FML 1.1 and other thoughts…

I’m amazed, but I’ve finally managed to catch up with myself on this blog – just two seasons late. My team is currently consistently holding down the #2 spot in Saunders, with money in the bank and youth on my side things are going well.

But Saunders, and FML, is about to be shaken up, in a good way. This Thursday a new version of the game, 1.1, will be introduced. There are a few nice touches, but I think a great number of people will be unpleasantly surprised by the finance side of things.

There are four areas that are most prominent…

‘Gameworld Champion
Any team can be crowned ‘King of the Gameworld’ simply by beating the current holders.’

I like this idea as an added extra, to encourage more games. Perhaps in the future it would be good to have achievements based on the number of times you’ve defended your title.

‘Enhanced Game Analysis
To help you work out what the players are feeling throughout the match and to help you improve your team.’

I like anything that helps me see where my team is performing / underperforming, so I’ll enjoy nosing around the new stats available, although I’m not sure how useful they’ll be until I get a good look at them.

‘Fans
Clubs now attract fans with different sorts of personalities, what sort of club will you become?’

I’m really looking forward to this aspect of the game, although it’s kind of superficial until stadia are introduced in the next update some time later this month (I’m a little disappointed it didn’t make it into this update, but if it’s not here then it’s not ready). I’m intrigued to see what kind of supporters I’m going to get coming to my club and I really think this will add an entirely new aspect to the game. I have my doubts about how it’s going to fit into a Gameworld where people can already afford to buy the best stadiums, but if it doesn’t work well then I might jump ship and start afresh in a new gameworld to get the full experience of the game I hoped FML would be.

‘Updated Financial and Transfer Systems
To help curb inflation in gameworlds and to lessen the gap between the top clubs and the chasing pack.’

Put simply, this is the biggest change and will completely alter the game. A lot of people in the game have made vast sums of money by buying and selling players. By introducing all the new money sinks (signing on fees, agent fees, the such like) that simply remove money from the game, as well as the inforced sign-on percentages for the first month of a players’ contract, the buying and selling option is effectively nullified. This will make for a far, far slower game from the start of a gameworld, but I really don’t know how it’s going to play for those that have already started. I think a lot of people will find it very hard to shift their players when the money drains hit, especially the fools who are currently bidding £80k+ for average players.


In other news, I’ve made the #2 position in the rankings my own and I’m currently one of only two clubs to obtain a 4.5 star reputation in Saunders. I’ve got two matches against a good opponent in Leers OSC coming up, although his squad has been severely depleted by sales since he’s moving to Toms. Never-the-less, Flamini and Klose are two fine players so it’ll be two interesting matches.