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Madden 12 News Post


The biggest addition to Madden NFL 12 online is certainly the new "Communities" feature that will affect both Online Team Play and head-to-head games.

Anthony DiMento, a designer working on Madden 12, has written a blog at EA.com explaining the new feature in quite some depth.

Quote:
I’ve been waiting for this day for months now, and it’s finally here, the debut of Madden NFL 12’s newest online feature: Communities. Around this time each year, the design team starts getting together, kicking around ideas and looking at priorities for what we want to add to next year’s game. We started Madden NFL 12 by looking at the core online experience and Ranked Head-to-Head, in particular. For years now, we have been hearing complaints about how hard it is to find a good matchup online. Opponents quitting games, cheesing or running the same play again and again, and gamers looking for creative ways to cheat their way up the leaderboard have really been plaguing the online space. We listened to our fans and found a very large group of gamers who only play against their friends and use our Ranked Invites and Leaderboards to track their progress against each other. We talked to our hardcore fans and found a lot of sim-football players who only want to play against guys who play sim-football and we talked to even more who just wanted to find an opponent who would finish a game. Finally, we asked ourselves, what is the correct solution to these problems? How can we let our gamers play ranked games against their friends, play the way they want to play it, and create a safe environment where you don’t have to worry about cheaters, quitters, or grievers? The answer became Communities.
You can read the rest of the blog by heading over to EA.com. Also be sure to check back here throughout the day as we will have more details about Online Communities.

Game: Madden NFL 12Reader Score: 6.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 44 - View All
Madden NFL 12 Videos
Member Comments
# 1 Smoke6 @ 07/25/11 10:47 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by SIMstyle
not bad, Tiburon. not bad. All we want is the ability to choose our style game. FairPlay is OFFICIALLY back in my community! halleleuejah!
Agreed, now we dont have to filter our opponents anymore and have a nice sustainable community of ballers who all see eye to eye!
 
# 2 P21J @ 07/25/11 10:48 AM
Awesome! Most definitely looking forward to joining some OS communities come August 30th. This has been a gripe of mine for almost every sports title that I've played and I even stayed away from online in previous Madden titles due to the horror stories that I heard about cheesers and glitchers. All I need now is the demo to make my final decision on purchasing this game (I most likely will, unless it plays worse than NCAA). Can't wait for the demo footage today (Gamespot) and tomorrow (via the live stream)!
 
# 3 warrior7807 @ 07/25/11 11:02 AM
looks very cool. if anything this will get aloooooot of new people to try out the online play. im sure that is exactly what they want
 
# 4 ezio @ 07/25/11 11:05 AM
I really thought it was going to be 11 vs 11 OTP but communities is not a bad idea at all.
 
# 5 Yeah...THAT Guy @ 07/25/11 11:10 AM
Wow, I'm not usually much of an Online guy, but I gotta say, I really think I'm going to give this a shot assuming OS will set up a good community.
 
# 6 jlandryst @ 07/25/11 11:25 AM
Im sorry i might be in the minority. But this what is suppose to make us forget about the lack of work in the online franchise mode?
 
# 7 jpdavis82 @ 07/25/11 11:34 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jlandryst
Im sorry i might be in the minority. But this what is suppose to make us forget about the lack of work in the online franchise mode?
No, the League Manager tool they worked on with EA is supposed to alleviate some of that loss. This is a revolutionizing way of playing sports games online. I'm sure next year they are going to add a lot in Online Franchise, but they added so much this year already and I'm sorry if you're an Online Franchise or bust guy but there's only so much they can add in one year. I honestly can't think of any sports game that has made more additions in just one year than Madden 12 has.
 
# 8 XtremeDunkz @ 07/25/11 11:46 AM
eh, disappoints me more than anything that they can create all these options and sliders for these new lobbies but still can't add them to OF, oh well.
 
# 9 DaveDQ @ 07/25/11 11:53 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jlandryst
Im sorry i might be in the minority. But this what is suppose to make us forget about the lack of work in the online franchise mode?
That's how I feel. Will next year bring an excuse that says, "We did some looking around at who was playing what and came to teh conclusion that communities just didn't have the appeal we anticipated...?"

I actually like the concept of communities, but the fact that Online Franchise was kicked to the curb is annoying.
 
# 10 XtremeDunkz @ 07/25/11 12:02 PM
eh again, just watched the vid and looked through screen shots, and it appears that there is not an actual way to stop people from cheesing in sim lobbies. You just have to trust them to play sim. No "fairplay" options are available, just sliders and game options. Doesn't really do anything for me, personally. Oh well.
 
# 11 XtremeDunkz @ 07/25/11 12:14 PM
My problem is EA simply does not know how to streamline things. They like to put everything on the user to make things work. I honestly feel like this is another half hearted, half finished mode. If someone is cheesing I have to message whoever the group admin is, and hope that he kicks him and doesn't think I am just being a sore loser. But by that point I already quit or lost a game, or even won a cheesy game, which the whole point of these lobbies is to avoid that.

All of that headache when EA could just add options in their menu to have standard rules. That is what I was expecting, but I guess that was way to optimistic for EA Sports.
 
# 12 HawkeyMediaPlus @ 07/25/11 12:18 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveDQ
That's how I feel. Will next year bring an excuse that says, "We did some looking around at who was playing what and came to teh conclusion that communities just didn't have the appeal we anticipated...?"

I actually like the concept of communities, but the fact that Online Franchise was kicked to the curb is annoying.
Couldn't you make an online franchise with online communities though? Or an OTP online franchise?
 
# 13 XtremeDunkz @ 07/25/11 12:19 PM
For one year..there would be no trades or draft or progression or injuries, no thanks.
 
# 14 HawkeyMediaPlus @ 07/25/11 12:27 PM
You have to try and think outside the box with this. If you aren't creative or willing to have imagination, than this won't do much for you. I like it though. There are 1000's of possibilities on what you can do.
 
# 15 aceoye @ 07/25/11 12:28 PM
seems like online communties was made for specifically for websites like OS, pastapadre, mymaddenpad or whatever, etc.. I almost get the feeling that aside from the few thousands that are in these communities the other millions of people that buy the game the online communities will be irrelevant to them.. leaving plenty of lobbies made in the first month or whatever but afterwards they are just sitting there empty with nothing going on, kinda like disfunctional online franchises they have online now people start but wont finish..communities there but no one in them.
 
# 16 DaveDQ @ 07/25/11 12:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by HawkeyMediaPlus
Couldn't you make an online franchise with online communities though? Or an OTP online franchise?
Maybe, but right across the street NCAA 12 has their online dynasty with improvements in newer installments. With doing the OF through communities, you will have to create your own trading rules, drafting procedures and other off season adjustments. and the biggest issue would be no simulated rookie class or player progression.
 
# 17 SincerelYourz @ 07/25/11 12:44 PM
no community tournament???
 
# 18 notoriouzwun @ 07/25/11 12:44 PM
I'm excited to see the OTP part of the communities. Hopefully its not a half hearted attempt to be "clubs". I would love to see the OTP in Madden evolve and be a great feature like in NHL and FIFA.
 
# 19 HawkeyMediaPlus @ 07/25/11 12:45 PM
Yeah the OTP thing sounds like the EASHL for the NHL series. Is this basically a bigger version of the EASFL for madden?
 
# 20 dfresh2 @ 07/25/11 12:53 PM
way to go ea lol by doing something thatt prolly only took you a day to do. this is pointless cause people will find away to break it alls it is is online but with sliders i cant believe they had us waiting for this i am and OF guy but to add this pointless thing and skip online franchise is crazy in the video they said we lisen to our fans what a joke i just hope my league manager will be good and i do believe it will be positive and force ea to do something next year. i cant see it no online communties being pulled next year but ea could careless what we want cause we will still by the game cause no one else is making a football game. i feel better now. lol
 

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