The fresh and new FIFA 11 Ultimate Team (FUT) Web app launched today. Luckily, we had a chance to talk with FUT producer Paul Hossack about the launching of the new Web app, as well as the changes to this popular mode that will be released on November 3.

Operation Sports: When you choose to play a friend in FUT this year, will those games count towards your ranking and earn you points for cards, or will they be unranked matches?

Paul Hossack: The team is really excited about finally delivering the Play-A-Friend feature. They will be unranked matches. Essentially, you can invite any of your friends for a head-to-head online match in FUT 11. When you are matching up, you can both pick which squad you will use, and you can see the name and rating of the squad they are picking so you can get an even matchup. In Play-A-Friend matches, your players do not use up any contracts, so you can play against your mates as much as you like. Also, no coins are awarded in Play-A-Friend matches to avoid exploits -- so these matches are truly "Friendlies" (sorry for the pun).

Opartion Sports: Beyond not being able to play FUT games on your computer, does the Web application allow you to do everything you would normally do on your console?

PH: There's a lot of exciting stuff coming in the new FUT Web app, but it's not the entire experience minus the match engine yet. All FUT gamers can go to this website and manage their team while they are away from their console (e.g. sneak in a little FUT while at the office). We've expanded the functionality to include managing all your squads -- great for getting a squad ready for the matches you'll play when you get home -- showing off your squad to friends online, and full auctions for all item types (but no trade offers).

We also have some new features for returning FUT gamers. Starting October 27, they can go here and open their FUT 11 starter pack before the console game has even launched. On top of that, they can open up their loyalty gift (two free gold packs). Each day they come back to the Web app, up to November 3, they will get a random daily gift, such as packs, coins or bid tokens. Finally, we are introducing a new Web-only feature called FUT Generations, where returning gamers can create a Web squad where they can put both their best FUT 10 and FUT 11 players on the same squad and show it off to the world. We're really excited about this last feature because we wanted to let our FUT gamers know that all the effort they put into FUT 10 is still around and valuable.

OS: Did the development team always plan on allowing users to keep the players they accumulated from last year's version of FUT, or was that an aspect of the mode that was debated amongst the team?

PH: We've had a belief since the start that gamers invest lots of time and energy (and some money) into building their squads and club, and this is something that should persist. That's why we are really proud of the FUT Generations feature, where gamers can show off their FUT 10 players alongside FUT 11 players. It just feels like the right thing.

OS: Has anything been changed in terms of how chemistry is calculated this year?

PH: Nothing substantial has changed for chemistry this year.

OS: Did anything really jump out at the development team in terms of how people were constructing their teams or playing FUT last year?

PH: Most people built "gold teams," which is exactly what we expected -- it's the point of the game. We were really happy to see how a lot of gamers then got into building silver teams and bronze teams. As we release our weekly dynamic tournaments, we'd put different restrictions up once in a while for those gamers. Christophe (the Football Live Team producer) has a great dialogue going with the community on the forums, and he's the one who manages all the live content, live dynamic tournaments, Team of the Week and store promotions. Christophe and I also do a weekly podcast -- you should subscribe on iTunes, just look for FIFA Ultimate Team. In the summer we did an informal competition asking gamers to send us the Show Off link to their interesting squads. We got lots of great submissions (earned them 50K coins). My favorite was one where if you looked at the first initial of the first name of each player in the lineup and bench, it spelled FIFATENULTIMATETEAMROCK. :-)

OS: Beyond the new features like the new Web application, what do you think separates FUT from the Ultimate Team modes in the other EA Sports games?

PH: There are a couple things that really make FUT work really well for our FIFA gamers. First, our lead designer, Adam Shaikh, leads the balancing of FUT. He, with help from the producers, does an amazing job of finding the right balance in the game so that it is fun to start and fun to play over many months. He really cares a lot about the game feeling fair, while also keeping a super close eye on the balance of the economy. The other thing that seems to be going really well for FUT is the efforts of the Football Live Team, led by Christophe, because the members of that team have kept the game exciting over time. We've gotten awesome feedback around the Team of the Week, which Christophe handpicks after watching lots of football and getting input from our Data Collection Team. People just love the IF's and SIF's. We have a blast with this type of game because we get to keep trying new things and getting immediate feedback from the community. That helps us make a better game, which is good for everyone.


Thanks to Paul for taking time to answer those questions. Be on the lookout for FUT 11 when it launches on November 3 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. And jump online today and toy around with your FUT team right here.