GameTap has posted an interview with Phil Frazier, Lead Designer of Madden NFL 09.
GameTap: "How are online leagues going to be implemented in Madden 09?"
Phil Frazier: "For the first time ever in Madden, you'll be able to get together with 32 of your friends and participate in a league where you can play through a schedule, play through the playoffs, play your own Super Bowl. There's draft support, there's trade support, and we actually implemented flex scheduling in the online leagues. We've had tournaments before online, but the problem with tournaments is that having more than two or three people together at the same time to complete a series of games is very, very challenging. So with flex scheduling, you can actually play your games in any order. It's more like a round-robin style. We did this because it's online and we wanted to make sure people can actually play through their seasons. If you and I are scheduled to meet in Week 10 but we're both online today, we can just play our Week 10 game now. I know there are possible issues or questions about what happens to the rosters if you get injured, but we're not worrying about that right now. We wanted to set up a system where leagues would actually get used and are very user-friendly in terms of the coordination required. It's all server based. There are no files to manage. There's no data whatsoever being saved on your box."
Phil Frazier: "For the first time ever in Madden, you'll be able to get together with 32 of your friends and participate in a league where you can play through a schedule, play through the playoffs, play your own Super Bowl. There's draft support, there's trade support, and we actually implemented flex scheduling in the online leagues. We've had tournaments before online, but the problem with tournaments is that having more than two or three people together at the same time to complete a series of games is very, very challenging. So with flex scheduling, you can actually play your games in any order. It's more like a round-robin style. We did this because it's online and we wanted to make sure people can actually play through their seasons. If you and I are scheduled to meet in Week 10 but we're both online today, we can just play our Week 10 game now. I know there are possible issues or questions about what happens to the rosters if you get injured, but we're not worrying about that right now. We wanted to set up a system where leagues would actually get used and are very user-friendly in terms of the coordination required. It's all server based. There are no files to manage. There's no data whatsoever being saved on your box."
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