- _james
- 2020-08-28
Today we are presenting to you the status of work related to the off-season.
Introducing the possibility of playing friendly matches on Sunday (if you are not playing an official match). Therefore, this change applies to this Sunday, the day when some teams play the playoffs, and the next Sunday, which until now was a week of no matches. We were able to introduce the change only after the Wednesday matches had been played, hence its late addition. We encourage you to use Friday and Saturday to arrange friendly matches.
Merging the last divisions in individual countries - at the beginning of the next week (after promotions and relegations), we will be reducing the last divisions in terms of number of leagues for countries where the occupancy rate at the given level is low. Depending on the number of users at a given level, the number of leagues will be reduced by half, or even four times in some cases. Of course, we will make sure that a certain amount of space for new users remains after all.
The junior’s league bug - the possibility of staying in the junior league by exploiting the game bug has now been fixed, but the problem with the teams that had cheated in this way and returned to the league despite being placed in relegation has still not been resolved. We have several junior leagues this season with an additional team, or even with two. We decided to move the teams manually according to the table order - so places 9 and 10 in the junior league will be moved to lower levels and the numbers of teams will return to the correct value.
- _james
- 2020-08-21
Thank you for your comments so far, on the initial design and the mock-ups that we have presented. Many of the comments helped us to improve our ideas, add new options, or change the location of some elements (e.g. the trophy table will be moved from the overview tab to the view of each club).
This week we are presenting another view to you - the schedule. We will be grateful for any comments regarding this element of our work.
The schedule will be implemented in two forms:
List view - where we can see all matches of your team. The tabs segregate the content into lists of matches of the first squad, and the junior team. Arcade matches have also been moved to a completely different tab.
Calendar view - where we can see the schedule of matches, but also icons of individual events in the game, such as training. You can easily get an idea of the timing of the upcoming matches using the calendar. The view is just a mock-up, hence the lack of colours - but individual types of games will be marked with different colours. Do not worry about marking the training on Tuesday - it is just a working icon, the training does not change, it will take place on Thursdays.
Both mock-ups can be found at this link (to go to the next one use the side arrows on the keyboard):
https://xd.adobe.com/view/07259a81-6525-42c0-8b8d-82ec0d178717-5276/?fullscreen
- _james
- 2020-08-14
While we were working on the new design of the website and user experience, we decided to create a new tab - overview. Its purpose is to collect key information for the manager in one place and make it available immediately after logging in. After implementing the new Sokker look, this page will be the first one we see.
Here you can see the mock-up for this page:
https://xd.adobe.com/view/cd353768-7ee6-4813-b032-a68f0b5d0772-9866/?fullscreen
Key functionalities:
Alerts - in the upper left part you can see a box of rotating messages - there are 4 notifications in the mock-up, the first of which informs of the lack of a set lineup for the next match. Notifications will assist in making key decisions - they will remind you to set up your squad, training, to arrange a friendly match, warn you if a player is unable to play, etc.
Calendar - we are adding a weekly timeline so that every player (including beginners) can easily check the events of any day in a week - those from the current day will be described in detail (e.g. Income from sponsors), but it will also be possible to go through the upcoming days of the week.
References to key information - on the start screen you will also find a link to the training report for the week, a box with a summary of the games in which you participate with redirections to details, the press room tab, and a summary of the club's trophies. Here you will also find information about your fan club and collected key data about your team (its value, average age, etc.)
Transfers - another feature that will appear here - in the form of a summary of the upcoming auctions that interest us. The full transfer list will be available in the transfers tab. However, you can already see a few improvements here - the ability to bid from the list (without having to enter the selected player) or providing key information about the player (age, value). It will also be possible to delete auctions that are no longer interesting to us. An interesting addition will be the number of players who follow a given auction.
We welcome any suggestions or comments regarding this view.
- _james
- 2020-08-07
We are coming back this week with some information about the incoming changes.
We contracted an illustrator who started working on the illustrations in the game. We already have the first examples of new players' faces - it shows the direction in which we will prepare the illustrations for the character generator. Do not get attached to the presented pictures in the form of circles - the final form of the players’ images for the page view still needs to be refined.
Link to the player portrait examples
At the same time, work is underway to improve the two graphics directions selected for further development. At the link below you can see the evolution of the first design (icons, fonts, buttons and headers have been improved; the overall design has been refined). Parallel to this, work is underway to improve the second (darker) design.
Finally, we will decide to combine the best elements of both directions into one coherent idea, which will be implemented in two versions - light and dark.
Link to the preview of the merged design
Changes to the rules
It is a right for users to preserve the composition of their leagues and the identity of their land. At Sokker, we build the national leagues of any country for its natives and inhabitants. Users can only have a team in the country where they reside or in their country of origin. We monitor IP addresses from which users access Sokker to verify their residence. Sokker does not support the use of tools that can modify or hide users' real IP (I.e. TOR, VPNs, Proxies, etc.). These provisions have always existed in the game but in order to make them clearer and easier to understand the first chapter of the rules has been updated. Please read it and, if you feel affected by some of the stances described there, please contact the Sokker Staff. Our goal is to help all users to play Sokker with respect to the game’s spirit.
- _james
- 2020-07-31
This week we would like to share the results of the last poll with you, which was dedicated to the graphic design.
We collected almost 400 votes, and decided to work on the two most popular directions and merge them into one, in two different themes - light and dark.
You can find find the results here:
And more detailed data for each one of two best projects:
Option 1
Ratings for the option 1
Option 2 (v4 in previous poll)
Ratings for the option 2 (v4 in previous poll)
Please keep in mind, that those two proposals are the starting point for further work - we believe that there is potential to increase the visual quality even more. In upcoming weeks our designers will merge projects into one coherent line, and we will share it with you in upcoming weeks.
We also started our work on the new illustrations, like player portraits, club emblems or infrastructure. Portraits presented in the design proposals are our benchmark, but they need to be created from scratch in order to be used in the portrait generator (separate elements mixed together).
- _james
- 2020-07-24
This week we would like to recap the status of work on in-game Flash. We have replaced the first few elements (T-shirts, kits editor, some charts, etc.), but there are still more elements waiting for replacement.
However, working through them is time-consuming - in most cases they are interactive elements, such as the tactics editor or match visualizations. Because of this, it takes more time, but still, work is in a quite advanced stage on most of the elements.
Tactics editor and player pictures are waiting for implementation in the coming weeks.
Work on the 2D conversion is underway - we can already show you the translation of the footballers' run animation into a new technology - you can check this out here (footballers run after the cursor, you can check how they behave - of course, the animation is accelerated). This conversion will be a temporary solution for the coming months (due to the end of flash support at the end of the year).
At the same time, work on a new visualization of the match engine was contracted - it will be straightaway prepared in two versions - 2D and 3D. It will include new, higher quality animations and a higher overall level of graphics. However, the work will last until the end of the year.
- _james
- 2020-07-17
In recent weeks you have had the opportunity to see the mock-ups of the new Sokker - they were only a map of functionalities, not a graphic design proposal. Works on the new look of the site have been going on for several weeks and today we would like to present 4 design propositions, which are an important step for us to continue working.
Please provide feedback on the new graphics, give us suggestions, and fill out the survey. We tried not to overdevelop it, so we are asking for answers to only a few key questions.
Survey link
Here you will find links to the 4 proposals:
Option 1: https://ibb.co/ZVK7pTB
Option 2: https://ibb.co/BZ2nKpW
Option 3: https://ibb.co/8cvr1vs
Option 4: https://ibb.co/Ptj9T40
- _james
- 2020-07-10
We are coming back this week with the next stage of work on User Experience. This time, we prepared training-related views, because we feel that this element of the game is currently underdeveloped, and many users monitor the progress of their teams through external programs.
IMPORTANT: the projects you see today are mock-ups - sketches of the new page, showing how its navigation will work, how the elements will be arranged, and what the information architecture will be. These are NOT graphic designs. We are currently working on the new graphic design, and the mock-ups you see are only a starting point. However, this is a separate step in our work. Therefore, when assessing and commenting on these works, remember that we are talking about sketches, not the final project.
Prepared views fulfill several functions:
1. They present changes related to the training reform (10 training slots to be filled) - it shows how it will be possible to assign players to "advanced" training;
2. They add additional views that allow you to track training progress in several different configurations - weekly reports and general statistics for the senior/junior team;
3. They add a table view in the training history of a selected player, showing his progress over time;
4. They show the coaching staff’s view, they also complement it with showing the "effectiveness" of individual members of the staff.
Work is still underway on the view of the charts presenting changes in player attributes.
UX projects can be seen here. Use the cursor (right/left) to switch views.
For these projects, we also ask you to rate and give suggestions that will help us improve the proposed solutions.
The link to the form is here.
At the same time, works related to the visual identity of the game are ongoing parallel to the UX work. In just a week, we will present 3 new designs for discussion and evaluation.
- dewb
- 2020-07-07
Chapter 1 of the rules about Registration, has changed. The main changes are related to the use of VPNs, TOR, or other IP modifying tools, and some rules about the country where a user is registered and the country where he actually lives.
Please read it as it may affect both new users and current users. If you have any doubts about the changes and how it may affect you and your team, please contact the staff.
The changes are already published in English and will be gradually translated into other languages.
- _james
- 2020-07-03
In recent weeks, many linguists have done a great job helping us translate information about the development of the game and distribute our diaries locally. The work of linguists has changed over the weeks from volunteering to a much more professional work, and also more important work - their responsibilities will probably increase in the future due to the essential support in translating of the new game elements that will be introduced.
That is why we decided to give more prestige to the Linguist position and to reward people who support us in this way with PLUS.
Moreover, the number of Linguists will be adjusted to our current capabilities - we decided to support the 20 most key languages (they cover around 95% of all users) - we will work on these languages officially.
Of course, we do not exclude the development of less popular languages - that will be possible under the existing rules, where smaller communities have undertaken the same translations. We will provide solutions that allow it, but they will be additional languages - not covered by an additional benefit in the form of Plus for people who decide to do such work.
At the same time, we will make minor permissions changes in the coming week that will allow Linguists to use the source content - so they can, for example, copy the content of the post intended for the translation along with the original formatting.
Arcade match error - putting the player on TL
The arcade matches bug has been corrected, there will no longer be situations where a player was willing to be placed on the Transfer List after playing these unofficial matches. The error was eliminated at the beginning of the week.
Other bugs related to arcade matches (impact on the ranking & increase of experience and teamwork) already have prepared fixes - however, they are related to the morning Game Updates, which have been completely rewritten into new code and are currently waiting for testing. After carrying out these tests the issues will also disappear.