Re: Football Manager Are you serious? Fine go buy a Gameboy game or a Playstation on Ebay from someone in Thailand. THEY'RE FAKE! There are no copyright laws in those countries, that's why you see so many sellers of that electronics from Asia!! Because they are FAKE so they are CHEAP! My god, I thought everyone knew this. I mean come on, "this only works with Thai Windows". LOL, that's about the funniest thing I've ever heard. So to answer your question, stuff on Ebay from Asia IS fake (and those same people love suckers like you.)
Re: Football Manager I love when my player wins player of the week and he has been injured for a month. Too funny. Hope the patch fixes this.
Re: Football Manager I know what you're saying but for you to say that all the stuff is fake is ridiculous.
Re: Football Manager It's not rediculous. I don't know where you live but if it's in/near a large city, walk into Chinatown one day... (You must not know what I am saying if you neg rep me for that.)
Re: Football Manager Chinese and Thais are two different types of people. I have FM05 (I didn't have the patience to keep waiting for WSM05 to come out). I'm currently playing as Liverpool in the English Premiership, but I was perusing through the MLS screens and I noticed there are MLS teams simulating the Draft Combine before the SuperDraft. (The teams weren't stocked with players, but I noticed those teams were there.) So, when the SuperDraft is coming around, are there actually Draft Combines that take place that coaches can watch?? And are MLS players actually acquired by drafting, allocations, discoveries, etc., in FM05, instead of the standard method used by almost every other club around the world?
Re: Football Manager No, Thai and Chinese are not the same, BUT most all people in Chinatown are not exclusively Chinese either. My point was that if you go to Chinatown in a big city, there are street vendors selling EVERYTHING. You can buy an IPod for $75 if you wanted. You can buy Gameboy DS's, Playstations, games, music, anything...all at 50% or more off of the regular retail price. So either they get some incredible Asian discount from stores that we don't know about or there fakes, I'll go with fakes. Take a look on Ebay for games (specifically Gameboy games) or even soccer jerseys. You can get a Liverpool jersey for $11. Now, why would they sell a Liverpool jersey for $11 that in stores in the UK is like $60?? Anyways, I order WSM from Gamestop and yes, you have draft, trade picks, can't "buy" other MLS players, etc. I don't know if mine is more involved because it's the American version of the game or not. Also, all the MLS players have their pics in the game. The one thing that is annoying is that the computer constantly offers trades. For instance, I am playing with the Metros and 4 different teams have offered me all their draft picks for that year for Eddie Gaven. Then sometimes I'll get an offer and it'll be like SJ offers _______ (nothing given) in exchange for Eddie Gaven. It's weird. I have the patches on but it still does it.
Re: Football Manager SI should consider hiring a MLS fan with computer programming experience. I'm pretty sure MLS' method of player acquisition is completely foreign to them (literally and figuratively) and they should bring in someone who's more "in-the-know". Maybe that would sort things out once-and-for-all.
Re: Football Manager I agree. It's really annoying. I took 3mil from some Swedish team for Ricardo Clark so my transfer budget was high. The only problem is I couldn't use the money because NO ONE outside of the US will come to play in MLS. And since I can't use the money to get other MLS players, it's kind of worthless. Then it's also annoying that the pc only ever wants to buy your best players. I constantly get requests for Gaven, Guevara and Arena (for some reason). I just swindled NE into giving me Twellman and Dempsey for Arena. I mean, come on, the game should know better than that...AND THEY OFFERED IT!!
Re: Football Manager i ordered WSM last week, it shipped on tuesday and it needs to get here now!!!!!
Re: Football Manager Patience Bluto.... I ordered mine December 28 and only got it yesterday Now I have to make the most important decision I'll make in 2005: which team do I choose????
Re: Football Manager damn, i should have mine by Tuesday. It shipped on the 11th and they said 4-6 business days. I will also need to pick team. I'l probably start with Arsenal so I can learn the game better and then start over with a smaller team so I can build them into a powerhouse. Hereford FC will come to dominate Europe!!
Re: Football Manager I think it may be easier and quicker to learn the game with a team a bit below the top teams. If you take on Arsenal and have problems at all in the beginning you can get sacked and some newbies get frustrated when they fail to get Arsenal to perform close to their real world counterparts. Even if you manage to avoid the sack (any experience with mgmt games should easily be enough) the games you'll drop at the beginning can make it impossible to catch up and you'll miss AW's record of 1 or 2 each year. On the other hand, the sheer quality of the squad can mask big problems in your understanding of tactics. You'll win despite playing instructions that would get you killed at lower clubs. You'll also have enough money to buy players to make up for an inability to manage the squad and real budget restrictions. Of course saying all that, I still play at least one Arsenal game each time a new CM/FM comes out. Too much fun winning the CL with the squad and decimating ManU and Chelsea despite the fact that both still outspend you by 100ms in the game. To really get a good understanding of FM, take on a lower level EPL club, a midtable Championship, or a team with money and quality players in something below a top level league. The top dutch league is a real good place to learn since the quality is fairly even except for the top few clubs, there is a fair amount of cash, and no restrictions on non-EU players. Right now I'm guiding the Wolves to the EPL and beyond for a minor challenge. Then I'm planning on dropping down to take on Swansea City in League2 or for a big change taking EC Novo Hamburgo from Brazil's third division to the top.
Re: Football Manager I think it's always worth playing an "easy" game with a big club just to learn what buttons do what, and where you have sliders to play with, get used to the format, how the news is given to you, finding your way around the match screen, etc. Then when you've got the simple mechanics find yourself a challenge. I'm currently playing a "cheat" game with Nottingham Forest -- after I put the patch in nothing worked, tactics that had gotten me two consecutive 6th place finishes in the prem now resulted in nothing but 0-0 draws and 0-1 losses, no one was happy, I was on the verge of getting sacked. So I ended up going back to a previously saved point, and played the fall of 2010 about 4 times just learning what different tactics did, playing with when to offer some guys up for transfer, etc. Finally found a tactic that worked, finished 3rd in the league (yet miles behind Arsenal and Chelsea), and am now working through what will probably be my final season before I go back and start a "pure" game. The board has once again mercilessly slashed my wage budget and are complaining about the wage bill, while still remaining "absolutely thrilled with the level of commitment I continue to show the club". I've got some key players coming up for contract renewal, and I want to see what happens if I demand the money to sign them (Robert Green, currently England's #1, makes $84K per week, and they'll let me offer him $39K to re-up). Then I'll do the best I can with the players on the squad now and then leave the club in the lurch with all their best players going out on Bosmans! I'm thinking about a real low-level Dutch, French or Spanish team next. Anybody got any suggestions?
Re: Football Manager Despite the issues with the league I enjoy playing MLS games. That said, I don't have WSM or FM yet and I am still playing CM4.
Re: Football Manager I took the Crew to 3 consecutive MLS titles and a couple of Confederations Cups, or whatever it's called, in CM4. The supporters rioted in order to get a statue of me erected outside the stadium. That was the first game I really played, and it just seemed too easy, I think because the player pool ends up being so small. I could never get anyone outside of MLS to sign for me, and never could get any other teams to bite on my players at all. That said, I don't understand MLS's arcane, cabalistic player allocation system either, so it doesn't bother me that they haven't implemented it in the game -- can a computer drop a ping-pong ball?
Re: Football Manager I'm sure it can simulate it. I recently started a CM4 game in the A-League with Rochester. The first year I signed Adu, Espen Bardsen, Chad Marshall and Knox Cammeron. (I know, the player lists are not exactly accurate and don't take into account college graduation.) That season didn't go too well with me getting bounced from the play-offs. In the off-season I signed two Ghanan forwards who were absolute man children, for the A-League. They both scored over 20 goals. Maybe one had 15 and the other 20+. I won the league and it was nice. Now I'm just getting the third season going. I want to try and win the Open Cup. I applied for a few MLS coaching jobs in this past off-season but I didn't get a look. Another nice thing about the MLS seasons is they move faster because there are not as many competitions and other leagues. If you want to learn and see how off-season works more quickly, got for the US.
Re: Football Manager I like Haarlem from the Dutch bottom league. They have a small number of below average players, start the game over the wage budget, have a tiny transfer budget for their division, and a small 3k stadium that is almost impossible to grow. The good things about them are that they are dutch so if you do find a non-eu kid you can always sign them, they can attract fairly good loans from Holland, Belgium, and Germany, and the board only wants you to rebuild the squad in the first year so there is less pressure other than finances at the start. Word of warning is that you need to have some non-Dutch leagues active since there is little money in the first division (all but 2-3 will be in trouble within a year) and you'll find it hard to sell players if you don't have at least 2 other nations running.
Re: Football Manager Is this true? I didn't know that. I usually only activate all of England, the Scottish 1st and 2nd, and MLS (only MLS with Extra Detail). Should I be activating Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, etc too? And if so, to what league level? Part of my problem is I play on my laptop, which aren't the best systems to use when gaming.
Re: Football Manager If you run a few different games with different number of leagues active, you'll find that it has a big impact on the transfer market. When playing around the championship level, I try to make a few of the top level leagues active because they inject money into the market and are much more active. Compare a game with only the EPL active as a top league with money to one in which Italy and Spain are also active and you'll find more movement and selling players becomes significantly easier. It also has an impact if you manage to get to europe because the teams you face will be more realistic. No longer will you always face teams with nearly no injuries or suspensions and 100% condition since the teams will be involved in their domestic competitions. Their activity on the transfer marktet will help a bit with turning over their squads something that barely happens if they aren't active which is important for longer term games. If you are playing further down (below league 1 in england for example), you'll have trouble selling because there is not much of a market for players down there and adding the top leagues won't do much to help that. Activating some of the 2nd tier leagues (Belgium, France, etc.) and/or activating deeper levels of a few nations will help more. Hope that helps.
Re: Football Manager Good tips. I recently started a game with St. Pauli (German Regionaliga North) and was having a bit of trouble selling - maybe because I didn't have too many leagues active. TheImposter: I think St. Pauli is a pretty good place to start among the lower leagues. It's German 3rd division, but they are a pretty decent sized club with a reasonable transfer kitty (I believe 350k), decent financial stability (although they do have debt), and good grounds/facilities. If your looking for a serious challenge (no money, cut wages, tiny club) this is not it, but this is my first time playing, and I've thought it was challenging yet has enough cushion to allow for success (hopefully - I'm just a handful of games into the first season). A pretty good place for a newbie to start...
Re: Football Manager Sounds like another good possibility. I started my current game with MK Dons, with a $2k transfer budget and had them fairly high in L1 before I jumped ship -- they've got some decent players. I wanted to see if Serge Makofo was the rampaging stud he was in CM4 -- he's not.
Re: Football Manager I decided to start a game with Dresden. Thanks for all the tips guys... talk to you all in a couple of months
Re: Football Manager If you only have one country active, let's say England, as you go along they will begin to dominate the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. If you go to the SI message boards, some people have played far into the future so you can see how that works.