Phil Frazier answering questions in the EA forums!!

[djordan]

Im glad Phil is back developing on the XBOX 360/PS3 versions of Madden. He seems more in touch with the football aspects than David Ortiz. I will Bold the cool ish..

EA Forums: Introduction ...

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As some of you have noticed (thanks for the PM's), I have gradually shifted from just lurking on the boards to starting to become more active. I'm very interested in the feedback from our community and figure the best way to get constructive feedback is to become more active. Over the next months I'll do my best to answer as many questions or concerns you may have. I won't promise to answer every single question or thread. Let's not forget that my full time job is working to finish Madden 09. Look forward to chatting with you more. Phil Frazier aka Fillycheze

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tmccormi, We're very aware of the glitches are have already eliminated tons of them from the game. I know for certain the WR jetpacks is addressed but I'll have to check on LB Reactions. Any more details on what that means? Re: Presentation. It's already been announced that we're changing up our announcer on 360 and PS3 this year. Maybe that's a hint of more presentation changes to come for Madden 09. Phil

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PastorPPly11, I've seen the thread you called out. Quite a fun thread. Our roster team is currently working on our first pass on the rosters for 09. Here are some of the key factors that go into the roster, not in priority order of course: 1. Previous performance - Fairly straightforward 2. Injury Factor - Was the guy recently injured, coming off injury, ect... 3. Future Prediction - This is the most tricky part. We actually look at the team a player is on, their schedule, and supporting team players. 4. Subjectivity - There is always an element of subjectivity. All of these come together into our final rating. We are looking at and considering all of the feedback on the boards. I can't promise that we'll making the exact changes that have been requested though. We do appreciate the ratings feedback. Re: Jet packing - Yes, this particular issue is already addressed.

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I'll do my best with these questions. Re: Pocket - This falls under the realm of gameplay tuning and is something we're trying to accomplish. Re: Collision Animations - Can't discuss specific animation enhancements yet. We've made good progress with our animatino system in general though. Re: Refs - We have seen the many posts that clearly indicate the fact that refs on the field is important. That being said, we have not added refs to the field during gampley in Madden 09. I do understand why many consider this an important detail so I'll make sure it's discussed as we start to talk about Madden 2010, which is very soon. I do feel like we've made significant improvements (details coming soon) to the overall level of presentation in the game this year. I hope you are all as happy as we are with the changes that we made.

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smokecapone, Re: Online Gameplay - Probably not. Giving automatic wins and skill points when somebody quits could very easily turn into a cheat tactic. We also agree that playing against the CPU isn't fun. This is why we try to penalize the quitting teams to discourage this sort of activity. If you have specific ideas on how to prevent cheating while also giving a quick win, I'm all ears. Re: Online Leagues - Unfortunately, you'll have to keep guessing for now. Information our specific online features will be released very soon. Re: Skill Points - Just like gameplay, we're always making tweaks to this forumula. We'll certainly do our best to prevent people from leveling up by playing only low ranked opponents.

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thebummannnnpdro, Re: Speed of game - We are doing many comparisons of game speed vs. what we now call legacy gen. We agree that the PS2 and XBOX games felt great. This is something we're confident we can solve this year. Re: Anyone Can Win? - Your other two questions were very similar. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I think Madden is very much in the realm of Halo when it comes to stick skill. The folks that compete and win Madden challenge events don't get there by winning the random game. Lastly, Madden sells to millions of people each year. Knowing that, it's very difficult to make a game that appeals in every way to each and every one. We work hard to design features that appeal to hardcore guys (like you all on the boards) as well as people that may be intimidated by the game. Phil

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OG Henny LOC, Re: Team Uniforms - We just did a comparison of the Madden uniforms vs. the uniforms that teams wore last year. As many have noted, we had several mistakes. We're on top of this now and are working to make sure the teams in the game wear the uni's that they most often wore during last season. Phil

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smokecapone, Thanks for your suggestions on the disconnect issues. We'll get the d/c glitches fixed this year and will consider some of your suggestions. Re: Replays - My PR friends may get mad at me for doing this but I'll answer this question directly. We aren't going to officially announce it for some time but because you guys are the hardest of harcore, I'll give you the advanced notice. Madden will be supporting saved replays this year. We loved this feature in NCAA and couldn't wait to get it into the game. It's working now and is fantastic. I'm pretty sure our QA team is almost always hiring. That's how I got my start at EA 11 years ago. Check out jobs.ea.com to see if there are any openings near you. Phil

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thebummannnnpdro, Re: John Madden - I can't yet comment on how John will be used in the game. He is back but I doubt you would expect the way he's used. Re: Online Lag - As stated in another question, we are aware of the lag issues and are doing everything we can right now to fix for 09. Re: Ps2 - Do we care about PS2? Very much so. We have a full team dedicated to PS2 development. That project has it's own designers, engineers, and artists. That product is getting it's own enhancements this year. Phil

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RaidersMike, Re: Fatigue - Fatigue will be a factor in 09. I'll make sure our QA team is aware of the QB issue you mention. Re: Spectacular Catch - This was considered by many to be a glitch last year. We're addressing it. We'll still have the rating, but have tuned the catches so they aren't as powerful. It wasn't a problem with the rating itself, just a bug really. Outside of that, you mention a variety of tuning needs for the game. We have two designers assigned to tuning gameplay right now so you should see improvements all over the field. Phil

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Fred28Taylor, Weapons will still be present in Madden 09 but I can't go into details quite yet on changes. The same is true for achievements. We're aware that some think achievements in Madden are lame and are trying to design them to be more fun this year. Phil

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doctornextlevel, Yes, this is Phil Frazier. You take the award for the longest post of the day. I don't mind people being critical of Madden. Believe me when I say that some of the most critical people work in our building. I san say that very few people in the building now were happy in any way with Madden 06 or 07. We do feel 08 was a huge step in the right direction. 09 of course is looking to be even better. I'll do my best to answer your questions sir. 1. Referee Situation - I wasn't involved in the NG version of Madden 06 when this was decided so I can only generalize these types of decisions. This could have come down to a couple of key factors. First and probably most important, game speed. Madden in 06 ran at 30FPS and took a fair amount of work to keep at that speed. Having the refs on the field , and running some custom ref AI, would have hurt our ability to hit the FPS target. There's also the chance that the designers that year didn't think refs on the field were important. It was likely a combination of the two. We are very aware that the community wants this back and it's already on my list of possible additions for 2010. 2. Graphical Detail - The fact that the game went to 60FPS and the graphics took a step backward isn't a coincidence. Improving framerate requires us to find new and cheap ways of using the hardware. We learned a lot last year and as a result have applied those learnings to Madden 09. If your opinion is that Madden 07 looked the best, then I'm confident you'll be more than pleased with the graphics of 09. 3. Exaggerated Animations - Yes. We agree and are trying to tune these down. 4. O-Line - Sounds like you were a fan of slide protection. We were too and have added this to Madden 09. Just don't tell anyone yet. 5. Sliders - Sliders are an important part of our featureset this year. Knowing that, I expect our sliders to have more control over actual gameplay. 6. Uniform Accuracy - There is one primary reason for our uniforms being innaccurate. We receive official style guides from the NFL each year that details the uniforms that the teams are supposed to wear. The problem is, the teams then ignore the style guides and mix and match their own combinations. This year, instead of using the NFL styleguides the team is using game footage to note which combos NFL teams actually wear. I'm confident we'll be MUCH more accurate this year. 7. Lighting - There's some friendly competition between the Madden and NCAA teams. We're hoping that the extra month of development as compared to NCAA will result in even better looking lighting. Look forward to some snow screenshots in the future as proof. 8. Hall of Fame - I actually hadn't seen the post you referenced. I'll pass along this point to our QA team so they can track all of the issues. 9. Annoying Cameras - We have all new cameras tis year. The camera you call out specifically should be gone. Hopefully you don't find the new cameras annoying. 10. Brady - I'll make sure a bug is entered about this. 11. Weather - This is looking awesome this year. I've already asked marketing if we can show what a snow game looks like via screenshot. I hope to be able to release a screenshot of snow games very soon. I'll get to your second post as soon as possible Dr. Appreciate the comments and feedback. Phil

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by djordan

Im glad Phil is back developing on the XBOX 360/PS3 versions of Madden. He seems more in touch with the football aspects than David Ortiz. I will Bold the cool ish.. EA Forums: Introduction ...

thanks...




Very much looking forward to July and August of this year, especially now that Phil is back aboard the Madden train....

[green94]

No refs again... not a big deal for me but some people are going to be po'd. Probably meaning NCAA won't have them as well.

As always, another year... .another wait and see.

[Scott]

Seems promising...but we'll have to wait and see..

[DocHolliday]

blah. Didnt seem like anything crazy. if someone told you this was an interview from 06 would you be able to tell their lying?

I doubt, but hopefully Im wrong.

[djordan]

Quote: Originally Posted by green94

No refs again... not a big deal for me but some people are going to be po'd. Probably meaning NCAA won't have them as well. As always, another year... .another wait and see.

We'll atleast he put it out there no so people wont bitch...Even thought they still will...

[Scott]

Quote: Originally Posted by DocHolliday

blah. Didnt seem like anything crazy. if someone told you this was an interview from 06 would you be able to tell their lying? I doubt, but hopefully Im wrong.

Glad to see your being optimistic.

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by green94

No refs again... not a big deal for me but some people are going to be po'd. Probably meaning NCAA won't have them as well. As always, another year... .another wait and see.

at least he mentioned it and imo, if you read between the lines, they didn't view the refs on the field as something that important. Just my thoughts.