Ian or Phil- Question about Madden/NCAA philosophy

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by rhombic21

This is another example though where it's not clear why the feature is in one game and not the other. Again, if you want us to believe that the mantra for both teams is "realism", and these features are having a significant impact on gameplay, then there's no clear reason why they would be included in one game, but not in the other. Why, for example, aren't these things in Madden?

I'm not trying to dodge you here, but I don't know nor can I talk to NCAA's 'mantra'...I just know ours and that's what I'm focused on. As to your question, things like home field advantage and motivation IMO aren't core aspects to NFL football. I don't necessarily think about players getting frazzled, blowing assignments all over the place, and having low motivation levels all due to a hostile environment when I think about the essence of the NFL (though I think that rings pretty true when you think about collegiate athletes). Now to be clear, I definitely think that stuff would apply in the pros, and I wouldn't mind if those were eventually brought over (and obviously re-tuned for the pro experience), but those features aren't 100% free. They don't drop right in...there is development time associated with bringing them in. So as a design team, when we weight that time against other things that we feel are core to pro football (and there are many of them left to do), and things that we feel are more important than those, then that's how the decision gets made.

As for the rest...all great points and questions, and you'd need an NCAA team member to answer them. Sorry man.

[jfsolo]

Eventually we'll know all the new features that are in NCAA, and we'll be able to see how they've tuned the game, but in the interim we can only engage in wild speculation as is standard message board protocol.

Based on the way the game was tuned last year, simulation/realistic gameplay didn't seem to be that big of a priority for the NCAA team. Hopefully things have changed.

I think some of us were hoping that Ian or Phil had the clout to say to the NCAA team "You must use this gameplay newness because without it your game will be much less realistic, and we want your game to keep pace with what we're doing with Madden."

[GKEnialb]

Is a similar approach used between the different studios / different platforms? OMT has said that nothing at all is shared with the Wii, for instance, but there are definitely identical bugs that occur between the PS2 and it that are very likely to have been independently coded...

[JAYMO76]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

I'm not trying to dodge you here, but I don't know nor can I talk to NCAA's 'mantra'...I just know ours and that's what I'm focused on. As to your question, things like home field advantage and motivation IMO aren't core aspects to NFL football. I don't necessarily think about players getting frazzled, blowing assignments all over the place, and having low motivation levels all due to a hostile environment when I think about the essence of the NFL (though I think that rings pretty true when you think about collegiate athletes). Now to be clear, I definitely think that stuff would apply in the pros, and I wouldn't mind if those were eventually brought over (and obviously re-tuned for the pro experience), but those features aren't 100% free. They don't drop right in...there is development time associated with bringing them in. So as a design team, when we weight that time against other things that we feel are core to pro football (and there are many of them left to do), and things that we feel are more important than those, then that's how the decision gets made. As for the rest...all great points and questions, and you'd need an NCAA team member to answer them. Sorry man.

No disrespect intended Ian but I must disagree with you on one point. I believe that HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE is a huge factor in the NFL. Up until this year good luck going to Seattle and coming out with a victory. As well, New England, Green Bay, etc. It is very tough to go into a lot of stadiums and win. The crowd plays a huge role and players do talk of intimidation factos in stadiums.

However, where I believe the HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE is most needed... in the playoffs. Please tell me the EA plans to make home field advantage a factor in the playoffs