It’s taken a lot longer than we would have liked however we’re now in a position to lay out in a little bit of detail the road ahead for Football Manager Live (FML).
Thanks to lots of meetings, forum threads and office chatter we’ve mapped out the next 10 months development work with the clear aim of addressing any outstanding game issues as well as adding a sprinkling of new features. However, we can’t and won’t lay out everything that we’re planning today as we’re wary of promising something and it either slipping down the pecking order or not making it at all in this timespan.
We’re aiming to break out these changes in 3 major updates with the first scheduled to arrive in the Autumn.
The stuff we’ll talk about over the next few days is not everything. There are other things that we’ll announce at a later date and we’ll also continue to work on ideas put forward in the forums (as well as stuff we discuss internally from time to time).
Match Engine
To those not in the know, FML has been running an older version of the SI match engine since it was launched in November 2008. This means that we’re using the match engine (with some specific FML enhancements) that was released with the final patch of Football Manager 2008.
It has taken us a long time to get ourselves in a position whereby we’re the match engine in FML is in sync with the FM team and I’m pleased to confirm that it’s now the case and has been for around six weeks in our beta worlds.
There are a number of reasons why we didn’t just jump in last year and take the latest engine. The first one was simply timing and our desire to make sure the November launch was rock solid and one extra way of ensuring this happened was by having a slightly older and more mature match engine. There were so many new changes in FM09 and its move to 3D that it was just too risky.
The second reason which in a way is a result of the above is the time and development required to get the two games in sync was substantial and there were a number of unknowns that we could not factor in properly.
Early reports from our beta testers are favourable and you’ll be able to see for yourself in our first major update (1.3). Your world will only upgrade to it once you get to the end of the season. For some of you this might mean an agonising few weeks wait once you’ve got the new version.
As a final point on the match side of things …. 3D…..which very much part of our plans! We’ve opened up internal discussions with the FM team and although it’s not something that you can expect to see in the short term it is something we’d like to deliver towards the end of this development cycle.
Due to the fact that FML doesn’t require much in the way of PC / Mac processing power we are looking to make it an optional download which will only present itself if you have the required machine specification. Matches will be able to be played 2D vs 2D, 2D vs 3D and of course 3D vs 3D. We’ll have more on this later in the year.
Youth Academies
This one is probably up there with the hot forum requests and we are pleased to confirm that it’ll be making it’s way to the game during the winter.
At the moment, new regen players are generated daily to ensure the gameworlds are balanced. A number of you have some complex filtering in operation and lots of time available to scour the new additions and alongside the scouting skills you can hedge your bets when it comes to trying to sign the better players.
We all know and realise that this kind of system does not lend itself well for the casual player who has no real chance of getting good new players for cheap.
Although we have some much more detailed plans for the academy side of the game, initially we’ll be allowing you to create a basic youth setup for your club.
The basic idea will be that every club will have the option to have youth players automatically arrive into their squad on a limited-duration contract to be given the once over, and should they decide to keep the player, will be able to sign them on their basic wage demand. What remains to be nailed down is how exactly scouting skills and Judging Potential (JP) come into the equation, and how/if having a youth academy requires a certain level of financial investment.
Key to the design will be to ensure that a user joining a GW late is able, right from day one, to compete in the youth market without being outbid for anyone of note by the resident JP experts.
For those of you not interested in an academy you will still be able to search for youth talent on the open market and there will still be a good % of the available young players available.
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