After the careers reset of 9 October we found more problems than we were willing to live with. Some matches would not play. Some accounts did not add up. Amateur clubs at the foot of the pyramid were carrying costs that no amateur club could pay. We could have patched them one at a time. Instead we closed the game and rebuilt the rules of a career on a cleaner base. This is what came out of it.
A season that runs like a real one
A season now has a calendar. It starts in summer and ends in May. Leagues of 16 clubs play 30 matchdays on Saturdays from the second weekend of August, five clubs go up and five go down, and every club takes part in the national cup, over eight rounds.
The transfer market opens in summer and again in January, and closes in between. Contracts end on 30 June. The academy brings its new intake every April. Players develop month by month and turn a year older when the season ends — and the older ones retire.
The same money rules for every club
Every club in the game now earns and spends by the same rules for its division, including the clubs the game runs for itself. Amateur football pays no wages, so a club in division 10 costs almost nothing to run, and earns accordingly: a little from sponsors, members and the local community. The money grows as the club climbs, and so do the costs.
Every coin that comes in or goes out is recorded in your club's accounts, and the balance always matches them. The bank lets you go into the red up to a limit, with interest. A club that spends a whole year in the red goes bankrupt, and the career ends — with warnings long before that happens.
Your club talks to you
The inbox has been rebuilt from scratch. Everything that happens at your club arrives there, once, from the person who would tell you: a result from your head coach, the monthly accounts from your Vice-Director, a scouting report from your scout. Works that start and finish, players you sign or fail to sign, contracts with a year left, injuries, cup draws, the board's verdict. If something changes at your club, you hear about it.
You can also write to your staff and give them real jobs. We explain all of it in the post about the inbox.
Objectives, a head coach and a proper end of season
At the start of each season you tell the board what you aim for, and the board judges it in May. You can hand the team to your head coach and stay in charge as director. And every season now ends with a review of what happened: the table, the record, the prize and your objectives. More in the post about objectives and the head coach.
Before and after
| Before | ManageFC 3.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| The season | Weeks with no calendar of their own | August to May: 30 matchdays, a cup of eight rounds, transfer windows in summer and January |
| Money | Amateur clubs paying costs they could not carry; the clubs run by the game on different rules | One set of rules per division for every club; no wages in amateur football |
| Debt | No real consequence | A bank limit with interest; a full year in the red ends the career |
| Players | Ages moved in uneven steps; injuries healed by the real clock | Monthly development, a year older at the end of each season, retirements, youth intake in April; injuries heal in game time |
| Sponsors | Deals that never ended | Deals run for their seasons and then end, with a message |
| Messages | Notifications in one place, a crisis room in another, and many club events never reported | One mailbox for the whole club, by category, with jobs for your staff |
| Crises | Choices that changed nothing real | Gone: only real events reach you |
| Objectives | Worked out by the board on its own | Chosen by you at the start of the season and judged in May |
| Time | One or three days at a time | A day, three days, a week or a month — and it always stops for your matches |
What stays the same
Your club is yours: its name, crest, kits and identity carried over to your new career. Friends lobbies and the messages you exchanged with other managers are untouched, and the Online league carries on.
What comes next
The next piece is already being built: a new mascot creator, with animals in your club's colours that move on the touchline. We will write about it when it arrives. Until then, every career starts again in division 10. Thank you for playing the Open Beta with us.
- 34Rewriting the guide and wiki with real numbers
- 35A new front door, and a blog
- 39ManageFC 3.0: why we closed the game, and what we rebuilt
- 40Your club's mailbox: everything that happens reaches you
- 41Objectives, a head coach and the end of a season
All 38 parts
- 1Why we're building ManageFC
- 2The first version — a world that ran on a clock
- 3Two-factor authentication for anything that touches money
- 4Why we deleted our battle pass
- 5Why ManageFC is English-only for now
- 6The inbox is the heart of the game
- 7Substitution plans, set-piece takers and a proper Christmas break
- 8The pivot — from one online world to a private world per save
- 9Rebuilding the game around private saves
- 10The bug that made time stand still
- 11Build your own world — 211 countries, up to 40 leagues
- 12Your money, your units — currencies and expense periods
- 13A security review in June
- 14A quieter month under the hood
- 15When registration broke — a post-mortem
- 16Players now age like players
- 17A season is 245 days
- 18Stepping into a live match
- 19One crest, everywhere
- 20From eight minutes to eighty-four seconds
- 21Recalibrating goals and morale
- 22Every word on screen, checked
- 23We audited our own website — and deleted what was not true
- 2415,000 matches to answer one question — do tactics matter?
- 25AI clubs finally choose their tactics
- 26Why you start in division 3
- 27The day the league tables froze
- 28Crises scaled to your division
- 29Half the game is played on a phone
- 30We redesigned the whole game — then rolled it back
- 31A stadium that grows with you
- 323D where it helps — the season rail and the tactics board
- 33The dressing room, and knowing when to start over
- 34Rewriting the guide and wiki with real numbers
- 35A new front door, and a blog
- 39ManageFC 3.0: why we closed the game, and what we rebuilt
- 40Your club's mailbox: everything that happens reaches you
- 41Objectives, a head coach and the end of a season
Comments
No comments yet — start the conversation.