Madden-School.com Blog

June 23, 2008

New Madden Features

by: Fudgy

For the past several years, Madden gamers have wanted a more realistic feel to the NFL’s most hyped game. Sure there have been improvements such as the hit stick, playmaker, and truck/highlight stick, but one thing that has been left out in the dark has been the visual tweaks. The jump from current-gen to next-gen was a huge turning point in Madden’s career, but Madden 09’s graphics are absolutely stunning!!!

In an interview with Phil Frazier, lead designer for the Madden series, the new visual improvements for 09 were unveiled. In this year’s game there are all new lighting models, all new player models, shadows all over the field, field goal nets, footprints in snow…yes, there is snow, and when the weather is set to snow, there are shoveled lines every ten yards and on the endzone lines.   There are now stat banners that are shown after the majority of the plays. These banners “fly-in” on the screen like you would see in a live NFL game.

The radio announcer that has been present in Madden next-gen since 2006 has only caused problems for Madden fans. This year EA Sports has listened to the fans and changed the play-by-play broadcasters to real NFL commentators: Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth.  Madden is taking a big leap for its series 20^th anniversary. This year’s version should not disappoint the Madden family.

Talk About it

 

June 20, 2008

Online Records to be Reset for Madden 09

According to EA sports online expert, Ryan Ferwerda, online records will be reset for Madden 09.  The people at EA Sports truly beleive that Madden 09 is a completely different game (glitch free) then Madden 08 and therefore the records should not be combined.  Hopefully they are right.

Talk about it

 

June 16,2008

Authentic Offensive Team Playbooks

Conversation with EA designer anthony white from ea sports:

Hello Madden NFL 09 fans and thanks for taking the time to check out my blog post, my name is Anthony White and I'm a game designer here at EA Tiburon.  I've been a passionate Madden gamer since 1991 back when the game was on the Sega Genesis console and in my opinion I have one of the best and coolest jobs here at EA.  My primary responsibility is researching, designing, implementing, and testing the offensive, defensive, and special teams plays which are used in each of our football titles at EA.  For those who don't know I recently wrote a blog post on the changes we made for the playbooks in NCAA Football 09.  That blog can be found here.  This time around I'm going to discuss the changes, updates, and additions to the team playbooks in Madden NFL 09.

The team playbooks in Madden NFL 09 have undergone a major overhaul.  As many of you are aware, each week during the NFL season we receive the actual coach's film of every game that was played in the NFL the previous week.  I personally watched and broke down game film on every team in the NFL and we'll show you a few video clips of plays that were created as a direct result of film study.  With the large number of hours devoted to studying film the end result was the addition of 31 new formations and over 1,200 new plays to this year's Madden NFL game. 

In this year's edition of Madden NFL you'll notice new schemes, new terminology, and a more streamlined organization of the plays within each playbook.   All 32 team playbooks are now much more unique and authentic to their real life counterpart's style of play.  Whether it's the Patriots heavy use of the shotgun spread offense, the Seahawks west coast system, or the Bears power run game, you'll see that reflected in that team's playbook.  It also comes to light when playing against any of the CPU controlled teams in a Franchise or Play Now game.  We made a concerted effort to tune each team's playcall logic so that it closely mimics its real life counterpart's style of play.  That means when you play a team like the Patriots they'll use lots of shotgun, the Steelers and their use of bunch/condensed formations or Packers with their Full House backfield package will be evident.

Offseason coaching changes were also taken into consideration when building our team playbooks.  New coaching staffs in place for teams such as the Falcons, Ravens, Dolphins, and Redskins were all taken into account.  Offensive coordinator changes such as the ones that took place in San Francisco, St. Louis, and Detroit were also factored in.      

Although we did a similar overhaul to the team playbooks in NCAA Football 09, we didn't just take what was done for NCAA implement it into Madden and call it day.  There are some very noticeable differences between the two titles, with each game having some of its own unique plays that can't be found in the other title.  In Madden NFL 09 the first difference you'll notice while scrolling through the playbooks is the new naming convention for the formation and sets on offense.  For example in Madden NFL 08 the formation/set name Shotgun Normal HB Wk is now called "Gun Doubles Wk" in most playbooks.  In the playbooks of the Lions and 49ers the shotgun is now referred to as "Rifle".  The primary reason for the change is we wanted to differentiate Madden from NCAA along with the fact that we want to introduce more authentic /real world football terminology into the Madden series.     

As is the case in NCAA Football 09 there's much more variety in the passing game with the introduction of new concepts such as mesh, shallow cross, spacing, X and Z spot, as well as new smash concepts from formations with reduced receiver splits.  We've also added more variety to the play action passing game with new bootleg and waggle plays.   Attention was even given to the running game with the addition of the inside zone, Power O, along with adjustments to the blocking schemes on many other run plays.  Speaking of the run game each team's run game is patterned after what they actually do in real life.  Teams that are primarily zone run teams such as the Broncos, Colts, Titans, and Packers will feature more of those types of schemes in their playbook, whereas teams that focus more on a power run game such as the Chargers, Buccaneers, and Bears will have more of those types of run blocking schemes in their playbook.  

The plays within the playbooks have been rearranged to make better use of our four play playcall interface.  The plays are logically grouped so that runs are aligned next to complementary playaction passes, while all automotion plays are now aligned with other plays that use similar motions.  This is very useful when using our new bluff mode system while playing head to head offline matches.  The playbooks themselves are larger than what they were in Madden NFL 08.  On average each team's playbook consists of about 24 formations and 369 plays.  We obviously can't put everything a particular team does on offense into its playbooks due to our playbook size limitations, but for the most part everything that's in each team's playbook is based on what we saw on film. 

Talk about it

June 11, 2008

Madden 09 on PS3

"Seperate but Equal"

When madden 08 was released that was the promise.  Although the PS3 and xbox 360 madden 08 games are played on different consoles, they were supposed to be essentially the same game.  That however was not the case last year.

PS3 owners were sad to find out that their version of madden 08 would only run at 30 frames per seconds (fps) while xbox 360 owners got a version of madden that ran twice as fast at 60 fps.  But good news PS3 owners! Madden 09 will run at 60 fps on PS3 and xbox 360.  Now they are finally seperate but equal.

Talk about it

June 10,2008

Madden Nation Tournament

Madden-School.com will be hosting our first ever Madden Nation Challenge on all three major consoles.  It will be run just like the show on ESPN, and there will be cash prizes for the winners.  The spots in the tournament will be given out based on how active you have been on the Madden-School.com website so post, come to the chatbox, and chat with fellow Madden Ballers.

Talk about it

June 9, 2008

Madden Player Rankings Released

The wait is over for the Madden 09 player ratings according to Sportsgamer.com. In the past, player ratings have not been released until a week before the Madden release, this year August 12. It is unclear whether EA sports released these ratings or if the ratings are just educated guesses by the folks at Sportsgamer.

Click Here to view and discuss them in our forums or check them out at sportsgamer.com

Talk about it

June 6,2008

Madden 09 to Featue Online Leagues

Madden 09 will give you and your friends the oppurtunity to compete against each other in online leagues. The league will allow you to keep full player stats, trades, and my personal favorite a complete fantasy draft. The fantasy draft feature will allow you to build a team of your favorite players and essentially become the gm of your team. You can tailor your team to your liking. If you want a dominant defense, you can draft one, although you may have a miserable offense. The reason why this feature is so spectacular is that finally teams will be very close to equal. In years past you would have an owner of the patriots, and an owner of the dolphins. The user who owns the dolphins or a similiar team would always feel hopeless because they start with so much less talent. The fantasy draft feature negates this.

Common Questions:
Q: I only have 16 friends who wanna play. Can I play a full season with 32 teams
A: No, all teams must be user controlled

Q: It is always a hassle to find my opponent online at the same time I am. How will the scheduling work in these leagues?
A: Flex scheduling will be used. Flex scheduling is essentially an open schedule. You can play any opponent who is still left on your schedule at any time. This will prevent leagues from getting held up by inactive members.

Q: How will the playoffs work?
A: The playoffs will not be conducted the usual way with the 4 division winners and 2 wild cards in each conference. The 6 teams with the best records in each conference will make the playoffs without regard for their divisions.

Q: Will I be able to import my rookie class from NCAA Football 09
A: No, this is pretty disappointing but we can't expect them to do too much in the first year of this new feature.

Q: How will trades work?
A: You may not make any multi-team trades and can only do one for one trades.

Talk about it