Madden NFL 11 Interview with Ian Cummings (GameShark)

[jrivera34]

I played in a few 2k5 leagues and it was the best gaming experience I had. Then my beautiful children were born and now there is no time to commit. That being said I wish there was an option to have a full online franchise were I could play with 3 other gamers in a division. The key is that it still needs to have all features of the offline game online. Otherwise the game gets stale after year 1.

As many have said, how can ea complain when they released a half baked online franchise. EA is way too big now to ever care. Competition will be the only cure and the competition needs to be serious and willing to battle for a few years.

This interview was very depressing to read. Sounds like we are slowly moving forward from a gameplay standpoint, which is great, but backwards on everything else.

[footballdude1971]

Quote: Originally Posted by jrivera34

This interview was very depressing to read. Sounds like we are slowly moving forward from a gameplay standpoint, which is great, but backwards on everything else.

That seems to be the EA business model. Add stuff, then take it away, then re-add it and call it a new feature. In five or so years they'll repackage online leagues and resell it again...just a matter of time.

[statum71]

Quote: Originally Posted by AirLobo23

Nice read. So maybe franchise highlites will be included in the extra point show since he named that as a negative for last years game?

I believe you're reading this wrong Lobo. I think he's saying he wishes they could have added highlights to the Extra Point for THIS years game. Since he was asking about improvements over last year's.

Anyway, hopefully this means the didn't take it out all together.

I could be wrong

[Eski33]

I agree with others that online franchises are hard to maintain even if you play with friends. Part of the reason is due to people having lives and that there are leagues filled with guys who have nothing better to do than play video games.

I have been in a couple of online dynasties and it's all about "hurry up and play your game so we can advance." Sometimes it is difficult to find time.

If people are in an online league, structure and communication is critical. I think and online league could be fun as hell if it resembles NCAA 11's online features, especially the web based items allowing you to recruit while not on the console.

Also, I think dynasties are easier to operate because you don't have to mess with salaries and caps, stuff that can get confusing for those casual gamers.

I hope EA builds on the feature by making it extremely customizable and defining all the jargon used in regards to caps, rules, etc. so users can choose what they want to utilize and what they don't.

My opinion is that EA should overload the mode then do an analysis to see how the mode is utilized, what structures are used and how. To create a mode with minimal options is going to lend to a minimized user base. To say that salary caps don't impact that just shows how far EA is in regards to knowing its user base.