Madden Planet : EA Football Community Day 08

Arriving, Wednesday March 28, 2008

Before starting, I can only apologise for the server issue that has prevented this report being posted sooner - the much publicised data center fire at ThePlanet.com in Houston. Hopefully those problems are resolved and we will have no further trouble.

This was the fifth Madden and NCAA Community event that I have attended. The first two were in San Francisco while the last 3 have been in Orlando. I'm lucky and grateful to have attended these events - and extremely positive about the benefits of doing so. The opportunity to meet all of the attending members of the community is in no small part one of the most important aspects of the trip. Speaking to and meeting some of these guys is a great experience, not least because we all share the same passion and enthusiasm for the games we are there to play. Obviously, the most fundamental part of the visit to Tiburon is the hands on time we are given to play the game (more time was available to play the game this year than on any previous trip) and the chance to meet, talk to and give direct feedback to the producers and programmers who make the game. Those are both the essential aspects of the Community Day that I most look forward to and so, to repeat what I said earlier, I consider the opportunity to attend the EA Football Community Day to be a privilege.

Wednesday began with an 8 hour flight to Orlando, but upon landing at the Orlando International Airport I soon came across Dan/Moostache of Maddenwars.com and shortly after, Russell05 with the three of us taking a 30 minute car drive to our hotel in North Orlando. Upon arrival at the hotel, Will Kinsler (EA Community Manager at Tiburon) and several other members of the attending group were in the lobby and we spent an hour catching up with what had been happening in the community over the last year. Dinner was served in the hotel restaurant at approximately 7.15pm and everyone except for Damon was there. Damon was on a later flight from St. Louis and arrived a short time later. The hotel bar closed a bit early but we were able to grab a drink before heading to bed - it had been a long day.

NCAA 09 / Head Coach, Thursday March 29, 2008

Thursday opened up with breakfast shortly after 9am. A hotel shuttle was booked to take us to the studio at 10am and after passing through security in the studio lobby we headed up to the second floor where the room was already set up with Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PS2 consoles and copies of the latest build of NCAA 09 ready to play. Before doing so EA gave us a bunch of do's-and-dont's which is to be expected when you're playing pre-release software but none of those were a limitation on us being able to play the game and explore all of the features. We played NCAA 09 through most of the morning before taking a lunch break around 1pm. As somebody who has suffered four times from the dreaded curse that is the RROD, it was refreshing (though not ideal) to see one of the EA Xbox 360's suffer a similar fate. Thankfully, EA had no shortage of consoles and the offending machine was soon replace.

Rhombic from NCAA Strategies and Scott from ConsoleSports.net play a game of NCAA 09 at Community Day 08

After lunch it was the turn of the NFL Head Coach team to give us a presentation and walk us through some of the major features in the game. Given that this is the first edition of NFL Head Coach in a while, there was plenty to see. Shortly after this, we were given the chance to get some significant hands-on time with the game and designer Donny Moore and lead producer Josh Looman were avaible to answer every question we had to ask them. We were also able to grab some exclusive video interviews with the guys, which again.. will be posted shortly. NFL Head Coach looks like it will be a great strategy and management type of game, but more on that to come later.

After dining on pizza, which EA had ordered in, copies of NCAA 09 were slipped back into the consoles and we competed in the traditional Community Day tournament - a unique two-part tournament, with day 1 featuring NCAA 09 and day 2 set to feature Madden 09. Neither Damon nor I fared particularly well, with Russell05 defeating Damon in the first round and Andy (umm, me) losing in the preliminary round to Justin of EA Sports World. Still, I did manage a rather nice punt return which you can check out now on MP:TV. Crumbs ?

We headed out of the studio pretty late, after 10pm and had little time to do anything else but retire to bed.

Madden 09, Friday March 30, 2008

Friday started pretty much as Thursday did, with breakfast and a ride (this time by car) to the studio at Tiburon. Given the close proximity of the studio to the hotel, the journey is a short one and we arrived not long after - signing in again as normal - and getting hands on with Madden 09 at approximately 10.30 am.

Ian Cummings, Phil Frazier and practically everyone else at EA who has anything to do with the making of Madden dropped by at one stage or another during the day and we were able to play Madden 09 pretty much right through for the next 12 (and in some cases 14) hours. The EA team clearly is proud of the advances they have made this year and with justification. Madden 09 is leaps and bounds better than Madden 08, something which I know is easy to say but which is also genuinely felt. There wasn't a single attendee who didn't concur that the 09 version is superior to 08 in just about every single respect. Finally, barring one or two smaller missing features like in-game saves, we're back to the depth that old-gen was at. In fact, it's far deeper than it was on old-gen and you could tell almost immediately that in terms of graphics and gameplay, this is a football title that will satisfy the community this year.

All eyes on the screens at Community Day 08

Again, I can't stress enough how valuable it is to be able to offer direct feedback to the producers on the game as we play it. I was able to spend a lot of time talking with and playing against Jason Ostresh who was very candid and honest about the game - and as the guy responsible for presentation was able to offer some insight into the design of that side of the game this year. Furthermore, Ian Cummings made notes of any issues that we encountered and took those straight up to the engineers who in many cases were able to fix them there and then. Remember, this is the earliest we have ever been able to get our hands on the game and so far ahead of the release date, it's inevitable that there would be a few problems.

When evening arrived, we kicked off the second community tournament and I'm glad to say that I competed better in this one than I did in the NCAA one. Not least because I was able to defeat Damon in the first round - combination of luck and ... luck, no doubt ... but still nice. Playing with the Patriots however gave me a distinct advantage in the name of Randy Moss. I didn't fare quite so well in the second round, contriving to lose to Bobby of Gametime Philly in a dramatic and hard fought contest. Nonetheless, I wasn't embarrassed and against such high caliber opponents, that is something to be grateful for. For the record, Shopmaster (finalist in the NCAA 09 event) of Maddenwars.com was the winner.

Some of the guys chose to continue playing Madden right into the early hours of Saturday morning while others retired back to the hotel or relaxed in a nearby bar. All told, it was a great two days of gaming and it's my opinion that everyone who attended really appreciated the extent of the time we were given to play the game and is truly grateful to EA for the courtesy that we were afforded over our time in Orlando.

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