Project Madden PIFF 2010

Hey all,

So I've taken on a big undertaking of putting PIFF Teams into Madden 2010. This entails quite a bit of time for each team, especially the drafting.

What I'm doing for Team Location is where the Team Owner is living now, so for example the Kreplachistan Rebels are based out of Schofield Barracks, HI. The Snotvia Snotknockers and Tea Repbulic Steepers are out of Tulsa, OK, etc.

Shannon was nice enough to provide me the RGB values for the official PIFF helmets, so the jerseys are licensed by the PIFF Commissioner ;) I'm doing my best to use the limited Logos in Madden to match up best with the logos/theme of the team in PIFF. So for the Rebels "Sun" logo (ie a big yellow circle) I had to match it with the Madden Atom logo, and for the Tea Republic Steepers their "Tea Football Leaf" matches best with the Madden Meteor logo.

I wish Madden 2010 had the feature NCAA Football 2010 has called Team Builder where you can create a team online, then anyone could download it into NCAA 2010. That would make life much easier, I'd tell you to create your team jerseys, stadium, we could actually import logos from image files on the computer to use, etc. But sadly they don't and with Madden we have to deal with the limited logos and team creation options they have...

My next solution would be to tell you to go out and rent Madden 2010 for the PS3, create your jersey, stadium, and tell me the values and I'd input it, but I understand not everyone has a PS3, or doesn't care that much lol.

So for unforms, the helmets are best duplicated from the PIFF helmet logos we use in Yahoo. I need to know what colors people want for their home/away jerseys, home/away pants, socks, shoes. In the mean time I'll input the colors with the values Shannon provided and leave it at what Madden defaults the uniforms to.

For example the Kreplachistan Rebels main colors are Yellow and Blue. I already know what the exact values are for those blues and yellow, so you'd just have to tell me, I want all Yellow Jerseys with Blue Numbers, names, yellow pants with white stripes, etc. For away jerseys, white jerseys, yellow trim, yellow pants, etc. You get the idea. Maybe my vision of your team would is different from yours, and ultimately it's your team so I'd love to get everyone's input :)

For Stadiums, take a look here Madden 2008 Create a Stadium. Tell me the name of your stadium, the endzone area title, mine is titled the "Tomlinson Fsn Club" after my star running back LT :D Do you want your field to be grass or turf? What color for your endzones? You want a dome, open stadium, mobile roof, etc. For outdoor stadiums pick your background enviornment like downtown, rural, urban, mountains. Do you want a huge modern scoreboard on one end zone, pressboxes, more seats?

Now for the drafting, which is quite a pain compared to other Madden's I've done this in. Fortunately there's a site that lists the Madden 2010 values for the players on each team, because Madden doesn't break down fantasy drafts by team, they just do it by position and rating. Obviously I draft everyone on your team, QBs, RBs, WRs, etc. For OL and FBs here's what I did for mine team. I have LT (SD), Thomas Jones (NYJ), and Willis McGahee (BAL) as my running backs. Anyway I take the entire O-Lines for the Chargers, Jets, and Ravens, and same for Full Back (LT, LG, C, RG, RT, etc.) and fill your team with the best of the players from those teams. Same for defense, I have the Packers and Ravens, so I do the same, assemble all the Packers and Ravens D, and draft them, etc. For Punters I look at the punter for the team(s) you have your Kicker on, and pick the better one.

Madden requires a certain number of players at each position:

QB - 2
HB - 3
FB - 1
WR - 4
TE - 2
LT - 2
LG - 2
C - 2
RG - 2
RT - 2
K - 1

LE - 2
RE - 2
DT - 3
LOLB - 2
MLB - 2
ROLB - 2
CB - 4
FS - 2
SS - 2
P - 1

So say you only have 3 WRs on your team, I'll fill your 4th with the same player for every team to make it fair. I also draft your IDPs on top of the best spots for DEF, so while I may have the best combo btw the Packers and Ravens, I also have Julius Peppers, and Adrian Wilson on my team. I let Madden auto depth chart, etc.

I've drafted the Rebels like six times lol, and that's how I came up with the idea for the combining of teams. The first couple of times I did the Rebels, I just did San Diego's OL and Baltimore's DEF. But after realizing if you want to change players you have to re-draft your whole team, I thought well what happens when I sim the game when Baltimore or San Diego has a bye, what to do then? That's when I got the combo idea.

So why am I doing all this you might ask? I want to see how Madden is at simming/predicting the outcomes of PIFF games. Yeah I understand it's different in "Madden PIFF" because when I play the Plankers, Aaron Rodgers is facing the Plankers, not the team the Packers play that week. I also want to upload highlights from the games, as I know Madden supports uploading highlights for the games. I thought that'd be a fun "column" for the PIFF Blog :)

Comments, suggestions, critiques? Yes I realize this takes quite a bit of time, but I'm having fun doing it, just like Shannon has fun designing the helmets and logos. I'll keep you posted as I go. Right now I just have my team drafted, and started designing the Steepers in the game. While I wait for everyone's replies I'll just input the colors Shannon provided, draft your team, and make sure the jerseys look OK, without messing with them too much.

Rock Rock on!

Aaron
Head Coach - Kreplachistan Rebels - Schofield Barracks, HI