WE ARE THE ONLINE CHAMPIONS! FIRST DETAILS OF CHAMP MAN ONLINE

Has the boy done well? Developer Jadestone present the scout' s report

17:13 As announced at EGN recently, Championship Manager will be online after all. In development at Swedish based Jadestone, the game is set to hit the PC servers from January 2005.

" We' ve been developing the online engine since 1999 and have 30 people based in Stockholm working on it," the Jadestone' s president and co-founder duo of Robert Henrysson and Erik Ramberg tell us. " There are going to be differences between this and Championship Manager 5, although players of that game will have some advantage."

So just how will it well...work? Helping to shed some light over such basic matters as structure and communities, we tracked down Jadestone and publisher Eidos for their presentation. Here' s what we learnt about Championship Manager Online.

That Wenger won' t know what hit him...

The midnight hour

The biggest headache with online footy management games is how and when games are going to be played. After all, to be watched in real-time, every manager would have to be online at the same time, which is just not feasible.

Basically, the process is that everyone selects their tactics during the day - for example, if my team is trailing by two goals at half-time, I want player A to come on in place of player B. The server is then shut down at midnight for two hours (at Central European time, we understand), during which time all of the results are processed. Managers can then log on and watch the matches at their own pace, or if they prefer, simply collect the results.

To begin with matches will be viewable in 2D-text mode, although Jadestone informs us that it is currently working with Beautiful Game Studios to integrate the Championship Manager 5 match engine.

Also, leagues will eventually be arranged and organised into number of games played in a week - managers with more time on their hands will compete in more games per day than a more ' part-time' manager. The initial leagues will have a match every third day.

Buddy leagues

In addition to the main career mode (which essentially evolves like a real domestic season), players will also be able to arrange their own buddy leagues and tournaments (such as World Cup-style knockout competitions) between themselves. So for instance, you can have an office season or a school league. " This gives you a chance to play as your favourite team and customise the rules. These can be made to be either fun or realistic," explains Jadestone.

Read all about it!

As in real football, the media plays a large role within Champ Manager Online. However, this time the managers become the journalists. " Each world in the game has its own newspaper run by an editor, with its own voluntary journalists contributing," explains Jadestone. " They can print a whole load of activity, such as votes, transfer rumours, interviews etc about their make-belief football world."

Weights and measurements

An interesting idea proposed by Jadestone is that of a manager rating ladder, which ranks players in terms of their genuine ability, rather than games won. Basically, each time is weighted. Giants like Arsenal and Man Utd will have a completely different rating compared to minnows such as S****horpe, Rochdale and Spurs (snigger).

As Jadestone explains, " if you' re manager of Southampton and draw away at Manchester United, you will receive more manager points than if you' re the Manchester United boss and beat a much lesser team at home." Although this system won' t affect your position in the actual league, it will highlight the better managers. It will also help shrewd tacticians secure jobs at top clubs.

Send in yer CV

When a manager drops out of the game, his/her team temporarily becomes AI-controlled. However, other managers can then apply for the vacant position by sending their CV in. The successful applicant will then be selected by the AI-controlled club board based on their manager rating (see above) and their loyalty rating (" basically, how long a manager has stayed at their club" says Jadestone. " That' s very important." ).

Also, if you' re wondering how the game begins, you pick a team at the bottom end - " a team that' s willing to accept you, like Chester City" explains Jadestone. More experienced managers will begin at the other end of the scale, " which will be determined in the beta testing period" .

No cheating

Jadestone has assured us that it has implemented very sophisticated moderating systems to prevent cheating - such as a manager taking over two teams and transferring all its best players from one to the other. " Besides, players have their own A.I.," says Jadestone. " Someone like Wayne Rooney wouldn' t go to Chester City."

Developing communities

The whole community aspect is one of the most important things in Championship Manager Online, and Jadestone has developed an in-game email system and forum that allows for managers to negotiate transfers and discuss issues.

" We' ve also created a number of SMS services that you can use to get updated or interact with the game and other managers," it tells us. " The vision is that you can live the game parallel with your life. Very much part of the game giving managers the tools to interact" .


Stephen Daultrey