Are you still waiting on an online franchise?

[labguy]

After reading through 27 pages of the online league Q&A post, I decided to create this new thread and see how many people would utilize an online franchise feature. I am not an EA *****, but sometimes enough really is enough. I ask the EA developers questions when they appear on these boards and I am critical of them when I think it is deserved, but I do not make it personal. This is one case where I just think they dropped the ball though. The 32 game league feature that they put out is just poorly designed. I am sure they are decent guys, but their thought process was just very off when laying this feature out. I understand that they drop a new title every 12 months, so their development cycle is short. With that being said though, we have been waiting for an online franchise feature forever and a day now. And during this wait what do we get? The standard EA response "only a limited amount a features can make it in each year". "We'd like to put in everything but it is just not possible." Hey that is cool and I understand that, but check out this info from LAST year's community day:

[labguy]

Sorry last posts was getting lengthy so here goes:

I feel like I answered this somewhere else but I'll quickly go over it again. I asked Ortiz if NHL was the test case for online leagues and he said no, it was simply in their development cycle this past year and worked internally with EA network/online guys. Ortiz really wants to get online franchises into the game, he just wants to do it right when it happens. They just wanted the offline feature set back up to speed, and get a good gameplay base so basically other stuff took a backseat the last few years while that occurred.fficeffice" />>>
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Ian asked me which one did I think was more important I replied leagues. They have to be fully featured and work right there really is no point to have an online franchise if its buggy as hell. We continued talk about online and how important it is to have a large feature set. (But they are going to look at doing online franchises first because if you can do a franchise online then you can most definitely do a league. D.Ortiz brought up this point later on in the day)

These are just a coupleof replies from some MaddenMania staff back from LAST year's Madden community day. So my point is I just feel we are getting messed with each year. Empty promises. I guess it doesn't matter though. With no competition and continued high sales numbers, the casual gamer will always win out with cool (sarcasm added) rewind features and whatnot.

[DarthLeon4]

Whats the point of having an online franchise mode if the offline version doesnt even work right?

[TDKing]

I want a fully functional ONLINE FRANCHISE next year with ALL of the same options as the offline franchise (alla NCAA). And one more important thing, allow us to have Humans play as the CPU team in our franchise games. This is important ! We must be able to invite a user to take control of a CPU team in our games vs the CPU.

[PaulZweber]

It really is sad that EA reads this and laughs all the way to the bank knowing we buy broken half-*** product from them every year. Ford comes out with a F-150 every year. Do they put them on the lots with flat tires and no radio because "they didn't have time" or we can fix it ourselves? Of course not, but for some reason it is perfectly normal/fine if EA does it on a yearly basis. Many companies make small product changes year to year and seem to pull it off, why can't EA? Greed, and more than most.

[xScREaMx]

Why would they put it in this year? They need something new to advertise next year

[labguy]

Ok so last night I decided to take a serious look at the feature list EA released for Madden 09. I tried to do my best to be objective and look at all 85 features. What I found is that EA is going out of their way to tailor the game to the casual gamer. Now I know EA wants to sale more copies. I get that. But shouldn't they try to do a better job to take care of the pople who have put money in their pockets for the last 20 yrs? Anyway here goes:

Virtual trainer - Totally geared to the casual fan. I doubt a single person that has played even 5 minutes of Madden previously is going to get excited about a holographic world to do drills in. I personally think this was a waste of programming time.

My skills - As long as EA gives users the options for how complex they want the controls to be I am cool with this. I feel this is a good compromise between casual and hardcore.

Game styles - Same as above. As long as they don't "dumb" the game down for everyone I am cool with having various OPTIONS.

Madden test - I will say this....it was a decent idea or concept but very poorly developed. The skills they asked you to perform do not really do a good job of guaging a player's skill. A monkey could get an All-Madden rating in the rush drill.

Backtrack - Another feature geared towards the casual gamer. Not to sound like a broken record but I have no problem with EA adding these type of features for the casual gamers IF (and I mean frickin IF) they take care of the long time Madden guys. I personally think even newbies can figure out that they threw an out pattern late and that is why Champ Bailey picked it.

Handicapping - Cool feature if you are playing with your kid. I will give EA the benefit and say this is a feature for both advanced and casual.

Madden IQ - Ok this was a tough one. I flip flopped a bit for a second, but then I realized why do we need this at all? Give us a good slider set and we can shape the game to exactly how WE want it. Now to keep the casual peeps happy they could have just had a few general sliders to tweak and the advanced could have a robust selection. Besides if we have a bad game do we really want the AI adjusted the next game for us? Because I threw 3 picks did I all the sudden forget how to pass on Madden?So I think this feature was a waste.

EA Rewind - Again EA catering to the casual people. No real Madden gamer would ever use this. If someone did and admitted to it I think their "man" card should be revoked immediately.

Button Hints - Casual gamers get some more candy.

New Booth Commentators - Ok this was MUCH needed and we are all glad they put ANYONE other than the stupid PA announcer in the game. But should we really give EA props for this? Honestly I am not trying to be a ***** but I can't give Phil or anyone a pat on the back for fixing something that should have never been so poopy to begin with.

Enhanced play-call - This was much needed for awhile. I won't be as critical as the announcer thing though. It seems they put a lot of thought into it. For the most part it seems to be a much needed upgrade. I feel this is the first bone they threw us so far and it is appreciated.

EA sports ticker - Again much needed. Nice touch.

New Cameras - I like they are adding cameras but we need more and they need to be options. I am a big fan of giving the people options that way they can cater the experience for themselves. So good job but there is more to be done.

Broadcast plus presentation style - The poor presenation backlash from the last few years must have finally struck a cord. Again this is a step in the right direction.

Improved sidelines - Ditto

Online leagues 2.0 - Stand by for super rant.....I hope the backlash from this poorly thought out feature hits the EA guys the hardest. This is a complete joke. Frankly if it was me I'd be ashamed to roll that out in its current state and call it a feature. I get that they didn't advertise it as an online franchise feature. With that said they didn't try very hard to make it anything other than a steamy pile of unuseable pooh. It is a round robin stat tracker. Yippee. I could go on about spawn and merge feature to tie us over but I am going to try to drop this and get back on topic.

Video Highlights - Cool. I for one like the EA Sportworld. I hope they continue to develop it.

Graphics - It took them some time, but even the biggest Madden haters will be hard pressed to bash EA over the graphics. Again I think the holographic stuff was a waste.

Rivalries - Ok so instead of NCAA home field advantage they tried to play up the rivalry thing. I don't think I will do cartwheels over it but it is ok.

Franchise improvements - Ok so they tweaked some stat generation AI. Can't pat them on the back too much for something that COULD of and SHOULD have been done a long time ago. Besides they have a long way to go on draft AI, progression, etc. Guess all those casual features cut into franchise improvement time.

Total Control - Nothing negative to say here. Glad EA is starting to make use of Next Gen capabilities.

Playbook - With NFL exclusive liscense they shoudl always have update playbooks for each team (O and D).

Celebrations - Nice touch for both casual and hardcore to make game a little more fun.

Gameplay tuning - I have a gripe in the fact they pass this off as a feature. EVERY single year they should be expected to keep fine tuning the gameplay. A lot of stuff like turbo/rocket catching etc should be caught before the community day and fixed.

Weather - Over due. Still need to see how this is done and if it is effective without being overdone. So I am withholding judgement for now.

Ok I will post this for now. I still have like 15 more but I want to break up post and take a break. Thanks to anyone who reads and provides feedback. If you disagree with anything I put out there I am cool with that. I for one can take constructive critism and do not take disagreement personal. So far I just hope that anyone who is being objective can see that EA made the casual crowd the focus this year and dissed us long term fans by ignoring franchise and by giving us poopy league feature. Which I guess would not sting so bad if the last few years were not such a terrible experience for us.

On-line dynasty in NCAA is the best feature ever put in a game. If they put on-line franchise in Madden I would buy this game day 1 every year.

Personally I hate on-line games and love franchise mode. If I was able to get some buddies and compete with them in a franchise I would absolutely love it. EA nailed it in NCAA and I hope Madden gets this in the future.

Think about the draft and free agents and crucial playoff battles against buddies!!!!!! How about a SUPER BOWL!!!!