Quick Sunday notes
by 
There are a couple of things going on in the community that are worth mention. Before I get caught up in the NFL games and my addiction to GameShow I wanted to post a few items that are of interest.
(1) EA is trying to get a feel of how many people use the vision cone in Madden. They are considering removing it from the game completely for 09 in order to free up the right analog stick for another use.
I appreciated the attempt to appease the hardcore crowd but it was a flawed idea that ultimately made the game less fun. It made little sense overall, as you already have to scan the field with your own eyes yet the feature essentially forced you to do it twice. That led to sacks becoming even more frequent than usual. It essentially became only an extra button press, far from being something that required more skill to execute successfully. Add on to that how it did little to separate the best QBs from the mediocre ones, especially in the case of people who liked to use the cone to look off receivers and get defenders to cheat towards them. While Peyton Manning’s entire field being lit up was supposed to be an advantage, it took away the opportunity to look off receivers, but made it possible for someone like Rex Grossman to dominate with the quick extra button press.
EA immediately recognized that the feature was not going to be widely accepted, which is why it wasn’t even in the 360 version of Madden 06 which came out only a couple months after the PS2/Xbox versions that introduced it. It has been an afterthought ever since. To keep it in simply to keep it in is silly. It should just be taken out completely to allow for addition of more useful feature.
Go here to vote on whether or not you use the vision cone. Currently “no” is winning by a 2-1 margin. In actuality the true % of gamers who use the cone in its current state is probably well under 10%. However the poll is going to be skewed because of the heavier presence of hardcore players in the online communities that would spend the time to go and vote. That group has been slightly more forgiving towards it and attempted to justify the use of the feature even though it made little sense and frustrated the majority of Madden players out there.
(2) 5WG is running a scavenger hunt contest to win an NBA Live 08 long sleeve shirt. Trust me these work great during winter to wear under other shirts. Click on over, spend a couple minutes on that quality site, and take your shot at winning the free shirt.
(3) I’ve been so caught up in GameShow over the past couple days that I’ve done little else. I haven’t really played any 360 and I’ve lost out on sleep due to it. I’ll be on more this evening and in the coming days so meet up with me in the Washington room if you decide to get on as well! If you continue on I’ve written up the schedule for the day starting with the 6:30pm ET session. If I decide to create a private room I’ll leave the information there as well.
(ET)
630: Spotlight LA Lakers
645: (Lightning) Campus Walk
700: Our Favorite Day Oct. 28th
715: College Basketball North Carolina Tarheels
730: World Series Almost Over
745: Full Circle David Ortiz
800: (Lightning) Pac 10 to Pro Ballers
815: On the Bye Week 8
830: Awful Pro Football Rookie Seasons
900: Spotlight Detroit Pistons
915: (Lightning) Match Basketball Forward to His Team
930: Called Shots
945: Full Circle Jeff Gordon
1015: Top 15 Old Guys
1030: Spotlight Minnesota Timberwolves
1045: (Lightning) Hockey Cities
1100: Our Favorite Day Oct. 28th
1115: Bald is Beautiful
October 28, 2007 at 11:33 am
I never use the Vision Cone in Madden 08, I think they should remove it in Madden 09.
October 28, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I liked it on madden 06 on ps2 when it was default on and I thought made the game more realistic. In 07 and 08 i didnt bother to use it because it wasnt on automatically. i think it would be useful in superstar mode for when you are a defensive back so you could actually read the QBs eyes because that was very hard to do in 07 and 08
October 28, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I don’t like the vision cone and don’t use it in Madden ‘08. The thing I didn’t like about it is that whether it’s a large cone or a small one, I’d always hold (R2 on PS2) and the receiver icon and it always locked on to that receiver. I never used the right analog stick for anything but to look off a receiver. So it didn’t matter how big the cone was.
October 28, 2007 at 6:05 pm
They need to keep the vision and make R3 another use because I’ve gotten used to using the vision cone and it made me realize how easy passing without the cone was. For all the people who want to still use the cone, they could still use it, just limit it to pressing R2 and the receiver icon instead of using the R3 to locate a receiver because I never use R3 anyway to do that.
October 28, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Vision cone was a good idea but wasn’t executed correctly or maybe it can’t be in a video game. The idea to make a qb better due to the fact he can see the field better is smart but I don’t think the vision camera is the key.
Also, make an EA Game show room and I’ll be in it. I’ve been playing as BustyBuffet.
October 29, 2007 at 5:21 am
No reason for you to make a room allthough I guess you could. Last night was hella fun, you me and rdogg had some games that got tight, but you came out on top in them. Congrats. I love how they try to guess what our usernames stad for I loved that they thought mine was CAE=Frat and HP=Hewlett packard.
October 29, 2007 at 6:58 am
I’ve played around 150-200 games online in ‘08 I think I’ve seen the cone used about 6 times. It was a nice try and a good idea but now that nextgen has more computing power to make the D smarter you don’t need the cone. And if they want to free some space for something else, go for it.
October 30, 2007 at 9:26 am
Keep it. Makes gameplay better. Every qb should be different. If all QBs could see the field then the next thing would be having all QBs have a strong arm. Fix the gitches that sre used every year or the lag and disconnect problems. That’s why I dont play the next gen as much because I want the cone on all time.