@drewtheman87: Surely the point of these "asides" is to make the experience more immersive for people who want to play that way. I mean, what is the point of the "Additional comments" section where you can actually type out a custom comment for the press conference? In terms of game mechanics, obviously there is none as the AI couldn't possibly interpret the comment. It's obviously there for "immersion" or "role playing" or whatever you want to call it. If you wanted to put off a pay rise because your club is in financial difficulty and they can't afford it and still be competitive, you can be that manager. If you refuse to stay if they won't give you a pay rise, you can be that manager too. Not everything in the game has to have some gamey strategy behind it. I think in general people vastly over estimate the importance of press conferences irl anyway, probably because it's what they get to see, rather than the all the thousands of interactions that go on "behind the scenes" in a football club.
Completely disagree that the franchise is "becoming stale" or that they need to "reboot". They probably have the best player database and best sporting simulation in the world. They've just integrated a leading sports analyst companies system into their game. They've just released a new multiplayer mode and integrated the classic mode with the touch version so people can swap between touch and desktop. They've made loads of great improvements to the game this year.
The problem for a lot of players is probably that they've been playing too much of the game for too long.
In the "full" mode of the game you can essentially control as much or as little of the club as you want.
For instance, you can assign your Assistant Manager to attend all media events and never deal with a single one manually. Or you can just send the Ass Man to ones you want to skip with a single click each time.
You can also set up scouting to be as autonomous as you want. You do not need to manually search through player lists and create your own search filters and whatnot. You can have a Chief Scout and a Director of Football that will handle practically everything if you want them to.
In fact, you can have your AI assistants run 95% of the club if you wanted to play that way.
The new tactics UI (which he barely mentioned) is the biggest improvement imo. It is so much more intuitive, huge improvement over any previous version. The set piece creator is decent, but probably due for an overhaul in the ME.
The pro zone analysis screen is also a huge improvement on the previous one. One of the major things that put me off the "Classic" mode was that it lacked the analysis screen, and now they've added it apparently so I might even try this game mode again.
And now you can sync the classic mode between a touch device and a computer, which is awesome. So theoretically I can play on my tablet on my commute and then continue the same game on my computer at home. Probably bad for my mental health but a great option!
The other change I really like is the weekly roundup of the league, it really makes the experience much more immersive. It gives you a greater feel for what's happening in the league overall, rather than just solely focusing on your own team.
The match engine improves every year. The quality of the simulation now is pretty mind boggling for a computer game really.
And of course there's the updated database, which is pretty vast these days and no small feat in itself.
I really do not like it when corporations get involved in politics, especially when the policies have absolutely nothing to do with their business. Who cares if EA opposes DOMA? EA doesn't have a vote. Corporate coalitions getting together to push political agendas is BS. Might be relatively harmless in this instance, not so much if it's Multinationals pushing for war, or banks/financial companies pushing for deregulation. Politics should be for the people, not for bloody corporations.
@FrozenLiquid Agreed, games might contain art (graphics, writing, etc) but games are not inherently art. FPS games as a rule are far similar to sports than art. Sure, you can tack on a story and give it context to make the gameplay an element of the art, but it's not "art" in itself as a basic set of rules and goals.
ZiggyStardust66's comments