FM 2005 FAQ - From SI Games (Please Read BEFORE Asking Questions) Sep 28, 04 at 02:12AM
Section 1: FM 03/04: General Information
Q. Which game will be better, FM 2005 or CM5?
A. The best way to judge is to play both the demos of the game and make up your mind whether or not to buy the full games after you have done that. You may like one, both or neither of the games, but until youve played them for yourself then theres no way of knowing which game is better.
Q. Will it be available for the Mac as well?
A. Yes, it will be released as a dual format disk that features the PC and Mac versions of the game.
Q. What leagues will be playable in FM 2005?
A. FM 2005 will have the following leagues:
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Columbia
Croatia
Czech
Denmark
England
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Holland
Hong King
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
N. Ireland
Norway
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Scotland
Serbia & Montenegro
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
Uruguay
USA
Wales
Q. Does this mean the Conference North & South Divisions are in the game?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there a playable demo out?
A. The playable demo of the "beta" version of the game was made available with Issue 2 of the official Football Manager Magazine. The format of the playable demo is a time limited game, restricted to around six months of the first season. It was released with the English and Scottish leagues available to play. There are no plans to make more available for the beta demo. The gold demo will follow at a later date and will likely have more leagues available in that version.
Q. Will SI give anyone permission to upload the beta and offer it themselves?
A. No, we won't. And anyone who does this will be in a lot of trouble. We've got a very clear message in the readme file that states that no one is allowed to distribute the beta without express permission, so no other magazines will covermount, and no other sites will be making the beta available for download unless it's a partner mirror of ours.
Q. Why are you not spreading the beta demo further?
A. Well, simply, because it's a beta demo, not a gold demo. This is not a true representation of the final game, we've released it to try and find as many bugs as possible, and iron them out. With your help, we can do that.
Q. How long will the beta demo be online?
A. One week, and one week only.
Q. The gold demo will follow when?
A. No firm date yet. As soon as there is one, then itll be given out to the community.
Q. Will there be changes between the beta demo and the full game then?
A. Of course. The idea of the beta demo is to give people a taster of the game and some feedback on the general playability of the product. We also use it to help diagnose any problems that people have with hardware, drivers and other programs prior to the release of the game to ensure the final product will run as smoothly as possible.
For example, these are the improvements that have been made to the match engine alone.
Match v315 changes
- Reduced gap between top and bottom teams ever so slightly due to excessive high scores
- Tuned and balanced player match ratings further
- Improved defensive positioning at lower levels
- Improved player perception of space when on ball in order to avoid so many defenders getting caught in possession near their back line
- Tuned no of fouls
- Improved closing down AI and toned it down a bit generally as it was mental especially for centre backs
- Improved positioning at goal kicks, corners, and throws
- Tweaked marking at throws and open play
- Improved goalkeeper decision making on crosses
- Improved AI regarding players allowing the ball to run out of play in their favour
- Toned down winger side swapping
- Increased likelihood of goalkeepers committing fouls
- Tweaked chances of players lobbing the keeper
- Further improved deflections and blocks
- Improved player decision making re going got loose balls
- Slowed down off the ball movement of players over short distances and when not involved in play around the ball
- Improved defensive player direction facing when holding position in formation
- Improved defensive AI regarding which player goes to the ball player - taking team blend into account so mistakes are more likely when one or both players are new
- Slight tweak to goal quality assessment for GOM/S award use
- Finally implemented Goalie distribution instructions in match AI
- Improved goalkeeper AI in terms of positioning and reactions
- Slight tweak on passing choice AI
- Improved indirect free kick pass AI further
- Made poor corners more likely to fall short than over run area
- Tweaked length of goal kicks
- More improvement to running with ball AI
- More tweaks on overall formation position on pitch in relation to attacking bias
- Blocked shots now included in shots count but not classified as on target
- Attempt to bias team style of play towards that of the relevant league in real life
- Reduced effect of acceleration, agility and balance attributes in match - this was contributing to some high scores especially in pre season against minnows.
- Fixed bug where a player might still be in his own goal net while play kicks off again
- Fixed bug where player receiving ball would occasionally forget to control the ball and let it go past him
- Fixed bug where 2nd half clock would start running while subs came on before kick off was taken
- Fixed bug where ball would appear to run "through" side netting and into goal
- Fixed bug where player would carry ball into own goal by mistake and corner would be given instead of a goal
- Fixed bug where only taker would be left back on some run of the mill freekicks
- Fixed bug where a player would occasionally pass having rounded the keeper when it was easier to score
- Fixed bug where human team playmaker and target man wasnt recognised. Oh dear.
- Fixed bug where AI team strikers would occasionally come back and defend on attacking throws
- Fixed a host of offside issues - including passive offsides being called ages after the initial pass...now its only called if the passive offside player touches the ball within 3-5 seconds rather than 10
- Added various new commentary lines
Match v314 changes
- Implemented passive offsides - ie where the flag only goes up if the player(s) goes on to touch the ball within 10 seconds
- Quicker whistle for blatant offsides
- If goal scored with last kick force kick off before final whistle as per IRL
- Cut down on injury time a little
- Cut down effect of morale
- Improved and increased chances of defensive blocks and deflections
- Tweaked player passing AI in terms of when to take a risk
- Tweaked player passing AI in terms of where to place the ball ahead of team mate
- Improved player AI as in when to clear ball and when to bring it under control
- Improved timing of shots when clean through as too many were from far out
- Tweaked AI re direction of clearances
- Improved choice of shot type
- Less stupidly inaccurate shots from players too good for that
- Big tuning to player closing down AI - when to do it, according to attributes etc
- Improved player dribbling direction and decision making AI
- Improved player covering for team mates AI
- Improved player letting ball run out AI
- Improved defensive interception judgement AI
- Improved defensive ariel challenges at set pieces a bit
- Tweaked goalie positioning for non one-on-one situations in open play
- Tweaked AI of "should defender go to the ball player or not" code
- Made certain players go "gung ho" in certain situations for human teams even if its not set
- Fixed bug where 2 players could be in same position at kick off
- Fixed bug where too many players could be in the centre circle at kick off
- Improved general AI at indirect free kicks in the opposition area
- Tweaked player "spacial awareness" AI
- Improved goal kick positioning
- Stopped defence moving too far up pitch for attacking throw ins
- Fixed bug where certain formations would lack players making themselves available at throw ins
- Improved team shape in terms of depth and width
- Fixed occasionally dodgy keeper positioning on free kicks
- Reduced repetitive instances of long throws then floating header over bar
- Fixed very rare incidence of never taken free kick
- Reduced incidence of overly short goal kicks
- Improved marking at set pieces
- Fixed bug where certain human team players wouldnt follow marking instructions
- Improved default human team tactic instructions for throw ins
- Made players staying back at corners more likely to come to meet cleared ball
- Fixed bug where AI managers' teams used tight marking too often
- Tweaked AI decisions of when to man mark and when not to in and around the danger area
- Tweaked AI manager team depth settings
- Made AI managers more likely to sit back or replace key players when they have a big game around the corner
- Improved AI managers' decisions as to their team sitting back or pushing for goals in matches
- Increased effect of red cards on AI manager attacking mentality
- Improved team shape for AI managers where they have < 11 players on the field
- Improved AI managers' decisions as to how hard their team should tackle
- Improved AI managers' decisions as to how often to counter attack
- Fixed bug where a couple of pre-set formations were never used in match by AI managers even if chosen on the day
- Try and make stronger teams go more for "all out attack" if being frustrated by smaller teams
- Improved effect of team blend ( ie how long players have been at the club and how many games they have pld etc )
- Simulated blend factor for "grey" players...this was low in v313 affecting their performance
- Slowed down player acceleration from a standing start
- Improved realism of players turning while moving
- Bumped up player speed a notch all round
The difference between the speed of the beta demo and the full game will also be different. The beta demo was released with the large database and full detail turned on. In the full game you will be able to chose you own database size and turn full detail off. This will make a huge difference to the speed of the game.
Q. The full game is released when?
A. The game will be released on 5 November 2004.
Q. Are there plans to release FM 2005 for the Xbox or Playstation 2?
A. No, there arent any plans for this Im afraid. SI are constantly monitoring new technology
Q. Will we have more background pictures in the game?
A. SI will not be including any background pictures in the game other than a plain grass background. There will be an option for you to add your own though.
Q. I have read that player pictures will be in the game, is this true?
A. Yes. For any league that SI have a licence for and an image of the player to use in the game, then player pictures will be in the game. They do not take up a huge amount of memory and can be turned off if you do not want to use them.
Q. What leagues do SI hold licences for then?
A. SI will release this information in the near future.
Q. What if you are using player pictures and SI dont have a picture of that player. Will it just display a blank image where the picture should be?
A. The space where the picture should have been will be compressed automatically.
Q. What happens when a player retires though?
A. SI have already thought of that and have been running a competition that allowed game players to send their pictures to SI to feature in the game as a regenerated player, or a member of staff if they looked older than 22 years of age. http://www.sigames.com/faceinthegame/
Q. Is there a data editor with FM 2005?
A. Yes. The game will contains a pre-game database editor, as well as a media editor. For further information about using editors please visit the Editors Hideaway Forum.
Q. Has the speed in which the game processes information been improved for FM 2005?
A. The short answer is yes. SI have indicated that despite the addition of many new features and more leagues into the game, they have managed to achieve a speed increase of around 40 per cent when compared to the last two games.
Q. How many skins will be available with the game?
A. Only one extra skin will be shipped with the game this time around. As before though you will be able to add your own if you want to.
Q. Are there any other features that are skinnable then?
A. Yes, on the match day pitch you can skin the players and the ball.
Q. Can we delay accepting a job with another club until the end of the season then?
A. In a word - no.
Q. Can we start the game unemployed though?
A. In a word- yes!
Q. How up to date will the games database be?
A. As up to date as possible. The database is being continually updated until the last possible moment. So if you were concerned about Wayne Rooney not being at Man Utd for example, then dont worry he will be.
Q. Will we be able to move the club to a new stadium in FM 2005?
A. Unless its a move that has been hard coded into the game then the answer is no.
Q. Will we be able to amend league rules or add new leagues in FM 2005?
A. No, not in this version, although it has been mentioned as a possible feature for the future.
Q. What about feeder clubs, are they in this time around?
A. No. There are some considerable knock on effects with the introduction of this feature. The earliest this may happen is with the release of FM 2006.