In yesterdays announcement we talked a lot about what gameplay changes we're making to the game. Today we concentrate on showing you what we plan to do with your gameworld and how we came about making some of the key decisions.
Too many gameworlds
As has been widely reported on the forums the amount of subscribers we have in the game is spread far too thinly across too many worlds. Fundamentally, our strategy for gameworld management wasn’t good enough. We saw that people wanted new gameworlds and, because the statistics for new orders and traffic on the website, backed that up, we didn’t foresee the long term effect.
As FML stands, we’ve been churning subscribers from the 34 worlds and we’re now unable to fill them back up because the perception is that people feel like they are not capable of competing in an existing world. This means that our subscriber base is now spread thinly and it continues to thin daily. This then has the snowball effect of more people deciding to leave because of the emptying gameworlds, which only worsens the situation.
During our analysis we evaluated a number of different options as to what we should do.
• Option 1: Keep everything ‘as is’ and attempt to fill up each world.
• Option 2: Keep active gameworlds and close all others.
• Option 3: Don’t close any worlds but encourage people to move to the active worlds.
• Option 4: Reset everything and start again.
• Option 5: Full merge of gameworlds
We came to the decision that the cleanest option, which was made with the best long-term interests of the game, will be to go for a full reset. This would involve the closure of all worlds and the opening of a set of concentrated new worlds. This will happen in March 2010.
We fully accept and understand that many of you will be unhappy with a reset as you’ve invested a lot of time and effort into your team and your community. We did explore Option 5 in a lot of detail (this was many of team’s preferred option) however there were a number of gameplay hurdles such as if we merged, how we would deal with two copies of the same player and how we would deal with the varied economies in both worlds. On a technical level we also had to consider the timescales and challenges involved in merging two or more databases together. Although not impossible, we decided that it would have taken too long to be able to do this.
The reset will involve you losing your skills and stadium. However, you will keep any reward points that you’ve earnt between 1.4 and the reset as well as any shortlists, tactics, views, filters and match plans that you have saved.
We understand what a major decision this is and of its implications but we feel that it’s the right thing to do in order to provide a stable, long term base for the game. As part of this base, we are also in the process of reviewing the price plans with a view to reducing the monthly cost of playing. A further announcement will be made on this before we reset.
We also hope that many people might be more in favour of a reset if we manage to do a few of important things:
Choice
Yesterday we talked about the different flavours of gameworlds that we will be launching after the reset. Once 1.4 arrives, all managers will be given a choice as to which gameworld they’d like to participate in, after the reset,when signing into the game. We’ll advertise in advance of this how many gameworlds there will be and what they will be called but you will be able to control where you go. We will also try to group people logically based on their current gameworld.
Elite gameworlds
As part of this choice we are also looking to introduce an invite-only, elite gameworld. This will be new-gen only and to get an invite you will have to be doing very well in your previous gameworld. You don’t have to take up the invite if you don’t want to, but if you do, you’ll be competing against the very best that Football Manager Live has to offer. Want to see how good a manager you really are? Then this is the place to be.
By being full of the most hardcore, dedicated and active managers, the elite gameworld should remain incredibly active with lots of managers online at any one time and have a buzzing transfer market and community.
Is this something you are interested in being part of? The original elite managers will be chosen depending on how successful your team is at the time of the reset in March, so there is still a lot to play for in the meantime.
Let’s Celebrate
A full reset means that all the gameworlds will start balanced but for us recognising the efforts of managers, especially those who are long term subscribers is vitally important. Many of you will have built up a club with a great history and will want to save a record of the many achievements you have made over the last 12 months. Well that’s where our brand new “celebrating success” features will come in.
Whenever you change gameworld (not just over the reset), you will be able to take a record of how well you have done in your previous home in two ways:
1) Portable Manager Biographies
Every manager already has a biography in their gameworld, which in a few paragraphs, gives an outline of their achievements over the seasons. It will be improved and transferable with you to your new gameworld.
2) Manager Medals
In addition, we’re looking to expand on the current achievements system and create a brand new set of manager achievements in the form of medals. Many of you have been in your gameworld since the start, hopefully some of you feel like you’ve done really well, you’ve probably won a few competitions, been near the top of the rankings and maybe once upon a time you were the game world champion. The manager medals will recognise and reward all your efforts. These medals will again be portable between gameworlds and aim to serve as a reminder, to anyone you come across, that you’ve got an FML history behind you.
2 Free Months
In consideration for the above which we accept are major changes to the game, we would like to offer every single paying subscriber 2 months free. Starting immediately, if you are paying monthly for Football Manager Live, you’ll find that your next payment date will have been delayed by 2 months whereas if you’ve paid up front, you’ll find that 2 months playtime will have been added to your account.
We’ll be online and on the forums all day today and we’ll do our best to answer all the questions you have about these announcements. We’ll also be appearing on next week’s Gameworld One podcast where Jordan and Millie will no doubt be grilling us on the plans and trying to put forward the main concerns from the community. Feel free to send any questions you have to podcast@gameworldone.com.
- Marc Duffy
A lot of the responses are drivel, but fear not I have trawled through the first 17 pages and pulled out the rare gem amongst the crap so that you don't have to.
Devastated
I invested a lot of time in creating my club from nothing to where they are now. I and many others begged SI not to continue opening new Gameworlds because it would create this very situation, this was not something that came out of the blue. We were not doom mongers, we argued politely and intelligently about the long term problems that SI were creating for us. We were ignored and now we are having all our efforts for 13 months trashed.
I appreciate SI may want to reset to simply forget the mistakes of the past, and a chance to start over from scratch; to simply brush previous mistakes under the carpet, however I feel this is taking the easy way out and a complete slap in the face to loyal gamers such as myself that have stuck around despite the problems in good faith that a solution would come.
I enjoyed FML overall, despite it's problems -- I really wanted it to be great, to live up to the potential I saw in it, I saw it as the kind of game I could be subscribed to forever because it is just as easy to play 6 hours a week as it is 6 hours a day; however you've just destroyed my trust in SI to deliver the product, whatever the situation the game faces I should not ever be told "sorry all your effort up 'til this point is being deleted, you must start again". I've played many MMOs, every single one of which has faced a declining population over time (I never played the exception to this rule: WoW, it just doesn't appeal).
Throughout server merges and closures not once has a player had all their efforts through away in this manner in any of those games, sure minor loss is always a part of server merges, but a complete reset is unheard of for me. I do not believe you understand the genre that FML finds itself a part of if you believe this course of action acceptable in any way. Even more so that you will not only rule our previous 12 months efforts for nothing, but now tell us that the next 4 months will also mean nothing. How can I trust you that this will not happen again in another 12 months? Quite simply, I cannot.
Good luck with the future, unless there is a sudden and drastic change of heart, which seems unlikely, I will not be part of it now.
- Durera
I dont know if you will answer this or not but how many of the FML staff have worked on an MMO before?
It just seems to me that Marc's post in which he said that the problem with having too many gameworlds from the start was not foreseen is a no brainer for an mmo experienced player, nevermind a developer.
I believe you have missed one of the biggest reasons people play a subscription based mmo - they have a sense of ownership over their character/team or whatever. That keeps them paying and playing but if you take that away the sense of betrayal is huge and I have a feeling you guys have hugely underestimated the retention rate for your subscribers after this announcement. (I don't mean that as hyperbole but I really do believe you have)
If any of the FML staffers are not familiar with the SWG NGE I would really suggest you google it and take a quick read. It is notorious in the MMO industry as the biggest screw up ever and effectively killed what was a thriving, if underachieving, game. What you guys are doing is very, very similar however to your credit you have been very open and honest about the decesion making process and why this is necessary. If you are interested this would make a good start "Star Wars Galaxies: Anatomy of a PR Disaster" http://blog.tp.org/chip/archives/002076.html
Please don't do this guys. I have never written a complaining or whiney post on here ever before but I write now cos I care.
- bacajow
Originally Posted by Marc Duffy:I wrote this in the announcement and I stand by this as I feel what we're doing is vital for the games long term appeal. "We understand what a major decision this is and of its implications but we feel that it’s the right thing to do in order to provide a stable, long term base for the game. "I think we are missing the point here... you have spent so long trying to work out why people leave that you have taken your eye off why people stay. People have stayed in this game because they are in it for the long run... we have invested a lot of time developing our stadiums and our skills. Your first mail focused purely on why people leave!! People will test/sample the game.. if they don't like it then that is life, the game wasn't for them
For me you need to encourage people to move game worlds (new gen) using the existing methods... or migrate people over.
Then close the empty game worlds and re-invent them in the re-gen style... if people want to move from newgen world to regen world then they make the decision to lose skills and stadium.
having a full reset is a really bad idea... FML may never recover... i sincerely hope it does. it is a thoroughly enjoyable game to me even in its current state, everybody has successes but sometimes all people want is to be number 1... in the real world this is not possible, just like in FML THAT is the challenge. FML is for the long term in its current state, it is not a 15 minute arcade game.
- FML General discussion
The honest answer here is that we're in this position for a variety of reasons but certainly as a development studio we take the brunt of blame for where we are right now - we've made some mistakes and we've worked hard looking at everything to try and get ourselves in a position to move forward. This is why I want people to take a step back and try to see the bigger picture. How did we get here and how can we push on? We've done that, it's taken us a long time and it's been a very hard process. I'm not expecting to win many of you over, you've invested a lot of time and effort in the game and we're grateful and we accept how emotive this is for you all.
- Marc Duffy
There is absolutely nothing in a full reset that is of interest to me, no. It does not excite me to start all over again, no.
I beta tested for 4 months before the game went live. I joined Clough at the start and was proud to be part of something I'd looked forward to for a long time. I struggled like others did when stadiums were introduced but got through it to a point where I'm now ranked 38th in my GW and have a lovely 40,000 seater stadium. I was made a Chat Helper, and later on became an organiser. The latter two positions I have resigned from after reading this unbelievable announcement. Why bother putting more effort into a GW which is now effectively dead? Why would it excite me to do it all again? What's to say that a few months down the line when you realise what a huge mistake you made, you won't reset again?
My sub doesn't expire til March, so I'll continue to log in if I've nothing better to do, and will go through the motions of playing the game. But you've killed it, what does it matter if my team get relegated now? What does it matter if my players are injured, why should I spend money on improving my stadium? Better to reset the GWs now and get it done with, give players like me the opportunity to see what life will be like in these new gameworlds before our subs end, as I'm sure many like me will not resub just to start over in March.
As for invites to an elite regen only gameworld for the top teams before the reset happens, well you'll be lucky if there are 50 left in a gameworld to choose from. wp SI gg.
- Stewie's Left Peg
What you seem to not realised is that in a MMO....there will ALWAYS be people ahead of others.
Doing a restart now to "level the playing field" for new users wont do a thing....all it will mean is that the new players starting in say May/June 2010 will be behind the people who restart in March.
To take away the skills we have all got in the past year is pathetic and simply not fair on us (the paying customer) who have supported you and FML from launch.
Remember SI/SEGA...this is a MMO....PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE SLIGHTLY AHEAD/BEHIND OTHERS. I wouldnt start playing World of Warcraft and expect everyone to have to start from Level 1.
Doing a restart we all might as well just go and buy FM10 and play that.
- Dynamo
I'm curious. If you go back 12 months to when FML first went live, I remember there was a poll. This poll was designed to determine what kind of strategy most players would implement when FML went live. The result was unmistakable. The vast majority aimed at a slow and patient build up in which they would reap benefits of from over the long haul. I guess in a sense, that kind of summarized your typical FML player as well. It's first now that we start seeing the results of 12 seasons worth of hard work , investments, trial and error in our teams. All that time spend nurturing our youth players that now have matured into players we depend on. All that ground work, and for what? To do it all over again?
I think a lot of those players who now see their long-term plans shattered into pieces feel a bit betrayed. I know I do.
I want to add that I really love the game. But this ugly turn in events have forced me to reconsider what I'll have to do further. I guess I won't reach a decision before re-launch.
BTW: Why are the fantasy GW's restricted to the top teams of the previous GW's?
- Celvin
Originally Posted by durera:SI need to acknowledge that this is an MMO and people who've played it as such have invested time on the valid assumption that it is an ongoing world. Merges may be a lot more difficult than a complete reset of the game in terms of technical skill and time required, but I have never heard of an MMO shut down a GW and simply tell the players that lived there "Sorry, we screwed up, you need to start again" -- for good reason!
Any changes to the game should always protect the current player base and attempt to bring in new players, not simply throw us out with the bathwater and pretend it was all a bad dream.
I have to say I couldn't agree more.
- Zoah
Originally Posted by Loris:Few quick questions:Yes I had fun. But no, I would not have played it, no I would not ave invested all that time into it had I known that in 12 months time I would have to start again, and that all my effort would be deleted because SI refused to listen to those that could clearly see where the proliferation of GWs would lead to an inevitable need to merge/delete.
- did you have fun in FML last 12 months or was just a boring work made to start having fun now?
- if you known when FML was launched that it'll be reset 15 months later, would you play anyway those 15 months?
Think 1 minute before answer.
FML was, and is still, advertised as a MMO. It was the promise of an online, persistent gameworld that I could build a club from nothing in that made me sign up for FML half a decade since I stopped playing FM offline.
SI need to acknowledge that this is an MMO and people who've played it as such have invested time on the valid assumption that it is an ongoing world. Merges may be a lot more difficult than a complete reset of the game in terms of technical skill and time required, but I have never heard of an MMO shut down a GW and simply tell the players that lived there "Sorry, we screwed up, you need to start again" -- for good reason!
Any changes to the game should always protect the current player base and attempt to bring in new players, not simply throw us out with the bathwater and pretend it was all a bad dream.
- Durera
Originally Posted by Marc Duffy:Manager medals will recognise everything good about your 12 seasons in charge.
I think you are missing the point here Marc, giving everyone a medal for playing for 12 months is nothing like the skills that will be lost. Please dont compare the two.
I dont often post on forums - the last time was when SOE effectively restarted Star Wars Galaxies, however, not even they were so bold as to reset skills. There are some good ideas here, many which will improve the game we know and love. However...
This is an MMO. Working on something over a long period of time is one of the cornerstones of an MMO. Wether that be exploring to gain experience in order to "level-up" or learning something over a period of time in order to be better at something . What you are proposing to do is remove what has been built up over the past 12/24 months, stadiums and skills in particular.
You say that migrating skills and stadiums etc. with the actual account will make things unbalanced. I am sorry but if you have invested your time, energy and money into something then you DESERVE to have that advantage. That is the world of MMO gaming.
Solution? Have "tiered" servers. Based on the amount of time you have been a subscriber. Been playing for a year? Have a number of servers that state that the server is designed for "mature accounts, newbies risk being dis-advantaged."
The proposal you have set out is worse than the SOE new game experience debarcle and I fear it will be the end for a lot of people, just looking down this thread should give you an idea of HOW bad this will be. You should act now to implement something that has been fully discussed and debated by the paying customers that keep you all in jobs.
Sadly, I will also be cancelling my account if this goes ahead, I refuse to give anymore to a dev team that so flagrantly disregard the long time energy, effort and money that has been placed in FML - and no a recognition system is NOT a replacement for 12 months worth of skills learnt (29 days per level 5 coaching skill anyone? Nah, have a medal instead.)
Please re-consider before you sign FML to the MMO scrapheap.....
- Wishdokkta
Yesterday I praised SI for the plans they detailed....
No one seems to be too peeved off about losing their teams because lets face it everyone loses their team at some point and I am sure people would gladly sacrifice their team in exchange for a new and improved GW and most importantly a commuinity.
The skills and stadium loss however need to be thought over, you say it's only the only way to start off fair but lets face it new users coming in 3-4 months after the reset are going to be behind in skills either way so what will you do about that? Restart everyones skills again??
FML is aimed at a paticular niche, the game doesn't appeal to everyone and in my opinion SI should focus more on the people who have been here from the start, people who have never played FML before won't suddenly be interested come the reset and start playing.
FML need a commuinity, without it this game wouldn't exist, all the users here clearly feel passionately about this game as they have invested not only money but a lot of time and energy, you claim you knew there would be reprecussions but lets face it there are guys on here that are the cornerstones of the FML commuinity, those who have decided to leave already WILL NOT be easily replaced, FML WILL NOT suddenly grow in popularity.
The main complaint is regarding the trading of skills and stadiums for imaginary medals, I have never played FML for the achievements and I don't intend to as they really are meaningless, I have never looked at any other managers achievements as they mean nothing, what good is a medal when your rock bottom, people respect current form and status not what you have done in the past.
The retention of all the main skills ( Coaching, Finance, Scouting, Construction, Physio) would be a fair comprimise, and a reasonable compensation for stadiums would please plenty of people.
How would you all feel in SI if you where told that SI was being reset that any projects you'd been working on would be lost, that you would recieve a medal and nothing more for all the work you've done and go back to your minimum wage?
- Eoin =)
Originally Posted by Paul Kiernan:During our analysis we evaluated a number of different options as to what we should do.
• Option 1: Keep everything ‘as is’ and attempt to fill up each world.
• Option 2: Keep active gameworlds and close all others.
• Option 3: Don’t close any worlds but encourage people to move to the active worlds.
• Option 4: Reset everything and start again.
• Option 5: Full merge of gameworlds
you had 5 options and chose the worst of the 5 i strongly recomend you look @ option 2 again, it would still cause upset and problems but nothing like you are getting now
Agreed ... When I read the options I laughed when I read option 4, as if it was put in as a joke to lighten the mood, option 1 is clearly what has been the plan that failed so badly and options 2,3 and 5 were all viable solutions to the problem of too many GWs for too few subscribers.
But then a few lines later. BAM! The joke is on us it seems.
- Durera
Dear Marc & co.
I'm pleased to announce that I'm utterly gutted and disappointed.
I've just renewed my sub by 12 months, paying the full amount - not via any boxed versions or whatsoever. Because of my love for the game, the fellow managers in Cantona, where I've been from day 1, but ALSO because I wanted to support you with money to keep developing this game.
However, I will not continue once you close the ORIGINAL Gameworld Cantona. I simply cannot justify spending the incredible amount of time I've invested in building my squad, my tactics, my skills ALL OVER AGAIN.
I believe you will lose many managers who've been with this game for a very long time, if not from the beginning.
I urge you to reconsider the decisions made. You should at least keep one or two original Gameworlds, where some of us can and will stay - simply because you will lose the majority of us if you don't. In this situation we are allowed to maintain our skills and everything we've worked so hard for.
I hope you're happy with my money. There will be 8.5 paid months left on my sub once I leave. And honestly, I'd rather lose that money than to comply with the proposed way forward.
I feel you have completely disregarded the opinion of your hardcore fans and made a cold-hearted decision in favour of SI's cash flow.
Fantastic choice. You haven't got to deliver any services to those managers who will no longer log-on after March 1st and will retrieve loads of cash from newly acquired managers from that day.
Just do not forget. There will be an angry mob of ex-managers who used to be your biggest fans out there, who will make their voices heard - and the damage done to the SI and FML-brand will be remarkable.
So the option to keep some of the original Gameworlds for your hardcore fans and managers would not only be a wise decision, it would also work as damage-control, to ensure the longevity of FML. No company can survive when they disregard and disrespect their most loyal and hardcore fans.
Warm regards and I wish you a lot of wisdom,
- Jurgen | Fortuna Retra | Cantona
Dear friends at SI.
I almost understand the resons behind the view now that the only way forward is to restart again. However, that makes my position as a mod untenable and therefore after 20 months please accept this as notice of my intention to resign as a moderator.
I will post my views here at an appropriate time but basically you cocked up big time SI because you NEVER did have a plan either in terms of Development OR Marketing you have followed the beta route of suck it and see and it is for these reasons we find u now having to make the tuff decision to restart. The only reason we went live in the first place was to get income
in to pay for the continued and necessary development.
The best thing you could do now is withdraw the game until you are ready to restart afresh. If you dont then those that occassionally visit and are left will make the remaining mods jobs unbearable and you will find yourselves deactivating accounts for people who are left. Good luck with the NEW FML from March onwards but please if you've learnt one thing from this sorry episode it should be that rather than tinker about with little niceties in the game itself get your vision and plans out up front and clear to everyone or you might just as well pack in and go home.
Thanks for the fun times as the BEST things about my experiences have been the "Community" elements not the intricacies of the game itself and i will miss my online friends immensely. Cheers,
Steve H
Mod in Pearce - ex mod in Saunders
Beta worlds 7 and 23 and various org jobs
But above all - made many friends i will miss
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