FUCK.

My game froze in the middle of saving (I constantly save so as to avoid having problems) and so now it won't load. My only other save game was from 2 weeks ago (real time) and about a half a season ago.

Is there ANYTHING you can do to help me save my game, Marc?

I'm afraid if its an incomplete save there isn't much I can do to repair it- if it was just corrupt then I can normally manage to do so around 60% of the time, but with missing data its near impossible to restore (for someone with my limited brain capacity anyway ;) ).

Sorry to hear this happened - was your system low on virtual memory (ie. was the hard-disk flashing like mad?) ... if people play a long time and then save then it sometimes looks 'locked' if the VM is low because windows gets its knickers in a twist, but it does recover eventually in most cases.

Fruck. :(

Didn't notice anything specific with the hard-disk. I had, indeed, been playing for awhile but I had been saving in the meanwhile (every couple of days) since I had been afraid of a crash. Who knew that would have been my undoing.

It didn't seem like it was going to be recovering. The status bar on the saving had been filled out for quite awhile and there was zero response on the machine (no cursor movement). Ugh.

I was just getting ready to go kick Bayern's arse in the knockout stage and had JUST taken the lead in the premiership back from Tottenham and Newcastle (I still say it's a bug for them to be that high in January). My Portugal appointment was going well too (they offered me the job after the World Cup), we're undefeated in a fairly weak group in WC Qualification since me taking over. Although, the FA has complaining about my margin of victory being too small. Bugger off.

Meh. Now I must decide between starting from scratch or re-doing the save from 2 weeks (and 2/3 of a season) ago.

-----

Question: Is there any way to make the news display more than 150?

If you're worried about that then I'd suggest using the auto-save features in the game, you can configure when it saves (ie. weekly, monthly or whatever).

It also has an option for rotating the saves to ensure that if your game crashes in the middle of saving then you'll have the save game which happened prior to it (because it rotates the save game name).

I'll do that, then. Thanks. :)

Any thoughts on the news display?

daed, looks like the same thing that happened in my first QPR career. Savegame file was at 240MB or so then one day it saved but it came to about half of that, never was able to open the file again :( I still mourn that day...

Since that day what I do is keep saving my game under new names every couple weeks of gametime using the date as the filename. I keep something like three files live and delete files prior to that, so I'd have something like "080720", "080805", and "080822" live in my savegame folder (based on my current Q.P.R. career)...

Sad to hear your troubles though :(

FM

I'm up to mid-November with Luton Town, got them sitting in 5th place of the Championship after 18 games and everyone is happy. Wait, this is eerily close to the real life Hatters of this season :)

Anyway, one thing I've realized while playing last night is that player skills fluctuate much more than what I remembered in '05 and I kind of like that. I mean an injured player in '05 would sometimes lose a point here or there but would never really spiral down, at least I never noticed it all that much. But this time around, get a player injured for a couple of months and booom, his skills go down the drain, well maybe not down the drain but you they drop enough for you to realize they are dropping (16 to 13 is a good drop imo) but then he comes back to training and in a couple of weeks, mayb a month, he gains these skills back. I think it is realistic, at least in a sense that it is mimicking real life and how an athlete gets back from a semi-serious injury (2 months is a pretty good injury if you ask me)...

FM

Hey Marc V -

Would you be able to give us (me) some further insight on on squad status? I, for some anal reason, like to always make sure that a player's squad status emulates his current standing with the team. But it never fails that as soon as I label someone to be in a "rotation system" they don't think I appreciate their contribution to the team. Then if you try and sign a decent player as a "rotation" player then they sometimes don't even want to sign with you.

So here's what I view status to be...

Key Player - Standout player, always a starter
1st Team - Starter, usually can be found in the starting 11 barring injury or fatigue.
Rotation Player - Doesn't normally start but still gets spots starts here and there and comes on as a sub frequently.
Backup - Some poor schlub that's listed on my first team but doesn't get much playing time at all.

Are my above assumption correct? What I'm fearing is that I'm misunderstanding what the label of "1st Team" really is. Does that mean starter, one of the 16 usually picked to dress on gameday, or just someone that is physically on the first team and not on the reserves?

Your assumptions are pretty much correct - however your definition of rotation player is a bit harsh.

Generally 'rotation' players are found at large clubs where they have backup for most positions with quality players, these players 'rotate' in and our of the squad sharing playing time generally ... this is the cause of a fair amount of friction in the larger teams at times with few players being truly happy with such a situation (although they're getting more used to it in recent years).

Keeping players squad status reflective of their position in the squad is sensible and done right can help keep people happier than they might be otherwise, however if you have a first team player and drop his squad status down then you can expect a certain amount of fall-out simply because no one likes to find themselves downgraded ...

In such circumstances if the player has a quiet personality then consider leaving it a tad longer so the player himself already 'knows' its the way things are before changing his squad status - he'll be less inclined to argue if its something which has effectively already come to pass naturally than if you tell him up-front (because he's 'quiet' he'll be less inclined to throw a tiss about missing games here and there so you can slowly elbow him towards the door).

If he's a less manageable personality then its likely there will be some fallout however you approach things, you can handle it by lettting things blow over (they will eventually - how long depends on the player, bear in mind that this can actually 'inspire' some players to try extra hard when they get their chance in the team*) or by deciding the players future is with another team ...

As with all manager decisions - the choice is yours.

*Similar thing to note is the same thing happens with players who want contract renewals, I have one player who only ever performs when its time for a new contract ... grrrr ... ;)

That's cool. I had a player that I noticed this with and just assumed it was my imagination or coincidence.

For manager profile, what does Loyalty correspond to? (I am at work and don't have my manual handy)

I've just gotten Cheltenham Town promoted to League One after we had a dream season in League Two. We averaged two goals per game, but our defense was terrible. We lost one match 8-5. :eek: Anyway, almost every one of our matches had the potential to be a shootout. There were times when we'd only score one goal or even get shut out, but we'd still get 10-15 shots off during the match, half of them on target. The same would happen for our opponents. There were some exciting matches at Whaddon Road for my team last season. :)

Now I'm learning that I really have to deal with some of the personalities on my team. When I was at Exeter, if a player became unruly, I could generally replace him because there was a lot of comparable talent around. Now I have a couple of players who have the potential to be superstars. One of my players just came off a 31-goal season, and he missed a month with an injury. I had gotten him cheap right before the season, and I had him on a $575/week four-year contract. Of course, by April, he was asking for a new deal. I told him to wait until after the season, and he was pleased with that. He had me listed as one of his favoured personnel, so I figured that I could probably get away with asking him to wait. Of course, I kept my promise and rewarded him with a $3000/week contract after the season.

Now, one of my other strikers wants a new contract. He has a lot of potential and a national reputation, but I've gotten some dud performances out of him. He only has one year left on his contract, so I have three choices: 1) let him play out his contract, 2) sign him to a new deal, 3) transfer him out while I can still get something for him. I'd love to sign him to a new contract, but I'm afraid that he'll get complacent. He has my team listed as a favoured club, and he has me listed as favoured personnel, but I don't know if he really wants to be lowballed just to stay at Cheltenham. I'd like to think that I can replace him (and he's been injury-prone), but we did just get promoted to League One, so I need all of the proven talent that I can get. Here is where I need to assess his personality. If I really think that he wants to stay, I can let him play out the contract and see how his performance goes during the season. If he plays well, I can reward him. If not, I can let him walk. If he gets angry about waiting for the new contract, however, he might not re-sign at the end of the year.

It's hard being a manager. :(

Any help? I can't for the life of me figure out how to declare my interest in someone.

Put them on your shortlist, then you should get a declare your interest option in the player's menu

Ok, screw doing a dynasty. Looking at some of those I couldn't do it good enough. So here is an update on my Northern Irish run with Portstewart. First off, I am starting to look for a new job, but I don't think I will get one high enough in the Scottish or English leagues right now so it may not happen for another season or two. Hopefully I can make a bigger splash in the the Northen Ireland Premier league over that time.

So, last I left you in season 4 and I had won the Irish League Cup. To cut this short I also ended up being selected later that year for the All-Ireland Cup and got $240,000 for being in it. That almost took my team out of the hole. Then I made good money because the attendence was higher then normal. I ended up finishing the Premier league year in third, and didn't make it out of the All-Ireland Cup (Northern Ireland and Ireland teams facing off) group round, just missing by one point. Still I was happy, and now had my first European competition to look forward to, the Inter-Toto Cup.

Needless to say I didn't play all that well in the Inter-Toto against some team from a country I don't know (eastern european I think). So out in round 1. Still, the money I made this year was enough to get my team completly out of debt and put me $100,000 in the black.

Onto season 5. Start off with a bang again and defend my Irish League Cup, that made me very happy. Started off strong in Premier play too, being in first for a while. Then things started to slip away slowly. I fell down to 5th and figured now was a good time to sell my top player. I got him before season 5 and he played well, making his value go up some. This guys' rating where noticeably better then the rest of my players which is why I was shocked to get him in the first place, oh and he was an Aussie. So much to my surprise and English team bought him for $475,000 and I crapped my pants. I actually had transfer money now!!!

Transfer money didn't matter much though, still doesn't. It's just very hard to get guys to come play for me. One thing that happened that I love is that after being rejected by about a dozen guys in one week, my board finally agreed to improve the training facilities which I figured was because this was a reason given a lot by guys turning us down. (Having them better hasn't helped get players too much, but some I do think).

So on with the season I go and I get my team back up to 3rd again. I finish a ways behind Linfield and Glentoran again, but still about 10 points above the 4th place team. I feel certian I am the leader of the tier two teams, but I just can't get to the level of Glentoran and Linfield. They have the money and prestige so I hope to slowly chip away at that. I was in the ALL-Irish Cup again and once again failed to get out of the Group round. I know my team should be able to do it, but they just seem to fall short in those games. My third place finish got me into the Inter-Toto Cup again too, where I once again was booted out after the first round (lost both legs 2-1).

Now going into season 6 and I am not sure where things are going. I picked up some role players, thats about it. I did grab one strong centre back who should help shore up my defense I hope. The Irish Cup is once again first on the schedule and I am off to a slow start, of course having Glentoran in my group doesn't help. I was all happy being up 1-0 on them for the first 50-60 minutes, only to see my team blow it and I lose 2-1. Still, 3 or 4 games left in the group stage so I hope to bounce back and hopefully get the three-peat.

Had an intersting little bug last night: as I was concerned over the success of my Leicester career (I watch us play - we're not that good!) I thought I'd start a new game unemployed, and try and get a Welsh/Irish/N.Irish job.

2 years in and no joy, so I added myself as a new manager, took the vacant Enniskillen Rangers job (I had applied a year before, and it had still not been taken) and deleted my original manager.

I was given an £18,000 transfer budget, but the wages allowed were a whopping £83m a week! Despite this I could only offer players £50 a week, so that means the board would have been happy with me signing and paying 166,000 players (if my maths are right) :D

Screenshot
http://photobucket.com/albums/c210/R...rent=wages.jpg

Strangely there was no finance menu on the Enniskillen screen either. Oh well, try again.

So from this, it seems that my idea of a 1st Teamer was a bit too exclusive maybe? Which does make sense, since it seemed like even if a backup of mine who saw a start here and there would not complain too much even if their status was as a First Teamer.

I think I have a better idea of the roles, so thanks for clarification. I think I may have to take the role of "rotation" player off a few of my better backups. :)

Wowsers. Talk about having some depth. :D

Consider it looked into ...

Yeah, Titi had a 2-month Hip Injury and dropped from World Class/Cultured Striker to "plain" Striker before recovering to Explosive Striker and Cultured once again.

Whew, it looks like all the iBook needed was a reboot. I started playing again today, and ran into the same issue again, but this time I had to force quit FM. I guess I have only had the laptop in sleep and had not rebooted since the weekend. I rebooted, and started up the game and was able to save and move forward. I managed to draw a game I had won previously :( so I am not 3rd in ECS at the moment. I had to start from a backup savegame as the force quit managed to kill the current savegame.

I saw this same type of thing posted on the bug forum over at SI yesterday. I don't think it was the same team but it reported a huge amount of allowable wages and no budget screen.

I guess it was the same team, here is the post from SI:

http://community.sigames.com/groupee...1/m/9492088181

I just had a irratating bug. I won in penalties but when it switched over to the news space, it said that I lost, erased the first guys for each team and their shots (both in) and reversed the last shot (6th for each team) so I ended up losing in the semi's instead of winning. Disappointing to say the least.

Playing as Lens in French Ligue 1, I received a comment from a relegation battling team that we wouldn't be able to take the title. My options for reply included a category called "Humourous" and I was able to reply that the other coach is a master magician, "watch Amiens disappear from Ligue 1."

I love the little stuff in the game.

That happened to me to. It happens when you change your penalty takers in the middle of the match. It's supposed to be fixed in the latest patch.

So, my copy of the game is on the way. I'm going to play online with a buddy of mine. We figured that we should play in the same country, so we can play each other in League Play, Cup Play, and in Europe. So our thinking was Celtic and Rangers. Anyone have other ideas?

Also, we want to make it easier on ourselves, so we were going to use the Sugar Daddy cheat. I just have to put in the init.cfg file:

"SUGAR_DADDY" "Rangers"
"SUGAR_DADDY" "Celtic"

Right? I've tried that with the demo, but it tells me the init.cfg file is read-only. Is that because it won't let me change stuff in the demo, or am I having some other problem?

Also, are there any other ideas for mods that would help us out? I was thinking that I might want to edit the chairman, since I want to be on the same level in that regard.

having a strange error here. i setup a transfer for a 20 y/o Brazillian wonderkid for 12 million dollars and then saved my game and quit for the night. And now when I come back in, even though the news item itself says it's for 12 million, all of the post-deal info and the financials and the detail under the player history all say it's a 24 million dollar deal.

I'm going to save it seperately in case any of our SI friends want to look at it, but it's offseason so I'll just cancel the deal and do a new one and that will hopefully fix it.

Did they perhaps sneak in some "future considerations" in a negotation?

doubtful. cuz all the money dissapears right away (all 24 million). no big deal. i'll just restart, cancel the deal (i saved before the transfer happened) and redo it. that's not cheating, cuz i wouldn't pay 24 million for some 20 y/o brazillian DMC/MC

You have to change the properties of the file. Right click on it, select properties, select the General tab, and un-check the read-only box. That will allow you to save your changes.

Hi,

Can you confirm if this is a common problem or a 'one' off - also can you get the same game before the 'confirmation' to me in some fashion so we can check it out and if it is a problem with the game fix it.

Thanks,

Marc

just a one-off apparently Marc. And after I reloaded and redid the transaction it has gone through for 12 million, and all the news items and the budget show it as a 12 million dollar deal. I'll shoot the savegame over to you anyways though. Although you shouldn't be working on the weekend man!

edit: and by "i'll shoot it over" I mean "let me file-transfer it over to someone with an actual e-mail account where they don't restrict file sizes, since all I have is my gmail"

Thanks DaddyTorgo (however you want to get it to me would be great).

Thanks. I did this, but when I tested it out, my transfer budget was the same as before (17 million) and I was still over my wage budget. Any ideas?

Sugar Daddy only works 'before' you start a game and won't affect a game once its begun (I'm presuming you've loaded an existing game?) ....

It was before the game began. Maybe it's because I'm still using the demo?

No, but the game has an editor which will allow you to change all the financials before you start the game.

My run with Portstewart in the North Irish Premier league....I am at a crossroads.

First off, I finally got my reputation up to 'local.' Woohoo!

This happened because I went on a tear and reach all my goals finally, and then some actually.

After winning two straight Irish League Cups and coming in third in the Premier both those seasons, I was starting to wonder if I could get the team further. (Knocked out in the first round of the Inter-Toto each time I got in too.)

So, going into the next season, 2010/11, I was kind of unsure of what moves to make. It is so hard to find guys who will come play for me. Basically I dig through a million players, make offers to about 100,000 of them, and get 1-3 guys. So I did it once more, and this year I focused on strikers because I was real happy everywhere else.

I grabbed 3 English boys who didn't really impress me much to be honest, but I figured it would improve my depth atleast. Boy was I wrong. After a couple of games a guy who had been one of my regular starters was out for good because he was sucking. In moves a rotation of the three new guys. These three guys were 19, 20, and 25 years old. The 19 year old blew me away right away, and then when he had a bad game and his morale collapsed the 20 year old stepped right in and was even better most of the time. The 25 year old was a darn good guy to spot start.

To cut this short...my team kicked ass. I won my third straight League Cup, then went on to win the Irish Premier League championship. I also won the Countrywide Irish Cup, and for the first time made it out of the All-Irish Cup group round only to lose to my nemisis Glentoran in the quaterfinal.

Then I got a nice surprise, I was inducted into the Northern Irish Coaches Hall of Fame...woohoo. Never even knew there was such a thing until I was inducted.

Then I get to the start of the next year and get to play in to Champions League. Starting off in Qualifying Round 1 of course. I advanced to round 2, played a Greek team who I thought would kill me. I got a 1-1 draw at their place in the first leg, so I was trying to keep myhopes down and not doing a good job at it. They can the Seahaven to play me in leg 2 and I got the 0-0 draw...amazing! I go into Qualifying Round 3 on away goals. In round three I played....I can't remember right now, but they were damn good. Anyways, I lose both legs 2-0...the run came to an end. But I was already beyond happy with how my team did. So then I get kicked over into round 1 of the UEFA Cup where I play Newcastle. haha, they could have hammered me but instead played nice. Beat me 2-0 and then 1-0.

Now I am not sure if I should continue with Portstewart? I am not really going to do any better with them then that, even if I luck out and they go pro in a few seasons like Linfield and Glentoran have over the last few. Hell they went that way and I still won the league over them. I just don't think I will get any decent job offers right now though. I would like to jump into Scottish First Division or English Championship or First Division. Starting at the bottom would suck, I might as well start a new career.

Cringer, I don't suggest starting a new career just because you might be at the bottom of your new league (if you decide to change jobs). You'll bring your reputation with you to your new club, and if you have good players who like you, you might be able to persuade them to follow you. Just keep things going and see what happens. :)

Well, I did a little test screwing around the other day. Not sure if people consider this cheating but if it is then I am guilty. I don't think it is though.

I saved the game and then got myself fired by giving an ultimatum. I then put it on vacation and had the game apply for jobs. I only let it go a month or so and not many jobs came open, but the only offer I got that was decent was an Eglish National COnference team. Funny thing was I checked and noticed that it was the team that the 'new' Portstewart coach came from.

Anyways, I am thinking I will finish out the current season, see if I can win two titles in a row. Then look to move on.

I've only started with FM, but there's nothing like beating the odds. I'm playing with Vauxhall Motors and the only expectation is to avoid relegation. We're currently sitting 7th to my surprise, and to the thrill of the board and fans.

i wouldn't call that cheating. just...curiosity. it'd only be cheating if you somehow used it to your advantage really. you just wanted to see what was out there. and then again, even if it is cheating it's not like it's MP or anything, it's just for your enjoyment. and i would have probably done the same thing. nothing like messing up a good FM universe to find out you have crap for jobs you might get. Too many hours invested that then become useless.

Exactly... realistically, you'd be able to network a little bit to find out exactly what might be awaiting you if you moved on. FM doesn't have this (yet), so I think it's a fair workaround.

(Note: I'm not complaining about this, necessarily -- there are other things that could get added before this!)

My game arrived during this past week. I'm leaving it basically untouched to keep me motivated to get my current work project finished, but I did install the game and fire up a test game to see how things looked.

I immediately noticed two promising things:

1. The game seems significantly faster. I set some parameters for a new game, then hit the button to let Football Manager set up the game. Based on experiences with previous versions of the game, I figured it would take about 20 minutes to get everything done. I left the computer and started in on some other work. About ten minutes later I looked back and everything was done! Wow. Impressive. If that's any indication of the overall speed increase, I'll be very pleased.

2. Compared with previous versions, the interface seems much cleaner and more intuitive. Each time I've fired up previous versions of the game, it would take me a few minutes to figure out how to do basic things. This time, however, I was able to do everything I wanted to do almost immediately. Very nicely done. Spent only fifteen minutes messing with things, but am already drooling to get started.

Not really 'cheating' in my book - cheating for me is replaying matches or similar and to be honest I don't mind too much if people cheat if it helps them have fun .... just if any of your do don't come online afterwards indicating the game is too easy ;)

Marc, I've noticed that in my Lurgen Celtic NI game I've started, when I offer contracts to people I cannot offer less than £75 per week to any new signings. Is this as planned (minimum wage?) I ask as some of the players in the squad when I took over are on as low as £20 per week - if renegotiating with these the minimum figure is less, but still I can often not offer them the same terms as they are on...

Not a problem as such, as £75 a week is still a pittance, but if I could save a little more, in this scenario I would like to try to. (How tight am I! Even in a PC game!)

The game models the 'minimum wage' in countries where this is applicable - in most countries this has two levels a 'youth minimum' (normally U18 but can vary) and an 'adult minimum'.

You'll also probably find that there is a different 'minimum' depending on whether a contract is full or part-time.

There ARE however countries with much more complex wage minimum levels where they can vary quite wildly according to the age of a player or indeed his nationality - generally these are the more obscure minor league though.

Hope this helps,

Marc
PS> If this doesn't seem to explain things then please email me some players/ages and their minimums and I can check if its a bug in the system.

To Marc V or anyone that has experienced this yet in '06...

I started a career with Hinckley in the Conf. North and currently have them up in League Two. I've basically come to the realization that clubs like this have a ceiling as far as how much they can grow and have decided to base my career around not necessarily getting them to the Premiership, but getting myself, as a manager, to the top level.

But to make the game a little more challenging, as far as getting another job, I kinda want to wait until a team comes knocking on my door. Just last night was the first time I had seen my name thrown in the mix as a candidate for a coaching job at Watford but I wasn't the leading candidate and someone else got the job.

So my question is, once my rep gets built up a bit more, will "enough" job offers come my way so that I won't have to thrown my name in the hat whenever some manager's job becomes available?

I know that in past versions, you get job offers here and there without applying for them but I had always been in the Premiership at the time. So I'm kinda clueless at the lower levels.

I would like to hear about this as well, as I also give my 'story' in this area so far. After two seasons with Portstewart in the N. Irish leagues (taking them from Division 2 to Premier in those two seasons) I was then offered a job by a Scottish 2nd Division team on its way down to 3rd division. I turned it down, thinking how I would get more offers down the road. I have not had one since. I have won the Premier League, Countrywide Irish Cup, Irish League Cup 3 times, inducted into the Northern Irish Hall of Fame, reputation is up to Local.....no offers at all. I don't get it at all. I just get no respect I tell you. :)

Also, a question just popped into my head. IS it normal for when you get the Local reputation that the manager type/description goes away. Before I was always Obscure with above it either Talented Manager or Media-Friendly Boss. Since I turned Local nothing else has ever shown up for me.

That's cool - seems to make sense. The players that are on low wages are generally young, and those that I am trying to sign are generally of higher standard anyway. Was just querying whether this was the norm, as I have never played at this level before: it's like a new game :D

Thanks! My copy of the game is expected sometime between today and Wednesday, so once I get it, I'll play around with that!

If you build your reputation high enough then you will get 'dry' approaches from clubs eventually (ie. they'll knock on your door without you having to do a thing) - however you can also apply for other jobs while still being in one, although this can upset your current board so be careful.

PS> You can also 'edge' managers out from their jobs by announcing interest in their position before they've been sacked - if their board like the sound of you then sometimes they'll give them a push ... a lot of fun if you're playing a network game with a friend who's doing poorly ;)

Right, I just wanted to make the career a bit more challenging by waiting for the "dry" approaches. Makes a guy feel more wanted. :)

I see the news items about managers on the verge of getting sacked all the time, but for some reason I feel like I'll earn it more if they approach me. I did really enjoy being named as a possible candidate for the first time last night. Made me feel like I was actually doing something right. :)

I think you will have a better luck getting "dry" approaches than possibly in past games. This is purely based on one-and-a-half season's worth of playing, of course, so I could be wrong. But I managed to get a "dry" approach (surprised me) from Portugal after a strong first season with the Gunners.

portugal came after me too!! wtf!!

I think it has to do with the fact that they're on the lower end of the upper-tier teams (may have to think about that particular sentence for awhile). They have similar high expectations of the Spains, Italy and England but with, possibly, less abundant amount of talent (especially with their so-called "Golden Generation" passing their prime).

By the way, Marc and SI . . .

The game seems to not be keeping track of players' statistics after they come back from loan correctly. Let's say, for example, I have a player name Bob Smith who played 3 games for me.

Let's say, he goes on loan to Derby, when he returns, his stats still says he has played 3 games for me (if I go to "History" and click on my team). Cool so far.

But IF he plays another game for me, his stats with me resets and he has now played 1 game for me (instead of the correct 4).

Not necessarily a huge gamebreaker but would be nice to have fixed. :)

For kicks, I nicknamed my top goal scorer "Hammertime" just to see that name in the commentary, news stories, etc. Several of my players are "pleased to be playing alongside Hammertime."

And the Opposition's job is to... "Stop... Hammertime!"

And if the defense finds that U Can't Touch This, do you have to ask him, "Hammer, Please Don't Hurt Em?"

My brain is permanently broke.

I definitely got a good chuckle out of this. :D

So, uh, no response at all from SI guys?

Please cut us some slack every now and again - The PSP FM game is in full swing for its release next year at the moment so I'm sleeping a maximum of around 4 hours a day and trying to balance a standard 'crunch' release with the fact its xmas and I've got my kids plays etc. to attend .... this means I'm not as active on forums as usual at the moment* ....

Thanks for the information, I'll try and check to ensure that this is rectified in the forthcoming patch.

Marc
*Contrary to popular opinion we do allow people at SI to have lives outside of the company, I think its called 'time off for good behaviour' ;)

Fair enough. I don't exactly expect every single little error or problem I report to be jumped on as if all of SI staff's lives depend upon it. On the other hand, it's somewhat disconcerting to see problems and comments made by others at the very least be acknowledged and yours be completely ignored over and over again.

Thats fair enough - I would have got there and replied eventually ... just please bear in mind we are only human (at least until nano-bot technology improves ;) ).

PS> I'm probably more crabby than usual this morning as I was up rather late debugging something last night and then had to get up to get the kids to school at 8am ...

Debugging something or debugging 6.02?

Was part of the PSP game - next FM PC patch is in test and will hopefully complete its testing cycle and be released before xmas ...

Edit: The important part is the last line. :)

I just noticed that "Hammertime" is favored personnel of my club. I brought this guy in for $6000 two years ago, and now he's like the Cheltenham poster boy. Very, very cool.

Still makes me chuckle. :)

I just sent a PM to Marc about this, but wondered if anyone else has seen this 'bug' in the game?

I started a new game and in my game previews/news stories, it is always saying the teams are in 0th place.

And anyone played South American countries yet? I am in Columbia, and these bastards seem pretty rough. I get a ton of yellow/red cards. Is a big factor in this the Aggression rating?

Wayne Bridge has just informed Chelsea that he would only accept a pay reduction to Barcelona if Chelsea would pay him 22,500K a week til his contract expires in 2010.

Sweet!

Been playing a lot of ehm but with the new patch out (yes I'm one of the lucky ones with the disc version of wsm) I have started a new game of wsm. This will be my first real career that I will clumsily stagger through to try to keep learning the game.

I started unemployed and have now been hired by Kettering in early April. They are actually doing pretty well, 2nd place in the Conference North. When offered the job I was told they were over budget on players and cuts would have to be made. So I get there and am informed the payroll is at about 220,000 pounds and needs to be trimmed to 130,000 pounds. I'm guessing this is why the guy before me is no longer employed ;)

My question is since it is already about April 10th and the season, according to the rules, ends April 28 or 29th is there enough time this season to actually trim this payroll? If I put some guys up for sale will there be any takers at this stage of the year? Or should I just be finishing out the month and then try to get things in line for the next season?

Thanks in advance for any assistance. Hopefully, late tommorow night, after the Christmas fesitivities tonight and tommorow I'll be able to get in some game time.

I would just finish out the season and look at reducing the payroll in the offseason. Plus, then you can wait and see what the new wage budget will be for next season.

Finally finished my project and related work yesterday and fired up the game today.

I haven't played the series much since CM01/02. I am quite impressed with the improvements. The 2D match engine is neat. The half-time and post-game talks are an interesting twist on things. The level of detail is amazing. After only a couple hours this afternoon, I am totally hooked.

Took over Workington in the Conference North and am attempting to build them into a powerhouse.

Dola...

This is likely very obvious, and I apologize if it's been answered somewhere in this massive thread, but is there a way to see the financial details of my contract offers to potential transfers? I can find the list that has the "transfer in" names, but I don't seem to be able to see what exactly I've offered them. Even when they accept, I can't seem to find out what salary they'll be getting until after I confirm the deal.

From the "future transfers in" page, you right-click the player, and select "change contract offer" to see the details.

I might be wrong, but it seems when I've clicked on that, the resultant details are not from the offer currently on the table. They almost always seem to revert to what the player's demands are.

I'll take another look, though, and see if this is the case.

I always go to the players profile and look under transfer status tab. It will list all the pending offers for the player. Click the number representing the amount of the offer beside the team name and it should pull up that offer.

Aha! I hadn't thought of that one yet. Thank you!

And on another note, this game totally rocks. I am four games into the 2005 season with Workington (in the Conference North) and the game has totally sucked me in. We are "relegation battlers" and just knocked off the first-place team for our first win. 1 win, 1 loss, and 2 draws so far, but our red-hot goalkeeper just tore a hamstring, so our surprising mediocrity may be short-lived.

My initial impression is that the interaction among the media, players, and your persona really gives the feeling that you are dealing with real people rather than number-crunching. I realize this may change if the media/player/manager events repeat too frequently, but right now it is a lot of fun.

The only complaint I had was that the game seemed fairly unresponsive and was forcing me to click on links two or three times before I'd get a response. Then I found the responsiveness tweak in the preferences and my one complaint vanished.

Has anyone had any luck creating their own training profiles. I have created some that appear to be getting some decent results. The problem is that several of my better players are complaining that they are unhappy with the intensity of the program. For example the program for my stikers is set up as follows:

Strength: Med
Aerobic: High
Goalkeeping: None
Tactics: Med
Ball Control: High
Defending: Light
Attacking: High
Set Pieces: Med

Workload: Medium

Since the overall workload is medium would it be wise just to ignore the complaints? If its better to make changes where is a good place to start? Since it takes a while for training to have an affect how long should I wait after making changes to tell if they are making a difference? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

It might come from the players instead of the program (low workrate) or maybe lowering Aerobics could help (players have a tendency to dislike physical trainings).

Else I've noticed what might be a bug with Vaduz, the club from the Liechtenstein that plays in the Swiss League :

Financially I'm having a never ending season, I am always in 2005-2006 so the sponsor never changes, stadium expansion and training facilities improvement have been approved by the board never materialize etc...But I'm making a huge benefit in one season (10M euros ).

My reputation does not change either but that might not be related.

I still get the new calendar every season and occasionaly have some players promoted to the team (but directly to the first team and sometimes without even getting the info).


So far my solution was to edit the game with mcfm.

Weird. I've never had a player complain about my training regimins, and I'm a taskmaster. The overall workload is just a notch or two below high for all my various positions, and everyone gets massive physical training (until they "graduate" to my technical training programs).

Seems to have always worked pretty well for me.

In 2-3 months you get the answer.

I think it has a lot to do with the players. The players that my Assistant Manager praise for their professionalism rarely complains about my training programs which is usually Very Heavy. Then there are others . . . like a certain former Ellen Road favourite . . . who complains about a Medium program. Meh upon them.

How well does the game model MLS soccer? Does it still feel like European soccer?

Is this a bug? I'm manager of both Cambridge and the Portugal national team and got this warning when going to a Portugal game:


As I'm allowed seven substitutes for the Portugal game, neither of the two reasons given makes any sense.

Not to be silly - but are you sure its a Portugal game (and from their U23 squad) and not a club game next?

The message implies that you've got players selected outside of the main selection (ie. if you had say 4 Subs available then you've got people selected in say Sub6 and Sub7 slots) and two missing from the available slots.

With the squad shown it doesn't make any sense which is why I was asking if the squad matched the upcoming game or not? ...

If you're still concerned its a bug then as always I'd appreciate a save game ...

So how does that 3-1-2-3-1 work for you? I have never tried a formation like that.

And your goalie is about to die. ;)

It happens to me as well.

Basically, this happens whenever I have two games going on at once where the amount of available reserves differs. As in 3ric's case with Portugal (7 reserves) and Cambridge (5), I get the same message with Denmark (7) and Arsenal (5). This also happens when I have a European match (7 reserves) on the same day as a Reserve or a U-18 game. I can't say it's that big a deal or is some kind of show-stopping bug since it works fine once the match starts.

Hey, what skin are you using in that pic?

I wanted to know that too. It looks pretty nice.

this looks like aurora to me...

FM

Ah...MrBug deleted his 'getting recruits to your school' post before I could respond. Damn. :D

What Frogger said.

I'm using that one as well. On Frogger's recommendation. :D

why change a skin? does it provide any more info. or is it just for looks...if so I like the one that came with the game.

It was a game with Cambridge the same day, and the Portugal U23 game was first. The squad shown on the image is for the upcoming game, yes.

Correct, Aurora 2006.

Some rearrange what info is shown where (and a few I think show different info than the default skin on some screens).

Also some allow you to do funky things such as watch the match full-screen more easily than the default one.

Try a few out if you like one then cool - if you don't then Ter'll be very happy as he makes the default one for us ;)

(personally I use the Chameleon skin myself, I like the fact that it changes colour according to the team you're viewing)

The Aurora flow skin also changes color depending on which team you might be viewing for those interested in a combination of the Aurora-Chameleon skin.