Madden NFL 12 Feature Playbook #6: Online Communities (Monday, July 25th, 2011)

[Paakaa10]

Feature Playbook #6--the final feature description for Madden NFL 12--has now been released and details the "Online Communities" feature in this year's game. The URL for this information at the Madden NFL 12 title site is: http://www.ea.com/madden-nfl/1/online-communities.

BLOGS

• Madden 12 Online Communities by designer Anthony DiMento.
• Online Communities Detailed by EA SPORTS Game Changer Jake Stein.

SCREENSHOTS





VIDEO

• Madden NFL 12 -- "Online Communities" Virtual Playbook Video

[Details]

[I OU a Beatn]

Awesome, I'm really excited about this. Hopefully it's good.

[Paakaa10]

Awesome, I'm really excited about this. Hopefully it's good.

I'm excited, mostly because I have no idea what "Online Communities" means despite having already played some early builds of the game. I know that the guys who attended the Madden NFL 12 Community Events--and the guys at EA--are excited to reveal this information. As you said, hopefully it's good news for everyone who likes to game online.

[Paakaa10]

The original post has been updated with links to all of the information which was uploaded to the title site for this feature playbook today.

[Paakaa10]

I had a feeling that "Online Communities" would be something in this vein, though I didn't know for sure until today's announcement.

I know that people feel upset with EA for not adding anything substantial to Online Franchise mode, but I think I understand the reasoning behind putting a lot of focus on offline Franchise and into this new "Online Communities" feature. If more people are convinced to play games online through starting communities with friends and like-minded gamers, then you'll create a solid base of people who might be interested in taking the experience further and forming up as members of an Online Franchise. Using "Online Communities" to build up the "online metrics" this year might give the development team the proof they need to request money to develop Online Franchise to be everything it can be.

I haven't had a lot of luck historically playing games online; part of this due to poor internet connections in the past, part of this due to being a "sim-style" gamer and not finding very many people online to share that sort of gameplay experience with. I'm hoping that "Online Communities" help to remedy this, and hopefully we'll be able to start up a "The Gaming Tailgate" Online Community for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 so that people who hang out here often can get some games in against one another.