Is there something illegal about trading into Gamestop when you're through with it?

We should have an "NCAA 09 Bugs Thread" or "NCAA 09 Second Impressions" where he can wallow on his own while the rest of us can speak about what it's like to actually play the game.

I'LL TELL YOU WHAT IT'S LIKE TO ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME

IT'S A RIPOFF

I KNOW THIS

AND I WILL TELL YOU AGAIN AFTER I PLAY IT

I MEAN DAMN HOW HARD IS THIS TO FIGURE OUT

Games that didn't go through a retail channel first? Let's just say it's at the very least a shady practice, and may violate the terms under which you or your buddy or whoever were given the game in the first place. Making cash off, say, a review copy or an employee-store purchased copy is most certainly an abuse of the system.

Why do you deflect every question with another, slightly off-point question?

I'm wondering if I should buy the game tonight.

See, I'm normally one of those guys who buys NCAA on release day. I've even done the midnight release thing before. It's my most anticipated game every year. Last week, I was out of town, so I didn't bother buying it when it came out. Now I'm home, and I have to admit that this thread has me on the fence. I haven't read any reviews, and I haven't read any impressions that didn't come from this thread.

I guess I want to be sure that most of you guys are having fun with the game. I'm not really hardcore about gameplay or anything. Honestly, the only NCAA Football game that felt "broken" to me was NCAA 2005 because of all the dropped passes. I thoroughly enjoyed every other one that's been released in the past few years. I didn't even have get bothered much by the interceptions in last year's game.

I guess I should be fine with this year's game, right? Even in single player dynasty mode?

This is the first version I've bought since '04 and I'm having quite a bit of fun with it, even in single player. I really thought some the AI issues that have been mentioned would bother me, but any problems I've had have been offset by simply how fun the game is.

So yes, there are bugs. Yes, there are some AI annoyances. Yes, the game seems to be fun for most of the people that actually own the game.

And I encourage you to try out online versus FOFCers. It is a blast.

If you enjoyed last year's version and never got bothered by interceptions, I think you'll enjoy this year's version. I'm just very disappointed that online dynasties are broken as this was a huge selling point for me. Also, the issue with sliders is going to make it difficult for me to find a set of sliders that I enjoy that don't produce either high interception totals or high QB completion percentages. That being said, I've enjoyed every online game and if this online league gets patched, I'll definitely get my money's worth.

Man guys...I come home from 10 days in Phoenix and now I'm not sure about buying this.

I've been having fun with it...and that's really hard for me to say as an EA-hater. The game is far from perfect, but it's *mostly* fun. The lack of a working online dynasty definitely would have affected my decision had I known when the game launched. If I was out of town upon release and came back home and was looking to buy it...I would buy it used somewhere. Even though you'd only save $5-$10 from buying it used at Gamestop (for example), you at least wouldn't be funding the EA machine. To me that's an important thing :)

BTW, in case anyone is interested, trade-in value at Blockbuster is $35 store credit right now and I believe someone mentioned that it's $40 credit if you put it toward the pre-order for Madden 09 at Gamestop.

They need to seriously fix the online league ASAP...very frustrating.

From the developer over at OS regarding the issues with Online Dynasty:

That's good news on the online dynasty front. But 2% of all lockers? Come on. Just about everyone who has tried to run an online dynasty has run into this issue.

No, but it sounds a bit shaddy in what I think you are doing here. Oh well, to each his own.. I'm not the gaming police or anything, just find this to be a bit odd.

I rented it last night and I'd have to say I'm having alot of fun so far. Even with it's flaws (which honestly, so far I haven't really noticed many), I think it plays a fun game of college football.

So much so, I think I'll pick up a retail copy on Friday when I start my vacation.

Very first game, Mizzou vs NC.. was down 21-0 at halftime (yikes I'm rusty) - came back to tie the game at 21 late in the game when Goldsmith takes a cross route pass from Chase Daniel (as he was just about to get creamed) jumps over the defender and goes 54 yards for the score!! It was one of those OMG gaming moments... very cool....

I lost 28-21, but it was one of the most fun console football games I've had in awhile.

Forgot to save the highlight though! DOH!!

It's very early in my game playing, but so far I'm liking the overall package. :)

1. Running game is improved - favorite part so far
2. Animations - many, many more and they look great
3. Beautiful on my 46" HDTV
4. Controls really seem responsive this year
5. I love the way the CPU kicks away from Macklin on kickoffs and tries to work the ball to their big time players on offense

Who's a rookie around here I can play? :D

I tried these out a bit and they're far and away the best I've played with. I bumped running back ability up to 50 and made a couple other small tweaks and I see much more realistic football now. Other slider sets seem to get the stats right in the end, but this gets very solid stats and a great feel as you play. The main problem I've seen is with RB ability at 45 the AI is only average at running the ball, but as I mentioned above, I kicked it up to 50 and it helped some.

I'd strongly suggest more people try these out. They're not perfect, but I've seen the AI playcalling improve drastically. I'm seeing more (still not enough) downfield passing, a decent running game, gang tackling, and no more dink and dunk you death down the field.

If each XBox Live member that plays NCAA gets a locker, then we're talking about 2% of their players trying online dynasty. That may not be that far off. They didn't say 2% of online dynastys, just 2% of the lockers.

More like it happens 2% of the time someone tries to upload their data..

I like this game pretty well. The one thing that gets me is in CL mode while QB I throw a short pass to the RB and he runs sideways out of bounds(about 7 times in 15 games and usually 3rd and short and no one is around).
On Heisman when playing away, they scramble the buttons for the receivers and make those short passes to the far WR's too hard. And the difference in talent level is huge, FR CL QB CINN @ OU. That was a big step up, when used to HS teams.

Also in another CL mode my power RB has 99 speed 2 games in his FR yr.

I had very high hopes after playing nhl 08, its fun but hope dynasty is much better than my experience with CL. This are my intial impressions which may change, but I definitely enjoy the game.

Maybe I should get a gold membership again. I have only lost I game in all my college football gaming life. I not saying I'm good just the people I play against are that bad.

hxxp://sports.ign.com/articles/892/892808p1.html

You need to see IGN's simulation of the 2008 season. Tell me how many errors you find in their sentences. I'm not talking about grammatical errors or how Oregon State or Indiana went 11-1 errors. But improper phrases or, more importantly, downright wrong information. I found two. The one about who played in the SEC championship made me giggle.

Discuss ;)

I like it its like a brain exercise.

One of the better posts I've seen about the game:

Dubious Quality: NCAA Football 09

I hope EA takes a look at that and can fix it.

Play against somebody controlling Percy Harvin or Noel Devine online and you will know exactly what he is talking about. There is really nothing you can do to stop these guys in the flats consistently. Rediculous.

Anyone have a clue how to make an extra user? I can't for the life of me add another user besides my own... my roomate wants his records to save, naturally. Anyone figure that out?

This was the best part of that:

It was very much on point. gstelmack and I discussed it offline. No big deal. Sorry that it bothered you so much.

On the 360, go to the Dashboard and create another profile.

Shorty is on PS3, I believe. Although the solution is probably similar.

Bill's done this kind of analysis on games several times. He does a great job of taking the concerns about games that arise in the gaming community and actually finding the real reasons behind why the game isn't working anywhere close to the level that it should rather than just saying it's a bug.

I really want to believe that EA is trying to make the game better. I know that the developers have interacted with the OS forums quite a bit. My concern is that I can't tell if they're doing that to put out fires or if their interested in improving the game. Bill Harris, Bill Abner, and Pasta Padre have all done a great job of providing substantial information as to things that are severely broken in the game engine and game modes. I don't doubt one bit that if the development team took the '09 game and corrected all of the problems mentioned in those three sources along with the bug reports at the OS forums that they'd have a great game on their hands. I wouldn't even complain that it was a 2009.2 version of the game.

They have all the modes and visuals needed to make a great game here. They just have to fix what's broken at this point. Taking a year to do that would be the best thing EA has ever done.

It kills me how people spend all this time breaking down each and every flaw within a game. I find it quite boring...

+1

Wow at this.

Couldn't figure out how to embed it....


YouTube - NCAA 09 Glitch

What public locker has the named roster downloads for the 360?

I got mine from TJdasportsguy who is a well known poster on OS. Just keep in mind that the roster patch hasn't been released - in fact the developer on OS said today that MS and Sony have both let him know they are "backed up" and the certification process probably won't be done until the 1st week of August.

Dola -

In a different thread, the same developer said that it isn't a promise, but a rough timeline is that the 2nd patch (the gameplay patch) will be out "by September."

Man. Those Hurricanes are HYPED.

An off-note topic, but if you're interested in playing in the FOFC tournament (since it looks like the dynasties will be delayed), go sign up in this thread:

Online Dynasty Server problems - Front Office Football Central

I pretty much agree. It is quite shocking though, how bad EA butchered some facets of this game. Just incredible really. Thanks to the internet, they can be held accountable which is great.

In Campus Legend mode, the Texas QB is an asshole. The guy is a ball hog as well.

Having fun though, and it will be better if he graduates after my freshman year. I need to check on that right now.

Nah, there is no such Dashboardy thing with the PS3... if you push in the PS3 button that is similar to the Xbox dashboard, I get three options - turn off controller, turn off game, turn off system.

So, can you use that named roster to play games with?

Got it yesterday. Didn't get much time to play, but started up a Campus Legend game as a RB. First game we smashed the other team like 37-0 and I had a couple of nice 20+ yard TD runs. Second game was against a better team but we still won 27-17. Definately need to take your time with the running game and look at the blocking before turboing. Still, my favourite play I pulled off was a very nice block on a passing play that ensured a TD. :D

Groundhog: Were you playing Varsity or All-American? Varsity is "You Win" level

Honestly, I don't know. I didn't change any settings at all, so it was probably varsity. I only had 30 mins to play before heading out and just wanted to get a taste of it.

I just had a play rated 1307 in greatness, is that good. It was the first game for Mia and the other team was rated 30. haha
I laughed my butt off at how slow they were. I justed changed direction 5 different times on players and made them look silly, it was easy because they probably had a maximum speed of 65.

In CL mode do long runs in HS affect your RB that much. My FR power RB has 99 for speed before a game played. I don't think the answer matters because I'm getting into this dynasty I just started using the Heisman sliders posted above. Does anyone have a great AA slider setting?

Yes, you can (and the names appear in online games as well.) However, with the roster bug I wouldn't start a dynasty with any roster sets for fear that it will become corrupt down the road.

Those things don't bother me much to be honest. They usually are an extremely rare thing that happens maybe once in every couple hundred games. It's probably also near impossible to test for and replicate. Every game will have issues that lock it up and put it in a loop.

It's the bugs that can be found within hours of playing the game that bother me. There's just no excuse to have major issues with sliders, rosters, and dynasties.

I don't get why they release this game so early. They should throw out beta copies to people, let them find the bugs, then release the game in late August. It seems like all sports games are just being sent out real buggy and then waiting for a patch a couple months later. Even my favorite game, College Hoops 2K8 was kind of buggy out of the box and required a patch.

It's just getting to a point where we should skip preordering and wait to buy the game at the first patch.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/n/nc...nd/default.htm

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All the FOFC players need to try and get a game with these guys and let them know what we think about the game!

Ok.. thanks.. so just wait until the bug is fixed before downloading any rosters, correct?

You can download now to use the rosters in play now games, but delete them and download a "clean" set once the patch is out.

Thanks EF!

Just played Galaxy in a little over half a game. Sorry I disconnected on you. I got an unreadable disc error. I've tried blowing out my system with compressed air. Any other ideas?

For some reason I find EA's games incredibly prone to the dirty disc errors. What I find seems to prevent them is I turn on my console by hitting the eject button. Whenever I do that I don't seem to ever get them.

Bill Harris has put up another post detailing some of the major problems with NCAA 09. Someone already posted the videos in this thread that he uses in his post, but some of his other findings are just unbelievable.

Dubious Quality: NCAA 09 (360): Gameplay Discussion #2

I guess EA released NCAA 09 to bring balance to your gaming life.

Finally picked this up, very late to the party this year- but I will be looking to get some online games going with some FOFCers later in the week.

Not sure if this was metioned, but i found a bug playing this evening. Notre Dame/Pittsburgh, OT game. I won the toss, gave Pittsburgh the first possesion. They kick a FG, I get the ball, kick a field goal. Next possesion is me, i get a TD. Instead of Pitt getting their oppurtunity, they gave the ball to the Irish. I ran 1 play, and the game ended. Not good.

I'm just one man, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I downloaded PastaPadre's rosters and started an offline dynasty with Kentucky. I'm 4 games into year 2 with no problems so far. I didn't edit anything, because that would most definitely cause a problem. I have been backing up my dynasty by renaming it every 3 games or so. But come to think of it, that probably won't make a difference if the rosters crap out on me. But thankfully, no problems to report so far...

You better believe I'll freak out if that dynasty breaks on me ;)

Not good. I find it amusing that the two videos posted less than 24 hours ago have been deleted. You think EA is watching his blog?

If anyone is still on the fence and wants to buy my barely used copy, it's yours for $45.

I did not buy this year's NCAA but with all the bugs reporting in this game is it going to postpone your purchase of Madden this year?

Yeah, that goes back to a comment that I posted yesterday. I really think that their video hosting service is biting them in the ass right now. There are literally thousands of videos on their servers right now demonstrating just how bug-ridden the game is at this point. All those videos are available to the general public. They're getting absolutely hammered at this point by the consumers, mainly by using EA's server space.

Either way, the fact that those videos suddenly disappear is very telling as to just how bad it's getting.

Thanks. I'll try that from now on.

I'm definitely holding off on the Madden purchase this year until I get some impressions from this board and OS. Although, honestly, despite all of its shortcomings, I am really enjoying NCAA '09 so far. Maybe because I've only played against FOFCers online.

It's funny how many people are looking to trade in or sell their copy already just based on bugs other people have found. I have played over 2 dozen games by now, of which only 4 were against human opponents, and I have yet to encounter a single one of these "game breaking worst bugs to have ever been found in any game in HISTORY!!!!!!1".

So this isn't accurate? (from a teamxbox review)

Dynasty play in NCAA Football 09 can be turned into a twelve player war conducted via Live. Surprisingly, this revolutionary way of competing in a sports Dynasty runs without a hitch in its freshman season. Players within the dynasty can seamlessly use CPU teams to take care of stragglers in the schedule, control one squad for up to 60 years and even bring personalized rosters to the table.

Uhhhhh, no.

The reviews this year on NCAA 09 demonstrate pretty openly just how little some of these reviewers play the game. There's some reviews out there for this game that obviously failed to critically analyze all aspects of the game. The majority of the reviews on metacritic.com mention that the online and single player dynasty modes work flawlessly. They obviously didn't work very hard to expose the flaws in those modes.

Or they were all on test servers for the game before it was released. Supposedly the test servers didn't have the problems that are effecting these lockers. Anyway, the server patch (we don't need to download it as it goes directly to the servers) should be released today that is supposed to fix online dynasties.

The irony....

The Madden and NCAA dev teams are different right? I really hope Madden isn't this bad because I'm really looking forward to getting it with Head Coach.

I almost bought NCAA on impulse last week. Thank the maker.

Maybe MBBF should write reviews!

I'll be around for a bit if anyone wants a game. I think I am unstoppable with Clemson now. I've played two games with them against cheesers and just abused them.

So my online dynasty with my buddy is in season four, and it's a blast, but two things are retarded about it:

1. The commish is the only one who can change schedules. So if you want to customize you have to tell the commish and he does it for you.

2. My buddy in the commish of our league, and when he spends time on keeping guys from entering the draft or transfering, and they say they stay, they actually stay. Every guy I convinced to stay doesn't show up on my roster so it's become a waste to even try.

Still, beyond that it has been incredibly addictive.

I don't know man. Here is what I lined up the other day.

- Sliders don't work
- Rosters don't work
- Online dynasties don't work

Three pretty big flaws if the reason you bought the game was to play dynasties. It also doesn't really touch on the gameplay issues which has made the gameplay worse than last year (all they really needed to do was fix the INT problem). Now we have:

- No pass rush
- Horrific special teams
- Horrible pursuit
- Huge speed discrepancies
- Bad pass coverage AI

The issues listed have already been exploited to death online. As for offline, if I get a couple fast receivers, there is no team in the game on any level that can beat me.

Maybe a lot of this will get patched. Then I'll give it a look again in October or something when you get grab it cheap on Ebay. Until then, I'm tired of beta testing this game.

I was so excited about this game, yet as soon as I played my first full game I saw the horrible pursuit angles allow 2 TDs that should have been 2 or 3 yard gains instead of 20+ yard TD rushes.

Great game Detox. Unbelievable 4th quarter...very tense.

Nice work, man. A 10-7 slugfest. I just cannot fathom that my WR dropped a pass in the endzone with 22 seconds left with literally no one within 20 yards of him. The heartbreak cannot be expressed in words.

:) Hopefuly something like that wont happen in the tourney...or else you might be playing in the MBBF bowl for the stick with a peice of poo on it.

After that play I'm inclined to think all his musings are right .. ;)

;)

Anyvun vanna play?

I might get in about 15-20 minutes for a quick game.

Looks like Karlifornia and I are going to rumble, Galaxy.

No problem.

Note to self. IU does not match up well with Illinois. GG, Karlifornia. We just didn't have what it takes today. All those interceptions didn't help our cause...

gg kodos...INT's are always frustrating. I know firsthand.

Thanks, I guess I'll wait just to be sure.. I think the patch is coming out any day now.

I'm so ready to get my Tigers dynasty going!!!

Especially ones right before the half, that would have tied things up. :)

Pasta Padre has posted this info. It repeats that the 2nd patch which will address gameplay issues should be out in September and states that the server issue for online dynasties that start after the 23rd is fixed. It also says that the roster patch may be out by next week:

The roster editing patch is currently in certification at Microsoft and Sony. There is no specific day the patch will be approved and pushed out but it should not be too long now, possibly by the end of next week.

The second patch, which is intended to improve different gameplay elements, is still in the evaluation period. Right now a reasonable expectation on when this patch will arrive is September. So far it will include fixes to sliders, improvements to kick/punt return coverage, and various tuning to areas such as zone coverages, man vs RBs, and strafe catching. There will be more included in the patch but as of now those are the things that are confirmed.

The issues with Online Dynasty have been identified and some fixes have been implemented that should prevent them from occuring in the future. This didn’t require a patch as it was server related. Anyone who has a dynasty that they are locked out of where it boots you back to the menu screen can leave your gamertags (commish preferred) in the comments and I’ll pass them along as they may be able to recover the dynasty.

No word yet on a fix for the uploading of online dynasty screenshots. It is apparently being looked into.

One more time.. :)

So we can download and use a named roster as long as we do not edit anything?

I don't believe so. We're kicking around the idea of just starting with fictional generated names to get things going...but if the wait really is only a week then the Tourney should hold me over til then.

Best way I can put it is this. I downloaded a named roster the day I bought the game. I have made no edits to it. I have played online games against other people and many Play Now games. I have had no issues that would lead me to believe there was problem with the roster file.

That said I have avoided starting any kind of Dynasty or Campus Legend mode until I have 100% confirmation that the roster issues are fixed.

Ok.. I'll just continue playing online and play now games until the patch comes out.

I really want to start a dynasty.. but not if it's going to crash mid season.

I started a dynasty with the rosters. If it crashes, I'll give a new team a shot down the road when everything is "fixed" and then pick back up with Rutgers when I get bored of that dynasty.

What about Georgia on Heisman?

EA SPORTS World: NCAA Football 09 Video


Or Oklahoma on All-American?

EA SPORTS World: NCAA Football 09 Video

For those belly-aching about NCAA '09 a week and a half after release, try this on for size as a reality check:

Maximum-Football Support

GG again Galaxy...Miss State had something to do with that final score :)

I couldn't do crap (mainly on D). Stanford is a lot faster then the ratings indicated.

I was also checking out a new playbook. I really like it a lot, but I don't think it fits Mississippi State with that roster and its makeup.

PING: Sylvester Croom

:D