Ready to take on all challengers in Madden 11 but need that extra edge to beat out your online opponent? EA Sports has added online scouting reports that can be purchased using in-game virtual currency.
The Coins can be earned by primarily through playing online games to completion. A secondary option, says EA Sports, will be to spend real world money to buy the virtual coins which can then be used to purchase scouting reports against your opponent. ESPN has the full details on the new system, but here is just a quick taste of what to expect.
Be sure to check out all of the details at ESPN.
The Coins can be earned by primarily through playing online games to completion. A secondary option, says EA Sports, will be to spend real world money to buy the virtual coins which can then be used to purchase scouting reports against your opponent. ESPN has the full details on the new system, but here is just a quick taste of what to expect.
And to give gamers a taste of the strategy, everybody who buys the game new will receive 50 free scouting reports with purchase tied to the new EA Sports Online Pass initiative.
"When you total everything up, there are 45 different pieces of scouting report information that you could buy per game," explains Moore. "Or you can just buy the full game purchase option before the game for just 25 coins so you can just have all the scouting before the game without having to buy every piece of information separately. It's a pretty good discount. Then when you're in-game, if a scouting report is available to be viewed, you just hit a button to activate."
Adds Frazier: "What ultimately drove this feature was the hardcore, competitive, head-to-head gamer who wanted the ability, just like NFL coaches, to have a tool to understand what their opponents are doing. And that's why we've focused this feature on online head-to-head and not carried it over to online franchise which we feel is a more social aspect of gaming."
As for how the new scouting works with "Madden's" GameFlow play-calling system? Frazier believes the two work hand-in-hand. "With GameFlow, you're giving the A.I. the ability to choose for you, so maybe the statistic of pass versus run isn't as valid as the others, but even when a pass play is called, it's up to you on how to execute that play. When we call out the primary receiver who is running a streak route, you can choose instead to throw to the receiver on the other side of the field who is running the corner route. So the information on where the play is run, who is favorite target is, how deep he likes to throw, all of that information is very much relevant even though the play was called by GameFlow. And since you can also audible out of GameFlow, we're also tracking those plays that you're calling. There's no way to circumvent the system as we're tracking the final result."
"When you total everything up, there are 45 different pieces of scouting report information that you could buy per game," explains Moore. "Or you can just buy the full game purchase option before the game for just 25 coins so you can just have all the scouting before the game without having to buy every piece of information separately. It's a pretty good discount. Then when you're in-game, if a scouting report is available to be viewed, you just hit a button to activate."
Adds Frazier: "What ultimately drove this feature was the hardcore, competitive, head-to-head gamer who wanted the ability, just like NFL coaches, to have a tool to understand what their opponents are doing. And that's why we've focused this feature on online head-to-head and not carried it over to online franchise which we feel is a more social aspect of gaming."
As for how the new scouting works with "Madden's" GameFlow play-calling system? Frazier believes the two work hand-in-hand. "With GameFlow, you're giving the A.I. the ability to choose for you, so maybe the statistic of pass versus run isn't as valid as the others, but even when a pass play is called, it's up to you on how to execute that play. When we call out the primary receiver who is running a streak route, you can choose instead to throw to the receiver on the other side of the field who is running the corner route. So the information on where the play is run, who is favorite target is, how deep he likes to throw, all of that information is very much relevant even though the play was called by GameFlow. And since you can also audible out of GameFlow, we're also tracking those plays that you're calling. There's no way to circumvent the system as we're tracking the final result."
Be sure to check out all of the details at ESPN.