Official Madden 12 Online Communities Blog

[CRMosier_LM]

Quote: Originally Posted by TimsGiants

We EA have any website or apps so we can we access our commmunity stats/ leaderboard ect via the web? That would be nice. If not is that something LM could pull from EA?

I'm not sure on the EA part.

[jerryrice4949]

Basically does not get more blah. I am bias though and can admit it. Can't believe this goes in before and actual online franchise.

[Danimal]

Quote: Originally Posted by CRMosier_LM

I said the Madden community, not just OS. The single biggest complaint in online modes is play style and how to know who you are playing is playing the same style you prefer and.... Viola, Online Community's.

Exactly how do Online Communities change that? I can set up a community and call it sim and set all the sliders i want (still love to hear how they couldn't get at least sliders in Online Franchise) there is nothing stopping people from playing non-sim.

So now you can say well the person in charge can boot them and again I say to you that I have the same control with a friends list. Basically this is a large friends list, with stat tracking and leader boards.

Bottom line this is to cater to the online ranked players who like to see their names on leader boards. Most people I know want a way to play in leagues and this does nothing to help them that I can see.

[XtremeDunkz]

yup, 3 years without adding sliders to OF but they come up with this idea and can add sliders no problem, sigh.

[CRMosier_LM]

Quote: Originally Posted by Danimal

Exactly how do Online Communities change that? I can set up a community and call it sim and set all the sliders i want (still love to hear how they couldn't get at least sliders in Online Franchise) there is nothing stopping people from playing non-sim. So now you can say well the person in charge can boot them and again I say to you that I have the same control with a friends list. Basically this is a large friends list, with stat tracking and leader boards. Bottom line this is to cater to the online ranked players who like to see their names on leader boards. Most people I know want a way to play in leagues and this does nothing to help them that I can see.

Yeah I know what you are saying, it is basically set up to be heavily policed by the admin or moderator. The concept is basically what I was referring to. I'm hoping it Is user friendly for the leaders of each community. I honestly haven't played much online over the last few years outside of online franchise mostly due to issues with other peoples play style. I am not a fan of sitting down in front of my ps3 and saying "eh I have an hour to kill, I will play online" and then have someone play glitch ball against me. To me that that isn't fun, to others it is. I'm not.going to say how someone else wants to play the game is wrong... But that doesn't mean I have to risk playing against those folks.

The concept of online community's is that it is supposed to remove that variable so that each time you get the urge to play...theoretically you are jumping into the game with a similar style player. that will bring me back into playing online.

No its not online franchise, I wish it were a complete franchise mode. But I give ea respect for the attempt to try and give the online players something similar to what they have been asking for. Everyone plays the game different so they have made a way for everyone to do that and still have a ranking system.

Like the typical Browns fan I am, I will say next year is our year (online franchise)! And if its not i may go off the deep end.

[therealsmallville]

I don't play online anymore, but there was one thing I was hoping for that would have brought me back and it wasn't there: roster sharing.

Am I the only one who was disappointed this wasn't part of the big news? The ability to share classic nfl rosters, for use in both online and offline, would have been amazing. Could you imagine taking the '89 49ers up against the '93 Cowboys? Or how about the Steel Curtain vs the Greatest Show On Turf?

That's what I was hoping for, but no biggie I guess. I'm genuinely happy for those who will benefit from the communities feature, though. Baby steps eventually leads to running, after all.

[DaveDQ]

What a lot of you guys want is to be able to stop exploiters. It's not going to happen. Yes, I'm upset that the OF isn't being touched, but the concept of online communities works in that you can monitor who is in your community.

But a lot of gamers still want that. They want to dominate the ranked matches, but get furious when "cheesers" are doing it so easily. The best thing to do is get a community of reputable players and go at it with that, but for whatever reason many aren't satisfied with that...but we should be.

[RogueHominid]

Quote: Originally Posted by Danimal

Exactly how do Online Communities change that? I can set up a community and call it sim and set all the sliders i want (still love to hear how they couldn't get at least sliders in Online Franchise) there is nothing stopping people from playing non-sim. So now you can say well the person in charge can boot them and again I say to you that I have the same control with a friends list. Basically this is a large friends list, with stat tracking and leader boards. Bottom line this is to cater to the online ranked players who like to see their names on leader boards. Most people I know want a way to play in leagues and this does nothing to help them that I can see.

Yup. This is the not-so-hidden problem in the Communities idea. I have a hunch that policing them will be much harder than those pushing PR for the feature will admit. I can see the issue of policing causing serious problems for the Communities feature in practical terms.

How much time does a community founder have to respond to potential complaints about individuals' game play? It's very hard to do that with the small sample size of a 32-man league, much less a bigger group.

I'm prepared to hear trumpeting fanfare in response, but anyone who has played consistently with a community of even 15-20 guys knows that things get hairy and that the utopian idea of communing with gamers who hold shared beliefs is hardly ever realized.

Maybe between now and release the communities could be given a larger administrative structure like diocese and bishoprics and parishes and such.