[Archived] Football Manager 2010

[dazmaz]

Can you show the scorers?

Sure here you go

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Did you take over them as well and not give them a goalkeeper or something??

52 shots and only 19 goals. I'd be pretty ###### off with that

[dazmaz]

Did you take over them as well and not give them a goalkeeper or something??

52 shots and only 19 goals. I'd be pretty ###### off with that

they has some keeper called Glenn Verbauwhede. I have no idea how i managed to dominate them so easily, im assuming that because they are in admin they had to sell everyone. I suppose a 50/50 return for shots on target and goals isnt too bad even if i did have 52 shots

[Mc Love]

Real Madrid offered me job! I have turned it down with a save option that I can go back to if i want to take on real from that point.

Triple my transfer budget and and nearly ten times my wage budget plus over 200k a week.

I think I can be classified as mad.

However, I have just won the League Cup with Blackpool for the first time in their 131 year history!

[bboy]

just thought i'd post a great DB i've came across.

season 95/96

Please Read the instructions before you download and it works perfectly.

On vista place the download file in

C:\Users\(name)\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\editor data

It's the best custom DB i've came across and clearly alot of work has been put in.

[DE.]

just thought i'd post a great DB i've came across.

season 95/96

Please Read the instructions before you download and it works perfectly.

On vista place the download file in

C:\Users\(name)\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\editor data

It's the best custom DB i've came across and clearly alot of work has been put in.

Cheers for linking this mate, been having a lot of fun with it so far. Whoever created it has gone to incredible detail to get it correct.

Tearing apart the league with Rovers... 95-96 as it SHOULD have been it's difficult to make signings because the budgets are realistic for 95-96 but player valuations are still based on the current climate. I've signed Rio Ferdinand (16 y/o) and Gerrard (15 y/o) on deals though and Rio is already a first teamer and playing well!

Shearer is a beast in the game but is injury prone. For most players they've got it spot on, though Utd seem a little underrated. Scholes and Cole in particular should have better stats. Henning Berg hasn't been great for me so far, but the other players are doing well.

There are a few inconsistancies in the game - Villa are a bit too good, as are Wimbledon (though I love how i'm in January and already Vinnie Jones is top of the yellow card table ) but generally this is a very well done database.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Anyone take a screenshot of the Rovers squad?

I recommend an average player called Messi, get him and make him an England international

[bboy]

Cheers for linking this mate, been having a lot of fun with it so far. Whoever created it has gone to incredible detail to get it correct.

Tearing apart the league with Rovers... 95-96 as it SHOULD have been it's difficult to make signings because the budgets are realistic for 95-96 but player valuations are still based on the current climate. I've signed Rio Ferdinand (16 y/o) and Gerrard (15 y/o) on deals though and Rio is already a first teamer and playing well!

Shearer is a beast in the game but is injury prone. For most players they've got it spot on, though Utd seem a little underrated. Scholes and Cole in particular should have better stats. Henning Berg hasn't been great for me so far, but the other players are doing well.

There are a few inconsistancies in the game - Villa are a bit too good, as are Wimbledon (though I love how i'm in January and already Vinnie Jones is top of the yellow card table ) but generally this is a very well done database.

Ye I agree there are some problems with the database, but i'm still really impressed and it 100% playable and doesn't feel limited.

I checked the database and it has Blackburn set as a Background sugar daddy so funds should be easier to come buy in later seasons, and perhaps budgets could have been scaled up to meet modern game. However at least it was fair to every team.

One thing i noticed which you could take advantage of is the fact most the squad had large apperance bonuses, when you offer player new contracts they ask for the same basic wage but the bonuses get halved.

One thing i do like, they haven't instantly made every youth who turns into superstars as wonderkids, they've done the DB as if they were in 1995.

Anyway i give the DB top marks, If you read the description btw they said they were planning of making an improved DB in a few weeks, so you may want to keep your eye on that

[DE.]

Ye I agree there are some problems with the database, but i'm still really impressed and it 100% playable and doesn't feel limited.

I checked the database and it has Blackburn set as a Background sugar daddy so funds should be easier to come buy in later seasons, and perhaps budgets could have been scaled up to meet modern game. However at least it was fair to every team.

One thing i noticed which you could take advantage of is the fact most the squad had large apperance bonuses, when you offer player new contracts they ask for the same basic wage but the bonuses get halved.

One thing i do like, they haven't instantly made every youth who turns into superstars as wonderkids, they've done the DB as if they were in 1995.

Anyway i give the DB top marks, If you read the description btw they said they were planning of making an improved DB in a few weeks, so you may want to keep your eye on that

I notice John Williams is still our chairman on the game, should Jack not be our Chairman?

[bboy]

ye one think i noticed, can easily be changed with a editor though

[DE.]

Finished the season 20 points ahead of Man Utd in 2nd place, beat the Mancs home and away too.

Shearer got 31 goals... if I recall correctly, the exact tally he got in real life in 1995/1996 ... and people say FM isn't realistic

[Mc Love]

Won league Cup with blackpool, could have won premiership had utd not come back from a 3-1 HT lead to win 4-3 and then citeh drew their last game. Still 2nd is my highest finish to date.

Anyone see the sh1tstorm between FM britain and SI this morning?

[American Rover12]

Anyone see the sh1tstorm between FM britain and SI this morning?

Don't play FM at all but read both letters. Interesting stuff, to say the least.

[LeChuck]

Can anyone post them here? Both sites are blocked for me.

[Mc Love]

The letter from FM- Britain:

FM-Britain will no longer be producing regular content. Sports Interactive have objected to our content model of charging for annual strategy guides, and have threatened to remove all FM-Britain staff members from the beta testing process if we continued. They also threatened to put us under legal review despite our absolute conviction that nothing that we have done violates copyright law.

The absolute priority of FM-Britain has been to improve the quality of the Football Manager community. We felt it most important that Richard Claydon (wwfan) was able to continue to beta test the game and develop the tactics creator into which he and Oliver Collyer have put so much work. The only solution left open to us by Sports Interactive (SI) was for Richard to resign from making premium content – and without his input we no longer physically have the time or the manpower to continue.

Therefore, we have proposed that Richard continue to test the game as an independent fan of Football Manager, while the rest of the FM-Britain staff will remain separate from SI and from the newly proposed Sports Interactive Affiliate Scheme.

The biggest casualty of all this is that there will be no Tactical Theorems and Frameworks 11 as originally planned.

The site, however, would like to clear up some myths and misunderstandings that our activities over the past twelve months have and are likely to generate.

*The Business Model*

First, we will explain our business model. In the 2008/2009 Football Manager (FM) season, FM-Britain (FMB) produced one piece of content: Tactical Theorems and Frameworks 2009 (TT&F09). For the rest of the year, we wrote and produced nothing. The only reason we were able to continue was down to the business model we put in place for the twelve months running from October 2009.

This should be stated again, to be clear. The site would literally have gone off line, and all of our content would have been inaccessible without this business plan. That is not an exaggeration. The site’s domain name came up for renewal, and we seriously considered letting this lapse.

In order to allow us to produce regular, quality content over the lifespan of FM2010, we planned to release Communication and Psychological Warfare (CPW) as a premium guide. This would provide some small financial remuneration at the end of the 2009/2010 FM season, and allow us to build a platform from which we could launch even more content for 2010/2011. The work leading up to CPW was, in effect, “paid for” by its release as a premium guide.

We are no longer teenagers or undergraduate students. As much as we love the game and as much as we have enjoyed putting in our own time for free, there comes a point where schedules become too crowded. Staff members move on and are unable to do what they once did. Under the system we had in place, Jordan Cooper was able to divert some of his business time towards the marketing and administration of FMB’s servers. Richard Claydon was able to continue to work directly with Sports Interactive on match engine feedback. Gareth Millward (Millie) was able to produce regular content for the main site and act as the editor of our content. Matt vom Brocke (The next Diaby) was able to spend small pockets of time working on guides, while we were able to offer compensation to Jon Pearson (JP) and Keith Matthews who run our excellent LLaMa section and administrate the forums. We were also able to enlist the help of Thomas Levin from FM-Pundit in producing content and editing the main site. He has been similarly frustrated with the company’s attitude, apparently excluded from the SIAS without a single word of correspondence from SI or SEGA.

Without the business plan, this was simply not possible. Perhaps this is something that people don’t like to admit, but when you know that your work is building towards a particular goal it is much easier to dedicate time to finishing tasks. This is the basic advantage to a more entrepreneurial model. It fosters a more professional attitude to content production which ensures its quantity and quality.

It is absolutely clear that this could not be an entirely selfish enterprise for many reasons. That is not the community spirit. The community should be about helping people with FM, discussing the game and having open discussions with people. Above all, it should be about having fun.

However, we did not feel that it would be helping the community in any way were we to simply shut down the site. We found a way to help the community without any input from Sports Interactive while at the same time allowing the site’s staff team to continue their work.

FM-Britain has directly helped a number of fan sites through our affiliate sales program. As of 26 August 2010, the community has earned £749.49 in sales commission. This goes a long way to helping sites, large and small, cover their hosting costs. The potential amount to be gained from this form of content production is far in excess of proposals we have seen from Sports Interactive’s bursary scheme. Importantly, it directly rewards the community for the work they put into their sites rather than making them dependent on the grace and favour of the parent company. It is also, historically, a much more appropriate income source than selling copies of the latest FM – because most people who visit fan sites have already purchased the game.

FM-Britain has also given away almost £200 worth of prizes through competitions. That is not copies of our own products. That is copies of Sports Interactive’s games’ series such as Football Manager, Football Manager Live and Football Manager Handheld for the iPhone. We purchased all of these products ourselves. Therefore we not only helped the company sell more copies of its games, we also directly gave a proportion of our income straight back into the community. We have also donated money to charitable causes such as UNICEF, Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Clic Sargent.

Much of the money was re-invested back into our site (for things such as hosting, software, marketing, etc.) or went directly to the authors of the guides and the administrators of the site. This worked not only as compensation for our time but was also an incentive to make sure that we took enough pride in our work to make sure we could justify its costs.

ONE guide a year was designated as premium. This means that per-iteration of Football Manager, the site would, at maximum, ask for around £10-£15 per year. This was designed as a thank-you – so that our members, if they enjoyed what we did, could help support the community, the site and its authors. If you never wanted to pay for a guide, then nobody was forcing you to. If you fundamentally disagreed with the concept of premium guides, nobody was expecting you to change your mind.

The premium model forced us to produce regular and quality content. Without it, we would be cheating you, the community, out of your money. Without it, new members would not join the site and become potential customers. Without it, people would not discover us via Google, see us as trustworthy and part with their cash. Our entire operation had to be concerned with promoting Football Manager, promoting the community and producing the highest possible quality of content that we could.

This is why the FMB- Twitter and Facebook feeds have been so committed to making everyone aware of the fantastic amount of effort and quality work that the entire community creates. So many sites produce some quite extraordinary work that FMB simply doesn’t have the expertise to offer. For example, many sites produce better graphics and downloadables than we do. We will show you precisely where they are and how you can get more. We were, are, and had to be, committed to the entire community and the maintenance of the community. And this is why we set up our affiliate sales links so that everyone could benefit in the premium content we were producing.

*Why we are stopping*

One thing should be made abundantly clear. We are not stopping because we did not sell enough guides. As we have already shown, we have paid out over £900 worth to the community through affiliate sales and through competition giveaways. We actually sold more than we expected. We do not wish, for obvious reasons, to give out our full financial statements, but we sold over 1,000 copies of CPW.

Many of these sales were to people who would never visit forums, never comment on posts and never e-mail us. Yet we have, to date, not had a single request for a refund due to the quality of our work. We stand by this. We produce professional quality work, and we have helped many people who are new to the game get to grips with it.

We should also make it absolutely clear that nothing that FM-Britain did was illegal. There were no violations of copyright or of trademarks. We used no screenshots and made very clear that our guides were unofficial. We are adamant that any legal challenge from SI or SEGA would have failed as has happened in similar disputes in the communities of other video games.

There is a more valid moral argument, which was debated rather maturely and fairly by the community – for this we are grateful. Many of the established community argue, as do SI, that everything in the community should be “free”. This, however, is a romantic notion of the community past. It is becoming more and more evident that high-quality writing in the FM community comes in fits and spurts. So far, no site (including our own) has found a way to produce quality content over a long, sustained period of time. The premium model solved this issue and gave the opportunity for people to continue to use our site 100% free of charge if they did not want to buy our guides.

We are stopping because we physically no longer have the manpower to continue this premium model. We are also stopping because it is clear that Sports Interactive will not offer its community the support that it needs to survive in the modern arena. By refusing to sanction a self-financing and mutually beneficial entrepreneurial approach to content production, SI are effectively taking the stance that they would rather have control over a weaker community than allow a stronger, more prosperous community to grow organically.

We were put in an impossible situation. Continue to produce guides and be accused of putting ourselves before the community. Or stop producing guides and be forced to effectively shut down large parts of what we do. We have chosen the latter, despite the fact that we will be sacrificing a good income stream and we believe this will harm the community in the long term.

*The future*

The only way that content in the community can continue to improve in quality and quantity is if we all take a more professional approach. The people who write quality guides, the people who write applications to view and edit data, the people who create graphics and do research for data updates – you all have skills that any business should jump at the chance to utilise.

SI would have you believe that they have given you the privilege of being able to use these skills. This is not the case. They should be privileged that you take so much of your time to make their product better. When you consider how many of SI’s current staff started out in the community, it becomes even more frustrating that they feel like they have a monopoly of expertise on their product. The game has historically always benefited by the resourcefulness and invention of its community. SI, this year, have taken active steps to quash that spirit.

We made an attempt to equalise the terms of this relationship. With absolutely no financial input, SI could have fostered a self-financing community which produced regular, quality content from experts all over the community – all for the purposes of advertising their brand and their product. Both sides could have profited. Most importantly, the content consumers – the community – would benefit most by being able to access an incredible amount of high-quality content. The vast, vast majority of which would have been for free.

Our proposals did not rip off the community – they allowed the community to invest in itself. We feel that at no point did Sports Interactive take us seriously. Our e-mails appear to show that very little, if any of it, was actually read, and even less of that was seriously digested. The initial aversion to any form of charging in the community has blinkered them from seeing the larger picture.

There is nothing inherently wrong with them wanting more control over the community. However, it is not a rational business decision. It is a romantic decision based on the way the community used to be. Many will agree with this stance, and we’re not here to try and change your mind. But look at the past few years of the community and you will see that SI’s “hands-off” approach has actually produced a much more innovative community. The sites which could innovate, have survived. Those who have not been able to properly organise have fallen by the wayside. Now, even the bigger sites are having issues with finance and with finding the time and energy to keep their momentum going. We will watch with interest and see if the SIAS does indeed reinvigorate the community.

FM-Britain will not join the SIAS while SI continues to oppose premium content. We believe it is the best way to ensure the community’s long term survival and to provide even MORE free content available to all. It also ensures the community’s independence from SI, who have clearly shown that they are willing to crush any site which does not adhere to their ideal of respectability. As this decision means that Richard Claydon must stop work on premium content, the site can no longer continue with its business model, and therefore cannot continue to produce regular content.

*A massive thank you to all our readers*

The only reason we were able to succeed this year was due to our readers valuing our work so much so that they were happy to support it. By paying for the small 1% that we offered for sale we were able to justify the work we had put in for the past 12 months. TT10 was downloaded over 60,000 times this year and our past guides have reached a total of nearly 800,000 downloads in over 12 different languages. Every week for the past year we receive e-mails thanking us for committing the time and energy to produce quality content for the benefit of the entire FM playing world. We sincerely and very humbly appreciate it.

Our biggest regret in ceasing production of TT&F ‘11 is letting you, the readers, down. We expected backlash from the general, traditional community, and were it possible for us to continue then SI’s opposition would not have been an issue either. However, we are eternally grateful that our core readership not only gave their blessing but actively supported us so well. Given the stance of SI and given our own personal commitments we are very sorry that we cannot continue in the way that we have managed over the past year.

The site will not be completely dead. We will update from time to time, and we will keep our discussion forums open. Using what is left of the community’s investment in us we will upgrade our forum software and main site. In the future, when our schedules allow, we will be able to return and prove to the community how beneficial our proposals could have been.

With the greatest respect to our readers,

The FM-Britain staff

[Mc Love]

Sports Interactive were given right of reply. This is their response.

Gareth recently sent this letter to SI to give us right to reply – the reply below is from Paul & Ov Collyer and Miles Jacobson.

“Our position on the charging for guides, whether official or unofficial is clear – we turn down proposed deals regularly for these kinds of guides, as we believe that it’s a key part of why the community around our games exist. For more than 15 years, members of the community have been providing help, advice and downloads for the rest of the community to enjoy at no cost, including many of the team members who are now at Sports Interactive.

We also provide unrivalled tools and access to people at the studio for the people who work on this content, and help wherever possible.

So, despite the gains we could make financially out of having guides, both official and unofficial, we reject them in favour of this content remaining part of the community, which continues to thrive.

Sports Interactive were not, at any point, contacted by FM-Britain to discuss the change from a fansite charging for a guide. The first anyone at SI knew about it was when the advert for it was put up on the FM-Britain website, and it was shown to Miles by Marc Duffy during the recording of a podcast, with Miles thinking it was a joke at first, and not a funny one at that.

Anyway, we aren’t planning to come back on every point in the open letter, but suffice to say the version of events there is quite different to what we believe them to be. There are, however, a couple of points which we feel we need to clarify.

Firstly, we have not threatened anyone with legal action. In fact, we’ve made it clear that we at Sports Interactive have consulted with no lawyers at all regarding the guides. What we have said is that when FM-Britain decided to charge for it’s guide, they became a business in our eyes, not a fan-site. We also pointed out that any businesses would need to ensure that they are not infringing any trademarks or IP that is owned by either ourselves or SEGA if they decided to go down this route. It was meant as friendly advice.

Secondly, it is stated that we threatened to remove some of FM-Britain’s staff from the beta test if they continued charging for the guides. This is also not true – by being the only one of the previously affiliated websites to not sign up to the SI affiliate scheme (detailed below) – their staff members had already been removed from the beta test. What we did do is email 2 of the FM-Britain staff members to say that we’d still love to have them on the beta test team as we very much value their feedback, but that they could not re-join it if they were still going to be part of the team behind the paid guides because, simply, we cannot give the access that beta testers have to the game or the team at SI to people who were making and charging for unofficial guides against our will. One of the two people that we emailed is coming back to being a beta tester, and we’re delighted to have him back. The other has decided to not come back, which is his choice, and is a big shame for both he and we.

Below are the terms of the affiliate scheme for you to all see, including the questions and answers that came from a workshop that was arranged to discuss the new scheme. As mentioned above, there was only one site which said no to the new terms, which was FM-Britain and we’re delighted that 35 other websites have signed up to be part of it. The new affiliate scheme was being worked on well before the guide was released, and a lot of feedback from various affiliate sites was taken into account whilst it was being worked on, which includes helping the websites with revenue both via a bursary scheme and affiliate marketing for selling of merchandise (and, hopefully, copies of the game) and providing competition prizes so that sites like FM-Britain, and the multitude of other sites that were offering games as competition prizes in the past, are not paying for those out of their own pockets.

SPORTS INTERACTIVE AFFILIATE SCHEME WORKSHOP

We truly appreciate the passion, knowledge and loyalty of the FM community. This is why we’ve re-visited our affiliate scheme to review how best we can re-structure the scheme and ensure our fansites are receiving the full support of Sports Interactive and SEGA.

The affiliate workshop took place on Saturday 3rd July. For those that were not able to attend, you can watch the broadcast again here (running time: 1 hr 45 minutes):

Video Platform

THE NEW STRUCTURE

We are proposing a new 3 tier approach with the criteria and benefits outlined below.

Level 1 – Fansite: Open to anyone who wishes to begin an FM fansite.

Benefits:

* Football Manager fansite badge

* Fan site kits access to FM assets and resources

* Mention in the community round-up and links posted on relevant FM related web-space

* Listed on FM.com affiliates section

* Invite to FM affiliates Fantasy Football League

Level 2 – Affiliate: Established for six months and have generated their own content during this time. Recommended by current FM Gold Affiliates.

Benefits:

* Affiliate badge

* The ability to sell games / merchandise through our new affiliate shop

* Eligible for bursary scheme

* 150-word synopsis of the site on FM.com

* Listed on in-game fansite list

* Direct access to the FM Community Team through a dedicated forum

* Monthly live online chats with FM community team

* Invitations to our community days and workshops

* Receive limited edition merchandise for use as competition prizes

* Yearly Football Manager Live subscriptions – 1 per site

* Invite to FM affiliates Fantasy Football League

Level 3 – FM Gold Affiliate: Established for two years with a large user base and regular weekly content.

Benefits:

* Gold Affiliate badge

* The ability to sell games / merchandise through our new affiliate shop

* Eligible for bursary scheme

* Access to preview code / BETA testing

* Listed on in-game fansite list

* 300-word synopsis of the site on FM.com

* Monthly round-up of new content posted as a news story on FM.com

* Direct access to the FM community team through affiliates forum

* Monthly live online chats with FM community team

* Invitations to our community days and workshops

* Receive limited edition merchandise for use as competition prizes

* Christmas gift!

* Invite to FM affiliates Fantasy Football League

BURSARY SCHEME

We’ve been looking into various ways in which we can provide you with some financial aid towards your running costs. Our first proposal is a new bursary scheme whereby we reward outstanding acts of community contribution with a cash reward for any activity we deem have proved of incredible value to the community over the course of each year. Here’s how it’ll work:

* We’ll keep a monthly ‘log’ of content from around the community

* Content can include anything from articles to tactic guides and challenges to downloads

* Best monthly content will also be featured on FM.com / Facebook / Twitter

* We’ll review the ‘log’ at the end of the year and decide which sites receive the bursary grants

How many bursaries will be available and to what value?

Exact details are to be confirmed but we expect to be offering around 20 bursaries, with 4 or 5 ‘top’ bursaries for the best performing sites. Amounts will be somewhere in the region of £100-250.

Are non-UK sites eligible for the affiliate scheme?

Yes. We should have territory community managers in Spain, Italy and France again so these guys will be able to help us monitor sites in those countries. Any affiliates outside of these countries will need to submit a round-up of their monthly content to us, ideally with a summary in English, to be considered.

How can you spend the money?

We leave this decision entirely up to you. You may use the money to help cover your bandwidth costs or to reward your site members for their contributions. It’s your choice.

AFFILIATES SHOP

We are currently exploring the possibilities of setting up a new ‘affiliates shop’ that will allow you guys to earn revenue from selling official FM merchandise and games through your site.

We appreciate that some of you may already be utilising other forms of ads/affiliate networks (e.g. Zavvi, Amazon) on your site and you are of course free to continue to using these if you wish to do so.

We are providing the affiliates shop as an extra revenue generating tool for you to utilise, it is up to you whether or not you want to take this option up.

We are still in ongoing talks but as soon as we are able to finalise details we will get these out to you.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

All our affiliate sites will be required to adhere to the following terms and conditions. We think they’re very reasonable, consider them more as guidelines that should help promote a friendlier, more harmonious community.

1. The content found on the site must concentrate solely on the Football Manager and Football Manager Live titles and speak about the Football Manager game series.

2. Sites must be updated on a regular basis.

We realise that for any site there are busy times and downtimes. We just want to see sites active on a regular basis; this can be in the form of mainsite articles, provision of downloads or forum activity.

3. The site cannot contain or link to content which violates or encourages violating the terms of use of any of the titles in the Football Manager series.

This line is a legal requirement. It’s not something we expect to be a problem but it is our obligation to be make these things clear. It absolutely does not refer to the ‘bad mouthing’ of SEGA or SI.

Violating the terms of use would include hosting any pirated content or links that promote piracy. It also includes any content or links to content that violates the conditions of Non Disclosure Agreements. Violating these terms would have serious consequences.

4. Do not host articles or content produced by other Football Manager fansites without the prior consent of the original content owner. Where consent is given, you must provide full accreditation and links back to the original content owner. Failure to do so could lead to legal action being taken against you.

5. You are not allowed to copy whole pages from the Football Manager website verbatim, although reasonable use of material from the site with clear reference to the copyright being held by SEGA / Sports Interactive is acceptable.

You can of course still post the latest news on patches, new game, features etc. Just please make sure to reference where the info was taken from.

6. The site must not charge users for ANY of its content. You are permitted to accept donations from users but this must be entirely at the individuals own discretion.

7. All sites should carry the following disclaimer:

This site is not endorsed by Sports Interactive or SEGA and is intended for entertainment purposes only. The views expressed on this site are the views of the individual contributors and not those of Sports Interactive or SEGA. The official Football Manager site can be found at www.footballmanager.com, the official Football Manager Live site at www.footballmanagerlive.com and the official forums can be found athttp://community.sigames.com/.

Sports Interactive, the Sports Interactive logo, in-game generated images and any other Football Manager related items are registered trademarks and/or copyright material owned by Sports Interactive, or their respective trademark and copyright holders.

SEGA and the SEGA logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SEGA Corporation. Football Manager, Football Manager Live, Sports Interactive and the Sports Interactive logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Sports Interactive Limited. All rights reserved.

WORKSHOP Q & A:

There were plenty of questions from all those that tuned in to the broadcast. Some of them have been covered off in the sections above but here is a round-up of the rest:

Q. Currently, there are lots of areas of the SI forums that are not viewable unless you are signed in to your SEGA pass account. Can you ‘unlock’ all areas so that we can link to threads from our site and make them viewable for all, even non-SEGA Pass members?

A. We have spoken to our online team and will let you know the outcome of that one.

Q. Can we be given early notification/access to the latest patches when they are released?

A. Unfortunately, this is not something we can do. We can’t share any links or give people prior notice as we ourselves have to wait for the patches to be released on STEAM before we can take any action. This is why everyone receives news of the latest patch at the same time, i.e. when it’s been released.

Q. Can we please be given notice of any FM events that are taking place?

A. Most definitely. Any events we can invite you to we will glad to have you there. We will also be looking at hosting some FM pub style quizzes and more regular community get togethers.

Q. Can we still charge a fee for a premium membership that allows members quicker access to downloading files, ad free pages?

A. Yes. As long as the actual content is still free for all to access you can continue to do so.

Q. How can I become involved in the research process?

A. The best thing to do is post in the research area of the SI forums and express your interest. We do have many long term relationships in place with our head researchers but there are sometimes new opportunities that arise. Keep an eye in this forum for any news.

Q. Is there anything you can do to better promote and acknowledge the contributions of individuals and not just websites within the community?

A. Certainly. We will be posting regular community round-ups on the FM website as well as community member profiles and a list of their greatest works.

Q. Can you provide unique ID’s from within the game to help us with our game updates, downloads etc?

A. Unfortunately not. Due to legal reasons, this is something we absolutely cannot provide you with.

Q. If I have an idea for a piece of merchandise, can I submit it to you to be considered?

Of course! We can’t make any promises but we can certainly take them into consideration.

(Please note that some of the benefits for affiliates have been removed for the publishing of this document, but the terms and conditions are not changed)

Cheers

Miles, Ov & Paul”

[LeChuck]

Cheers SR. Interesting stuff, a bit disappointed in SI's behaviour to be honest.

[Hughesy]

Im 25 games into the championship season after winning back to back promotion with Macclesfield....25 games in 0 losses, a stretch of 69 unbeaten games now for the club...Currently 2nd in the league, although I just beat the leaders (Fulham) 3-0 and now just 3pts behind.

Also into the semis of the league cup....a couple more seasons at Macclesfield & then hopefully the new game will be out to give me abit more of a challenge!!

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Whats your team like at the mo Hughesy?

[Hughesy]

Whats your team like at the mo Hughesy?

In what way?

Playing 4-3-1-2 (3 centre mids, 1 set to defensive)

Ave age of just 20, conceded just 14 goals in 24 games.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Sorry, I probably should have actually said what I meant

Which players are in your team? I've just taken charge of Doncaster Rovers and wondered whether I could get any ideas from your players. Stupidly I asked my gf to pick any team in England for me to manage. I assumed she's never heard of 95% of the teams but Sky advertised Doncaster v Leeds and she chose Doncaster. I won't be asking her again!

[American]

Finished the season 20 points ahead of Man Utd in 2nd place, beat the Mancs home and away too.

Shearer got 31 goals... if I recall correctly, the exact tally he got in real life in 1995/1996 ... and people say FM isn't realistic

Anyone have a mac? Couldn't find the option for choosing database when making a new game.

[Hughesy]

Sorry, I probably should have actually said what I meant

Which players are in your team? I've just taken charge of Doncaster Rovers and wondered whether I could get any ideas from your players.

Im in 2027 mate so none of my players will be relevant to you.

[Mc Love]

Have to share one of my biggest wins!

[Mc Love]

Recently got a copy of a game from a poster on SI forums. Blackburn were in Blue Square North when I took over in December, got promoted to Blue Square Premier in my first season and followed that up with BSP league win. Currently playing in the League 2 and top of the table since end of December having gained promotion already and just after beating L1 side Exeter in the final of the Johnstons paint trophy!

Its in the year 2072 so if anyone wants me to post up any information let me know!