Madden 10 - Online Franchise Q&A

[AJay]

Yeah, really can't complain. OK you can but for it being the first year and as a starting point it is a hell of a start. I'm happy. They gave us work-arounds, the gave us the ability to access our franchise from our comps, saved depth charts. I can't be upset with EA.

[j.hen]

I got dibs on Cincinnati for the VSN Online Chise, fantasy draft or not.

[DNEUM]

Are you kidding me? Am I the only one that does not have the wool pulled over my eyes? This is nothing more than their online league last year with no flex schedule. Oh wait they added a draft. Big deal. This is not a real frnachise, this is a multi year league where players progress and get injured, nothing more. How is it that NCAA got it right in their first year of having a Online Dynasty and Madden still can not? No salary cap, no contracts, no free agency, no franchise tag, those are big things for a Franchise. I have not heard about a pre-season, so I will not commment on that. When I heard that there was going to be an online franchise I had high hopes, I guess I will just have to wait to see what things they can patch and fix on their online server. Go NCAA 10!

The reason Online Dynasty "got it right" the first go around was because there isn't near as much to Online Dynasty. There is no salary cap/contracts, free agency, trading, draft classes to import, etc in OD. There is SO much more that goes Franchise. Not to mention that the OD is built on the disc, not on the server. Online Franchise was essentially built from scratch on the server side so that it can be much, much more flexible and they don't need to issue a patch (time consuming process) or make you wait for the next game before they can make improvements and changes. That also gives us the web/iPhone access and all that that does which isn't available in OD. Online Franchise got all that OD got in and then some.

Is it perfect? Hell no. I want those missing elements just as much as the next person. But provided what they got it works as it should (the huge question), there is way more good than bad here. There is much more available than just an online stat keeping system and good leagues will fill in the gaps with their own systems.

[RosettaStoned]

Does this mean we are going to draft our players for ggml?

[TimsGiants]

Does anyone know what happens if a online franchise game disconnects? Would suck if it does some automatic w-l lose stats type deal

[adembroski]

The reason Online Dynasty "got it right" the first go around was because there isn't near as much to Online Dynasty. There is no salary cap/contracts, free agency, trading, draft classes to import, etc in OD. There is SO much more that goes Franchise. Not to mention that the OD is built on the disc, not on the server. Online Franchise was essentially built from scratch on the server side so that it can be much, much more flexible and they don't need to issue a patch (time consuming process) or make you wait for the next game before they can make improvements and changes. That also gives us the web/iPhone access and all that that does which isn't available in OD. Online Franchise got all that OD got in and then some.

Is it perfect? Hell no. I want those missing elements just as much as the next person. But provided what they got it works as it should (the huge question), there is way more good than bad here. There is much more available than just an online stat keeping system and good leagues will fill in the gaps with their own systems.

Just now seeing this post... this is pretty much spot on.

From what I gathered, NCAA really sort of boned themselves with the way they did Online Dynasty as they really can't make major changes (I don't know the technical reasons why). Considering Madden plans a major rebuild of Franchise Mode in the near future, to take the existing Franchise mode and stick it online would have left us with THAT franchise mode online, and the one that'll be taking inspiration from NFL Head Coach offline. Thus, the online experience would seem shallow and less satisfying by comparison.

It's not just the server aspects of it, but also the ability to modify down the road, add, remove, enhance features as is needed.

Anyways, that's how it was explained to me. Maybe was blowing smoke up my ass, but the way it sounded, they ended up losing aspects of Online Franchise because they needed to put time into making it modifiable in the future.