Known Errors with Madden 10 release

[steelers1216]

Quote: Originally Posted by rckabillyRaider

No offense bro and this is a serious question............is not having flak jackets a deal-breaker for you?

not. at. all.

my gameplay questions have already been answered, so now im asking questions about the little things i would like to see in the game. if colored cleats got in because their voices were heard, why not flak jackets and back plates? same thing. hell, they got LT facemask in the game, and only one player wears it, flak jackets are different. about 85-90% of QB's wear one, i think it should be a must to be in the game, that way the QB's wont have that )( look, but instead the real look, l l, like that. and one more thing that would actually rather have than flaks and backplates, are WIDER SHOULDER PADS, they just look too squished in, they need to be wider

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

Agreed that a lot of things pop up after release that we didn't know about. We hate that as a development team, but the amount of man-hours spent in the game on in the first day of Madden's release dwarfs the amount of work we spend the entire year on the game as a team. We are aggressively pursuing ways to make sure big issues don't appear - the early community day was one such example this year...a 'beta' test is something we always want to look into for the future (couldn't happen for Madden 10 unfortunately...we didn't have enough time in the plan to get this done). I have however been sort of loosely planning a thread or post to go ahead and set expectations and talk about some of the key areas/features we weren't able to address or areas we as a team think still need improvement. As I've said before there are quite a few features that did not fit in our official schedule but we were hoping to pull off some superhuman efforts to get them into the game. So as we final the game and I can say with certainty what features did or did not make it into the shipped/disc build of Madden 10, I want to share that with you guys so it's not like you're surprised by reading a review or when you put the disc in. Let's be clear - there are areas that we know will not make people happy with some of the news we release. No game is perfect, and though I feel we have made some MAJOR strides to Madden this year, there are also some areas that I am not totally satisfied with. It's the hardest part about finaling video games - having to finally give up and accept that feature X isn't making it - but the good news is that since the interaction between the team and the community has been so strong this year, the hope is that everyone can see what DID accomplish, and balance that against what didn't make it in, realize that we are all moving in the right direction, and still enjoy Madden NFL 10 since we all think it's one hell of a great game. There is no doubt that some people will be unhappy, and I just know we can't please everyone all the time (especially with this gigantic user-base), but I think we all agree that it's best that we get it out into the open and talk about why certain decisions were made and then we can all kind of collectively talk about the best solutions moving forward. I would say we as a team aren't doing our jobs very well if you have no clue why major wishlist feature X wasn't added to the game, and you can only speculate that "ZOMG the Madden team is a bunch of idiots, they don't even watch football, 2k5 rulz, blah blah blah".

Very honest and respectable answer. This is the first time that I can recall you indicating that the game might not live up to everyone's expectations. While many marketing departments will virtually shut down the concept of admiting weakness, in an ongoing title where you have repeat customers it's quite honestly the best thing you can do as it assuages the customers that their voice and their concerns have been heard even though they have yet to be met.

My take, just based on the big ticket items, and the fact that you have branched out with new features in addition to attempting to catch up with the other titles is that you have a three year window to close the gap from a simulation, presentation, immersion, and online standpoint unless EA is willing to give back some of that cash cow money to your dev team, which doesn't look to be the case thus far.

I had to dig this quote up from a couple of weeks ago, but it seems to aptly sum up Madden's hurdles in the fewest amount of words.

Madden is a game in crisis, a creation inhibited by it's own success, crippled by the complexity from a legacy code base, and burdened by game design sins of the past.

A game in crisis in the sense that the game appears to be going through an identity shift from a NFL arcade game to a true NFL Simulation game. While EA isn't in fire mode trying to increase sales, sales aren't a crisis. Sales could be better, but they obviously aren't going to make or break the series at this point.

It's very difficult to make those changes to shift the identity of the game to simulation when you have such a huge base that is so used to a certain type of game play. There's a danger that goes along with the changes, so perhaps the slow introduction of changes is a good thing. Too swift a change could result in a back lash, forcing the company to stick with the status quo.

The legacy code base seems to be one of the issues I have seen brought up on more than one occasion. At some point, you have to rip code out and throw it away due to integration points, new technology available, or so many fixes simply make it unusable. General life of a system in the internet space (non brick and mortar stores) is roughly 3 years, which is a pretty small window. I imagine video games are roughly the same or shorter, but Madden seems to have somehow extended the window, and while they have probably saved the company money, this has only been to the detriment of the series due to the complexity of adding in new features.

Many of the problems you are trying to solve, could have been solved half a decade ago. They aren't technology constrained, simply idea or decision constrained. Vision and the desire to see it through will always trump technological limitations.

Game play, animations, presentation, and online are the keys to winning over the 2K crowd. Right Now I see game play improvements (but not quite there), minor animation improvements (worlds away), presentation improvements (not enough info to gauge), and online improvements (rumored, but not enough info to gauge).

I don't know a lot about game engines, but there's definitely a difference between EAs and 2Ks animation/rendering engines. 2Ks animations, when in motion, consistently look better regardless of the game.

Looking forward to hear what did, or did not make it, and finally getting an idea of what's causing the dropped frames I'm seeing when I play the game.

[lint]

As a software developer I can attest to defects....

They get in, no amount of testing you can do can equal 1million people playing the game for 1 hour.

Since I came into the industry about a year ago, I started to understand that I want nothing to do with video game development.

Horrific hours, up and down industry, did I mention Horrific hours?

I love coding, but I want nothing to do with a gold releasing game.

[lgxjames]

That was one of the most honest apologetic pieces I've ever seen Ian write, Can't help but feel some people are really going to need to save that post to the desktop as some might really have there balloon busted.

...Loved the post! I def will have a open mind if indeed it is me who feels unsatisfied

[green94]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

"ZOMG the Madden team is a bunch of idiots, they don't even watch football, 2k5 rulz, blah blah blah". Launch is going to be fun.

This seriously made me lol.

[steelers1216]

Quote: Originally Posted by green94

This seriously made me lol.

yea, me too, but the best part is that he is 100% correct. i loved APF 2k8, i still play it, but im not one of those people who just say that 2k is best, and no one is better, because its not true. and i hate to say it, theres gotta be a reason why it hasn't had the success that madden has had. i hope that madden 10 is the 2k killer, i want true football, thats all...............and flak jackets (but seriously i do...)

[Perfect Zero]

Quote: Originally Posted by steelers1216

yea, me too, but the best part is that he is 100% correct. i loved APF 2k8, i still play it, but im not one of those people who just say that 2k is best, and no one is better, because its not true. and i hate to say it, theres gotta be a reason why it hasn't had the success that madden has had. i hope that madden 10 is the 2k killer, i want true football, thats all...............and flak jackets (but seriously i do...)

Three letters, NFL. Come on, give people credit for some brains to think logically.

[steelers1216]

Quote: Originally Posted by Perfect Zero

Three letters, NFL. Come on, give people credit for some brains to think logically.

im not talking about the last 5 years bud