Madden Community = Beta testers

[KIlroy777]

It seems to me each year, Ian and EA release a game in early to mid-August and rely on us, the Madden enthusiasts to beta test their product.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Part of me would like EA to wait a few weeks, iron out the obvious kinks and release a game playable out of the box, both offline and online, so I do not have to waste weeks tuning sliders to correct their AI and gameplay errors.
But another part of me doesn't mind having the game early and being able to dig into the nuts and bolts of the game and read forums about what other people are finding.
After a few weeks of tinkering, I have finally come up with a custom slider set that meets my game-play needs offline. I was never a big online players. If I were, I know I would be very upset, judging by the offensive shootouts I have been reading on these forums.
All in all, I love the game this year, particularly after my slider adjustments.
Some part of me, though, wishes I didn't have to do so much work. I believe that is Ian's and EA's job.
Now, when the patches come out, I will have to start my hard slider work all over again.
Oh, well. I'm curious to hear what the rest of the Madden community thinks about what is basically a beta version of Madden that we have in our systems.

[PGaither84]

Yes, and no. A yearly title like Madden has such a short cycle to be worked on. My understanding is that they started on 12 before 11 hit store shelves, just liek every year before. You have to remember, most games don't have the short dead lines sports titles have. There are countless example, but how far back was Half Life two pushed back? Did you know that Kights of the Old Republic Two wasn't even finished when BioWare was told to release it, so they jsut fudged an ending and let the community finish the PC version themselves?

I guess what is frustrating is when people say things like "Madden is just a roster update." Maybe 06, 07 and 08 were on next gen... maybe, but put in Madden 08 for the 360, then put in Madden 11 and tell me they are the same game. They just aren't. I don't need to list all the changes, but if we only had Madden 08 to paly with for three years with downloadable roster updates and tyhen Madden 11 came out, I doubt people would feel the same way. now some say they havn't purchasedthe game in years and still won't, but most of those people say it's becasue they still are not happy with the game, and that's fine. Just don't say it's the same. The game is evolving and you can see the drastic differences since Ian and Phill were allowed to call a lot of the shots.

I said it back before Madden 10 came out that the ship has finally cource corrected. We are a long way from port, but we are sailing in the right direction, finally. At least to me, Madden 11 is a lot of fun to play [offline and OTP] and the future appears to be bright.