SM Game World Improvements - A Spark to a Flame or Another Damp Squib?

When Michael Hudson posted in the News Feed about SM asking for suggestions relating to Custom GW’s, I suggested there that a blog be posted to which we could all add our thoughts and comment on others suggestions so that, potentially, these be combined or submitted as they stand by someone who has access to the Forum.

To kick it off I thought I’d put down my thoughts and hopefully stimulate opinion, comment and additional ideas. This is extracted from a draft I was writing on SM improvements generally, but now seemed the right time to finish off this section at least.

As the subject of Custom GW’s is also inevitably linked in with the whole GW structure and how I perceive it could be improved these are also mentioned.

Whilst each suggestion can be linked into another I have tried to divide them in a reasonably logical manner for reference.

So lets begin.

Suggestion 1

Transport yourself back in time to that heady day when you logged onto SM for the very first time, you registered, you got your “Soccer Manager Registration Confirmation”, you clicked the link provided and you were ready to select your first club.

No doubt you were like a kid in a sweet shop, you could select and manage any club in the World, brilliant, fantastic, hang on, you mean to say that as new manager with no experience or track record whatsoever you are able to manage Barcelona, Bayern, Man Utd or any top club?

At the time you probably didn’t give that a thought, possibly you were like the vast number of “newbies” that jump at the biggest club that’s available. But on reflection doesn’t it seem somewhat flawed to allow a newcomer to jump right in at the top, wouldn’t it be more realistic for a newcomer to be limited to starting out at the bottom and for there to be some sort of “career development”?

I hear the cry that this would deter players from joining if they couldn’t select a top club, well having witnessed dozens if not hundreds of new arrival 40 rated managers join leagues at top clubs never to login again I would suggest that it would be a good thing to be deterring them in the first place. 

I would hazard a guess that at least 95% of the managers here in Top100 would not have hung up their sheepskins on Day 1 if they had had to start in Division 4 or 5, that they would have relished and enjoyed the challenge. As we see from the constant drop out of newbies the “non-challenge” of managing top clubs doesn’t keep them in the game anyway.

So my initial suggestion would be that new managers don’t get to select clubs in Standard GW’s, instead SM offer them available clubs in the lower divisions of active, populated GW’s.

Managers I suggest could then achieve advancement not only through getting clubs promoted but also through experience and achievement. Dispense with the current, frankly pointless, achievement system “Congratulations you have unlocked getting 5 men sent off in the same game” and replace it with a system where league points, giant killing in cups, league positions achieved and other factors contribute to their ranking. Obtaining higher ranking then being the criteria to become eligible to be offered or apply for clubs of higher league status.

In essence this would create three levels of manager an “Amateur” level for new managers, “Semi-Pro” for those working their way up the achievement ladder to the Nirvana of becoming “Pro” level with unrestricted access to apply for any managerial vacancy.

An alternative to this would be to split Standard GW’s into “Amateur” and “Pro”, with the Amateur GW’s staying as they currently are whilst the Pro GW’s operate under the aforementioned system for those managers looking for a more realistic challenge.

Suggestion 2

A bi-product of the current “open access” in Standard GW’s appears to be an apparent need to feed the greed for top clubs by having an endless production line of GW’s being generated.  When I originally wrote the draft for this some weeks ago English Championship 32217 was about to be rolled out.

Assuming that each is 92 clubs it would require 296,396 active managers to populate those English Championships based upon each manager having 10 clubs.

Does SM have that many active managers? If it does I wouldn’t be worrying about advertising revenue I’d be looking to find a way to get £10 out of each of them pronto!!!

I know in my calculation I have ignored dead GW’s but that begs a further question as to why create new ones when un-populated ones are being erased?

Why create new ones at all in fact, surely quality over quantity would be a far better model, a smaller number of well populated GW’s would provide a far more competitive and rewarding experience than having the vast number of thinly populated GW’s we have at present.

By limiting the number of GW’s and condensing the active managers into those GW’s as would happen naturally in the “Pro Standard GW” concept you would end up with more fully populated and challenging game environments.

Understanding the commercial needs of SM part of Gold Membership could then be to offer managers wishing to fast track into an open access environment that opportunity, this being possibly a greater incentive than exists at present where in all honesty the benefits of GM are minimal.

Suggestion 3

Understandably SM does not have the time to manage individual Standard GW’s it cannot be expected to, they are what they are and they do what they do. In my opinion the one thing that SM should look at promoting is quality Custom GW’s.

I believe that by encouraging and assisting Custom GW Owners in creating unique environments they can take the game to another level.

Here at T100 we see what can be achieved by a committed Custom GW Owner, they attract responsible committed Managers who in turn recruit others, a breeding ground for innovation and development is created, even within the constraints and restrictions in place.

The recent “sweetener” that SM gave to managers as an attempted customer damage limitation exercise in the wake of the botched introduction of the new interface and update of a free Custom GW is in my opinion one of the worst ideas of many truly bad ideas SM have had.

Not only is the game now full of sparsely populated Standard GW’s but also now sparsely populated and I would imagine poorly run Custom GW’s and the managers now using News Feeds and PM’s “advertising” their“ best ever” Custom GW’s have become to put it mildly a nuisance.

Whilst I haven’t had the opportunity to think through the how’s I believe that SM should again look at a tier system for Custom GW’s, for arguments sake lets say “basic” and “elite”, recognising those owners who go the extra mile to create something special.

Custom GW Suggestions - 4

To enable Custom GW Owners to take the game to another level SM should provide them with the tools to do so, this means delegating responsibilities to them and providing them with greater control and flexibility.

For brevity I have reduced this to a list format. Some of these admittedly would require an SM appeal process.

1.              The power to sack as well as recruit managers.

2.              Wider scope of rules applicable to the league, squad limits, etc.

3.              The power to adjudicate on suspected cheats and illegal transfers within the GW.

4.              The facility to modify the structure of cup competitions or create additional ones with various criteria.

5.              Greater admin tools, facility to PM multiple managers, etc.

6.              The ability to appoint Admins within the GW with powers they can assign.

7.              Provision of a separate GW News Feed so important messages do not get scrolled out of existence by transfer news, Manager posts, etc.

8.              The ability to hard link an external blog or other news feed to the GW.

9.              If SM decide to make the Forum automatic access for Managers rather than a separate entity, a GW Forum which is hard linked on the league page.

I’m sure this final section is something that others can add to as I do not have experience of running a Custom GW and cannot comment first hand on the restrictions that “hamstring” the running of it.

Having somewhat rushed to get this written out I am certain in the coming days additional thoughts will come to me and I will add as comments rather than editing this text.

I hope other will similarly feel free to add in the comments their ideas and suggestions.

Thank you for reading.