It's blog time again for FIFA 10 Ultimate Team.  As I sit and write this down, the team is madly working and discussing fixes and solutions around me.  Nearing the completion of a game is always an interesting time; pressure is high, hours are longer, and unexpected issues/bugs pop up that we quickly need the team to find solutions for and fix. It's a lot of fun though because it's exciting to know that soon you guys are going to be able to enjoy what we have been working so hard on for the last year.  Let's get to the blog though...

My name is John Shepherd, and I've been the producer in charge of the front end (menus, UI, look and feel of the screens, etc.) for this year's Ultimate Team.  I can't share everything about the game right now, but it's exciting to be able to share some new info with everyone and there will be lots more detail coming in the next few weeks.

For the complete blog entry, go to the Off the Bench blog:  Building Your Ultimate Team

By John Shepherd

Hey Ultimate team players and fans! Our first play a producer day for FIFA Ultimate Team went off without a hitch, and I must say that the level of competitiveness and skill out there is unbelievable!  When we first decided that we’d sit down to challenge some of the community, we knew we’d be in for some intense battles, so we had to really focus on how we would prepare our team in terms of fitness, morale, and chemistry. There were really a lot of creative players out there, and as much as we schooled a few teams today, we got rocked in a few games as well! Ultimate Team was designed to let out your inner manager, and really show off a complete array of football knowledge and ability, and it’s apparent that our community is stacked with brilliance, keep up the hard work!

Calling all FIFA Ultimate Team gamers! This week we’re giving you a chance to test your team against the Football Live Team, the producers working on the game here at the studio. Between the hours of 9pm and 10pm CET (11am to 12pm PST) and 6pm to 7pm PST (4am to 5am CET) on Thursday, 18 June our very own John Shepherd, Producer, will be online and challenging all-comers lucky enough to match-up against him.

Our inaugural event will be on Xbox 360 with a future event on PS3. When playing look out for i5KYW4LK3R and make sure you have a headset if you want to chat.

As a bonus, we’re going to be recording your games against John and posting the highlights on Football World (easportsfootball.com) plus our Facebook and Bebo group pages.

Please note that not everyone is going to get a chance to play John but if this is a success and you guys want to do it again, we’ll make it bigger and better for the future.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/EAFootballLive
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FIFA-Ultimate-Team/76974959758
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/FIFAUT

To all the FIFA09 gamers who haven't tried FIFA 09 Ultimate Team yet, we want to make it a little more tempting.

For a limited period, starting 22nd May, all new Ultimate Team gamers will find a special surprise in their starter pack - a gold player! Yes, you heard it right, if you're a new FIFA Ultimate Team gamer your very first pack of cards will include a gold player that you can immediately integrate into your team or put up for trade to try and earn points to buy additional card packs.
 
The card will be randomly assigned from the database of gold players and even we don't know what you'll potentially receive when you unwrap that very first pack.
 
This is also a great opportunity for any existing Ultimate Team gamers who were thinking about starting from scratch to build their new championship winning team. You can start again by selecting Delete Team from the settings menu - but be warned: there is no going back once completed, so ensure you are committed!

We look forward to seeing you online!
 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/EAFootballLive
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FIFA-Ultimate-Team/76974959758
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/FIFAUT

I’m excited to be able to announce our plans to reward some of the early adopters of FIFA 09 Ultimate Team (aka "FUT") – we’ve had the plan in the works for a good time internally and it’s great to finally get the word out now.  As a quick intro as to who I am – I’ve been at EA for almost five years and most recently had the pleasure of working on FIFA 09 Ultimate Team with a great group of talented people.  Since the launch of FUT I’ve been working with the Football Live Team, which is an internal team at EA SPORTS™   put together to support our FIFA online products. It was an exciting day when we launched the game, but it quickly turned in to the busiest three weeks of around the clock work.  As some of you are probably aware, the launch of FUT was immensely popular with our FIFA fans, and because of this it challenged our server capacity for the first three weeks.  That was unfortunate for our consumers and we want to make it up to you. 

Now the day has come where we want to say thanks to all the FUT early adopters for their patience and feedback during those first three weeks.  To that end, every fan who purchased Ultimate Team before April 10th will receive 10,000 coins (equivalent to two gold packs).  For every fan who tried FUT but didn’t buy it prior to April 10th, they will receive 5,000 coins (equivalent to one gold pack).  In reality, you can choose whatever you wish to do with these new coins: go pick up that rare player on the trade pile, make a more beefy trade offer, or buy a few packs and roll the dice on getting some awesome players!  Starting on May 15th coins will begin getting distributed automatically to all eligible users.  If eligible, all you need to do is log on to FIFA 09 Ultimate Team after this date and you’ll notice your coin balance has increased accordingly!

And that’s not all, we have a number of other fun ideas coming up for the FUT faithful.  To get all the latest updates we encourage you to sign-up on one of the many different communication channels below and we’ll be in touch on how you can continue to build your FIFA 09 Ultimate Team:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/EAFootballLive
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FIFA-Ultimate-Team/76974959758
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/FIFAUT