The Developer Webchat

As many of you will be aware last Thursday night hosted a live web chat in the Ultimate Football Live website chat. There was a good turn out of people with around 10-15 people online in total throughout the 2 and a bit hours of chat regarding the game. The official summary of what was said can be found here: http://uflive.com/blog/development-blog/61-ufl-faq-4

From chatting to the developers it is apparent that the game is making rapid progress towards the alpha stage of testing. It is important to stress that initially alpha testing will be undertaken by developers only as part of the closed testing phase as quoted upon the Ultimate Football Live homepage. As of yet we still do not know for sure when closed alpha is due to start or indeed when public alpha, which should feature around 50 or so of the finest forum members, will begin in earnest either. However, it was mentioned that the team name reservation facility should be coming online at some point during April should everything run to plan, although the potential for it to run into May remains a possibility, which is a promising development.

In fact April is set to be a big month for Ultimate Football Live. It marks the anniversary of when the project initially began last year. The web chat revealed several hints that the anniversary date may well be marked by some sort of event although what exactly it will be wasn't specified. Whether it will be something quite small such as the release of new screenshots or whether it could be the starting gun for closed testing is subject to speculation. But what we do know is that it will be definitely be worth keeping a close eye upon the Ultimate Football Live website to find out exactly what is being lined up. 

As always stay tuned to the Floodlights for the latest information and analysis from the world of Ultimate Football live...

The First Look!

After a long wait the UFL developers are proud to show us the first screen shot of Ultimate Football Live. This first teaser shows us a German striker called Thierry Henry and an overview of his abilities (not to be confused with the attributes page itself). In addition we also see a shot of the client, the tactics page and at the bottom what looks an overview of the squad page. It has to be said that the screen shots are very clean and crisp. They are a very promising start and insight into a game that should be going into alpha at some point over the next 6 weeks (according to sources upon the UFL forums)

Today has also marked the first UFL newsletter for quite a while. We now know that team name reservation will also begin shortly. This is rumoured to begin around March time. This marks an important step towards getting Alpha under way and getting towards a big kick off in the near future. I for one can't wait to get The Flooslights FC underway. 

The newletter also mentioned in passing the match engine: "Work is well underway on an inhouse ME which is already producing results, and talks are ongoing with other parties regarding graphic ME content. We hope to offer more concrete news on this in the near future. Stay tuned!" So it appears that they are going on the in house route for the underlying code, which is an interesting development. Hopefully it won't be too long before we hear more and perhaps even get a glimpse of what they've been up to!

Finally, the possibility of getting your own UFL shirt may become a possibility shortly with the developers looking to create some sort of shop where you can purchase your own UFL kit from. As always the developers are grateful for any donations which so far equal around £750. So if you have any spare change at the end of the month please think of UFL!

Hopefully the Floodlights will be able to bring you coverage from the very start of Alpha testing so please keep an eye out on the Floodlights because the night has only just started and we want to keep the UFL pitch illuminated right until the dawn!

UFL Affiliates goes LIVE!!!

As of today the UFL Affiliates page has gone live. It can be found at http://uflive.com/community/affiliates where you can keep tabs upon all of the websites and blogs focusing upon UFLive and it's development. However, as of yet only one site has gone live on the page, according to the UFL community guru Tommy, which is http://www.uflive-fan.com/ so a big congratulations to them from me here at the Floodlights. Hopefully, it won't be too long before the Floodlights will be shining out from the affiliates page too.

For those of you who may be considering creating a blog or website there are 2 different levels of affiliate fan site status, normal and gold. The normal fansites will be given alpha/beta places, mentions in community newsletter round ups, links from the main UFL website as well as assistance with graphics/website design. The gold status will give additional bonuses to the normal fansite status such as access to developers and more forum privileges as well 2 live accounts. However, this is in exchange for at least 6 months of content with weekly updates.

In other news, there is going to be another backstage blog around Valentines day, or the 14th February for those of you who are not mini Casanova's. Hopefully we will soon be hearing about when alpha will be starting in ernest.

Happy New Year!

Now the partying is over, the hangover gone and the year beginning in earnest it’s time to consider what 2012 may bring for UFL. Everything considered 2012 should be a big year for Ultimate Football Live.

As many of you will already know alpha testing did not begin, as was initially expected, towards the back end of last year, for a number of reasons that we don’t need to go back over. When alpha testing will commence will still don’t know for certain, but one would expect that it would be within the first two quarters of the year if not the first. The start of testing will be a major milestone in the production of this game and a real feather in the cap of the volunteers who are working to put this game together. As for the fans, like you and me, we’ll get to see how the hard work they’ve put in translates into a game as well as how close to the holy grail of sports management sims this game will truly be. That is if we are lucky enough to be honoured with the chance to get our grubby mitts on the earliest addition of the game of course! Regardless of who is doing the testing, it will mark the start of another phase, one of refinement. Tidying everything up making tweaks and changes will become the pipers tune. As this happens an increasing number off of the forum will no doubt get the opportunity to test (or play with a constructive critique of as much of the game as possible) and help sow the seed for the community aspect of the game.

The community aspect of UFL is also in for a big year. We know now that there is likely to be a new forum mod (or possibly two) with the safe money being on the omnipresent and all round nice guys of Jesus Reffori and Superowl. This is the ideal point to thank the graphic design team at UFL for the logo that they created for this site as well, which I hope everyone likes. Yet all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a year in which many blogs covering development can be expected, not just on this blog but upon the numerous other sites devoted to UFL. A list of some of these can be found upon the left hand side of this side and will soon be shown upon the official UFL also. Yet community is not just about blogs and forums. Hopefully once testing commences contacts of old will be called in, word of mouth will spread and the FML masses that once were spread throughout the land will return. If anything this is the thing that I am most looking forward to about this project.

Of course, many of you will want to know the answer to the really really big question. When will the game go gold and be fully available to everyone? Now this is a question that nobody knows the answer to. It may well be next year, but that is not a reason to fret. Getting everything up to as good a level as possible is essential.

All that is left to say is that I wish everyone the best and most happiness for this New Year. So here is to a successful year of big progress in UFL and I hope to meet some of you in a testing world in the not too distant future. In the mean time stay tuned to the Floodlights for the latest updates and news on all things UFL!