IMPORTANT: Change to Transfer Limits in Top 100

SM Worlds 2.0

SM introduced – and almost immediately rolled back due to so many bugs – their much vaunted SM Worlds 2.0 yesterday evening.

I guess we can expect to see it again maybe late next week, unless the Gores like paying overtime to their developers to work on the Bank Holiday Weekend.

Implications for Top 100

A couple of immediate ramifications for Top 100 – firstly, one of our longstanding managers Mark Deadman quit Valencia, and I expect a few more to follow suit once the new update is live and the 7 days free Gold membership expires, if not before.

Secondly, the update includes a new £1 billion upper transfer fee limit, as opposed to the old limit which was two times the minimum player value (except for free agents, which was higher).

New Player Rule and Player Concerns Rule

Yesterday, I agreed with the admin team to introduce an immediate temporary change to our rules for signing new players added to the database, and players who were sold due to Level Three concerns.

Previously, the rule stated that managers can only bid the no higher than the first maximum bid for new players, and bids on players sold as a result of concerns have the same in-game limit.

The new rules are that managers can only bid the MINIMUM value, and not higher.

What are Other Game Worlds Doing?

It’s my understanding that this rule already works fine in other game worlds, and that the reason we brought in the maximum bid rule for new players – that some players’ values increased overnight putting managers in different timezones at a total disadvantage when it came to adjusting their bids – no longer applies (bids made before any value change are accepted and completed and/or values no longer change).

Fair Play

Changing from maximum to minimum bids, therefore, retains the fairness of bidding for everyone, and in a game world where cash has always been worthless, makes no material difference to clubs’ finances or competitiveness.

Landucci at Lokomotiv Moskva asked if we can also have a cap on transfer fees for all external players (i.e., including players who are not newly added, not sold as a result of the concerns rule).

Newsfeed Discussion on £1bn Upper Transfer Limit

This provoked a long discussion on the newsfeed. The main point being that some clubs have billions in the bank while most have only a few hundred million, putting them at a distinct disadvantage when bidding on external players with a new £1 billion offer limit. The new £1 billion limit is obviously much, much higher than the previous two times value limit, which kept everything fair in a game world where cash has never had any value.

The other side of the argument is that 1) there are very few players at external clubs who are not newly added, or who are not sold as a result of the concerns rule that anyone wants to buy – they are at external clubs for a reason! There are, of course, occasional exceptions – Samuel Mbangula being one very recent exception. 2) Having a new £1 billion upper limit on transfer bids for all players could enliven the market and create new strategy options for managers.

The counter-argument being that its possible (if not likely) that this scenario would firstly give the rich clubs an immediate unfair advantage, and secondly in the longer term perhaps create a situation too realistic where all the wealth and talent is owned by a few super rich clubs.

New Rule for Offers on ALL External and Free Agent Players

I think, therefore, that at least until the end of this season, we will adopt the precautionary principle approach whereby we keep the transfer limits in Top 100 as they always have been (or as close to), in order to minimise any perceived unfairness and to limit any further disruption midway through the season.

So, from today, ALL TRANSFER OFFERS FOR EXTERNAL OR FREE AGENT PLAYERS must be at the MINIMUM value allowed and no higher, and disclosed (i.e, public so we everyone can see the bid).

This change keeps things pretty much as they were and makes no material difference to anyone because cash has no value in Top 100.

Whether we want to change that in the future will depend on further discussion and/or a vote at the end of this season or later.