[R.Moncrief]

First off, I want to establish a few points.

1 - I am not doing this to suck-up to any form of forum staff here.
2 - I am fully aware we all have the right, through sharing the privilege of using this forum, to discuss, praise, and/or bash the Madden franchise.
3 - I am aware that I have complained about two areas of Madden NFL 10 here; Superstar mode and it's depth chart functionality and the lack of combined tackle totals. However, I have not gone to the depths that some have gone here in criticizing these areas.
4 - If this thread leads to a load of disorderly behavior (flaming, spamming, etc) I wholeheartedly agree with the possibility of it being locked and/or deleted.

Before I begin, I want to stress that while I agree with what I stated in point 4, I really hope we don't have to have this thread deleted and maybe we can share a discussion here in a civilized manner.

Speaking of being civilized, that's something that I've noticed little of here lately. Everyone's completely freaking out and redundancy is running rampart.

Like everyone else, I am looking forward to patches being released for the game. But do we need to constantly talk about the patches in every thread that is published on this forum? Someone can start a thread about beating the deep pass or establishing a run game and somehow it will go off-topic and everyone's shared anticipation for patches takes over.

Nearly all of us here bought the game, and truth is this year's edition is, without a doubt, the best since Madden went to 360/PS3. Yes, there are problems in the game. However, no game is perfect. Unfortunately, a lot of us here are acting completely ridiculous over the fact.

What happened to the days when your controlled-character's gun would go through a wall in Goldeneye for N64 and we thought it was COOL? What happened to the days when glitches would take place and we would be oblivious to the fact that it was an error within the game?

We need to loosen up our belts a little. We're getting a little high strung here. First off, it's just a video game and believe it or not, by purchasing it you are agreeing to accept the video game as is.

If EA doesn't want to release a patch, they are not obligated to, and so they don't have to. If they do release a patch, they are doing us a favor. The more we act as though it's something we are entitled to, the more foolish we look.

If [enter random band's name here] releases an album with 2 hit songs and 11 fluff filler tracks, would it make sense for the band to release a "patch" fixing the songs? Hell, like an album, video games are a work of art. You should feel privileged that there are people in this world capable of producing video games of such a high caliber (yes, despite glitches Madden NFL 10 is some good stuff) and that you can share in the experience of playing it. Like we used to enjoy video games, "back in the day." Be a kid again, please.

I'm not completely sure how Ian Cummings became such a scapegoat for the problems present in the Madden franchise. But how would you feel if you made something that you may have honestly believed was the best edition of said creation you have ever made and it was criticized ridiculously by thousands of people. I, personally, am the type to tell people to go "f" themselves and I would likely discontinue whatever it was that I was producing. Then again, I must admit, that I am not part of a multi-million dollar company so maybe things change once the money comes in and your skin gets a little thicker.

I don't know. Honestly, I wish we could all keep our criticisms in the Gripes thread and devote the rest of this forum to positive experiences with Madden. And please, for my sanity (nod to the topic title, eh?), don't tell me the problems with Madden far outweigh the good in the game because that's crazy talk.

To finish this off, I am going to refer to my 2nd point. I stated that we have a privilege to be here, similar to having the privilege of buying Madden NFL 2010. Some of you should really rearrange your thought processes and realized that while it is free to register here on this forum and you are allowed to share your thoughts, we are entitled to nearly nothing here. Many of you should try and not complain just to complain, hop off the bandwagons. While you have the privilege to share your views here, I shouldn't have to have them shoved down my throat everytime I come back here. And you can always say, fine then go somewhere else, and I'm sure if I left here it would not be any kind of loss to the community but why can't we act a bit more civilized?

I don't think I'm asking for much. Post the criticisms in the gripes thread, and the positives in the thread designate for all things possitive in Madden 10. And maybe, just maybe, let's develop a ratio of 1 negative thread for every 4 or 5 positive threads from now on. This place would be a lot funner and a lot less of a headache to come to.

Thanks for reading. I am taking a crap right now and figured I'd post some food for thought. Great thinkers think on the bowl. Never forget that.