Constant moaning about Football Manager
Average Rating: 8/10 Hits: 248 Submitted: Nov 23, 2007
The last weeks since the release of FM 2008 have changed my views of the FM community strongly. Though I have been playing this game since 99/00, I never became active in the 'scene' for many years. Maybe this is why I did not take full notice of a phenomenon that is quite as singular as the game itself: the constant moaning surrounding everything that is related to FM.
During my first months as a moderator I have always been trying to take these complaints seriously, if they at least appeared to be reasonable and somehow related to existing errors of the game. And to be honest, there always have been enough errors and a site like FM-Britain always has been writing about this in a critical and independent way - as well in a constructive manner in order to hint at weak spots and make things better for all.
Dealing with those moans is not easy all the time, and one thing you learn very fast is to separate them into two groups: those that hint out at an existing problem and those that do not and rather hint out at problems a player has with the game. Additionally there are those who are just happy if they have got something to moan about.
Finally there are the most sophisticated representants of circular moaning. At first sights the posts of circular moaners often seem to make a lot of sense and follow a logical reasoning, but in fact they are nothing more then seemingly reasonable conclusions based on completely wrong assumptions or theorems. As these constructs are very self-referring you will not succeed with any arguments on whatever, you will have to find the very first assumption and surprisingly it will often look rather simple: A team with possession x and chances y should a) win z of 10 games (minimum) and b) finish at position 20 - p (minimum). Any other result then this is the empiric proof of the fundamental flaw of the game, the engine, the researchers, SI and possibly the whole concept of creating a football manager game. Better not try to argue against it, you are fighting against religious commitments. Anyhow, these confessing circular moaners can be assured of the unanimous sympathy of any other group and they will always be ready to offer support with a 'yes, that is crap' no matter if on or off topic. If you are looking for martyrs in modern gaming forums, you should try to search them here.
There are certain rules about moaning: you have to do it loud, you have cry 'scandal' and you can be sure to find applause. Interestingly most of those supporting you will not support your point itself but rather put in their own ones, but who cares. You have a good rant and everyone feels fine, except for those offering solutions or different points of view. They will be either ignored, shouted down or tagged as 'fanboys' and leave the self-sufficient discussion, or better said, list of added topics as a discussion in the sense of interacting on topic rarely ever gets started.
This is the same procedure in basically most forums year-in year-out and if you look at it from a distance, it certainly could be entertaining. On the other hand, it does put SI games into a comfortable position at times. The constant flow of moaning has become something like the missing soundtrack of the game and it does not really ever change. Be it an engine at its very best or an almost broken demo or gold version, a hasty patch or the stable final version allowing highly sophisticated tactics and football. During recent weeks this definitely has been an advantage.
Now I finally come to my point. Without further notice there has been a list posted in the tactical forum for a complete week, but nobody took notice of this. It was not posted in a scandal rant thread, it was simply there and stating facts and observations on the first beta patch. What a chance for an ultimate nuclear rant if just somebody took this and smashed it into SI's teeth. It was enough material for at least 20 different moaners to finally settle their score with the game once and for all times. In fact, summing up the complete list posted there, this was the message: defence in the game is broken. Not somehow, broken completely. Bummer.
Well, in fact nothing did happen. Why? Because nobody took the time to shout out loud and obviously it was above the station of those who wanted to. How can this be? Before I go on and you want to start complaining about the release and patch policy, please read this article first: When Ignorance becomes a Point of View.
One lucky coincidence may have stopped the ultimate scandal before it begun: Major teams really took profit from this state of defence since they do have to attack more and gained fantastic results with any half decent tactic. No more 'I am Man U but I cannot...'. What a relief. Those folks should save and keep the first beta patch and do us all a favour. As predicted, this wonderful state already was lost after the release of the second beta patch, and I am already looking forward to see what happens now after the final gold patch arrived. Thinking that those folks may be happier with a broken version of the game may not be as crazy as it seems to be at first sight.
This brings me to the nature of most complaints. Some pretend to aim at existing problems, a few really do this, but the vast majority after all is nothing else then frustration about expected results seen from a very narrow point of view. Hardly ever I do read a rant where the author has the slightest doubts about his own responsibility on the outcome. Hardly ever I read a rant in which an author admits that he also wins games luckily as he loses by bad luck. A majority of rants starts with a sentence like this: 'A top team should...', 'I have a great squad, but...', 'I managed FC anywhere for 3000 years but...' etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum.
Now what does make me so bitter about this? It is simply that all those moaners obviously do not take the time ever to look at why things are going wrong. Get up and into a forum, bark around, leave your non-message and it's done. Hopefully a horde of kindred souls will join you. But never look behind it. During the last weeks this was and still is the job of the fanboys to look into things and document the bugs. Those who are supposed to believe everything is perfect in the game. Take that, all you moaners. And now the best: it works. In the short time between both beta patch releases SI have shown what they can do and how they can do it under pressure. My deepest respect for that, I would not want to have that job.
Last but not least I would love to add some words on various special sorts of tactical forum moaners, but I feel that I am already outraged enough and should save this for another day.
Let me finish with one last plea to all you moaners out there: find a real bug or shut up. Once and for all. Thank you.
Dealing with those moans is not easy all the time, and one thing you learn very fast is to separate them into two groups: those that hint out at an existing problem and those that do not and rather hint out at problems a player has with the game. Additionally there are those who are just happy if they have got something to moan about.
Finally there are the most sophisticated representants of circular moaning. At first sights the posts of circular moaners often seem to make a lot of sense and follow a logical reasoning, but in fact they are nothing more then seemingly reasonable conclusions based on completely wrong assumptions or theorems. As these constructs are very self-referring you will not succeed with any arguments on whatever, you will have to find the very first assumption and surprisingly it will often look rather simple: A team with possession x and chances y should a) win z of 10 games (minimum) and b) finish at position 20 - p (minimum). Any other result then this is the empiric proof of the fundamental flaw of the game, the engine, the researchers, SI and possibly the whole concept of creating a football manager game. Better not try to argue against it, you are fighting against religious commitments. Anyhow, these confessing circular moaners can be assured of the unanimous sympathy of any other group and they will always be ready to offer support with a 'yes, that is crap' no matter if on or off topic. If you are looking for martyrs in modern gaming forums, you should try to search them here.
There are certain rules about moaning: you have to do it loud, you have cry 'scandal' and you can be sure to find applause. Interestingly most of those supporting you will not support your point itself but rather put in their own ones, but who cares. You have a good rant and everyone feels fine, except for those offering solutions or different points of view. They will be either ignored, shouted down or tagged as 'fanboys' and leave the self-sufficient discussion, or better said, list of added topics as a discussion in the sense of interacting on topic rarely ever gets started.
This is the same procedure in basically most forums year-in year-out and if you look at it from a distance, it certainly could be entertaining. On the other hand, it does put SI games into a comfortable position at times. The constant flow of moaning has become something like the missing soundtrack of the game and it does not really ever change. Be it an engine at its very best or an almost broken demo or gold version, a hasty patch or the stable final version allowing highly sophisticated tactics and football. During recent weeks this definitely has been an advantage.
Now I finally come to my point. Without further notice there has been a list posted in the tactical forum for a complete week, but nobody took notice of this. It was not posted in a scandal rant thread, it was simply there and stating facts and observations on the first beta patch. What a chance for an ultimate nuclear rant if just somebody took this and smashed it into SI's teeth. It was enough material for at least 20 different moaners to finally settle their score with the game once and for all times. In fact, summing up the complete list posted there, this was the message: defence in the game is broken. Not somehow, broken completely. Bummer.
Well, in fact nothing did happen. Why? Because nobody took the time to shout out loud and obviously it was above the station of those who wanted to. How can this be? Before I go on and you want to start complaining about the release and patch policy, please read this article first: When Ignorance becomes a Point of View.
One lucky coincidence may have stopped the ultimate scandal before it begun: Major teams really took profit from this state of defence since they do have to attack more and gained fantastic results with any half decent tactic. No more 'I am Man U but I cannot...'. What a relief. Those folks should save and keep the first beta patch and do us all a favour. As predicted, this wonderful state already was lost after the release of the second beta patch, and I am already looking forward to see what happens now after the final gold patch arrived. Thinking that those folks may be happier with a broken version of the game may not be as crazy as it seems to be at first sight.
This brings me to the nature of most complaints. Some pretend to aim at existing problems, a few really do this, but the vast majority after all is nothing else then frustration about expected results seen from a very narrow point of view. Hardly ever I do read a rant where the author has the slightest doubts about his own responsibility on the outcome. Hardly ever I read a rant in which an author admits that he also wins games luckily as he loses by bad luck. A majority of rants starts with a sentence like this: 'A top team should...', 'I have a great squad, but...', 'I managed FC anywhere for 3000 years but...' etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum.
Now what does make me so bitter about this? It is simply that all those moaners obviously do not take the time ever to look at why things are going wrong. Get up and into a forum, bark around, leave your non-message and it's done. Hopefully a horde of kindred souls will join you. But never look behind it. During the last weeks this was and still is the job of the fanboys to look into things and document the bugs. Those who are supposed to believe everything is perfect in the game. Take that, all you moaners. And now the best: it works. In the short time between both beta patch releases SI have shown what they can do and how they can do it under pressure. My deepest respect for that, I would not want to have that job.
Last but not least I would love to add some words on various special sorts of tactical forum moaners, but I feel that I am already outraged enough and should save this for another day.
Let me finish with one last plea to all you moaners out there: find a real bug or shut up. Once and for all. Thank you.
