Football Manager Live
Singing in the terraces
Sports Interactive are looking to confirm themselves as the Guv'nors of football management sims with the latest member of the FM family: Football Manager Live. FML looks to take realism to the next level by opening up online worlds, populated by budding Fergusons, Scolaris and Capellos. For the first time, gamers can now pit their team tinkering skills against other user-controlled teams via online leagues and cups 24 hours a day.
One of the fundamental differences in this online-only version of Football Manager is that there are no real world teams. Although real life footballers are used in the game, each user must create their team from scratch. This entails naming the stadium, designing the shirt and even the badge. Once your team is ready it's time to join a game world. In accordance with the number of managers, SI have set up a number of game worlds so that there will always be enough players to sign and enough leagues to join. Each game world is named after a well-known football star.
Once you're up and running in your chosen game world, it's time to build up your team and get affiliated with a football federation. The quickest way to get your team together is to allow the game to automatically allocate players that are still free agents to your team, although you can individually sign players should you wish. However, as a new team you will not have millions to spend on players' wages and acquisition fees so it's usually best to start off modestly until you have funds to bolster your ranks.
As soon as you have confirmed your team, the players will be contracted to your club and your club only. In order to acquire players in the future, managers must enter wage auctions for free agents or bid privately for contracted players. It's also possible to place players in an auction, which works in a very similar way to that of an eBay auction. Managers must submit their maximum bid for a player and wait for the auction to finish. There are also "auto accept" amounts that can be specified for a quick sell, as well as various other clauses. These player auctions are where you can really feel the live nature of the game. Managers may well find themselves logging in at all hours to make sure they are still the highest bidders for players they simply must have.
When your team is ready you'll no doubt want to start playing some matches. Each game world has a number of different football associations, much like the real world has the English FA, the German DFB and the Spanish RFEF. Within each of these federations are various leagues and cup competitions. As the game world doesn't sleep, the FAs have been designed to cater for all times of day. For example, if you work 9 to 5 everyday you would probably be most interested in an evening federation such as the AEFA (All Evening Football Association). Each FA specifies certain times when matches are expected to be played. Matches can still be played at other times of day, but the idea is to have as many teams as possible online at the same time so that competitive matches can be played.
The fixture list is more flexible than a traditional one in that each match has a date that it must be played by, known as the "AI date". At certain times you may be able to play a team without the opposition manager present. Instead the team's "AI manager" will take control so that the fixture can be played. If the game is not played before the deadline, it will auto-resolve and the result will be published.
A new feature is the manager skills system. Although you must begin as an "unskilled" manager, you can earn various perks the longer you spend in the game. The perks include coaching badges, scouting skills and unlocking tactical knowledge so that you can customise your formation and team instructions. These advantages could certainly give your team the upper hand as you work your way up the league.
The income of your football team is dependent on its reputation. By playing and winning a lot of games, you can move up the world rankings and earn more cash to spend on players or even improving your stadium. Of course, you can also acquire funds by selling your contracted players. When joining a game world with many well established teams it may seem futile to compete against the richer teams, but once the season begins you'll soon get some cash rolling in and can build up your squad. Once you have cash in the bank you'll have no problem spending it with the temptation of making big signings and building new stands for your stadium. The gamble of signing a player with a high wage demand is that if you start losing games your projected income will be severely reduced, which could mean that bankruptcy is just around the corner.
Having played a few matches and chatted to a few of my rivals, I can say that there is quite a good community spirit in the game world. Help is always on hand in the chat rooms and there is also a good system for leaving positive or negative feedback for any manager should you feel the need. The opportunity of getting involved in "mind games" with rival managers obviously has greater effects when dealing with humans, but everyone I spoke to seemed affable. The custom before every game is to wish luck to your opposite number using the in-game chat window. Touchline discussions can be made more colourful with the football-based emoticons that can be used to communicate. Among my favourites are the picture of a barn door and the image of a chap banging his head against a wall - an indication of how my strikers have been performing so far...
Gamers who are familiar with the Football Manager series will no doubt recognise much of the terminology and navigation, but even so it will probably take a little bit of time to get used to the interface. Fortunately there is a fair amount of assistance when you begin the game, which even FM veterans will be grateful for. It's certainly an advantage to have experience of a previous Football Manager title before taking on FML, but it's a very different game in many ways. You need to earn the right to use certain tactics and the player transfer system takes some getting used to. However, it could be said that the rewards are greater when succeeding against teams selected and controlled by humans rather than a computer.
Keeping in mind that sports manager games as MMOs are in their infancy, FML is not a bad first effort. The game may not appeal to all fans of the conventional management titles but if you have a passion for football and plenty of time on your hands this may be the outlet for you. A couple of managers I competed against admitted they were addicted, yet none had a problem with this particular addiction. As for me, I think one of the most interesting things about FML is the thought of where Sports Interactive will take the concept next.
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