Madden 2004 - Sim Franchise Owner?

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an extremely in-depth interview with Madden 2004 producer Jeremy Strauser, courtesy of Sports-gaming.com. One of the more interesting confirmations is of a new 'Owner Mode' for the seminal sports title, described as "....comprised of setting prices, staff, assistant coach, training staff, facilities, building a new stadium. All that has a symbiotic relationship with prices, attendance, performance, and wins and losses." Strauser even says that the programmers/testers "jokingly called the game 'Sim Owner'..", but it's clear the main concentration is still on the actual football, including making online play fairer.

Hello Championship Manager

[mandalayx]

Til Madden '04 comes out, I've been obsessively playing Championship Manager 4, a football* game with similar concerns...

linky [sigames.com]
*if by football you mean soccer

Building a new stadium?

[Frantactical Fruke]

That's not a cost item, is it?
Oh, you mean "Bribing and blackmailing the mayor to build you a new stadium," right?

"This team's gonna be the Chattanooga Choo-Choos next year, ifn ya don't build us a new stadium!"

Sports politics, gotta love it.

On Madden...

[mandalayx]

We have rules to the extent that we limit play selection (for guys who want to go for it on their own 7-yard line on fourth down). Gamers won't be able to select offensive plays in certain situations. We'll also restrict the guys who like to move players around. Those guys who take a WR and put him at TE and move him way out in a formation, or a guy who uses fast wide receivers on the defensive line. It's the non-standard stuff the game is going to restrict. But the game has some real creative guys and I have to hand it to them. They are really good at exploiting every aspect. What we try to do is take out stuff we can't normally see in a football game.

While I love this game, I also don't feel comfortable when I hear these things that I interpret as arbitrary tweaks to cover up faults in the system.

For example, a local Econ professor [berkeley.edu] did some research on decision-making and figured out that most teams are punting way too much. I chalked it up to traditional football thinking, and over a beer, he told me a little anecdote. Apparently in an old Madden game, gamers were going for it very successfully on 4th down(1). Once Madden heard about this, he thought it was "horrible" and the game engine was claimed to have been tweaked to make converting 4th downs artificially harder.

And why not play a WR as TE? There's Teyo Johnson drafted out of Stanfurd who's doing just that, IIRC from a Sporting News article. And it's not a stretch of my imagination to see Tony Gonzalez as a decent WR. Heck sometimes I draw up plays just for him so that I don't have to go and invest in an extra player....

When the developer says that he wants to restrict non-standard stuff, I simply don't feel comfortable. Admittedly they have done a great job in letting Michael Vick lead the league in my 2002 franchise running (well almost) and passing (rating-wise) but I think that basing player behavior on NFL teams is a less optimal result than I would prefer.

(1) In The Hidden Game of Football by Carroll, et al, the success rate on 4th down is quoted at 49% (p.23, revised ed.)

Re:On Madden...

[notque]

I agree entirely. The only problem with players moving players is that the computer generally is unable to react to such broad moves.

When playing against a Human, if you move your wr to tight end, I am going to more likely be in a nickel package to take advantage of the quickness.

There are so many things that football games take care of now I am just happy for those. I am not too intrested if the computer can react to Mike Vick being put at corner back, and what that would potentially mean.

I've been waiting on this.

[notque]

I play simsports online, franchise mode has been slowly moving to simsports, even so much as being able to randomly create every player in the league with names, stats and progression, and assign him to a team.

(World Series Baseball 2k3, College Football 2k3)

The questions as you move into realism is, do you start having "injurys" via courtdates? Do you have teams relocate? Add how Sportswriters, and Fans feel about you? Your players?

Sure, it would be a blast, but when is enough?

I feel as though if you h

Re:Limiting what players can do

[Imperator]

I think one of the problems with Madden is that it doesn't simulate the "hasn't practiced that play" problem.

An example: Michael Vick sat his rookie season in the NFL because he didn't know the plays well enough. But in the Madden game year (2002?) corresponding to that, many people I know would put him in manually, and kick ass with him. The fact that the real Vick didn't know the offense well enough didn't matter, because the human player had no trouble with "press X to pass to the slot receiver as he cu

Re:Limiting what players can do

[Arkaein]

I am kind of surprised that this is even an issue. Madden has a pretty comprehensive set of attributes, such that small players should get mauled by offensive lineman.

On another note, in my custom defenses I often use 6 or 7 DBs, and usually blitz one or two corners. However they come around the side, so they just avoid the O-Line. Runs up the middle go right past them. This is just realistic. I think Madden does quite a good job with unconventional plays actually.

My Rants

[Arkaein]

I'm a big fan of the newer Madden titles. In particular, I absolutely LOVE the playbook maker for 2003 (I even have started a website for my personal plays: Monstrous Madden 2003 Playbook [monsterden.net], check it out). However, I have a few gripes with this feature (at least on the Gamecube version).

• Not enough special options. You cannot run a proper play action pass, draw play, or reverse. An option pitch would be neat as well.
• Cannot use custom playbooks for audibles. I've just started using audibles regularly, and t

Re:My Rants

[mandalayx]

I like your playbook idea. If you had a tv-in card (i.e. an ATI TV-Wonder) perhaps you could take screenshots to show your plays.

Re:My Rants

[Arkaein]

I'm actually working on this right now. I tried uisng my roommate's digital camera but the results were awful. So yesterday I started writing a program that takes two text files, a formation and a play, and a resolution, and renders the play and saves to a file, which I will then crop and add to the page.

I've actually got this working for passing plays (running and lead blocking "routes" may take me a bit to work out), and I should have the first images (for Undercuts, Deep Outs and Flood Left SE Iso) up b

EA Sports' track record not so good recently...

[Primis]

Wow, great! Owner Mode!

I've only been playing games like this for years and years already, most of them text-based and many of them free.

If EA handles hardcore management the way they've handled their "sports sims" over the last few years (the degredation of their NHL series in particular is sickening, considering how dead-on it used to be), I imagine they will turn off all kinds of people from managing sims for years and years to come.

Here are some of the best-established sports management sims still o