05-03-2011 20:30

Season 37 is well under way and for a variety of reasons, I have been quiet in the forums whilst I concentrated on the Power Challenge company as a whole.

This has been necessary to ensure the best possible future for the company and that in turn means the best possible future for ManagerZone; Hockey and Football.

There have been many changes to the internal organisation. We have a new company CEO (me) - this means ManagerZone has the highest possible visibility within Power Challenge.

Power Challenge is now a smaller, leaner and more efficient company. This has meant that people have left the company and that is never easy or pleasant for anyone involved. The changes are now behind us and we are looking forward once again.

Whilst the company level changes have taken me away from the forum, it hasn't meant I have stopped driving the development of features or working with the rest of the ManagerZone team to improve the game and we have a few new features due for release on Monday:

Private Cups 2 (To be released on Monday 7th March)

A new Hockey 3D (To be released on Monday 7th March)

Private Cups 2 brings the great features we released in Friendly Leagues 2 into Private Cups.

Oxx - Uxx
Better invites
Better navigation
More kickoff times
Cups available 7 days per week

New Hockey 3D

We have updated the Hockey 3D. This has taken longer than planned, but the results are very nice. Hockey 3D now works in Windows Vista, XP, 7; Unix (Ubuntu) and on Macs. Yes, you can now play Hockey 3D on a Mac.

We are still making changes to different Operating Systems and Browsers, but Hockey 3D works with all popular combinations. There will be a separate thread in the forum to explain when it goes live on Monday.

About the SIM, instant matches and the tactics editor and a new feature we are developing, Head2Head matches.

Marcus, the founder of ManagerZone and the author of the original SIM is now back working with the SIM. For those who do not know Marcus, he was the original creative and technical force behind the company and has been with ManagerZone since the start.

Whilst Marcus has been involved in many different projects over the years I am delighted that with the recent changes he is now back in charge of the development and direction of the SIM.

Instant matches and the SIM. There is a persistent myth that instant matches or tactics test use a different SIM, that is not true. We have one SIM and it is used in all of our matches, regardless of their type.

We have continued working on updating the SIM and the tactics editor. I posted some time ago that we wanted to remove the flash version of the tactics editor and that work is progressing too.

Out of the SIM and tactics editor projects a parallel project has been growing. We call this Head2Head matches.

The SIM is central to our game, it is not the whole game, but it is vital. Training, tactics, transfers, forum, economy, cups, leagues are all part of the fun in ManagerZone, but all our efforts boil down to 90 minutes on the pitch, your team versus theirs.

I want to bring the SIM back to the center of our thinking and to many of our development efforts. The Head2Head match feature is a key part of that plan.

With Head2Head matches we have updated the SIM and developed a new tactics editor to allow Managers to play against each other through the SIM in a very direct manner. You challenge another Manager, they accept, and you play head to head; the match is broken down into 15 minute segments, at the end of each segment you can update your tactics, make substitutions ready for the next segment.

There will also be a live text chat feature to allow you to talk directly to your opponent.

The Head2head feature is still in development, but we do expect it to be released before the end of March. For the record, I won the first ever Head2Head match we played 5 - 2. I can't tell you who I beat, but he has worked here since the start of the company ;)

We are continuing to look at other aspects of the game, as I said above, all parts of the game are important and it is therefore vital that all parts of the game are balanced and fun.

The last few months have been bruising, but we are here fighting and enjoying our work and looking forward to many more years and many, many more seasons in ManagerZone.

Good luck for the rest of your season.

Patrick.
CEO