Hattrick (video game)

This article is about the browser game. For the sports term, see hat-trick.

Hattrick.org
Developer(s)	Hattrick Limited (division of ExtraLives AB)
Designer(s)	Björn Holmér
Platform(s)	Any computer connected to the internet
Release	August 30, 1997 (V.1) January 6, 2002 (V.6)
Genre(s)	MMOG
Mode(s)	Single player

Hattrick (also known internally simply as HT) is an online, browser-based, football management game (MMOG) developed and based in Sweden. Currently the game contains 112 different countries, each with its own league pyramid, and 36 different language versions. As of October 2006, the game had over 900,000 users, each with his own team. Hattrick is in its 30th season and has been running since August 30, 1997. Most users cite Season 11, which began October 15, 2000, as the beginning of Hattrick as it is today.

The game is completely free to play, though there is an optional Supporter Service as well as a Mobile Service, both available by in-game purchase. The normal service includes the ability to change the training type, hire and fire your staff, buy and sell players, set your lineup for the match, invest in a youth squad, and run the club as an owner of a football club would. As with any manager game, the player must assign positions to the players and choose among some basic tactical and strategic options. Hattrick is always under development, and the game developers are constantly adding new features to the game and enhancing the current ones. These additions, and proposed ideas, are usually accompanied by debate in the game's conferences.

Basics

File:Hattrick Screen.png

Hattrick Screenshot

Every user in Hattrick has a team of his/her own. The user has almost unlimited control over their team, as long as he plays within the economic and tactical restrictions. As a result, many different types of teams in Hattrick exist. The team's type is generally shaped by the training program set up by the user, as well as the formations played.

Registration

Hattrick is unique in that all registrations must be validated by a non-automated Hattrick GM (one of five types of administrators within Hattrick). This validation period is required to prevent automated mass registrations and generally lasts a few days after the user has requested a team, but may last as long as a month if the user's country is filled to capacity and has a long waiting list. Once users have submitted a request, they may see their position in the country's waiting list by logging in to their newly created name. After the administrator has validated that the user does not already have a team and is indeed a resident of their requested country, the user receives a team. Nearly always, the newbie takes over someone's old, defunct team and the team's position in the league structure with an initial set of players, a weak coach, a small stadium, fanclub, and staff; once in a while and much more common in smaller or newer countries, the owner will take over a "bot team," or a team in control by the server. There is no advantage or disadvantage to what type of team a player takes over; every team begins with roughly the same skill level of players. The player is then free to manage his or her squad, sell and purchase the players, define a training scheme, and so forth.

Gameplay

Hattrick combines elements of economic management, tactical options, and community interaction. To consistently win, it is necessary for a manager to utilize all three of these elements. The basic idea of Hattrick is to manage a football team wisely, whether it be in buying and selling players, setting the team's lineup, or expanding the arena to the perfect size. The main tasks of a manager every week include choosing a friendly if the team is not in the national cup, setting the optimal lineups for both the league game and cup/friendly game, "pulling" a player from the team's youth squad and either selling, keeping, or firing that player as needed, monitoring the team's training program to track the progress of the trainees, and tracking the economic progress of the team from week to week to make sure the club is making a profit over time.

During almost every hattrick week, a dedicated manager completes all of these tasks. In addition, teams have a number of tasks that must be completed, including transferring players as needed, expanding the arena if necessary, and hiring the best staff for the team's needs. Hattrick is never-ending, but the vast majority of teams play to win games and ultimately reach the top of the league's pyramid; therefore, when a team consistently wins games at every level, that team has "won" the game. Managing a Hattrick team to success takes patience and skill, as well as a little luck.

Structure of the Game

League Pyramid

Each country has its own league pyramid. Abandoned teams in high levels of the league pyramid are generally not given to new players until the team demotes toward the bottom of the pyramid over time. As a result, new users begin at the bottom of their country's pyramid and have to work their way up by winning their division at each level. Each division has eight teams competing for the league title. When new players join, their division is randomly selected by the administrator who handles their registration application. If a player is successful enough to win their division, he or she has the opportunity to promote to the next level the following season; depending on the division level of the team and the team's relative performance when compared with other winners from their level, the league winner either auto-promotes to the next level or plays a qualification match against a team from the higher division.

Hattrick League Promotion and Demotion System*
Position	Division I Result	Div. II, III, IV, V	Div. VI	Div. VII and below (odd)	Div. VIII and below (even)
1st	National Champion	Auto-promotion or Qualifier		Auto-promotion
2nd				Auto-promotion
3rd	Team stays in their current league
4th
5th	Relegation Qualifier (except lowest division)
6th
7th	Auto-Relegation (except lowest division in country)
8th
* - After the league restructuring following Season 28

Winners in divisions II - VI will auto-promote if they are in the top half of the ranking among other winners in their league level as determined by total points and goals. If the team is in the bottom half, they will draw a qualifier opponent. Winners in divisions VII and below automatically promote. In addition, depending on the level, teams who place 2nd through 4th in the lower divisions may also have a chance of promoting, as detailed in the table above. At every level except the bottom division in a country, the teams placing 5th or 6th must play a qualifier against a team from the division below them. Teams placing 7th or 8th automatically demote to a division below theirs, and are replaced by auto-promotees.

Seasons

File:Hattrick LeagueFixtures.png

The league schedule of all teams in Hattrick

Each Hattrick season is made up of 16 weeks. The start of a season is generally considered to be the first game in league play. Hattrick is played in semi-real time, meaning that matches take 2 hours to complete, and teams only play one league match per week, true to real life. To accelerate the flow of the game, however, the "offseason" time is reduced to only two weeks. Every team plays a schedule of 14 league games per season: 7 games at home and 7 games on the road. Every series is made up of 8 teams, and teams play each other twice during a season. The exact schedule is determined based on the team's previous position in the league, and remains constant for all series in Hattrick from season to season.

Teams generally spend the 14-game season managing their team tactically and occasionally making economic moves. Managers are responsible for scheduling "friendlies," which occur during the week; if the team is still in the National Cup, a single-elimination bracket-style tournament among the majority of the teams in that nation, then that team does not have to schedule a friendly. Though friendlies are not mandatory by any means, teams use friendlies to play their backup players and trainees from their training program who did not play in the league game. Players also gain experience from playing in all matches: two "experience points" for every cup match, one for every league match, and roughly 0.2 for every friendly; thus, by playing two matches per week, the team's experience improves more rapidly.

During the two-week offseason, teams take the time to manage their team economically and buy or sell players to improve their team's chances in the approaching season. The offseason is the most popular time to use the transfer market, since players age during the offseason and thus teams are eager to sell their players before they grow older. The wages of players also update during the offseason, along with various other updates. Managers may change the name of their team or change regions within their country during the offseason. In the conferences of each country, election threads clutter the forum as the country selects the next manager of the National Team in the next World Cup. After the offseason has commenced, the next season of 16 weeks begins.

History

Hattrick was launched in 1997. At that time, Björn Holmér was the sole developer of the game. Its initial launch lasted only seven weeks (or rounds), and all changes to the team were made by submitting a HTML form with the user's username and password, meaning that the user never actually logged in to the interface. The release was re-coded and Version 2.0 was launched. The new release allowed for a total of 680 teams and added a few features still available today, such as the transfer list and a league pyramid (though teams' positions in the series were determined by random selection during the offseason). Season two also saw the first ever international match, between Sweden and Denmark, with Denmark winning 1-2. This match was relatively meaningless, however, since the teams' players were clones of each other. A new version was re-launched the following season, and this release marked the debut of friendly matches and cup matches. The following season, Season 4, also added features such as training types beyond General, Set Pieces, and Stamina, and an expanded set of in-game skill levels.

Season 7, which began in July 1999, marked some real progress in the game. New tactical options were added so that teams could change their formation from the fundamental 4-4-2. Teams could also set their players' individual tactics, such as offensive or defensive. After Season 7, ExtraLives AB was formed and the team began development of Version 5.0. Roughly nine months later, Hattrick V.5 was launched.

Season 11: Modern Interface

Season 11 marked the launch of Hattrick 5.0, and with it the current graphical interface. Hattrick also added more nations beyond Sweden: Denmark, Finland, Argentina, Germany, England, Italy, Spain (later changed to Mexico), and the USA. Users who had previously played in Sweden and new users alike filled these nations. At this time the game had a capacity of roughly 12,000 users. The launch of Hattrick 5 shaped the game as it is today, adding features such as live matches, which replaced the matches that previously occurred during downtime each night, instant transfer processing, 15 different player skill levels including the current peak level 'divine,' and the "stars" system for player performance rating.

Following Season 11, additional important changes also took place. At the beginning of Season 12 teams were placed in the same series as they finished and the promotion/demotion system was established. Hattrick Supporter was launched before Season 13, and the conferences system was added for Season 14. Hattrick mobile was also added in time for Season 14. With these changes, the game began to grow much more quickly, and development was made easier since for the first time the developers actually made money from the game beyond advertisement revenue. Then, Season 15 introduced even more changes.

Season 15: Version 6 Released

Season 15, which began in January 2002, marked the launch of Version 6, the current version of Hattrick. Version 6 added the first official National Teams, and with it World Cups and International Friendlies. The first World Cup was held at the end of the season, with Sweden beating England 4-0. The developers also added Special Events, a concept very familiar to those playing today. Special Events allowed players with special traits (such as Powerful or Head specialist) to perform a certain way in a match, whether by scoring a goal, surprising an opponent, or growing more tired due to the sun. Version 6 did not solve the growing economic problems within the game, however. The developers resorted to giving out 200,000 Euros (or the equivalent in each country's currency) to each team to boost the in-game economy, which had entered the equivalent of a depression.

Season 29: League reform

Announced more than a season in advance, the league reform was a major project that was completed during the off-season prior to season 29, in April 2006. At this time, the game's membership was 800,000 strong and the largest countries had swelled to over 60,000 users each, or 12 levels. The league reform intended to solve the problem of league pyramid capacity, since the growth of larger leagues, such as The Netherlands or Sweden, had made it necessary to add a new pyramid level almost every season. Before the league reform, the league pyramid only expanded in size from division 1 to division 6; pyramid levels in division 6 and below were all comprised of 1024 leagues. Combined with the fact that new teams are only assigned in the bottom two divisions, this pyramid structure caused major problems with "bot teams," or ownerless teams, as they were accumulating in the lower divisions of large HT nations; Hattrick relies on the regular promotion/relegation system to move bot teams to the bottom of league pyramids over time.

When the bot problem was at its worst, about half of the teams in a league level in Argentina, a country that would otherwise fill its league pyramid, were bots, which barely offered any resistance for the active teams. To alleviate this problem, the league structure was changed so that levels 8 and 9 would double in size to 2048 leagues, and 10 and below would increase to 4096 leagues. Following this restructuring, all bot teams at that time were relegated to the bottom division, replacing them by promoting extra teams from lower divisions.

Community

Map of the current Hattrick countries, organized by global region

Hattrick's userbase of over 900,000 from 108 different countries interact using a variety of tools: the in-game conference system, Hattrick mail (usually shortened to HT-mail), and offsite forums among them. Users who buy Supporter also have guestbooks and may join federations. The design of Hattrick makes community interaction almost a necessity, especially to achieve high levels of success.

Conferences

The in-game conference system may be accessed from the main menu. Within the conferences, users browse the forums in "flat view." Users may join as many or as few forums as they like. Forums exist for every series, country, region, CHPP Program, and federation in the game, along with a Global forum. In addition, there are forums for "newbies" to ask questions about the game, as well as both country-level and global "non-HT" forums, in which free discussion of topics outside of Hattrick may occur. The majority of conference discussion is Hattrick related and occurs in either Global, Newbie forums, Country forums, or Federation forums. The forum uses basic BBCode, and discussion is moderated by both GameMasters and Moderators.

Administrators

Hattrick has five types of administrators, each with its own prefix for usernames. Every administrator also has a Hattrick account and team, just as normal users do. Administrators are chosen by many different methods, depending on the type of administrator, but there is no way to apply for an administrative position within the game.
The Hattrick Team (HT-)
The Hattrick Team members (more frequently referred to as Devs or HTs) are responsible for game development and maintenance, both software and hardware-related. Most HTs are hired by ExtraLives AB and work in Stockholm, Sweden, the location of the Hattrick servers. Hattrick Ltd., however, is registered in Gibraltar where HT-Johan (one of its founders) works. The devs are the only administrators who actually have special access to the game's code.
GameMasters (GM-)
GameMasters (GMs) have many in-game responsibilities, such as processing user account creations, catching and punishing cheaters, and assisting players with various problems with their team. Two types of GMs exist - "Global" GMs, who are responsible for multiple countries and global problems, and Country-specific GMs, who are solely responsible for problems within their country. All GMs are also conference moderators. Generally the number of GMs within a country is proportional to the number of users in that country, though this is not always the case.
Conference Moderators (MOD-)
Conference Moderators (Mods) are responsible for management of the in-game conference system. Mods may issue conference bans for unruly users, move or close threads that are in the wrong forum, against the rules, or have gone off topic, and create "sticky" posts about important issues such as the offseason election schedule. Both MODs and GMs may issue bans for behavior against "the spirit of the rules" even if the action is not explicitly against the game rules. This discrepancy has led to allegations of corruption within the administrative structure, though such claims are rarely backed by legitimate proof.
Language Administrators (LA-)
Language Administrators are responsible for translating text into the many different languages of Hattrick. When a new language is released, LAs are usually behind the translation for the release. LAs also translate Hattrick announcements upon release and may assist with the communication between administrators or between users and administrators.
CHPP Admins (CHPP-)
CHPP administrators are responsible for managing and certifying CHPP applications, third party products that are approved to function as a supplement to Hattrick. CHPP admins verify that applications are within the rules for third party products and also provide assistance with coding CHPP products to function with Hattrick.

Continental Distribution of Hattrick Teams
Continent	Number of Teams	% Total Teams
Europe	1,011,080	77.2%
South America	197,432	15.1%
Asia	57,608	4.4%
North America	29,832	2.3%
Oceania	10,920	0.8%
Africa	3,216	0.2%
Data current as of Season 29

Geographic Distribution

The large community of Hattrick has long been the source of many statistical pages studying the growth of users. Most users agree that the two largest markets for Hattrick are South America and Europe, very much unlike most other MMOGs where North America and Asia are the largest markets. This distribution stems mainly from the interest in football in those areas. Several countries have taken an unusually large interest in Hattrick, such as the Faroe Islands, a small group of partially independent North Atlantic islands which as of May 2006 had a user base equal to 1/70th of the country's entire population. The Faroe Islands were originally included in Denmark, but the developers were obliged to create a separate country when the large Faroese userbase campaigned for their Hattrick independence. Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, and the game's home country of Sweden are also among the largest percentage userbases in relation to their population. On the other side of the equation, countries such as India, China and Japan have existed for a long time in Hattrick but have failed (at least with respect to the internet market in the countries) due to a combination of language and cultural barriers.

International Play

Past World Cup Winners
Cup	NT Winner	U-20 Winner
I	Sweden	Sweden
II	Sweden	Sweden
III	Sweden	Romania
IV	Norway	Norway
V	Sweden	Romania
VI	Sweden	Estonia
VII	Sweden	Norway
VIII	Germany	In Progress

Since Season 15 in Hattrick, countries have been competing against each other. Very similarly to real-life international play, each country forms a National Team (usually called the NT) and a U-20 National Team (usually shortened to U-20) comprised of the best players in that nation. Owning a National Team player is considered a great honor and also has the benefit of a wage reduction, since players of national team-level skill generally have very high wages. Each country selects a manager of their national team and U-20 team through an election during each offseason; terms last for two seasons and are staggered so that only one election occurs per offseason. Once countries have chosen a manager and that manager has selected his roster of players, the team begins International Play.

International Play takes three forms - National Team Friendlies, which are very similar to friendlies of regular teams, Qualification round matches, and World Cup matches. During the Qualification round of the World Cup, every team competes in groups and the top two teams from each group qualify for the World Cup. The qualification round takes place over the first season of a national manager's term. If a team qualifies for the World Cup, they compete in groups of four, with the top two teams advancing from each round. After four rounds, the number of teams is narrowed to four, and the semifinals and finals occur. After the final match has taken place, medals are awarded to the top four teams in the cup: gold for the first place team, silver for the second place team, and bronze for the two semifinalists. As of Season 29, nine world cups and eight U-20 world cups have been completed. Sweden leads the medal count by far, with eight gold medals, a silver medal, and a bronze medal. This disproportionate distribution has led to the belief that the game's developers have an unfair bias toward Sweden, a belief almost always refuted by the administrators.

Premium Features

Though Hattrick is free to play, the game costs money to run and requires a certain amount of income in addition to advertising revenue to stay functional. The game's shop offers a few different extra features in addition to the more traditional t-shirt offering and, occasionally, a Hattrick calendar designed by the same artist who designed the Hattrick graphics.

Supporter

File:Hattrick Bob.png

Bob Sunesson was an easter egg for Hattrick Supporters and for many years was the most beloved player in the Hattrick world.

The most common purchase is Hattrick Supporter. The purchase of supporter unlocks a number of features considered by many to be the best features of the game, such as federations or the arena designer. "Hattrick Supporter will not give your team any in-game advantages, but rather deepen your experience of the game," according to the game developers. Supporter costs roughly $30 per year (or $9 if purchasing for three months) and is a one-time non-subscription purchase. In addition to receiving a star next to their name in conference posts and on their team page, supporters also access a large number of premium features.

Supporters can join up to five federations, which are essentially extra conferences. Some federations offer additional off-site features to members, such as an automated logo designer or team statistics. Federations commonly organize friendly cups amongst members or interfed cups against other federations. Anyone can start a federation, so long as they have Supporter and an empty federation spot. However, federations must have at least five members within the first week of federation creation (and for every week after that), or they will be deleted.

Paying members have additional customization and interaction options on their club pages as well. Supporters can display their own team logo, design their own match kits, write press announcements, and view notes written to them in their guestbook. Only supporters can sign guestbooks, though anyone can view guestbooks. With Supporter users can also see the faces of the players in Hattrick, choose numbers from 1 to 99 for their players, retire their players to the hall of fame for their club, and write text for their players to say to anyone who happens to view that player's page. Supporters who viewed the team page of Bob Sunesson, a special player on one of the developers' teams, were treated to an easter egg in the game - Bob's face was covered by many different objects and changed upon each view. Bob was fired after Season 28 for an unknown reason, though it likely had something to do with the large amount of notes regarding Bob that HT-Tjecken, his owner, received.

Supporters receive a flag collection page, on which players can view their flags in four different categories: countries from which their supporters hail, countries their team has visited, countries from which their players originate, and countries in which players who originated in the squad are currently playing. Flag Collecting is a very popular hobby amongst supporters, particularly in the category of visiting countries. It is not uncommon for teams in small countries to receive upwards of 100 friendly requests in a week, since small countries are the hardest flags to collect. Those who enjoy designing buildings can design the appearance of their stadium in various different ways - choosing the layout of seats, adding a roof and lights, choosing the surrounding area in the city, and choosing colors for each addition, using the flash-based Arena Designer.

Supporters receive training reports which document training pops, or level jumps in skill. Supporters can also access a plethora of other statistics involving many aspects of the game - both statistics about their own team and general statistics about the league, including the top teams in certain criteria. Hattrick also offers several minor features to paid members, such as bookmarks and a notepad. Users may also support other teams, both supporter and non-supporter, and view the teams that support them. Finally, Supporters have the option to purchase a website for their team called a clubhouse. Clubhouses have many intricate statistics features and offer automatic updating of many team statistics. Users can customize many aspects of their clubhouse, similarly to the options available from a low-priced webhost.

Mobile

Hattrick Mobile is a service available in most of the world to anyone with a cell phone and the ability to receive text messages. The service uses SMS and requires in-game purchase of "credits." HT-Mobile costs between 12 and 17 cents per message received (per credit), depending on the credit package chosen by the user. New users receive a few free credits to try the service. Mobile users can set the server to send them a number of different messages, including their weekly training report, match reports instantly during a match, and transfer market updates. More recently the Mobile service has been expanded to include interactive options; users can send commands to the Hattrick mobile number which perform basic team functions.

Outside of the Game

The large Hattrick community has expanded the reach of the game well beyond the hattrick.org website. Many supplemental websites for the game seek to explain the game's inner workings to new players, while others simply offer easier methods of calculation and organization.

CHPP Applications

Certified Hattrick Product Providers (CHPP Applications) enhance the html-based game by accessing various site data from the server and using it to perform useful functions. Applications outside of Hattrick.org which use any form of automation (such as scanning pages) must be CHPP certified. CHPP Applications take many forms. Manager Assistants such as Hattrick Assistant Manager (HAM) and Hattrick Organizer (HO!) generally help managers by organizing various team data graphically and archiving that data. Manager Assistants also usually offer some sort of lineup calculator that calculates the ratings teams will achieve with a certain lineup. Match Viewers offer an enhanced method of viewing matches live beyond the in-game HT Live. Statistics scanners such as Maptrick and Hatstats offer in-depth analysis of in-game statistics. Other CHPP applications include Friendly Cup Assistants, Browser Plugins, and even online betting. Applications that are CHPP certified display a CHPP logo, and Hattrick users may login to the applications using their Hattrick username and a special security code for use with CHPP.

FC Hattrick

In February 2006 Hattrick announced that two real-life amateur teams had been formed by members in the Danish Hattrick community. The two clubs, FC Hattrick Aarhus and FC Hattrick Copenhagen, are sponsored by Hattrick.org and compete in amateur leagues.

Battrick

Hattrick has inspired a cricket game called Battrick that is based on similar principles and currently offers a 50-over ball-by-ball commentary for all league games. League games are played on a Friday. It is envisaged that multi-day games will be offered in future seasons. International squads have just been launched after a set of elections for each country.

See also

• ExtraLives AB, the company responsible for developing Hattrick
• Battrick
• Managerzone, major rival of Hattrick

External links

• Hattrick: http://hattrick.org
• Hattrick Wiki: http://wiki.hattrick.org
• Extralives: http://www.extralives.com