What happened to living worlds?

[illiterateoption]

Quote: Originally Posted by 4thQtrStre5S

You're new to advertising versus reality, aren't you? There is in fact a living world component to Madden now - Whether it meets your expectations and/or perspective of "living world," is all on you...Most likely in a legal sense, EA/Tiburon provided the proper amount of what they advertised to pass as living world...

No, I'm not new to the concept of advertising versus reality. I fully understand what they are trying to do with advertising featuring devs, let me say that again, DEVS, hyping living worlds with "actual game footage" clips playing over the DEV soundbites. Not sure, but "actual game footage" should mean that we'll see it play out that way on our consoles at least 1/4 of the time.

My only expectation for EA's living worlds was that they could meet or exceed that of games produced long ago, say 2007. I had no expectation EA would be able to meet their own as-advertised expectations/promises for Living Worlds in M25, let alone M15 but I hoped they'd at least be in the ballpark.

The underwhelming delivery of the living worlds system promoted under EA's "Ignite" system is undeniable. It may legally meet the requirements to avoid any formal false advertisement claims, but is that what we want from our ONE and only football gaming option?? Gaming at its lowest common denominator?!?!

[roadman]

I popped in 15 again last night and Jordy Nelson made a great catch along the sideline. The Packers sideline players started showing emotion immediately after the catch and cheering.

Same thing with a Davon House interception along the sidelines.

Better than 13 when all the players had the same numbers and were lifeless on the sidelines and still lacking in other areas. ie no women and children, shorts at Lambeau in snow games.

[bringbacksimfootball]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Those other games aren't relevant to the discussion because they were working with hardware limitations that present-day Madden NFL simply doesn't have to consider. Of course those games are going to de-emphasize crowds except in very specific shots; the hardware couldn't handle the alternative. That's a deliberate game design decision out of necessity.

All that matters is what they could derive from it with the same approach today. There is still another level that can be reached.

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Even if Tiburon took all the 3D characters out of the crowd, there's the idea of diminishing returns. Sure they can add a bunch more triangles to their players on the field in that case, but for what? The players are already hyper-detailed. The average person simply wouldn't notice.

I disagree. Graphics and--more specifically--enhancements to them, are the first thing people notice; we're visual beings, and there is a reason EA leads with this sort of thing in their marketing of the game. Look at the discussions that have exploded over screenshots and how people feel like they haven't gone anywhere since last season. People would certainly notice if the graphics reached another level.

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Disagree on "no worthwhile use". One, it's part of EA Sports' whole "living worlds" presentation feature set to have so many dynamic characters in the scene at once. Could they do a better job with that? Sure, admittedly. That's what this whole thread is about. Whose saying Tiburon can't build off what they already have in the future and make it better, though? Why tear down what they have?

Because they haven't done that many times before?

Remember Madden 06 and 07's polygonal crowds (and 3D grass in 07) and the promises of a "Live stadium atmosphere"? Remember how that went away? Living Worlds from 25 and 15 are no different than that, with the exception that in 25 sideline players would sometimes catch you when you ran out of bounds, and in 15 players move out of the way in a bizarre manner.

A dev there admitted defeat on this. You say you disagree that it isn't worthwhile, but you haven't mentioned any actual points that make it worthwhile for the consumer. What are monotonous, non-broadcast adhering, zoomed out, sweeping shots of a polygonal crowd during playcall selection adding to the game? What is this doing live that couldn't be accomplished exactly in a cutscene in the exact same context?

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Second, unlike most (if not all; admittedly unsure) other sports games, Madden NFL lets the user change the camera in real time without pausing the game. Being able to move the camera around and seeing fans of severely varying levels of quality would be quite jarring and instantly rip the user out of the experience.

During gameplay and switching cameras in Madden 15, you're never close enough to the fans where you'd see any changes like the ones you're cautioning. The fans look very far away, too far to see any real detail.

Besides, even if it were an actual issue it can be masked with some simple design tricks. Michael Young (Madden Art Director at the time) and I had a brief discussion about this back in 09. He explained to me how they were able to make crowds in the distance appear 3D by making the sprite switch angle and/or frame based on camera position, and it worked, the image was bad, but the approach worked. He said they couldn't make the image sharper and reduce the edge jaggedness that made it immediately noticeable that the images were 2D at certain angles due to limitations (which is why the crowd images looked bad up-close last gen), but that they could accomplish it on better hardware which wasn't available yet of course.

I offered up the idea to simply maintain the approach with distance shots, and handle the rest with cutscenes. He told me that this idea would solve the current problem, but that Tiburon had a long-term goal of doing away with cutscenes altogether and have everything live (that of course never came to fruition and we actually got more cutscenes).

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

I maintain that people on here would very easily be able to tell if a crowd was eighty thousand bill-boarded sprites and would be very critical of that design decision, particularly next to NBA 2K or MLB The Show which render the crowds in full 3D as well.

Again, it's all about masking. You could have 3D for what's closest to the field, and the rest 2D for what the camera can't catch closely during gameplay and honestly the camera only catches a small percentage anyway, and the rest can be cutscened during playcall or fan emotion shots.

I'd feel totally different about this if the crowd was really a part of the during gameplay experience, but they aren't. They're literally just treated like props off in the distance and you only see a deliberate detailed closeup during play selection, and even then it's hardly a closeup, it's sweeping and only lasts a second or two.

[jyoung]

Quote: Originally Posted by The JareBear

I have to wonder if this is more of a system issue than an EA issue. I wouldn't be surprised if they are struggling to implement a lot of things in regards to sidelines and crowds without sacrificing game performance/responsiveness.

It's definitely an EA issue, not a system issue.

There is an unlicensed football game on the Xbox 360 that didn't have any problem getting the crowd and both sidelines to react appropriately during live gameplay:



The crowd in this game stands when the ball is in the air, cheers once it's caught, and cheers even louder once the receiver scores.

If this could be done 8 years ago on the Xbox 360, then there are no technical reasons why it can't be done today, on the Xbox One.

[SageInfinite]

Quote: Originally Posted by jyoung

It's definitely an EA issue, not a system issue. There is an unlicensed football game on the Xbox 360 that didn't have any problem getting the crowd and both sidelines to react appropriately during live gameplay: The crowd in this game stands when the ball is in the air, cheers once it's caught, and cheers even louder once the receiver scores. If this could be done 8 years ago on the Xbox 360, then there are no technical reasons why it can't be done today, on the Xbox One.

Preach.....

[The JareBear]

Nice video jyoung

A big thing for me is crowd noise. I remember for ncaa 13 and 14 I would turn down the volume sliders on everything except have crowd noise mazes out and jack the volume up on my tv.

I really hope we get better crowd/atmosphere soon

[JKSportsGamer1984]

Guys of course everyone would rather see game play improved over Living Worlds IF we had to choose. That's obvious lol, however that's not the issue. The issue is why in 2015 are we still having to choose? That was a last gen issue & it's unfortunate that Madden has not advanced far enough yet & we are still having this debate.

Now I understand that football is a more difficult sport to develop for & there are more limitations that they are dealing with. I also respect everyone's different opinions as to why this is, but that doesn't negate the fact that Living Worlds are still lacking. Yes Madden has improved in this area & you can make the argument that they "technically" delivered on Living Worlds, but I think we can all agree that it's not where we want it to be. Like I said before hopefully these game developers can find ways to tap into more processing power with these consoles & we get that True Next Gen experience (gameplay, presentation, etc..) that we've all been waiting for.

I don't think it's wrong to expect more from Madden. They are the only football game on the market (as of now lol) & with that comes a huge responsibility to deliver. At the end of the day EA has made millions upon millions every year & they need to be held to a higher standard. I appreciate people pointing out & explaining how difficult it is to develop a high end football game, but we're mostly only asking them to add things we've seen in past games. I get it that games are a lot more graphically advanced but that shouldn't continue to be an excuse as technology is also advancing.

[kehlis]

Quote: Originally Posted by JKSportsGamer1984

At the end of the day EA has made millions upon millions every year & they need to be held to a higher standard.

As long as they continue to make millions and millions I don't think EA or its stockholders care what standard OS (or sim players for that matter) holds it to.

If your above statement is accurate it would appear the standard they are operating is working just fine for their purposes.