What Are You Guys Thoughts On The Maddenation Interview?

[Graphik]

Quote: Originally Posted by baa7

Wow... Larry, Curly and Moe are still alive?! Unbelievable

Good description of them. Everyday I come home from work, they are huddled up to the tv watching/playing NBA Live, NCAA or Madden. When I speak about EA fanboys, I feel I have a ton of credibility from dealing with these 3. I try to talk real life sports with them and they base every player off of how EA rates them on the game. Really sad if you ask me.

[cheddabob7502]

Nza you have very good points in your post. But they never really worked on the xbox. They never really pushed the limits to the system. So how would we know how madden would play if they maxxed out the xbox. You should've used Splinter Cell as your example.

But the thing that bugs me is those damn mo-cap sessions. Yeah they did it first maybe but they should use real players that are good. Like Mcnabb or ray lewis last year or Vick. I think its EA's fault for being cheap and using actors instead of real players. Thats gonna get them in the long run IMO. Plus IMO the running game is what needs to be adressed in MADDEN. I think they did pay attention to it and i think it will get better. Now if they come up with an excuse about this hardware not being capable of doing these things we address and notice well then we should just not buy A NFL game again.

[coogrfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Graphik

Good description of them. Everyday I come home from work, they are huddled up to the tv watching/playing NBA Live, NCAA or Madden. When I speak about EA fanboys, I feel I have a ton of credibility from dealing with these 3. I try to talk real life sports with them and they base every player off of how EA rates them on the game. Really sad if you ask me.

Wow, I'm seeing your longstanding anti-EA crusade in a whole new light...

[cheddabob7502]

Quote: Originally Posted by Graphik

Good description of them. Everyday I come home from work, they are huddled up to the tv watching/playing NBA Live, NCAA or Madden. When I speak about EA fanboys, I feel I have a ton of credibility from dealing with these 3. I try to talk real life sports with them and they base every player off of how EA rates them on the game. Really sad if you ask me.

Oh my goodness. I feel sorry for you. Maybe take a girl over or something and to base players of EA is really mind boggling. That must really suck when you start talking to them and they start off "IN madden they..." i think you know what i mean. Good luck with those 3.

[Graphik]

Quote: Originally Posted by pfunk880

Great post. Yeah, I found the part about the 15 sliders funny as well... "We’ve added extensive customization options to game play, including selections of AI sliders for offense, defense and special teams. You can tune how well players block to how often players knock passes down vs. intercept them. I believe we have 15 AI settings, and each one is settable for the player and the CPU separately." Umm... couldn't we do all that already?

What I got from the interview is that this guy, I guess he is the lead designer, is'nt very much in touch with his development teams. It seems as if he gathered a bunch of notes and proposed answers for whatever they threw him beforehand.

[Nza]

Yeah I know they never pushed the boundary of the Xbox, but the main point i'm trying to make is this engine, currently, is not next gen, not without a real time physics engine.

It may turn out great - i'm not bagging out the game. I'm mearly displaying my point that no real time physics = not a "next gen" engine.

As far as I see it, you have 5 factions to a game engine - Output, Sound, AI, Input and Animations/physics. The ATI GPU takes care of most of the output. Sound is a null point. AI can be system demanding on a CPU - i'll give them that, particularly with 22 human simulations. Input is a null point.

That leaves animations/physics. That, in a fundamental sense, hasn't changed at all for next gen. Don't confuse better captured animations with an enhanced trigger system as a change. It is mearly enhancements.

So, we take away the cosmetic visuals and you're left with an engine that is primarily the same as our last - fundamentally. As I said, the game could rock, but the engine (i.e. not the visuals) we'll be experiencing in a few weeks is an engine we could have had years ago, potentially barring serious AI improvements, which i'd have to see to believe.

And you know what's scary? They've already said this is the engine they want for 10 years. They might add real physics, but from what I understand, an animation system change would be a huge project to undertake in a year's time. Maybe if they made two Madden's - one for retail, one for internal use that see's all the new features of the retail but has real physics that they work on for a few years. However, they've neglected to do it already so I'm not confident it is something we'll see with Madden, personally.

He did at least mention pile on tackles. With tricky coding, we could see a pretty good simulation of real physics kinda like what we saw with ESPN but more advanced - maybe that's what they'll be using all that CPU power for. It would do fine, but it wouldn't be true to what they could have achieved.

[Graphik]

Quote: Originally Posted by coogrfan

Wow, I'm seeing your longstanding anti-EA crusade in a whole new light...

Yes, I've mentioned my guys before in previous EA mumblings. They are the true definition of the target audience EA tries to reach. They dont tweak sliders, they dont care for previews/reviews/Q&As, they dont even watch the real sport these games are sopposed to represent. All they care about is that new shiney white box with EA on the cover. Its all they know.

F'ed up thing is that I'm the one responsible for their EA addiction. Back during the Genesis era, I was once a hapless EA drone and all I needed in life was a bright new shiney white box with EA on the cover and I was set. I got them into the EA way but I've since moved on to become more open minded about the competition. As for them, they still live in a closed minded EA world where they have no clue that Live's players ice skate over the court, that Marrio running is'nt normal and that QBs are sopposed to set their back foot before they throw. I guess you dont notice these things unless you pay attention to the real game.

So when I speak on EA and how they've subliminally manipulated the gaming population into buying whatever they drop, I speak from experience. There are alot of closed minded gamers out there who are afraid of change. They want whatever EA gives them because they've already tuned their brains to know what to expect.

[NCHelix]

Quote: Originally Posted by Graphik

Yes, I've mentioned my guys before in previous EA mumblings. They are the true definition of the target audience EA tries to reach. They dont tweak sliders, they dont care for previews/reviews/Q&As, they dont even watch the real sport these games are sopposed to represent. All they care about is that new shiney white box with EA on the cover. Its all they know. F'ed up thing is that I'm the one responsible for their EA addiction. Back during the Genesis era, I was once a hapless EA drone and all I needed in life was a bright new shiney white box with EA on the cover and I was set. I got them into the EA way but I've since moved on to become more open minded about the competition. As for them, they still live in a closed minded EA world where they have no clue that Live's players ice skate over the court, that Marrio running is'nt normal and that QBs are sopposed to set their back foot before they throw. I guess you dont notice these things unless you pay attention to the real game. So when I speak on EA and how they've subliminally manipulated the gaming population into buying whatever they drop, I speak from experience. There are alot of closed minded gamers out there who are afraid of change. They want whatever EA gives them because they've already tuned their brains to know what to expect.

Yeah....that.....

OR, it might just be possible that expectations for EA are always way too high. Maybe people need to take a look at other videogames on the market and see how close to real life they are and THEN judge Madden on it's technological mishaps, rather than assuming that Madden should nail down every single aspect and part of real life.

In the end...it's just a videogame and always will be.