FM 2007 randomized player database

JAT · 12-25-2006, 11:47 PM

Based on experiences with similar FM 2006-compatible database, I now have FM 2007 randomized player database.

Purpose: When using random players-option on FM 2007 ( Use real players: No ), some players are just renamed real players with different names and/or nationality. Idea of this patch is to make players in game more random so that you don't immediately know many "good and cheap" players to buy.

How it works: On this database, Players' Technical, Mental, Physical and Goalkeeping attributes are set to 0, so when starting new game, FM 2007 must create every players' strengths and weaknesses from scratch.

Usage: Update your FM 2007 to 7.0.1 version or newer. Copy this database-folder to FM 2007 db-folder ( Something like My documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2007\db ). Start new game ( You must start new game ), and select to use this database ( Random 0 ). Using Random players-option ( Use real players: No ) is recommended but you can also use Real players-option.

Things affected: Players will get somewhat random strenghts and weaknesses. More importantly, players may have related two skills very different. For example Jumping 20 but Heading 5. Or Acceleration 19 but Pace 6. Also short players ( 160 cm and so on ) may well have Jumping 20 so they can be effective on air. Also, Technical, Mental, Physical and Goalkeeping skills include some hiden skills ( Like Consistency, Versatility and Injury Proneness ) and those skills are also randomized.

Things not affected ( Values left on DB "as they are" ): Most important include Person Data-attributes ( Like Adapability, Loyality ), Positional attributes ( Player's playing positions ), Preferred foot ( Left foot and Right foot ), Height & Weight and Reputation ( Reputation, Potential ability, Current ability... ).

Improved things compared to FM 2006-version:

- Players' Left foot and Right foot are not randomized. On FM 2006-version they were and most players one foot Very Strong and another Very Weak or Weak, so there were very few players with "Preferred foot: Either".

- Field players seem to have much poorer "Goalkeeper rating" ( Usually 1 or 2 ) than on FM 2006-version ( 3-6 were very common ). This is most likely caused by FM game itself and not database.

Using this database and Random players: Random players-option creates some players totally from scratch, some players are just renamed real players with same Current ability and/or Potential ability. Also, this option sometimes seems to swap CA and/or PA between players on same club. For example one player at ManU can get "Rooney's" ( Names are randomized ) CA and gets high PA also ( CA cannot be higher than PA ), "Rooney" has abysmal CA but his PA remains same and other player is very good player but is most propably playing different positions than "Rooney". Also players' nationalities seem to be quite random, but usually they are swapped between players on same team. So like if team A has ( On database ) 3 Brazilians, 2 Chinese 1 Portugal players, when using this Random players-option team A may well have also 3 Brazilians, 2 Chinese 1 Portugal players. This mostly affects on National teams.

Compatibility and issues:

- Database seem to be compatible with 7.0.1 patch.

- Every time you start new game, you most likely will get totally different set of players, so save your game immediately after creating new game if you want to continue it.

- Sometimes when offering new contract to player, game gives error message "Array access out of bounds". Game seem to continue however, so this seem not to be fatal bug. Same thing happened on FM 2006 also. This seems to be result of FM 2007's Random players-option, not database.

- On leagues where amount of Non EU-players are restricted ( Spain for example ), Randomizing nationalities can cause that team has huge amount of Non EU-players at start.

Randomizations that did not work on FM 2006 ( And I don't bother to test if they work on FM 2007 either ):

Positional ( There were huge amount of Left midfiders and Right backs, but many player had no playing positions at all. )

Height & Weight ( Almost all players had almost same height and weight ( Height about 178-181 cm if I remember correctly. )

Ability / potential ( There were mostly average or poor players, not any good ones. )

Delete players ( There were no players on teams. May perhaps been useful if played for 1 season and get new set of youngsters. Not tested though. )

Where to get it?

I'm currently approaching end on first season with no problems so far except Array access out of bounds-issue ( Described above ). If there are no problems with "end season" and "pre season", I consider this DB to be "working" and can put it for downloading. This final testing and checking takes most propably only couple of days. zip packed file takes about 53 megs and I'm open to suggestions where to upload it. Last year Megaupload did not get much popularity because of p**n ads.