No updates from OMT, etc. on NCAA 2010?

[OMT]

Quote: Originally Posted by kindella2

I know this gets asked a lot but who gets to test and are there any normal consumers who get to test the game?

We have a QA department with like 300 people who test all the Tiburon games and a variety of games from other studios. We are also opening another QA department in Baton Rouge soon.

I know we do the Community Days now at the studio, and Madden was able to get some gameplay tweaks out of them... so we let Kinsler know he needs to do this earlier in the year so we can address more issues.

The problem is since we allow the guys to film and photograph the game, we can't do it too early with all sorts of crazy bugs and crashes going on... it has to be a pretty solid build if it is going to be made public like that. I'm not sure what the plan is for this yet. We are still 4 or 5 months out from being able to show off anything that looks like a video game.

[fistofrage]

Quote: Originally Posted by OMT

No, not like that. But if they ever make a movie about game development, it might be like that (Grandma's Boy or whatever it was called doesn't count... not even close to realistic). The design teams meet up for hours on end coming up with what we feel the game needs. Then we write up a feature set (and I use that term loosely... not just game modes and things in commercials, but stuff like "Improved AI") and present it to upper management for approval. If they don't like what we want to make, they turn it down and we try again. You have to convince them to give you however millions of dollars it costs, so you better present something that will sell. Then we break down everything we want to do and the programmers give us estimates. We total those up, compare to our budget, and cut down to 100%. As far as "dammit, test the game this year," that is a whole different department. We are always putting an emphasis on programmers not checking in buggy code, and our QA department is aware of their misses on 09. Hopefully they do a better job next year.

Well, believe me when I say I appreciate you taking your time to answer these questions.

So my question would be, is someone there passionate enough about improving the AI and gameplay that they could successfully pitch this to upper management as features that would increase sales?

I ask this because I don't know if it would or not. I think it might because the reviewers were giving the game relatively low scores for problems with the AI and other technical issues. That might carry some clout because those reviews are getting into the mainstream.

But there is no denying that graphics sell.

The obvious answer is to make the AI as good as you can with the resources that you are given and please let the sliders work next year. I have spent countless hours playing this game, and I still can't say for certain if the defense plays better(smarter more aggressive) with the defensive awareness slider at 0 or at 100. I honestly think it plays better somewhere in the middle. But it may just be broken all together. Either way it doesn't work as it should because at 0, the defenders should be garbage and at 100 they should be supermen and that clearly isn't the case.

So please do what you can to get those working properly and you'll get alot less flack from the sim heads.

[doctorhay53]

Quote: Originally Posted by fistofrage

Well, believe me when I say I appreciate you taking your time to answer these questions. So my question would be, is someone there passionate enough about improving the AI and gameplay that they could successfully pitch this to upper management as features that would increase sales? I ask this because I don't know if it would or not. I think it might because the reviewers were giving the game relatively low scores for problems with the AI and other technical issues. That might carry some clout because those reviews are getting into the mainstream. But there is no denying that graphics sell. The obvious answer is to make the AI as good as you can with the resources that you are given and please let the sliders work next year. I have spent countless hours playing this game, and I still can't say for certain if the defense plays better(smarter more aggressive) with the defensive awareness slider at 0 or at 100. I honestly think it plays better somewhere in the middle. But it may just be broken all together. Either way it doesn't work as it should because at 0, the defenders should be garbage and at 100 they should be supermen and that clearly isn't the case. So please do what you can to get those working properly and you'll get alot less flack from the sim heads.

First, the scores this game got were not nearly bad. 8-9 is a pretty good score for a game, if you check reviews out there for all games. That won't even come close to getting 'upper management' to notice.

Second, I've been sort of trying to get across the same point as you about sliders. The problem is ESPECIALLY noticeable in FGP. I have the CPU at 0 and they routinely make 50 yard field goals. If they give us sliders, then the extreme ends of those sliders should be represented by extreme results on the field. This is not hard to imagine.....in fact, if I was going to program a game with sliders, this would be my first priority.

2k seems to have this concept in mind. EA still gives us sliders with steps of 5 that don't even hardly do anything. It's pretty frustrating. But I'm not going to take it out on OMT. It ain't up to him.

This board is getting a little hostile.

[OMT]

Quote: Originally Posted by fistofrage

Well, believe me when I say I appreciate you taking your time to answer these questions. So my question would be, is someone there passionate enough about improving the AI and gameplay that they could successfully pitch this to upper management as features that would increase sales? I ask this because I don't know if it would or not. I think it might because the reviewers were giving the game relatively low scores for problems with the AI and other technical issues. That might carry some clout because those reviews are getting into the mainstream. But there is no denying that graphics sell. The obvious answer is to make the AI as good as you can with the resources that you are given and please let the sliders work next year. I have spent countless hours playing this game, and I still can't say for certain if the defense plays better(smarter more aggressive) with the defensive awareness slider at 0 or at 100. I honestly think it plays better somewhere in the middle. But it may just be broken all together. Either way it doesn't work as it should because at 0, the defenders should be garbage and at 100 they should be supermen and that clearly isn't the case. So please do what you can to get those working properly and you'll get alot less flack from the sim heads.

I think the frustration you get with telling whether or not sliders work is similar to what goes on when tuning the game. You can't make a change, run a couple plays, and know it is good. You have to run hundreds of plays at least.

I'm not saying AI wouldn't be a big feature. Tuning? No, not a big feature. Overhaul? New system? Yeah, big feature.

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by OMT

I know we do the Community Days now at the studio, and Madden was able to get some gameplay tweaks out of them... so we let Kinsler know he needs to do this earlier in the year so we can address more issues. The problem is since we allow the guys to film and photograph the game, we can't do it too early with all sorts of crazy bugs and crashes going on... it has to be a pretty solid build if it is going to be made public like that. I'm not sure what the plan is for this yet. We are still 4 or 5 months out from being able to show off anything that looks like a video game.

Then don't allow those guys to take pictures and stuff. You guys have them sign NDA agreements all the time anyways. Everyone would appreciate an early community day where guys could help debug stuff - especially if they are slider guys that could really play with the game. We'll gladly sacrifice stupid screenshots and vids for that purpose. I'll check my calender but I'm sure I'm available for testing!

Thanks again Adam for all your info.

Thanks for all the input from the inside Adam. There's one lesson in life to be learned here: Cash is King.

EA has to do their best to make the game appealing to everyone.

[Keyser Soze]

Quote: Originally Posted by OMT

We don't differentiate between tweaks, bug fixes, additions, updates, and features at this point. As far as our design DB is concerned, everything is a feature... each thing is a line item. I don't understand your hostility towards me here.

zero hostility towards you. i thought i thanked you for taking your time. I am frustrated with EA management is all. that comment had nothing to do with you and not sure after re-reading it why you think it was.

[blurredvision]

Quote: Originally Posted by Keyser Soze

zero hostility towards you. i thought i thanked you for taking your time. I am frustrated with EA management is all. that comment had nothing to do with you and not sure after re-reading it why you think it was.

Regardles of your thanks, I felt you was coming off a little hostile towards him also. Sorry.

OMT, maybe you should just leave it at not being able to talk for another 6-7 months about the game . We'll see you in April. :P