Ping: Marc Vaughan

[SackAttack]

Be so kind as to pass along the following message to the FM code monkeys, would you?

Ahem:

"Can we have a little fucking consistency between the stated reason behind contract rejections and, you know, the reality?"

I'm tired of having staff take lesser contracts to work in the same role for lesser teams because "the base wage I offered was unacceptable."

Really? That $145k was so unacceptable that you took a $115k deal to serve in the same role for a team that won't come close to sniffing the top half of the table, let alone Europe?

[Dutch]

You sound pretty sour about the whole thing. I would suggest using profanity and calling the people that could potentially help you 'monkeys'.

Oh wait...NEVERMIND!!!

[DeToxRox]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Be so kind as to pass along the following message to the FM code monkeys, would you?

Ahem:

"Can we have a little fucking consistency between the stated reason behind contract rejections and, you know, the reality?"

I'm tired of having staff take lesser contracts to work in the same role for lesser teams because "the base wage I offered was unacceptable."

Really? That $145k was so unacceptable that you took a $115k deal to serve in the same role for a team that won't come close to sniffing the top half of the table, let alone Europe?

If this is how you react to your players, I think it's pretty easy to see why they take 30K less to go elsewhere.

[Blade6119]

well played D

[JediKooter]

Just don't ever ask him about Kurt Bevacqua...

[Marc Vaughan]

Noted ..

But so you know ...

Its hard to put in a 'real' reason behind someone turning down the contract the 'base' reason is most likely correct - he wants more money for the role he thinks you want him in. If a player has an ego and thinks you'll only use him as a squad player but wants to be a star then yes you're not bribing him enough to suck it up (which is what he's indicated) ... so its not incorrect in that.

The reasoning for the player behind the move is likely that they believe they'll have a bigger squad role at the new club and thus a better chance for gaining attention/endorsements etc. there than they will at your club - for many players its better to be a star at a smaller club than a squad player at a big one. IRL this happens quite frequently with players, for instance Mr. Neville joining Everton from Man Utd etc.

[SunDevil]

I thought his complaint was about staff, not players. Mark could you explain why a staff member would take less money from a lesser team?

Thanks.

[flere-imsaho]

1. His staff don't like him.
2. They think they'll have a more visible/bigger responsibility/more interesting role elsewhere.
3. They want to move somewhere else/prefer the other club.

And yes, I fully expect all the above reasons are modeled in the game.

For instance, I remember when FM/CM first came out with "preferred clubs". If an opening came up at a club one of my staff preferred (say a hometown club, a club he supported as a boy) I pretty much gave up keeping him.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

I thought his complaint was about staff, not players. Mark could you explain why a staff member would take less money from a lesser team?

sorry wasn't certain if it was an english/american translation thing and he meant player.

For staff what 'flere' said - plus each staff has a geographical bias towards his hometown* as its likely where his family is and so often they'll like to stay local to that area unless they're particularly ambitious.

As with a lot of things in FM there are multiple feeds going into a decision and each person in the game has their own personality so without your actual save game its impossible to determine the 'full' reasoning behind the decision, however there will be (unless its a bug) a sensible reason.

Finally, I agree the text in this area could be clearer at times, but its done on a 'brush stroke' approach in the manner of how people would indicate things irl rather than trying to give exact reasoning with 100% accuracy ...

*We model distance from location in the game for towns etc. as well so irl my 'home town' would be considered Kings Lynn (small town in Norfolk, nearest 'football' town to my home village) - so a job in Norwich which is only 40 miles away would be more appealing than one in say Scotland).
This sort of thing also comes into play for attendance/support - you might notice on the 3d view that you have more supporters in your club colours for matches close to home than those far from your ground. This is because the longer the trip is the less supporters will be 'hardcore' enough to travel that far (also bear in mind that once your club is large enough the importance of 'home' support is offset by your having casual supporters across the world - ie. Man Utd have some supporters throughout England and to a greater or lesser extent most countries etc.).

[QuikSand]

I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT THE TINY MEN INSIDE MY COMPUTER ARE THINKING!!!

[digamma]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I FUCKING DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT THE GOD DAMNED TINY MEN INSIDE MY COMPUTER ARE THINKING!!!

Fixed to make more emphatic.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT THE TINY MEN INSIDE MY COMPUTER ARE THINKING!!!

The coach is probably just 1 bit short of a byte.

[Noop]

At least Marc is better then the maker of TEW2008 who is a complete douche bag.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Welcome to Hollywood.

[lighthousekeeper]

NO, WELCOME TO FUCKING KINGS LYNN!

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Noop

At least Marc is better then the maker of TEW2008 who is a complete douche bag.

I didn't want this to go without comment.

Let me be clear. In my view, Marc is a complete prince for the way he conducts himself in public (around here, anyway) as the face of his company and products. He seems to have unending reservoirs of manners and discipline in receiving feedback and offering his own perspectives. Candidly, it's pretty impressive, well beyond what my own personality would allow given a similar circumstance. He does his company a great service with his demeanor and responsiveness.

My snarky comments are not about Marc nor his company at all.

But pretty much no matter how pleasant and professional you are, you're going to get someone who decides to take a potshot. And no matter how well managed and executed your product happens to be, someone is going to dig just deep enough to get himself all riled up about *something* and then he will go looking for someone's head to rip off. It's just how it goes.

We see this all the time here at FOFC. It's a three year old game, and still, every week or so there will be someone who shows up armed with some arcane snippet of a game log demonstrating that some FOF team did some thing in some situation that doesn't seem right, and his basic conclusion will be "GRRR YOU STOLE MY MONEY WITH THIS USELESS GAME GRRRR." So, even if the concern is legitimate, we the complainers apparently tend to lose any sense of perspective of what we're talking about.

Back to this FM issue. I have a coach. I want to keep him, he wants more money, he rejects my offer and leaves into the vast universe of my computerized soccer world. That essentially ends my relationship with him in the game. The game does, by most accounts, a good job of handing the interactions with me (in my *single player game* by the way) -- if I pay him more he would probably sign, but if I'm not willing to do so, he will leave. That's the nature of these games, right? Give me information and options, and I'll make decisions that guide the outcomes. So I refuse to pay up, he walks, and that's that.

Or, I can become a miniature cyber stalker. I can go looking to see what he did after our contract dispute. Or whatever. I can pursue to see exactly how "deeply" the game makers decided to go in the effort to make teh game world more lifelike. Maybe we will be able to concoct a story that fits his decisions... maybe he found a job with his preferred club, or maybe it's closer to home, or who the heck knows what. But let's face it... to invest that much effort in finding out what happens in side the bowels of the game well beyond the stuff that matters to me (again, in my single player game) is just a lovely example of this little facet of human nature. And, apparently the conclusion is that we start making simian insults toward the professionals who constructed this game, which is by most accounts the most wildly successful and clearly the most financially lucrative in the history of its genre. But it apparently sucks since we looked and looked and looked until we finally ran out of fun and found something to get really steamed over.

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE ACCURACY OF THE CLARET TONES ON THE ASTON VILLA ALTERNATE AWAY KITS! HOW DO YOU THIEVES SLEEP AT NIGHT?

Cheers.

[SunDevil]

Thanks Flere and Mark.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I didn't want this to go without comment.

Let me be clear. In my view, Marc is a complete prince for the way he conducts himself in public (around here, anyway) as the face of his company and products. He seems to have unending reservoirs of manners and discipline in receiving feedback and offering his own perspectives.

Well said.

Having had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago, that's who he is. One of the nicest guys you'll ever know in person, too. He's more than generous in sharing ideas and experiences in email as well, and I consider him a personal friend.

The success of FM couldn't happen to a better person.

[sovereignstar]

That's SackAttack for you in a nutshell.

[Noop]

Quiksand

I have too have noticed how Marc conducts himself in regard too questions and feedback. I don't play FM but I can appreciate when someone doesn't act like a complete douche when someone asks a question. The other guy I mentioned won't stop me from buying his game but I won't go out of my way to give his product word of mouth.

[DaddyTorgo]

wasn't the angst about the question fluffed up for dramatic effect?? that was what i assumed at the beginning...

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

wasn't the angst about the question fluffed up for dramatic effect?? that was what i assumed at the beginning...

You don't know SackAttack, evidently.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

wasn't the angst about the question fluffed up for dramatic effect?? that was what i assumed at the beginning...

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

You don't know SackAttack, evidently.

I'll be the first to admit that I have temper issues. Always have. (Is this where I'm supposed to make like Brett Favre's Wrangler ads?)

No flora or fauna are generally at risk, but hey.

That said, DT's closer to the truth there. Yes, it bugs me when stuff like that happens in the CM/WWSM/FM franchise. So, absolutely, the general thrust of the original post is in earnest. Why does that stuff happen? It's...well, just about any adjective I can come up with is potentially offensive to one group or another.

Since, y'know, people are focusing on the "simian" aspect of a phrase I've heard and seen used without that particular reaction to it for something like fifteen years now. But that's okay! They can be simian code monkeys if that makes it easier for you folks to mock me! I'm a man, I'm...almost 30. Shit, that fell apart there, didn't it?

Point being, there are some things that happen in that franchise that are almost so far from making sense that they start coming around the other way. Almost, but not quite. That one specific example was a coach leaving to make less money for a team a league or two down because I wasn't offering him enough to stay up. Never mind that his original salary was *still* more than he made by leaving the team.

And that's really the bottom line. I ain't saying that the staff members need to stop leaving, but I'd really like, if a reason is going to be cited in the story about it, a reason that makes some sense within the given context.

When it comes to the periphery features of the game, that gripe is second only to the press conference asking questions where the answer choice they give you bears no resemblance to what that answer actually means if you select it.

I get it, two cultures divided by a common language, but even the usage of the Queen's English is kind of schizophrenic in this franchise, and it bothers me.

Or, in keeping with the simian theme, you could say it drives me bananas.

Have an excellent weekend.

[digamma]

Hard for me to come up with a worse way to ask an "earnest" question.

[Toddzilla]

douchebag

[sovereignstar]

Ahem:

We have a huge FM discussion thread, one which Marc frequents pretty regularly - something we should be grateful for. Why are we pinging him? Are you that much more important than everyone else? You aren't the only one guilty of this on the boards, but I don't recall someone being so snarky when going about it. Let the man browse the forums without Captain Me sounding the alarm. That's all I ask.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Ahem:

We have a huge FM discussion thread, one which Marc frequents pretty regularly - something we should be grateful for.

Yep.

Why are we pinging him? Are you that much more important than everyone else?

Nope.

You aren't the only one guilty of this on the boards, but I don't recall someone being so snarky when going about it.

Sometimes snark is cathartic. If it bothers you or anybody else when I blow off steam once in a while, feel free to ignore the post. It isn't as if somebody at SI headquarters is going to shit their pants because the almighty SackAttack is having a fit and start demanding answers of Marc or anybody on the development team.

It isn't as though the quality of my life is going to suffer appreciably if nobody responds. Hell, I'm pretty sure I have a handful of perfectly legitimate questions - no snark, no bug-up-the-ass - in the "huge FM discussion thread," and I'm damned if I can remember getting responses to any of them from, well, anybody. Whatever. Life goes on.

But if I blow off steam in that thread and it gets 25 responses, either of the 'douchebag' or of the actually-relevant variety, it derails that conversation to the detriment of the other people contributing to it.

So which is more of a dick move? Risk derailing a valuable thread when I need to blow off steam, or blow off steam in a separate thread and assume that nobody really gives a shit what I have to say in the first place, so why pollute the thread people do find useful?

Just, y'know, so I can keep the righteously indignant responses to a minimum in the future.

[SackAttack]

Dola,

Thanks for your responses, Marc. I missed them the first couple of times I returned to this thread.

Much appreciated.

[Blackadar]

Ping Marc Vaughan.

Be so kind as to pass along the following message to the FM code monkeys, would you?

Ahem:

"Would you guys stop coding such excellent games that I end up buying every single version even though I'm a Yank and therefore know absolutely dick about soccer/football?"

I'm tired of paying $40 each year for hours of entertainment and fun trying to figure out how to coach a sport I know very little about. It's entirely unacceptable and you should immediately cancel all US/Steam distribution deals so if I want the game I have to go through the trouble of importing it, which might cause me to miss a season or two. I was going to skip this years' version, but there's a new tactics editor, an improved interface and some more goodies. Sonofabitch!

Oh, and hi to everyone else. Nice to see many of the old faces are still around.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Ping Marc Vaughan.

Be so kind as to pass along the following message to the FM code monkeys, would you?

Ahem:

"Would you guys stop coding such excellent games that I end up buying every single version even though I'm a Yank and therefore know absolutely dick about soccer/football?"

I'm tired of paying $40 each year for hours of entertainment and fun trying to figure out how to coach a sport I know very little about. It's entirely unacceptable and you should immediately cancel all US/Steam distribution deals so if I want the game I have to go through the trouble of importing it, which might cause me to miss a season or two. I was going to skip this years' version, but there's a new tactics editor, an improved interface and some more goodies. Sonofabitch!

Oh, and hi to everyone else. Nice to see many of the old faces are still around.

Blacky - feel free to join us in the other thread where we have excellent discussions revolving around how Yanks with minimal soccer knowledge can still have success with FM and learn about the game of soccer as well. no judgement occuring.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Blacky - feel free to join us in the other thread where we have excellent discussions revolving around how Yanks with minimal soccer knowledge can still have success with FM and learn about the game of soccer as well. no judgement occuring.

Hell, I haven't been here in three years. What other thread?

[DaddyTorgo]

really - has it been that long?

dang.

there's a FM2010 thread (here i'll bump it for you old-timer). Feel free to post general questions or difficulties or whatever in it and someone will typically answer, or else just read through it (post-release date would probably make sense) looking for nuggets of wisdom.