The newest version of the premier sports management sim, Sports Interactive’s Football Manager was announced yesterday. Football Manager 2012 will feature over 800 new features, including an overhauled match engine, more advanced scouting and contract negotiations, as well as a brand new tutorial to bed new players into the game’s famous depth. I had the chance to chat to Football Manager’s director, Miles Jacobson, about the new game.
就在昨天,史上最卖座的体育经营类游戏 -- 由SI出品的足球经理系列放出了新作的首批宣传内容,就此揭开了FM2012神秘面纱的一角.较之前作,该代拥有超过800处的新特性,包括彻底大修的比赛引擎,更加先进的球队报告及合同谈判.同时,新加入的指引教程将更好的帮助新玩家尽快适应游戏,体验FM闻名遐迩的游戏深度与内涵.很高兴我能有此机会与FM系列的主管MJ先生畅谈新游戏.
（黑色为记录提问）
Congratulations on the new game. Could you just give me a rundown of the main new features?
首先恭喜你们的新作品顺利完工.您能跟我们聊聊那些主要的新特性么?
For the hardcore fan who likes playing career games we’ve added in the functionality to allow you to turn leagues on and off. So if you’re managed in England for a few years and decide you want to go off and get a job in Spain, you can put the Spanish league in and start applying for jobs there.
我们为那些热衷于收集奖杯的骨灰级玩家提供了一个全新的游戏功能 -- 随时随地自由加载卸除可玩联赛.这意味着如果你在英格兰执教许多年之后渴望新的挑战并决定去西班牙发展,你就可以加载西班牙联赛并在那里寻找工作机会.
We’ve made huge improvements to how you see the match being played, there’s new animations, new crowds, extra stadiums, a couple of new cameras. That’s all looking really good. We’ve got something for people who like technology in the adaptive layout, which means if you’re playing in a high resolution you actually get more information on the screen.
我们同样显著提升了比赛画面的呈现方式.新动画,新的球场观众模型,更多的体育馆类型以及新的镜头角度纷纷加入了今年的新游戏.他们看起来真的很棒.我们也为技术宅们提供了新的界面自适应系统,这意味着如果你的屏幕分辨率够大,你就可以得到比平常更多的界面信息.
We've improved the way you can talk to players and your staff inside the game by adding in a tone system, so now there are six different tones that you can use to talk to players. Which will have a massive effect on conversations you have with them. Some people like having an arm put round them and other people only see sense if you shout at them, so you have to be careful what you use for which person.
借助新加入的语气系统,玩家经理与球员或职员的互动将更加真实有趣.你可以从预设的六种语气中随意挑选一种用来跟NPC交流.有些人喜欢能跟自己勾肩搭背执手相谈的好基友,而另外一些人却只对语言暴躁动不动就吼的爷们来感.针对不同类型的球员需要仔细斟酌自己的语气,这样才能最大化的发挥交流的积极作用.
There's also loads of changes to contracts. One of the changes being for contract negotiations, if you’re in the midst of a negotiation and the agent keeps coming back asking for ￡6,000 a week and you can “only” afford to pay them ￡4,000, you can lock that ￡4,000 so the agent will know you’re not going to budge from that and might come back asking for different contract clauses to make up the difference.
当然我们对于合同系统的改进也不能不提,合同谈判就是其中之一.举例来说,谈判中对方咬死6K的周薪而你已经把工资预算调整到最大却依然只能出的起4K每周,你就可以果断锁定4K的周薪,这样对方就会明白你在这里不会做出任何让步,他就会转而从其他的渠道,例如签字费,中介费,出场奖金等方面谋求利益.
We've worked with scouts with a few different clubs to come up with the kind of report that a manager would get in real life for the next opposition reports. There's all kind of information in there, including where goals have been scored, what time of play they were scored, analysis of the squad, tactical information. And the tactical information goes as deep to show you how you’ve performed against particular tactics, and how particular tactics have performed against you.
经过对现实中一些俱乐部的实地探访,我们获取了更为真实的赛前报告.这些内容也被移植到了新游戏当中.包括被对手进球的位置,本队进球的时间,阵容分析,战术信息等等.尤其值得一提的就是战术信息,我们对其进行了进一步的深化,当前的报告能准确告知球队所使用过的战术以及对手所使用战术的各项细节.
And for people who have never played the game before there’s a brand new tutorial mode, which will actually give you a little hand-holding guide into how to play the game when you first start. Which is something we haven’t managed to do successfully before, but this year we think we’ve got there.
对于那些此前从未接触过FM系列的新玩家,我们为其提供了全新的新手指引模式.这些手把手的教学内容将带领玩家了解FM的游戏世界.此前的帮助系统略有不足,今年我们从根本上完善了它.
Every game wants new players, of course, but is it more difficult for Football Manager in particular. Would you say that the new tutorial is a sign that's it's something of a focus for you?
每款游戏都希望吸引到更多的玩家.不过对于FM来说这是不是尤为困难?新加入的指引模式能不能作为SI重视新玩家用户群培养的信号?
I wouldn't say it's something we concentrate on, but it's something that we're wary we're not very good at. We are perfectionists over at SI so we've always been slightly frustrated with not making the perfect game. If we did we'd all have to go and get proper jobs. I think there is a holy grail with any game that's as in-depth as ours that you want to come up with a way to simplify things, to let people get into it easier. The tutorial is far and away the best way we've had to introduce people to the series. So, hopefully, it will go down well.
此言差矣,不过话说回来,我们此前在这一方面确实做得还不够到位.SI的每个人都是完美主义者,我们会为自己不完美的作品而懊恼,所以一旦有机会我们就会竭尽所能完善它们.任何一款像FM这样富有深度的作品,能够用一种简单的方式让玩家轻松上手,都是了不起的成就.虽然现在的指引教程离我们心中的完美形态还有些差距,但我确信它是在正确的道路上前进着.所以希望玩家们能够喜欢这个新玩意.
When you're deciding on new features, how much is fan feedback, and how much is stuff you’ve been thinking of for a while?
你们决定对游戏做出的所有这些改进,有多少来自于玩家的反馈?又有多少是你们深思熟虑已久的念头?
Fan feedback is essential from our forums, from our huge Facebook community and from the affiliate websites. The way that we decide things is that any idea that anyone inside the studio likes, wherever it has come from, goes into a big features database. And then once a year we go through every new suggestion and we vote on them as a team. But no one knows where these ideas have come from. It doesn’t matter where the idea comes from for that meeting, so there’s no bias, and no one will vote on an idea because they want a payrise at the end of the year. Certainly a large proportion that have made it into the game this year were things that were on the forums or mentioned by fans. Whether that’s the first time it’s been mentioned or whether it was an idea we had already logged is another story. Good ideas come from anywhere and everywhere.
来自官网论坛,社交网站以及其他关联网站的意见反馈都很重要.我们只要觉得点子不错,不管是谁提出来的,也不管在哪提出,都会将其加入备用特性数据库,这可是个庞大无比的"仓库".每年我们都会把"仓库"里的点子们撸一遍并为其投票以此决定哪些登场.没人知道这些点子从何而来.这也压根毫不重要.所以我们没有偏好,也就自然不会有那种某人因为想要给自己涨薪就乱投票的囧事.不过今年游戏新增特性的很大一部分比例就是论坛上玩家提出的意见.不管是灵光一现的新创意还是讨论多年的就想法.游戏新特性的加入重视的只是那些好点子,不会关注于是谁提出以及从哪提出这样无聊的问题.
So will this year’s game feature philosophical tweets from Joey Barton?
那么今年的游戏能Fo哲学家乔伊巴顿不?
There's no philiosophical tweets from Joey Barton. You can tweet from inside the game, rather than Twitter being part of the game. But there’s no tweets from Joey Barton saying what he did was right and then going on the radio a few hours later and saying what he did was wrong. So no, all players inside Football Manager have been banned by their clubs from using Twitter.
哦,不,不能.你可以在游戏里发推,但twittter并不是游戏的一部分.游戏里不会有真实的twitter,自然也就不会有话唠哲学家神马的.你可以这样理解,FM世界中的所有球员都被俱乐部下了死命令:不准使用TWITTER!!!
In seriousness though, with that kind of fluff that surrounds the modern game, are you keen to keep that well away from something from Football Manager?
一个略严肃的问题,如今的足球圈不和谐的东西比比皆是,你是否会把这些东西拒绝在FM世界的大门之外?
It depends what you mean really. We keep away from the WAG side of things, we keep away from players getting done for speeding, but that’s as much for legal reasons as much as anything else. We all know what sells papers and what makes people go and read things. People have to sell their media any way they can do, but we’re making a football game that hopefully deals with the positive side of the sport.
这取决你真正想表达的东西究竟是什么.游戏里没有太太团,也没有很多球员长干的超速行驶.除却基本的道德感,法律也是我们这么做的一个考量因素.我们都明白小报靠什么吸引读者.为了生计怎么兜售自己的料我们管不着,我们只想用游戏抹去现实足球圈中的乌云,还原一个向上积极的美好世界.
Do you ever worry with every layer you add on that the complexity can become too much?
你有没有想过加入太多的东西反而会让游戏变得太过复杂?
Yes, we do worry about that. It's very much something that keeps me awake at night, which is one of the reasons we've got the tutorial mode in there, one of the reasons we've added the intelligent interface. While we're adding in more complexity, we need to make sure we introduce it in the most simple way to use as possible. But we have realised that the game has become too in depth for some people. But we've now got Football Manager Handheld on iOS and PSP for those people. We're trying to make sure everyone who likes playing management games has a version of Football Manager to play.
是的.我们确实为此担心.这些东西常常会让我半夜都睡不好觉.比如今年的指引教程以及新的智能界面都让我食不甘味夜不能寐.我们加入的东西越多越复杂,我们就需要保证能以最简单的方式把新内容介绍给玩家.我们现在也觉得对于一些人来说FM太难以上手了.所以为这群人我们推出了PSP以及iOS平台上的FM Handheld.我们工作的目标之一就是为所有有爱于经营管理游戏的玩家提供适合自身的FM版本.
You’ve had a lot of success with your iOS game, is it safe to assume there will be a new version of that soon too?
iOS平台上的FM已经收获了一系列成功.这是不是意味着很快就会有新版本的游戏推出?
Definitely. There will be another one that will come before Christmas. But the feature set is very different to the PC game, so we'll be detailing that a little way down the line.
毫无疑问,圣诞节前就会有另一款适合iOS的FM游戏推出.不过这一版本的新特性与PC版的又很大不同,我们会在稍后的日子里慢慢公布.
How important is that market to you now? Is it a focus, or is it PC first, iOS second?
对你来说iOS的市场有多重要?是公司的侧重点?还是说PC第一,iOS第二?
We have pretty much equal focus on three of the four markets that we’re in. We have equal focus on PC, iPhone and the online market. We’re working on a new online title at the moment called Football Manager Online which is going to be specifcally for the South Korean market to start off with. We also have a PSP release which probably doesn’t have the full focus of the studio, mainly because we’ve run out of memory on the PSP and there’s very little else we can do on that particular game. But we will continue to make it as long as people want to play it.
我们公平对待现在已经展开的三线四份的市场.无论是PC,iPhone还是在线游戏,我们一视同仁.我们目前正努力为韩国市场推出一款名为"FM OL"的新足球经理在线游戏.或许我们对PSP上的FM稍有放松,这主要是因为我们已经把PSP的内存利用开发到了极致,我们很难再把游戏推上一个新台阶.但只要人们想继续玩下去,我们就会一直推出PSP上的FM.
So would you be interested in the PlayStation Vita when that comes around?
所以你是不是对PS Vita的推出格外关注?
I don’t personally know that much about the Vita yet. But we’ve never been early adopters at SI. We don’t tend to be the first on the platform, we just try to be the best when we get there. And long may that continue. We’ll have a look at Vita when it comes out. I really like the 3DS aswell. I’m not sure if there’s anything we can do with that, but it’s something we’ll look at once this cycle is out of the way.
就我个人而言我对PS Vita还不是很了解.但SI从不是盲目的尝鲜者.我们无意去争取新游戏平台的入驻时间,我们的游戏如果要进入某个平台,就一定要做到最好.能用PS Vita玩FM或许还需要再等等,我们必须在PS Vita上市之后仔细观察它的性能等等要素.我同样喜欢3DS,我还不确定我们能用其开发些什么,但未来的事儿谁又说的准呢?
You’ve said there won’t be a return to home console until you find the right control scheme. Any progress on that?
你曾经说过除非找到合适的控制方式,否则FM不会推出家用机版本.这方面有进展没?
None at all. In fact we’ve gone the other way. SEGA did a huge study last year to try and work out exactly why it was that the console version didn’t work out. Obviously control scheme was right up there, but also up there was that people don’t like ahving the TV in their living room taken over for six hour session. They’d much rather be sitting on a laptop while they watch something on TV. So, no, we’re not looking at going back to home consoles any time soon.
毫无进展.事实上我们已经对此不抱希望了.世嘉去年做了一份大调查试图寻找出家用机平台不适合FM游戏的原因,当然控制方式是其中一个因素,但也有另外的原因存在.比如没人愿意在客厅里对着电视傻愣愣的呆坐六个小时.人们更愿意抱着笔记本一边玩游戏一边看电视.所以我们在未来的一段时间内都不会推出家用机版本.
You closed down Football Manager Live recently, why was that?
你们最近彻底关掉了FM live的服务器.为什么?
There were various design decisions we had made early on in the project that all of us were involved with. And they ended up being things that we couldn’t reverse, but made it that the game just wouldn’t be successful in the long-term. Having smaller gameworlds rather than one huge gameworld meant that gameworlds were always going to empty at some point. So basically, we cocked up. We tried to reboot the project, and we went in a more hardcore direction than we ever envisiged the project being in, beause that’s what the people playing wanted. But we just couldn’t turn it around, we couldn’t get it to work as a game that was going to pay for the people that were working on it. So that’s why it went away, but there was loads of positives from it. The technology we got from it is fantastic and everyone that was working on the project has a new role inside the studio.
关于这款游戏的很多设定我们推行的太早了,以至于到了后来事情发展到了不可挽回的地步,这使得FM Live难以成为一款可以成功延续下去的游戏.使用分区而不是整体运营的方式让游戏显得支离破碎,一些分区根本内无人问津.所以最后不得不停服.我们也尝试过重新启动这个游戏,我们按照玩家们想要的游戏形态,将此前设计的游戏模式更为优化,但没办法,这游戏活不过来了,我们无法让玩家为这游戏掏钱,没钱就没办法养活游戏开发及维护人员.所以这游戏彻底的下线了.但不得不说我们从中吸取了很多有益的经验教训.我们从中得到的技术数据非常宝贵,如今FM Live的全体工作人员都在SI其他岗位继续发光发热.
Is the lack of Premier League licencing a source of frustration for you?
缺少英超联赛的授权是不是让你们抱以为憾?
It's business. EA have an exclusive licence and that's the way they want to do their business. And that's fine. As long as it doesn't stop us releasing then it's ok. Of course I’d like to have the licence. We'd like to be giving money to clubs in the Premier League that can be spent on grass roots stuff, but EA have an exclusive licence and that precludes us from being able to have one and we just accept it. Each time it become available we will carry on pushing our point across as to why we think we should have one and why it should be non-exclusive.And then it’s up to the leagues themselves whether they want to do that or not.
确实是这样.EA拥有英超联赛的独家授权,他们有自己的商业计划,只要他们不来干涉我们的游戏发行就没问题.我们当然想拥有联赛的授权,我们愿意掏钱给英超俱乐部以获取他们各自的授权,但EA的独家条约让我们没办法去跟任何一家英超俱乐部单独商谈合作事宜.我们必须接受这个现实.每次稍有机会我们就会陈述联赛球队的授权不应被一家独占的观点,我们也应该在其中占有一定的份额.但不管怎样,这些事情还是要由联赛中的那些俱乐部来决定.
Finally, do you have any tips for budding managers getting into Football Manager that aren't having much luck?
最后,您有没有什么话想对那些"身陷困境"的FM经理说的?
My best advice for anyone who's struggling to play the game is to go to our forums at community.sigames.com, and post on there saying that you need help. It might sound like a copout, but there is no one way to play Football Manager, everyone plays it differently. And the great thing about our community and the other community websites out there is that there will be someone out there who plays the game in the same way you do. So there will be someone who will be able to help you or point you in the right direction. We're very lucky in that our community are a fantastic group of people who do want to help people as long as they're asked nicely. It's definitely a good thing to go and get involved with.
我对所有这些FM玩家的最好建议就是常去我们的官网论坛逛逛,在哪里把你需要求助的问题发帖说出来.听起来有些废话,但我还是要说每个人都有各自的FM玩法,论坛的奇妙之处就是可以在那里寻找到跟你志同道合的玩家朋友,所以彼此的相互帮助就会让彼此的FM困惑一扫而空.我们很幸运,能在论坛拥有一批梦幻般的家伙们总是热心的帮助其他人解决各种问题.人人为我,我为人人,彼此交流,其乐融融.