Free Rosters
With this year's release of EA Sport's NCAA Football 09, there was tremendous excitement about the addition of free rosters into the game. An agreement between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and EA Sports does not allow real player names to shown in the game. In year's past, if one wanted to import the real names into the game, he would have to imput all 8000 names himself or purchase a roster update from someone who did. Ebay is a significant hub for this type of purchase. Normally, a buyer would pay for the roster from someone who edited the rosters by hand, send his memory card to that person, and get it back in 7-10 days. Others bought a brand new memory card with the roster already on the card. This option increased the price significantly. For those who wanted the rosters implemented immediately into the game, something had to be done.
EA Locker
EA Sports implemented the EA Locker feature in NCAA Football 09 so that delays in accessing rosters could be averted and that others would not profit from the the game. By utilizing the EA Locker feature in the game, users could upload their own edited rosters or download someone else's if they have online access. This feature was supposed to be a significant improvement over year's past but so far it has only caused headaches. The EA Locker feature can be accessed on the main menu of the game.
Missing Teams
The popular EA Sports slogan, "EA Sports, it's in the game" is not accurate in the NCAA Football 09 roster download process. Imagine having your favorite team or alma mater out of the one college football video game of the year? When independent users updated their rosters by hand, they found that the system would freeze after editing so many teams. Other teams such as Florida International, Florida A&M and Western Kentucky among others disappeared completely. Some teams were relegated to ratings of 0 for offense, defense, and special teams when usually teams are in the 70's or 80's in those categories. Players found on team websites were also left out of the game for unknown reasons. Sorry, backup free safety for the Iowa State Cyclones, you are not in the game!
Edited rosters can still be found in EA Locker. They are to be treated carefully. Since the initial problem was a virus, any current rosters located in EA Locker have the possibility of damaging the disc and causing the game to crash.
Solution
EA Sports hopes to have a patch that will work out the errors released soon, possibly by the weekend. Once that occurs, independent users will have to take yet another 4-5 days to edit the rosters and upload them onto EA Locker. Hopefully, the rosters will be clean and work along with the game.
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