5 : 25.00% Boost

Scouting Report Efficiency - Learning this skill will grant a 10 % reduction the amount of time it takes to compile or refresh a scouting report.

Interested Clubs - Increases the accuracy of the interested clubs component of a player report. From 50% accurate.

Level 1 : 5.00% Adjustment

Level 2 : 10.00% Adjustment

Level 3 : 15.00% Adjustment

Level 4 : 25.00% Adjustment

Level 5 : 50.00% Adjustment

Reputation Impact - Increases the accuracy of the reputation impact component of a player report. From 50% accurate.

Level 1 : 5.00% Adjustment

Level 2 : 10.00% Adjustment

Level 3 : 15.00% Adjustment

Level 4 : 25.00% Adjustment

Level 5 : 50.00% Adjustment

Personality - Each level of this skill grants an increase in the accuracy of the Personality component of a player report.

Level 1 : 2.50% Boost

Level 2 : 5.00% Boost

Level 3 : 7.50% Boost

Level 4 : 12.50% Boost

Level 5 : 25.00% Boost

Also please consider that due to these features still being in the beta stage, there is a slim chance that they may not be making it to live or may be changed.

Great Post

Was just reading the FML forums when I came across this thread http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/260264-To-stop-countless-managers-leaving-we-need-something-FUN-to-DO-(a-few-suggestions)  by StewartDowning1.

I cannot agree with it more, we really really need more fun things to do in game.

Some of the suggestions I liked the most were:

- International / FA teams: not a new idea but just about everyone wants this. Allow people to bid for the nation or be randomly assigned it and then be allowed a time perdiod (off season?) to pick players from any team without permission to play in the country's / FA's team.


- Fan expectations: a bit like board expectations on FM offline but there are no harsh consequences if you fail to meet these (unless maybe the attendance goes down a small percentage). In my opinion this idea has real potential: it could give that struggling newbie something to aim for to stop them quitting. Maybe have targets of:
- Sign an exciting young prospect
- Play attractive football.
- Finish atleast 2 places higher than last season.
- Have atleast 500k to spend.
- Improve stadium advertising boards
The targets would differ depending on how well the club is performing.


- Create a player: even if it's just giving him a name, nationality and position it would still be fun watching him blossom or falter.

- New fun community competitions: an example: your team and your friends team are in a league with 6 other pairs. Your points total and your friends points total are added together. Another example: you are in a league of 16 and randomly paired with another team. You play everyone like normal but you only progress into the next round if you got more points than your pair.

- Make players younger: create 11 year olds with no potential shown and allow managers to spend hours and hours scouring the database trying to find the next Messi as a 13 year old.

- Allow different club types: feeder clubs, galacticos, youngsters. Have different skills, budgets, expectations and challenges that go with it.

- Friendly FA's (clans): allow managers to set up a non official FA with their friends which is set up the same way as a normal FA.

- Make reward points mean something: add +1 to a stat on a player, allow another academy graduate, quicker time to learn skill, decrease player age by a year etc.


There is so many more and many that I would love to see in the game. Hopefully SI looks to add more 'fun' things to the game as it is what we desperately need. Once again a credit to StewartDowning1 for writing this post!

Nunez Website!

Just wanted to write a quick post to show Nunez's own website: http://www.nunezchronicle.com/.

It looks very well done and a credit to Lance of Nunez who did it all himself. Now we just need some more people to write for it :)

Theme Teams

Hi all, thought I might write a post about theme teams as that is what I am currently doing in Nunez (well since I joined 8 months ago!) - being an Asia/Pacific only team.

Why bother making a theme team?

- GREAT challenge. Tests your managerial ability in terms of tactics, transfers and getting the best out of what you have access too.

- A lot of fun! Maybe you need a change from a conventional team and this is a great thing to try.

- A much greater attachment to your players. No longer can you simply sell your out of form striker and replace with a similar one for a similar price. You must appreciate every good player that plays for your team and especially those who you bring up from your youth team.

- Respect from other managers. 1) Many managers in your GW will realise the challenge you are undertaking and hopefully be impressed by how well you do. 2) Often I get managers offering me "first option" on their Asian/Pacific players or even occasionally loaning me a first teamer!

Tips for making a theme team


- ENJOY IT :)

- Set up crucial filters and views; for example I have:
       - General filter consisting of Asian/Pacific players only.
       - Filter on All Players consisting of Asian/Pacific players only + Manager is online.
       - Filter on All Players consisting of Asian/Pacific u16 Free Agents as discussed in my previous post.
       - Filter on All Players consisting of Asian/Pacific players with expiring contracts.
       - Filter on Gameworld Transfers showing fresh Asian/Pacific graduates.
       - "Target" view.

       - "Development" view.
       - "Performance" view.
       - "Expiry" view.
       - Views for each position based off the "role filter" under the filter section.

If you would like screenshots/info about any of these filters/views please let me know :)


- Choose a theme you have a connection with!! Maybe that might be England, Ghana, Eastern Europe or even Bradford City.

- Have realistic targets, maybe plan to reach the championship by a certain season. If you can reach it, you will be greatly satisfied :) I've found that it's very tough for me to cement my spot as a top team in the Premier League. Right now I'm in the Championship and want to cement myself as a top 10 PL team within 3 seasons.

- CHECK U16 FREE AGENT LIST AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN, for players who fit your requirements.

- Build relationships with any managers who have a youth academy which fits into your theme. A good chance you can work out an agreement for example first option, or loaning/assessing exchange.

- Set an expiry filter which shows players with Contract Auto Renewal set to "None". If you see someone good, keep an eye on their wage auction. If no one bids, don't bid and let him go to the Free Agent list. You will notice that (for the majority of players) his value and wage demand will drop every day which makes it much cheaper for you to sign :) However keep an eye on his retirement date!


- Go to FM Live - Preferences - Communications - Transfer Alerts and set up transfer alerts! For example I filter it to Asian/Pacific nationality and SoF > 50k. This will send you a mail message if anyone who matches the filter is placed in auction, transfer list or loan list. Very useful and underused feature!

- Choose the right skill specialisations. For me, that means Infrastructure and Scouting - infrastructure will help you get kids from wherever you need and high level scouting will allow you to bid on more free agents and unlock the judging potential skillset. A case can be made for any of the other skill sets to specialise in, however I think these two add the most to a theme team.

- Search all players often using your filters and views to see if there are any decent players floating around.


I'm sure there are many more things to add but I can't think of many more important things at this time, I hope you enjoyed reading and all the best with your team!! Feel free to contact me if you need any help or have any questions. :)

Running Two FML Clients on Windows XP

1. Make sure that show hidden folders is enabled. Follow these steps:

Select Start Menu - Click Control Panel - Select "Classic View" - Click "Folder Options" - Select "View" tab - Select "Show hidden files, folders, or drives"

2. Find the Football Manager Live folder in Application Data.

Go inside these folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\Application Data\Sports Interactive\Football Manager Live 

*Your actual username will replace "Tom".


3. Make a copy of fml_live_v1.

You should see the folder "fml_live_v1" - copy it to the same folder "Football Manager Live" and rename the copy "fml_live_v2" or whatever you would like to name it.

Make sure FML is closed or it won't let you copy the files 

4. Go into each of these two folders separately and locate "fml.exe".

Example: C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\Application Data\Sports Interactive\Football Manager Live\fml_live_v1\add_ons\client\app_6205

IMPORTANT: Make sure you find "fml.exe" and not "fml_launcher.exe" and that you choose "app_6205" folder 

5. Create Shortcut


For each "fml.exe", right click on them and select "Create Desktop Shortcut". 
Should be all done and easily accessed by clicking the shortcut.

Looking Toward 1.7!

FML updates seem to have gone stagnate over the last couple months however it appears that 1.7 is reasonably close to release as it is finally being tested in the second beta GW. Historically, soon after appearing in Coppell the update has made it to live.

1.7 has been long awaited and it has two headline features Scouting Reports (instead of JP) and a Skill Re-Spec.

Scouting Reports

There are some very interesting and useful pieces of information that these reports offer:

- Informs us of the players best 3 roles in order or suitability.
- Gives us an insight of the players character through their personality and injury proneness.
- Overall ability ranking dependent on position and age group. For example, you can find out who your 3rd best U18 MC is.
- Potential. I much prefer this to the old JP. There are around 7 levels of potential ranging from Bags of Room to Grow to Past His Best.
- Gives an idea on how many clubs are interested in the player.
- Informs us of how close the player is dropping/rising a rep level.

In my opinion the first four pieces of information are pretty damn awesome!

You can also view this information on the squad view page.

Skill Re-Spec


Due to changes to infrastructure and other skill-sets, SI have thought it would be fair to let managers redistribute their skill points.

Not much else to say except that I am glad that we are going to have the chance to do so :)

Special thanks to SI who let me blog about 1.7 and David Pasztor from Miller who sent me the screenshots. 


Also please consider that due to these features still being in the beta stage, there is a slim chance that they may not making it to live or be changed.

Woo!

One of the best parts of the week in FML is the weekly graduates - for us in Nunez it is Monday at midnight. The lobby gets very excited leading up to it and as soon as the graduates come out every loves to show and compare who has graduated from their academy. Unfortunately for me the last few weeks I've had to work during this time - due to time difference. 

Instead of having to wait 8 hours to see the potential of the players I got, I get those specific news items sent to my email which I view on my phone. I find this is a very useful (and I'm sure underused!) feature in FML. To set it up, you need to go to FM Live at the top - Communications - General - Email News Items. As you can see in the screenshot you can filter exactly what types of news items you want to receive, so it won't clog up your mail box. 

Anyway to my delight I signed Jong-Kyung Woo this morning. A 4.5* 16yo South Korean AMC with awesome attributes for his age. I'm sure he will turn out great!!

Legendary Badgemaker!

I just wanted to write a post to thank Dean Au from Nunez for his efforts of creating my team a badge and a banner for this blog! I think both are great and Dean has been doing it for a while for the people of Nunez.

To see more of his work, go to this link: http://s1109.photobucket.com/albums/h440/dau1980/FML%20Badges/

Future of Football Manager Live

As it stands, FML is a great game however as an MMO it should always be continually developed and improved. Here are some of my thoughts:

Things SI could bring in from FM11:


- Assistant manager feedback during matches

In FM11 the computer-controlled assistant manager offers its thoughts and advice about the team.

During a match your assistant manager gives you feedback based on the opposition team and the performance of your players.

This type of information is INVALUABLE. A lot of people have complaints about the match engine and I have a strong feeling that giving managers more understanding of results and performances would go a long way into alleviating these issues. Also, more managers may consider to build their own tactics rather than copying them from somewhere on the forums if the assistant can give constructive advice on how to improve the team.

- Team talk feedback


I know that you can view team talk feedback during each match, however often I click away without checking. A good idea would be to have a page which shows the feedback from the players of your last team talk.

- Team Report 

I LOVE reading the team report page where your assistant lists the best 11 and gives each a star rating based on how good they are. Not only that, but they outline the best players from Defence/Midfield/Attack and give you a recommendation on who to sign if you have a big weakness in your squad.

In FM11 they offer a report for your senior and youth teams, and I think it would be great if they offered Senior/U21/U20/U19/U18/U17 team reports in FML! Or even better, having a team report page for any squad you create.

- Match Preparation 


New to FM11 are the match preparation screens. The first screenshot shows the three tactics you are working on and what you would like to focus on. At the bottom of the page it has information on your next opposition team including a scout report and information on opposition players.

The second screenshot shows "familiarity levels" for 8 of the tactical instructions. It's rare to see them all maxed out but I've had those tactics left on for a few seasons :)

- Training System


In FM11 you can set training schedules, implement positional and PPM training for players. Why can't we have this in FML!!

It would be great to train up my very skilled and attacking full back to play at MR :)

Other ideas:

- Inter Gameworld matches and chat rooms


Imagine having all the chat rooms we currently have along with an extra one, a universal FML lobby. It would never be quiet :) Would make it very easy to talk to your friends in another GW.

Even better than that would be the ability to challenge people cross-GW! Would be awesome to see who is the best of the best or best in your group of friends.

- FML API


API stands for Application Programming Interface and this would be particularly interesting to those with a blog or website as you could show team information on your web page. And even down the track... Maybe a FML iPhone/Android app could be possible :)

Information about it can be found here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/242470-Football-Manager-Live-API.

- Younger Players


This is from quite an old thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/218571-The-future-of-youth-academies-Discuss!. However the idea of youth players generating at a younger age than 15/16 has always appealed to me greatly. It would be a lot of fun and add another dimension to the game if youth players started off "blank" and you could mold them through the way you train and play them.

- International Management


The biggest idea of them all and the one that could improve the game the most. You can see by the great success of the World Cups throughout the GWs that it would be a massive hit. I will soon write a post about how it could be implemented :)

Running Two FML Clients on Windows 7

1. Locate the appdata folder.

Click the start menu and type %appdata% into the search box.

2. Find the fml_live_v1 folder inside appdata.

From appdata you should go into these folders: 


C:\Users\Tom\AppData\Roaming\Sports Interactive\Football Manager Live\fml_live_v1\add_ons\client\app_6205


Your actual username will replace "Tom".

3. Make a copy of fml_live_v1.

You should see the folder "fml_live_v1" - copy it to the same folder "Football Manager Live" and rename the copy "fml_live_v2" or whatever you would like to name it.

4. Locate fml.exe in each folder.

Go to: Example: C:\Users\Tom\AppData\Roaming\Sports Interactive\Football Manager Live\fml_live_v1\add_ons\client\app_6017

Inside you should see fml.exe

5. Create shortcut.

For each "fml.exe", right click on them and select "Pin To Taskbar" or make them a shortcut however you like.

Vista is similar - good luck and let me know if you have any problems ;)

How to Find and Develop a Strong Youth Team

In order to have a strong youth team there are two important parts; signing/scouting good prospects and then training them as they grew older.

If we look at my team, I have...

- 1 15yo
- 13 16yo
- 23 17yo
- 10 18yo
- 7 19yo
- 5 20yo
- 3 21yo

... all of whom have 4* potential or higher, with Judging Potential 4. Let me explain how I got to this stage.

Finding Good Prospects


Apart from signing graduates from my academies, I spend a lot of time searching the free agent list for "fresh" regens. Fresh in the sense that they have not played and been released by a previous manager. It is important to note that some regens may appear to have had a previous club, however that manager may be now deactivated which is why they are on the free agent list - so don't discount these kinds of players.


How do you find these players then? Two simple things you can do while scouting is to have effective Views and Filters setup:

I will explain my reasoning for some of the View tabs:

Sorted by Free Agent Since. This will make it easier to see which regens are the newest so you don't spend time looking at a player multiple times unnecessarily. I think it is slight bugged however as the times are not exact - but they do show the correct day and sort in exact order so that's good enough for me!

Academy Club. This quickly indicates to me if they have played for another club previously and been released. However, if you see a lot of players from the same Academy Club (likely around off-season) appear on the FA list at the same time, it is likely that it's because the team has deactivated which means it may be worth checking these kids out.

Apps. One for senior and one for youth. Used to quickly see which players have played for another club and been released. The reason I include these in View and not Filter is because a player may have been signed on trial, played some games and not been signed. I don't want to exclude these types of players however if you check the FA list often enough you won't need to worry too much about people trialling players before you see them.

The Filters are pretty self-explanatory, the essential ones being age/free agent/trial. I'm using the region filters as my team is Asia only :)

Picking Good Prospects


- I check the FA list about twice per day and often find 5-6 new Asians each time.

- I trial each new regen for 24 hours and gain a 7% assessment of them.

- I nearly always have all 10 assessment spots used on assessing free agents. It takes 60 hours after the trial to get an initial assessment with JP4.

- If I trial them soon enough I have a good chance of trialling them again before they retire from the GW (if they haven't been signed by another team). At around 20% I cancel the assessment and trial them if I can.

- Based on their ability and assessment I decide whether to bid or not :)

Developing the Prospects


Currently I have 5 U17 squads simply to give games to my unused U17s. I try and make sure each team has friendly fixtures in place ready to be auto-resolved. I try to ensure that EVERY youth has a green progression arrow for the Overall Progression view tab.

I fill my main U17 team subs with players of 4.5* potential or higher so if I'm easily winning matches I can bring them on and hope for a good avg rating.

Another interesting thing you can do is to 'loan-swap' with another youth manager who has JP4 or JP5. This means both of you can get an extra assessment of your players while they are on loan. Having more than one assessment allows you to have greater insight into what his potential is.

If they are ready for the senior team, give them a chance. If not, let them play in youth games and achieve a good rating. 6.8 is the magic number :)

Hope this guide gives you a little insight into finding and developing those youngsters. We all know that bringing kids through into the first team is a great part of FML, however I hope the blog post does not increase the number of managers going for Asian regens in Nunez! ;)

Nunez World Cup

Around 5 weeks ago Nunez hosted the inaugural World Cup which was a huge success. It took a great deal of work, especially by those in the mod team however we can definitely say it was entirely worth it.

What was so special about it?


Triallist World Cups are great fun... but well, you can't use the best players from the Gameworld. The grand idea behind the Nunez World Cup was that you could potentially use ANY player from the GW and this may include your own players, triallists and loaned players. The important factor was that once the World Cup ended (a few hours after kick off), the mods would cancel the loans of the players loaned for the World Cup so that they could rejoin their teams for their club matches.

This was great because it really did mean seeing Household Names and top players playing for their respective countries.

How were the nations allocated?

Another unique feature of the World Cup was that to take control of a nation that you desire, you must bid for them using Reward Points! Often (and rightly so) managers have complained to SI about that lack of usefulness of Reward Points so it was quite cool having a good use for them.

The bidding for the World Cup was split into two stages - live auctions for the top nations and simple closed bidding for the rest. The 6 live auctions spanned from 3pm-8pm and as exciting as the live auctions were, the process has been refined for the next World Cup as it was simply too long and drawn out. To bid for the remaining teams you simply needed to mail the mods with 3 preferences and the amount of Reward Points you would like to bid on each one.

Was their much interest in the World Cup?


Definitely! As soon as the nations and managers were announced (24 hours before kick-off), the managers got right into it. Market Place adverts, General & Transfer Mailing List adverts and lots of chat in the chat rooms. Managers who were not participating in the World Cup even began advertising and offering to loan their own players out which was nice to see.

As off kick-off at 8PM on Sunday night their was 47 managers taking part in the World Cup who were all online. A lot of excitement throughout the comp while England and Norway made the final. Shockingly ( :) ) England were the victors with Big Daddy Cool's team beating Mark Broadbent's Norway 3-1.

That night was the height of activity for Nunez with 130 managers being online at one stage and 45 watching the final. Definitely the greatest experience I've had in FML :)

Future Plans


In my opinion this is a MUST for SI to code into the game, as their is definitely a huge amount of interest for International Management.

SI have said that it may come into the game one day, however have asked us if their is any small things they can do to help improve the running of it which is a great sign.

My First Post!

Hi all! Welcome to my blog.

This is my first attempt at a blog, so bare with me and I hope you enjoy reading it! Anyway my name is Tom and this blog will be covering my Football Manager Live exploits where I will talk about my team, describe my time in FML playing in Nunez and Miller and guides/tips that I decide to write.

Let me talk a little about Nunez, where my main team (South Pacific Strikers) play.

- It is a Returning Stars GW and is currently in season 10.
- It has a very nice and active community along with a very good moderator team.
- Premiered the Nunez World Cup (I will talk about that later!) which is now being seen across most other GWs.
- It has a very competitive Inter FA with DFA and EFA having a huge rivalry.

And about my team...

- Asia only. A great challenge yet very rewarding. Current stars of the team include Takayuki Morimoto and Keisuke Honda.
- Zero major honours, maybe one day! Best performance was 4th in the OFA Premier League in season 4 :)
- 5 youth academies. Total of 21.5 stars, hopefully 25 stars soon enough.
- Huge amounts of high potential Asian youth, the future looks good!

Now the question is.... what will my next post be about!

Maybe a post about how the World Cup worked, or some tips I have, we'll see!

Oh, lastly, if you are reading this and think you may be interested in playing FML (and don't already) - I heavily recommend it. For 5 pound a month it's great value for money and at worst, you have only spent 5 pounds finding out ;)