To Ian Cummings EA...level with me on this one

[K_GUN]

healthy debate


i think one could peer into the alternate universe through the "MLB series"

that 'engine' appears to be a holdover.....and while it is a top notch basbeall machine it is held back with player models (some will argue there is no issue with the player models---fair enough)----and 'signature style' animations because the 2 are tied together

also the fielding mechanics.....becoming stale

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by K_GUN

healthy debate i think one could peer into the alternate universe through the "MLB series" that 'engine' appears to be a holdover.....and while it is a top notch basbeall machine it is held back with player models (some will argue there is no issue with the player models---fair enough)----and 'signature style' animations because the 2 are tied together also the fielding mechanics.....becoming stale

not to turn this into an off-topic debate about the Show series, you are absolutely correct in your assessment, but one could argue that holding those things back has been good for the series because you look at what all they've been able to add in these first couple of years(robust franchise mode, progressive lighting(1st part of two), new animations, new stadiums, LED scoreboards, amongst tireless other things). They took the time to capture the essence of their respective sport before they prettied things up. Unfortunately, Madden has taken the exact opposite approach thus far.

[Ian_Cummings]

Great question.

If we'd stuck with the old school animation engine (and not switched to ANT), we would have a much more seamless transition to next-gen. In hindsight, we should have done this, and had a smaller team spend multiple years switching everything over to ANT. That's what FIFA did BTW, and you can obviously all see how things have gone for them.

ANT wasn't really mature technology when we took it - so we burned a whole lot of time on stuff that was really unstable. Imagine trying to add a new pass animation to the game, but you can only add 4 before the tool runs out of memory and crashes. And imagine having to wait 4+ hours to export your new animations to see them in the game. That was the kind of stuff we were dealing with. Add to the fact that the game itself was TREMENDOUSLY unstable due to our new graphics engine and the new hardware...the 360 itself was very immature too ya know. Every new revision of their SDK would break our game all over the place. Man I get chills thinking about working on that game.

If we hadn't switched to ANT at all, and stuck with the old stuff, we'd be VERY limited technically now. No procedural awareness, no breakaway animation engine, no branching wraps, no sharing with other teams, and no other new stuff that we're doing this year (that's really big in the land of animation). Our old engine / tool did a few things really well, and did everything else pretty poorly.

I feel the animation engine that we're on is the right one - it's just that we switched at the wrong time. For next-next-gen, whenever that may be, we will definitely not switch animation engines on ship. If there's something better out there (which I can't foresee at this point after evaluating nearly every animation system across the industry), then we'd branch a team off and take a multi-year approach instead of cramming it all in to one year.

FYI - the "sim gameplay experience" comes mostly from tuning, not from low level technology. The reason I don't think it's really been focused on in next-gen so far is mainly because the team didn't tune the game that way, not because of any real technology limitations.

[Boucher]

Wow thanks for the explanation ian

[rhombic21]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

FYI - the "sim gameplay experience" comes mostly from tuning, not from low level technology. The reason I don't think it's really been focused on in next-gen so far is mainly because the team didn't tune the game that way, not because of any real technology limitations.

Not that I know anything about programming, but I tend to agree with this statement. I am hopeful that as Madden and NCAA both "mature" on the PS3/360, you guys will be able to spend more time/energy tuning gameplay to create a more realistic experience. For NCAA to a larger degree (although also with Madden), I have felt like several years there have been glaring issues that ended up in the ship version of the game that could have been pretty easily corrected if more time/energy had been budgeted to gameplay tuning during the development cycle. I would be interested in hearing how you guys go about gameplay tuning. Who playtests the game, and how do you come to decisions about how to tweak/tune things?

[mgkibbles]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

Great question. If we'd stuck with the old school animation engine (and not switched to ANT), we would have a much more seamless transition to next-gen. In hindsight, we should have done this, and had a smaller team spend multiple years switching everything over to ANT. That's what FIFA did BTW, and you can obviously all see how things have gone for them. ANT wasn't really mature technology when we took it - so we burned a whole lot of time on stuff that was really unstable. Imagine trying to add a new pass animation to the game, but you can only add 4 before the tool runs out of memory and crashes. And imagine having to wait 4+ hours to export your new animations to see them in the game. That was the kind of stuff we were dealing with. Add to the fact that the game itself was TREMENDOUSLY unstable due to our new graphics engine and the new hardware...the 360 itself was very immature too ya know. Every new revision of their SDK would break our game all over the place. Man I get chills thinking about working on that game. If we hadn't switched to ANT at all, and stuck with the old stuff, we'd be VERY limited technically now. No procedural awareness, no breakaway animation engine, no branching wraps, no sharing with other teams, and no other new stuff that we're doing this year (that's really big in the land of animation). Our old engine / tool did a few things really well, and did everything else pretty poorly. I feel the animation engine that we're on is the right one - it's just that we switched at the wrong time. For next-next-gen, whenever that may be, we will definitely not switch animation engines on ship. If there's something better out there (which I can't foresee at this point after evaluating nearly every animation system across the industry), then we'd branch a team off and take a multi-year approach instead of cramming it all in to one year. FYI - the "sim gameplay experience" comes mostly from tuning, not from low level technology. The reason I don't think it's really been focused on in next-gen so far is mainly because the team didn't tune the game that way, not because of any real technology limitations.

Thanks for the insight Ian.

[cdon2k]

I personally am FOR new technology. I like the idea of working on it in the background while using the old tech for the first one or two editions on next gen.

That said, I appreciate all that next gen has brought us even if the gameplay isn't stellar. When I buy a new system, I want next gen graphics, but it seems like The Show is the best example of how to up res for the first version or two, and then blow out the game in the third year.

[Golden28]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

Great question. If we'd stuck with the old school animation engine (and not switched to ANT), we would have a much more seamless transition to next-gen. In hindsight, we should have done this, and had a smaller team spend multiple years switching everything over to ANT. That's what FIFA did BTW, and you can obviously all see how things have gone for them. ANT wasn't really mature technology when we took it - so we burned a whole lot of time on stuff that was really unstable. Imagine trying to add a new pass animation to the game, but you can only add 4 before the tool runs out of memory and crashes. And imagine having to wait 4+ hours to export your new animations to see them in the game. That was the kind of stuff we were dealing with. Add to the fact that the game itself was TREMENDOUSLY unstable due to our new graphics engine and the new hardware...the 360 itself was very immature too ya know. Every new revision of their SDK would break our game all over the place. Man I get chills thinking about working on that game. If we hadn't switched to ANT at all, and stuck with the old stuff, we'd be VERY limited technically now. No procedural awareness, no breakaway animation engine, no branching wraps, no sharing with other teams, and no other new stuff that we're doing this year (that's really big in the land of animation). Our old engine / tool did a few things really well, and did everything else pretty poorly. I feel the animation engine that we're on is the right one - it's just that we switched at the wrong time. For next-next-gen, whenever that may be, we will definitely not switch animation engines on ship. If there's something better out there (which I can't foresee at this point after evaluating nearly every animation system across the industry), then we'd branch a team off and take a multi-year approach instead of cramming it all in to one year. FYI - the "sim gameplay experience" comes mostly from tuning, not from low level technology. The reason I don't think it's really been focused on in next-gen so far is mainly because the team didn't tune the game that way, not because of any real technology limitations.

As always, concise, intriguing and incredibly honest.
It's this sort of forum interaction that has me completely sold that Ian, Phil and the team (Even if not on this outing) will eventually create the best football game ever, with no issues or glitches, that we have ben craving for so many years.
Excellent stuff Ian.
Congrats on Deportivo's win too. Good to see our American cousins embracing our national game 'soccer' just as we embrace yours