It should be a big business decision for you as the owner of your franchise.  Has your current city done enough for your franchise?  EA Sports Madden 25 gives you the option to look elsewhere for a more desirable suitor for the economic draw your business can provide.  Outside of choosing a city (which all have different perks), you will need to make decisions on a new name and/or logo, uniforms and facilities.  Choosing a stadium can be a pivotal decision in your financial structure, so be a good owner and make the right choices!

There are 10 Stadium Types, each with a Build Cost and a weekly cost.  You’ll also see the seating capacity, the number of suites, stadium size (level), market size, city personality, and stadium funding %.  You’ll also see some tweets of Fan opinions. You can click a to view the proposal as well.

There are proposals for each stadium that also breakdown the seating for the different sections (Suite, Lower, Middle, Upper) and the Facilities and what level that stadium’s facilities start at.  For example a Deluxe Futuristic Stadium comes with Deluxe Bathrooms Level 3.  I really wish I could show you guys some assets, because they show you what the stadium will look like.

Choosing a new city for your franchise offers a lot of new opportunities for your team.

Read the rest of the article here.  Follow shopmaster on twitter and ask him your CFN Relocation questions!

I was lucky enough to spend the better part of a week at the EA studio in Austin, TX a few weeks ago and see the changes to what has been re-branded ‘Connected Franchise Mode’ (CFM) (formerly Connected Careers Mode).  As senior designer Josh Looman walked us through the changes my heart began to do somersaults I last experienced in Madden 2005.  In sessions that lasted the lions share of a day, Josh walked us through the mode screen by screen, detailing change points and new features.  This wasn’t my first rodeo, I’ve been through a number of these sessions and frankly I was pretty overwhelmed with the scope of the work put into Connected Franchise Mode.  That said, there were spots where I had some disappointment and I will outline those later.

Where do I start with Connected Franchise Mode?  Starting at the macro level, ‘Owners Mode’ is back.  If you are expecting a superficial rehash of Madden 2004 you are going to be pleasantly surprised.  The biggest change point is the introduction of Team Value.  Team Value is an aggregation of other more tangible indicators, these include Team Success, Popularity, Staff, Stadium, Concession Sales, Merchandise Sales, and Ticket Sales.  Each of these indicators are influenced by decisions YOU make as an owner.  To add to these decisions, the media will ask you questions periodically and they impact your franchise down the line.  A good example of these inquiries is the media asking about Tony Romo and your plans for him.  Fans expectations will be shaped by these inquiries.

At any point in the season, you can see how you stack up against the other NFL franchises.   Sure, you can neglect the details of your franchise as an owner, but you will likely put yourself at a serious disadvantage. Money is now a tangible entity in game.  You need money to:

• Sign good staff members, which impacts player progression and regression.

• Keep your stadium at a level satisfactory to your fans.  You can’t earn money unless you can get people into the stadium.  The items you offer in the concessions are impacted by your teams facilities as well.

• You need it to pay bonus money to free agents.  If you can’t keep your popular players, the popularity of your team will wane, which will affect ticket, merchandise and concession sales.

Making sound financial decisions is very important for a franchises long term success.  Finding the correct balance between the various ticket price level, as well as the items in your concession areas is a rewarding mini game in itself.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg in this massive mode.  Stadium upgrades and team relocation has to be at the top of that list  If you are running a franchise and you are struggling to get fans into seats, it may very well be that you are fighting an uphill battle because you are stuck in the relative dark ages stadium wise.  No one wants to use terrible bathrooms or park ten miles from the stadium.  The money you earn in selling tickets and such can be used to renovate your existing stadium.  Upgraded to the maximum and still struggling?  You can put down a chunk of cash to build a new stadium.  Need a new stadium and can’t afford to finance one?  Perhaps there is a city out there that will help foot part of the bill.  That’s right, teams stuck in old stadium leaking money will have the opportunity to move to other cities.

I was very interested to see the implementation of team relocation.  I was afraid it would be like NCAA Football’s Team Builder, where you can move a franchise to any town and create terrible logos.  I was already cringing at the thought of playing the Hoover Buccaneers.  More importantly, as someone who mainly plays in and runs an online league (@TSO_TFML) I was already wringing my hands over filling an open spot after someone created an awful created team.  Fortunately, EA SPORTS went in a different direction.

When creating the team relocation feature, EA went to the NFL and procured a list of viable NFL cities.  After doing that, they created a selection of team names and back stories for each city.  Want to move to Brooklyn and recreate the Dodgers, go ahead!  How about move another franchise to Houston and resurrect the Oilers?  You can do that too.  In one of the smarter design decision in my opinion, EA took each city/name combination and asked Nike to create various uniforms for each combination.  That means each uniform will be professionally done, so I won’t ever have to play a team that uses “grass green” as a main color choice.

Back In The Fold

Last year when Madden NFL 13 introduced Connected Career Mode (CCM), many people were understandably upset that some of their favorite features didn’t make the jump from Franchise to CCM.  Those people can rejoice, many of those features have been reintroduced.  Remember being able to control all 32 teams?  You can do that again.  Did you love importing draft classes from NCAA Football? It has returned, although these imported players don’t have story lines   Player position changes are back, though you have to do it during the off-season   That means you can move Dwight Freeney back to defensive end if you want.  As it was explained to me, the reason for restricting movement to the off-season is tied to the generation of player goals.  Obviously different positions will have different goals, and changing those on the fly was understandably a difficult thing to implement.

The Devil Is In The Details

No one can argue that CCM could have used some polishing last cycle.  The team at EA SPORTS did exactly that this year, making Connected Franchise Mode both more intuitive to use and more feature laden.  The user interface has received a much needed overhaul, gone is the ‘Misc…’ menu which secreted away so many useful screens.  Overall, the user interface is smoother and similar actions are grouped together much better.  It isn’t all flash though, as new screens have been added to help keep track of league changes.  There is now a transaction log which details exactly what players have retired, signed with new teams, etc.  A new trade center screen helps you find just the right trade to improve your team.  Also, for those of us who run online leagues, there are more commissioner controls, namely the ability to reset the salary cap penalties for a team in case someone decides to grief on the way out the door of your league.

Under the hood, there are just as many changes that will impact your franchise over it’s life.  There have been changes made to the tuning of player progression and regression.  You’ll now see players have breakout seasons and have a corresponding boost in ratings.  Older players will now regress, at times to the point where they retire.  Running backs should no longer be viable at age 35.  Injuries now play a much bigger part, with your trainers impacting how much of a penalty a player receives for an injury.  Player attributes will be impacted by injuries, for example, an ACL tear combined with a poor recovery could cause a loss in speed, agility and acceleration.

One of my favorite tidbits I heard during my visit was the plan to help make the draft classes harder to catalog.  Personally, I loved the surprise of the created draft classes, but hated the fact that draft guides were made.  Those guides basically made it impossible to police people cherry picking good players.  It’s easy to police yourself if you play offline, but in an online league of 32 it takes a lot of trust.  After explaining this point of view to Josh Looman, he outlined some of his thoughts behind a plan to make it more difficult to create these guides. I’m interested to see how it turns out in the final build.

Future Items

Like I said in the introduction, there were some things I wish made the cut for this cycle and didn’t   At the top of that list for me is an implementation of coaching hires that uses coordinators and position coaches.  Another feature I was really hoping for was the ability to restructure contracts, but that wasn’t present in the build I saw.  Finally, I would have loved to see a draft board that coaches could set in case they are unable to attend the draft for their online Connected Franchise.  I don’t want to get into my personal wish list here, so I’ll leave that for another article.

Conclusion

Despite the items listed above, there is MUCH to be excited about in regards to Connected Franchise Mode.  Now that I am more intimate with the game design cycle, I realize just how much work it is to introduce changes of this magnitude. Frankly, I was taken aback by the depth introduced this cycle.  I know people will always find something to complain about, but the introduction of Connected Franchise Mode is a huge first step in what I expect to be an amazing mode in the future.  More important that the individual features implemented, I came away from Austin very impressed with the vision Josh Looman and company have for the future of Madden NFL.  I continue to be a HUGE fan of NFL Head Coach 09, which was the brainchild of Looman and I know that the off the field part of Madden NFL is going in a direction many people will enjoy.

Madden NFL 13 was the first iteration of Connected Career Mode for the title and a year in you have to say it did deliver on many fronts. The depth of the story lines, the online draft component, the social media integration all where great additions and a solid foundation to build a very deep franchise mode. It also brought back a TRUE online league mode with all the salary cap, free agency and trading bells and whistles we had been missing for years since they stopped making a PC version of the game. It was long due and I can tell you that it’s a great initial platform and league gaming is thriving because of it.

All that being said, there where some serious legacy features that did not make the cut into CCM. Import draft class from NCAA and full 32 team control where some glaring ommissions that the community pinpointed. It affected the way people have played the game for years and some where not happy being locked in to a new franchise game mode that would not allow them enjoy the game the way they have been.

So along come Madden 25 and with it, Connected Franchise Mode. It’s deep guys… so deep you will debating pricing on your tortilla soup for 2 hours, ask Steve “Coach Ruckus” Williams. Owner mode is back ya’ll…  that’s right, this year you will be able to play Jerry Jones or Robert Craft to your own personal tune. You can be a current owner or create yourself in that position. The feature set is pretty deep. You will be able to.

• Interact with the media
• Hire and Fire Head Coaches and Trainers
• Set in depth concession prices on stadium specific fair.
• Control all sorts of merchandise creation and pricing.
• Dictate all ticket prices, from 50 yard line to nosebleed.
• Upgrade your stadium
• And yes, you will be able to relocate your stadium to several potential cities.

You will also have advisors in every area of your franchise that will help you understand the ramifications of your decision making as well as give you feedback from the street on what they are hearing from the fan base. The information is useful for the most part and I enjoyed making some of them want to quit with highest ticket prices in the league. Hey it’s the Cowboys.. people will PAY…..!!

Relocating your team in Madden 25 is definitely a process. Over the course of several weeks after you decide you are going to relocate you will prompted to select a city, select a team name/logo and select your uniforms. There are options, but your not able to create your own name or select just any city. They have tried to keep things as realistic as possible based on the current climate of cities that could be potential relocation targets in the real NFL.

Be careful though, relocation is a big step, you will lose a ton of fan support and it can be expensive proposition when having to finance a new stadium. Success is always beneficial, but you can’t spend money you don’t have in this game.

They have also added some much needed tools to the commisioner’s toolbelt. This year you will be able to see and transaction log in Online CFM’s so that you can track all activity in a much easier manner. You will also be able to reset salary cap penalties for teams as you replace bad GM’s with new members to the league.

They have also spent a lot of time overhauling all of the screens to create a more cohesive dashboard to your CFM. No more drilling through multiple screens to get to the data. Also, alot more cross referencing has been done free agent and trading screens to allow you to glean the information you need without going back and forth.

The mode looks much more polished with another year of seasoning behind it.  There is still work to be done, but they have really tried to add in the element from the old franchise mode in a way that works with the new Connected Modes they have been developing the last 2 years.

In the NFL, managing a successful organization is a balancing act. You have fan expectations, owner expectations, player expectations, morale, and finances to balance. Often times, too much success or too much failure results in this balance being thrown off. As a result, teams generally have trouble staying together for extended periods of time (Ravens, Giants, Patriots some of the successful teams that have had trouble hanging onto talent, while the Eagles and Chiefs are examples of the lesser successful teams having the same issues for different reasons).

I’ll start by saying that my single biggest issue with CCM mode is how easy it is to both build a team up, and keep a team intact. While you may be think that this theme is relatively unimportant, rest assured that there are dynamics to this theme that will encompass every major complaint I have with CCM mode (which, for the record, I love). Below I’ve organized 10 areas to realistically replicate this balancing act; in so doing, create the most realistic representation of a sports franchise to date.

The ten ideas that I_Peench has come up with resulted in the following: Expectations (Owner, player, fan and coach), Player Preference, Player Happiness, Team Morale/Chemistry, Contracts, Scheme implementation, Progression, Draft and Scouting, CPU AI and Details!

To get more of the material and more of an explanation of his 10 areas of improvement, go ahead and please click here. Give us your feedback and thoughts!

EA Sports released their second playbook for NCAA Football 14 containing the details and improvements for the presentation aspects of the game.  Among the new features are uniform baselayers, a half-time show, neutral site games, new pre-game routine and hundreds of new vignettes to keep fans of the series engaged during a game.  EA Sports goal was to attempt to recreate a TV experience for people who play the game and a lot of the broadcast authenticity makes its way to the series in the form of new wipes and screen banners.

You can read the full article on EA Sports blog here: http://www.easports.com/ncaa-football/news/article/ncaa-football-14-presentation?x=517015869a659

Update (11:19 cst) – ESPN has also released an article regarding presentation:  http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/tech/post/_/id/4625/ncaa-football-14-ramps-up-presentation

Update (11:35 cst) – Gameinformer has also released a presentation article: http://www.gameinformer.com/games/n…ils-and-new-screens.aspx

Join in on the discussion here:  http://forums.traditionsportsonline.com/threads/ncaa-football-14-presentation-playbook.97898/

An article was posted on the EA SPORTS FIFA 14 website announcing the new features for the game:

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – April 17, 2013–Electronic Arts Inc. EA SPORTS today unveiled innovations to the greatest sports game on the planet that will enable fans to experience the emotion of scoring great goals when playing EA SPORTS™ FIFA 14 on the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PC.

Innovations to the franchise’s award-winning* gameplay will make FIFA 14 the complete matchday experience, introducing features that inspire fans to build play through midfield, dictate the tempo of a match and create rewarding opportunities. Great football matches are achieved through measured build up and incredible finishing.

A new feature in FIFA 14 called Pure Shot and a brand-new ball physics system will transform shooting, making every shot attempt feel real, and when players connect with the perfect strike, feel exhilarating.

“FIFA 14 will play the way great football matches are contested with build up through midfield, tension throughout the match as chances are created, and incredible finishing,” said David Rutter, Executive Producer for FIFA 14. “Opportunities in FIFA 14 will be rewarding and great goals will look stunning.”

Finishing has been transformed with Pure Shot so players have the intelligence to adjust their stride and approach angle to find the best position for hitting the back of the net. Well-hit balls feel more exhilarating and rewarding.

New shot types include pure strikes, as well as off-balance and rushed shots. Plus, Real Ball Physics now determines the trajectories of balls, enabling players to kick the ball with force from distance, drill low rising shots with accuracy, and blast dipping or turbulent shots, just like real footballers.

Fans will be able to create rewarding build up to opportunities and have the tools to dictate the tempo of a match through four new features. Protect The Ball will enable players to fend-off and block defenders from the ball while dribbling at any speed, or out-muscle opponents for position before receiving the pass, then turn defenders to carve out opportunities.

Teammate Intelligence has been improved on both sides of the ball. New decision-making logic delivers tighter, smarter marking and improved run tracking where defenders recognize opportunities to provide support and win back possession, while attacking players have new ways to outsmart their opponents by creating space for themselves, running along the backline and checking their pace. Major changes to ball control add new tools to win the midfield battles.

Sprint Dribble Turns enable players to turn in every direction at sprint speed while preserving momentum, delivering the control and confidence to take on defenders one-on-one.

Variable Dribble Touches introduces variety on touches when sprinting. Skilled players will have better touch and more control when sprinting with the ball.

In addition to innovations to gameplay, FIFA 14 is introducing a game-changing new way to play Career Mode. The Global Scouting Network brings the world of professional scouting to life. Players now develop and refine a scouting network and search for talent year-round. Scouts can evaluate footballers all over the world to uncover the attributes and traits of every player in the game, in preparation for the transfer windows. Plus, a new hub delivers easy navigation, fewer interruptions and live scouting reports.

FIFA 14 will deliver engaging online** features and live services that connect fans to the heartbeat of the sport—and to each other—through EA SPORTS Football Club, making FIFA 14 football’s social network, where fans connect, compete and share with millions of others around the world. The game will also feature:

• Changes to the wildly popular FIFA Ultimate Team
• A new online Mode that will encourage social competition
• Multiple new features and benefits to EA SPORTS Football Club, the live service that is the heartbeat of FIFA
• Complete authenticity with more than 500 officially licensed clubs.

Join discussion! http://forums.traditionsportsonline.com/threads/fifa-14-press-release-4-17-13.97858/

All of the talk this cycle has been about how “stale” NCAA is to play. The fallout has been somewhat mind-boggling, although there are several presentation and gameplay oriented reasons that has cost the game growth and remained stagnant, here are my suggestions on how to make the game interesting through dynasty mode. Before I jump into some deeper issues, here are some of the general fundamental problems plaguing the mode:

Choices: There aren’t enough difficult choices or trade-offs when it comes to building your program or picking recruits.

Predictability: Recruit 2 players same position same overall they will generally progress the same.

Arbitrary results: Why did La Tech just take down Georgia? How is it that Fresno State ran the table? Why is a stacked Florida State team under-performing? There is no answer, because there are no variables to account for these abnormalities.

Lack of perspective: Without a centralized hub and story-lines, it’s very difficult to keep track of what is going on throughout the college football world. Studio updates are a step in the right direction, but we need more.

No love for the underdog: Meaning–Ezekial Ansah, Eric Fisher, Jonathan Cyprien: All projected 1st round picks who had little to no notoriety coming out of high school. What’s to account for this? Could they have been “gems” that went undetected by the big dogs? Perhaps, but why can’t a 68 overall recruit develop into a 99 overall first round pick?

**Just to preface this, I’d like to keep any posts in this thread directly related to my suggestions. I don’t want this to turn into a wish-list.**

Here are 5 of the 15 topics that I_Peench discusses:

Storylines, Player/Coach traits and personalities, Spring ball, Junior class recruiting, and Declaration/transfer logic

So what do you guys think? To continue reading and get into the deeper discussion, please click here to read more give us your feedback!

This is EA SPORTS Madden NFL’s official Super Bowl XLVII prediction featuring:

• Ray Lewis
• Ray Rice
• Ed Reed
• Joe Flacco
• Torrey Smith
• John Harbaugh
• Colin Kaepernick
• Patrick Willis
• Jim Harbaugh
• Aldon Smith
• Frank Gore
• Randy Moss

Enjoy, the production is pretty awesome on this.

All of the features within a sports game are not only tenuous with respect to the next release, but constantly in flux. You never know what a company plans to do with a feature next year. With that being said, one of the suggestions I mentioned in a recent article was making the sway pitch more of a risk-reward type of proposition. I want to expound upon that thought here.

Let’s backtrack and describe what the “sway” feature does, for those who don’t play NCAA 13.

When you call a player, the end goal is to sign him, competing against other teams that are also calling and recruiting him. During the call you get points by addressing several pitches that relate to your football team such as Academic Prestige, Championship Contender, Fan Base, and so on and so forth. The better the quality of the pitch, and the more interest the player has in the pitch, the more points you get and the faster you sign him.

When addressing one of those pitches, you get the following options: Find Interest, Hard Sell, Compare to Other Schools, and Sway Attempt. Once you know what the player’s interest level is, you can try to sway the pitch to improve his outlook on the pitch, making it more important to him. If you choose a sway attempt, you get a certain number of points (slightly less than hard selling) and there is some random chance his interest in the pitch will improve one notch. The pitches go from Least – Very Low – Low – Average – Above Average – High – Very High – Most. When you successfully sway a pitch, the reward for the successful sway is a one-notch improvement in that pitch for the remainder of the recruiting process (from Least to Very Low, for instance). The next time you call, you will get more points for selling that pitch. If you fail, there’s really no penalty other than the fact that you get a few less points than if you were to hard sell the pitch.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to know that it really isn’t worth it to sway pitches most of the time. The success rate for swaying seems to be somewhere in the 25% to 40% range, meaning that you’ll fail about 6 to 7 out of 10 times, and during each of those times get a certain percentage fewer points. When you succeed, you don’t get any more points than if you had failed, but the next week you’ll get a few more points. On the whole, you probably come out even at best. When big-time teams are signing players in 4-5 weeks, it simply doesn’t make sense to dabble in it with the reward being a one-notch improvement.

My suggestion is to change this up completely. Make it something that could totally change the player’s outlook on the pitch if you’re successful. If you’re not successful, make it hurt a little.

Recruiting is sales. You have something the players want and you’re trying to sell it. It’s the ideal sales job, like selling a car. He wants a car, you just have to get him to buy one of the ones you’re selling. Swaying is sales too in a way, but it’s selling something the player usually doesn’t want. It’s more akin to rolling up on somebody’s door with fund-raising chocolates. The player already had an outlook on the pitch, now you want to change up what he thinks about it.

When somebody tries to get you to change the way you view something, it typically will either result in a “Eureka!” moment or more likely, make you think the other person is pushy and overbearing. That is, and should be, risky stuff.

So here’s my suggestion:

When you “find” a pitch, have the player respond in a number of different ways. Since it’s all text based, put hundreds of responses in there, not just a few. Let’s say we’re talking Academic Prestige as a pitch. Go on some kind of scale to indicate how open minded the player is about the pitch. If you “find” the pitch and it’s his least important with the response being: “I’m interested in Real Estate, but right now all my focus is on football” then you know he’s at least somewhat open-minded and it should be less risky to sway. The coaches sway text could be something like “even though you’re concentrating on football, it’s always good to have a backup plan.”

If he says “With all due respect coach, I’ll worry about my Academics and you worry about the football team” when you find the pitch, then it should be a much lower chance for sway success. Again I stress, it should have a lot of levels of risk and a lot of different text comments that a player will say for a given pitch, indicating the risk to the player beforehand.

The reward for swaying should be some random number of pitches up the ladder toward the average to high range. If it’s the player’s least pitch, then make it jump into at least the average range as the reward for the successful pitch, and give the points that would correspond to hard selling that pitch during the sway call. Finally, make the quality of your coach prestige improve. If your Coach Prestige was a C for him before you swayed some other itch, it should jump up a notch or two, to the B range. People hold you in high regard when you take the time to show them new things and in this case successfully change their way of thinking. This way, if you successfully sway the player on multiple issues you could end up with a vastly improved coach prestige (that player only) in addition to more immediate points.

The downside for failing to sway the pitch should be way fewer points, and a downswing in your Coach Prestige rating for that player.

The basis of all these suggestions is to make the sway process relevant and interesting. Something that could truly turn the tide, and something that has a little skill involved if you can remember some of what the player said. For certain players you put on your board, you don’t have much in the way of good pitches to sell them. With this system in place, you could decide that certain players are going to come off the board if you can’t sway them on certain things. That feeling out period could last through week 2 and you make your decision then whether to continue recruiting somebody who now likes what you’re selling a bit more, or dump a guy who still doesn’t have interest. It would add some new strategy and dimension to the call/pitch process.

Tradition Sports Online is sponsoring our first of what will be an annual duel of knowledge and wits – our Bowl Blitz Pick ‘Em Tournament!

Pick the winner of every NCAA College Football Bowl Game for the 2012/2013 bowl season.  Whoever picks the most bowls correctly will win.

First Prize for this year will be an Elgato Game Capture HD high definition game recorder! This thing takes HDMI input and is very easy to use. Perfect for any TSO gamer. Other prizes include a Turtle Beach X12 Gaming Headset, and TSO swag and memberships.

Being a member on the forums makes you eligible to participate in the contest! Choose correctly, and not only will you come away with a great prize but you can shake the finger of knowledge at your Tradition Sports Online brethren!

Please Click Here to visit the official post on the forums for all rules and details. All entries must be received by Saturday, December 15 at 1 p.m. Eastern time.