Madden NFL 11 Interview with Ian Cummings (GameShark)

[PantherBeast_OS]

Quote: Originally Posted by rooney8

But I thought they were rebuilding franchise mode and it would be the same both online and offline like ncaa. This is what Phil said in his franchise blog and it says something very different to Ian. I don't actually care about online franchise but I just don't think they are gonna bother with offline franchise if they aren't touching online aswell.

What I'm getting from the franchise mode question is that online franchise mode is more of a focus then offline franchsie mode. Which to me is hogwash. What is this all of a sudden wanting to do everything for online use. Most fans want a offline franchise more then anything. Don't they get point of that. If they do very little for offline franchise mode and end up doing a whole deal for online franchise mode. Then EA is going to end up POing alot of fans off and loss a lot of customers in the process. Most madden fans want a completely new offline franchise mode and not online. I wish they would confirm wheather they are going to redo the whole offline franchise mode along with online are what. This is driving me nuts. I like offline franchise mode more them anything. It's very very hard to get even a handfull of people to stick with online franchise mode for even a short time. Offline franchise is where they really to need to focus it at to redo this coming year.

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by metallicatz

I think what it points to is that the majority of franchise players are offline guys.....myself included. I play nothing but franchise mode, and I absolutely despise playing online.....unless I know the other guy.

Quote: Originally Posted by ryan36

ONLINE franchise man. And the thing is, unless you're part of a sports message board, can you imagine how hard it is logistically to get 31 of your closest classmates together to schedule an ONLINE franchise. The CPU would take over for any teams not user controlled, but still. And those same 31 people would have to have madden. I can't believe Ian didn't know it wasn't going to be used by most of his install base. Unless they move SINGLE PLAYER franchises online...he won't see more use. People are way too busy in many cases.

Quote: Originally Posted by ryan36

This. Long term I think that by trying to get people like me online though, they see more recurring revenue streams, monthly subscription fees etc... but the problem is the online experience is still crap. It's just crap. I don't know if it's that users don't play like football, or the CPU doesn't play like football, but I hate the games.

Quote: Originally Posted by ryan36

You have a point...but look at Ian's comments about what percentage of the install base even TRIES to play a game online, vs. who downloads patches, etc....online games ranked/unranked/tournaments/against my dead mom/franchises, just aren't where the majority of games are played. My point really is simply that online franchise being left alone, doesn't mean that offline is being screwed , too. (although this year that's the case). The minute offline franchise gets limited , etc. I think they'll see a lot of people not buy the game. I think most people like playing through their team's schedule at will

I don't have any data to support this feeling, but I still believe that offline franchise is played by a large number of Madden players. I bet the next 5 years of online franchise players would still be less then the numbers that play offline franchise now. I don't feel like EA has the right methodology in place to accurately track these players.

Sadly I do feel like offline franchise players are going to suffer greatly because of the, for lack of a better word, failure of online franchise mode. Ryan speaks to it above, their desire to get people online, largely due to the possibility of inducing some sort of micro transaction purchase from them, has relegated offline only players to the role of "red headed stepchild"

[sois]

Quote: Originally Posted by Legend Killer

What I'm getting from the franchise mode question is that online franchise mode is more of a focus then offline franchsie mode. Which to me is hogwash. What is this all of a sudden wanting to do everything for online use. Most fans want a offline franchise more then anything. Don't they get point of that. If they do very little for offline franchise mode and end up doing a whole deal for online franchise mode. Then EA is going to end up POing alot of fans off and loss a lot of customers in the process. Most madden fans want a completely new offline franchise mode and not online. I wish they would confirm wheather they are going to redo the whole offline franchise mode along with online are what. This is driving me nuts. I like offline franchise mode more them anything. It's very very hard to get even a handfull of people to stick with online franchise mode for even a short time. Offline franchise is where they really to need to focus it at to redo this coming year.

100% agree.

I really wish I had access to their research. If i was an online franchise fan, I would take this as a slap in the face. It would be like Apple putting out an iPhone that didn't make calls because of a design glitch and then issuing a press release that said "due to lack of usage, we will no longer dedicate resources to making phone calls with the iPhone."

Don't they see that their crippled product was the biggest influence in people deciding NOT to play it? I know my casually buddies really wanted to get one going but once I Debbie Downer'd them with the bad news, we lost all momentum and the online franchise stalled.

[thbends]

I run a successful online league. We are wrapping up season 3 now.

It only works because we all know each other and have played together since NFL 2k5. Though few of us have ever met in person.

We are all in agreement that others did not play Online Franchise because it was not complete. Did anyone even try to use the message board they made for the site? Complete crap. We ended up using our own forums away from the site to keep in touch. So if EA could not get the message boards right, something people have been doing correctly elsewhere since AOL came in to existence in the 90's, how can we expect them to get the franchise mode right? lol

Basic features were missing. Features needed to communicate with your owners easily. COMMUNICATION is key when it comes to running a good league. EA offered little to no support in this area.

[showbo1971]

Quote: Originally Posted by Legend Killer

What I'm getting from the franchise mode question is that online franchise mode is more of a focus then offline franchsie mode. Which to me is hogwash. What is this all of a sudden wanting to do everything for online use. Most fans want a offline franchise more then anything. Don't they get point of that. If they do very little for offline franchise mode and end up doing a whole deal for online franchise mode. Then EA is going to end up POing alot of fans off and loss a lot of customers in the process. Most madden fans want a completely new offline franchise mode and not online. I wish they would confirm wheather they are going to redo the whole offline franchise mode along with online are what. This is driving me nuts. I like offline franchise mode more them anything. It's very very hard to get even a handfull of people to stick with online franchise mode for even a short time. Offline franchise is where they really to need to focus it at to redo this coming year.

Legend, I can understand what you are saying but I still believe they could have at least finished the online franchise. I think they should focus on getting the offline franchise perfected but just adding free agency/salary cap to online franchise this season would have been good enough to make the mode more playable.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by thbends

I run a successful online league. We are wrapping up season 3 now. It only works because we all know each other and have played together since NFL 2k5. Though few of us have ever met in person. We are all in agreement that others did not play Online Franchise because it was not complete. Did anyone even try to use the message board they made for the site? Complete crap. We ended up using our own forums away from the site to keep in touch. So if EA could not get the message boards right, something people have been doing correctly elsewhere since AOL came in to existence in the 90's, how can we expect them to get the franchise mode right? lol Basic features were missing. Features needed to communicate with your owners easily. COMMUNICATION is key when it comes to running a good league. EA offered little to no support in this area.

See my post earlier in the thread.

[marktwain77]

I think the biggest problem with online franchise (and other have said it too) is that you get geared up, join a franchise, and inevitably 1/2 the other people either quit, never play their games, or just act like 10 yr old cheesers.

So everything you did was a WASTE of time. You're constantly dealing with not being able to advance OR not being able to play your opponent because of scheduling issues, etc. Then a few guys just join and never do anything... Finally 3-4 people quit and it's like a domino effect and you're left with 3 or 4 people who are serious about it...

That was my exerience anyway.... The whole mode was totally pointless and felt like a waste of time... I was not going to build my team over multiple seasons (the whole POINT of such a mode) because my league would be lucky to see week 6 of season #1.

With offline franchise I can play 10 games in a row in one night if I want, then not play for 2 weeks, then come right back to it and it's all still there. I don't have 12 other teams that just stopped playing.

[K_GUN]

i think the biggest thing is commitment--or there lack-of---with OF. yes, i get it here ,there are a lot of commited guys but keeping 32 guys for more than one season is a VERY small %.

Heck even here our PS3 OF last for madden 10 had what....16 teams total...in year 1....i didn't make it out of year 2 myself....guys were dropping like flies....despite the fact that it was a VERY WELL RUN LEAGUE.