• forestman [del]
• 2006-10-04

As from next season, the system of drawing teams for the cup will be changed.

Currently, the draws are based on each teams rank in the previous season. The draw is then made with the weakest team playing the strongest team, second weakest playing the second strongest etc.

As from next season this will change. As before, the previous seasons league position will be important in determining seeding, however a random element to the draw will also be included.

In each round the teams will be allocated into two baskets according to their seeding based on their previous years league position, with the 1st basket containing the "strongest" 50% of teams, and the 2nd containing the "weakest" 50%.

Once this is done, the pairings will then be random - i.e. any team from the 1st basket could play any team from the 2nd basket. The team from 2nd basket will play at home.

• guacamole [del]
• 2006-09-20

As stated last season, the rules for automatic promotion and relegation are changing this season to what was originally intended.

The teams to be automatically promoted/relegated are determined based on points, goal difference, number of goals, and position in the league at the end of last season. The reason for this methodology is that it is fairer. A team could be 7th with nearly no points, which would be worse than a team that fought hard in a competitive league, finished 8th, but had won some games. Additionally more bot-teams will be relegated this way.


The rules have been updated as shown below:

Promotion & Relegation

The best 25% of league winners from lower leagues will promote without having to play a qualifier match. This also means that the worst 25% of teams (ranked by points, goal difference, number of goals, and position in the league at the end of last season as described above) will be relegated automatically. The winners of the remaining leagues play in play-offs with the remaining teams placed 5th to 8th. This means that the 8th place team is not always the one to be automatically relegated.

Play-off pairs are determined on the point and goal difference basis with the weakest teams from the higher leagues playing against the strongest contender. In the event of a draw, the teams play extra time or eventually penalties. The match is played on the stadium of the team from the higher league.

• forestman [del]
• 2006-08-27

We suffered another major server failure this morning. We are very frustrated as we are still waiting for the new server to arrive. Meanwhile the current server is getting less reliable every day, nevertheless we have continued to replace hardware components in an attempt to maximise reliability in the short term.

Today, after the crash, we weren`t able to restore the current database. Therefore we have had to go back to this morning's backup. This means that all the matches have had to be played again. Also transfers, forum discussions, mail etc. that occured between the time of the backup & the server failure have been lost.

Morning matches have been moved to tomorrow. The matches that have not been played will continue, but with substantial delays.

All transfers ending after the restored backup have been moved 24 hours ahead.

We apologise for these problems & hope to have everything sorted in the very near future.

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2006-08-16

Yesterday we have completely reinstalled the server software. We have chosen the configuration that in our opinion should increase reliability, with small performance downgrade. It didn`t work out and it has made things worse.

It is now clear that we will have to replace the hardware which is causing the failures (probably the discs). The new server is expected to arrive next week, so we will make another attempt at making the current configuration stable. We will be replacing the discs tonight.

Due to this, any matches that have not yet been played, will now be played tomorrow. Training will now take place late evening Sokker time tomorrow.

We are very sorry about any inconvienience this may cause.

• guacamole [del]
• 2006-08-11

As you can see, we still have intermittent but serious problems with server stability. Unfortunately, we still are not sure if the problem is caused by software or hardware. We are currently working hard to find the reason for this instability.

The issue is indirectly connected with expansions made at the beginning of the season. The server does not seem to be overloaded, it just crashes under certain circumstances (which can happen now more often because of the bigger traffic).

In this past week and a half we have had a few serious outages. We decided that all Plus subscriptions will be extended by 2 days.

Again we apologize for this situation. We will do our best to resolve the problems as soon as we can.

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2006-08-04

New countries

We are happy to announce, that we have 9 new nations in Sokker:
- Andorra
- Costa Rica
- Hayastan
- Honduras
- Indonesia
- Makedonija
- Malta
- Moldova
- Shqipëria

Welcome!

Expansions

We are also pleased to see "old" countries growing.
So we have following expansions:
- België - new leagues in division 5 "5de Klasse"
- Brasil - new leagues in division 5 "Série E"
- France - new leagues in division 5 "Ligue 5"
- Hellas - new division 4 "D` Ethniki", 32 leagues
- Hrvatska - new leagues in division 4 "4. Liga"
- Israel - new division 4 "Liga Aleph", 32 leagues
- Norge - new division 4 "3. divisjon", 32 leagues
- Polska - new division 7 "Klasa A", 1024 leagues
- România - new division 6 "Divizia F", 256 leagues
- Suomi - new division 5 "IV-divisioona", 64 leagues
- Türkiye - new division 5 "5. Lig", 64 leagues

If other leagues need expansion in the future, they will be expanded in the middle of the season.

Server downtime

We have had some serious problems with our database server stability this week, which has caused long downtimes. We apologise for this inconvenience.

Before sunday we will try to fix the reason that caused this situation. It may mean that the server will be unavailable again for 1-2 hours friday night.

• forestman [del]
• 2006-07-24

It is election time again! You have the opportunity to stand for election as the national team coach of any nation, and vote for 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 SK-mail people.

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.

New countries (República Dominicana, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Nippon, India, Ísland, Israel, Malaysia & Hellas) will have their national teams created & elections start this evening.

The election deadline is 6th August so get preparing your speeches, asking candidates tough questions & voting!

• forestman [del]
• 2006-07-17

We apologise that there was a mistake in the previous news release regarding promotion and relegation.

It is true that 25% of teams promote & relegate automaticaly. However it does not mean that the 8th place team is always relegated. The qualification ranking system hasn't changed at all - relegated teams are ranked by points, goals, etc (not league position, points, goals).

The reason for this methodology is that it is more fair. A team could be 7th with nearly no points, which would be worse than a team that fought hard in a competitive league, finished 8th, but had won some games. Additionally more bot-teams will be relegated that way.

Because of this misunderstanding we have decided to use this season (and this season only) the system that was described in the previous news release. Therefore 8th place teams will all be relegated automatically.

We will have to re-generate the fixture list again to take into account these changes. This will occur either this evening or tommorow morning.

We confirm that next season qualification games will be played using the system described above.

• guacamole [del]
• 2006-06-29

From now on, National Team players can't be sacked. Additionally, NT players from bot teams are transfer-listed as soon as new user takes over the team - with no prior club so the new club president doesn't receive any advantages.

Players who are not on a national team may still be sacked, even if they are of NT-caliber quality.

• mr_gibbage [del]
• 2006-06-16

The promotion of juniors is now better regulated than it was before. Those who are promoted with a high level will end up as more complete and rounded players than they may have done in the past. The highest possible skill for a promoted will still be excellent.

This change takes place with immediate effect.