Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the FVPA.
It would seem that with the release of FIFA 12 looming closer and closer that the clubs community has suffered some unrest, most likely due to boredom and frustration with EA. It is no secret that the Xbox 360 side of the community are especially frustrated as VP’s are being hacked and 8ft giants and small super strength players are popping up game after game and this is obviously an area where EA really need to act, unfortunately it would seem that with FIFA 12 so close the official stance of EA is to say “It’ll be fixed in the next game and no patch will be released”. This understandably has caused some unrest and many of the community have wanted to name these cheaters or vent their frustrations which has led to the FVPA having to crack down pretty hard on those abusing the swear filter, posting abusive messages to other members of the community, baiting and even in a few cases racism has flared up. The FVPA has a very strong stand point on racism and the few that have been deemed to have made racist remarks have been banned and the FVPA will not change its view on this, which is fully understandable as I think any sensible member of the community would agree. However, after a recent run of rule breaking and general unrest the FVPA, as mentioned before, have had to crack down hard on members and this seems to have had numerous results on members of the community.
For the largest part the FVPA's members who are sensible and mature have accepted that this was just a case of a few ruining it for the majority and that the warnings needed to be given whilst some, including many of the trouble instigators, have decided to move on to other sites or use a combination of the FVPA and another site/s. Thankfully due to the FVPA’s strong standpoint the warnings have slowed down dramatically as they have eliminated numerous trouble instigators from using the site and now calm seems to be restoring itself.
This brings me onto the subject of this blog, which is about the small pocket communities popping up from the FVPA, trying to guide the community the FVPA has built away from the FVPA and onto other pastures that are presented as green and beautiful but actually have some pretty poor roots.
One of these communities I will refer to as FCW, I could give a full link and name but I don’t see why the site should get any free advertisement when it is a watered down copy of the FVPA that seems intent on playing dirtying the FVPA name in order to improve their own. This may not be the case of all of the owners/staff/members of their site but it certainly is the case for some.
My main reason to address this site is because stupid and unfounded comments such as “the FVPA is afraid of a little competition” or “the FVPA has copied FCW” have been made and the FVPA remains professional in its attitude and refuses to lower itself to the FCW’s level. Now at this point I can see the word “hypocrite” already boiling up in the mouths of some of the FCW’s staff and users but I would like to make something clear... the FVPA have advised me not to address this and instead to just carry on doing the work I have been doing on the FVPA. They have a very strong stand point of ignoring things such as this and just getting on with improving their own site. I can understand why FVPA Kelley and FVPA Mark have taken this stance and as an FVPA administrator I can respect it too, however I am also my own person and one thing I have received compliments on is speaking my mind rather than taking a professional stance every time. This is why I again want to reiterate that this blog is my own personal view and has been made against the wishes of the other FVPA administration team and whilst it may result in some frowns from the FVPA I feel it is necessary to make a point. The point being that the low comments/statements being made are unfounded.
Now I’ll move onto the first statement, “The FVPA has copied FCW”. This comment was made after the FVPA added an introductions area and a tournaments subsection to their forums, two areas that the FCW had first, so this is copying surely? Well it can be seen that way but it is not the case, the FVPA added the tournaments section because a member of its staff has decided to run a lot of tournaments on various other games due to FIFA 11 coming to an end of its clubs cycle. There was nothing more to it than that, a request for a new area by a member of staff who does not use the FCW. The introduction area was suggested in the FVPA feedback section by a new user who wanted a place to introduce himself, the FVPA were simply giving a user something that they had requested and felt that the area was necessary due to the number of new users that visit the site and with FIFA 12 coming it will only prove to be useful for the newer members.
If this was America and this was a court case it would be at this point that a countersuit would be put into action and this is basically what I’m going to do... turn the tables.
Upon looking at FCW the first thing you’ll notice is the community and Pro Clubs sections are set out almost identically. The Community section is actually a carbon copy of the FVPA with Off Topic, Football, Graphics and Other games. When the FCW was made the FVPA had Off Topic, Real Football, Graphics and Video Games... funny that.
The forum layout aside the next thing to look at are the details:
• The graphics section has a graphics team, something the FVPA put in place a very long time ago.
• The staff have “FCW” in front of their names e.g. FCW Eskimo, something the FVPA have done for a long time e.g. FVPA Kelley
• Medals – An administrator for FCW has stated “There will be a medal/awards system - awaiting a forum update first to fix all the little bugs there are.” The FVPA put the medal system in place a long time ago, it was actually something I suggested.
• FCW Phil has suggested that FCW will be running a goal of the week competition, surprise surprise this is something the FVPA have had for a very long time.
• A Twitter account was made for FCW after it was suggested that it was “vital” and I quote “something similar to the FVPA's”
• An Ultimate Team section has been scheduled to be added to FCW, the FVPA did this around a month ago after many users expressed an interest in it.
• The very first FCW tournament... “soccer sixes”, was a tournament that the FVPA had already run in the past named “Super Sixes”
• FCW now seem to be discussing the thought of having International Teams... iFVPA ring any bells?
• FCW have also been discussing a League, again, something the FVPA has already put into place.
With all of that the one copy I found the most blatant and funny was the attempt to copy the FVPA’s promo video as you can see below:
FVPA Promo trailer:
FCW Promo trailer:
(notice the spelling mistake of Virtual?)
So I think it’s safe to say that the FCW making accusations of the FVPA copying their site is pretty much a case of the pot calling the kettle black and holds no weight at all.
The second accusation is that the FVPA feels “threatened” by some competition. As it stands the FVPA is the best and biggest clubs based website in the UK and one of the biggest in the World and is only going from strength to strength. As I write this blog the FVPA are around 2 months into production of a revamp/upgrade that will revolutionise the way that it functions, moving from manually run tournaments and leagues to automated one with interactive features for the users. There is also a lot more going on that cannot be discussed but the FVPA looks to give even more to the community come FIFA 12 and will continue to work as an associate of EA.
The idea that the FCW is a threat to the FVPA is obviously flawed as the FCW has been using the FVPA as a benchmark for its own site and is run and owned by members who used the FVPA for the majority of FIFA 11, the owners and staff running the FVPA are Gamechangers and have a very good website building knowledge and past as well as some fantastic graphics designers who do not copy work. The FVPA are associated with EA, something very few sites can say and this comes from dedication to the clubs community.
This will be the first and last time I speak on this subject as I do not want to get into a slanging match but after so many sly comments and unfounded statements have been made I think it was only right to address the situation, the FVPA are not threatened by any other community site, it is only focused on delivering the best clubs experiences whilst maintaining a good environment for users of all ages and backgrounds and are not concerned about other websites agendas.
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