Football Megastars News

GAME OVERVIEW VIDEO: the perfect tutorial for new players. More tutorial videos coming soon.

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HOW TO JOIN A TEAM AND THEN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (you can watch the Game Overview Video): Enter your apartment. Click on the TV remote control. Click on the Teams and Leagues icon. Go to the box, top left corner, where you can scroll through the leagues. Click on a league. Click on a team within a league (it says click here to view this team). Within the team page click "join team". Note that you can only join a team if it is highlighted green or amber and green is advised (you have to have a minimum performance rating of 200 to join a League 18 team). The game is free for 28-days now and this includes joining teams - so there is no reason to pay until the 28-days have expired. What happens on day 29 is that when you try to enter your apartment there is a note on the door. When you click on the door you go straight to the payment page and choose which option to take. Then you pay and are returned to the login page. You login and the note on the apartment door is gone and you get in as usual. You do not lose anything from your player :-). You cannot actually pay to play prior to the 28-day period. The payment page is displayed, for info only, at the foot of this news page.

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CAN I EVER CATCH THE PLAYERS WHO STARTED BEFORE ME AND GET INTO THE TOP TEAMS? The answer is yes! The game is designed so that players go through three phases of their life: phase 1 is day 1 to day 81; phase 2 is day 82 to 181; phase 3 is between day 182 and the end of the game (day 330 to 360 as a general rule). The reason the players who started before you are ahead of you on performance rating (used to determine team entry and hierachy) is primarily due to the fact that they are earning more Training points, more Fame points and more Powerboost (Powerboost is related to age as Rewards and Power Icons are multiplied by gameplay days). BUT... Fame points max. out at 10,000 in the performance rating sum, so once you and they have 10,000 of these then their advantage is lost. Training points become progressively harder to earn in phase 2 and phase 3 (in phase 3 a player scrats around for the odd point here and there). Powerboost maxes out at 160 gameplay days (Rewards and Power Icons can only be multiplied by a max. 160 gameplay days), so after this age players are on a level playing field with regard to Powerboost. Another issue for those in phase 2 and 3 is that Powerboost also has a number of points removed on each day (for each day above 80 gameplay days 9 is taken off... so at 88 gameplay days 72 is removed from Powerboost. So don't worry - after 80 days of gameplay you start hunting them down... after 160 days you enter a level playing field and you can usurp them from their top placed teams if you are good enough (and the game lasts between 330 and 360 days for most players). My priority as games designer at the moment is to make sure that gameplay days 81 to the end of the game are an exciting period for everyone; I will be carefully tweaking a few things to make sure that this is the case. I do not want the players who started earlier than you to think that they have got away from the pack :-) Julian.

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PLEASE ADD the following to your address list or safe list: noreply@footballmegastars.com and info@wackywebfun.com

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TOP TIPS FOR ASPIRING MANAGERS:

Think about selling rewards in the early part of the game - incoming revenue is short early on.
Upgrade your office as a priority - for those valuable power icons and rewards.
Train your player every day!
Visit the forum for further tips and gossip (are rumours of a diet solver true?)!
Find a "buddy", somebody you trust, and train each other's players during holidays etc.

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PAYING TO PLAY

I know that a percentage of people who take a look at Football Megastars will suggest that it is expensive (and that some feel that everything on the web should be free). There is no initial cost to purchase the Football Megastars game and we allow 28-days of free access for players to explore the site to see what they think. The cheapest option works out at 69p a week and I believe that we are charging a fair and reasonable price. I know that there will be those who disagree and I fully accept that point of view; if you do not feel that you will receive at least 69p per week of value out of this game then you will not wish to play and will go elsewhere. That is how these things work and we, as a company, fully accept this. A whole month's access to the site costs less than one small glass of wine in a restaurant. The philosophy Wacky Web Fun has adopted is to provide an excellent game, running on the best Rackspace servers with the highest level of backup and support (www.rackspace.co.uk: fanatical customer support and reassuringly expensive!). Our target market is those who take their few minutes a day of gaming seriously; we are not targeting the millions of ankle snappers of the "pleeeeeez giv me 4 free cos I play free gamez all day" variety.

This is only a game, but the time you spend on it is important time and we know that, if you are anything like ourselves, then you will likely prefer to pay a little more and have a superb experience, than pay less and have an average or dull experience. We will do our best to provide the superb experience. If you have a problem then you want your emails answered same day (if you send that email on a week day morning) and not a week later. If the website has a problem then you want it sorting. You do not want forums and in-game message boards full of pointless, idiotic postings (in-game whiteboards only available to paying customers and forums monitored by adults).

On a final note, and our problem not yours, but to create a game like Football Megastars costs a lot of up front investment. This investment runs into six figures and unless we can pay that back, cover our running costs and make a decent profit then we cannot invest in improvements or in the next game (and we are completely commited to both).

Some of you may know my story, others may not. Suffice to say that, as of today, over £300,000 has gone into this company during the last six years. I have sold everything that I own. I have taken one year's wage during the five years and have been unpaid during the remaining years.

That last bit is for all the people who, for some strange reason, think that I am living the life of a city trader!

Football Megastars has been a long time coming - I hope you enjoy it.

Julian Patrick. Wacky Web Fun Ltd.