Updated league table

As I thought, the league table now includes a 'predicted points total' based on the average number of points gained so far - here's an updated one for my DFA Premiership!

Blades early stumble...

A clear out at the Lane has seen several players getting shipped out to new clubs or to the dole queue. With a wage bill approaching £300k (£270k ish, + £20k ish for being over the £250k wage tax threshold), my finances were dwindling fast. With SI's new feature - a graph showing the projected finances over the next 28 days - hitting red for me soon, I decided to make some big changes. I'd love to show you the graph, but for obvious reasons I'm not going to share that info!

The biggest casualty was defender Valerien Ismael. Rated at £375k despite his advancing years, the veteran was on a massive wage, and was the obvious casualty, leaving the Blades for just £1. I have a great young DC who's stepped into the breach admirably - though with concentration 7, he'll need to get his head down in training and work hard if he's going to fulfil his superstar potential.

The future is much more rosy now; I've scrapped my woeful U19 side to trim off a bit more, and some more tweaks here and then see my projection looking in great shape. I may yet get a Cristiano Ronaldo before the end of the beta...



The early season form has stabilised now thankfully, but I was woeful unti late on yesterday - a shock 3-2 win over the 4th ranked side in the gameworld saving my ranking bacon. I'm now back on track and looking good for mid-table obscurity!

On a break...

I'm having a short break from FML, so here's a nice interview with the lovely chap Miles Jacobson, top dog at SI. Think he usually prefers 'Studio Director' or something, but he's a top guy anyway.

Successful night

The fed season got off to a smooth start last night, with no real headaches, which is nice. SI have added some really sweet tools for moderators and fed organisers which make it pretty straightforward, and it was nice to be able to offer some feedback last night based on what I found.

We also appointed a new organiser for one of our federations, the Early Evening FA - Jane Moss will be heading them up from now on. The announcement received a nice reception, and even GW4s resident five moaners couldn't all find reason to grumble about it simultaneously, for a change. That now leaves the XFA - the Extreme FA - to find an organiser for. One of the mods is filling in part time, but we really need a proper presence in there, keep the rowdy boys under control!

Season 4 Launch...

Today's a big day for me again - the new federation season starts tonight in GW4 at 8PM GMT. It's always an anxious time, but this season should be easier as we don't have any new users - in the past we've had people still joining the gameworld at 8PM, and we desperately want to get them into a fed so we can get them some money and official competitions. After 8PM, of course, they start getting assigned to other gameworlds.

This time, all the noobs went to GW6 and GW7 anyway, so we've just had people swapping federation to contend with. Tonight will be a case of checking, double checking and triple checking all the league and cup assignments. Imagine leaving someone out of a league by accident... Once all the leagues and cups are set, there's the nervous wait for the fed money to get paid out. My DFA will be one of the top two for income this season, which is great.

Once the payout is complete, I can start assigning the money to competitions. Half of the money automatically goes to daily payments divided equally among all teams, usually about £20k per day. The rest is used for competitions; my Premiership will have a pot of around £13M, hopefully, with the winners taking close to £1M of that.

I always try to make sure that the weakest sides still get at least £250k - having a narrow spread in the money makes sure that the league remains competitive, and that we don't get 1 or 2 uber-teams running away with things, as you see in real life, and in FML when this isn't the case...

The teams will get a lump sum tonight - whatever the guaranteed minimum amount is (i.e. usually what you'd get for coming bottom), with a further payout at the end of the season dependent on final position.

While it's an exciting time for everyone else, it's a nailbiter for the mods. Don't mess up, don't mess up, don't...

Servers back up...

The cluster 2 servers are back up now, so everyone can get their fix before bed - nearly a sweaty, fidgety uncomfortable night of traumatic cold turkey there...

Servers down

Any online game naturally relies on its servers, and when the game goes down it can be a frustrating experience. During beta testing, one of the key goals for SI will, I guess, be seeing how the servers cope with stress and load, and what makes them fall over.

The servers have been remarkably stable, but they have gone down today for cluster 2 - no Gameworlds 4,5 or 7. People might have to ring their Mums instead... Anyway, SI are on the case, and will get it sorted soon I'm sure.