VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

[The_Balm]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

What is so hard about adding an option for bad snaps? Make it off by default and if the player wants the risk they can turn it on.

[msdm27]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

N'SYNC said it best.....
Madden....... BYE BYE BYE!!!!!!!!

[jpdavis82]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

All Pro Football 2K8, first game on a new console, new engine, great, great, great, game.

So, ONE year to reach greatness, but I see you didn't mention that game, surely you would like to include FOOTBALL GAMES in your challenge wouldn't you????

There is your example.

Please leave for good now.

Thank you.

2k 8 was built off the 2k5 engine and it took 3 years to make it.

[LBzrule]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

2k 8 was built off the 2k5 engine and it took 3 years to make it.

They did not work on it for 3 years. The team was dispersed on Hockey, Basketball, Baseball. So there was no team working on 2k8 for 3 years.

[HealyMonster]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Q: What about with presentation, a pre-game show, halftime, postgame show with commentary and highlights? Where do we see that making a return into the game in a bigger way than we see it today?

Rex: Presentation is not our area of expertise, we're gameplay guys, but I'll do my best to answer the question the best I can. I would ask you the question, do you feel like the core in-game presentation is strong enough where you would want us to leave it alone and go work on a pre-game or a halftime show? Internally, we want to make sure that our in-game presentation, commentary and camera work is top notch AAA quality before we start moving off and thinking about things like a halftime show or pre-game. Now that said, we have enough resources here at EA Tiburon where we can improve both core presentation and implement some kind of halftime or pregame show. Like I said earlier though our focus right now is on nailing the core presentation of the experience, the in-game. That affects all the different game modes, so we want to make sure our core presentation is really tight and at that level of quality that we want it to be before we move off and really nail the pregame, halftime, post game shows. We have Simms and Nantz but we are looking at different opportunities and partnerships to decide which is best between ESPN or CBS. I would expect in the next two years you'll see a resolution to that.


when this happens, if this happens, ill stop worrying so much about gameplay.

[jpdavis82]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

They did not work on it for 3 years. The team was dispersed on Hockey, Basketball, Baseball. So there was no team working on 2k8 for 3 years.

One of the developers did a interview about it with Sim or one of the other TSS guys and told them it took 3 years to make. BackBreaker took 3 years to make too.

[LBzrule]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

One of the developers did a interview about it with Sim or one of the other TSS guys and told them it took 3 years to make. BackBreaker took 3 years to make too.

Whatever was said in that interview is what was said. I know who I know over there and there was no TEAM working on things for three years. In saying that I'm not saying someone was not working on certain things, but I know for a fact there was no team.

[jpdavis82]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Whatever was said in that interview is what was said. I know who I know over there and there was no TEAM working on things for three years. In saying that I'm not saying someone was not working on certain things, but I know for a fact there was no team.

I didn't mean team I just meant the guy he had talked to said it was three years but I may be wrong, my point was that you can't make a great game in one cycle. It's never been done.

[SageInfinite]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Hope this doesn't make it over to next gen. Stuff like this is just ridiculous. I was wondering how he caught up to me so quickly, lol.

[roadman]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

First of all, a big thank you goes out to Mr. Bill.

Thanks for asking the tough questions.

The only answer that I enjoyed was they aren't going to be taking features in and out of Madden anymore and the features will be worked on in the near future.

Even though I didn't like some of the answers, (hated the tourney answer, geez) at least there appeared to be candor from the answers. No talking in circles about trying to do this or trying to that that.

At least there were some timelines thrown out.

Meh, on the answers given, big thank you to Mr. Bill.

[PantherBeast_OS]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Well to be honest guys. At this point none of this surprises me at this point. While this year game for next gen may not be perfect. It can't be no worse then current gen Madden25. I've already got it reserve and going to pay it off along with the rest of my stuff. Looking forward to getting it. It might not be a big improvement this year. But who knows what will happen in the coming years. Madden is the only game in town and either you buy it or you don't.

I really hope EA don't renew the rights to the NFL and allow some other companies to come in and try to make an NFL game as well. Even if there is another company that is willing to make it. It would take them a mini. of 3 years to get a basic game out. So for now all we have is Madden sadly to say. But I'm still looking forward to it next month. Hopefully this current team can actually make a difference. Who knows at this point.. Time will tell I guess.

[infemous]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

What he actually said was "When we are able to come up with a mechanic to give the user some control over that, it's something we may look at"

You can't give users control over bad snaps. How the hell would that even work? It's the same philosophy for Madden development as it's always been. They will make the game realistic, unless it costs the tourney guys user control... even if its something they shouldn't have control over, then they'll go arcade.

That answer proved to me the lack of sense at EA Tiburon.

You want a system that can control that?
You toggle it as a gameplay option. You can have 'sim mode' with all that stuff included and you can have 'tourney mode' so that tourney players can play that way.

If you want a realistic implementation of bad snaps you need to create a rating for OL snapping ability and QBs/Punters that determines how well they can handle snaps. This would mean that teams can only blame their roster for having bad snaps. You see Manny Ramirez makin bad snaps to Peyton Manning? That's because he's actually a guard and would have a bad 'snap rating'. You'd also see Romo have a bad snap rating too, so as to dissuade you from playin him as a holder and to give him that error prone nature that defines him as a player.

This is how you implement sim and realistic elements into a game: you marry them to ratings and a realistic ideology.

Do EA Devs want to know why people get frustrated with 'dropped INTs'? Because they're so used to seeing 50 catch CBs make 10 INTs a year. They're no use to seeing specific pass deflection animations. In madden, if a CB is in position to make the deflection, he's in position to make the INT.
You make it so that deflecting the pass is a standard and more common occurrence than an INT and forced WR drop and you'll see people praise this aspect.
What's imperative to this is having a CB and all players actually play to their ratings and having the ratings matter. A 50 catch CB should legitimately drop a stone wall INT (off an errant or deflected pass) while an 80 catch CB should more than likely catch it.

Tourney players hate seeing things not go their way because they play the game based off of its flaws. Make them adapt to playing as a realistically as possible and they'll accept the changes. If a guy has 20000 dollars on a madden game, he should make sure that he pick a team with a good center and long snapper just as much as he should pick a team with 99 speed CBs and couple 90 speed WRs.

So EA if you do read these page and do truly care about what we think, check what I'm saying and stop with the excuses.

PS. I'm also glad that they're honest about the limitations of this offering and I am thankful for the promise of no more back of the box features that will be removed in a year, if they keep them.

I also hope that with regards to CB/WR interactions they're aware that all of the things he mentioned need to be addressed and overhauled ASAP.
The ball needs to be untethered from the WR and from there they need to include hundreds to thousands of animations that separate route runners, good man coverage vs zone coverage CBs, sure handed WRs vs iffy handed WRs, physical WRs and DBs from less so etc etc. these need to come into play on every facet of WR/DB interactions from the jam to the catch and or tackle.
I'm not unrealistic in expecting all of this in one year, but I'm not unrealistic in expecting them to start next year.

In terms of presentation, what we need to see is the removal of cutscenes, everything must be done seamlessly. This soul free up disc space and power for other things and would create a more engaging, seamless gameplay experience more akin to what we see every Sunday. FIFA do it, you share tech, so we expect to see this overhauled for next year. That's also not unreasonable.

Mr Bill, appreciate the interview and thanks to the EA guys for making a concerted effort to reach out and reconnect to the fans. It's a start but remember, it's about how you finish.

[infemous]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Excuse the typos I was writing on an iPhone and autocorrect as well as manly thumbs can be an issue lol

[SageInfinite]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Posted this in the other thread too, but I'd like to know why the animations are so bad? How did they become this way? What changes from mo-cap to going into the system? Next time a dev is available I'd love to know what goes wrong, and how can next gen fix this?

[N51_rob]

Re: VSN Arcade Podcast scheduled to interview EA's Rex Dickson and Clint Oldenberg!

Why not put all these mechanics into the game. Penalties, botched snaps, miscommunication, blown overages etc. And make game modes. Simulation, Tourney, Free Style and tone down or eliminate them based on the mode you select. I know someone at EA has had to have brought this up before because it is in FIFA and NHL to a degree.