Ho ho ho, merry Christmas everyone and welcome to Finland!

For our FM2012 festive Tour we’ve decided to throw you into the third division of Finnish football where you’ll take over as manager of FC Santa Claus!

Your goal is to take this small club and flourish amid the cruel winter backdrop, rising through the leagues and adding some trophies to the cabinet! One small thing to remember is that this is one of the few times you will hope not to see the words ‘Santa’ and ‘Sack’ in the same sentence. Good luck!

 FC Santa Claus

FC Santa Claus (known primarily as Santa) is a football club from Rovaniemi, Finland. The club was formed in 1993 following the amalgamation of Rovaniemen Reipas and Rovaniemen Lappi football clubs. Home matches are played at the Saarenkylän tekonurmi or Susivoudin kenttä in Rovaniemi. FC Santa Claus won its group in the Kakkonen C division, but lost the promotion play-off final to HIFK and failed to gain promotion to the Ykkonen league in 2010.

Santa have never gained promotion to the top two divisions in Finland, spending half their short history in the third and fourth divisions respectively. With low cash reserves, poor facilities and a midtable squad, this could be a tough challenge. However the chance to forge new history and bring a little festive cheer to the world of football is one that shouldn’t be passed up!

Kakkonen C

The name literally means ‘Number Two’ in Finnish and is the third tier of football in the country, behind the Veikkausliiga (Premier) and Ykkonen (First) divisions. The Kakkonen is divided to three groups of 14 clubs. A club plays each of the others in the same group twice, once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents. Clubs gain three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. The group winners may win promotion to Ykkönen while three bottom clubs of each group and weakest 11th ranked club will be relegated to Kolmonen.

CHALLENGE DYNAMICS

This challenge will last for three years, upon completing your third season in Finland

(1st November 2014), you can no longer collect points for this destination.

You must start set your manager experience as “Automatic” and play in a new save from June 2011, using this database to unlock the third tier of Finnish football: here (right click to ‘save as’).

You have until the midnight of 30th December 2011 to submit your screenshots in this thread, and accumulate as many points as you can within the confines of a maximum of 3 seasons in the game.

You may not manage any other teams, or use other programs to aid you in this challenge

HOW TO SCORE POINTS

Submit screenshots via reply within this thread of your progress.
Unclear or doctored screenshots will not be rewarded with points.

Veikkausliiga
Relegated: -10 points
12th-9th: 0 points
8th: 2 points
7th: 3 points
6th: 4 points
5th: 5points
4th: 8 points
3rd: 10 points
2nd: 15 points
1st: 25 points

Ykkönen
Relegated: -10 points
13th-9th: 0 points
8th: 2 points
7th: 3 points
6th: 4 points
5th: 5points
4th: 8 points
3rd: 10 points
2nd: 15 points
1st: 25 points
Promoted: +10 points

Kakkonen
Relegated: -10 points
14th-9th: 0 points
8th: 2 points
7th: 3 points
6th: 4 points
5th: 5points
4th: 8 points
3rd: 10 points
2nd: 15 points
1st: 25 points
Promoted: +10 points

Suomen Cup
Losing Quarter Finalist: 2 points
Losing Semi Finalist: 5 points
Losing Finalist: 10 points
Winners: 15 points

Veikkausliiga Liigacup
Losing Quarter Finalist: 2 points
Losing Semi Finalist: 5 points
Losing Finalist: 10 points
Winners: 15 points

Champions League
Fail to Qualify for group stages: 0 points
Group Stage Exit: 2 points
Second Round Exit: 5 points
Losing Quarter Finalists: 10 points
Losing Semi Finaists: 15 points
Losing Finalist: 20 points
Winner: 30 points

Europa League
Group Stage Exit: 0 points
Second Round Exit: 3 points
Losing Quarter Finalists: 8 points
Losing Semi Finaists: 10 points
Losing Finalist: 15 points
Winner: 25 points

RIVALRIES
(Competitive Fixtures Only)

POINT DEDUCTIONS
Sacked: -25 points (and the challenge is over)

LOGOS
Veikkausliiga
Ykkonen
Kakkonen

Join in the fun on our forums with the Tour thread: here!

Bayern Munich are the Giants of German football without a doubt, recently they’ve not been at the top of their game but they have had many a Golden Era, none better than in the mid 70s when they won the Champions League 3 times in a row. They’ve had some truely world class players in recent and not so recent times. From Oliver Kahn to Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer to Gerd Muller. They’ve all left their own impact on World Football as we know it today, so I thought a Bayern Munich Legends database was a fitting tribute. I’ve added 13 of their legends to the current squad.

The players included were primarily those voted in the Bayern Munich best ever XI in 2005 by 66k fans. There were only really 2 players that rivalled this team, Bizente Lizarazu and Oliver Kahn.. Yes, Kahn wasn’t the best Bayern goal-keeper! The wages at present are too high so people will need to be sold, but I thought I’d let you decide who to sell and who to keep. The legends are all 24-27 years old I think, so are all in their prime!

Squad:

Sepp Maier

Augenthaler – Schwarzenbeck – Beckenbauer – Breitner

– – –

Scholl – Effenburg – Matthaus

– –

Elber – Muller – Rummenigge

– –

Reserves: Oliver Kahn, Bixente Lizarazu

–

Download Link – HERE

Thanks to aird too has produced a facepack specifically for this database. Download that here.

How do I load the database?

Firstly you download/save the database to: Users > *name* > Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2010 > editor data

Then, when you load up FM you will be promted with this screen…

Tick the box “Change” and then click Ok. You will be promoted to this screen: (will vary depending on other databases you have)

Check the box next to Bayern Legends VI.xml and you’re away!

It’s important to delete the fake.inc file if you want Oliver Kahn’s real name (contractual issues means he’s known as Jens Mustermann on the game).

A special mention goes out to the lads at FMLeague.net who helped a lot with the research side to this database. We hope to be working with them a lot more in the future!

As always, any comments and criticism is welcome, I will be doing a V2 of this if people give me feedback. It’s inevitable I’ve got some stats and positions wrong, so if you tell me I’ll change it!

A couple of days ago Miles released a blog, discussing new features that have been placed into this years FM data editor. The data editor is part of the game that most people who buy the game won’t be too interested in, the data editor is used by many for two reasons 1) the most obvious, cheating. 2) to make your own data update, taking control of the summer transfers during times when SI are distracting developing their latest installments. But the interesting thing is these new developments that have been made in the data editor will now allow us add our own leagues & nations as well as teams. The latest FM-View podcast with Jordan touched on the potential goldmine that the FM community is currently sat on, can is this latest data editor become a free resource in the ability to print money?

Now firstly the FM community has been sitting on a potential business model for a while, the market maybe small but it is reasonable to make a quick buck for anyone who is able to tap into the market that is the size of roughly around a 1 million people globally at the moment and consists of more then just the community. FM sites have tried a businesses models before, SUSIE and FMG have both tried out a premium membership models. But in truth the premium model lacks value to the actual consumer, who cares when they get the download straight from the site or a mirror? As long as they are getting it for free surely they won’t see much added value in getting it directly from a server. It is a model that is produced from these sites mainly to cover any costs of running the site and all claim that money doesn’t fall into the personal bank accounts of those involved. But these models also rely on having a member base that is prepared to pay for this the premium account and come back on a regular basis. SUSIE have a  current membership of 51,186 and is one of the most active sites on the web, but even SUSIE have a small percentage of people paying a monthly subscription.

For those sites that have been producing products for the Football Manager community for so long have been doing so  for the love of what they are doing, a hobby. But why shouldn’t a hobby be used as a profit making scheme? Some of the best businesses men and women have started out turning something they love into a money making. Alot of these guys on the community have talent, plying their early traits and developing skills and sometimes careers within the community. Creating an environment where these graphics can be downloaded and paid for at a click of a button could be key in creating a business model that could work making the experience easy and simple. One of the key turns offs in internet retail is the complex way some websites setup their checkouts. The market is there and the demand for such developments in the game, again without doing in depth research into figures and talking to a few people I don’t know for sure, but surely this type of things has been modeled somewhere before. The one that comes to mind from the top of my head is EA’s The Sims, which has spawned a community of people who will produce items that you can dress your Sim with, decorate your house with or just admire within the front garden and many of these sites do charge for the privileged of downloading these products. If FM was only on a console we would be having to purchase Xbox of PS points to use as our currency to update to add on things in the game, such as maps if we were playing Call of Duty.

The community may rage up in arms about such a change in culture and the fact that they have to pay for something, but what iTunes and Spotify have shown in a competitive market is that it is possible to turn freely available (pirated) products in to money makers. But what we have to remember is there is a huge silent majority that come to these sites looking for such content who don’t make themselves known to the rest of the community. Taking what they want and leaving. I think that the pricing for downloads will be a minimal amount of money, something that an average young person can spend a percentage of their pocket money per download, some sites may want to include super packs for discounted prices.

But has Sports Interactive just opened up a new line of revenue for the community? The data editor surely is one of the biggest potential for profit, especially now that they have added the ability to add your own leagues to the game. Imagine the money that could be made on creating add-ons to the game that SI don’t currently allow you to do. One league that comes to mind straight away is the German league, a massive league that is currently left out of the game, (some work here for Q?). But then your own fantasy leagues, done with quality and with enough appeal can raise a decent revenue from like minded individuals that also might want to take control of a Premier League 1990/91 and see if this time they can take Liverpool to an extra point and win the league.

Much time and effort has been put into these sort of projects in the past and with the added incentives, such products will breed quality due to the laws of capitalism and competition. Market these right and you would see them sell pretty well. There is always  a demonstrated demand for data updates, we all know how picky any FM player is (even those not in the scene) and how much they want their FM database to be as update as possible, I have just seen Jason Manford requesting an update from Miles (but maybe that has alot to do with him being a Manchester City fan), surely it would not be unreasonable for the likes of FMupdates to get paid for their efforts? After all they are done with quality and alot of time and effort.

FM-View Admin Sheppy has produced another updated database for you to play your FM on to keep you playing throughout the remainder of Summer.This version focuses more on the lower league transfers for all you LLM but also includes all major moves such as Duff to Fulham, Crouch to Tottenham and Bent to Sunderland. All the latest managerial changes have also been updated including the funfair at Norwich where Gunn got the sack and Lambert was hired. Dont forget, if you spot a problem, a transfer which hasnt been done or think a certain clubs transfer budget should be raised, just say so in the official thread and Sheppy will make sure it’l be corrected for the next update!

Download it from here…

Official thread can be found here…

We all know we have the excellent updates from FMUpdates and how much they are valued but they’ve not released one for while so FMV Admin Sheppy has released a version of his own to keep you all playing FM during the summer. Not a thorough update but all transfers in the Premiership and Championship have been done plus most deals within League 1 and a few in League 2. Some European moves have also been done and all managerial changes have been changed all up to July 10th 2009.

We use this a lot when we are creating databases such as super leagues, It makes for a really fun game and on the whole It’s pretty simple to do. I’m going to take you through the basics of creating a simple Super League and hopefully by the end of this you will be fully confident in creating your own Super League. There is various other ways you can create a slightly more advanced Super League, such as moving teams down leagues etc, but that will come on another day.

Let’s get Started.

Firstly you will need to select the league that you wish to edit, you’ll need to pick a league that has the same amount of teams, that you want to have in your Super League, for example if you want 20 teams in your top tier Super League, you’ll need a division that already has 20 teams in it, such as the EPL. League rules can not be edited on the game, so make sure the league you have picked Isn’t to obscure and the rules are simple and generic.

Now you have your league, you will need to decide on the teams that will be inhabiting it. In this tutorial we will be directly replacing the teams, for example, if you swap Sevilla with Tottenham, Sevilla with move to the the EPL and Tottenham will replace Sevilla in La Liga and so on. Once you have an idea of the teams you want to move into the Super League, your ready to start some editing.

I need to get my self onto the screen that shows all of the teams that are playing in the league I searched for, to do this : Find – Competition – [Name Of The League] – Teams : You should have a screen similar to what I’ve got below (Obviously dependent on what league you selected):

Starting from the top, click once on the first team listed in the league, the swap button located at the bottom will of now became active and you can now click on it. After you’ve clicked Swap you should be confronted with a search bar, you’ll need to key in name of the team you want to replace the team you clicked on. I’m going to swap the team I clicked on (Sunderland) with the first team I noted down on my 20 teams to go in the Super League (Real Madrid) So I’ll input “Real Madrid” into the search field and double click on them when the search is finished. I’ll then have Real Madrid in my league in place of Sunderland, who will of replaced Real Madrid in La Liga. I now need to double click on Real Madrid and view there competition screen which will look like so: (Depending on the team you picked)

If you look at where is says “Last Division” it still says the Spanish First Division, of course we want to make this database as realistic as possible so we need to change that to “English Premier Division” unless you want Madrid to be one of the promoted teams. You’ll also need to edit where it says last position, as you can see it says “1″ It’s ok to leave it as that, but make sure you don’t use the number 1 again for the last position. Which is why It’s very important to look at every team you re-arrange. You also need to coincide the continental seeding with their last league position. Once you’ve done all that there is nothing else you are required to edit, of course you could edit the relationships, records and history if you find it necessary. You will need to follow this procedure for every team you move into your Super League, and most importantly, you need to make sure everything coincides together (Last Position) – (Last Division) etc, remember you’ll need to set 3 teams Last Division to the Championship and have there last position set to 1-2-3 respectively. Obviously, some of this will be different depending on what team you are editing, the structure and procedure is still the same though.

Once you have all your teams added into the Super League and you’ve checked each team individually and of course followed the criteria listed above, you are done for that tier. You still have your old teams randomly scattered about different leagues, if you want to add some of them to a Super League Division 2 or whatever, the same steps still apply, only differently suited to the league you are editing. There you have it a very simple Super League you can have fun and mess about with, I’ve tried to explain this to the best of my ability and make it as simple as possible, if you have any further questions are queries feel free to post them below!