It's been a while

I've been busy these last few days and so haven't been able to play to much FML or update this blog - good thing I decided to choose the Weekend Federation.

Anyway, over the time I have been less active (playing only a few games), my ranking has slipped down from around 280th to 420th, although there are now over 900 people in the gameworld so its quite busy.

The Weekend Federation League Draw has taken place and although the league doesn't officially kick off until Friday evening, people can start playing league games whenever they want! I've played 1 game so far, at home to the highest ranked team in my league (Ipswich Town FC) and only lost 0-1 which I thought was quite respectable. They are destined for promotion while I will be happy with midtable.

My latest idea on FML is to go and search out the best youngsters in the game who are unattached and then build up my team over time from youth (ie become the new Ajax of the 90s) - hence earning a nice bit of money at the same time, when I flog them, so I can buy bigger and better stars! Managed to pick up a couple of tasty teenage Brazilians so far ;-)

Apologies if there is some rubbish written below, trying out something new :p

Stuff formations, let's talk about me! ;-)

I will come on to talk about formations and players in the next post, but I thought I would just share my recent fortunes on the game with you.





Since I signed up late on Wednesday I have been given the following rankings:





12am Thurs: No ranking as hadn't played enough games


12am Fri: 462nd


12 am Sat: 379th


12am Sun: 297th





Now the number of players in GM4 has shot up over the weekend so my ranking could easily drop a lot of places over the next couple of days - especially as I have lost quite a few today :-(.





On another note, after going 46 games without a 0-0 draw (I didn't count, it tells you how many games you've played and I knew I hadn't had one upto that point!), I have had 4 in the past 6 games! On the one hand, its good that I'm keeping clean sheets, on the other hand it's worrying as I'm playing a vaguely offensive formation at the moment ( A twist on 4-1-2-2-1).

Federations are allocating their media money tonight, in anticipation for the big season KO tomorrow - might go last minute striker hunting so I can start scoring goals again!

Penguin Warriors Attack!

Penguin Warriors had their biggest win since joining the betam thrashing Madons Barmy Army 4-1, thanks to 2 goals from Benjamin Roux, my sytlish 17 year old forward (surely one for the future).

After that game I went through a mixture of defeats and wins, including a 4-0 hammering away to Ipswich Town FC (ranked 44th in my gameworld). However, more recently I played the same side at home and lost only 0-1 in a respectable game in which I think I accounted for myself well.

I have now played 34 games in about 3 days worth of playing (trying to get as many in as possible before the season starts a proper on Monday evening. So far my records stands at:

Won: 11

Drawn: 6

Lost: 17

Not the greatest record admittedly, but I think my record for the past 10 games shows that I am a team on the up:

Won: 5

Drawn: 2

Lost: 3

GF: 15

GA: 12

With all the defeats against higher ranked opposition, 0-1, 0-1 and 0-2.

Next up I will talk about my thoughts on formations and players.

onwards and not upwards

So after 2 games and 2 defeats I was sort of hoping to get a bit of luck from somewhere so I decided to try something new and enter a pre season cup. It cost £10,000 to enter but I was lucky enough to get a first round bye, meaning that all I had to do was win my Q Final to get all of my money back and a little more. I was up against another fairly new side in the shape of Toni Mau FC. They were slightly too good for my Penguins, although a last minute consolation goal meant I lost my 2nd game in a row 2-3.

This was followed by another 0-1 friendly loss and I was beginning to wonder where the first win would come from, 0 from 4 isn't even poor form!

Good news would come in the next match I played though, as I started a pre season league (entry for free but also no prize money) with a gritty, battle scarring 1-0 win, hurrah \o/ \o/

My tales of woe at the back were some coming back to haunt me though, as I lost my next pre season league match to Madons Barmy Army 2-3, my 3rd 2-3 loss in 6 games! What was the most annoying aspect of the game was that I had been 2-0 and had bottled it big time in the last 20 minutes :-(

However, revenge was on the way and it was sweet in the return friendly league fixture at my ground! :-)


Thought on the game:
It appears quite a few teams like playing with at least 5 players above the traditional midfield line and they always seem to do well, especially if they are applying pressure and have nothing to lose. Think this is a tactic I will have to adapt to. Another popular formation is the 442 diamond, which I may have to try out as I keep on losing to it lol.

So it begins...

So I had set up my team and was looking for my first opponent. It didn't take too long before you find someone - you can either challenge someone who is online and available or you can let the game find you a suitable opponent within the parameters you give.
So first up was Freckleton FC. Now I wasn't sure what too expect for a first game, I mean how bad a beating is really bad?! In the end, I ended up getting beat 0-3 and was comprehensively dominated on the shot count, although I did have more possession which I deemed was a positive to take from the game!

So to build on that I spent a few minutes adjusting my tactics before launching into my 2nd game against Celtic FC. This was a lot tighter affair, but the game only kicked into live in the 89th minute when I snatched what I thought to be a last gasp equaliser to make it 1-1. Oh no, Celtic FC went straight back up the other end and scored, damn 1-2. A minute later into injury time and I went up the other end and snatched another equaliser, woohoo! Then disaster, one of my defenders got sent off and as I had used up my time out for the game I didn't have time to change my formation before Celtic FC with the last kick of the game scored again! 2-3, I wasn't over the moon but it was a cracking last few minutes, with 4 goals scored in the 89th minute and injury time!

At least I had scored my first goals on FML.

The journey begins

So I did all the technically downloading stuff (which is actually really simple) and I was into the game. When you first sign in FML directs you through it's 'set up wizard', which takes you through a step by step process of setting up your profile, your team info and then onto your team squad.


Even though you can break away from the wizard, I would recommend using it as a base template - for example when it comes to selecting a squad, I would use the wizard up to the point where you fill in your base parameters of how many players in each position. However, after it provides you with a initial squad I would then advise most newbies to:
a) 'DON'T PRESS 'confirm squad' yet,
then b) break away from the wizard temporarily and use the worldwide free agents database to then fine tune your squad to meet your needs (ie: If you want four 6ft8 big lumps up front, you can remove your initial squad players for no fee and then search out your man mountains on the database. Only when you are completely happy with your squad should you press' confirm squad', as after that date you can't change your squad without paying for it!

Back to the wizard, and you can either play a game straight away or find a Federation for yourself (I chose the later as I wanted to think about my tactics before being flung in at the deep end). After you've chosen the federation to suit you 'weekdays', 'weekday evenings', 'weekends' etc etc etc and you've got a feel for the layout slightly more, then jump into a match.

Warning: Don't be surprise if you get hammered in the first match, remember unless you're joining right at the very very beginning, other people will know more about the game than you.


Right that's it for this post, more later on Friday, including my player profile, my first few games and my first World Ranking (I'm not bottom - just!)

Well, that was lucky!

To be honest, I'm quite lucky to be in this beta testing phase. Along with thousands of others I registered for beta testing months ago and everytime a new batch of testers were announced I would eagerly await that email from SEGA /SI saying 'we want YOU' lol. However, as for most of us that never came... until Tuesday!

Got home from work and there in my inbox was an email from Sega saying we want you to beta test FML, naturally I was delighted - so straight away tried to confirm my registration with SEGA, but it kept on coming up with 'unauthorised to view page'. Ah balls, that isn't good, so I went on the forums and found this was a problem with several people.

Turns out SI / SEGA had no record of them sending us out the invites and hadn't actually invited us , but full credit to them as once we had shown them the email in question they were more than willing to let us jump on board the game.

So many many thanks to SI & SEGA for allowing this, and also special thanks to their slightly dodgy computer system for sending me an email by mistake!!! ;-)

Hellooooooo

Howdy,

Welcome to the first of many (hopefully) blogs about my experiences in the FML Beta. For those of you who have randomly stumbled across this, FML is short for Football Manager Live, a Massively Multiplayer Online pc game which should be due for full release sometime over the coming months. Think of your normal football manager game and times the addiction by 10!

For those wanting more info on the game, here is a link to the official FML site:

http://www.footballmanagerlive.com/en/article/88/index.html


Up next, the story so far and my initial thoughts!