Database as of the start date

[Lenzar]

Something that annoys me slightly is that the game starts on a given date (usually early July). This in itself is fine, but my annoyance is at the fact that the game-start database includes all transfers made AFTER that date.

Is there any reason I can't have the database as the RL world was on the same date? I might not want to sell or buy the same players as the RL manager.

[santy001]

There is a cut-off date we get provided as researchers where all events before this date are included in the game, all events after are for the next data release (with a few exceptions for extra things that can be put in).

There's a cut off date that allows us to keep a check against:
Transfer Budget
Wage Budget
Injuries
Players
+ More

Because a signing can be due to an injury but still impacts upon the budget its very hard to just strip out the single element of the signing. There always has to be a cut off date up to which to include things and the end of the transfer window is generally the most sensible one because it stops players from loading up in a situation where a club has bought their cheap replacement for Player A, but Player A hasn't left in his £25m transfer yet because IRL his transfer to Team X didn't go through until 3 or 4 days later. But the money has already been passed over so Team X have no player and no money. 

The simple suggestion would be to say to simply do it for all things, but the truth is it just doesn't work that way with how the game database seems to work at present. What's more, because of how the database works, each date would have to be a its own individual database to be loaded up when starting a new game. That would dramatically inflate the size of the game. 

It might change in the future, but currently it would be an enormous undertaking from a research perspective and just logistically for SI as well.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.