Covered in this document are F.A.Q. articles addressing the following common questions: FIREWALLS
If you are using a firewall while playing Madden NFL™ 2003 PlayStation®2 online, you may have encountered difficulties connecting to opponents. Likewise, you may have tried to connect to a person with a firewall and had the connection time out. There is a work around on your firewall to alleviate these problems as you encounter them.
- If you are behind a corporate firewall, contact your system administrator.
- If you have a personal firewall or router, log into your firewall through your web browser on your computer. This should be something like http://192.168.123.254 in your web browser. Once inside the administration section of your firewall, you will need to open TCP ports 9995 & 9996 for outside access. This is in essence giving Madden a hole through your firewall to communicate with other Madden players.
- Note: There is still a remote possibility that you will have difficulty playing others in Madden if you are behind a firewall, especially if both are behind separate firewalls.
PROFANITY
Please remember that according to the rules & terms that you agreed to by joining this online service, that offensive communication and profanity are not allowed and not tolerated. We have an advanced filter in place to catch most of this type of communication in chat rooms and in usernames. Any player found to be circumventing this filter with alternate spellings or word variations will have their account deleted immediately and without notice.
CHEATERS
Fortunately the Madden NFL 2003 PS2 game experience online is an excellent experience with very little lag and even fewer game induced disconnections. This was the primary goal of the development team in the first year ? deliver a great gaming experience online.
The vast majority of the community play with great sportsmanship and competitive games against courteous opponents are easy to find. However there are always a few who try to take advantage of any system. Several steps were also taken to thwart cheating, but as with any online game, there are many players in Madden online that are exploiting the way that online gaming works in order to boost their own rankings. Methods include pulling the plug on the connection, using fantasy teams and third party devices (such as Gamesharks). Please be advised that the development team is monitoring the rankings and are aware of many of the issues seen in online play.
Changes to how rankings are handled will prevent the reward to many of these cheaters and the tactics they use. The following changes have been made:
- Users with disconnect percentages in excess of 25% are no longer displayed in the rankings.
- The occasional duplicate win/loss problem that previously occurred should be fixed.
- In a game involving a disconnection, the winner and loser are both penalized. The winner receives minimal ranking points for their win and the loser loses more points for the loss. As a result, neither side benefits from a disconnection. If you are concerned about your ranking, don?t disconnect.
Keep in mind, all cheating tactics are in violation of the terms & rules agreed to by joining the online service and as such, accounts found in violation are subject to immediate deletion. Some issues can not be alleviated 100% in this year?s product though, so here are some hints and tips to deal with some of the situations.
Plug-Pulling:
There are some issues in the rankings related to pulling the plug on your internet connection at certain times during the game. They do this to get a win, however their disconnect % will grow. Unfortunately, there is no way for you to prevent an opponent from pulling the plug. In order to combat this, we would advise for you to not play ANYONE that has even a remotely high disconnect % - please take a quick peek at the opponent?s stats before starting a game with a new opponent. It is considered polite etiquette online to decline a challenge to check stats and then re-challenge.
Keep in mind, though these people are getting wins, their disconnect percentage will skyrocket, which should be a warning sign for you not to play them. The best opponents are usually the ones with balanced stat categories and a low disconnect %. If an opponent has a good number of losses to go with the wins, it means that they will usually show you the respect of finishing the game and being a good sport.
Players with a disconnection percentage over 25% will no longer be ranked in the top 100. You must maintain a low disconnection percentage to be eligible for the top 100. If your percentage is too high, you should be able to improve it by fully completing games.
Fantasy Teams (Monsters, Marshalls, etc.):
There is an issue that was discovered that allows fantasy teams like the Sugar Buzz and The Monsters available in online play. This is difficult to get to happen, but there is an easy work-around. To combat this, just make sure that you have NO fantasy team Madden Cards unlocked in the profile that you are using online. If you do not have the team available, and your opponent tries to use one of these teams against you, the game will immediately disconnect. Don?t worry, an immediate disconnection such as this one will not cost you any stats ? it is as if the game never happened.
Unrealistic Football:
As this is a football video game and not real NFL football, some people make substitutions and alter plays in unrealistic manners. There is no real way to stop this, other than to only play opponents that have balanced statistics or whom you are familiar with.
Excessive Delay:
It has come to our attention that some players will excessively delay the game in many ways to try and frustrate you into quitting. There is very little that can be done to stop this, other than waiting it out. The pause menu has a 30 second timer on it, but there are many other places where an opponent can just sit and wait for you to quit if they are losing. The best way to combat this is to exit the game and not play that person again. You could always set your controller down, and wait them out, but that isn?t a great option and there have been reports of games sitting connected for over 4 days.
Third Party Devices (such as GameShark):
Apparently some have figured out ways to get automatic wins by using these types of devices. Essentially they are forcing disconnects and then using these devices to beat the computer using cheat codes. Not much you can do against this, but this type of behavior is easily identified and tracked. These cheaters and their rankings will be removed immediately and without notice.
To avoid being cheated against by people who use unauthorized devices (such as Gamesharks), we advise that you not start a game with someone who has extra controllers plugged in (visible at the controller select screen). Please begin your online games with only one controller plugged in as well. Doing this will prevent the cheaters from performing their cheat, as an inactive controller is required to use the cheat device and can not be inserted after the game starts.
RANKINGS:
The Madden ranking system is a complex series of statistics and formulas that determine how players rank against each other. Firstly, each player is ranked on a ?point? system, not directly on wins/losses, although wins/losses play a major factor. Players can earn the most points for winning games, and also can earn points by playing highly ranked opponents. Every game played should get the player some sort of points. Disconnects ? by quitting, pulling the plug, or by losing connection can get you negative points. This aspect now has an even greater impact on those with high disconnect percentages.
In order to gain the maximum points for each game, obviously you need to win. Within this, you need to play an opponent with the highest previous ranking that you can. Lastly, you or your opponent should not quit or disconnect. If this does happen, finish out the game versus the computer.
Many times, players will beat the CPU after their opponent quits, and then be puzzled when they get back to have earned no stats, points, wins, etc. This is likely because the other player has not reported back to the server yet. The server has to get reports from both sides of the game in order for the points to be tallied. If your opponent quit and then never logged back on, your stats will not be immediately posted since the server needs to wait a certain amount of time on your opponent ? since he could have been checking stats or anything else that may delay him from returning.
SERVER DOWNTIME:
The Madden server may be unavailable Wednesday mornings 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. for server maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
