Madden NFL 11: IGN Preview

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by beastwork

I'm always amused when folks come to the defense of the indefensible. "oh, it wasn't really a lie because they told the lie 6 months ago" "oh, when they said it would be in it was only an alpha build. so you shouldn't have expected in the first place" "oh, well I don't care about that feature so in the grand scheme of the world it doesn't matter that its not in the game" lol, too funny

I get the same feeling when other people think their opinion is fact by using terms like indefensible.

I personally hate the word liar as much as I hate the word hate. It sounds so, 4 years old ish.

If you want to call out Ian and others as liars, have at it. Ian came on here and explained that things fell off the production wheel late.

As I said, I won't call anything an intentional lie as I don't have all the facts behind why things showed up in the final version as random or not at all.

None of us know the real reason why.

[LionsFanNJ]

I see the usual suspects are out in this thread. Typical.

[beastwork]

Quote:

roadman 12:28 PM 05-25-2010 I get the same feeling when other people think their opinion is fact by using terms like indefensible. I personally hate the word liar as much as I hate the word hate. It sounds so, 4 years old ish. If you want to call out Ian and others as liars, have at it. As I said, I won't call anything an intentional lie as I don't have all the facts behind why things showed up in the final version as random or not at all. None of us know the real reason why.

I'm not stating an opinion one way or the other, and I haven't called anyone out on being a liar. I'm merely commenting on the unitentionally humor I've found in the arguments in this thread.

Agreed words like hate and liar get overused from time to time, but if the shoe fits....

As I have to tell my girlfriend on occasion, don't get so caught up in the words that you miss out on the message. You see, she gets emotional when I use direct sometimes harsh language when making a point. I have to get her to focus more on the facts and less on the delivery.

Here is the real point. There there is some level of deception going on when this team takes great lengths to blog and produce videos about all the wonderful things that are going into the game, and these things don’t make it into the game. Whether that deception was intentional or not is not the issue. If I bought Madden 10 for in stadium chants, the bottom line is I got hosed last year. Whether it was an intentional or accidental hosing maters not.

People are paying $60 for this game because of what they read in the EA published press releases. EA owes it to its customers to be just as open about the things that are actually in the game, as they were about its “wish list” of features in the early development stages. To leave it up to the consumer to reconcile between the two is an exercise in deceit.

Now with that being said, don’t discredit what this author has written about the game until we get our hands on it. Any attempt to argue his perspective is a bit ridiculous seeing as none of us has played the thing yet. We will see if it is corrected. I’m gonna subscribe to this thread so we can revisit in August/September.

[JP_84]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

Valid points, but I will comment on the part where you say "it can seem that it should be easy to put all these things in..." the problem is that all of these basic elements have already been in football games. Madden old gen had them, and 2k did it even better in 2k5 with LOTS of sideline animations. Receivers didn't always get their feet in, but when in the proper circumstances, they TRIED to get their feet in. I think what really irks people like me, (I realize I can be vicious towards Madden at times), is that the developers still have to spend development time on these items that we had over 6 years ago. Every year EA has to work on the same basic football fundamentals over and over. How can they possibly innovate? When they waste this time and STILL don't get it right, we make zero progress in football. That's the reason why no one is "WOW'ed" by Madden even when they implement something. It's because they've already seen it done before, and usually better. Let's think about the "new" and "innovative" features from last year shall we? 1. A real pocket - Really? I still don't see one. Still the same wall in front of the QB with lineman spinning in circles 2. All new animations - Where? I remember seeing one new one, the over the shoulder catch, which happened on nearly every single pass play. All of the same tackling animations including the mid air jump tackle by DBs. 3. Gang Tackling - Hey, I'm all for pile ups and moving the pile, but what good is it if there are no double hit tackles? Once again, incomplete, already been done by 2k. Why would I be excited to see it in Madden? Not to mention, it isn't there. 4. Challenge system - need I say anything here? hasn't been touched in years. Still a piece of crap. 5. QBs losing the ball when hit as they throw - Really? A new feature? Seriously? That's really embarrassing they can say that. That's also been around forever. They also didn't do it right. No matter what angle you hit the QB, the ball floats out the same exact way every time. Physics or arm angle mean nothing. Once again, was already done... 6. Online leagues - had to wait 6 years after 2k introduced them in 2004. 7. Refs on the field - This may be my favorite. So ok, they finally added them. They still aren't part of the game, and they don't throw flags. 8. Depth of Field - APF had it in 2007, but ok, glad you could add it. 9. Stadium specific sounds/situational music - Still not in. Maybe this year? 2k5 had it in 2004. This is only a subset of the items. The list is enormous. I didn't even go into the presentation. I don't want to go backwards in quality with an item that costs me more money than it did 6 years ago. The madden developers are very sensitive because they feel like they put in a lot of hours, and they do. However, hours worked doesn't equal quality. The game is light years behind and it costs much more. How does that work? Working on one feature per year that is really not anything new does not get you respect for a severely sub par product. We all love NFL football on this board, and let's face it... In sports video games, football is king. We all want a great game. Not an "improved" game, or a "step in the right direction". We are all tired of that. EA has not delivered and has given the indication to many that they CAN'T deliver.

WOW! You have just won post of the month!
You sir, have hit the nail on the head

[aTTckr]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

Valid points, but I will comment on the part where you say "it can seem that it should be easy to put all these things in..." the problem is that all of these basic elements have already been in football games. Madden old gen had them, and 2k did it even better in 2k5 with LOTS of sideline animations. Receivers didn't always get their feet in, but when in the proper circumstances, they TRIED to get their feet in. I think what really irks people like me, (I realize I can be vicious towards Madden at times), is that the developers still have to spend development time on these items that we had over 6 years ago. Every year EA has to work on the same basic football fundamentals over and over. How can they possibly innovate? When they waste this time and STILL don't get it right, we make zero progress in football. That's the reason why no one is "WOW'ed" by Madden even when they implement something. It's because they've already seen it done before, and usually better. Let's think about the "new" and "innovative" features from last year shall we? 1. A real pocket - Really? I still don't see one. Still the same wall in front of the QB with lineman spinning in circles 2. All new animations - Where? I remember seeing one new one, the over the shoulder catch, which happened on nearly every single pass play. All of the same tackling animations including the mid air jump tackle by DBs. 3. Gang Tackling - Hey, I'm all for pile ups and moving the pile, but what good is it if there are no double hit tackles? Once again, incomplete, already been done by 2k. Why would I be excited to see it in Madden? Not to mention, it isn't there. 4. Challenge system - need I say anything here? hasn't been touched in years. Still a piece of crap. 5. QBs losing the ball when hit as they throw - Really? A new feature? Seriously? That's really embarrassing they can say that. That's also been around forever. They also didn't do it right. No matter what angle you hit the QB, the ball floats out the same exact way every time. Physics or arm angle mean nothing. Once again, was already done... 6. Online leagues - had to wait 6 years after 2k introduced them in 2004. 7. Refs on the field - This may be my favorite. So ok, they finally added them. They still aren't part of the game, and they don't throw flags. 8. Depth of Field - APF had it in 2007, but ok, glad you could add it. 9. Stadium specific sounds/situational music - Still not in. Maybe this year? 2k5 had it in 2004. This is only a subset of the items. The list is enormous. I didn't even go into the presentation. I don't want to go backwards in quality with an item that costs me more money than it did 6 years ago. The madden developers are very sensitive because they feel like they put in a lot of hours, and they do. However, hours worked doesn't equal quality. The game is light years behind and it costs much more. How does that work? Working on one feature per year that is really not anything new does not get you respect for a severely sub par product. We all love NFL football on this board, and let's face it... In sports video games, football is king. We all want a great game. Not an "improved" game, or a "step in the right direction". We are all tired of that. EA has not delivered and has given the indication to many that they CAN'T deliver.

So true. Every year since 2002 I bought Madden without even thinking about if I should buy it or not. But this is the very first year in which I just might not buy it. I'm starting to doubt that this team will ever be able to deliever a next gen football game on the level of last gen (this sounds so sad and embarassing). I don't know why and when things went so horribly wrong with the development of Madden. But the only solution for EA might be a developer switch like they did after Madden '96.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by beastwork

I'm not stating an opinion one way or the other, and I haven't called anyone out on being a liar. I'm merely commenting on the unitentionally humor I've found in the arguments in this thread. Agreed words like hate and liar get overused from time to time, but if the shoe fits.... As I have to tell my girlfriend on occasion, don't get so caught up in the words that you miss out on the message. You see, she gets emotional when I use direct sometimes harsh language when making a point. I have to get her to focus more on the facts and less on the delivery. Here is the real point. There there is some level of deception going on when this team takes great lengths to blog and produce videos about all the wonderful things that are going into the game, and these things don’t make it into the game. Whether that deception was intentional or not is not the issue. If I bought Madden 10 for in stadium chants, the bottom line is I got hosed last year. Whether it was an intentional or accidental hosing maters not. People are paying $60 for this game because of what they read in the EA published press releases. EA owes it to its customers to be just as open about the things that are actually in the game, as they were about its “wish list” of features in the early development stages. To leave it up to the consumer to reconcile between the two is an exercise in deceit. Now with that being said, don’t discredit what this author has written about the game until we get our hands on it. Any attempt to argue his perspective is a bit ridiculous seeing as none of us has played the thing yet. We will see if it is corrected. I’m gonna subscribe to this thread so we can revisit in August/September.

excellent post. I can see some of what Roadman is saying since I do not believe Ian (who is really a marketing guy) was trying to lie to anyone. However, I work for a large software company as a developer, and if you promise something to a customer in a release, and you even invest in marketing dollars to tout that feature, you better be damn sure it makes it in the release. If it doesn't you need to push out the date.

The other problem I think is the fact that EA has really lost any credibility with respect to being truthful to its customers (at least when it comes to Madden).

As far as Roadman's point of the lies being unintentional, I agree. I don't think Ian's team "wanted" to be full of crap. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter. What matters is what was in the final product (or what wasn't in )

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by beastwork

I'm not stating an opinion one way or the other, and I haven't called anyone out on being a liar. I'm merely commenting on the unitentionally humor I've found in the arguments in this thread. Agreed words like hate and liar get overused from time to time, but if the shoe fits.... As I have to tell my girlfriend on occasion, don't get so caught up in the words that you miss out on the message. You see, she gets emotional when I use direct sometimes harsh language when making a point. I have to get her to focus more on the facts and less on the delivery. Here is the real point. There there is some level of deception going on when this team takes great lengths to blog and produce videos about all the wonderful things that are going into the game, and these things don’t make it into the game. Whether that deception was intentional or not is not the issue. If I bought Madden 10 for in stadium chants, the bottom line is I got hosed last year. Whether it was an intentional or accidental hosing maters not. People are paying $60 for this game because of what they read in the EA published press releases. EA owes it to its customers to be just as open about the things that are actually in the game, as they were about its “wish list” of features in the early development stages. To leave it up to the consumer to reconcile between the two is an exercise in deceit. Now with that being said, don’t discredit what this author has written about the game until we get our hands on it. Any attempt to argue his perspective is a bit ridiculous seeing as none of us has played the thing yet. We will see if it is corrected. I’m gonna subscribe to this thread so we can revisit in August/September.

You make good points, no doubt.

I will say that I just ran across a post from the Sr. Producer , Phil Frazer, last year, that made a general statement to the people on the forum that the CD people have to keep in mind a few things;
I
If they see something not working in April, it might be working in game that ships. He also stated the reverse is true. If they see something that is working in alpha, it might not be working when they ship because of what happens in the final 2 months before shipment.

Was I upset that some things didn't come out well in the final game vs a blog in March. Yes, of course.

They are communicating things differently this year, so, we'll see what happens.

[beastwork]

Quote:

roadman 01:16 PM 05-25-2010 You make good points, no doubt. I will say that I just ran across a post from the Sr. Producer , Phil Frazer, last year, that made a general statement to the people on the forum that the CD people have to keep in mind a few things; I If they see something not working in April, it might be working in game that ships. He also stated the reverse is true. If they see something that is working in alpha, it might not be working when they ship because of what happens in the final 2 months before shipment. Was I upset that some things didn't come out well in the final game vs a blog in March. Yes, of course. They are communicating things differently this year, so, we'll see what happens.

yep programming is funny that way. They've got a couple months to work the last few bugs before its a wrap on 2011. Hopefully its enough. The Madden team suffers from over ambitiousness, limited resources, and a management structure that doesn't necessarily have the gamer's interests at the forefront. With all of that going on its no wonder some features fall by the wayside. I think I would feel a lot better about it if they took a little more responsibility when expectations change.