I can't help you with your FM problem, but I do have this advice for you. Don't save screenshots in bitmap format - the screenshots are huge in file size. Use jpeg and lower the quality to around 50-70% if you can (possible in IrfanView). You can cut the file size to around 100-250k this way.

lol, thanks. You must be on dialup.

I'm back to WWSM after my crash, and I'm probably about to get fired by Exeter City, but there's been a shocker in the FA Cup 5th round! Gillingham went into Old Trafford and beat Manchester United 2-1, winning on a goal in stoppage time!! Man Utd didn't play all of their best players, but it's still big news in my universe. This can't look good on Alex Ferguson's resume, not that it's going to make him lose his job or anything. I was just shocked to see that result. I don't even really keep up with what's happening in any of the competitions once I get knocked out, but there was obviously a news item about it. Big-time stuff. :)

Nope, but I feel for anyone who is. Plus, it still takes around 30 seconds to download each of those screenies with DSL.

how about back to the point? Have anyone seen those issues in their game?

ps. took me 5 seconds on cable.

Exeter City just sacked me. I'm surprised that I lasted 608 days. I'm going to try to catch up with another team in England, but I don't know if anybody wants me. :)

who wouldn't want Pumpy as their manager??? :eek:

:D

FM

Cheltenham Town have offered me their job. They have a player on the team who did so poorly at Exeter that I sold him off. Now, if I accept, I'll have to put up with him again. :) Their wage bill is currently $35,500 per week. Their wage budget is $25,000 per week. This is going to be a tough assignment, especially since Cheltenham are in danger of getting relegated to the Conference National. I almost want them to get relegated just so I can pay back Exeter for firing me. ;)

I think I'm going to take this job.

I'm early in season three in my game and I'm less impressed than I was at the start, at the point of shelving it (or the equivalent of shelving when the software is download) until there's at least another patch or two. The media stuff is pretty nice, far better than in the previous versions, but there are too many niggles that ruin the realism for me.

Here's a list of most of my major annoyances off the top of my head:

1. Substitutions of injured players: I see this in every game outside my division when a player is injured:

hxxp://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9448/fm9uu.jpg

So Edwards was injured in the 43rd minute, Wolves brought off three players (not including Edwards) and brought on three subs, so played with 10 men for the rest of the game. Interestingly Leeds also brought on all their subs in the 43rd minute as well in sympathy.

2. Goalkeeper substitutions: In real life they're very rare, only injury or seriously bad performance. In my game I noticed that Celtic substituted their keeper twice in a row when playing against me despite not conceding a goal. Checking up on their season I see that the keeper who was subbed was taken off in 20 of his 23 starts. This season that keeper has moved on but they've still subbed their keeper in 4 out of 5 league games this year.

3. Two seasons in I've won the Scottish First with Clyde, then scraped by in the Premier without getting relegated in season two (finished 10th out of 12). Surely it should take more success than that to be offered the Man Utd and the Scotland jobs?

4. By far the worst (for me) is that the transfers in the Scottish leagues are completely unrealistic. Out side the old firm very little money is actually spent in real life, even the big Hearts changes this season were mainly based on loan players. In the game everybody is throwing cash about. In real life only the Old Firm and Aberdeen have ever spent a million on a player (and it's over 10 years since Aberdeen did), in the game 900k to 1.6mil is a common occurance, Motherwell, Livingston, Dunfermline, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United, Falkirk, Caley Thistle, Killie as well as Rangers, Celtic and the Sheep have all signed players for over 900k in 2 and a bit seasons of the game. In real life the Scottish Premier league (other than Rangers and Celtic) is full of teams on small budgets who pick up bosmans and free transfers to build the squad, this isn't reflected in the game.

Take Falkirk as an example, in real life they prepared to be in the Premier by picking up a couple of free transfers. In my game they spent 2 mil on 13 players.

Then Dundee United, the most they've ever spent on a player is 400k in real life, in the game they've beaten that record 7 times this off season alone for a grand total of 4.9mil spent, despite being in the first division in the game.

Another example is Inverness Caley Thistle. In real life the most they've ever paid for a player is 30k. In my game they've spent over 600k on a player on 4 occasions in the last season alone.

It completely kills any realism at all when there's a Scottish First Division team offering 1.5mil for my star player, an offer like that could never happen.

Hopefully the little glitches will vanish in a patch or two, but the imbalance in the finances in the Scottish league probably won't be so easy. I'm guessing that if the Scottish league is that far from realism, a number of the other smaller leagues will be too.

You miss the point. You want people to look at your screenshots and, perhaps, offer suggestions and thoughts on your situation. Yet, you do not attempt to make it easier for them to do so. It's quite irrelevant how fast it is for you to download the pictures, since you already know what they look like and what they show. What matters is how fast or slow it is for other parties who could possibly offer thoughts or ideas on your specific problem, whether they have 56K (like me!) or T1.

You must have downloaded these cheats into my game to sabotage it via the FOFC ;)

Lost both legs 1-0 to Roma, both penalties (handball & a push at a corner), but in truth we never really created many problems for their defence - in fairness we restricted them to long shots as well, but this may have been because of the structure of the tie: 1st leg in Leicester was 0-0 until 80 minutes, and they wwere trying to keep it tight, and then at their place they didn't need to go overboard, especially when they got the penalty right after half time - knocked the stuffing out of us.

But can't complain - if IRL Leicester finish 4th in the Prem and get to the UEFA Cup semi-final next year I think I'll be needing extra supplies of hangover cure!

I liked the way a couple of my younger players started being slightly concerned at the weight of public expectation in the last month of the season, and the fact that it felt a real struggle to maintain form to finish off the season (countering the Charlton effect if you like :) )

Champions League (qualifiers) here we come!

I have come across this in my recent season as well. Is there a way to counter act it? It doesn't seem to be based on ambition, since the next season my star 19 year old DMC decided he had accomplished all he could at the club and wanted to move to a bigger club (a significant pay increase changed his mind, however), yet the previous season he couldn't cope with public expectation. It would seem to me that public expectation would be greater at a bigger club. Maybe it is something that just goes away with maturity?

OK, I thought I would give another update on my run with Portstewart in Northern Ireland. I started in NI2 and in both my first two seasons I performed way above expectations and found myself heading into the NI Premier League for season 3. That was where I left it off.

Season 3 started a little rough as I fell short advancing out of the Irish Cup group stage. My team played well though so I had hope. Then league play started and I started out 0-0-3. I had some new players for this season, guys I was real excited because they seemed like an upgrade I had been looking for. But with things not going so well I went back to the old starting lineup, with the exception of switching out my keeper for the backup. The backup keeper played good and stayed in, and the old starting lineup played good. I started to get some draws and then some wins. I was then able to work the new guys in and I started getting even better. I finished the season, shocking the world, in 4th place.

Now, before season 3 I had a job offer from a decent Scottish club, don't remember who but they were Division 2. When I looked closer I saw they had been relegated to Division 3, so I turned it down. I was hoping for an offer again between season 3 and 4 but no go, and the job I applied for was a quick rejection. Funny thing is that two of my assistants got job offers and split, one as an assistant for a English club and one as a head coach for an English club. This turned out to be a blessing in the end, as I was given a little proof that I am being noticed because I was able to bring on 3 new coaches who were actually better. My training abilities are now twice as good as before. This is good too because I didn't bring in any new players for year 4. I had been thinking all along that if I keep my team together they will turn into something good because they all started out around 18-19 years old with a couple exceptions. (One exception is my 'star' striker who is now 27 and has been noticed by the soccer world as his value has gone from $1000 to now $75000, and a AM R/FW who has become wanted by a lot of other teams.) Well, now that I think about it I did get 1 new player, a WB who can and does play DC for me. I had signed him in season 3 but he didn't join me until after the season.

So season 4 starts, and I have high hopes although no one else does it seems. I am once again asked to 'fight bravely against relegation.' I get drawn in with Linfield in my Northern Irish Cup group (they destroyed the Premier League in year 3 and are the time champs) and a team who has had my number, along with a newly promoted team. I am not sure how things will go but I end up happy. I defeat Linfield in game one, then draw and lose my next two. Then I win my next two and secure promotion. Linfield is my last game, which means nothing, but I end up beating them for the sweep. We both go into the quarter finals. I win in the quarters and then my semi final game goes to penalties (which I have never won). This time my teams comes through and I am into the Final against, opponent not determined yet but I hope it will be Linfield. Meanwhile I am 3-0-1 in league play, with my one loss coming before my Cup Semi-final game so I was sitting some players so they would be well rested. I hope to win some stuff this year, I want to take this team into some international play (if I don't get a great job offer after this year that is).

Now, to my money situation. I told you guys before I was losing money. And I still am. I am telling you this team just does not seem to care right now. I do lose less money now then I did my first 2 years, but a loss is a loss. My balance started out at $0 by the way, so I am now well over $300,000 in the red with 'the bank' yet the board still says they are thrilled with me. Hey man, they should be thrilled, I am kicking ass with this team right now.

My one question, is when does my reputation go up? I am still listed as 'unproven' after all of this and I wonder what it takes to atleast get to the 'local' reputation? Thats all I want. By now all or Northern Ireland should be talking about my great managing skills. :D

So, uhhh, I'll fill y'all in on the effect of bringing in 39 players on July 1st later. :D

So there's a kid in France whose description includes "Could be the next Nicholas Anelka" and my first thought was, "Damn, that's mean." Until I thought about it for a second and realized that they meant it as a complement.

Does carrying 10 physios over 1 make a difference? Does it increase exponentially, or should i fire some of them? Same with Assistant Managers, as a lot of clubs seems to have 2

I have not seen any benefit to having two physios. I picked up a second one because the guy who starts on the club is rubbish. I have no idea about two AMs. I wouldn't have thought you could get two..

I had a bunch of coaches, then realized that there isn't any benefit to having two guys on the same schedule. It just takes the value of the best coach. I've canned three coaches with no effect whatsoever. The only important thing is to make sure no coach has more than two schedules.

It's been in the game before, and is linked to experience. This is the first time I have seen it seemingly so directly affected by the stage of the season - the kid was OK in the UEFA QFs, but got nervous about the semi-finals, and obviously about our fight to secure the 4th and final CL spot.

We lost the SF, but he was still worried: once we had guaranteed 4th spot, for the final two games he was fine - cup run over, league position secured - the season was in effect over, so there was no pressure and his concerns vanished. Very cool.

You'll want more then one coach on a schedule if there are lots of players on it, and the coaches work load becomes too heavy for him to handle. Keeping more than one on will keep the work load at light, giving you (presumably) the full benefit of training.

I like to run with two Assistant Managers, mainly because it's another opinion in the team report I can use for evaluation of talent, and I prefer to let one manager handle the U-18 club.

As far as physios go, I'm not sure if there is a benefit to having more than one (although I'm sure the work load would apply here as well), but I always run with three of them for no reason other than it helps me sleep at night.

Really? I never saw it in FM2005. I thought it was new. My guy continued to feel pressure right up until the final game, even though I had won the league with several games left to go. Strangely enough, I thought it might be related to the amount of games he was playing (since he was only 19), and after I rested him a few games during the season, it would go away only to reappear when he played again. Still pretty cool watching 19 year olds crack under the pressure though.

I think I just pulled off my best coaching effort so far.

I just promoted to the Nationwide Conference and entered my first game with only one health keeper. (My other got injured in training) Anyway, about 15 minutes into the match my other keeper goes down so I have to use a midfielder in goal. (I really didn't think I would have lost both so fast) And I end up pulling out a 2-2 draw against a better team.

Anyway, my 2nd match was just three days away and I didn't have time to sign anyone, so I had to play the 2nd match with another outfielder. This time on the road. Well, I played narrow and very defensive and came away with a 3-0 victory. I got away with only allowing one shot on goal.

I finally got a keeper to come in on loan in time for game three.

I'm giddy.

My first England call-up: striker Elvis Hammond just got invited to the England squad, for a qualifier :eek: (albeit as an injury replacement).

This is a man who IRL, we signed a the start of the season, aged 24, a striker who had scored 2 professional goals in 39 appearances! (I learnt something checking this: I was under the impression he had never scored in 40!)

I must be good :cool:

In FM2005 I was sacked by Weymouth after dropping something like 8 of 11 to start the season. I went to holiday and told the game to basically auto apply to jobs while I left the room. I came back and found that I'd been hired as manager of Weymouth! I checked my e-mail and it basically said that Weymouth realized they couldn't find anyone and might have made a harsh decision on my part and welcomed me back in open arms. Now that was cool!

Is SGE still the England boss?

'Cause, y'know, that'd pretty much 'xplain 'verything right there.

I"m still very new to the game, this years, and love hearing about things like this.

One thing though, did it give you the option to tell them to "stuff it"? :)
Now that would be cool.

Haha, yes, it would have given me this option if I were actively playing the game and not on holiday. Because I set the game to go on holiday and auto apply/accept job offers, I didn't have a chance to reject their offer. I was happy to be back because I was very disappointed when they sacked me in the first place.

My greatest FM moment just happened a couple of minutes ago, and the press stories have added to it even more I must say.

As my update on my career stated yesterday, I was on my way to the (Northern) Irish League Cup final. Last night I found out I would be playing Cliftonville who upset Linfield (the two time Premier League champs). I tried to get to the game last night but found myself falling asleep at the computer I was so tired.

So I just played the game, and before I get a news story about how it is a historical moment for my team because it is their first time ever in the Cup final. And it adds Cliftonville is going for the Cup title for only the second time in their 129 year history. Very cool matchup, take that Red Sox!!

Anyways, at the half I am up 2-0 because of a great goal and a penalty kick made. I go more defensive (I already play a defensive style 4-4-2, but one I made off of a normal 4-4-2 and not the pre-made one). I hold them down but the blow by my defense at one point somehow and get a goal at the 82 minute. I start to worry a little but my team says screw this and dominates the rest of the game pretty much. I win 2-1.

Then after the game I get several messages. First I win $12,000, very nice for my team. Second one says the fans are going crazy, and that after celebrating all night on leader of a the supporters was overheard saying they would rename their Supporters club after Paco Del Nacho (me), their great head coach.

Then I get a message saying the Board is overjoyed beyond belief basically, and feel that their club can accomplish anything with me at the helm.

Ah....good times. Now it's time to focus on taking the Premier League crown. I currently sit in second place with well over half the season still to go.

Has your reputation change yet?

congrats Cringer. That's a great feeling isn't it? One of those moments where FM truly transcends being a GAME and becomes REAL.

Haha. Nope, still considered unproven. Of Course this was the finals of a cup and there were only 2,000 people there to witness it. What Mark said about the Northern Irish being more into the Scottish and English leagues and that being reflected in the game holds up pretty well in that area.

I guess I will have to hope that a Premier title, if I can get it, will change it. That and I still have the Country Wide Irish Cup that I can try to win too. I haven't started playing in that one though, I think the next round will be the first round I will be in and he finals are not until the end of the season.

Or I may just have to leave Northern Ireland to get the reputation up.

And DaddyTorgo, yeah it was great. I cheered somewhat loudly when I got my first goal in the game. Thankfully no comment from the wife on that though.... :D

yeah, wouldn't want her to cut you off on your addiction ;)

FM

Remember you cAN view an outfielders basic goalkeeping ability on their profile - some outfielders can 'hold their own' in the nets when needed, these are often players who played in goal as a kid or who simply do so occassionally in training for a laugh ... having an outfielder like that on the bench makes life a lot more flexible for a coach (even if he's not going to be as good as a 'real' goalie at least you can be reasonably confident he'll handle the easy shots).

Its based on the pressure given to players in specific situations (ie. signing for a big club, being in a title/cup run, getting praise & attention from the media or whatever) ..

The only real cures is to either try and bring the player out of the limelight a little (ie. don't play him so much) or to try and talk him around by praising him and telling him he'll be fine basically.

(also bear in mind that such things CAN affect a young players development, if a player gets totally frazzled by something like that and loses form then he might find it harder to find consistency in the future due to the knock to his confidence etc. (again though with careful nurturing you can ressurect his confidence).

Yup, and that's what I did in both cases. I think the guy that played goal in the first game had a rating of 3. And then before the next match I was able to select a guy who had a rating of 4.

this was probably in FM2005 but I never fooled with it until I tried it in WSM2006 and I present you the FULL SCREEN MATCH VIEWING!


Woah nelly! Take a look at these two screenies...

First some live action:


Then the split screen I use when there's no action going on:


I don't think I'll be watching matches in less than that anymore...
FM

Yup, they had full-screen in 2005. I think it may have been with only certain skins however??? I might be off on this however.

that's what I think, available with some skins only. I don't remember seeing it with the silverstone skin that I use though...

FM

I'm officially hooked now. I've been using cm 03/04 for a while now, but the demo has convinced me to upgrade. I miss a couple of the things I relied on in the older version, but some of the new features are great.

I've started a real career with '06 and I keep seeing little things that I like very much. One of them is the little comments that come at the end of the half and of the match. I'm playing with Luton Town, newly promoted to the Championship and my last two friendlies were home games against Fulham first, then Everton. We beat both of them 2-1 and after the 90 minutes of the Everton game came this little tidbit: "Luton showed they were no pushovers!"... Gotta love that :)


FM

In the quarterfinals of the MLS Cup, I found myself down 5-3 after the first leg. We ended up going back to NJ (I was the Metrostars) and I managed to score 3 goals, the last of which was with a minute to go. I ended up pulling the game out. The media praised it as one of the greatest comebacks ever and that they owed it all to my managing skills.

Some questions and thoughts . . .

Titi went from a "world class" striker to a "cultured" one in the span of about a week. No injury, no problems. He had been in-form as well. Any idea why that might be?

One of my kiddies is considered a "decisive" fullback. That's pretty spiff, I hadn't seen that before.

The labels have something to do with your attributes I think?? So, depending on like what his ratings for creativity or flair are, for example, he may have been considered world class and then if he loses or gains a point in those certain categories his label will change.

With regards to the world class label it could be any of a number of things, most likely that his reputation has been superceeded by another player and so his 'world' standing isn't quite as high as it was (as you indicated he's still inform).

Which club are you at? and are you still in continental competitions and is he playing for his international side? (as if you're a relatively small club then this might hurt his reputation especially if you're not in a continental competition, ditto if he's not playing internationals etc. ... just being injured for a long period can take the 'edge' of a world class players reputation irl, for example Ronaldo etc.).

Or, what Marc said... :)

Aha! I was unaware that the "world class" tag was relative to other players. I tend to practice a heavy rotation system to keep them fresh so it's quite possible that another striker played more game in the meanwhile and, consequently, scored more goals to boost his reputation above Titi. Not too long afterward, he strained his back and was out for 3 weeks so I'm sure that did not help, either.As of right now, Titi still plies his trade for the Gooners. I have managed to extend his contract to '11 and made it onto his list of favoured personnel. He graciously thanked me for helping him maintain the form he needed to have earned the Players' Player of the Year award last season.

With his help and the ₤24M Peter Hill-Wood graciously offered me for transfer fund (and I used all of it), we were able to take the league when Chelsea beat Manchester United in the next to last game of the season and finished runner-up in the Champion's League, thanks to some lucky breaks (favourable early draws and getting lucky on penalty shootout in the semi-final against Bayern, who had eliminated Chelsea in the quarter-final).

More questions and thoughts . . .

I downloaded Rixx's 3GT kits and HIGHLY recommend them to ANYONE who has interest in playing in the EPL. Gorgeous. I believe they now have one set for the Coke League, one for the SPL and one for La Liga. Does anyone know how I can set my reserve and U-18 side to use those for the game kits? After looking at the 3GT kits, it's tough to look at the standard one (no offense meant to the SI crew, by the way).

By the way, one of the bugs I have actually seen is occasionally contracts that are turned down or do not get accepted just stay stuck on the player. For example, I have a young french defender who has been considering a loan offer since the middle of last winter and we are now in the following October. I also have a contract that a young French striker does not like that is still listed in his note ("Considering a contract offer from Arsenal").

Does anyone know what the qualification for a "clinical" striker would be? I was always under the impression that it was finishing and, possibly, technique. But I have a young striker who has both and does not feature that tag yet. Also, is there a specific precedence or pecking order for the tags? Like, I have a young forward who could qualify for either "explosive" or "cultured" and he's listed as "cultured". No complaints, really. Just curious.

It's really impressive how quickly some youngsters can improve. I've got a couple of players who started with quite pedestrian ratings but are now possible Premiership players. Cheers!

(this is off the top of my head and I don't have the code to hand to check so it might not be 100% correct)

I believe that 'clinical' includes some of the hidden ratings such as 'pressure' and 'consistency' which might be why it hasn't shown up for that player, simply put a 'clinical' striker is one who can be normally relied upon for 'clinical' finishes (ie. he's like a robot in his finishing and is very very reliable).

Please note that these do change a lot during the game, especially for young players ... if you over play a kid and he falls apart then these might drop, accustoming him to first team football gradually and surrounding him with players with good leadership and positive mental skills will make these rise etc.

Cool deal. :)

I know it sounds vain but it's really spiffy to go through my players and look to see who gets what tag. Gives them more personalities. Make them more fleshed out, for me. :)

Weird ones are, like, when Van Persie gets the "playmaking forward" tag and now it's gone. I'm guessing it's the fluctuation through development (he hasn't had an injury) like you just mentioned. I'm curious to see if it comes back. :)

Oh . . . just out of curiosity, do players develop those tendencies ("preferred moves") that's listed under the "Positions" panel as well? Or does that just get created with the players and that's it?

I'd just like to return to the above post of mine for a moment. It turns out that Sir Alex DID lose his job at Manchester United as soon as the EPL season ended. I don't think that the home loss to Gillingham was the only reason, but I bet that it had a lot to do with it. :)

As for me, I went into my first match as Cheltenham's manager without really setting up the team. I just let my assistant pick the team, I chose the stock 4-4-2 defensive formation, and then I let them play. My team got rocked, 3-0. I put the game aside for a few days, and then I went back to it last night. I finally decided to really dig into the club and learn about each of my players. After having played 4-4-2 for most of my 608 days at Exeter, I decided to create my own 4-3-3 (well, if one of the midfielders is an AM, is it really a 4-2-1-3?). We ended up winning five of our last six matches (and the non-win was a draw). We aren't just winning, though. We've been dominating. We even knocked off the 2nd and 4th teams in League Two during that run. I've only been with the club for seven matches, and we've won five and drawn one. I even won the Manager of the Month award for April! I still need to get the wage bill down, so things aren't completely rosy for me, but I'm hoping that I've convinced the board of my ability to turn these guys into winners. Maybe they'll give me a bigger wage budget.

For fun, I took a couple of jabs at my old team's new manager. I told the media that I'm unsure about him. As soon as I did that, I noticed that one of the Exeter players is now feeling unsure about his new manager, since the manager isn't getting any respect from his peers. If I can't tear Exeter down on the field, I'll tear 'em down behind the scenes. ;)

not that there was anything wrong with it in FM2005, but I really like the 2D engine in '06. I don't know, it just flows better, passes are more diverse, kinda see more stray passes and some longer passes that are not always perfect.

I also like the commentary. Just saw that one of my players slid on his knees pumping his fists in the air after scoring a goal. Never read that kind of commentary before...

FM