FIFA 09: Ultimate Team - New Producer Blogs & Screenshots Released
EA Sports today has released two new producer blogs and a few screenshots for its upcoming DLC for FIFA 09 titled Ultimate Team. Check it out:
Be sure to check out the new features to this awesome looking DLC when it is released for the PS3 and 360.
Matt Prior, producer
FIFA 09 Ultimate Team Overview
Welcome to the FIFA 09 Ultimate Team blog. Over the next few weeks I’ll try to give you an in depth look at our new FIFA 09 Ultimate Team mode for FIFA 09 so check back regularly here for updates. FIFA 09 Ultimate Team will be available to everyone who owns FIFA 09 on PS3 and X360. A title update will be available on March 19th so all you will need to do is start up FIFA 09 on, or anytime after that date, and update the game. Once updated, you’ll see the ultimate team menu item in the main menu. Selecting it will enable you to select the language (English, French, German, Italian & Spanish) and will trigger the download. The download will be around 1.3 gigs and it’s free to everyone. With the download you receive a 5-match trial of the game, and if you like it, you’ll be able to purchase it at the end of the trial.
Ultimate Team enables gamers to assemble and manage their fantasy team by collecting virtual cards in about 30 different categories. One of the card categories is Gameplay cards which will provide a unique variation to FIFA 09. The gameplay cards have additional influence on the on-field proceedings and add a fascinating new element to the existing gameplay. There are over 80 different types of gameplay cards that can affect anything from the length of throw-ins to the composure of your opponent's keeper. It’s important to note that none of them are so powerful that they can make the game completely unbalanced. Even with the most powerful cards applied, it’s still down to the skill of the two gamers.
All the teams & leagues that are in FIFA 09 are available to play as opponents and feature in the 36 tournaments that are in the game.
To read the rest of this blog entry click "show" below.
[SPOIL=]In terms of which specific leagues & players are available as cards, they are: Barclays Premier League, Coca Cola Championship, Coca Cola League 1 & 2, French Ligue 1 & 2, Bundesliga 1 & 2, Italian Serie A & B, Spanish Liga BBVA, Belgium Pro League, Norwegien Tippeligaen, Scottish SPL, Austrian Bundesliga, Switzerland Axpo Super League, Korean Republic K League, Mexican Primera Division, Australian A League, & 11 Rest-of-the-World teams including AEK Athens, River Plate, Panathinaikos and Boca Juniors.
With your free download you’ll receive a starter pack that features your first squad of players, your first home and away kits, your first training arena and home stadium, the Create Captain card and a few gameplay and training cards, 28 in total. After that each pack of cards you receive will feature 12 cards. From the starter pack you create your best squad, taking into consideration the composition of your team, the formation you want to play, the nationality of the players and a variety of other factors that impact Team Chemistry. Each time you play a game, win or lose, you’ll earn coins that are the in-game economy and the means to buy packs. The better your performance, the more coins you’ll earn, but even losing will get you some coins. You’ll also earn more if you play online, so in no time, you’ll have enough coins to purchase your first bronze pack. Bronze packs obviously don’t contain the best cards, so if you want to get the best, you’ll have to save up for Silver or Gold. It takes 6 and 12 games, respectively, before the Silver & Gold packs are unlocked. If you don’t have the time to play games to earn the in-game economy, you can use real world cash or Microsoft points in the in-game Sony/Microsoft store. It’s important to point out that the use of real world cash is only a shortcut and won’t buy you anything that you can’t already earn in- game; it’s simply a shortcut for those who want to use it.
There is a new trade card system that enables you to post any of your cards for trade with other gamers. You can set the minimum price, a 'buy- now' price and the trade expiration. In addition to coins, you’ll also likely be offered swaps for any of the cards you post, so checking on the status of your trades can be very interesting. You can check the status of any trades by going to your trade pile. In addition to trading away unwanted cards, you can also put them in the collector’s album. Putting them in the collector’s album will award a coin amount based on the quality of the player being put in. For example, put in a 75 gold rated player and you’ll get over 400 coins back. Complete an entire team in the collection and you’ll get a big coins bonus, so astute use of the collection can be a very useful way to help fund the building of your team. If you don’t want to trade the card and already have it in your collection, you have the final option of discarding it and even this will get you a modest coins award, so every card has value.
Once you have created your team then you can start playing in league matches and tournaments, both online and offline, against CPU controlled teams in FIFA and fantasy teams assembled by players like yourself around the world. I should also mention that Skill points are the means to unlock tournaments. After each game you’ll be awarded skill points based on your performance. Play better and you’ll earn more Skill Points to advance to more difficult tournaments.
For Xbox gamers, FIFA Ultimate Team features 10 Xbox achievements that can earn 250 points. Updating FIFA 09 on or after March 19 will provide access to Ultimate Team and will additionally install trophies for the PS3 version. It will install 47 trophies for FIFA itself and the 10 trophies specifically for Ultimate Team so it will give gamers plenty of new goals to achieve. A lot of the FIFA gameplay trophies can also be earned by playing Ultimate team.
That’s an overview of what to expect from FIFA 09 Ultimate Team. In future blogs I will detail the types of cards available, different strategies for developing team chemistry, look at our cool Create Captain customization feature and at the leagues and tournaments.
Matt
[/SPOIL]
Matt Prior, producer
FIFA 09 Ultimate Team Types of Cards
One of the most interesting facets of FIFA 09 Ultimate Team is all the different types of cards available to manage your fantasy team. There are about 30 different categories. Below, I have listed some of the main categories with a brief look at their role in the game.
Players – The backbone of the game. Each player has a unique set of attributes based on the real world player. These attributes combine to give the player an overall rating. The overall rating is used to value the player as either a Bronze, Silver or Gold card. There are over 4000 player cards in the game.
Managers – There are 84 real world managers in the game. The manager influences the team by his nationality and his preferred formation. He also has a tactics rating that enables the use of the Custom Tactics feature. He also has a Team Talk rating and a Negotiation rating that add to the value of any Team Talk cards and Contract cards that are played.
Staff – There is a Headcoach, a Physio, a Goalkeeper Coach & a Fitness Coach. These cards form the important back room staff and all have values that add to the appropriate development cards. For example, if you have a headcoach who has a Pace Training value of +3, then any Pace Training card applied will have +3 added to the face value of the card. Finding the right staff can be crucial to building and maintaining your team.
Gameplay Cards – Gameplay cards can be taken into the game and used to influence the on-field events. There are over 80 different types of gameplay cards and they vary in the amount of players they affect and also the time they last. You can improve the throw length of your players, improve any of the attributes, avoid injury and even taunt the opposition keeper and affect his kicking plus many others. They range from 30 minute single player cards to entire game all- player cards. Using gameplay cards intelligently can be crucial in tipping the balance in your favour.
Training Cards – Training cards allow you to train your players and increase their attributes. You can even grow them from Bronze to Gold. All the attributes in the game can be increased.
Advanced Player Training – These cards can be very powerful. By playing these cards on a player, you can permanently change the preferred formation of any player e.g. You might be playing 4-4-2, and as such, can’t use Ronaldinho without impacting your team chemistry because his preferred formation is 4-3-2-1. By playing a 4-4-2 advanced training card on him, you can change this and make him fit in.
To read the rest of this blog entry click "show" below.
[SPOIL=]Advanced Manager Training – The custom tactic feature is locked out until you get a manager. Each manager has a Tactics rating that allows the use of one to three of the available tactics: Build Up, Chance Creation & Defence. Advanced manger training cards can be applied to the manager to increase his tactical rating and unlock the tactic indicated on the card.
Kits – Kit cards represent the home and away kits of all the teams in the game. If you get a kit card in a pack, you can choose to use it as either your home or away kit.
Badges – The badge cards display a real world team logo and this represents your team’s crest and will be displayed throughout the game including in your training ground and stadium. You will get one in the starter pack, but if you want to change it, you will need to get another badge card and swap it with your existing one. Be sure to utilize the trading area to find your favourites.
Balls – There are dozens of different balls available on cards. You start with the default ball, but getting a ball card will allow to use a different ball in the game.
Stadiums – There are 53 stadiums in the game including a number of brand new ones. Getting a stadium card will allow you to use that stadium as your home venue. Stadiums range from the Bronze small ones in the starter pack up to the state of the art gold ones like New Wembley.
Crowd – Your stadium will start out with a small card. You can increase the size of your crowd by applying a crowd card. They vary from Medium to Large to Capacity. Having a larger crowd will add to your team's morale in home games, and the morale increase will be displayed on your stadium card.
Free Packs/Coins – If you are lucky enough to get one of these, it will entitle you to a free pack of cards. Similarly, a free coin pack will award a specified amount of free coins.
Celebrations – Getting a celebration and putting it in your Collector's Album will then unlock that celebration in game. You can see how to trigger all the 20 new celebrations for the ‘Celebration Help’ screen in the settings menu.
Create Player Items Boots/Hair/Bandanas/Tattoos – These cards, when used, will unlock the applicable item in the Create Player screens. There are 100s of different items that will allow you to create a truly unique individual.
Training Ground – The training ground is the arena in which your player can practice. Getting a training ground card will allow you to change the arena.
[/SPOIL]
FIFA 09 Ultimate Team Overview
Welcome to the FIFA 09 Ultimate Team blog. Over the next few weeks I’ll try to give you an in depth look at our new FIFA 09 Ultimate Team mode for FIFA 09 so check back regularly here for updates. FIFA 09 Ultimate Team will be available to everyone who owns FIFA 09 on PS3 and X360. A title update will be available on March 19th so all you will need to do is start up FIFA 09 on, or anytime after that date, and update the game. Once updated, you’ll see the ultimate team menu item in the main menu. Selecting it will enable you to select the language (English, French, German, Italian & Spanish) and will trigger the download. The download will be around 1.3 gigs and it’s free to everyone. With the download you receive a 5-match trial of the game, and if you like it, you’ll be able to purchase it at the end of the trial.
Ultimate Team enables gamers to assemble and manage their fantasy team by collecting virtual cards in about 30 different categories. One of the card categories is Gameplay cards which will provide a unique variation to FIFA 09. The gameplay cards have additional influence on the on-field proceedings and add a fascinating new element to the existing gameplay. There are over 80 different types of gameplay cards that can affect anything from the length of throw-ins to the composure of your opponent's keeper. It’s important to note that none of them are so powerful that they can make the game completely unbalanced. Even with the most powerful cards applied, it’s still down to the skill of the two gamers.
All the teams & leagues that are in FIFA 09 are available to play as opponents and feature in the 36 tournaments that are in the game.
To read the rest of this blog entry click "show" below.
[SPOIL=]In terms of which specific leagues & players are available as cards, they are: Barclays Premier League, Coca Cola Championship, Coca Cola League 1 & 2, French Ligue 1 & 2, Bundesliga 1 & 2, Italian Serie A & B, Spanish Liga BBVA, Belgium Pro League, Norwegien Tippeligaen, Scottish SPL, Austrian Bundesliga, Switzerland Axpo Super League, Korean Republic K League, Mexican Primera Division, Australian A League, & 11 Rest-of-the-World teams including AEK Athens, River Plate, Panathinaikos and Boca Juniors.
With your free download you’ll receive a starter pack that features your first squad of players, your first home and away kits, your first training arena and home stadium, the Create Captain card and a few gameplay and training cards, 28 in total. After that each pack of cards you receive will feature 12 cards. From the starter pack you create your best squad, taking into consideration the composition of your team, the formation you want to play, the nationality of the players and a variety of other factors that impact Team Chemistry. Each time you play a game, win or lose, you’ll earn coins that are the in-game economy and the means to buy packs. The better your performance, the more coins you’ll earn, but even losing will get you some coins. You’ll also earn more if you play online, so in no time, you’ll have enough coins to purchase your first bronze pack. Bronze packs obviously don’t contain the best cards, so if you want to get the best, you’ll have to save up for Silver or Gold. It takes 6 and 12 games, respectively, before the Silver & Gold packs are unlocked. If you don’t have the time to play games to earn the in-game economy, you can use real world cash or Microsoft points in the in-game Sony/Microsoft store. It’s important to point out that the use of real world cash is only a shortcut and won’t buy you anything that you can’t already earn in- game; it’s simply a shortcut for those who want to use it.
There is a new trade card system that enables you to post any of your cards for trade with other gamers. You can set the minimum price, a 'buy- now' price and the trade expiration. In addition to coins, you’ll also likely be offered swaps for any of the cards you post, so checking on the status of your trades can be very interesting. You can check the status of any trades by going to your trade pile. In addition to trading away unwanted cards, you can also put them in the collector’s album. Putting them in the collector’s album will award a coin amount based on the quality of the player being put in. For example, put in a 75 gold rated player and you’ll get over 400 coins back. Complete an entire team in the collection and you’ll get a big coins bonus, so astute use of the collection can be a very useful way to help fund the building of your team. If you don’t want to trade the card and already have it in your collection, you have the final option of discarding it and even this will get you a modest coins award, so every card has value.
Once you have created your team then you can start playing in league matches and tournaments, both online and offline, against CPU controlled teams in FIFA and fantasy teams assembled by players like yourself around the world. I should also mention that Skill points are the means to unlock tournaments. After each game you’ll be awarded skill points based on your performance. Play better and you’ll earn more Skill Points to advance to more difficult tournaments.
For Xbox gamers, FIFA Ultimate Team features 10 Xbox achievements that can earn 250 points. Updating FIFA 09 on or after March 19 will provide access to Ultimate Team and will additionally install trophies for the PS3 version. It will install 47 trophies for FIFA itself and the 10 trophies specifically for Ultimate Team so it will give gamers plenty of new goals to achieve. A lot of the FIFA gameplay trophies can also be earned by playing Ultimate team.
That’s an overview of what to expect from FIFA 09 Ultimate Team. In future blogs I will detail the types of cards available, different strategies for developing team chemistry, look at our cool Create Captain customization feature and at the leagues and tournaments.
Matt
[/SPOIL]
Matt Prior, producer
FIFA 09 Ultimate Team Types of Cards
One of the most interesting facets of FIFA 09 Ultimate Team is all the different types of cards available to manage your fantasy team. There are about 30 different categories. Below, I have listed some of the main categories with a brief look at their role in the game.
Players – The backbone of the game. Each player has a unique set of attributes based on the real world player. These attributes combine to give the player an overall rating. The overall rating is used to value the player as either a Bronze, Silver or Gold card. There are over 4000 player cards in the game.
Managers – There are 84 real world managers in the game. The manager influences the team by his nationality and his preferred formation. He also has a tactics rating that enables the use of the Custom Tactics feature. He also has a Team Talk rating and a Negotiation rating that add to the value of any Team Talk cards and Contract cards that are played.
Staff – There is a Headcoach, a Physio, a Goalkeeper Coach & a Fitness Coach. These cards form the important back room staff and all have values that add to the appropriate development cards. For example, if you have a headcoach who has a Pace Training value of +3, then any Pace Training card applied will have +3 added to the face value of the card. Finding the right staff can be crucial to building and maintaining your team.
Gameplay Cards – Gameplay cards can be taken into the game and used to influence the on-field events. There are over 80 different types of gameplay cards and they vary in the amount of players they affect and also the time they last. You can improve the throw length of your players, improve any of the attributes, avoid injury and even taunt the opposition keeper and affect his kicking plus many others. They range from 30 minute single player cards to entire game all- player cards. Using gameplay cards intelligently can be crucial in tipping the balance in your favour.
Training Cards – Training cards allow you to train your players and increase their attributes. You can even grow them from Bronze to Gold. All the attributes in the game can be increased.
Advanced Player Training – These cards can be very powerful. By playing these cards on a player, you can permanently change the preferred formation of any player e.g. You might be playing 4-4-2, and as such, can’t use Ronaldinho without impacting your team chemistry because his preferred formation is 4-3-2-1. By playing a 4-4-2 advanced training card on him, you can change this and make him fit in.
To read the rest of this blog entry click "show" below.
[SPOIL=]Advanced Manager Training – The custom tactic feature is locked out until you get a manager. Each manager has a Tactics rating that allows the use of one to three of the available tactics: Build Up, Chance Creation & Defence. Advanced manger training cards can be applied to the manager to increase his tactical rating and unlock the tactic indicated on the card.
Kits – Kit cards represent the home and away kits of all the teams in the game. If you get a kit card in a pack, you can choose to use it as either your home or away kit.
Badges – The badge cards display a real world team logo and this represents your team’s crest and will be displayed throughout the game including in your training ground and stadium. You will get one in the starter pack, but if you want to change it, you will need to get another badge card and swap it with your existing one. Be sure to utilize the trading area to find your favourites.
Balls – There are dozens of different balls available on cards. You start with the default ball, but getting a ball card will allow to use a different ball in the game.
Stadiums – There are 53 stadiums in the game including a number of brand new ones. Getting a stadium card will allow you to use that stadium as your home venue. Stadiums range from the Bronze small ones in the starter pack up to the state of the art gold ones like New Wembley.
Crowd – Your stadium will start out with a small card. You can increase the size of your crowd by applying a crowd card. They vary from Medium to Large to Capacity. Having a larger crowd will add to your team's morale in home games, and the morale increase will be displayed on your stadium card.
Free Packs/Coins – If you are lucky enough to get one of these, it will entitle you to a free pack of cards. Similarly, a free coin pack will award a specified amount of free coins.
Celebrations – Getting a celebration and putting it in your Collector's Album will then unlock that celebration in game. You can see how to trigger all the 20 new celebrations for the ‘Celebration Help’ screen in the settings menu.
Create Player Items Boots/Hair/Bandanas/Tattoos – These cards, when used, will unlock the applicable item in the Create Player screens. There are 100s of different items that will allow you to create a truly unique individual.
Training Ground – The training ground is the arena in which your player can practice. Getting a training ground card will allow you to change the arena.
[/SPOIL]
Be sure to check out the new features to this awesome looking DLC when it is released for the PS3 and 360.