Thanks for all the feedback on the forum concerning the patch. I'm glad we switched to the new forum system because I feel like we were able to do a better job of collecting quick and direct feedback. I've read most of the comments written and I would like to take a minute to respond to some of the concerns.
I want to assure everyone that the point of this blog is not for us to come on here and release a PR Press Release. Our original goal for this blog site was to have an interactive forum where you guys can communicate with us and we can give you information straight from the source. Those who know me can attest that I am not a marketer, and I think that over time you will see that the other developers and myself are really passionate about Madden and making it the best game we possibly can.
Luckily for us, it appears we have a strong group of people who want to help us achieve our goals- You! Please keep the feedback coming, and try to keep it direct and informative so that we can easily see the issues at hand. As we all know, message boards and the internet in general have a way of breeding unfocused and in many cases destructive conversations. The more direct and informative we can keep these blog threads, the better we will be able to work together.
We do our absolute best to keep up with any issues that arise in our game throughout the year. Obviously this can be a hard task because aside from being busy developing next year's title, our game (in my opinion) is played by our consumers like no other game in the world. The level of analysis and the sheer amount of hours put into our game are just amazing! Don't believe me- watch a competitive Madden player sit in practice mode for hours on end... or read the "Madden Manifesto" that was written by a group of hardcore franchise players a few years ago. Needless to say it is hard for us to keep up with everything going on- but through this blog site, our community leaders program, and our more interactive approach to dealing with the community- we are continuing to get better.
With that said, it is our understanding right now that after the next Patch there will be no more known issues that will cause your franchise to freeze at any point. You should be able to play through the entire franchise mode without any problems. We will make sure we monitor the situation in case some other unknown issues arise.
Whoops!
So I was reading through the replies to the Patch Blog and I noticed a lot of people mad that I didn't mention the "Free Agent Pool" issue where players were disappearing. Initially I was shocked because I clearly remember including that as one of the issues in my blog.... But then I looked at what was actually posted and realize a page was missing! So the good news is that the Free Agent Issue was FIXED in this Patch. The bad news is that we were so excited about posting the Patch blog that a page was left off and you guys didn't get that information. So Will Kinsler and myself will take the blame for this one... actually I think I'll just pin it on him since he posts these things!
Hopefully this blog will help ease your mind about the franchise issues.. Got to get back to work!
Oh ya and here are the three missing items that we... umm I mean Will... left off the last list.
Franchise - Fixed bug where the FA pool would run out of certain positions
Online Game Reporting- fixed a number of issues where games weren't being reported correctly or people weren't getting the right number of ranking points for a win. This will also make stats more accurate.
EA SPORTS World- Accomplishment '20 consecutive completions' not awarded when completions ends up under 100%
Feel free to keep posting your feedback in this thread on our official forums to let us know what you think.