a thought on the development cycle of madden

[Tick32]

Quote: Originally Posted by albert_24

It seems that the madden team is tweaking and fixing things up until the game is shipped out to the customers. And many times QA doesn't catch a lot of bugs or glitches simply because they are tweaking and changing stuff until time of release. So I can respect that when Ian says many bugs and glitches were late occurring and didn't show up until really late in development or even when they say they didn't catch it until we do. Just my thoughts on maybe why the game ships with as many bugs as it does. Its simply because they tweak it up until the game ships.

I dont agree with that. because they are supposed to have the game tested b4 launch. thats where the testers step in. Apparently the testers may have been sleep at the controller for Madden 10, hopefully the same doesnt happen this year. Because i noticed off the bat that the pursuit angles were horrible, when i had 6 picks for 6 touchdowns

[kehlis]

Why don't they just delay it and release the game in September?

[Johnny "Too Tall"]

Quote: Originally Posted by Flamehead

I'm glad you brought this up (this is a huge hot button for me, more than any feature), though I disagree with your premise. Regardless of their reasons, the fact DOES exist that ineffective QA is a huge issue for this franchise right now and should be addressed. IMHO, it is unacceptable to say, "well, that's just the way it goes, it happens with all games" as someone will inevitably say here. I would normally agree, but the reason I reject this assertion is because with Madden, we're dealing with more than a little niggle here, or slight annoyance there. Historically within this gen's iterations, we're talking major issues that fundamentally affected this game in major ways. Examples within this gen: no fatigue, excessive fumbles, and skewed franchise stats just to name a few off the top of my head. In other words, issues large enough that one has a difficult time believing that they thought it was ok. People may not give it much thought now with the marketing campaign in full swing, but what happens in August? If it follows history, then we'll in essence get a glorified beta with the "finished" product in December via patches. So in sum, regardless of the why's and wherefore's, IMHO, they have to change SOMETHING to fundamentally address this issue effectively, or they'll be much frustration articulated in August. Unless, of course, the beta in August is an acceptable idea to the community. In which case EA has nothing to worry about.

When it comes to franchise stats it's definitely troubling. The stats have been off for 4 years. There well aware of it and when Looman tried to patch them for madden 10 i remember reading how he couldn't get it right because one small fix in one area created other problems in another. Which is pretty much what he did with the second patch. I don't think EA wants to spend the time or money to rewrite the coding for franchise stats because i don't think they see it as being absolutely necessary.

It especially troubling because its not a good sign that this year will be any different. I'm obviously speculating and they could very well fix franchise stats this year ( Lets hope!) but i definitely see it being an issue where the guys upstairs believe the cost outweighs the benefit.Therefore there's really not much looman can do.

Im going to go out on a limb and say that it all goes back to the initial foundation ( coding, whatever) they used when they began the xbox360 version. I remember reading somewhere someone from EA stated that they don't simply port the xbox version they have to rewrite the entire thing.

Again this is all just me speculating, all I know is that they are well aware of the problem but for whatever reason were unable to fix it last year. Hopefully somethings changed.

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by Johnny "Too Tall"

When it comes to franchise stats it's definitely troubling. The stats have been off for 4 years. There well aware of it and when Looman tried to patch them for madden 10 i remember reading how he couldn't get it right because one small fix in one area created other problems in another. Which is pretty much what he did with the second patch. I don't think EA wants to spend the time or money to rewrite the coding for franchise stats because i don't think they see it as being absolutely necessary.

I talked to Josh about the broken stats after the last patch at CD. Apparently, it wasn't even a stat-gen fix that caused it, it was a piece of code that wasn't part of the stat-gen itself that someone else was working on that broke it. Weird.

[Antec]

Quote: Originally Posted by kehlis

Why don't they just delay it and release the game in September?

I'm pretty sure you're joking but that wouldn't work in the long run.

It could help year 1, but then you're starting the next game a month later. Year 2 they would have to release in October, then November, etc. Come buy Madden 15 on Super Bowl Sunday!

As for the bugs, I don't think you can really blame EA that much. The Show is an amazing game and SCEA is great at what they do. That didn't stop the game from shipping with plenty of bugs and glitches. They do do a better job than EA at fixing the issues, but glitches just cannot be avoided.

You can't make a glitch free game unless you don't add anything to it. I'm sure many people will say "I would pay $60 for Madden 10 again if it had no glitches" but honestly the majority of the fan base would not. And remember things like bad blocking aren't "glitches". You need to add stuff to fix that which will lead to more bugs.

[Valdarez]

I asked Ian what development process they employed, and he said Agile. Interestingly enough, many companies that claim to be Agile really aren't, instead employing poor communication and cowboy programming techniques. In the business world, we strive for as much automated testing as possible, so if we change something and it breaks, we find out almost as soon as we check in the source code. I'm not sure if they are able to setup automated tests for gameplay. I have a feeling the answer is no. If the answer was yes, then they'd find a lot of the problems that seem to make it into a release.

[demstix]

I think to really have a good conversation about this you have to distinguish between glitches and poor code. Are the problems with Madden a case of all the different bits and pieces not working together correctly, or was the code either ommited/poorly written.

When I think glitch, i think of balls passing through defenders chests. sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't. Oddly enough these types of situations don't bother me nearly as much as the poor code written for defensive flats coverage, for example.

so I guess in short, I understand coding glitches and I'm almost inclined to give EA a pass(so long as I feel they are working on them in between games---->FYI I don't feel that they are prioritized appropriately). Things like this usually are nothing more than cosmetic and don't drastically affect overall gameplay. On the other hand broken code, to me, is something that just shouldn't happen for a game that is basically an annual update.

[Flamehead]

Quote: Originally Posted by Valdarez

I asked Ian what development process they employed, and he said Agile. Interestingly enough, many companies that claim to be Agile really aren't, instead employing poor communication and cowboy programming techniques. In the business world, we strive for as much automated testing as possible, so if we change something and it breaks, we find out almost as soon as we check in the source code. I'm not sure if they are able to setup automated tests for gameplay. I have a feeling the answer is no. If the answer was yes, then they'd find a lot of the problems that seem to make it into a release.

Great point. I'm a business analyst and our company went Agile rather than Waterfall, and the QA'ers are just as much a part of our "deep dives" as the developers. When an iteration is developed, the QA'ers test it, and keep doing regression testing as more is added.

Agile may sound great in theory, but if not done correctly, you're exactly right, it's cowboy programming.