A Long Delayed Update – Apologies

The summer holidays is always a slow period in any business. However – At UFLive things have continued to progress at a steady pace.

As has been alluded to elsewhere – Jon has now fully implemented the season system and the Gameworld is now running in the normal loop that you would associate with the game. All the developers teams are in the one Football Association and we are competing in the official competitions for prize money. This is a big addition to the game – We are now waiting for our 4th season to start. As everyone would have predicted Jon won the first two seasons. Complete outsider Mark Rutland won the 3rd season and the mighty Nobular Bells FC came from rock bottom in the first season – to finish a mighty 3rd in the last season. The reason? Well – My team was bugged in the first season – and I know that you don’t believe me – but it’s true. I have a striker called Henry Adams, and during testing one day I somehow managed to get him selected in all 11 positions in my formation. So I logged it as a bug and let Jon work on it. Meanwhile – all my matches were played with Henry Adams in every position on the field!!!! Still don’t believe me?? Just see for yourself:

However – These types of problems are now few and far between. Some time ago we implemented a bug reporting and tracking system. All those testing the client are able to take screenshots and log a ticket for Jons attention. Some of them Jon is full aware of and are on his list of things to do. Others are new to him and become additions to the list. It’s great to see the system working as it should. As an early tester of FML and recent versions of FM – I always found the reporting of bugs on the forum a bit of a hectic and unorganised system. And while we have not finalised our own bug tracking system for when we let all our eager testers in, I am confident it will be more regimented and transparent.

We recently reached a milestone in our client releases. As I wrote about in the UFLive Blog, we are now currently on UFLive Client Version 100. That’s right – there are 100 incarnations of UFLive – each one more stable and more feature packed than the last one. Along with more stability and some UI enhancements, the 100th client also brought with it a kit designer, an information and updates vidiprinter and the Transfer History section of your Club Finances.

There has been more and more work done on the finance side of the game since the last update. While we are still some way from our final financial model, we are getting there. Jon kindly reset the GWs finances before the last update, and it is immediately apparent that the finance system is in better shape than it was 6 months ago. Some of us were over 100m in debt – but now all teams are showing a healthy balance with good profits being made.

The other area that has seen a lot of focus recently (and a lot of email chains) is that of Player Generation, Progression and Aging. This is not something that we want to rush – as it is tied in with so many other aspects of the game. To get it right is crucial. Will has been imperative in the ideas and calculations behind this – but our very own Coach has also been outstanding in the real life feedback and input he has been able to give. Who’d have thought there would be so many categories of full back player!! Along with the determination of player types – there has been much use of phrases like ‘weighted attributes’, ‘generational parameters’ and ‘positional algorithms’!! I have to admit – when it comes down to this level of detail I do find myself shying away – but its great to see Jon, Will, Jules and the Coach knee deep in configuration and discussion with all the enthusiasm of a Belgian Midfielder handing in a transfer notice on deadline day

Finally, work is still on-going, and will always continue to be on-going, on the cosmetic look and feel of the game. As new features are put in place we are realising how the navigation and the individual screens could be better laid out and configured. And given that we still only have 10 or 12 testers actively in the game, we have free rein to do this without upsetting the apple cart so to speak. And I think that this will continue for the next few months at least. It is getting more and more like a finished product – but we are not kidding ourselves – there is still work to be done! And it’s still not a project that’s going to  be finished overnight. Jon is still the catalyst behind the project – his influence, commitment, unerring confidence and dedication are huge to UFLive and once you all get in to have glimpse at the game you will see what I mean. For those of you from a computing background – or who may have some insight into the world of coding – you will appreciate the hours that Jon as put in – so remember that when you are all attempting to get to the top of the rankings in months and years to come!

Longing For UFLive

I’ve just returned home after spending 3 days at my first InfoSec exhibition in Earls Court, London. It was my first show of its type as an exhibiter – and quite frankly it gave me a bit of a taste for it. It’s a fantastic way to drum up interest in your business and also to meet current customers and put faces to names. It got me to a bit of forward thinking. Its going to be great to take UFLive into similar exhibitions in the future. I had visions of how big the UFLive stand would look, and how well the colour scheme we use will lend itself to a striking and stand out exhibit. Of course we will be encouraging all our local customers to pop in and say hello and take part in any UFL related challenges that we will have running!!

Of course the downside of being at Infosec all week is that I have not been in the UFLive client since the weekend. And i’ll admit it – I missed it. Not to the extent that I used to miss a certain previous online football management based mmo. But I know that once we have members of our forum in testing, I will have alot more to miss. I will be dreaming of transfer targets, worrying about auctions and mentally re-arranging my tactics!! At least I won’t have to worry about the age old problem of people playing my AI without giving me the chance to play live. The split in the season that’s planned, and the arrangement of fixtures into each half, will take away alot of problems where many fixtures are backed up to the end of the season. A good spread of important matches throughout the season will make the game alot more enjoyable and will hopefully encourage alot more managers to play their games live! Of course the full details of the AI enforcement and the offline rights system have yet to be released into the public domain – but given the entire dev team have so much experience, and that we also have all the feedback and suggestions from the community – we are happy that it will be one problem we can lay to rest!!!

à bientôt

Nobular

Keep An Eye On The Competitions!!!

The latest big addition to UFLive came in early 2013. After some quiet time on the development front, Jon outdid himself with the implementation of the competitions system. For those of you unfamiliar with Jon – he is the coding brains currently behind all things UFLive. It took five women, three years to give birth to Jon, and it is no coincedence that he was born May 6,1945 and The Nazis surrendered the following day!! But I digress…..
The arrival of a formal competition structure was a big step in UFLive. And since it arrived we have all been in to create, delete, alter, enter, leave, win and lose competitions. The more fickle among the development team point out that Jons knowledge of the backend of the game allows him an unfair advantage – and this is how they explain the fact that he is still the most successful manager since UFLive records began. His team, Dynamo Dragons top both the Gameworld Points list and the most competitions won list.

My most comical input so far was to raise one of the most pointless bugs. I was concerned when aone of my competitions auto resolved and I didn’t receive any email notification with the Match Reports. Then when I went to check on my fixtures list – I couldn’t see the competition games. Concerned was not the word!! ‘Back to the drawing board’ I mumbled…. only for Jon to conduct a thorough investigation and, of course, find the cause of the problem. I’d forgotten to enter the competition in the first place……… With testers like me poor old Jon has his work cut out.