Back to Our Roots!

[Rashad19]

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I agree they would still buy it. But what I'm getting at is, we are asking EA to change their entire process of doing what they do and that's where the sticking point is. The consumer isn't the issue. We are asking them to put in X amount of work and change things drastically from one year to the next and the marketing team and executives have a different question. You can best believe one of their questions is, is all that extra work going to move more units? It's a calculation on risk and return. Secondly and I would say never forget this, Tecmo Bowl is the formula for just about every game that was made. Tecmo Bowls formula = Fun First, everything else is secondary. It wasn't a very realistic game but it was fun for the time. That's the reason why they are marketing the things that they are marketing in the weekly gamestop updates. I look at it and shrug my shoulders. I won't call it useless, but I understand what they are doing. Even with the Gillette stadium trailer look at what they are doing. End of the trailer shows Randy Moss doing the Soljah Boy. With that TD celebration alone they've already sold over 2 mil units LOL.

I see what your driving at! I'm a business man myself so I can see thier thought process but they should not get to comfortable because in the end you are only as good as your product. If 09' fails to deliver with all the attention and hoopla surrounding it their sales are going to take a major hit from here on out.

[Nza]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rashad19

Quote: Originally Posted by Nza The only way this will ever change is if the customer base shifts, or if the NFL decide they want a proper video game attached to their name. So let me get this straight? The majority of Madden's customer base(casual gamer) would not purchase this game if more realistic and sim style animations and features were added? I really don't think they would notice the difference myself. They would play the game anyway because it would be the only NFL experience available to them.

That's not the point. The point is making that change to Madden will cost time and money, and the return just won't be there with increased sales for their efforts. Basically, the amount of people who don't buy Madden because it isn't realistic enough is too small to warrant a shift in the series focus. It's possible EA get proactive and make the change before it becomes a problem for them, but that doesn't seem likely as it probably won't ever become a problem.

Madden is what it is, and there's really no need for them to change the series in any fundamental way. When we look at 08's lower sales, we think "that'll teach em, now they will focus on making a more realistic game", but the top guys at EA are probably actually thinking "how can we make this game more mainstream and more accessible so this doesn't happen again", because that's where the money is. Even if 08 dipped in sales because of the hardcore sim demographic not buying it anymore, they'd still probably try to recover those sales the easiest way possible - and lets just say that isn't by revamping the AI, franchise mode CPU team management logic and physics engine.

[seanmac]

Quote: Originally Posted by LBzrule

I agree with everything you said except for your notion of getting back to the roots. The fundamental assumption is the game in its current state is radically separated from its roots. I would contend that it is not and that the way the game is now is the way it has always been and probably much worse. The Madden game has never been concerned with realistic QB drops. Its blocking scheme was taken straight out of Tecmo Bowl, which is why you get the same mechanics of stick blocking or you get a majority of defenders bowling over offensive linemen and into the backfield for the play and vice versa, Olinemen just flattenting Dlinemen and the back is gone for the TD. Just like Tecmo Bowl the long ball has always been an infatuation. Special teams used to be much worse than they are now. There is a video on youtube that shows some things that would drive us wild, the thing is though I did it as a kid and had fun doing so. As a kid when I played my cousin, dropping back 20 yards was the norm. I have little cousins now who do the same thing and they have not played online and have not seen anyone else play. So they haven't copied the behavior. I think if we all go back to our adolescent days of playing these games, we will see all the stuff that we currently hate as a part of our own behavior of playing these games. And if not ours, someone that we played the game with. Here is the kicker. You say return to the roots. I would contend that the game hasn't moved far enough away from its roots and that's the reason why the game is the way it is right now. It is a very conservative game that has kept the same formula that it began with. Per the argument that uses the online crowd and the tournament players as a scapegoat for the reason why the game is bad. I would say their play style might be annoying, but a play style cannot be carried out unless there is a game that allows that play style to be carried out. And when you look at this game all of the current tricks have always been there even before Tiburon came on board, before Visual Concepts came on board, before Trip Hawkins little company came on board all of this stuff was there (on the Hawkins comment I am referring to a game play that was already in the air before Madden was made - football games have always been about fun first. The very first Tecmo Bowl was an arcade game that was composed of 2 teams). The 20 yard drop backs, the sticky blocking, instant blitzes, 3 play offenses that will have you in tears. It's always been there. In that regard madden mimics its predecessor, the timeless classic Tecmo Bowl. Developers have their patterns and processes of how they go about doing these games and the games that have come out every year shows me that these patterns and processes have not changed and most likely will not change, so we might as well accept what is, with more polish and small incremental upgrades or forget it.

So true. You know it's funny, I didn't realize just how bad the blocking algorithms were in Madden until recently. Or rather, I knew they were bad, but I didn't realize that the OL/DL interaction consists ENTIRELY of 1-on-1 matchups. But I've taken to going into the replay mode after every play and poking around, and it's amazing to watch guards with no responsibility just stand around instead of doubling a man. They literally never help out. They just stand there and wait for another OL to get beat (which will happen shortly), then they try to engage the defender by taking a bad angle and lunging. It's basically the football equivalent of a the bad guys surrounding Bruce Lee and then going after him one-by-one. It's absurd. It's also why you don't see any proper throwing lanes in the blocking scheme.

When you actually get under the hood, it's stunning just how poor or non-existent the interactions between offensive and defensive players are.

[SageInfinite]

Quote: Originally Posted by seanmac

So true. You know it's funny, I didn't realize just how bad the blocking algorithms were in Madden until recently. Or rather, I knew they were bad, but I didn't realize that the OL/DL interaction consists ENTIRELY of 1-on-1 matchups. But I've taken to going into the replay mode after every play and poking around, and it's amazing to watch guards with no responsibility just stand around instead of doubling a man. They literally never help out. They just stand there and wait for another OL to get beat (which will happen shortly), then they try to engage the defender by taking a bad angle and lunging. It's basically the football equivalent of a the bad guys surrounding Bruce Lee and then going after him one-by-one. It's absurd. It's also why you don't see any proper throwing lanes in the blocking scheme. When you actually get under the hood, it's stunning just how poor or non-existent the interactions between offensive and defensive players are.

Yes. The player interaction is terrible in Tiburons football games. That comparison video to APF says it all.

[Rashad19]

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PHP Code: Yes. The player interaction is terrible in Tiburons football games. That comparison video to APF says it all.

After I watched the comparison video I was amazed by the fluid movements of the QB's, OL/DL, and WR/DB interactions in APF. It was a real eye opener!!

[sois]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rashad19

I think the more we make our case for why Madden should play more sim and outline them in an intellectual manner others will have to take notice. The funny thing is the closer we move toward a sim style game atmosphere, presentation, and franchise modes would naturally fall into place. For example, imagine your on your opponents goaline on the road in a hostile playoff enviorment. You call a HB dive in the huddle...at the snap of the ball both the offensive and defensive fire off low submarining with the intent to get underneath the others pad level. Your back crashes into the line and you lose site of him in the pile of bodies. At this point both referees come running in peaking in the pile pulling away bodies in order to make the proper call. The refs make one final check with one another and in unison "Signal Touchdown"! You hear the collective groan and air escape the stadium. The offense erupts with joy while the defensive players plead thier case to the refs looking and pointing to the jumbo tron. The next cutscene shows your coach signaling he wants you to kick the extra point while the sideline erupts behind him. The next cutscene would show the opposing teams QB start to warm up and review the list of plays on his wristband with his Offensive coordinator. That's the level of detail we should be seeing at this point.

Tecmo Super Bowl had this in 1991