Operation Sports Forums - View Single Post - Rex Dickson Leaves EA Tiburon and the Madden Team

Devaster · 05-05-2018, 01:18 AM

Haven't read most of the replies. I'll give my Madden experience the last few years (under Rex) and my concerns going forward.

The last two Maddens I have played were 15 and currently playing 18. 15 had a ton of issues and I felt like 17 really did a great job of making the gameplay better and fixing a lot of those issues within franchise mode. I didn't play 17, but watched enough videos to get a sense of it. And 18 only confirmed that 17 was a success and an improvement upon it. It has had its issues, but nothing game-breaking and no ongoing bugs that seriously dampen the overall experience.

The last game I was a part of a community team that worked alongside a game's development team was Dark Age of Camelot. And funny enough that game was also handled by EA, but later passed off to an EA team that broke off into another smaller company to handle a bunch of EA's older online games (Broadsword). Things were going well and I liked the direction of the game. But there were definitely some radical ideas being thrown around by some of the developers. But one developer seemed to understand how the game should continue to be balanced and to improve upon that. That developer moved on and the game went entirely the wrong direction (for me). It has been 3 years since I put down DAoC permanently.

I don't expect anything radical like that to happen in a sports game as opposed to a fantasy MMORPG. Madden will continue to be a football game. But I will say that this has me seriously concerned about the franchise mode. MUT is clearly the money maker. And competitive mode is also a money maker due to online gaming and tournaments. We can only hope there are still people on the team that want to maintain and improve the franchise mode.

05-05-2018, 01:18 AM	#148
Devaster Pro OVR: 0 Join Date: Dec 2008	Re: Rex Dickson Leaves EA Tiburon and the Madden Team Haven't read most of the replies. I'll give my Madden experience the last few years (under Rex) and my concerns going forward. The last two Maddens I have played were 15 and currently playing 18. 15 had a ton of issues and I felt like 17 really did a great job of making the gameplay better and fixing a lot of those issues within franchise mode. I didn't play 17, but watched enough videos to get a sense of it. And 18 only confirmed that 17 was a success and an improvement upon it. It has had its issues, but nothing game-breaking and no ongoing bugs that seriously dampen the overall experience. The last game I was a part of a community team that worked alongside a game's development team was Dark Age of Camelot. And funny enough that game was also handled by EA, but later passed off to an EA team that broke off into another smaller company to handle a bunch of EA's older online games (Broadsword). Things were going well and I liked the direction of the game. But there were definitely some radical ideas being thrown around by some of the developers. But one developer seemed to understand how the game should continue to be balanced and to improve upon that. That developer moved on and the game went entirely the wrong direction (for me). It has been 3 years since I put down DAoC permanently. I don't expect anything radical like that to happen in a sports game as opposed to a fantasy MMORPG. Madden will continue to be a football game. But I will say that this has me seriously concerned about the franchise mode. MUT is clearly the money maker. And competitive mode is also a money maker due to online gaming and tournaments. We can only hope there are still people on the team that want to maintain and improve the franchise mode.