Madden 09 patch 2 is out!! Your thoughts??

1. Kicking play disconnect: If two opponents play a game with two different camera angles, in any situation where a game winning or tying kick was to be made, a disconnect could occur. "ActionCam" forces the game to go into slow-motion to add drama to these late kicks, but unfortunately the Classic camera does not, thus forcing the "disconnect". This has been fixed...all cameras can still be used as well.

Workaround until the patch: If possible, ensure that you and your opponent have the same camera type chosen before starting an online game.

2. Stability issues in the play call / halftime highlights / postgame highlights screens (especially in Franchise mode after training games): This was a hard one to track down as not everyone was seeing it , we did find the issue however with some Instant Replay / cache corruption, and have a fix ready for patch 2.

Workaround until the patch: Save and re-boot after any point where you have entered the game. We learned that the likelihood of this issue appearing is magnified after multiple loads into and out of the game engine. From what we've seen so far, people that have tried playing only one game at a time (or even one Franchise training session at a time), and saving/rebooting afterwards, have had zero crashes.

3. Stability issues with Madden IQ end of game popup: This has been fixed.

Workaround until the patch: Always choose "No" at the Madden IQ end of game popup.

4. "WR direct snap" exploit: Cheesers found an exploit to direct snap to a WR for easy short yardage gain. Not only are we fixing this play (i.e. we aren't removing it), we are also going to be re-setting records for anyone with a winning record that has been found to be using this play.

5. Franchise Progression / Regression (or lack thereof): The lack of higher numbers was a tuning value that I think everyone agreed was just too low. This has been juiced up so you should see more realistic progression now.

6. Edited players don't progress: Players were not progressing after their jersey number (or pretty much any other attribute). This has been fixed.

7. Stability issue when exiting Madden '93 in CE version: This has been fixed.

8. Deep ball glitch: Some enterprising gamers found a way to throw a deep ball while crossing the LOS and hit a receiver wide open at a decent rate. We addressed this by making sure the DB will no longer break on the ball when the QB crosses the line while throwing.

9. CPU running out of bounds: This bug appears when the CPU tries to switch hands while running to the sidelines. This is fixed for patch 2.

10. Penalty sliders ineffective: A common complaint from the hardcore community was the lack of effect from the penalty sliders. We increased these substantially for patch 2.

11. Field degradation: Another common complaint was the lack of field degradation. Our effect was very subtle, which was also getting overshadowed by our lighting and post effects, so we increased this effect for the patch.

12. Stability issue with the Eagles and a full ring meter: We found and fixed a rare issue where the gamer could run into stability issues while using the Eagles in mini-game with a ring meter that was completely full.

13. Play call screen hitch: We found and fixed a bug that was causing a noticeable hitch when exiting the play call screen

14. Prevent Defense issue: We found and fixed an issue where defenders sharing a deep zone/prevent assignment would loosen their coverage (because they thought the other guy was covering for them), which allowed the receiver to get behind them even though they were in Prevent.

15. Brett Favre stats: With the late addition of Brett Favre, we were not able to get his Career and Season statistics into the game for the roster update. This has now been added for patch 2.

16. Defensive Preplay Mis-cue: We found and fixed an issue where defenders would leave their man wide open in a Cover 3.

17. CPU quick-snap: A very common complaint on the forums was the speed at which the CPU snapped the ball. We added a random length of time (no less than 5 seconds) for the CPU to wait and even make pre-play adjustments.

18. Online playbook switch: We found and fixed an issue where playbooks were re-setting to the defaults after the playbook select popup was closed.

This game is awesome & this patch makes it all the more.

I have yet to turn my xbox on & get the patch, but i love they added more field degradation. Should make it look better. I'd love for them to make the snow build up more though.

This is the most realistic football game i've played. Last year i could select a HB stretch and get a touchdown 75% of the time even being on my own 2 lol.

Madden 09 is great. The online experience, however hasn't been so far thanks to a few pricks who would rather do what they can to get their record up than have a good game against someone. Thankfully, it seems thats been fixed too.

Agreed. Most games I'm getting like 100 or so rushing yards which is right about on par. I'm also throwing for 175-250 yards depending on the game (it's with Pennington, so the number is usually around 150).

I went into this years Madden expecting I would hate it since I haven't been the biggest fan of the game for the past three years or so, but I was pleasantly surprised. There are some things that still annoy me, but for the most part, it's a very solid football game.

A little late for the Franchise stat progression, since I'm already like four years into my franchise.

Oh I've had a handful of guys quitting and it causing my game to freeze shortly thereafter as well plenty of times. I often think its going to break my system. And as you said, for some messed up reason it counts as a lost and there has been some instances where it counts as a disconnect on my part even though it told me hes the one that quit.

Thats the only reason why I have a 5% rate. I've quitted one game because I simply had to leave, and one time the power went out from a storm. But other than that its because of my system freezing from some kid quitting.

Today I was played 08 againist the Raiders and of course I was Dallas. For some reason Oakland players give me a run. Anyway, he was up 10-0 till the start of the 4th quarter when I scored a field goal.

Then I shut his team down and as soon as he punts he offers a friendly quit which I just don't do because I've noticed its always when guys are about to lose. So I said no of course and then he quit. I ended up winning 13-10 in over time. Point is, I just love when people will beat you and taunt you or whatever...then when you start coming back they just flat out quit. Perhaps he really had to leave but considering he was still online a good 10 mins after he quit, yeah I'd say he was just nervous.

One big complaint I have is the trading system. In the nfl you can get a pro-bowler for a 2nd round pick, yet for some reason in this game to get anything you have to trade way more than they are worth. For instance, I wanted to get troy smith, whos a 76, ad I had to trade 2 players and a 3rd round mpick just to get him. Its so stupid.

It's because he is young. You can get a high-rated player like Joey Gallaway for a draft pick because he's old. If you want to get a veteran, trade a couple young guys. I was able to trade Santana Moss (87), 3rd rounder, 4th rounder for Terrell Owens (98). The computer goes based on age for the most part. So try to get a young team and then do trades. But don't go trying to trade picks straight up for a guy like Calvin Johnson or Darren McFadden and expect it to work.

I'll probably restart one with the Titans now, it's a real bummer having to restart though.