Madden NFL 19: The Full Interview With Producer Ben Haumiller

[patsfan1993]

Quote: Originally Posted by GiantBlue76

Spoiler I agree with everything you've said here, but one thing that has been so troubling about the madden team is this. They are not making an adventure game here. It's not something that needs to be "invented". You are making a sports game where the premise of the game starts with COPYING something that exists in real life. The challenge comes with attempting to MODEL that real world element. What frustrates the living hell out of me (and many others apparently), is that instead of starting with what happens in real life, they think that they can re-invent football concepts that will be "more fun" in their game. That's why people are so enamored with the Show and NBA 2k. They start with modeling real life. They don't invent some sort of "funned" up version of that. You're copying what's real, that is what makes sports games so special. It provides a doorway for us to step into the life of pro athletes, GMs and owners. That's what makes it fun. If you strip away the realism aspects, it's just another arcade game that makes me lose interest in an hour. All of the BS excuses about competitive/Sim or whatever is nonsense. You build the game with the idea of simulating the real thing FIRST. Then you provide as many options as possible to customize that experience to fit the fringe users. Your core fan base is your bread and butter, but you will attract the casual gamers if you allow them to customize to their level. All of the successful sports franchises do this - EXCEPT MADDEN. Madden starts with the lowest common denominator and then tries to band aid the simulation aspects in after the fact, which is much more difficult. Then they turn around and tell the consumer that there are "technical challenges". I'm sorry, but they're not a good development studio. The "suits" are not telling them that they need to rewrite the same stuff every year because the previous year it was a mess. Further, the consumer shouldn't care if that is what's going on. That's their problem and they should be the ones to solve it.

I don't think I've ever read a post that captures my thoughts as closely as this one does. I can't agree more.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Uhh... I guess I'll rephrase... You cannot know what a feature will cost until it's designed. You must have a technical document to estimate a feature's cost, and you must have a design document to make a technical document. So more features that are going to be built are designed by necessity. If you'd like a lesson on scrum game development and development life cycles, there are plenty of universities that offer such a course.

First I don't believe scrum is actual development. I believe it's an organizational tool to assist in management of small/short projects, but I've never worked with scrum.

I don't need a lesson in the software life cycle. I've been in software since the early 80's. There is also before work with a double major of Math and Computer Science (Not business IT). My first job was writing hardware simulations at a clock/register level for DOD hardware that didn't exist yet so the Compiler/Linker/OS and applications programmers could develop and test their code before the hardware was actually ready.

I've worked with literally dozens of languages (including a few machine level languages), worked on compilers, linkers, Operating Ssystems, and simulators.

I know the software life cycle very well from design/documentation all the way to maintenance on massive projects. I've had an airmen/pilot show us his physical fighter, look inside his cockpit and praise us for the systems we developed and how much of an impact it had on his safety in combat. But that was in the 80's-90's. I'm out of that now doing business ERP software.

I don't know how old you are AJ, but I've probably been doing software longer than some OS'ers have been alive.

I also do Linux system administration, and network administration.

I won't even say your post seemed a little condescending, but I will say it wasn't necessary.

My question is, why do you have to throw that design away every year to start over again. Because that was your original statement.

[jeremym480]

Quote: Originally Posted by GiantBlue76

wow, a whole whopping 4 items made it in... Wait until NBA 2k drops their blogs. It will be 50-100 new items, just like last year. They actually have nearly all of the actual contract types and rules specified in their CBA. We don't even have an injury system in Madden. Hell, all of the rules aren't even there. I don't think people who don't play other sports games realize how far behind madden really is. It's 10 years easily, and that would be for a dev team that could crank things out. It might be 20 with Tiburon.

One reasons I think 2k gets in so much is they actually have devs who are from OS and devs who actually play Myleague/MyGM so they want a deep experience. Their devs come here and actually get feedback from us. I don't know for sure but EA's devs play their franchise but if they do, I would really be surprised if it's offline.

Another thing is that one of 2k's MyLeague/MyGM producers/designers (Davez) has posted a wish list thread here on OS every year for the past four years. You can actually take those wish list and compare them to the MyLeague/MyGm blogs each year and see that they actually take our feedback and implement the majority of the items requested into the game. He also sticks around and gets feedback from us when the blog is released and after the game drops. He has even taken some of our ideas and gotten them into the game after the blog came out but before release.

I'd love to see one of EA's guys do the same thing as Davez. If they could start knocking out a punch list of things that the community requests like 2K has then maybe Madden's franchise slowly but surely get up to par someday... And I'm not taking about in super difficult stuff. Just things like CBA, injuries, and coaches (even if they're just cosmic at first).

It does seem like maybe they're starting to listen. Like Roadman said, they got in the items from T4Verts' survey. That's certainly a start but they have a long, long way to go.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeremym480

One reasons I think 2k gets in so much is they actually have devs who are from OS and devs who actually play Myleague/MyGM so they want a deep experience. Their devs come here and actually get feedback from us. I don't know for sure but EA's devs play their franchise but if they do, I would really be surprised if it's offline. Another thing is that one of 2k's MyLeague/MyGM producers/designers (Davez) has posted a wish list thread here on OS every year for the past four years. You can actually take those wish list and compare them to the MyLeague/MyGm blogs each year and see that they actually take our feedback and implement the majority of the items requested into the game. He also sticks around and gets feedback from us when the blog is released and after the game drops. He has even taken some of our ideas and gotten them into the game after the blog came out but before release.

Jeremy,

Wow, no wonder NBA2K is so far ahead. I used to follow Basketball and went to a lot of Bucks games, but have not in probably 20 years. Though I won't miss a Packers game (except after they started kneeling). Yet I rarely touch Madden but love NBA2K.

The game itself is what draws me in. That Pvarck (whatever his ID is) made a post about all the negativity. He said it's all deserving, but asked everyone to be constructive with it and also post something positive with the criticism. He recognizes that Madden deserves it, but gets tired of all the negative. I can understand that. I can't speak for others, but for me, if Madden's franchise was as deep and realistic as NBA2K's, I wouldn't be posting my displeasure. I probably wouldn't be posting much on OS. I have yet to post anything negative on any NBA2K site. I would do the same with Madden if it were just as good, realistic and deep.

[JoshC1977]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

It's interesting, they have arcade mode, people play it, but it's seems taboo for them to do any marketing toward getting casual players to play it.

Exactly...."ewww....arcade.....no one wants to play that....." (The irony is, it really isn't a bad experience aside from the fact that WRs catch everything.)

I still think they should rebrand the current "sim" mode as "classic" mode, get rid of the "arcade" mode altogether, and then create a true "sim" mode that adds in further "sim-style" things like calibrating the game for 120 play games, adding legit pass rush, more penalties, better fatigue, etc.

[vannwolfhawk]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeremym480

One reasons I think 2k gets in so much is they actually have devs who are from OS and devs who actually play Myleague/MyGM so they want a deep experience. Their devs come here and actually get feedback from us. I don't know for sure but EA's devs play their franchise but if they do, I would really be surprised if it's offline. Another thing is that one of 2k's MyLeague/MyGM producers/designers (Davez) has posted a wish list thread here on OS every year for the past four years. You can actually take those wish list and compare them to the MyLeague/MyGm blogs each year and see that they actually take our feedback and implement the majority of the items requested into the game. He also sticks around and gets feedback from us when the blog is released and after the game drops. He has even taken some of our ideas and gotten them into the game after the blog came out but before release. I'd love to see one of EA's guys do the same thing as Davez. If they could start knocking out a punch list of things that the community requests like 2K has then maybe Madden's franchise slowly but surely get up to par someday... And I'm not taking about in super difficult stuff. Just things like CBA, injuries, and coaches (even if they're just cosmic at first). It does seem like maybe they're starting to listen. Like Roadman said, they got in the items from T4Verts' survey. That's certainly a start but they have a long, long way to go.

I completely agree with everything here. I will add to this as most the 2k devs usually have transparency as well. The czar spoke last year on CPU AI making certain reads that we want, but he says we just aren’t there yet but this year we put in the tech to be there soon. Cool! I can ride with that and wait a year. Communication is key.

I think having a pulse on the community especially here on OS as opposed to the masses on Twitter is a good thing. But 2k is striving for realism and representing their sport to the fullest through depth and Options. They also realize giving us the users the tools and ability to edit anything and almost everything in game is huge. But back to your post is why doesn’t madden do this? Last I really remember a madden dev being here was Ian? Does EA shut that down? I know they gave Rex a bad time about too much Twitter time... I do think it would go a long ways and in the end help the end game.

I was also thinking about something else earlier today. Does Tiburon have set devs in certain areas? For example Clint redid offensive line logic a few years back. That’s clearly his area of expertise. Yet now it seems he is in all areas and the Oline hasn’t been touched again. In 2k you know every year czar has offense, OG has defense, Zach does postgame, beds has rosters, leftos and Dave my league, and Beluba (wang) on all gameplay but specifically dribbling moves. I guess this go’s back to high turnover as opposed to no turnover?!

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by bucky60

First I don't believe scrum is actual development. I believe it's an organizational tool to assist in management of small/short projects, but I've never worked with scrum. I don't need a lesson in the software life cycle. I've been in software since the early 80's. There is also before work with a double major of Math and Computer Science (Not business IT). My first job was writing hardware simulations at a clock/register level for DOD hardware that didn't exist yet so the Compiler/Linker/OS and applications programmers could develop and test their code before the hardware was actually ready. I've worked with literally dozens of languages (including a few machine level languages), worked on compilers, linkers, Operating Ssystems, and simulators. I know the software life cycle very well from design/documentation all the way to maintenance on massive projects. I've had an airmen/pilot show us his physical fighter, look inside his cockpit and praise us for the systems we developed and how much of an impact it had on his safety in combat. But that was in the 80's-90's. I'm out of that now doing business ERP software. I don't know how old you are AJ, but I've probably been doing software longer than some OS'ers have been alive. I also do Linux system administration, and network administration. I won't even say your post seemed a little condescending, but I will say it wasn't necessary. My question is, why do you have to throw that design away every year to start over again. Because that was your original statement.

Scrum in this context is a specific application of agile development.

My post was condescending because I felt it was in response to a condescending post.

You don't *have* to throw away the design every year, but every year sees turnover, reorganization, technical changes, new ideas. Maybe you just revisited the old one and didn't like it, maybe a tech lead suggested changes that would make it more viable. It's hard to overhaul a feature idea without overhauling the design document.

I personally never just pulled a previous design and reused it. Given the opportunity to revisit a feature, I'm going to read the document and improve on it. I certainly never tried to lead a design I didn't write. I'm sure there've been years where they put the same design up again, but it's not that common.

I'll use another example. I'm currently writing a novel. I first conceived this novel in 1997. The story, the world, the characters... I had an outline written then. Never wrote it. I came back to it in 2008, just before I started working with EA. It got shelved when I started working my way toward becoming a game designer. Now I'm on my third attempt.

It's never the same. I never come back to the exact same outline. I grow, the story changes in my head. I have new ideas, old ideas become more solidified. My old outline seems dated.

Same with design. I had 5 different design documents for a new custom playbook system, each one with different layouts, features, etc.. When I left, someone else moved into my position. I left many designs behind when I left, and many of those ended up in the game (Play the Moments, Big Decisions, 32-man control), but certainly not in the form I designed them in. Someone else took on the project and made it their own, for better or worse.

[roadman]

Actually, Rex would post here from time to time, but much less frequent than Ian.

Back in the day, Ian received death threats and it became unruly for Ian, Kolbe and once Ian invited a animation developer and that was just ugly.

There was a lot of pent up frustration because Madden 07-09 was terrible and the exclusive license was still fresh, so to speak and the bannings began.

I want to make clear that no way am I referring to anyone currently speaking their mind on OS, but at that point in time, it was much less civil than it is now.

Plus, we have the new Senior Producer stating that they want to become more transparent with the schedules and deep dives, but they don't need to be as visible.(I don't know if that is the exact quote)