I find it strange that someone would keep going on and on about A game like this for over A week. Don't like it, Then don't play or buy it.
I don't like it, and I did not buy it. I played it over the weekend for the first time with Keller. For me, NCAA is way more polished and its backwards really -- NCAA feels more professional and Madden feels armature-ish. I find it strange that people buy a game to mostly play one game mode that has not changed in 3 years that has excluded hyped features such as custom PB's and very basic features that a franchise mode should have -- and not care at all. Will you continue to buy the game next year if OF is untouched again? What about the next year? The year after? You gotta draw the line at some point. Mine has been drawn this year.
Why do you have to draw the line somewhere? We enjoy the game, so we play it. I'm glad custom playbooks aren't in OF, there would be too much cheese involved. Pot laws go unchanged year after year, but I have no power to draw any lines.
In online ranked games sure, but thats why there are leagues like this. Will there be a few more "money plays?" Sure. But it opens up creativity and it allows you to run your offense/defense to your preference. It was in Online Dynasty and everything seemed to flow fine there. You cannot compare pot laws to Madden dude. So you will litterally buy Madden and pay $60 bucks every year for the rest of your life with OF being exactly the same as it? If you would then thats really lame.
Well the simple fact is, OF has changed because the gameplay has changed. It's a different game, and there will be different kinds of matches on the field. The game plays more like the NFL now. Every year the game gets better, and there's no denying that, give EA some credit. NCAA is a much different game because it is a much different sport. A lot of wild stuff happens in the NCAA. I can't speak from recent experience, but from what I remember, the players were dramatically less-skilled than NFL players. Put together a custom playbook for the top college QB, and it's not going change the game a ton. He's still gotta make the throws. Put together a custom playbook for one of the best NFL offenses, and they could become unstoppable. The quarterbacks WILL make the throws. Small example, but I think there's a lot to this.
Well it depends on what team your playing with in NCAA. If you play with a top ranked team then there is not much difference in completions/drops. Having a couple tweaks in the gameplay is not going to make the online franchise mode better man. Other than zone coverage being a little bit better, there is nothing that has significantly changed from Madden 11 to 12. Offline franchise has been redone, but I dont buy the game to play offline. If you get a different experience this year and somehow still have fun playing the same feature that has not changed, then more power to you I guess. But for me it's about the principle. And hopefully there are more people out there like me who play for the OF and are not buying the game either because of the same principle. And that principle to EA is: every year you guys don't touch OF is another year you don't get my money.
You gotta worry about yourself. If your principle makes you happy, cool. Madden makes me happy. Competing with my Chiefs in a league with other NFL teams controlled by real people makes me happy. I think your expectations just might be too high. Every year... think about the amount of time it takes to evaluate EVERY player in the league, update their rankings, tweak their appearance, etc. Then think about the time it takes to evaluate EVERY rookie in the new class, give them ratings (based on a ridiculous amount of attributes), make their appearance, etc. Then throw in the time it takes to fix any bugs from last season's game. Now that's a pretty good amount of work. Then throw in the new elements they add every year. This year, tackling is AWESOME. The collisions I've seen after playing only 8 games so far are great. I haven't touched the offline franchise yet, I will, but I expect it to be pretty nicely ramped up too. Now let's add in the other element. Online play. This is still the Wild Wild West. Connection issues MUST be fixed, and I think they spent some time on this. I haven't had problems yet, and it's surely the busiest it will ever be right now online. By the time all the above is done. It would probably be tough to dramitically revamp the Online Franchise in one year. There is so much data to sort through on there. Up to 32 users... hundreds or thousands of online franchises all requiring their own set of ridiculous amounts of data in the system they already have. Adding in new features will just make the data amounts skyrocket. I'd bet that they did some work on all of this. Perhaps they are getting everything they have now ready to try to launch without bugs. Perhaps they use the NCAA game as a guinea pig since they only have 12 users per Dynasty. I do not think this has anything to do with Monopoly. I think it has everything to do with a game doing it's best to be a great game. There are so many games now to compete with, that they have to prioritize their time. The game is better and the rosters have changed. That's all you can really ask for in a yearly release.
We are talking about millions of copies sold here Sub - I for one expected more out of the product. While I can appreciate the amount of work that goes into the title, we're talking about one of the largest franchises in all of gaming. I expect a lot.
I don't buy or play madden for 1 game mode. I buy and play madden because I love football. I play offline franchise. I play ranked games. I playagainst friends. I play team play wich is very fun. There have been many things about madden over the years that I have not liked But that did not keep me from enjoying The game. Having competition also does not mean that the game would be any better. NBA has 2k and and EA both of those games have not really changed that much either. In fact when EA tried to change the game, It fell apart and had to be cancled last year and again this year. I would hate for something like that to happen to Madden. EA is not worried about OL franchise because that is not why the game sales. Ranked games and on field play is why it sales. I noticed they had A survey asking what are the 4 yop reasons you play Madden. If enough people chose OL franchise I expect they will make changes next year If alot people did not chose that feature I expect it to go unchanged next year also.
I don't remember exactly where. I think it popped up when I clicked on the community feature the first time.
You make a good point there, and in our capitalist society, you vote with your dollars. For me, my entertainment/value of playing OF mode doesn't come from the game-play features themselves, but rather the community aspect that TSO brings to the game. With no community like this, you could have the most ideal OF mode ever, but it would be quite lonely. As long as there is equal opportunity for competitiveness among everyone, which "sim" philosophy tries it's best to govern, it is the trash talking among users, building rivalries, building your team, hoping to finally make it to a SB, etc. that makes the game enjoyable to me. This means that leaving OF mode untouched for three years really won't defer me from continuing to buy/enjoy to product, and if they never touched it again, that would be fine with me (Community --> Entertainment). Obviously that wouldn't make much business sense, as essentially they have to deliver a "different" product every year, one that is hopefully an improvement, in order to appease their market share. I don't think you should be bashed for your perspective, as we all have one. Like I said, you make some good points. It was nice having you in the podcasts/being an "evil empire" with your Cowboys, so that will be missed. But we gotta move on.
