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

[ghettogeeksta]

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

When asked about WR/DB interaction he basically said its too hard to do and didn't mention it was in future plans. He tried to be slick about it and talk about the player sense feature.

[Cowboy008]

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

Well it looks like I probably won't be picking Madden up on the 15th.

[UptheARSEnal]

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

lol, I feel you and I'm not implying that anyone do so, heck I already stated I don't attend to buy Madden during this rebuilding. My point was that I believe given the history of the game and what info has been gleaned over the years about its' developmental challenges, this approach the current dev team is espousing is likely the only way to make Madden game play NFL realistic, under the circumstances.

If other studios are allowed to make NFL games in the near future, even though I wish this team all the best, I couldn't care less about Madden. However, if Madden is still the only NFL game about 4 years from now, I really hope this all pans out. lol

That is fair. I diddnt recall your previous posts. We all want a decent representation of the NFL. I diddnt mean to single you out, but it seems like a decent amount of people are willing to settle for effort.

[jpdavis82]

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

I seriously don't understand how people can compare the movement of 10 people on a court to 22 players with different positions. They're apples and oranges. NBA 2k is in a much better place than Madden because they have had what 8 years of quality work before now? Madden has been in a bad spot for years due to the crappy foundation it was built on. The game is finally getting the overhaul it desperately needs so badly and people think it can be done in a year.:0

[AmericasTeam]

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

Well it looks like I probably won't be picking Madden up on the 15th.

They're sure making it hard to purchase. Getting so sick of hearing things they're going to do, but never do. Sounds like it might take 5-6 more years before we get something that resembles real football. That's if theres no major changes within the team.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

[LBzrule]

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

Didn't like a lot of stuff here from true step implementation to who EA's focus is. mehhh

[jpdavis82]

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

Didn't like a lot of stuff here from true step implementation to who EA's focus is. mehhh

Yeah focusing on football fundamentals and a realistic representation of football sounds awful.....

[LBzrule]

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

Yeah focusing on football fundamentals and a realistic representation of football sounds awful.....

You know damn well I'm not talking about that so cut the crap. I'm talking about the tournament player which was specifically mentioned as to the reason why they will not do certain things. This isn't the first time this has come up with them either. Notice I said WHO not WHAT

[Big FN Deal]

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

I seriously don't understand how people can compare the movement of 10 people on a court to 22 players with different positions. They're apples and oranges. NBA 2k is in a much better place than Madden because they have had what 8 years of quality work before now? Madden has been in a bad spot for years due to the crappy foundation it was built on. The game is finally getting the overhaul it desperately needs so badly and people think it can be done in a year.:0

JP you have me falling out over here seeing you back to your ole optimistic self, lol. I don't mean anything by that either, nothing wrong with choosing to focus on the positive potential of anything.

That said, I wonder if you realize that the things stated in this interview likely mean you will need to adjust your prediction about Madden 15 being "the one" next year and recalculate to maybe Madden 17 or 18.

[TOmuch81]

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

Yeah focusing on football fundamentals and a realistic representation of football sounds awful.....

JP, I know you're being sarcastic there, and I agree that they should be focusing on the core fundamentals of the game. My issue is, although Clint and Rex seem more focused and ready to execute their "vision" we've heard this before. I'm excited for next gen, I won't lie, but as hopeful as I am, we've heard pretty much the same thing out of the past 3 dev teams. They always tend to implement their ideas over 2-3 yr cycle. Problem is, in the past that team hasn't worked together for EA to show us their true vision( leaving for other projects, being let go, etc...). I'm honestly disappointed at some of these answers, although I guess it's better than some BS pie they could be feeding us. The Living Worlds part of this game got me very jacked, and we haven't seen what exactly is in store for this feature, but listening to Rex on the previous podcast from earlier this week it's the same thing..."Our vision for this is huge" but it will take a few years for us to get there. I'm not trying to hear that year in and year out. Crowd noise, reaction, chants, multiple genders, jerseys, foam fingers, concession sellers, all this should be in this years game. IMO, Madden needs more "pop" something to bring it alive. Next gen would have been ideal for them to showcase that year one.

[kjcheezhead]

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

Madden 100 launch party! They finally got the NFL simulation we've all been waiting for fellas!! Wooo!!

[The Duke]

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

This interview was depressing. Terrible answers, worthless excuses. 2-3 years to implement basic features? Despite the new, all-powerful Ignite engine? Must be a good engine!
His response to the question about WR/DB interactions almost made me vomit. Listed a bunch of stuff to show he's a smart football guy and then basically totally dodged the question. Sounded good when he was going through which interactions take place in a real game, but then spoiled it by revealing it hasn't been touched.
True step only applies to the ball carrier and human controlled players. Awesome. I look forward to getting blown up by swerving, floating defenders as I foolishly try to juke my way around them using the flashy new feature. Should be fun.
I know they're two different sports, but what we are seeing and hearing from NBA 2K14 is just killing me inside. Coming back here after being over at the 2k14 forums is like waking up from a dream and finding yourself in a nightmare.

[jpdavis82]

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

Here's the entire interview, hope you guys enjoy.

Hold up, I'm going to post the interview in full, so people don't get anything misunderstood about what was actually said.

Q: In your perspective, what are the features that you're most excited about with Madden 25?

Rex: The one biggest thing we'd like you to take away from next gen is the team driving the stake in the ground about the direction we want to take this game with next gen. It's not necessarily the same direction that we have been going in on gen 3. That direction we're heading is firmly towards realism authenticity and a realistic representation of the sport. I think for many years Madden has been a great game and it's been fun for a lot of people, but it's definitely played more like Madden than realistic, authentic football and I think a lot of people still feel like they can't get a true simulation experience out of the game. This dev team is committed to giving them that game. Gen 4, this first year, I think you'll find is the most realistic representation of the sport that we have ever built. It's really just the tip of the iceberg about where we are going.

Q: We see a lot of the line play in Madden is not causing there to be many penalties. Is there anything on the horizon that would start to produce a higher instance of line related penalties?

Clint: For this year we did not make a feature surrounding increased penalties along the offensive line. From my own experience with this year's game and my own testing, what I've found is due to the horsepower of the new consoles, penalties do trigger more than they would have before, but it is good that you bring up the penalties especially on the offensive line because it's something that is on our radar and something we're looking to improve in our future games.

Q:Expanding on that, will we start to see more interference penalties on defensive backs and offensive penalties on WR's?

Rex: Yeah and that's going to be a little more complicated for us to take on. When you consider the way our catching system works and physics. Just kind of building a system around hey there was organic contact between them. We wouldn't be able to essentially control those outcomes so we have to kind of build towards the pass interference system. We have to kind of restructure the architecture of our catching system to support true pass interference penalties that we can actually build into the game and control them the way we need to control them. I would expect that you will see that if not next year(M15), then within the next two cycles (Madden 16) we'll get to that.

Q: Will things like bad snaps from the center or ls being mishandled by either punter or the holder for the placekick be in the next cycle or two for next gen?

Clint: That's something that we look at every year, the difficult thing is trying to come up with a mechanic that surrounds that so the user feels like they have some control of the outcome. The scenario I like to bring up is if you're playing in a tournament with $200000 on the line and you're about to go for the winning score and you have a bad snap and it's nothing you did on the sticks, but we just happened to throw one at you, like a bad dice roll. 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.

Q: How does True Step affect every player on the field or does it just affect the ball carrier?

Rex: So the way True Step is implemented. True Step is a huge piece of technology, what we're doing with True Step is ripping out the old locomotion system and implementing a new locomotion system. True Step is light years beyond what we have ever done before. The amount of time it takes for us to take an assignment out of the game and replace it with this new locomotion system is fairly significant. So originally we set our target on ball carriers only, was the initial True Step. The team actually did a great job and increased their velocity over the course of the cycle and we were able to get it on all user controlled defenders as well. So what you'll see in the game shipping in a few weeks is True Step for all ball carriers including cpu as well as any user controlled player in the game on both sides of the ball.

Q: We've seen some of the pass rushing animations, from a defensive end perspective, look really good. If we're user controlling the DE and you go into one of those animations, do you have to let the animation run it's course or can you break out of it mid-animation to pursuit the QB?

Clint: You'll be able to break out of it if you're the one pass rushing, also the CPU AI can break out of it as well.

Q: Any improvements made to WR/DB interactions?

Rex: That can mean a lot of things. You have to think about all the different components of the feature, are you talking about press and release, behavior at the line or jam, are you talking about route running, hand fighting on the routes, or the interactions at the catch point? There's a lot of different factors of that feature. The one thing that will really jump out at you is with player sense and human intelligence at the DB position. You'll especially see this in zone coverage, the way defenders will react once the ball is thrown and break on the ball is really a lot more realistic. I think most people who played Madden 25 gen 3 felt zone was a little soft this year, but that is definitely not the case on gen 4. Zone defenders are brutally effective and will take much better paths to the ball, so their ability to break on the ball and target to their correct position to make a play on the ball or the receiver is vastly improved over what you've seen on gen 3.

Q: What about signature throwing and running animations?

Rex: My own personal opinion, I know the community really wants signature styles and animations specific to players. It's in our plan, however, from my perspective, I still feel like there's so many little issues within our animations with the pops, the warps, the slides, we have a lot of work to go to squeeze all of that stuff out the game. I'd rather make sure we nail the core animation quality in our game before we start talking about adding signature styles. Now that said, I don't think those two are mutually exclusive, I think we can work on both simultaneously, but we're still working on nailing our core fundamentals of football before we start going into expressions of individual style. All that said, our new animation system with step loco will give us a lot more flexibility and space to open up the door for us to do signature styles in the future. My first priority is make sure our animation quality is AAA and then we'll work on signature style.

Q: Are we going to see significant improvement in aliasing on next gen?

Rex: Yes, just like with any console launch, I don't think you're going to see all the benefits in year one. It's going to take some time for engineers and graphics artists to really figure out these rendering pipelines, decide where we're going to get the most impact, learn how to work with these boxes to get the best visual effects. From our perspective we really pushed a lot more of the investment for us, to make sure the game feels different, it feels smarter, feels more like football. 90% of our focus on our side (Gameplay developers) was how can we use this horsepower to affect the way the game plays and feels.

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.

Q: Looking at next gen, how do we see the sliders implementation working?

Rex: I think the more we design the game to be authentic and realistic, the hope is that the less that people will feel like they have to rely on sliders to give you the game you want. I think over the years the sliders how they were initially implemented, we have sliders now that you move them around and there's not much effect. We did some work on sliders this year to get some of the biggest bugs out of the system. Last year when we added the Madden Share feature, I think that's definitely something we want to invest in more, give you a set of tools that allow you to modify the game the way you want to, but also give you the tools that allow you to share with other users. We're committed to that but it's just a question of like, a lot of the sliders we have to build feature work into the game in order for the sliders to work properly, like we said earlier with PI penalties, once we build the data driven penalty system that allows us to control those outcomes, then the slider for penalties will work the way it always should have.

Q: What about accelerated clock, will it work out of the box on next gen within CFM?

Rex: I know it works on play now, but don't hold me to it definitely working in CFM, but I believe it does.

Q: How many camera angles are we looking at?

Rex: I think there's 5 or 6, the one that I like to play with on next gen is the zoomed camera because you get the most stellar view of the players, it looks the most next gen. The default camera is probably the best for gameplay functionality though, being able to see your WRs on screen.

Q: What about QB dropbacks? Drop back 30 yards and toss the ball trying to avoid the defense?

Clint: Good question, one of the big focuses with War in the Trenches was to build a pocket around the QB. You'll have DE's screaming off the edges, this will fundamentally change the way people play the game of Madden. In the past a lot of people would have the tendency to drop back as far as they could to stay away from the pass rush. That's probably not going to be an option going forward because as we build this pocket around you, the offensive lineman are now aware of where the QB is supposed to be in the pocket and are aware of the angle that their target is taking to that point. If you as the QB break that point than you've just broken the angle of the offensive lineman and which at that point the defensive lineman will just run past the tackles and sack you in the backfield. So what we're really trying to create is a feeling for the user as the QB to have the confidence to step up into the pocket to create those angles for their lineman, to keep their blocks, keep your QB upright and get rid of the ball on time. Conversely with the pocket you're going to feel a lot more pressure, a lot more heat coming at you than you ever have before. If you rush a 6 man blitz vs a 5 man protection, you're not going to have a whole lot of time to get the ball off. In my experience as a football player, that's about as close to simulation as we can make it.

Q: Is route based throwing, throwing to a spot, rather than having the ball tethered to a wr, something that is being looked at?

Rex: You're going to see quite a bit more of that on gen 4. I think one of the key pieces to that with the ball always hitting the wr in stride, that's one thing we are looking at right now for next year. We feel there's potentially some big wins in that space if we actually model some kind of inaccuracy system to throws. What you will see in Madden 25 on gen 4 though, is route timing being thrown off by bumps or collisions between wr's or good press by a DB.

Q: Do we see the war in the trenches as something that's a focus long term?

Rex: I'll take you a step further than that, everything that we build from this point forward is going to be a long term investment. The years of us building a back of the box feature like QB vision and taking it out a year or two later, those days are over. Two years ago we started working on our physics engine, and two years later we're still working on it. We started working on blocking last year, and we're working on it for next year, we have a 3-4 year plan for what this blocking team is going to work on. Obviously there are still a lot of other things we need to get to, gap play, true gap play, a overhaul of our play action system is another one of those things. Everything we do from now on is a long term investment.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to say about Madden 25 next gen and people can expect to see?

Clint: Yeah I just want to reflect on our 3 pillars Living Worlds, Player Sense, True Player Motion, we want to reiterate that we are really changing the game in terms of simulation football. We hear all feedback we get and want to make sure you guys in the community know that we hear what you're saying and we want to do as many things as we can for you each year.

[jpdavis82]

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

I just want to ask you guys one question. How many years did it take NBA 2k, FIFA, MLB The Show, NHL, to a level of greatness?

If anyone can honestly say 1 or 2 I'll leave OS forums for good.

[kjcheezhead]

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

I just want to ask you guys one question. How many years did it take NBA 2k, FIFA, MLB The Show, NHL, to a level of greatness?

If anyone can honestly say 1 or 2 I'll leave OS forums for good.

1. Madden has been being built off this core engine a lot longer than a year, I don't care who has or hasn't been on the current development team.

2. See the answer Clint gave for why they won't add bad snaps, and for similar reasons line penalties. If they won't add any thing that takes user control out of the hands of the tourney players, the NFL will quit existing as a league before we get a true simulation of the sport.