The EA Sports news just broke out among the players, made not all good, of course. Official College Football account relayed the news of Orange County Public Schools from central Florida being now in College Football 26, dubbing them “powerhouse high school teams” for one to play as right now. The replies tell virtually a different story.
The tweet was so very positive, using a sun and orange emoji to hype the new addition. They have been encouraging people to “rock” these teams in #CFB26 today. The responses, however, might as well be… well, at least not enthusiastic. It’s as though EA felt they should be cheered along but instead were met with signs stating, “fix your game.”
Right from the get-go, Josh Harris responded: “@EASPORTSCollege @EASPORTS @EA Fix your servers for the love of god,” probably on behalf of the majority of players. And he was not alone. Rusty Durham basically said, “Wouldn’t know. The game keeps crashing.” Oof. So, this is not too good of a look when you’re trying to create hype for a pretty new content patch. How are players supposed to check out these new high school teams if the game doesn’t stay loaded past the main menu?
Then SpartanApostle comes in interestingly and asks: “Is anyone even playing the game right now? Patch needed badly.” That might hurt for being a dev. It is like hosting a party for your friends, and no one comes because the venue’s AC is busted and the bathrooms are flooded.
And wait, it just gets more technical-they’re asking for more than crashing fixes. SlayiNSlays says, “half the community is banned or ripped off,” and demands a fix. Halmel19 chimed in, saying how they can’t “pull an LTD and sell it” for making coins, a method that they claim is “still king in all games.” So, these are issues concerning the economy, right? Big mess indeed.
In all this rage about bugs coming out in public, a few gamers were commenting on the announcement of the new content, though not necessarily in negative ways. _snoddy_ was upset because: “Damn got excited and thought it was the good Orange County for a second.” Clearly, this was referring to the Orange County, California, and not the one in Florida. Then, racindude1511, who claimed to have been from Florida all his life, shot hard: “Not one single Orange County School is considered a ‘powerhouse’ when they haven’t even been relevant for almost a decade….” Ouch!
Well, they weren’t really all bad; after seeing the announcement, some immediately began requesting their own local teams. Jacob oldknow requested “Gwinnett County schools!” while vancitybobby asked for “Big Sky Conference Teams.” CoachFos88 went a little deeper in his request, calling for “Hoopeston Area Cornjerkers of Hoopeston, IL,” and noted that they are currently listed as “Cornhuskers in-game” and wondered if they could “get Cornjerkers through the profanity filter.” That oughta do it!
The nostalgia crew was in, too, with itsfins2 pleading for “Bring back NCAA 14 RTG. That was your best version.” And SpartanApostle then hit a painful spot for some basketball fans: “We’re all pissed off at you for quitting in college basketball already.” So yeah, that wound is still oozing.
Now, for the weird part: right in the middle of all these technical complaints, the EA SPORTS replied with the classic “#ItsInTheGame 💪,” which might seem like a classic example of tone-deafness considering how many people are complaining that this game hardly works at all. Equally, it is showing up to a house fire with a bottle of champagne.
So what I find fascinating is that the announcement quickly became both a wishlist and a complaint desk for members of the community. But while EA were trying to draw attention to the new content, players took the opportunity to air all their own grievances with the current state of the game. Server issues, crashing issues, economy issues, new teams, and features requests, it was all there in the replies.
The whole business really highlights the disconnect that sometimes occurs between developers in a game and its community. The real question goes from: “Hey check out these cool new teams!” to “Cool, can we actually play the game without it breaking first?” It is like trying to sell someone a fancy new car stereo when their engine won’t start.
At the end of the day, Orange County schools have made it into the game, so that might be cool for anybody who gives a hoot about Florida high school football. But judging from the response, EA might wanna aim at fixing the basics first before digging into more content. Since, what good are all the teams in the world if players can’t even, y’know, play with them?
The community has spoken. And they’ve said loud and clear, “Stable and functional game above everything else. New content better than nothing, but should we maybe look into making the already existing game playable first?” Just a thought, coming from someone who’s reading all of these frustrated responses.
