Madden 2010 News Post

Madden NFL 10: Online Franchise Q&A with Donny Moore

04:46 PM - June 9, 2009 by Ian_Cummings

Check out the new Madden NFL 10 blog.

Quote:


	"Donny Moore here, designer for Madden NFL 10. If you've been following me on Twitter (donny_moore) you've likely noticed that I have been working on player ratings for the game, but what I've had to remain pretty tight-lipped on so far this year has been my involvement with Online Franchise. EA Sports president Peter Moore just recently announced this feature last week at the E3 press conference, and we knew going in that there would be all kinds of speculation and discussion over the feature among our fans. So this week we wanted to take the opportunity to answer some of the most common questions that we've been seeing from the community and from the gaming media. Not everyone has a 100% clear idea of what all is included in the mode, and we have also noticed that some folks have expressed frustration over missing features. With that being the case, we felt it imperative to explain a.) why we made the decisions that we did and b.) our plan for the future developing on this new platform. This feature is extremely important to me, especially as a die-hard Franchise guy (for those that don't know I worked on NFL Head Coach 09 along with fellow designer Josh Looman), so it has been an incredible experience to be a part of building a brand new Online Franchise experience - something totally new and different for the millions of Madden fans out there."

Game: Madden NFL 10Reader Score: 7.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 76 - View All

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Member Comments

# 21 Phobia @ 06/09/09 05:27 PM

From a honest opinion. 10 years is plenty. It will be hard pressed to find guys to hang around in a league for 10 seasons, much less 30. So it at 10 is PLENTY for me.

Everything in the blog we knew already. but Thanks Ian....Best developer ever.

# 22 Da Bears @ 06/09/09 05:28 PM

Q: Do you have multi-week and season ending injuries in online franchise?
A: Yes, we do. We also have career-enders as well (very rare).

Q: What kind of options does the Commissioner have at his fingertips?
A: The commissioner is integral to the success of your online franchise. Just like in Online Dynasties, if you have a commish that forgets to advance the week or doesn�t control his owners, the league might fail. To accomplish this, we give the commissioner several different options:
- Boot Player � The commish can boot any unruly owner at any time. Any CPU team can be replaced by a user team (or vice versa) at any time.
- Promote Player � The commish can promote any other owner in the league to commissioner in the event where the commish goes out of town or is unavailable.
- Settings changes: Skill Level, Quarter Length, Fatigue, Injuries, and Accelerated Clock.
- Post News � The commish can post news to the console so all owners can see what is going on around the league.
- Add/Drop � As explained above, the commish can manipulate rosters to more realistically create off-season player movement.

THANK YOU.

# 23 sportzbro @ 06/09/09 05:29 PM

Even with what's being left out this year (salary cap, live free agent bidding, etc.) this feature is going to be fun as hell.. The future looks very bright for online franchise.

# 24 HealyMonster @ 06/09/09 05:30 PM

Ian, Donny, ANYONE!!!! I have a question about the web interface--Will it be just a spot for stats and depth chart management, or will it be a spot to view game recaps, news stories,etc? I say this because in the Q&A it says the commish can add a top story from the console with no mention of owners adding stories or the ability to add a story to the web site.

I am trying to get an idea as to what exactly will be on the website.

# 25 turfguy23 @ 06/09/09 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smoke316


	well hopefully they can post some "EA Recommended" house rules for leagues as a way to work around not having a salary cap

I think they just did in the new blog.

The commissioner will have the option to Add/Drop players at will during the offseason (this is a website exclusive feature). I can give you an example of what we are already doing here at the office in our online franchise�Each team in the league is forced to give up five 70+ OVR players to free agency (we all agreed on the CPU team players to release). We then took that list, and did a quick free agency draft with that list of players. The commish then went into the Commissioner Options screen and add/dropped the players to the new teams. While this is not exactly ideal, it does give those folks who are looking for a very realistic Franchise experience a way to have offseason player movement every year.

I can work with that. It's like having two drafts in a sense. And this would force you to "think" as an owner as to who you keep and cut. I'm fine with it knowing it will be improved upon in the near future. Remember, Online Franchise is server based meaning we won't necessarily have to wait until 2011 for this to be changed.

# 26 PantherBeast_OS @ 06/09/09 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phobia


	From a honest opinion. 10 years is plenty. It will be hard pressed to find guys to hang around in a league for 10 seasons, much less 30. So it at 10 is PLENTY for me. Everything in the blog we knew already. but Thanks Ian....Best developer ever.

Yea 10 years is enough. People have to account for people having lives outside of a game. It ain't like people sit on their behinds all day playing games. People have family to care work school and so on. Also getting people to commit to 10 years is hard enough. I think 10 years is plenty enough

# 27 Danimal @ 06/09/09 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renegade44


	Ian, Donny, ANYONE!!!! I have a question about the web interface--Will it be just a spot for stats and depth chart management, or will it be a spot to view game recaps, news stories,etc? I say this because in the Q&A it says the commish can add a top story from the console with no mention of owners adding stories or the ability to add a story to the web site. I am trying to get an idea as to what exactly will be on the website.

I submitted similar questions and they didn't make the cut which leads me to believe that nothing is in place for this or the web interface is still being worked out. I can honestly say working in the web site industry with the time they have left all of that could be put in place and it wouldn't even effect the core teams time. It depends how good their web team is and what type or priority it is.

# 28 PantherBeast_OS @ 06/09/09 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boucher


	So they're working on a patch of some sort for the salary cap and contract's?

Yes it seems to be that way. But we will know more I guess later on as Ian puts out the info to use.

# 29 bison160 @ 06/09/09 05:44 PM

Well, I submitted a question to Ian, but seems it got left out.

Anyone know if you will be able to play a league game with a friend on the same xbox, then upload the results similar to what you could do with NCAA online dynasty last year?

This is real important to me because I really like have a few of my friends that come over a lot in the same league as me and to have to make him go home so we can play the game would suck. Especially since he has a ps3 and i have a 360.

# 30 parrothead @ 06/09/09 05:49 PM

Couldn't we always institute our own salary cap within a given Franchise, with the Commish doling out penalties and such. Sort of like they explained with Free Agency, there are ways to make things happen.

# 31 Smoke316 @ 06/09/09 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by turfguy23


	I think they just did in the new blog. The commissioner will have the option to Add/Drop players at will during the offseason (this is a website exclusive feature). I can give you an example of what we are already doing here at the office in our online franchise�Each team in the league is forced to give up five 70+ OVR players to free agency (we all agreed on the CPU team players to release). We then took that list, and did a quick free agency draft with that list of players. The commish then went into the Commissioner Options screen and add/dropped the players to the new teams. While this is not exactly ideal, it does give those folks who are looking for a very realistic Franchise experience a way to have offseason player movement every year. I can work with that. It's like having two drafts in a sense. And this would force you to "think" as an owner as to who you keep and cut. I'm fine with it knowing it will be improved upon in the near future. Remember, Online Franchise is server based meaning we won't necessarily have to wait until 2011 for this to be changed.

I like that idea too of having to drafts i guess. itll just be a lil more work for the commish to handle but at least they gave us the tools to do it.. Thanks

# 32 Broncos86 @ 06/09/09 05:57 PM

Without simming for years and years, how many people here have gone to 10 years?

I'm amazed that people could complain about things like salary cap, etc. Moore never said "we don't see them as important," he said they just didn't have the time. People clamor and complain and moan for things like online franchise. And when it's not perfect, they cry foul as if they've been personally attacked.

Ian and Co. could've very well said "Online Franchise in 11, hold off." They didn't. They're giving it to you now. Be happy that they did, and that they're still working to get in the features that are lacking. The EA crew has said over and over that they just couldn't get it in, and still people have the audacity to accuse them of some sort of grand insult.

Be happy for what you got, be happy to know that they're going to work on it. Quit demanding back hand springs when the EA crew is already bending over backwards.

# 33 adembroski @ 06/09/09 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Details


	Will the Online Franchise website launch in advance of August 14th to allow leagues to get organized?

^^^ This.

# 34 Bonee70 @ 06/09/09 06:00 PM

Thanks a lot for all the info on Online-Franchise!

I am missing an important information. How do you handle a week where a player is unable to play their game? Can you assign a Win/Loss? Or Sim the game? Can you sim the game with a predetermined winner/loser?

# 35 kwpit79 @ 06/09/09 06:04 PM

The crappy thing about a ten year franchise and no free agency (as it stands now) is that really, when you consider rookies will probably suck the first couple of years, you only have about eight years to compete. Hell, why even draft the final two years other than for depth purposes? You aren't going to be able to see how they progress, and so they probably won't crack your starting lineup anyway.

If rookies progress faster than previous versions it makes my point moot.

# 36 Brandon_c993 @ 06/09/09 06:06 PM

Well I can't say I'm not disappointed, I was looking forward to trying to stay under the cap, etc. but I realize a lump of coal does not turn into a diamond overnight...

So as long as these thing are in for M11 I will be happy but if not I will be extremely disappointed in the DEV's....but like I said getting an OF in this years Madden from last is pretty amazing you just need to get all of the things that aren't in it...well in it...for M11.

# 37 Brandon_c993 @ 06/09/09 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Details


	Will the Online Franchise website launch in advance of August 14th to allow leagues to get organized?

Would love to know this since I have gotten a full 32 man franchise, any answer for us Ian of anyone else from the Dev team?

P.S. 900th post, yay!!!

lol

# 38 SHO @ 06/09/09 06:11 PM

What about offline franchise mode? Another year of being ignored?

# 39 deltroy @ 06/09/09 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Details


	Will the Online Franchise website launch in advance of August 14th to allow leagues to get organized?

I would love to know when they plan on putting the site up as well!!

# 40 PantherBeast_OS @ 06/09/09 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NOBLE


	What about offline franchise mode? Another year of being ignored?

Well it ain't been ignored. They have done alot to offline franchise mode. It's just the online franchise mode right now is getting more attention in the spotlight from Ian and them right now. I am hoping Ian will put out a new blog on franchise mode offline in the next few weeks once in the online franchise mode has had time to sink in .

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