Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:11:22 +0700WeeblyThu, 13 Aug 2009 04:43:12 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/08/august-14th-the-emirates.htmlLucky me! i got chosen to go to the emirates to play fifa10 a little earlier than usual. Must be all my hard work for the community LOL! im sure pricking about chatting shit with rusty most of the time didnt help but whatever. im going.

As you would expect im dead excited. Get to play some early code, at a guess about 70%, most likely the gamescom build, then some free sarnies and a tournament.

These are the places to check out to see who is going and see what we thought:

http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/fifa-10-sony-playstation-3-microsoft-xbox-360/763632-grab-chance-play-fifa-10-early-code-emirates.html

http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/fifa-10-sony-playstation-3-microsoft-xbox-360/772918-fifa10-emirates-playtest-questions-thread.html

ill be "tweeting" all day. There is a little sidebar to your right > or you can follow me (Millsano85) and get a running commentary of all the random shit i do.

Ill do a decent, full post here once we get back.

Tom
]]>Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:46:35 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/07/farewell.htmlHaven't updated this for a while. I haven't been playing much Fifa. Online is wrecked. Offline offers very little replay value. The GFL has totally slowed down, i have only played one league  game in about 2 weeks. I am contemplating binning 09 and getting Tiger Woods 10 to keep me busy until Fifa 10 comes out. I have been reading Glens thoughts on 10 and am starting to look forward to it. He says he has spoken to Mike Takla at EA and they are looking at ways to stop people cheating and boosting next year. It's a shame they couldn't take a look at it for 09 but there were a lot of online modes introduced in 09 and there were bound to be holes that couldn't be fixed until the next release, i bet they wish all their customers were that understanding! Been playing the Tiger Woods demo and have really enjoyed it, i haven't had a Tiger Woods game for a few years so it feels fresh and although other have mentioned its just a glossed over yearly update with a few new courses i dont feel that way because i didnt have 09.

I stopped playing Fifa when a mate lent me COD: WAW. I couldnt put it down. I finished it in a couple of days and picked up COD: MW the other day. Nearly finished that now. One thing i noticed was how different the online feels compared to Fifa. I know, what a ridiculous comparison to make right? 2 totally different games, 2 totally different genres! But what i mean is the satisfaction. With Fifa online if you are getting pasted 6-0 its no fun. When you are playing against a glitcher or cheater its no fun. When you are in a laggy game its no fun. All of these things happen far too frequently. With COD the online is always just a good laugh. When i first went into a game i thought i would get murdered but i didn't, i ended the game with just as many kills as deaths as there is a solid structure to allow new players to ease into online play in place and although it only takes a few evenings of playing to "level up" enough to take on the hardcore players it gives you a chance to learn the maps and how things work with people on your level. I havent yet seen a cheater. I'm sure there are loads, but i havent seen one yet. [digression]It says a lot about the the youth of todays (fuck me how old am i again?) self esteem that they would rather be indoors cheating their way up the leaderboards on a computer game than in a park drinking cider and touching up birds. [/digression]

I feel like i have done Fifa to death now. I have hammered the offline modes, seen just about everything 1v1 online can throw at me, had a good run in clubs and i just no longer feel the need to go back and play another game. I am going to see how much i get offered for it at Game or whatever, if they offer me a decent price ill get rid. If not ill keep it to play with mates. The disk recently didn't leave my bookcase for about 10 days, something that hasn't happened since the 3rd of October.

I'm going to keep looking at the forums, and keep up to date with Fifa10 and will no doubt still pre order it, but as for playing 09. I think im done. I hope Fifa10 can hold my interest for a full 12 months.

Adios.

]]>Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:04:47 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/06/fifa-09-offline.htmlHello Hello.
I havent been online too much recently. There was a slow week in the GFL and because of it Kappa decided to hold back the latest fixtures until some more games had been completed. As such i have only played 3 GFL games in the last 10 days or so. The deadline for fixtures and the last remaining cup tie is tonight, so hopefully once i wake up tomorrow i will be able to see whats going on next week.

The lack of league games and just generally being a little frustrated at online ranked games at the moment (for reasons i will cover in a bit) has led to me exploring what the game has to offer offline a lot more.

I have a BAP career running, which i started when the game first came out. I am currently about 2 or 3 games into season 3, which shows how much i play it. There just isnt enough depth to the mode for me. Its just game after game and the overall goal of making your created player a Legend isnt enough of a draw to keep me playing it, i tend to dip in a play one or two games when nothing else is going on.

I started as an Arsenal player and the early games were great, playing in the reserves, but i was quickly promoted to first team football and at the end of season one Barcelona were keen to secure my services. Not realistic at all. I signed for Barca, had an amazing season there, and at the end of the season, the best club i could look at moving to was werder bremen. No consistency. Another thing i have noticed is that there isnt any activity elsewhere in the mode. All teams and players remain the same for the duration of your career. My final BAP gripe is that when i got to Barca i took Eto's place in the first team and he dissapeared from the game altogether. So i was stuck playing every game with Messi and Henry, i guess it could be worse, without the option to rotate Eto into games. Most likely a bug but a fairly big and annoying one!

I play lounge modes whenever my mates come round for beers and would recommend them to everyone. We usually pick one lower rated team and one higher rated team each, and then get stuck in. The cheap shots make things really interesting, Playing as Sheffield Utd with reduced stats against a boosted AC Milan is only funny after the correct amount of beers. Its nice to see the league tables at the end of the evening too, as long as you have the bragging rights.

Manager mode has been a weird one this year too. I have three running at the moment, one as Aldershot, one i started as Arsenal when the game came out and one as fenerbahce which i set up to practise playing with them on. As with BAP i find it really really hard to stay interested, i literally feel like i am slogging through every game just to get to the next transfer window to add a little variety. I used to love MM but i have seen the same format for so long its hard to find anything fresh about it. The AI is pretty bad offline and there doesnt seem to be any difference between playing one team and another besides the shirts.

So its back to online for me. I am going to have to suck it up and get back out there amongst the QRM players. Playing Man utd and Barca every game is no more or less repetitive than playing offline i guess. All i want is a little variety. Which is why I have been trying to gather together a load of information regarding Manual leaderboards being seperate from the main boards.
See the post before this one for details of the thread on the Official forums and how to contact me if you have any feedback or anything to add. I really think EA need to add the option for manual players to be able to matchup against each other easily online and  play ranked games. Waiting in lobbies is tedious, and the assisted players dont have to do it. There is a massive difference in the control schemes, its almost a different game mode, so i dont think wanting to be treated seperatly is unreasonable. As i have mentioned a few times, the amount of manual players is increasing daily and adding Manual leaderboards and making manual matchmaking easier would boost and continue this trend. So far people have responded well to the idea and i have made some progress on my mission to dig out all of the past feedback on the matter out from the fifa forums.

Cheers guys

Tom

]]>Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:34:52 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/06/just-a-quick-bit-of-begging.htmlFor those people who havent seen it, i started a thread on the fifa10 forums about separate rankings for Full manual players.

Please read, vote and add your comments here:

I have put together some stuff for EA, if anyone can help me straighten it out or has anything to add drop me an email@ tmills@dataquestuk.com

]]>Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:01:44 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/06/happy.htmlI've got to say im in a very good mood. it's saturday night, im full of imported lager (morrisons have a blindin deal on, i picked up 3 660ml bottles of kingfisher, 3 of peroni and 3 of san miguel for £15! thats a fair bit of beer, and im just finishing the last bottle of kingfisher, which is probably my favourite), i have a packet of chocolate limes, My itunes shuffle has been on form, dishing up a wide variety of songs, and i dont have to get up early. This is an Anti-rant.

I have played 2 league games since i last posted. The first was against I will bat joe. My mentality going into the game was schoolboy. I play a lot with Kappa, and our results are mixed. probably over the whole time we have been playing manual against each other its about 70-30 in Kappas favour in terms of wins. In one of our games i mentioned that I will bat joe was my next league  game. Kappa had already  played him, and told me that he was a decent player, likes to use the trick stick and could finish his chances. He beat Kappa 4-0, so things didn't look good. I went into the game with damage limitation in mind, which i shouldnt have. It was a tough game, i found myself endlessly soaking up pressure and breathing sighs of relief when chances were missed. Typical of football, i created a good chance late in the first half (or was it early in the second half?) and managed to put that chance away. So 1-0 up against what i saw as one of the most threatening players in the league, what do you do? push for a second and risk opening yourself up? sit on the lead and defend for your life?  i chose the latter (fuck it, its worked for me before). im confident in my defending, and actually feel more comfortable clearing off my own line than i do trying to stick the ball over someone elses. I managed to hold out and won 1-0. i have to say i will bat joe was a top bloke and a very good player. he caused me loads of problems, and when i won he sent me a light hearted message about him hitting a non scoring streak. We need more players like that on 09 in general.

My second league game was against laddsy76. Long overdue in terms of league fixtures, but with time differences (he lives in australia, i live just outside london) we found it hard to tie up. It was a very different game. i found the button lag hard to deal with. notice how i specifically said button lag. Not general lag, there was no distorted animations, in general the game flowed very well, but button presses were delayed noticeably. Anyone who has read the online changes thread will have their own opinion, but this did surprise me. The whole game, visually, was perfect, there were no skips,  but i had delay on my button presses and i can only assume laddsy did too.

We could not be much further, physically, from each other, and delay is to be expected, but it doesn't make sense that i can have a pretty good game with a guy 17,000KM away, aside from the button lag, and then straight after, play a laggy, skippy, game against my mate who lives about 4 meters  away, i could  spit on his windows from my flat and we are both on the same exchange. Gotta love technology, i get paid to make sense of it and largely end up confused. Anyway i won 3-1, i probably got a bit lucky, but a win is a win.

Which leaves me Played 9-Won 4- drawn 3- lost 2, with a GD of +3. Joint top of the league in terms of points! the only problem is that there are 2 other teams on 15 points who have a game in hand, and TONYG who runs/plays as l.a. galaxy is on 14 points and has 2 games in hand on me.

All that considered, im really happy with my position, i am exceding my early expectations, and if i can keep the results in my favour i will be happy. To be honest playing a decent game is the most important thing. I got beaten 3-0 by  guy from the forums, Bis4brutus, earlier. He was very good, really creative, which allowed me my own space, and certainly wasnt afraid to take a shot from range. All in all a good game even though i lost and i look forward to having another game with him. I also played t3h 3n3my, who is fairly new to manual, he beat me 2-1, which shows how open the games can be. Again, he was a top bloke and a really decent player, no spamming through balls, no stupid formations, not pace abusing, just a decent game of footy, i am happy to lose fairly, that doesnt worry me, it helps me see my flaws and patch them up, i just hate to lose to assisted noobs. thats not a knock to assisted players, i just dont like playing them. 99% of the time they use the same tactics, and demented formations that bastardise football.

There has been a huge interest in manual controls recently, which is really exciting to me. Loads of manual threads started, old ones being bumped and picking up pace, it seems that the football fans of the fifa community are becoming more self aware, have realised that manual controls put all the tools to play and create good football in your hand  and they are now comfortable with making the "i play manual" statement, which can alienate you. There is an obvious divide of late between manual and assisted players, which i think is a good thing. I want to see manual leaderboards, im not saying i am better than assisted players, tonnes of them could tear me to bits. but how many could say they did it with skill? none. because on a 360 A,A,A,B = Goal. Too easy. No concentration or thought required. Hopefully this massive switch of players from assisted to manual will make EA consider giving manual players their own leaderboards. We need this.

Cheers for reading.

Tom

]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:52:54 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/06/second-league-win-and-into-the-next-round-of-the-cup.htmlThe weather recently has been far to good to be stuck inside playing Fifa, but i have managed to get a few games in here and there. Racked up a second league win and progressed to the semi finals of the GFL Cup. Needless to say, I'm well chuffed. On Tuesday night i played Kingofslackerz in the cup. My Fenerbahce ran out 3-0 winners over his Rangers. It felt strange going into the game, a look at his league stats, Played 7 Won 0 drawn 1 lost 6 GD -11, made me feel pretty confident, but prior to the game i took a 5-0 thumping which knocked me a bit.

I managed to score early which helped settle me into the game and added a second shortly after which was slightly....... not unfair, just a bit of a nightmare for him. I was breaking into the box with my left winger, he rushed his keeper and made contact with my player and the ball at the exact moment i shot. The ball pinged off the keepers chest, back off of me, across the box and was heading out for a goal kick. One of his defenders was rushing back to cover the line and rather than let the ball run out of play, did one of those "brilliant" traps where they knock the ball 5 yards in front of themselves. Unfortunately for Kingofslackers the goal was only 3 yards away, so in it went. It felt a bit cheap, but what can you do, there was the prospect of virtual  silverware at stake ;). Shortly before halftime he mistimed a tackle in the box, conceding a straight red and a penalty at the same time. He saved the penalty and we went into the break at 2-0.

Second half he gave me a lot more grief. he threw his team forward and penned me in, but with him being so light at the back, when i did break forward i looked very dangerous. It says a lot about my finishing that i was only able to add one more goal in the second half. You can read the tongue in cheek match report here.

Last night i played Wexicoish in our second league game. It was as usual a tight game. Probably.

Ill have to admit i was lightly pissed, so i cant actually remember much of the game, or my first goal, but i do remember i scored my second in the 90th minute.

So i still have three fixtures outstanding, to be completed by the weekend, and after 7 games i have Won 2, Drawn 3 and lost 2. Goal difference is back to 0 after the two goals i scored last night, i would prefer it was a positive number, but at least i am scoring as many as i am conceding. I am currently 5th in the league. You can view the tables here.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Im sure everyone is aware that the Fifa10 NDA's have expired. i wasn't sure about what to expect to be honest. A lot of people on the forums were really hyped, almost like they were expecting a full feature list and full game details with release date. It was clear that this wasn't the case. The guys who went to the community day were pretty much only exposed to gameplay and it's a very early build.

 Jesus that sounds so cynical, but what i mean is, i wasn't expecting too much info regarding game modes and new features. All reports claim the game is superb, which is great news as it is rumoured to only be about 60% complete. The main thing i want to get my hands on is 360 degree dribbling. I have mentioned many many times that manual controls freed the game up for me, and this can only improve things in my opinion. Running with the ball is supposed to feel a lot better now, with no more changing direction in increments, and the shooting physics have been touched up so hopefully no more balloon shots.  Wepeelers "Fifa 10 - first look" thread is a great read and details what information the guys from the community day have well. All of the improvments seem to be subtle but needed, so hopefully the game will feel like a beautifully rounded Fifa09 with that something extra that will make it a truely epic title. Thats what im hoping for anyway.

Glen has mentioned that he brought the problem with manual short passing up directly with the right man to deal with it, and the guy listened, went away and came back with his ideas for resolution quickly. Very very pleased about that. I guess manual players will be resigned to relearning the controls come october, but its a small price to pay. I keep hearing rumours about a "whole new learning curve" to the game anyway, which i now assume is the 360 degree dribbling, so i guess everyone will be in the same boat.

Check me out, i have managed to write three paragraphs about a game thats no where near completion without ever playing it, with only other peoples opinions and 40 screenshots (many of which were duplicates) as reference points. Oh dear.

Tom

]]>Fri, 29 May 2009 03:32:39 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/05/finally-i-got-to-play-some-fifa.htmlWell, after a 5 day break, i managed to get online and play some Fifa. It felt weird to start with and it took me a game to get back into the controls. I played a game against liamM97, a guy from the fifa forums. He is a very tidy passer, and caused me a bit of a headache at first. I was still trying to dial my passing in again and gave the ball away a lot. He had a few decent chances and i had one "it must be!" moment, but neither of us scored and he quit just before half time because the game was laggy. It was weird lag, it was smooth as anything for a minute, then terrible for a minute, then smooth again. We tried to play through it but it got too much, i was preparing to quit at half time when he left anyway, so no harm done.

I then played a guy called Lord Provoker in a QRM. He certainly lived up to his name. He was good, but one of those weirdo's that does tricks with his defenders when they have no one near them? whatever floats your boat i guess. As usual i got treated to replays and drawn out celebrations. I didn't mind the replays, because his goals were all brilliant, so it was ok to watch them again. He was great at frustrating me and I was p***** off but wont quit even when im being thumped, so i  stayed, he dominated me and won 3-0. I had sorted my passing out and that was enough for me.

Then played a full manual game with Webb. He stayed at Leeds so i went for Sheff Utd who are a league above but the same * so it was a fairly even game. Webb played much much better than i remembered, probably because in our last game i had a huge advantage using a 4* team against a 2 1/2* team. We both had good cracks at goal but Webb was controlling the possesion for much of the game, his attacks were slowly worked and built around picking the right pass rather than trying anything too risky and giving away possesion, so i had to counter quickly as possesion play vs possesion play doesnt work that well for me. Id rather let them keep the ball, defend well and try to score on the break.  It was a really enjoyable game, and it finished 1-0 to Webb.

Then played 2 games with some guy called davidfallah. He seemed alright at first, we both played full manual. He was a pretty decent player, his style was more to hit me on the break, so i adopted a possesional attitude and it worked pretty well. We both created chances and both missed some horrible sitters. He won 1-0 with a Back post corner goal in the 90th minute. Nightmare.

We rematched and from kick off he tried to score? with manual controls? it wasnt far off to be fair, but i made him watch the replay because glitchers are C***S.

We played much the same as the first game, he was trying to break through quickly, i was trying to slow the game down to suit me. I Scored a SCREAMER towards the end of the first half. Lupoli with his back to goal on the corner of the box, picks the ball up, rolls the defender, comes in towards the keeper at a very tight angle, and smashes it into the net as the keeper goes to ground. it was beautiful. Probably the most satisfying goal i have ever scored. Kick off again. Shot from kick off again. replay watched again. He got a bit loose with his challenges after that so it must have got to him. He did miss a couple of pretty good chances in horrible ways. One shot actually went out for a throw in about 15 yards up from the corner flag! thankfully i havent had too many like that recently.

My wonder strike turn out to be the winner, and it deserved to be. I would love to post a video, but i dont have a capture card yet. It's been delayed for probably at least a week. I havent been paid my overtime for last month. Pretty hacked off. The finance controller says it because someone else didn't fill their form out. Like i give a flying f*** if someone else hasn't filled their form out?!?! muppet.

Anyway that'll do for today. I have to fire off a s***** email to my directors.

Tom

]]>Thu, 28 May 2009 04:02:24 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/05/pretty-pissed-off.htmlOriginally posted 22-05-2009

Title says it all. Just played my last league game of the week. Prepare for excuses and venting, There is a bottle of wine inside me.

I played honome. His league results thus far have been pretty bad, but playing all manual i know that games can go either way so i expected nothing more than a game of football. i didnt get one. I lost. 2-0. Im not even annoyed that i lost, i have played 5, lost 3 and won 2 tonight. Im annoyed at the way he played. I joined this league to get away from stupid formations and lobbed through balls, but it seems they are present here too. The weird thing is, i cant fault his goals, they werent exactly well worked, both defensive balls ups and shocking AI knock ons but they were well taken and i cant take anything away from that considering the control settings.

I just cant believe i lost, he had this weird jammed formation, it looked a bit like a loop on the radar, it meant he had 5 in the box whenever i was attacking, and he was using B to pull a second player in for the whole game meaning i was always up against six if not seven players at the back. Fair enough, its part of the game, but i couldnt get my head around it.

In my last post i mentioned my new formation, within 30 minutes of the game i had switched back to my old 4-4-2 because i couldnt make any moves through the defense, turns out it wasnt my formation that was the problem, it was his. Maybe i should have spotted it sooner. I have grown accustomed to checking peoples formations before commiting to a ranked match online, but i didnt expect to see it in a manual league game. I guess i should have dealt with it better, and can kind of appreciate the defensive mentality considering the shocking start he has had, but still, im amazed.

I usually play a few games before playing a league game to make sure im "warmed up". i didnt tonight. i doubt that played any part of it, but who knows.

There was a lot of space for me in the middle, but his box was always PACKED with players and he seemed to only have 2 isolated players up front at all times. Queue plenty of lobbed balls to the front men. Thankfully it wasnt so similar to a QRM that every single ball was picked up by a striker, with manual there are always going to be errors, and there wasnt a closet **** portuguese playboy in sight, but it did feel like i was constantly clearing up the chipped passes and then trying to make my way through a sea of defenders only to lose the ball and start the process all over again.

I may be being harsh, but please dont read it as bitterness. Thats not my style at all. i am the first person to send a message and say good game, win or lose, i pride myself on that. ive never been interested in stats really, i just love playing football, and i love playing fifa. i have taken enough spankings to realise they mean nothing. But what gets me, is that its the first manual game i have ever played that i didnt enjoy. Which saddens me. Every other game i have played has been enjoyable even if i lose 3-0, 4-0, or whatever.

I played a game against Wexi straight after. he seems to like just going to a random league and grabbing random teams, and i love it. we have had some great games against each other. tonight he chose the Austrian league, why not eh? We were both 2 1/2* teams, and it was a fantastic game. I think i needed to play a game like that to raise my spirits again. it didnt matter if i won or lost, it felt like football again. we both had that little bit more time on the ball that manual gives you, the play wasnt hurried, it was well thought out and very very enjoyable to play. I won 1-0, but as usual Wexi gave me tonnes of grief and had his fair share of chances. i really like games with him. he is a top player and i reckon he might surprise some people in the league. im not saying people think he isnt good, but he had a very similar start to me, and i have now slid right down the table, i reckon by the end he will still be in the top 3.

Other than those 2 games i played a few QRM, lost 2, both as fenerbahce to aston villa strangely. i got done in by pace and inch perfect shooting. by the time i had sussed the guys out and stopped them playing the football they wanted to play it was too late, they were winning by then and i never really looked like getting back into the game.in some ways it was nice because i was able to forget everything and just use it as some practice for defending and playing on the break.

Won 1. again against villa, and i have to say fair play to the guy i beat, he played some lovely football, and scuffed a few chances, whereas i had 1 chance all game and tucked it away. I was really pleased with that. usually i create 3 or 4 chances and if im lucky stick 1 or 2 in. but to create one clear cut chance, score AND have it make the difference in the result was a huge confidence boost. Its hard as a manual player looking back on results sometimes because you remember all the chances you had to swing the game into your favour, and if you arent taking those chances frequently it can get to you a bit.

Anyway. i have my 6 year old brother in laws birthday party to go to tomorrow, no doubt i will spend the afternoon being slapped and smothered in cake, so i need to try and negate this inevitable hangover before it kicks in.

Thanks for reading.

Tom

]]>Thu, 28 May 2009 04:01:48 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/05/not-much-to-report.htmlOriginally posted 21-05-2009

Not a lot has gone on since my last post, but i wanted to put something else up to keep myself in the habit of documenting my progress etc.

I say not a lot has gone on, but actually it has. Glen has been chosen to go to Vancouver. A brilliant decision. It was weird because i was always confident he would go, but i was almost preparing myself for uproar if he didn't. i was worried EA might take the easy way out and choose someone who would just agree with everything, get caught up in the excitement of being there and come back and say "yeah its great, they sorted everything, buy it". Whereas i think we all know what to expect from Glen. So I am very very happy he is going. Good luck fella, you know what the community want and i know you will go fully armed with the questions that need answering.

I started by saying not much has gone on because i haven't played many games. certainly none that really stand out. I have only managed to play 5 games since i last posted which isnt many by my standards. I dont even know what has been stopping me play to be honest. I've been studying for exams at work but nothing over the top, i cant study past 9pm anyway, which is usually the time i go online. i have got few practise games in, im trying new tactics against the abusers online and a new formation.

Firstly the tactics:
I have found that when playing speed freaks and lobbed ball boobs, that frustrating them is a great tool. I have been using my new formation to help, but generally i have been REALLY slowing the game down, which they hate. taking them to 0-0 at 90 minutes feels like a win because i have stopped them scoring, and you can sense the frustration in their play, it becomes hurried and sloppy. I Just constantly soak the ball up, work attacks slowly, and pick holes. I used to try and counter, but i found many times that all my defensive hard work was undone because i tried to get forward too quickly, lost possesion, and left holes behind that they could exploite.

I have rarely been spanked by assited players online, in fact just the once by a severe margin, but a 3-0 could happen. since ditching the counter attacking mentality i have seen things really tighten up and now 1-0 either way is a much more realistic scoreline.

And the formation:

I used to play a fairly rigid 4-4-2. it was working for me and the only complaint i had was that sometimes if i got forward quickly by picking the ball up in their half, there was a serious lack of support from the middle. So i played around a bit and have recently been playing a 4-1-2-1-2. I like it. Fenerbahce have a decent CDM in Claudio Maldonado and a great CAM in Alex so rather than playing them alongside each other i have dropped Maldonado back to cover the defense and pick the ball up in midfield and pushed Alex up behind the strikers to add a third man to central attacks. Im slowly working out the strengths of the team, and im sure i will try something else in time, but for now its working well. I have yet to try it in a league game but i played two friendlies with Kappa the other day, both ended 1-0 with one win each.

Only have one league match still to play until the next fixtures go up. Against Udinese who have played 5 Won 1 Drawn 2 Lost 2. Could go either way. Other results have pushed me down to 5th in the league, still on 6 points in 5 games. I need to start turning some of these draws into wins.

Will post the result up here once its played, until then.

Adios

]]>Thu, 28 May 2009 04:00:31 +0700http://tem1985.weebly.com/1/post/2009/05/it-was-bound-to-happen-sooner-or-later.htmlOriginally posted 18-05-2009

Ok. I've tried to remain upbeat about online play. and largely I've succeeded. but some people are just plain idiots. So here is my first rantblog.

I was searching for a QRM. i found one. My default team is arsenal, simply because i havent bothered to change it. He is Sifting through a bunch of teams and i thought to myself "ill wait, see where he ends up, and choose a team based on that." so i sit there and he eventually settles for spain. Now think what you like of this, but being an all manual player online, i try and avoid matchups with 5* teams. there is something about it that i cant stick. I play manual to slow the pace of the game to a more realistic level and 5* teams tend to be too fast. So i try to find games with 4* teams or less and i am always happy to go down to whatever level they want to play at. i have made a small selection of teams throughout the ratings that i am comfortable playing with. /digresion.

Anyway. i decide not to play, and leave the session. whilst i am looking for another game i get a message notification.

***** has sent you a message (i dont know if naming and shaming applies to blogs. better to be safe than sorry)

"***** 5* Arsenal vs 5* spain. wots the ****ing difrence. *****"

I couldnt leave it. I told him why my team was set to arsenal, i hadnt bothered to change it. i explained i try to only use 4* or less online, with rare exceptions.

Easy. end of that. job done.

"Yeah yeah *****. too scared".

Fine. Kappa has taught me a nice technique for dealing with morons and i believe he has had great success with putting people in their place. see here.

So i invite the guy into a full manual game. He goes for spain. i go for fenerbahce.

He left within 3 game minutes. i didnt even have time to score or find out if he was good enough to back up his cockiness.

Why do people have such an attitude online? This isnt the fist time ive seen behaviour like this and it wont be the last. i just cant understand the mentality? I bite sometimes when people are dickheads, im pretty sure we can all say we have done that, but i never send people messages like that for no reason.

The problem with 09 is the players. Its the gamers online that screw things up, people who are only interested in getting peoples backs up and making themselves feel clever, maybe they werent hugged as a child.He/She knew nothing about me. i could have been a 13yr old playing my first online game and i get a message like that? Not cool. Treat people as you would expect to be treated is the order of the day.

Ok thats the rant bit done.

I played a league game against webb95 last night. i went one nil up in the 4th minute when he, rather lightly, knocked me over in the box. it was a pretty poor penalty to be honest and i am still in 2 minds as to whether it was valid or not, but these things happen, and i tucked the penalty away. 1-0.

Webb got D/C in the 23rd minute. By league rules because he was losing and D/C he forfiets the game. But he was back online in seconds and it happens to everyone at some times or another. i wouldnt have been able to sleep if i had refused to play again. So we restarted, he stuck an own goal in to put the score right and we just messed about until the 23rd minute, then we carried on.

It was a brilliant game, summed up by how brilliant webbs equaliser was. an inch perfect cross was met by beckford who nodded it home comfortably. I am hoping to soon replace my descriptions of goals with links to youtube but i still havent got my capture card so for the next 2 weeks you will have to make do with my descriptive talents to paint you a picture. We both had LOADS of chances. Webb wrote up a match report which you can read here. he noted that he had 20 shots on goal and i had 15. In the 89th i broke free and found myself 1 on 1 with the keeper but panicked and stuck it wide. Pretty gutted i missed it but i think a point each was the fairest outcome from the game. It was a cracker and cant wait till i play him in the league again.

Staying with dodgy penalties as a topic, I also played a game with Kappa over the weekend. I was 2-1 up in the last minute. He flew into my area and would surely have scored but i put in a last ditch tackle. It must be noted that it was intended as a last ditch tackle, not as a blatent foul. anyway, i sent him flying. we both agreed it was going to be a penalty, but it wasnt given, no card, no foul, nothing. The game ended 2-1 to me. Unfortunately the footage Kappa had captured got lost thanks to good ol windows blue screen of death. Another reason for me to sort my capture card out. Its top of my things to buy/do list i promise.

The league tables are shaping up nicely.

Im now joint third. strangely both myself and wexi have played 5, won 1 drawn 3 lost 1 and both have a goal difference of 0. spooky. Its hard to take a decent look at the tables because Webb has played all of his listed fixtures (6). Me, Kappa and Wexi have played 5 each. Hamburg have played 4 and the rest have still only played 3. AZ Alkmaar and LA Galaxy could be hard to catch. they have both played 3 won 3.

At the moment im jsut waiting for the other cup games to be played so i can find out who i have in the next round and i still have a league game against Honome to play.

Will update once thats all done.

Tom

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