<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><atom:link href="http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/newsrss.ashx" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><title><![CDATA[ Mystify Soccer - News Articles ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx</link><description>Latest updates regarding Mystify Soccer</description><ttl>15</ttl><item><title><![CDATA[ Extra updates ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=123</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-123</guid><description><![CDATA[ I have added 3 extra changes to the game this weekend. Neither of them anywhere near major.

The first one is something for me and that is an e-mail verification step upon application for the game. That means you now have to click a link on an e-mail before your application can be confirmed.

This is just because I only find out an e-mail address is invalid once I have assigned a team (and their e-mail bounces back) and I then have to go and release the manager straight away. If this person received a team that others had applied for then the other applications would be deleted unless they had selected other teams as well, meaning I could inadvertently lose applications. This new step means I am only getting applications with valid addresses. I'm amazed at how many people don;t actually know their e-mail addresses!

The second change is just a bit of fun where the weather is now on your match report.

The 3rd change, for now, is that you can now see your sent mail for the last 2 weeks. I don't want to build a full on mail management system so it is a simplistic addition but it will show you weather the mail has been read or not. You can also work out if it has been deleted because you can't delete it from your sent items until the recipient has. This is just because I don't want to let the database get too large by duplicating messages.

Also on the mail, I have added a check box to select all the messages at once should you want to delete en masse.

Hopefully these mail changes will come in handy for some of you. ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:06:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Minor updates ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=122</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-122</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've had a few minutes this week to read the message board and picked up one or two requests for improvements which I have tried to implement. There have been some good ideas.

I have made a tweak to penalties in the game engine as more were being missed than scored which is blatantly not right.

I have also added the value of transfer bids to rejection messages so that you can see what you bid.

Finally, I have changed the players wanted page to list the most recent additions first followed by the rest. I have also added the date of creation to each record. Unfortunately I didn't have this information for the data already posted so it was set to the date I did the job. From now on though you should see entries added in the last week at the top ordered by their created date and then the older data. There was a request to actually delete the older data but I felt it wasn't always fair and managers should really be deleting it when they remember. My solution of displaying the created dates at least gives managers a view as to how recent it is regardless of the manager remembering to do this or not. I have just seen my logic in the code isn't quite right in terms of the ordering so I will fix this for the next update.

Please try mailing ideas to me in future though because I only get chance to properly read the board every now and again - normally I just scan through it for any abuse that needs deleting.

I've not really got into the nitty gritty regarding multiple teams yet. I made quite a few big changes just before Christmas and felt I should let them settle in and catch any bugs before causing new ones.

There may be more little changes done over the next few days before I look to get stuck into the next serious changes. ]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:11:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Player Morale ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=121</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-121</guid><description><![CDATA[ Player morale has now been implemented in the extra areas I wanted it to be.

I'm not going to provide specifics as that's for you all to work out. However it hasn't been a huge change from how it was originally set up so you shouldn't worry too much. There's certainly nothing major been changed. Morale will now just be affected in minor ways in a few more areas.

I shall be looking at multiple management next but I'll wait until the new season has been processed before starting that. ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:36:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Game update ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=120</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-120</guid><description><![CDATA[ I just thought I'd post a quick update as to where I'm at and what I'm working on.

I made a change recently to weaken unmanaged teams a bit more than they already were. I've based this change on tactics and not the teams' player skills. My thinking is that the player will be just as good under no manager but the team will be weaker having no direction. Without going into the details of the match engine, this may not make much sense but it's the best way I can think of explaining it. As usual, this will take a little while to settle in and I'll monitor it over the next season.

My next 2 tasks are regarding morale and multiple management. Player morale has never actually been implemented properly but this is what I am working on at the moment. I need to make it so that every player has the right morale at the right time - at the moment it's been implemented a bit haphazardly - I put it into sections where I remembered it. I just need to go through the whole game and make sure its set correctly in all relevant aspects.

The 2nd task I want to do is enable the game so managers can manage more than 1 team. This isn't as straightforward as you'd think because, besides disabling transfers in certain situations, I need to alter the core functionality of the web site in terms of signing in and page access. I'll start looking at this after the Morale though. ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:18:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Merry Christmas! ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=119</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-119</guid><description><![CDATA[ I'd just like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you have a great time over the holiday period. 

Mystify will be running over the break but timings of matches may change slightly due to my own commitments. Keep an eye on the site which I will keep up-to-date with next match times.

Just to update you with the game. I am currently working on a couple of things. One is to get player morale sorted (which I need to do before player contracts) and the other is to let certain managers manage more than 1 team - I say certain as I'll need it trialled. It may eventually be open to all. I need to put some restrictions in for transfers first.

Things do progress with me, sometimes a bit too slow for my liking.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays if you don't do Christmas) ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:48:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Team reminder error ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=118</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-118</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've just fixed a tiny bug that has just been pointed out to me with regards the team reminder e-mail.

If you had a cup game, the reminder was coming but giving you the date of your next league match instead.

It's been a very quick fix but it must have been a bug in the game for ages. I'm glad somebody has finally pointed it out.

I'm hoping nobody has actually missed picking a team for their cup match because of this. Although, there's not a lot I can do if that has happened.

It has been corrected for future e-mails anyway. ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:47:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Player Injuries ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=117</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-117</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've just had a bug pointed out to me regarding player injuries.

The original injury as specified in the mail is actually the correct injury a player received. However, the player was being stored with the wrong injury code for display on the player pages throughout the site.

I have now fixed the initial bug of storing the correct injury and attempted to correct all current injuries to what they should be, although this latter change may not be right for all injuries. However, I hope I've got over 90% of them.

Now, over time they will be correct. Needless to say the weeks and original injury are what the game is going off and not what has been displayed in the player details.

Apologies for that - I hate bugs. ]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:01:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Timelines improved ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=116</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-116</guid><description><![CDATA[ I have finally managed to add extra data to the match report timeline so you should now see who has had all your shots and at what times they occurred, along with any bookings and sending-off's.

Please bear in mind the match engine is constantly being tweaked at the moment because I'm not 100% happy with it yet. This extra timeline data should actually assist me with the tweaking and I wasn't going to put it live for you all to see for a while yet but I've decided there's no harm in it and you can at least see how the games are going a bit better than previously.

At the end of this season I may well delete the extra data for this season from the database and have a clean start from week 1 next season just to give the timeline some logic in that it hasn't started half way through a season.

Incidentally, if you can think of any better images for a missed shot or a save then I'm open to ideas - just drop me a mail.

Another little change I have made is to state the player's injury on the squad availability page and the player's own information page along with the number of weeks out. This is obviously not a huge change but I thought it would be a nice addition.

Finally, a change that won't affect any of you currently playing (unless you change teams) but managers taking over new teams will have their finances reset to an equal level. It means new managers won't be taking over clubs with huge bank accounts or ones in debt which I know can be unfair. Now I'm monitoring manager movement more, I think this is a good thing. I'm hoping in the future to reset the players for a team in this scenario also.

My next task is to let the timeline bed in a little - there are a couple of things I am still contemplating adding - and then I am possibly going to start looking at player contracts. That should be fun! ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:52:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Mystify on Facebook ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=115</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-115</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've just realised I haven't actually mentioned this in a news article. Even though I've added it to the site it's been quite subtle in the bottom corner of the home page.

Anyway, I have created an official page on Facebook for Mystify Soccer. I know Facebook has been around for years now and it seems like I'm late to the party but in fairness, I did create a page on there ages ago. Unfortunately I neglected it and it never became official.

The one I have created now I am aiming to become more official and have even managed to get these news articles sent to it. I may play around with it some more when I get time but with that and the development blog it should give you more chance to interact.

At some point I will place a link to the Facebook page at the top of the page but for now the link is <a href="http://www.facebook.com/MystifySoccer">http://www.facebook.com/MystifySoccer</a>

It's just another way I'm trying to advertise the game. This doesn't mean I'm neglecting new features and improvements in the meantime. I'm actually hoping to work on improving the match report timeline this week. ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Substitute fitness ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=114</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-114</guid><description><![CDATA[ I know a few of you have been pointing out a bug with substitutes and their fitness for a couple of weeks or so. I have had brief spells of investigation during this time but struggled to find any problem, mainly because it was intermittent and it seemed to only occur to certain substitutes or matches.

Today I have finally found some proper time with no distractions to look into it in more detail and after a few hours troubleshooting (where I even found some subs increase in fitness rather then decreased as per the complaint), I have finally pinpointed the bug and fixed it - fixing it took a whole 5 seconds!

Substitutes should no longer have their fitness changed from now on - until I make the change for used substitutes to lose fitness that is. ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:12:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Keeper substitutes ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=113</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-113</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've had a bug pointed out to me this weekend which I have now fixed.

When a player goes off injured and a substitute comes on then a player in a similar position should be coming on. By that, I mean a defender should replace a defender, a midfielder should replace a midfielder etc.

However, what happened when a player in that position wasn't found was that the first substitute would be used - even if this was a keeper! I've now modified the substitution aspect so that keepers only come on for keepers or if they are the final substitute (or if you have picked 3 goalkeepers as subs!)

Please let me know if you find any other issues with substitutes.

Incidentally, my plans for the future entail giving you the option to supply substitute rules and let them be used tactically as well as for injuries. I'll probably increase the substitutes at this time also. ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:35:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Game engine tweaks ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=112</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-112</guid><description><![CDATA[ I thought I'd supply an update regarding some work I have been doing on the game engine just to show you that things are happening.

I know there are transfer issues I still need to look at but I'd already started these game engine tweaks before the transfer issues arrived and I'd rather do them in order to keep things clean.

You shouldn't notice anything yet but I'm going to give my latest changes a couple of weeks to bed in before the next stage. All I've done at the moment is moved code around so that it will be easier for me to plug in extra code. this means the game should run the same as it has been doing but it was work I needed to do in order to continue.

If all goes well and no problems are spotted then I shall begin to actually improve the match reports. All improvements are based on adding information to the timeline. There will be no fancy commentary but the following are things I'm going to try and add.... all these will be included next to the minute they occur.

1. Exactly who has what shots and whether they off target, on target and saved or scored.
2. All yellow and red cards, including the knowledge of them being second yellows.
3. Information about any players going in goal due to keeper injury or sending off.

Hopefully once these are added, it should give you more ideas of why you lost a game you dominated.

Then I shall start work on the transfer system. ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:34:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Manager clean up ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=111</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-111</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've cleaned up the manager list and removed an absolute load of redundant managers this afternoon.

My reason for not doing so earlier was purely to make the game seem as though it was more popular than it actually is. It used to be a very popular game when it first started but these days there are far more professional games on the market and as a one man band I'm obviously struggling to keep up. 

However, somebody has suggested cleaning it up and I've agreed with the idea for 2 reasons. One is that it helps you all know who is and isn't properly managed and the other is so that I can see how empty it is, without fooling myself. There's also the added bonus is that people may see their team available now and apply. Strangely, it's something I hadn't even contemplated till the suggestion came in.

That's not to say, I'm quitting as for personal pride, there are still a lot of things I want to implement and I'd like to take it forward and improve it - even adding a mobile site at some point along with the other game functions.

I do need to take stock though and establish the quality within and a lot of unmanaged teams makes it less fun for the managers who do play so I can see what happens now and decide whether to possibly chop down the number of teams in the game - maybe even remove some countries if it continues to be half full.

Obviously it could continue to fade away due to the competition and I'll have to do something else with my time but I certainly hope that's not going to be the case. If it did, I'd probably do something else with the domain anyway!

I'll continually add and change features  for some time yet and just see how it goes.

I do appreciate the managers currently in the game actually being a part of it so a big thanks to all that have stuck with me. Let's see what happens now.

PS - The 30% transfer limit has been undone again after some quick complaints. ]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:53:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Transfer changes ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=110</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-110</guid><description><![CDATA[ As of yesterday, new managers must now wait 2 weeks before they can transfer players. Loans, free transfers and the transfer pool are still usable in the meantime.

The intention is that they don't get conned unexpectedly just after they have joined and it also discourages cheating.

I've also re-implemented the 30% limit for transfers based on player values as the market is a bit stagnant and I want to see the effect - it may be that I need to get player contracts in to really kick it off.

The final change is that when making loan and transfer offers now, only managed teams will be listed.

I have also tweaked the game engine with regards to home advantage - it's now something I shall monitor for a few weeks. ]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:36:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Server movement ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=109</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-109</guid><description><![CDATA[ I'm about the move the site to faster, more resilient, servers over the next couple of weeks. The web site itself should actually be moved today with the database following in the next few weeks - hopefully sooner rather than later.

You shouldn't actually notice any difference except perhaps speed increases but if you find any errors then please let me know asap.

The big difference to me will be with the database move. Currently if the server were to fall over, I would prospectively lose data, and have to roll back to the last time I ran results, but the new server set-up should solve that issue.

This message is just to keep you up-to-date (especially those who think I neglect the game). ]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:23:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ GK substitutions ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=108</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-108</guid><description><![CDATA[ It feels like a weekend for errors but this one pointed out to me was actually a general bug that has been around for a while and only a display error. 

When a goalkeeper is sent off, a player will take his place in goal for the rest of the game. The match report was showing 2 goalkeepers in this instance which is obviously wrong. I have fixed this bug and corrected all the data. Thankfully this was only a display error so no real harm caused.

Admittedly, I need to show this in the time line so you know who replaced who and when but I'm already on with doing this so hopefully once implemented things will become clearer.

As for the weekend error - I know some people aren't happy I replayed the matches but I feel I had no other choice as the games weren't played fairly whether you won or lost. It's very difficult to keep everybody happy but at least now the results aren't distorted and as they are the biggest part of the game I feel I made the right decision. If you had injuries you didn't have previously then remember that the games will have been quite different affairs without the away team having a significant advantage. ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:35:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Game engine fault - Update ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=107</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-107</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've had a change of mind regarding the error on Friday and decided that the results shouldn't stand after all as it would be unfair at the season end if somebody missed out on something because of this.

Therefore I have restored the database from Friday, made sure managers and one or two data tables have been updated with current data (news/message board/manager friends) and then re-run the matches as they should have been played.

Bear in mind that this fix will cause games to be quite different but at least they have been run correctly and the league tables will be fair again.

All sponsorship, transfers, youth, mail and all other aspects will have been reset to as it was on Friday though so  managers may have to re-do some things again. I think this is fairer than leaving the results as they were as the results are the main aspect of the game and hope you agree, even if it does mean some things need re-processing.

As for what I've been working on that caused the problem - it's just the match report time line where I want to include more information about the game. I'm also working on improving the way I track managers and enabling the possibility to change teams more easily. My final work for the moment will be the transfer system and the potential disabling of transfers for new managers. These latter 2 are small bits but going forward, it should all help me improve the game. There's more changes after that too but after this error, I'll try to stop doing too much at once behind the scenes. ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:27:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Game engine fault ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=106</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-106</guid><description><![CDATA[ I've just seen this now and the results are strange because I stupidly did something very stupid.

I have been working lots behind the scenes over the last few weeks on a few things. One being the time line for the match report. Whilst testing this I have various settings I can apply to 'force' things to happen. One being along the lines of giving increased possession to the home or away side and as you've probably guessed I left the away side advantage on whilst running the real games.

For this I apologise. It's too much work for me to undo all the games to be played next week and I know things have occurred since then (transfers,messages,mail,finances etc) for me to be able to just forget that update and run it again as per Friday so I'm just going to have to leave it as it is I'm afraid.

I do apologise - I know the home teams have been harshly treated. ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 10 Jul 2011 09:40:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ New manager transfer window ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=105</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-105</guid><description><![CDATA[ Unfortunately I'm finding there are still some sad people who try to cheat at this free game so I'm getting towards my final ideas for stopping it before I remove the transfer system altogether and make it so it works on bids only.

Anybody who has read the blog will have seen this but the idea is that new managers will have a certain number of weeks where they cannot make transfers - I will allow loans and transfer pool bids but not straightforward transfers.

I'm thinking a period of 4 weeks would suffice. This may be removed when I eventually get round to player contracts.

I was originally against it because when a new manager joins the game I feel they should be able to play properly straight away but somebody suggested it would actually help them so they are forced to have time to evaluate player values and not get conned into a bad deal by somebody more experienced.

I'm intending this being my next change before I work on adding red & yellow cards into the match report timeline so if you have any opinions on it they will be more than welcome. Either on the blog or by contacting me directly.

Just because changes don't happen quickly, don't think they aren't being thought about. Sometimes I just need to let things settle (and sometimes I don't actually have the time). ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 Jul 2011 10:31:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title><![CDATA[ Season 22 ]]></title><link>http://www.mystify.co.uk/info/news.aspx?ArticleID=104</link><guid isPermaLink="false">MystifySoccer-104</guid><description><![CDATA[ Welcome to season 22. I have done all the usual promotions, relegations and cup draws. 

I have also finalised the salaries and ticket prices to what I think they need to be. It shall be monitored as usual but I think I'm nearer where it should be now.

One thing new for this season is a timeline on the match reports. I intend this to eventually display all shots, bookings etc but for now it is just goals and substitutions due to injury. I'm hoping I can add to it throughout the season.

I'm also still evaluating ideas to counteract cheating with transfers and the match engine. As and when things change I will tell you what I can.

Bear in mind though that this new engine works totally different to the old one. This one has a lot more detail in it and takes much more into consideration rather than just adding up ratings. Teams full of 20 rated players just won everything previously and it certainly needed freshening up. There's aspects I know need improving but don't think that you should win just because your ratings are higher. It will obviously help but it's not all....

Enjoy the season anyway - hopefully I can get some of these unmanaged teams assigned managers before I contemplate taking divisions out for future ones. ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:32:00 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
