the new EA Espn deal

[Cardot]

Quote: Originally Posted by longball

When playing a dynasty your game can either be televised nationally or regionally.

They already do this.

[southside_hitmen]

Quote: Originally Posted by Cardot

The presentation is already fine. I would rather they spend their efforts making long passes into triple coverage harder, and short passes to wide open receivers easier. I would like to see the CPU not give up on the run if it doesn't yeild results in the first 2 attempts. I would like to see all plays have an appropriate chance to succeed or fail (in 25 years of playing video game football, I have never seen this one).

Uh... in case you did not know, not all plays in football have an appropriate chance of succeding or failing. A fullback dive into five guys does not yield the same type of results as a go route to a stud reciever in single coverage. Some plays in football are meant to get a yard (i.e. qb sneak) and some are meant to get 50. As for the regional/broadcast i think he was talking about different announcers for the games not just an icon on the weekly schedule screen saying regional/national/game of the week.

[ufox1810]

I think he meant along the lines of the certain number of plays that just don't work no matter what or the money plays that work all the time.

Yes not all plays have the same probability of working like you said. But at the same time certain plays don't work all the time or never at all. I have a good number of plays in my playbook I never call because they have yet to work. I also have a number I have to stop myself from using because I would destroy the CPU in every game.

For instance, there is a play in Shotgun 5WR of the UF playbook that is at least a 40 yard pass 90% of the time. I stopped using it because of this fact. It's a great play, but the only reason is doesn't work that 10% is because my QB overthrows the ball, not because the AI reacts well to it. The same along the lines of Ace Slots - Outs. This play was money for about 4 straight years of NCAA games.

[Cardot]

Thanks Ufox, that is exactly what I meant. "Appropriate" chance of success, not an "Even" chance of success.

I don't think I have ever played a football game that totally got this right. There are always a handful of plays that never work, and a handful that I don't use because they are too successful. That can lead to a rather dull play set.

[southside_hitmen]

my bad cardot, didn't mean to misinterpret your words. Anyway, I see what u guys are talking about, there always does seem to be some plays that are unstoppable (try anything from a trips set with the inside guy running a go, the middle running a corner, and the outside guy on a hitch) and some plays that look good or tricky on paper (i.e. reverses) that seem to never work.

In thinking about this I was thinking also about home field advantage and a hurry up offense. Most Hurry-ups use hand signals to communicate plays and audibles, so for a reciever not to be able to "hear" an audible is BS. I could almost see the first time a team going in to a hostile crowd would not be able to communicate, but every time after that they are going to go into a game with a way to communicate their plays, instead of just having to run a "vanilla" offense.

[luvmygiants]

Quote: Originally Posted by ufox1810

No offense, but why do 90% of the people on here suddenly seem so anti-EA? I get people not liking the deal with EA and the NFL. Fine be mad. But all the other issues. It seems like whenever someone has something good to say or mentions that they like the game, someone has to make a comment about how bad they think EA is. Sorry, I don't mean to attack you personally, but it just seems like this happens a lot lately. I made a comment about buying all the NCAA games since Bill Walsh and that I will continue to buy them because I actually like them and the first reply was saying that is the exact reason why EA has bad quality games cause people buy them without thinking. I'm not an EA fan boy. I do like their games, but I have owned just as many Sega games over the years. But I have to look at it this way. First of all EA is a business. They want to do what they can to be #1. They want to be the only choice, so they are doing everything in their power to make that happen. Now as for the ESPN deal. Why wouldn't EA develop some great new presentation features in the future now that they have that license? If they didn't have plans with it, then they wouldn't have done it. They, like most businesses, understand what the majority (that's the key here) wants and the ESPN license is part of it. You have to keep in mind that EA isn't really making these games for the diehard gamers like most of the people on this board. They are making these games for everyone. They want to do what makes the most people happy and they are doing just that otherwise they would not continue to be the #1 selling company with most of these games. People wouldn't just continue to buy the game if everyone really thought they were that bad. And as for presentation or gameplay or any other feature that people think EA hasn't fixed or updated or work on over the years, go back and play Madden 2001 or NCAA 1999 and look at where the game is in terms of features and presentation since then.

I don't know if I am "anti-EA". I do know is: I used to play alot of EA sports games. I switched to SEGA on the games that I feel they(and apparently alot of other gamers feel the same) do a much better job with. But I still play EA baseball because I think EA has the better game.

And you are right, this is a business. Companies like EA Sports is saying: "How do we make the biggest profit on a buck invested"? I believe the EA games may get better. Or it may not. One thing to remember: If EA Sports owns the sole licenses to many of these sports, there really is very little reason for EA sports to invest money above what they normally invest to significantly improve their games. In the case of NFL football, they are the only game in town. in 2006 and forward, 95 - 99% of Madden gamers will continue to buy the game whether there is significant improvement or not. And probably the same amount of Sega gamers will buy the Madden games, because, what choice do they have? If you want to play Football video games you have to play Madden. The new sale gains EA Sports will realize from this exclusivbe license with NFL and with ESPN will far outweigh what sales they may lose from a perceived lower quality and less innovative product than Sega's offering. So the urgency to keep ahead of the competition, the business driver to spend more to build a much better product won't be there. And that is not good for the sports gaming world. Like any business and any industry, competition is good and essential. Put it another way, if Sega did not have competition from EA Sports, do you think they would have worked so hard to develop a radically different and better game from their earlier games, then market it at $19.95? I don't think so.

I like Madden football. In some ways it is still a better game than Sega's. In other ways it is not. I think NCAA Football 2005 has been a disappointment. I sincerely hope that EA Sports come with with a much better college football game in 2006 or 2007. And I hope Sega can develop a college football game again that rivals in quality their NFL counterpart. With this competition, maybe EA Sports will have the incentive to build a better college game. Or everyone's worst nightmare is Ea Sports will just buy the rights to the NCAA(if it is even possible) and rake in the additional revenue without investing more than they already have for development.

[Dame]

i think alot of people are just anti-ea now because its fresh and they mad that their game might be takinaway from them but if you give them some time more then half of them might stop the ea bashing especially if they come out with a superior game.

As for me i'm far from anti-ea but to keep it real i probably be just as mad if sega did it.

and 1 question if sega/vc/tt get the rights to mlb what would the ea bashers say?
1. ea deserves it becasue they did it first
2. they deal is worst because they got nfl and sega on ly got mlb
3. or will they bash sega as well

I just wondering i dont care no matter i see the business move in both so it dont matter to me i just wanted no what everybody else thought especially the anti-ea people

[ufox1810]

Yeah I completely understand what you both are saying and I agree with most of it. It's just that's all these boards have seem to become lately. These are great boards (far better than the others I used to frequent) and I will continue to come back. But the level of complaining lately is amazing. I say just wait and see. I understand people fearing the worst, but at least give it a chance. You can come back on here and say "I told you so" all you want when the games actually start to come out, but none of us really have any idea what Madden 2006 will be like being the only NFL game and we have no idea how EA will implement ESPN into Madden 2007. You may love it, you may hate it. But at this point let's at least see.

There was a time when I thought I would never play another basketball game other than Live and March Madness...the last 2 of those I owned were the 2001 games. I have since bought NBA 2K_ and College Hoops. I have owned every FIFA game since the original on Genesis and after FIFA 2003 and 2004 I was not about to buy another version, but got 2005 as a present and it's a vast improvement over the last few years.

I know these games do have some competition and Madden technically won't at this point, but at least wait and see. If it's crap, I'm sorry. It it's great then good. Just don't anticipate the worst before it happens.