SI are beavering away on updates and optimisations, trying to make sure that the game is running well and that the servers are stable and lag free. Earlier in the week, I mentioned these stress tests that they run sporically - well, I got lucky and caught most of one short one last night - and it was in my humble opinion a remarkable success.
350+ people online, and the lag was fine. I was playing a match, browsing through player searches and profiles, and chatting away - and everything was pretty smooth.
There are still not enough people turning up, or sticking around, for the stress tests - and a small minority of those who do are not really contributing, choosing instead to spam moronically in the chatrooms (damn the lack of my mod powers during stress tests!); the sooner these guys get joined in as well, the sooner stress tests will be consigned to history. Because have no doubt - SI are winning the war, and FML must then surely be coming sooner rather than later.
Friday, 1 August 2008
Miserable time for Blades
It's my monthly bad start to the season time again, not helped by the loss of two key players in a wage auction bug last season. My squad was always undergoing some hefty pruning, but being left with 14 players was not fair!
So with that in mind, I decided to try and tap the unproven youth market - those pesky 22 year olds that supposedly had a lot of potential, but who have been at clubs that have failed to play, or train, them well enough to allow them to progress. So I made a few bids...
...and won them all - eek! I now have a squad of 26 players, which includes a large number of 22 year olds that supposedly have a lot of potential, but whom I won't get round to playing most of!
I've got a lot of time online next week, so I may start up a reserve squad, get in some non-ranked competitions and test them out, see what they are made of...
I think I've taken 18 points from my first 14 DFA Premiership matches, and I've got a positive goal difference, so I guess things could be worse. Now for one or two of these gems to come through and lead the Blades on to their usual second-half-of-season revival!
So with that in mind, I decided to try and tap the unproven youth market - those pesky 22 year olds that supposedly had a lot of potential, but who have been at clubs that have failed to play, or train, them well enough to allow them to progress. So I made a few bids...
...and won them all - eek! I now have a squad of 26 players, which includes a large number of 22 year olds that supposedly have a lot of potential, but whom I won't get round to playing most of!
I've got a lot of time online next week, so I may start up a reserve squad, get in some non-ranked competitions and test them out, see what they are made of...
I think I've taken 18 points from my first 14 DFA Premiership matches, and I've got a positive goal difference, so I guess things could be worse. Now for one or two of these gems to come through and lead the Blades on to their usual second-half-of-season revival!
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Judging 'Judging Potential'
One of the key feature sets in FML are the Skills that managers can choose to learn. I've covered these in detail in the past, but what has caught my eye lately is the debate raging on the official forums over one particular skill - judging potential (JP).
For those not in the beta, this skill allows the manager to determine, on a 1-10 scale effectively (from 0.5 - 5 stars) how much potential a young player has; a player with 5-star potential is destined to become world class, with the right training and experience. There are 5 levels of JP skill to learn, with each increase bringing an increase in the reliablity of the shown potential.
In the early days of the beta, there were no skills - and therefore no JP skill. It was hard to tell how good any given youth was, and so teams would sign as many as they could in the hope of unearthing a star. This had two effects: the fierce competition drove up wages for youth players, and teams had massive squads - many of whom never got near a sniff of a game. I remember one FML legend who had over 400 youth players...
This was clearly madness, and then the skills arrived. By learning first some of the 'Scouting' skill (Levels 1 and 2, maybe 3 I forget), and then starting off JP, managers could see which youths had potential. Everyone caught on straight away - everyone started learning JP. What was intended as a boost for youth specialist teams became available to the masses. Teams no longer hoarded so many youths - they didn't need to sign the dross - but competition for players was (is) still fiercesome.
It was clear that JP needed nerfing to some degree, and so SI changed the setup so that you need, I think, Scouting Level 5, which takes I guess 2 (real world) months, before you can begin learning JP - much more of a specialisation. That only applies in the newer Universe 2 gameworlds, so I don't know how well it's worked out - but debate is raging as to whether further nerfing is necessary, or whether JP needs to be removed altogether.
For me, I remember what life was like without it, and I wouldn't want to return to those dark days. But I would like to see it maybe made a little less accurate. Perhaps instead of the current 5 levels, we could have a 3-Level system as follows:
Level 1 (quick to learn): +/- 2 stars
Level 2 (takes a while): +/- 1.5 stars
Level 3 (takes aaaages): +/- 1 star
Signing youth players should be a gamble, progress must not be guaranteed, and I think the current system is maybe just a little too accurate.
Also, the future planned feature of youth academies, which will be added some time after the retail launch, has to be built in here somewhere - how would these work, and fit in with the existing setup? It's going to be exciting seeing what SI have up their sleeves, but this is a key area for many people - they say you never win owt with kids, but in FML, that's not always the case...
For those not in the beta, this skill allows the manager to determine, on a 1-10 scale effectively (from 0.5 - 5 stars) how much potential a young player has; a player with 5-star potential is destined to become world class, with the right training and experience. There are 5 levels of JP skill to learn, with each increase bringing an increase in the reliablity of the shown potential.
In the early days of the beta, there were no skills - and therefore no JP skill. It was hard to tell how good any given youth was, and so teams would sign as many as they could in the hope of unearthing a star. This had two effects: the fierce competition drove up wages for youth players, and teams had massive squads - many of whom never got near a sniff of a game. I remember one FML legend who had over 400 youth players...
This was clearly madness, and then the skills arrived. By learning first some of the 'Scouting' skill (Levels 1 and 2, maybe 3 I forget), and then starting off JP, managers could see which youths had potential. Everyone caught on straight away - everyone started learning JP. What was intended as a boost for youth specialist teams became available to the masses. Teams no longer hoarded so many youths - they didn't need to sign the dross - but competition for players was (is) still fiercesome.
It was clear that JP needed nerfing to some degree, and so SI changed the setup so that you need, I think, Scouting Level 5, which takes I guess 2 (real world) months, before you can begin learning JP - much more of a specialisation. That only applies in the newer Universe 2 gameworlds, so I don't know how well it's worked out - but debate is raging as to whether further nerfing is necessary, or whether JP needs to be removed altogether.
For me, I remember what life was like without it, and I wouldn't want to return to those dark days. But I would like to see it maybe made a little less accurate. Perhaps instead of the current 5 levels, we could have a 3-Level system as follows:
Level 1 (quick to learn): +/- 2 stars
Level 2 (takes a while): +/- 1.5 stars
Level 3 (takes aaaages): +/- 1 star
Signing youth players should be a gamble, progress must not be guaranteed, and I think the current system is maybe just a little too accurate.
Also, the future planned feature of youth academies, which will be added some time after the retail launch, has to be built in here somewhere - how would these work, and fit in with the existing setup? It's going to be exciting seeing what SI have up their sleeves, but this is a key area for many people - they say you never win owt with kids, but in FML, that's not always the case...
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Stress Tests
We had another Stress Test in FML tonight - the third I believe, in recent weeks. For those not in the know, these see all the users who log in bundled into one of two random gameworlds, effectively, rather than be spread over loads - the effect is that it makes the game super laggy, and shows SI where all the problems occur.
Tonight, SI were testing out three different configurations, and I managed to get online for two of them (assuming that there were 3, and that all went to plan).
Now I missed the second stress test, as I was away, but things tonight were significantly better than in the first set - and that must be good news for the eventual release date... SI are winning the war on lag - you heard it here first (or near enough :D)
Tonight, SI were testing out three different configurations, and I managed to get online for two of them (assuming that there were 3, and that all went to plan).
Now I missed the second stress test, as I was away, but things tonight were significantly better than in the first set - and that must be good news for the eventual release date... SI are winning the war on lag - you heard it here first (or near enough :D)
I'm back...!
Well, I've had a lovely week in Cyprus on honeymoon, I've come back refreshed and relaxed, to discover I've had some good news at work, and that the blog is the featured site on the community pages of the official FML site! So I guess that means I have to do more updates!
I'm a bit miffed to discover that FML's oldest and best blog has a rating of 2.5 stars on that there official site, so I'm going to be having a big push to rectify that - what do people want to see covered?
There will be more Blades news tomorrow, when I've had a bit more time to get back into the game and figure out how the hell the Blades now only have 14 players, and how I lost Kilgallon and Bigalke on the cheap whilst away - that wasn't in the plan!
I'm actually tempted to use it as an excuse for a clearout and see what I can achieve on the cheap... I like a challenge!
I'm a bit miffed to discover that FML's oldest and best blog has a rating of 2.5 stars on that there official site, so I'm going to be having a big push to rectify that - what do people want to see covered?
There will be more Blades news tomorrow, when I've had a bit more time to get back into the game and figure out how the hell the Blades now only have 14 players, and how I lost Kilgallon and Bigalke on the cheap whilst away - that wasn't in the plan!
I'm actually tempted to use it as an excuse for a clearout and see what I can achieve on the cheap... I like a challenge!
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Apologies once again!
Sorry, I've been neglecting FML and all of you horribly.
I'm getting married on Saturday, and the wedding has become all-consuming - it's going to be a couple more weeks before I get enough time to get into the game to play, let alone find something to write about!
The good news is that SI are really winning the war against lag, and that can only be a good thing. The changes they've made will need properly testing, but if those tests go well - well, surely that's a good thing in terms of whatever their so-far private release schedule is, right? My guess is that when it is declared ready to launch, don't expect much warning.
I'm getting married on Saturday, and the wedding has become all-consuming - it's going to be a couple more weeks before I get enough time to get into the game to play, let alone find something to write about!
The good news is that SI are really winning the war against lag, and that can only be a good thing. The changes they've made will need properly testing, but if those tests go well - well, surely that's a good thing in terms of whatever their so-far private release schedule is, right? My guess is that when it is declared ready to launch, don't expect much warning.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Maintenance Downtime...
Well, we're having to get used to the message that one or both of the two FML universes (U1 = GW2-7, U2 = GW8-12) is down for scheduled maintenance, as is the case tonight.
SI are throwing everything they've got at sorting out the remaining causes of lag and database lock. When the game launches they are aiming for 99.7% uptime, so this really is the key time in the beta to my mind. SI have deliberately made the lag as bad as possible over the past week, to make it easier to identify the causes. And one thing is for sure - they're winning the battle, and I can't think of many more battles left before release. How long this war will take is the killer question - but they're definitely getting on top.
With SI moving to new forums this week, it means it's unusually quiet from SI. We're used to getting really good feedback as to what exactly is going on, so being out in the dark is a strange experience after over a year in the beta!
SI are throwing everything they've got at sorting out the remaining causes of lag and database lock. When the game launches they are aiming for 99.7% uptime, so this really is the key time in the beta to my mind. SI have deliberately made the lag as bad as possible over the past week, to make it easier to identify the causes. And one thing is for sure - they're winning the battle, and I can't think of many more battles left before release. How long this war will take is the killer question - but they're definitely getting on top.
With SI moving to new forums this week, it means it's unusually quiet from SI. We're used to getting really good feedback as to what exactly is going on, so being out in the dark is a strange experience after over a year in the beta!
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