Why we may never see imported draft classes for a long time.

[DeuceDouglas]

Quote: Originally Posted by DNMHIII

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that maybe someone smart could figure out how to integrate NCAA draft classes and still have the same functionality that they appear to be building. It would only make sense for Madden to integrate NCAA as much as possible as the investment will only result in higher combined title sales IMO. It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see them back in next year.

This is what I think happens. I wouldn't be surprised if NCAA has some sort of CC next year as well as far as combining offline and online dynasty. I think the main issue is with the ability to determine who gets storylines and what they are. I doubt we'll see the ability of storylines encompassing both games at this point but maybe somewhere down the road that's a possibility. For example, what the storylines read in Madden won't be what actually happened in the NCAA season but who knows maybe that's what they're wanting to do.

[jfsolo]

It is interesting how immersion is created for different people by different means. For some it's the names, numbers, and gear of real life people that draws them into game the most. For others it's the narrative of the generated classes, that add depth to the game.

For me, even with sports games, story elements will always enhance my game playing experience exponentially.

[AussieChiefsFan]

the plus side is that year 2 in CC will have real life 2013 rookies.

[vrock627]

Quote: Originally Posted by AussieChiefsFan

the plus side is that year 2 in CC will have real life 2013 rookies.

what do you mean

[alifeincomplete]

I would be perfectly content without the re-inclusion of draft import if -- and I stress if -- we could edit, personnel data like, at the most basic, names, positions, numbers, college, you get the point. Give me, at the least, M11 levels of player editing and I will be okay.

[alifeincomplete]

Quote: Originally Posted by AussieChiefsFan

the plus side is that year 2 in CC will have real life 2013 rookies.

How is this possible? NCAA rules prohibit current players' likenesses from being used.

[AussieChiefsFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by vrock627

what do you mean

Well apparently you wont need to import the 2013 rookies because they're already in the game.

[Legionnaire]

I understand the work they put into hand-crafting draft classes and prospects. But I don't think it would've been so hard to have an import feature that simply takes the old draft class import/export data, and uses it as a base to then apply storylines to.

Just take all the prospects included in a draft class file, throw them in a big pot and allow storylines and attributes be more or less randomly applied to those prospects. All that stays intact are names/sizes/schools/skin and hair colors (so kids look like they should and come from the correct school), and then the game randomizes everything else.

If NCAA generated draft class files that specified each player's "type" (scrambler or pocket passer, etc) that'd be better of course to make sure players came out at least resembling their college selves in some way as far as the type of skillset they have. But they could've at least let you import the basic name/appearance/school data and then applied random storylines and attributes to them.

But whatever. Looking forward to the feature anyway.

It helps that I had a Madden-only year last year, so I used their fake draft classes instead of real NCAA ones. So it won't be too much of a shock using fake ones again this year. But I look forward to the day when they really figure out their NCAA-to-Madden situation. Connected Careers would be amazing if I could tie it to an NCAA dynasty.

Instead of there being a separate, dedicated draft class file that gets saved after the season in NCAA, what they need to do is have a feature where you simply handcuff a Madden franchise gamesave to an NCAA dynasty gamesave. And when you're playing your Madden franchise, when you advance a week, it somehow reads the NCAA dynasty gamesave file to see what happened that week in the college landscape, so that Trey Wingo is talking about what specific seniors or juniors did that week or who got injured or whatever and it's all accurate according to how things are unfolding in your actual NCAA dynasty.

The least they could do, instead of just taking a year off from providing a draft class import/export, would be to have some online editor to let gamers customize the draft class. Similar to NCAA's TeamBuilder website where you can create a team. Let the more hardcore Madden players go on some DraftClassBuilder website to let us name the prospects, determine their appearances, select what school they played for, select their default jersey number preference, select their skillset type. And then have that output draft class files, which can then have random ratings and storylines applied to it.

It's bizarre to me that it's 2012 and EA loses such a long-running feature. Even if they hit a point where they realized they can't get on the same page with the NCAA programmers to make a conversion work that way, they could've banged out a draft class creator/editor to somehow let fans figure out how to get college guys into the NFL draft.