Given that Creation Centre IS NOT COMPATIBLE with CEP patches, I have stopped using it completely and uninstalled it from my system.
However, this leaves me/us with the problem of how to edit data in the game i.e mainly transfers, international selections, collar types, ball ids, stadium ids, attributes, appearance etc

There appears to be 3 possible solutions:
1 - use EA Sport's clunky in-game menus and exhaust the battery life of my wireless game contoller
2 - learn how to use (Microsoft Access possibly ?) as this was used to create the CEP patches

OR Best Case scanario
3 - We have some very talented people out there, and I am sure that one/some of you could design a database application with a groovy GUI so that thickos like myself can edit the data without conflicting with the CEP protocol
I personally would even be prepared to pay a small fee if such a program were made available.

I never go near career mode in FIFA 06 (as I get bored paying with the same team all the time) and I am sure there are :ewan: a lot a gamers who share this view.
Also I think it fairly safe to say that the community at large is now aware that data cannot be edited AFTER you start a career game or a crash will result.

Give me some feedback good people of FIFA land....

Can I assume from the welter of responses that my view is a minority one ?

I'm not sure what makes creation center uncompatible with CEP, as I am still able to use it with no problems at all. The only thing is, after I use creation center, I must use ariel's fatbuilder to rebuild the fat file for it to work. Thats even after the creation center says it builds the file.

Sorry for your loss
,

Its easy using Access, Filemaster etc.....creation centre sux.

Dave

Mmmm..interesting responses.

Exerslow: can I assume you are very PC literate, as I find importing graphics via Filemaster a very frustrating exercise, and I don't find using Access on the db files particularly intuitive.

Comma:When you edit just the database using Creation centre why do the fat files have to be rebuilt at all, surely this would only be required if graphic files were imported in the editing ?

Anyway, I'm going to give Creation Centre another bash and see if rebuliding the fat (using the SoccerAccess utility) does the trick for the rosters.

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply guys

Comma:When you edit just the database using Creation centre why do the fat files have to be rebuilt at all, surely this would only be required if graphic files were imported in the editing ?


Good question. I honestly dont know. I do know, that whenever i exit creation center, it asks me if I want it to rebuild the files and i say yes. Then, I rebuild them again using the socceraccess tool. Sometimes twice. And so far, so good.

Cheers
,

Nah, I know enough but I'm not that extremely computer savvy. I saw that a lot of hardcore editors dispensed with Creation Centre and its bugginess, so I followed suit.

Using Filemaster is very easy, you just have to know your way around the zdatas. I extracted everything to my hard drive (heads, faces, hairs etc.) and kept them laballed as per their zdata folders in the game so that re-importing would be a snap.

As for Access, you just have to know which table to modify. Its super-easy and rock-solid. Everything is just learning what and where, which requires practice. It seems as though FIFA06 is very unstabel at the best of times so using Creation centre can only exacerbate that. Thats why I stayed completely away from it as per advice from some of the upper-echelon editors.

There's nothing you cant learn if you really want to.

Dave

I have to confirm what Dave wrote: if you wanna seriously edit Fifa you have to use Access (maybe Excel for some tasks), Photoshop/Photopaint, Filemanager and Tournament Master. Stop, the other stuff will raise a lot of problems. Of course to do this you need a lot of time and patience: can't "create" something just with a mouse click: each single player needs work.

My two cents:There are some things that I use the CC for, there are other things that I prefer Rinaldo's DB Master for - eg. I had a career going and I made some pretty radical changes to my database, like promoting Sheffield U and Reading and demoting Sunderland and Birmingham City... my career never skipped a beat and I never rebuilt anything. Rinaldo suggested that his Tournament Master was perfect for promotions/demotions and I just downloaded it to give it a go too...

To each his own, though... but I think saying stuff like "CC sucks because it doesn't work with CEP" is like saying Fifa sucks because WE/Pes is better. It all depends on what you want to do, and what you like.

:ewan:

Ok, lots of good feedback now, thanks for that guys. the overriding impression I get is that Access editing is the way to go, so I'm gonna take the plunge and learn how to use that.
Question: is there at least a ready made forms template database that I can use from the start ?

Youuse UniDB to convert the fifa.db to Access.
Dave

Hey Keegan, you said that while you were playing a CAREER you altered the database. I thought any alterations to the database once a career was rolling ruined the career?

Dave

I thought the same... before I used the DB Master and did those changes and resumed my career... I even quit my career and played a friendly Prem match with Bolton and Reading... (Bolton won!)

:ewan:

CC is not able to import faces :/
like it Was in 2005 ver.

I have yet to use DB Master..perhaps the lack of converting back and forth can save the ability to continue careers. I'll have to look into this as I want to change some of the team-stadium links to Bollaert as new stadiums become available.

Dave

I have yet to use DB Master..perhaps the lack of converting back and forth can save the ability to continue careers. I'll have to look into this as I want to change some of the team-stadium links to Bollaert as new stadiums become available.

Dave

I imported the Reebok Stadium and renamed the Bollaert Stad during my career as well...looks much better when Bolton run on to the pitch to see the proper stad name... :ewan:

I have yet to use DB Master..perhaps the lack of converting back and forth can save the ability to continue careers. I'll have to look into this as I want to change some of the team-stadium links to Bollaert as new stadiums become available.

Dave
In my opinion it is not a matter of the tool but of what you modify in the db.
Probably something can be changed without affecting the carrer (e.g. collar geometry, stadium name, and many others) and something will make your career to crash (e.g. the templayerlink table).

Looks like I'll have to play around with renaming links etc. in the "test" installation of FIFA on my other hard drive to see what I can modify and get away with. I would like to just change a few team-stadium links to Bollaert so that I can import more of the recent stadium creations on an as-needed basis when I play those teams.

Dave