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It’s clear that we have some of the most passionate sports and sports gaming fans in the country.  And for many of us, NCAA Football isn’t just another video game.  It sustains us through the off season, it’s the center of our gaming universe, the one we always come back to, the experience around which all other games must orbit.  And just like the real sport of College Football, it’s a tradition many of us have grown up with.  I know some of you out there have been with us since the very beginning; since the first EA SPORTS Bill Walsh College Football came out in 1993!

I joined the NCAA Football team last summer once “10″ was out the door.   As the Executive Producer for the game, I’m completely dedicated to the NCAA Football franchise.  And it’s been a great experience working with a very talented Tiburon Studio team putting together this year’s product.  Before officially taking the helm I had a number of weeks to prepare and transition from my old gig.  The previous NCAA Football 10 team was still wrapping things up so it gave me time to do a lot of research.  I spoke to everyone on the team, reviewed our metrics, read the game reviews, forums posts, blogs, the love letters, the hate mail, and even watched a few poignant YouTube videos created by our most passionate fans.  And while it’s clear we did get a lot of things right, we also recognize we have some work to do to take this game from good to great.

So I’m using my first blog opportunity to set the stage for what you’re going to be hearing about over the coming weeks and months as we roll towards launch this July.  No major announcements here, but I did want to outline our approach to NCAA Football 11.  It comes down to three key elements:

• Core Experience
• Authenticity
• Innovation

Core Experience

At the end of the day we all know what ultimately matters in a football video game is what happens on the field.  Controller in hand, heart pounding, clock running down, season on the line.  That’s where it all counts.  Running, blocking, passing, it all has to perform and perform well.   It’s the foundation upon which all other major game modes are built; dynasty, career, etc.   As a long time fan of NCAA Football, it’s clear that great core gameplay is fundamental to a great game experience.

For NCAA Football 11, we’ve gone back to the very heart of our football engine and made some major upgrades.  Lots more to come on this topic; I promise the core improvements will be worth the wait.

Authenticity

Fans of college football know it’s so much more than just the game of football itself.  It’s what surrounds and supports the experience.  It’s the pageantry, passion, and tradition that make college football one of the greatest experiences in sports today.  We’ve taken some deserved criticism in this area over the past few years, but we think you’ll be impressed by what you’ll see in NCAA Football 11.  And to set the record straight for my friends out there on Pasta Padre, NCAA Strategies, and Operation Sports, the screen shot we released was not ’shopped.  It’s 100% pure, right out of the game.  (Replays aren’t looking too shabby either…)

As a Michigan Wolverine fan, I want an NCAA Football that resembles the Saturday afternoon experience at the Big House.  The sights, the sounds, and the traditions.  (And of course, the return of a winning season.   But it’s not just about visual presentation.  It’s also making sure that my team – and all 120 FBS teams that we include in the game – look, feel, and play like my team.  There are style variations across teams in the NFL but if you want to see true variety, it’s all about College.  We recognize that NCAA Football needs to more closely model and reflect those differences as part of gameplay.

Innovation

We’ve always had a history of innovation on the franchise.  It was the first EA SPORTS game on Xbox Live back in 2004.  In 2009 it was Online Dynasty, giving you the ability to compete with your friends across the country.  Or last year’s web-based team creator, TeamBuilder, where (amazingly) you guys have already created more than half-a-million custom teams!  By the way, these teams will all work in NCAA Football 11 as well…

Before I came onboard the NCAA franchise, I worked on a number of online games and technologies across EA SPORTS and also led the team that helped bring EA SPORTS games to Xbox Live and Sony PSN.   Without giving too much away, you can probably guess that online will be a big component of some of the new areas we’re exploring this year.

Looking Ahead

NCAA Football designers Ben Haumiller and Russ Kiniry have already covered a few of the minor updates in their recent blog.  Things, frankly, we should have gotten to a while back…  So please keep the faith, the “real” stuff we need to talk about for NCAA Football 11 is still up ahead!

Thanks and Stay Tuned!

===

PS — Part of my research included a NCAA Football 10 web survey that some of you may have filled out.  I’d like to open it up wider, so if you’re interested in participating, please follow the link below:

NCAA Football 10 Web Survey

You can also email me at NCAAFootballFeedback@ea.com. Given the amount of email I get daily, I don’t always have time to reply, but I do promise I’ll read everything you send.  Just keep it civil and spam free

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It’s been a long handful of months as we’ve been building the game while listening and reading everyone’s feedback from anywhere we could find. I’ve been waiting to start diving into all the improvements and new stuff we’ve been working on here at Tiburon.

Well let’s dive right in, even though we are releasing these details a little later then we would have liked:

New Equipment

Part of keeping things authentic on the field is what equipment each player is wearing. And frankly part of the fun for me is making sure my players I create or recruit all have the look to match the player, for example I love having Visors on my number one running back.

Well this year we added some new equipment to help keep your players looking how you feel they should:

• · New Revolution Speed Helmet
• · A few new facemasks for the different helmet styles in the game
• · Some injury gear
  • o Knee Brace
  • o Ankle Brace
  • o Elbow Brace
  • o Elbow Guard
• · New sleeve lengths
  • o 3 Quarters Sleeve
  • o Half Sleeve
• · Towels
• · Hand Warmers

Also we added the ability to set Left and Right Sleeve separate, so if you want one sleeve to be team color and full length and the other to be half length and black you can do that.

Single Week Bowl Season

This is a very nice improvement for all you Online Dynasty fans. As you know in last year’s game we had 4 different “weeks” for the bowl season; what this meant was is you could have up to 4 week advances so everyone could play their bowl games. This caused everyone in the Dynasty to wait for those people to play their games… not fun!

Well in NCAA Football 11 we have combined all the Bowl Games into one “Week” Advance, so everyone can now play their bowl games at the same time. This speeds up the process of finishing the Season in Online Dynasty by a lot, and should help keep things moving along.

Dynamic Conference Logos

Another upgrade for Dynasty players is about when a team switches Conferences either through last year’s new feature Custom Conferences, or though just playing Dynasty and getting a conference invite. This year when you change Conferences the conference logo on your team’s playing field will now update.

The best part is not only does the logo update, but they end up getting colored as if the team had really made the conference change. So for example if you move Alabama to the Big East you’ll see the logo look crimson and white.

Helmet Numbers During Game-Play

Speaking of Alabama, we’ve finally got the numbers on the side of the helmets to show up during game-play. It really is one of those things in the game that once you noticed you could never ignore again, and I’m glad to say it’s been addressed. Not only will they work for Alabama, but any team you create using TeamBuilder with numbers on the helmets will work as well.

Well that is just the start of what is to come about NCAA Football 11 there are way more (and BIGGER) things to talk about. It’s going to be a fun few months as we make the push to launch day and the release of everything we’ve worked on.

-Russ

Designer NCAA Football

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is my opinion:

I thought the blog was ok, but I guess I was expecting a little bit more. I mean, it’s nice to know who is responsible for what but last year you came out with Procedural Awareness and some videos to back up what it was. This year it was more of ‘Meet the Team’ that is going to be making the best football game ever and who they think will win the Super Bowl.

Most of the responses from hardcore fans come from Mark Turmell’s (who worked on NBA Jam, Smash TV, NFL Blitz) comments where he stated

… it’s clear that we are making a simulated football title, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try to welcome more players.  …. so that’s what I’m trying to think about is how we can embrace the different levels of players to bring them into the Madden fold.

- Mark Turmell

The idea of bringing more people to the game of Madden means you are going to dumb it down for new people. That’s time you could be working on a new hardcore element, fixing some of the gameplay issues that new people wouldn’t care about or even notice. Every new featured geared at bringing people in is time not spent on expanding the game. There are already features that are for new comers to get into the game.  While I’m not worried that Madden will become some crazy arcade game, the attention to what the hardcore guys want and if they will be addressed has me worried.  I’m hoping the addition of Mark will bring in fresh eyes into the franchise with fresh, new, innovating ideas.

Bottom line is the developers already only have but 10 months or less to work on this thing, I pray it’s spent on polishing up and expanding an already beautiful Madden 10 game.

So what do you think about the new EA blog?

Also check out ncaastrategies.com where CDJ has taken screenshots of the white board that reveal a little bit more about Madden 11, including who might be a 99 OVR.

Another great resource is the Madden Forums on EA Sports to hear what others are saying about the Madden 11 Blog.

Last year Ian Cummings, Lead Designer for Madden 11 (follow @Ian_Cummings on Twitter) wrote a blog at halftime about Procedural Awareness and how they wanted to be more transparent to the fans and I thought EA did a good job at times being transparent to us fans.  You can view that blog here: http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/01/madden-nfl-10-first-look.aspx

This year I’m hoping to hear one of the following:

1. Improvement of Online features.

2. Improved actual gameplay.  I don’t want to hear about what new method or technology they have for bringing down ball carriers in the open field.

3.  Improved Online Franchise.   I’ve been loving Online Franchise but there are obvious needs there.

What I don’t want to see is how visually improved the game is.  How authentic fields, jerseys, coaches, etc ….. none of that matters to me that much.  Don’t get me wrong, I love all that stuff but if I had my choice of what new information I want to hear, those are not one of them.

What are you hoping for?

Every day this week I will be putting out a new article about Madden so please come back to MyMaddenPad.com and check it out.

Here is some footage from the Championship Game:

http://www.easports.com/media/play/feature-video/MaddenBowlChampionship

EA SPORTS Game Changers Program Mission Statement

The Game Changer Award recognizes exceptional community leaders from around the world who use their knowledge of EA SPORTS games to improve the experience and overall growth of the EA SPORTS Community.

Game Changers are independent community members who are offered a close connection with people at EA SPORTS. To acknowledge Game Changers’ leadership and provide a platform to help support their efforts, EA SPORTS often gives Game Changers early access to EA SPORTS games, as well as the opportunity to pass on their highly targeted feedback and recommendations about product design, development, and support.

There are a list of guys I know from the previous Madden Community Program and some other guys that I know from around the Madden Community and they are all much deserved and very dedicated to the EA Community.  Right now EA is taking applications for the program, so if you are interested you can apply.

Read the full EA Blog on EA’s Sports Game Changers.

Here is the final list:

The much anticipated (for me at least) Madden Ultimate Team arrives today for both the 360 and PS3.   The Madden Ultimate team is part fantasy football, part owner mode, but nothing short of instant replay value for Madden 10.  I’ve been longing for this kind of replay value from Madden for years and finally the Tiburon team delivers.  There still is no exact time the download will be available.  Check out the video tutorial on how to get started with your Madden Ultimate Team today:

Click here to view the embedded video.

EA is so hungry to sell their new video games to old customers that they have released a particularly unhealthy list of video games that they’ll be nuking on February 2nd 2010. Oh, and Happy New Year by the way.

The company writes on their website that gamers will be able to play the following games up until that date, but some community programs may begin to close before then. They even seal the letter by offering distraught gamers their current line up of online games for purchase:

All of us at EA would like to thank you for your valued participation in our online gaming community and hope that your enthusiasm for these games extends to our current lineup and beyond.

Expletives may leave your lips when you read the rundown of titles. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles surprising, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown…but Madden 09 on all consoles as well? Europe gets more of the brunt with NASCAR 09 and NBA 09 (Wii) also. These titles were only released just over a year ago and yet EA is ready to say goodbye and force gamers to put up the cash if they want to jump online.

There is a suspicion that P2P online gaming may still be able to continue, but since most of the games need to be signed into EA’s servers to play online at all, its unlikely gamers will even be able to do that. Enjoy gritting you teeth to the following list:

February 2, 2010 Online Service Shutdown

• UEFA Champions League 07 PC and x360
• Facebreaker x360 and PS3
• Fantasy Football 09 x360 and PS3
• FIFA 07 PSP, PS2, PC
• Fight Night Round 3 PS2
• Madden 08 Wii
• Madden 08 PC
• Madden 09 Xbox1
• Madden 09 Wii and PSP
• March Madness 07 x360
• NBA 07 PSP, x360
• NBA 08 PS2, PSP, Wii
• NBA 09 Wii – Europe only
• NBA Street (2007) PS3 and x360
• NCAA Football 08 PS2
• NCAA Football 09 PS2
• NASCAR 08 PS2
• NASCAR 09 PS2
• NASCAR 09 PS3 and x360 – Europe Only
• NFL Tour PS3 and x360
• NHL 07 PSP and x360
• NHL 08 PC
• Tiger Woods 07 PC
• Madden 09 x360 and PS3
• Madden 07 Xbox 360

(source: http://www.playstationuniversity.com/ea-shuts-down-video-game-servers-prematurely-1846/)

What’s surprising is that they are shutting down the Madden 09 Server.  There are still people on the server.  Don’t do it EA, wait till the summer.

I read a great article by PastaPadre as he lists Madden 10 his #2 sports game of the year in 2009.  Here are some of the points he made:

The most beneficial change to gameplay that really made this year exceptional was slowing down the game speed. That resulted in one of the most balanced experiences between offense and defense that the series has been able to provide. The default use of accelerated clock made the pacing much better as well allowing for longer quarters to be played thereby producing more realistic stats. My full impressions of the game from around release can be found here.

One of the most discussed new elements came with the Pro-Tak animations. It did end up making a big difference without being overwhelming like many new features have been in their first attempts in the past. Between the game speed and Pro-Tak it was a stunning shift going from NCAA Football 10 to Madden 10 and really accented just how far Madden had come in a single year.

Madden 10 took heavily into consideration community feedback in both of the patches that released. Given that there were no severe issues that required patching immediately EA was able to take a little extra time on the first patch. The biggest problem that was corrected was the holding on field goal attempts. That patch actually caused a few issues including turning the numbers on the back of some helmets into solid squares. The second patch took a while to arrive but fixed those, made a few additions such as helmet stickers and new uniforms, and adjusted a few things to make the gameplay experience better.

The AFL downloadable content was a pleasant surprise as it didn’t just add in the uniforms but also included a retro presentation style and field art changes. With additional content coming in the way of Madden Ultimate Team still to be factored in Madden 10 definitely provided a ton of value. Far more than it has before for anyone that didn’t dig in deep to Franchise or play a lot of ranked online games.

I really think that the addition of the Madden Ultimate Team later this month hopefully would have propelled Madden to Pasta’s #1 spot.

Please read the whole article here: http://www.pastapadre.com/2010/01/02/2-of-2009-madden-nfl-10  It is a great read.

One of the best features going into the Madden season had to be the addition of online franchise.  With online franchise you and 31 of your best online buddies can go through 10 seasons playing with your favorite team and building a dynasty.  Unfortunately in my opinion online franchise has not lived up to my expectations.  With the instability of online, the lack of salary cap, and players raping the Free Agent pool at will and dumb trades I find it really bad at times.

Let me first say that I’m in 2 Online Franchises and both of them are different.

1. dc vs pg (PS3) Chicago Bears (6-1) Second Season

I was asked to be in this franchise from a friend who I used to play against in an offline league in Maryland.  I don’t know why I chose Chicago, but I didn’t have many choices as all the good teams were taken by the time I signed up.  For some reason the commissioner of this league decided to put the game speed on fast and that took a lot to adjust to at the beggining. but I’ve adjusted well.  In this league there are 16 user teams, and there are no trades with the computer (thank god). We are in our second season and I made it to the NFC Championship game and lost to the eventual Super Bowl Champion. I was really looking forward to the off-season, because I think that’s what online franchises are all about. In the rookie draft I needed a corner and luckily for me everyone was trying to get linebackers and the best corner in the draft as far as I was concerned was still on the board. His name is Julian Craft and he’s a A potential and 73 OVR. He leads the league in interceptions (4) already.

2. no glitching league (PS3) Green Bay Packers (3-0) Draft

I really like this league because it was a draft league and we got to draft our players.  This adds a whole new dimension to the franchise aspect.  Unfortunately I was unable to draft my team as the owner told everyone the draft was starting except for me.  In fact from talking to a lot of people in the league, there were many members who did not draft their team fully as some missed the first 3-4 rounds.  Although I didn’t pick my team I was happy with what the computer did.  The computer will get you a nice offensive line and I can’t say that for some of the humans that picked.  I think guys are so enamored with names they know that they missed out on great players like Clady, Gross (both offensive linemens).  Nonetheless I had a great offensive line but I didn’t like my running backs who were Edgerin James, Maurice Morris, and Mwelde Moore.  And my QB is Leftwich and Clemens, so trades were in order.  I did get Fitzgerald and TJ Housh as WR.  My defense is solid with Joey Porter and Vrabel at LB and Antonio Pierce at MLB.

Disconnects/Online Stability

Anyone who has an Online Franchise has probably been faced with them trying to connect to the franchise server and it being unavailable from time to time.  The thing about it, the server seems to always be up but sometimes it takes 3 or 4 times to actually get access to it.  One of the biggest problems I see is the disconnects that happen on the server.  You really can’t tell who’s fault it is.  I’ve seen one person who looked like he started a game against the computer 6 times.  Was it all connection or was he losing and decided to pull the plug.  I was playing a guy in my Franchise 2 league and I was up 24-3 going into the 3rd and I got the “Your opponent has quit, do you want to continue vs. the CPU”.  I didn’t think he quit because I know him and he wouldn’t do that.  So I ended the game and we decided to play again and I was up 7 with 1:00 left and it happened again.  Ok this is a little disturbing.  We then decided to play in two days and he came out with a whole new playbook, routes that left uncovered WR and some nanos.  So after dominating him and getting disconnected twice, I end up losing by 3 and no disconnect this time.  There needs to be a way that the server can save a game to stop this kind of stuff.  What happens when someone is playing the computer or a player and their QB or Franchise RB gets injured and is carted off the field.  What’s stopping a player from just pulling the plug or quitting so that their player is still playing.  Nothing.  Just like nothing is stopping a player from quitting if they are losing.  There has to be a way to fix this, to keep track of a game progress so when you start it again you pick up where you left off.  I just saw the other day, someone started a game 9 times.  9 times, cmon’ EA let’s stop this kind of foolishness.  The computer is tough to some guys on All-Madden, so let them get that L and move on.  People are so scared of losing, it’s not even funny.

Trades & Free Agent Pickups

The beauty about franchise is the ability to trade your players to get better.  Some guys like my friend Garry who is in both of the leagues I’m in is soooo enthusiastic about trading players to a point where he gets worked up about it.  He calls people and asked them about trades every day.  I told him that this is a franchise and if you are a couple of people away from what you think you need, get it in the draft.  He doesn’t want to wait that long.  After the week 6 trade deadline he is trying to get the commissioner to hurry the league up so he can get back to trading.  It’s really funny the way he acts, he wants the GM of the year award bad … I’ve put off telling him that there is no award … lol.

I’m glad that there is no trading with the computer in my leagues cause I think people would just rape the computer teams like they do the Free Agency. 

Tip: Before you go into the rookie draft, drop people you no longer want on your team cause if you don’t the CPU will.  I was the bears and because I drafted a rookie WR, the computer let go of Johhny Knox and someone picked him up via Free Agency.

Playing Styles

 With so many players in my draft league (24) you have to deal with many playing styles.  I’ve noticed that in my league there are few players that run the ball.  In fact the guy who has AP has only rushed him 8 times in 3 games, seems like a waste.  If a person doesn’t have a fast RB where they can sweep you to death then they don’t tend to run that much.  I would draft according to your needs.  In my franchise league I traded Larry Fitzgerald, Mwelde Moore, and Edgerin James for Ronnie Brown, Jermichael Finely, and Andre Caldwell.  It was a good deal for me because I like to run and Ronnie Brown is a top 5 back.  I also run big sets, so getting a fast TE was also a plus.  Some people I noticed in my franchise league do not want to trade with certain guys cause they don’t want to make that team better.  They miss out on guys they could use because they are focusing on other people and not their own team.

EA Make Franchise Better

It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do for Franchise next year.  Here are my top wishlist for Franchise:

Like trading cards? Like fantasy football? Then you’ll want to hear all about this new update for Madden 10.

If you’ve seen the Ultimate Team feature for FIFA, then you probably have a good idea of what Madden Ultimate Team is all about. Once you’ve downloaded the feature, it will become a separate menu item in Madden 10, and after loading it up for the first time, you’ll be given a randomized set of cards, enough to get you up and running right away. Playing games with your team, you’ll earn credits that you can then use to buy bronze, silver, or gold packs full of more cards you can use to bolster your team. You’ll also be able to spend real-world cash to buy in-game credits.

Those cards include players, stadiums, playbooks, coaches, injury cards, and contract cards, and the quality of the card will be reflected in its status as either a bronze, silver, or gold card. Elite players like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady will obviously be gold status, while the majority of NFL players will be either silver or bronze level cards. The players in your initial pack of cards will be mostly bronze with a few silvers thrown in (the equivalent to overall ratings of 75 or below), but once you have some credits in hand, you can start working on improving your talent level.

Of course, there’s a flip side to getting talent–there are those pesky contracts to worry about. As in FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode, every player on your team will have a contract number associated with him. Using a player card in the game will subtract one from that contract number, and once it’s reduced to zero, that player card will be discarded and that player will no longer be available to you. That’s where another card type–contract cards–comes in so handy. Playing a contract card against a player (or coach) will increase his contract by the amount listed on the contract card. For instance if you play a four-game contract card against a player with one game left on his contract, he’ll end up with five games left on his contract. As you probably have figured, contract cards are valuable, especially when it comes to keeping gold-level talent on your team. There are also injury cards, which you can use for injured players to accelerate their recovery.

Other cards available to you include team-specific playbooks, coaches, stadiums, and uniforms. You can have multiple playbook cards in your deck and use the ones you like for any game you play–either offline against the CPU or in online matches against other Ultimate Team players (there will be a matchmaking feature to pit teams of similar skill level against one another). Perhaps most intriguing is the team chemistry feature that has also been carried over from the FIFA and UEFA games. In those games, a team’s chemistry rating improved depending on what position a player played (playing a midfielder in the midfield is a good thing after all). In addition, playing in a preferred formation and with players who spoke the same language also helped team chemistry.

In Madden Ultimate Team, chemistry matters, but different factors are taken into consideration. Players who play on the same team in the real NFL will earn a chemistry boost; players who were on the same team in college will also get a boost. You’ll also receive boosts for players who are playing with their real-life playbook, with their real coach, in their real uniforms, and in their home stadium. It begs the question: Why, in a game mode that’s all about fantasy, do you want to encourage players to homogenize their teams along NFL team lines? Still, with the wide variety of talent available in the card packs, the chemistry boosts probably won’t outweigh the simple fact that player skill will win out in the end. After all, why pair Aaron Rodgers with Jordy Nelson at wideout when Andre Johnson is also available to you?

Your Madden Ultimate Team deck will be limited to 100 cards total, with a maximum of 55 players available to you. Any extra cards you get through buying packs can either be discarded, which will earn you a small number of coins per card, or be sent to the auction block for selling to other users. As with FIFA’s Ultimate Team feature, you can put any card in your collection up for auction, and the value of that card will be driven by the market. Unfortunately, Madden Ultimate Team won’t have the addictive collectible card book that was found in UEFA–which served as a great place to dispose of unwanted cards–but producers said that feature could be a possibility for a future version of Madden Ultimate Team.

In addition to the bronze, silver, and gold cards, there will be a couple types of exceedingly rare cards available to players. The first will be legendary cards–these will all be current NFL players (no legends like Walter Payton or Jim Brown, unfortunately), but the players’ ratings will reflect their “glory years.” Think of Brett Favre with the Packers or Randy Moss with the Vikings at the height of his power. Playing a legendary player in a game will give your entire offense or defense a boost, and naturally, you’ll want to protect those cards’ contracts as much as you can. The other type of special card will come through weekly deals–these limited-edition cards will feature only elite players and will be available only for a short time.

The presence of Madden Ultimate Team looks to be great news for those who will be looking to get back into Madden after a few months away. There’s no firm release date yet, though producers are aiming for early January as a tentative release window. In the meantime, they’ll be tuning things, including features like the final roster in the game, the balance of players’ starting decks, final card artwork, and more.

Will Madden Ultimate Team take off? It’s hard to say. I was a huge fan of the feature in UEFA and last year’s FIFA game–it got me to play more soccer games than I had ever played previously. And while producers are hopeful that Ultimate Team will turn into an annual addition to the Madden series, there are no guarantees. After all, it’s telling that the Ultimate Team feature was not included in this year’s FIFA 10 (though it conceivably could be added at a later date). On the other hand, FIFA 09’s Ultimate Team was a $15 DLC add-on. If nothing else, by giving Madden Ultimate Team away for free, EA is looking to expose the feature to as many people as possible. We’ll see if the experiment pays dividends when Madden Ultimate Team is released in January.

Matt Moore has performed admirably for the Panthers which goes to show even more how Jake Delhomme was overrated in the game through the season. Moore deserves a decent boost based on his six TDs in the past two games while avoiding throwing an INT and currently has just a 64 rating. The Broncos have gone 2-7 in their last nine games but Elvis Dumervil has continued to produce and has earned higher than the 91 rating he has. He set the team record for sacks in a season with 17 and leads the league in the category.

read the rest of the article here: http://www.pastapadre.com/2009/12/29/week-16-ratings-change-suggestions

Madden Bible is offering a special offer that will be a first in the community. ANY live caller on tonight’s show will receive our next E-book Guide for FREE! That’s right all you have to do is call in the show, be a forum member, and we will send you our next E-book Guide for FREE! Be sure not to miss this great opportunity to save a few bucks and to pick up on the hottest trends in the game!

LIVE tonight (12/10) at 8:30PM est. You can catch the show at www.madddenbible.com

Special Guest appearances by:

-         EAFL’s Atlanta Falcons Owner Koach K

-         EAFL’s Owner Terrence Flloyd

-         Madden School’s Big Hungry

-         Shopmaster of MyMaddenPad.com and Madden Nation Season 1

In the trenches with Zfarls and Sgibs as they battle about a run heavy or pass heavy offensive attack in Madden 2010

Lightening Round (loser owes the other a fine meal in Orlando, FL)

Sgibs Tip of the week (singleback y-trips screen)

NFL Pick Em’

As always we will take in live call ins!

-  Improved Flat Zone coverage – This is the one that I’ve been waiting for.  A guy in my franchise who will remain nameless will suffer greatly because this is fixed.  No more passing blindly into the flats even with a person playing cover two.  I played a game this morning and I was playing cover 2 and a guy threw it into the flats. My DB bumped the WR and came off in time to step in front of the RB and intercept the ball.  Great news!

-  Increased amount of replay recorded.  This was a big deal to me also.  Nothing like running a 107 yd kick off return only to record the last 40 yards when he’s in the clear.  I want people to see all the broken tackles I got away from.

-  Persuit angles were tuned, especially during catch animations.

-  Throwing out of sacks was tuned so that the trajectory of the ball was lower. Which means less interceptions thrown by those getting sacked.

We have also addressed some issues involving receivers in the passing game.  The first one involved fixing some instances where a receiver would be ruled inbounds even if he only got one foot down on a catch.  Another issue we resolved is a rare problem where under certain circumstances the ball would actually pass through a player when he dropped the pass.

In this update we have also fixed some annoying exploit issues.  The first one we made is adding an initial move to the RB on the HB direct snap plays so he can’t immediately take off after receiving the snap.  We also forced a QB drop initial move to force him to set up for a pass on Shotgun play action plays when you canceled the play action by hot routing the running back.  This will keep the QB from being able to take off running right after getting the snap.   Another change is not allowing the user to be able to move any front line players forward on kickoffs to keep them from being able to actually block the kickoff.  We also resolved the exploit of being able to motion a receiver after flipping the play which caused the defender to go the other way.  This allowed the receiver to be wide open against man coverage.  You will now have to wait until the receiver is set before you can motion him.  And finally, we fixed the bug where the QB could drift through the center when you repeatedly hot routed with certain quarterbacks.

This update will also have a fix for the clock running at incorrect times after an incomplete pass went out of bounds.  The clock will not stop correctly as it does on any other incomplete pass.

The uniform updates include updating the Seattle Seahawks’ home uniform to default their home pants to be blue instead of white as well as adding in their new eye popping Neon Green uniforms that they wore in Week 3 against the Bears.  We’ve also added tribute stickers to the Titans’ helmets for Steve McNair and the Eagles’ helmets for former Defensive Coordinator Jim Johnson.Some more updates that we have made based on the community feedback center around Replays.  We’ve doubled the amount of time a replay could be recorded so longer plays, such as kick/punt returns or long interception/fumble returns would not have the beginning part of the play cut off.  We have also increased the frequency of Auto Instant replays (especially after touchdowns), based on your feedback that told us they weren’t appearing enough. Other updates include reducing the number of times the Chain Gang Measurement scene will trigger during the game and extending the time that we are in postplay by 2 seconds to give more time for the presentation of certain shots to finish before being cut off too early.  The user will still of course be able to button through these if they want.

Finally, our resident Franchise guru Josh Looman, has been working hard at tuning stats for Franchise mode.   He has increased the number of touchdowns HB’s score in a season, decreased QB passing yards and touchdown passes per season, and increased sacks for 3-4 OLB’s while decreasing sacks for MLB’s and DT’s.  He has also decreased the injury chances for players with high injury ratings.  Needless to say, Josh has been extremely busy and you can see his full post about these updates here.

Well I hope everyone enjoys the new update and I applaud the Madden team for working on these things.

According to sources like PastaPadre.com the 360 update will be out next week.

As most of you now know, the PS3 update was released yesterday. We’re glad because it contains several adjustments that were made based on feedback from you and others in the Madden Community. Unfortunately, during the certification process for the 360, update issues were found that will prevent it’s release this week. Assuming all goes well with our new submission, the title update for the 360 should be released this time next week. We really do appreciate your patience and we’re equally frustrated that we couldn’t release both platforms this week. We’re confident our fans on 360 won’t have to wait much longer.

As a reminder Madden fans, EA recently set up team specific threads in the Roster and Ratings section of the Madden NFL Forums where you can post your thoughts on your team’s ratings in Madden NFL 10. Is there a guy that you feel is over/under rated in the game? Now’s your chance to let the guy making the decisions know.