With the new season about a couple of days away, Hattrick activity shows no sign of abating. The transfer market showed a slight dip at best only to leap above the heights of TCFU’s heady aspirations as we race into a season of change. After slightly over 6 seasons in the game, the changes in fans expectation, training and match engine have gotten the conferences buzzing in anticipation. It’s as if nothing is sacred anymore and changes seem to beckon for everything related to the game with the possible exception of the much talked about but seldom attended EOS at A&W!

Some veterans of the game are advocating caution, pointing to the game developer’s penchant for getting carried away with descriptions, while the more proactive players have been diligently documenting the effects of friendly games in a desperate push to quantify the effects for any advantage that foresight may hold.

To be on the safe side, I’d recommend reading the editorials on Hattrick if you haven’t already done that. The important changes to note where the impact is not arbitrary (in my opinion and this is by no means complete) is:

- Minute based training which is in my mind more practical than “last played position”. But this would also impact players who are injured or red carded during a game…

- The impact of SP skills on wages… no more free rides there, although the quantitative impact remains to be seen (for example, what is the wage attributed to a trick

- Fans expectations – know what your fans expect and try to at least live up it or risk incurring dissatisfaction which in turn will hurt ticket sales and ensure that your arena will need to host some cantopop concerts just to make ends meet!

There’s simply too much for me to cover in one blog posting, but take it from a fairly active player… RTFM again!

Season 21 comes to an end with the final league game this weekend, followed by qualification rounds on the coming week.

How was this season for all of you?