• forestman [del]
• 2007-12-23

The sokker staff wish you all the best for the holidays & upcoming new year!

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2007-12-08

There has been a bug with running passes - in the match engine, defenders (DEF) rather than midfielders (MID) were making most of the running passes when they had the similar levels of playmaking.

After the fix, most running passes will be made by midfielders, with less by defenders as it should have been before. It will be very rare for attackers to make these passes.

As this is an important bug fix, this fix will be applied from 12/12/07.

• guacamole [del]
• 2007-12-06

As compensation for the period recently where matches were unavailable for a few days and the minor server issues, we have added 2 additional days to the subscription of all current plus users.

We apologize for the failures, but had no control over the issues, and did our best to resolve the problems as quickly as possible.

Enjoy your plus days :)

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2007-11-22

We have introduced a new way of paying for plus - via PayPal.com. Due to the fees charged by PayPal, there will be an additional 2 PLN handling charge.

It is now possible to pay once again via AllPay, after the temporary problems with them.

• forestman [del]
• 2007-11-06

We have simplified adding new languages. Now linguists can create a new language by translating the english version directly on site and publishing it when completed.

If you want prepare new language, please inform us by writing an email to admins@sokker.org or directly by sk-mail to Arnau or Papcio Daniels

Please note: Adding a new language is an ongoing responsibility also - you will also have to translate news items as well as new sentences for Sokker scripts updates (for example when new features are introduced). Therefore please bear this in mind before you apply.

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2007-10-24

We have introduced an affiliate system for new users. Now when you invite a friend to Sokker, if you encourage them to fill in your username during the registration process like the following:

www.sokker.org/?buddy=your_login

Once they buy plus for the first time, you yourself will receive a gift of 10 days of plus. If you already have plus, then 10 days will be added to your current subscription.

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2007-10-15

It is election time again! You have the opportunity to stand for election as the national team coach of any nation, and to give your vote to your preferred manager of your own nation!

To access the election page, go to the respective country homepage, then click on National Team, and then Elections.

If you stand for election, it is recommended that you open a maximum of one thread in the forums, prefixed with [NT] , e.g. [NT] forestman. Please do NOT spam forums, SK-mail people directly for votes, or spam users Guest Books. Any of these spammy activities will result in forum banning and/or financial fine. Also, if you are running for election do NOT post questions or arguments in other candidates' threads. Their threads are for them to present their candidacy (and for users from that nation to question them), not for you to debate them.

Please remember that a user who has been elected as NT manager will not be able to resign from their job. Therefore when you stand for the NT job, it is not only for fun, it is also your responsibility to serve the full term which the people that voted you into the job thought you should serve.

The election deadline is 28th October so get preparing your speeches, asking candidates tough questions & voting!

• guacamole [del]
• 2007-09-22

We are happy to announce that we are starting the testing of a new match engine. The new match engine will improve a few areas of the current engine and also includes some new features.

This new match engine will be used from now until the end of this season in NT friendly games and in regular friendly games starting October 10th (after all national cups are completed). It will then be used in all matches from the start of next season.

Improvements in the game engine:

- Wingers will now turn towards goal or cross the ball further away from the goal line in order to be more effective (previously they sometimes went out of bounds or into the corner where they couldn't be as effective). They will now try to avoid making poor passes backwards and instead may look to shoot at goal.
- The offside rule will be executed correctly for players that are off field. This will correct a small bug, for example - in this match.
- Half-time / End-of-game whistle will not be blown with a player extremely likely to score a goal – for example, with the attacker having dribbled past the last defender.
- 4 substitutions will not occur. There were rare occasions when this had occurred in the past - such as here
- Corrected the conditional substitution when a player is sold or fired,as you can see here.
- Sorted conditional orders, so in all instances, when two orders exist with different minutes to execute, the order with the lower minute will be executed first. (There were rare occasions previously when this did not occur)
- The use of tactics for defending players has been improved. In certain circumstances the previous game engine would think that the defending team had possession when they did not. It therefore would select a more attacking tactic, and would leave the keeper vulnerable. Examples of this problem include when there is a rebound from the goalkeeper or when the final defender loses possession. This problem has now been corrected.
- Match generation will not start before updates are finished. This is an important fix to the issue that happened a while ago where we had to re-run matches (the "ghost matches" problem).

New features:
- Changed technique/defender probability distribution during a tackle. This means that there is now a chance (although very small ) that an attacker with relatively low technique might be able to dribble past a MUCH better defender, or a relatively unskilled defender might be able to tackle a high technique opponent. (This will be closely monitored during testing).


There are no other changes made in this engine. If you notice anything different, please report it as a bug. All bugs should be reported on Bugs / Ideas (en) forum, one topic per one bug.

• guacamole [del]
• 2007-09-19

As you may know, the new scripts were temporarily brought online on Tuesday September 18th for a short period of time. After some performance issues and two bugs were detected, they were quickly removed and the old scripts were brought back online.

Today, the developers feel that they are nearly done fixing the performance issues and the identified bugs.

Therefore, there is a TENTATIVELY planned testing in production for the new scripts for Thursday, September 20th. More information will be made available either as formal news and/or in the discussion thread on Sokker International.

• guacamole [del]
• 2007-08-23

On August 22nd we went live with the new scripts using the current database for an extended tester population (the entire sokker staff) as the planned initial step in the release in order to make sure everything went smoothly. It was up for most of the day and the release was relatively smooth as expected.

However, as a part of our normal validation process, we noticed some minor bugs that we would like to resolve and a few things that we would like to add prior to the full release. Therefore, in order to minimize any negative effect on you, we're going to push back the new script release date. We will provide at least a day notice before going live, and we are confident that there will be minimal, if any, downtime when we do the changeover.

Thank you for your understanding,
- Sokker Development Staff