Football Manager Live first-impressions

I was originally one of the lucky ones to be part of the beta testing. Granted, it was only towards the end and it was stress testing the servers, meaning the game worlds were highly unreliable, but it gave me a good look at FM Live, enough to make me want to purchase a subscription.

Unfortunately I had to cancel my subscription for various reasons, but thankfully I’ve been given another chance to play because of this review. And I have to say, I’m in a bit of shock at the state of the game, and how incredibly bored I actually am with it.

Playing to the

I’ve had the subscription less than a week, and this is more of a first impression than a review. That will come at the end of the season I’m playing. Seasons roughly take three weeks, and the amount of games you have all depends on the FA you join. And here at Boomtown, we give every game a good deal of our time, and so I have joined the "Xtreme FA", one that is meant to take up more of your time than any other FA. I have at least 85 games to play in this 3 week period, and that’s before any cup runs are taken into account.

So during this week you’d maybe expect me to have done a fair bit. I have to honestly say I haven’t. Around a week separates the seasons, enough time to sort you squad out, especially if you have just finished a season. However I found my first pre season pretty much a waste of time. I’m hoping after my first full season, pre season from now on will be a little more useful.

Having signed up my team, I had no idea how it would fair against other teams. Yes you play friendly games and in friendly competitions, which incidentally can be done anytime throughout the season. But until you play against other teams in your league, ones you’ll be up against day in day out, you have no idea what to expect.

A false sense of security

I routinely swept aside teams during the pre season, with my team setting up maybe 20 or 30 chances most games. However once the season started, things changed. My team struggled immensely. We couldn’t score, create chances or keep clean sheets. The league had only been open fully for one day, and I had found myself out of 2 cup competitions, bottom of a Champions League style competition, and bottom of the league.

Thankfully I’ve turned things around. Mainly thanks to signing better players and unlocking more abilities. You’ll start with a very basic team, and very basic management skills. You’ll need to learn new skills, such as the skill that allows individual player instructions to be given. Without these more advanced skills, it is incredibly difficult to get any kind of run going.

Putting a run together

So now I have more control over my tactics, I’ve managed to get a little run going. Peacock Whites are currently sitting top of the division, granted having played 4 more games than second, but we’re still top. And with an unbeaten streak of 5 games, 4 of which were wins. I doubt very much we’ll finish top, but play offs could well be a possibility.

As mentioned, I’m in the Xtreme FA. This is meant to be for the hardcore players. The players who eat, sleep and live FM. However I’m finding that all does not appear to be well in my game world, and it appears other game worlds are finding the same issues.

Not as Xtreme as advertised

At the time of writing there are 11 out of 20 teams in my division that have not been online since the season started, or haven’t played one league game, and it’s been going for 2 full days now. Many people are finding, myself included, that other managers are rejecting matches, saving up their money and buying superstars, meaning they have a super strength team to fulfil their matches during the last part of the season.

Its problems like this that SI should have had solutions for during the very long period beta testing was taking place. There has to be some form of transfer window possibly, as it’s one of the reasons the more established game worlds are dying.

This FA is very quiet, not what you would expect from an FA that is meant to be home to the hardcore contingent. An all day every day FA is what I was expecting, and was what I was getting during the beta. However now I’m looking at around four games a day, all played at night. I’m expecting a very busy end of season. This morning I was the only manager online in this Xtreme FA.

Dying before it’s really started?

The activity levels are very low and if FM Live is to succeed, it needs to sort this problem out. I’m hoping that it has something to do with it being the first week of the season, but looking at comments made on the official forums, it does appear that game worlds are dying a slow death. I’m sat twiddling my thumbs expecting to play games. When you’re paying such a high price – 4 months is equal to the cost of FM 2009, you want to play when you want. Friendly games are all well and good, but I want to play my competitive games.

I have to say after my first few days of playing I’m a little concerned. I can only hope that as the season progresses, things get better. Right now if I had paid £30 for the 4 months subscription, I’d be rather annoyed.

So I’m currently sitting top of the table, about to go out of another cup competition, and rated as a 1 and ½ star team. Tactically the game is solid, a lot harder than the offline version of Football Manager. Money wise, it currently doesn’t feel like you’re getting value for money. These are just first impressions from less than a week of playtime. The review will take into account the full season, so don’t go making your mind up just yet. And I wouldn’t take any bets on the Whites winning the league either. Second place are closing the gap as I write!