Online gamers across the country had previously spent the past few years cursing EA for their failure to add online leagues to their sports games  which was finally alleviated somewhat this past year when Live and NHL sported them. Before this, it seemed to be a yearly tradition where EA would answer the online leagues question with the simple comment of, "maybe next year." Well, now next year has finally come for football gamers.

EA has answered those gamers' cries by adding leagues for both Madden and NCAA Football. In the case of NCAA Football, EA didn’t just dip their toe into the proverbial online league pool, they jumped in with a flying cannonball, not just giving online gamers leagues, but a full fledged online dynasty for up to 12 users. This unveiling, after years of profanity laced tirades by the many football fanatics, made most gamers happy while a minority wondered: "why only 12 online users?" It’s impossible to please everyone all the time, but for those few who still aren’t happy with this year's online dynasty, I’m going to explain to you why EA got it exactly right giving us 12 users for online dynasty in NCAA Football 2009.

In college football teams aren’t going to have a monumental matchup each week. Major schools like USC, Texas, LSU, or Ohio State are going to play 3-4 big games per year. EA keeping the dynasties to 12 online owners will allow a near perfect recreation of a true college football experience. Much like USC getting up for playing Notre Dame, a gamer is going to have that built up excitement for upcoming games against human opponents. Players will be able to create their own non-conference schedule giving them the opportunity for epic matchups against other gamers online as well as any other big matchups that they may play in conference. This ensures gamers the opportunity for those big games each season, while they’ll still be locked up in their less anticipated games such as LSU vs. Mississippi.

Expect interesting non-conference matchups when playing a dynasty online.

Another reason that EA got it right is that sometimes gamers need to be saved from themselves. In my experiences with online leagues many times people go in with the idea of the bigger the better. It seems great to come in with a huge number of people signed up for the league when the game is newly released and everyone is excited to have his or her new toy to play with, but as time goes on people begin to lose interest. Their lessened desire to play weekly games ends up holding up others and taking away from the enjoyment of the quality owners in the league. By limiting the numbers of owners in a dynasty it better allows leagues to maintain a high quality level of ownership, leading to a better league experience for all involved.

And of course there is one of the more obvious answers when dealing with the big question of “why 12 users online in NCAA Football 2009?” Twelve is a perfect number because it allows gamers to fill up a conference and duke it out for that highly coveted conference title. Twelve spots will allow you to fill any of the major conferences, having each team controlled by a different user. The one flaw in this is unfortunately if you’re a die hard Mid-American Conference fan then you’re going to have to let the AI play out the season for one of the bottom feeders like Kent State or Northern Illinois. In all likelihood, not having to fill that team is actually a plus since it saves you the headache of searching high and low to find someone who would actually be willing to volunteer to take on one of these prestigious teams.

Sure a full experience of 117 different owners duking it out for a national championship sounds great, but in reality there are too many problems to actually allow that to take place. The fact that we’re actually limited to 12 users is a great thing, and this will end up helping to create a better and more realistic league experience for all.