NCAA Football 08 online play falling short again
by 
Once again the area of online play in an EA Sports title is failing. Granted this is right at and around release time and the problems could still very well be fixed. I have been told they are being looked into. However that is not a sufficient excuse for having a poor online play experience for everyone around the release time frame. By now everything should be fully prepared for and functioning correctly for the release of every title.
Game crippling lag, disconnects, and connection issues are widespread. Menu navigation and play selection has slow reaction time. 7 seconds for a defense to choose a play following the offense's selection simply isn't enough as it is, let alone when you're dealing with that menu and button lag. The kicking/punting becomes an adventure. Where is the player card to view your own or someone else's record and stats? Forget adjusting depth charts unless you want to spend a frustrating several minutes doing so. Not to mention that you can't save depth charts offline and have that transfer over to online. You have to make any changes prior to every new game. Ridiculous.
I am unable to connect to a game with a buddy of mine that I play more than anyone else on pretty much every sports game that comes out. Never had any problems before. So it was a surprise to find out we can't even play online against each other. We tried pretty much everything. Me challenging him, him challenging me, ranked via lobby room, unranked via game invite, mics vs no mics. But nothing worked. We get to the team select screen and it boots us out after a few seconds saying it couldn't establish a connection. We then tried selecting teams before it kicked us out, and it locked both of our Xbox's up. Wonderful.
Because of this he has already asked me to sell his copy of the game for him. I convinced him to hold out through the weekend. For people who are heavily into online play, when it doesn't work right it can basically ruin the entire value of the title.
That isn't to say that EA is the only culprit in this area. 2K Sports touts their online leagues, but they are practically always broken. Eventually it seems they get around to fixing some of the problems, but weeks/months down the line who cares? The same can be said here. The most popular time for a game to be played is right around the release. Poor experiences can turn them off for good.
Last year EA released the lag patch for Madden 360 that corrected the distance based lag that had plagued all EA Sports titles for years. They had stated what was done within that patch would be applied to all of the titles from then on. The lag may not be as bad as it was with NCAA Football 07 in which if you weren't playing someone from within a few states of you it wasn't even worth attempting. It still is apparent enough to affect the game and subsequently the enjoyment of playing online.
The one great addition to online play this year, which supplements the actual gaming, is the video clip uploading. Not only can you grab those video highlights from Play Now, Dynasty, and Campus Legend, but following your online games you can scroll through every play in the game and save up to five of them. Later you can upload those to the easportsworld.com site and view them there or save them to your computer. That is great for online leagues, tournaments, or rivalries. It actually has me really bummed out thinking how Madden 08 doesn't have the screenshot/video feature in NCAA which has already proven to be a huge success.
Another cool addition to NCAA Football is the Weather Channel feature which charts the real-time weather at every stadium location and uses that for the weather you play in during Play Now games. This was something that had been talked about being used for online play as well, however not only is that missing but there isn't even the option for any sort of variable weather online. Get used to fair and sunny conditions cause that is all there will be.
The whole thing is really unfortunate, because offline this game is fantastic. Improved gameplay and depth and quality of modes (Dynasty, Campus Legend) and additional features such as the Weather Channel and EA Sports World (screen/video uploading) have made this the easily the best effort yet by EA on the 360/PS3.
Hopefully they take initiative to correct the problems that are plaguing online play in NCAA Football 08. By then though, it could be too late. There is always next year though…right?
July 18, 2007 at 7:55 pm
How does a big company like EA let this happen. I have heard 2K8 is running perfect…shame on you EA!
July 18, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Well I’ve read a few problems in regard to 2K8 also with some instances of lag and also an exploit that can pretty much ruin the game if too many people find out about it. It seems that the league websites still are no where to be found as well.
My copy hasn’t arrived yet though so I can’t speak to those things from personal experience.
July 18, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I’m very disappointed with online on the PS3. I cant make a easports world account, I can’t look at my friends list while in the game, I can’t message people while i’m in the game and theres no where to look at online career and stats. All those problems have really been making me mad.
July 18, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I have some of the exact same gripes as you Pasta Padre with regards to online play. It seems as though there are several problems with play and I will list them as I’ve seen them.
*They give you the jump the snap button and you go s off sides more than 4 times in a game and you get kicked off for excessive delays…
*As was mentioned a really frustrating thing is the 1-2 second button delay. I’m playing in the future everytime I pick up the sticks and play online, boy now that’s a serious adventure.
*The seven seconds you get to call your play is rediculous especially not knowing the other players formation sets. Come on give us the formation when they go into the formation. If they exit out give us the new formation. Not that hard done before on PS2 Madden like two years ago.
*I dont know if anyone else has noticed, but this has to be mentioned. There are far too many turnovers in the games online and offline. Making knockdowns more effecient would have solved the poor ai for db’s. Especially if they noted for the player to be causious of trying to go for picks in one on one situations. In 08 it doesn’t matter whether you have 1 on 1 man coverage or zone you will get it picked if any of the situations are against you ie. slightly moving qb, not thrown with the proper exact touch etc…
*If find it especially difficult to understand when to press the highlight stick when I’m online. It’s always to soon or too late.
*Special teams punts are terrible. I have not seen a punt return where the player catches the ball and is tackled imediately.
July 19, 2007 at 12:16 am
Hey, I have All Pro Football 2k8, I haven’t experienced any lag yet….its nice to see a good online game. Very pleased, I was thinking about buying NCAA….but I also heard the servers were bad. All Pro online is nice.
July 19, 2007 at 6:44 am
You know what Padre. This really chaps my you know what. I mean to leave out offline dept changes/Audibles again????? Thats is friggen ridiculous. I mean 2K’s game gets the whole dang team, uniform, Audibles, depth chart, custom playbook, etc to carry over. Its not like we are asking for the world EA cause we never do expect it. I love EA’s football games I really do but the simple stuff like that is just plain unexcuseable. Madden better NOT do the same crap! I was about to pick up NCAA (decided to try 2K’s product first this year which has a few issues of its own) But good game. But after reading this i don;t know if i am going to get it or not yet. Thanks for the heads up pasta! I appreciate it.
July 19, 2007 at 6:57 am
Hey Pasta have you heard from RAC at all? I thought he was in charge of community issues with EA sports? You would think he would give the community some sort of answer as to what is going on.
July 19, 2007 at 7:21 am
I played this last night online… I was very mad at the game because it was so damn choppy… the other cats connection was terrible or soemthing and the gameplay made me quit. It plays slower than the other Ncaa’s too offline… Its dope, but im glad you caught that because it is terrible online…
July 19, 2007 at 7:27 am
We’ve been communicating the problems through Rac and I’ve been told that they’re looking into the lag issues.
July 19, 2007 at 11:39 am
ight ive only played about 4 or 5 online games becuz whenever i play i cant set my depht chart. I always skip over players or positions becuz it lags so much. Kicking is retarded becuz of the lag and Disconnections keep happenin if EA doesnt fix this then this game is a waste for online play.
July 19, 2007 at 12:22 pm
I still can’t believe they still don’t let you set your depth chart offline for online games on Next Gen. I mean it was in the Madden ps2 games. Its a very small thing that would make a lot of difference.
July 19, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Thanks for the info. I’ve been waiting to hear about this years online experience. I’m really disappointed for sure. There are a ton of players like me who love the ps2 online experience and then buy 360’s and expect same or better but instead we get worse. Much worse. Its a bad flashback to 2000 and playing Dreamcast over dialup.
Please…
-Give us the same exact “view career” option as ps2.
-Spend some money on better online programmers because every single EA sports game is TERRIBLE online.
July 19, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I was going to wait but I picked up 2k8 after hearing about the disconnects and lag, not being able to set audibles or depth charts offline for online in NCAA (I just cant believe that, EA what are you doing…are you guys that stupid). Sorry…talking to someone from EA and them stating they are looking into is absurd. It should have been fixed before the release.
July 19, 2007 at 3:59 pm
PREACH PADRE!!! PREACH….sony snd microsoft empolyees:if u fix the online gameplay and options menu 2 the players liking= #1 video game 4 your system…at least come out with a product 2 help your online conection…PADRE u got my respect from now on (u wasn’t tellin nuthin but the truth) and i love it!!!
July 19, 2007 at 3:59 pm
i tried to play 3 online games so far, but haven’t been able to finish a single one.
You would think that any online gaming issues would be non-existent or easier to resolve on next-gen. I guess not…
July 19, 2007 at 6:24 pm
i just played a game and when it finished i won and i went to look at my record after the game and it said i quit and got a loss. I kno for fact i won and didnt quit.
July 19, 2007 at 9:16 pm
hey ocho, ive had the same problem, i played a guy and beat him 24-10, after the game, i went into the lobby and it said i lost????
anyone else having probs
July 19, 2007 at 9:55 pm
If you guys have instances where you win a game but it gives you a loss, do this for me. Write down your gamertag/EA name, the opponents gamertag/EA name, the score, and the date and time that the game took place. I can put that information together and send it off to EA for them to investigate why its happening. The more details we can give them the better.
July 19, 2007 at 10:02 pm
One of my friends told me that while he was playing against someone the oppenent kept audibling and it froze the game for him and.
It seems like the online play on NCAA 08 is really bad. I hope they make a patch for the Xbox 360 real soon. I’m not going to play anyone online until they do. Which could actually take a while probably.
July 21, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Greg, the opponent used a freeze glitch, i know how to do it, but its where you set ur audibles to certain plays which im not gonna get in too, and then u click the audible a when ur on defense and he gamne will freeze and not count for anyone
July 26, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I have not had any lag in my online games
July 28, 2007 at 11:13 am
The lag issues have caused me great frustration. All of my online losses have been a result of lag buttons and a short aamount of time to select a play defensively. Please let us know if a patch come out. Thanks.
July 28, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I am 0-10 with a 100% disconnect. Sometimes I get disconnected during the coin flip, sometimes the first quarter and sometimes the second quarter. I think once i made it to the 3rd quarter, I was pretty excited. Any have this much difficulty? What is the problem?
August 2, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I have had the same problem. I have tried to play 12 games online and have not been able to complete one yet. I get major lag and always get cut off at about 1:10 seconds left in the 1st or 2nd quarter. My best friend lives about 2 miles away and we both have highspeed cable from the same company and we cannot even complete a game!
I have All Pro Football 2k8 and have played 8 games on line with no lag and have completed all of them. In both lobbies I have full 3 bars EA and full 5 bars 2k?
This has to be fixed!
August 8, 2007 at 7:16 am
Evan Please email me the freeze glitch so i can do it on people who play me and are lagging the game on purpose my email is bryson999_0@yahoo.com thanks alot
January 5, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Same problem, I play other games online just fine but whenever I want to play my friends NCAA 08, I can’t make it to half time. I wrote EA and they said it was my connection. I explained that I have high speed and play plenty of online games without trouble, but they still say it is my connection. Sorry, no responsibility on our parts!
July 15, 2008 at 6:02 pm
dumb asses
July 15, 2008 at 6:03 pm
cool i love it.
September 26, 2008 at 10:09 pm
MAN I HAVE DA SAME PROBLEMS I KEEP GETTIN DISCONNECTED IN DA 1 OR 2ND QUARTER IT PISSIN ME OFFI HAVE A RECORD OF 0-7 CUZ OF DISCONNECTIONS.ITS WACK I AINT GETTIN BAQ ONLINE
May 25, 2009 at 2:55 pm
hey guys have you played the football game online
July 21, 2009 at 6:58 pm
i dont know how to play online on ps2