Nitpicking Just Because I Can---Part 3 - Heroiczero13's Blog

Heroiczero13's Blog

Nitpicking Just Because I Can---Part 3

Posted on February 27, 2011 at 04:53 PM.

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A few years ago the Madden team changed its format for the rookie draft in franchise mode from randomly generated rookies to pre-made draft classes that the developers had designed to absolute perfection. Okay that last bit is not quite correct but you understand the point. Now in my poor innocent days I welcomed this, I developed some favorite players that I always tried to draft because I knew how awesome they were, and I would be genuinely filled with glee if I just drafted one guy on a whim in the 5th round and he turned out to be 80 rated, but after awhile this format lost its luster. By the 3rd franchise I would know all the good and bad players I would have a 90 rated team by year 4 if I started with a cupcake team, which I always do. It was all rather yawn inducing.

One day while putting myself on auto-pilot for another offseason I recalled my time with(I believe it was) Madden 06 on the Xbox(not the god awful 360 version). I would always play with my brother and we would have **** Eagles and Rams franchises and it was always great fun. Now back at this time the drafts were all random with random players and names and such (cite me if I'm wrong). Well I remember this one quarterback I drafted whose name was Stacey Lincoln, who from what I can recall was a lefty, 6'4, and had 99 Throwing power and around 75 speed. This was my first round pick during whichever year and I was genuinely excited about it, I had scouted him and was coveting him (note: it was a fantasy draft franchise so I did not have McNabb). Afterwards he went on to be my best player for many years to come and an MVP. Now in all the other franchises we did in that game I never once saw his name come up again.

That is a good thing. Sure we all want to hold on closely to what we know to be good, but it ruins the experience of something to know the outcome. Surely the misery of the Oakland Raiders would not have been nearly as entertaining if Al Davis realized that in his other franchise Jamarcus Russell was 42 rated O-Lineman. So I would implore Madden to return to this sort of thing. However as a middle ground they could keep all the players ratings they worked so so so hard on and just have a random name generator so that at least we aren't stuck in auto-pilot.

Note: On a semi-recent Madden podcast one of the members of the team pointed out that the recent pre-made rosters were from NFL Head Coach 09 and that he put many hours into creating them and would hate for it to go to waste. Well I say that is lazy if he just plans to keep those same rosters or just rename them, mind you renaming is not the same as random names. Random names would be for every new franchise so it's never the same.

Whew that was a long one. My apologies.

Comments

# 1 ffyfe7 @ Feb 28

Madden 06 was a the best in my opinion. My mates and I had a party and I ended up getting an Interception TD in the last :50 seconds of the game and guy who I was versing was trying to get me to stuff up.

Currently in my NBA 2K11 franchise I chose random draft and there is a PF named Jack Slaughter that flew under my radar until the draft and I missed out on getting him. He ended up being a big difference in the team dynamic with the team I was versing and now I'm trying to pick him up before he gets too good and becomes a star. I see the potential, let's hope they don't haha.