Regarding editing equipment and other observations...

[BGSU98]

Quote: Originally Posted by Resin

And you know how easy it would be to drop in that interface, eh? Tell me... what db software, what interface software, etc does EA use? Oh, and if you're a software engineer then you know about bugs and the time required to implement a feature. And you know how much an engineer (plus artist etc) is paid to implement said feature.

They use Oracle 9.2/SQL for database management. They code the games in primarily in C++. All of this can be gleaned off of EA's job site. They don't use some 'secret' software. Thanks!

[Bears_16_and_0]

im a cs major and i dont care about editing equipment (i dont think ive ever done it) nor do i own an xbox 360 and heres my take:

you already have player editing, you already have equipment, you already have a working program that lets you edit equipment (current gen). I couldnt see it taking more than an 8 hour work day to put in equipment editing. The time consuming things would all be in the GUI (graphical user interface), but that wouldnt take much more time anyway. plus you wouldnt have the GUI programmer wasting time on this stuff instead of working on player AI or something anyway.

Like i said, I dont care either way but it isn't really something that is so complicated that it is excuseable or resonable not to be in the game. It isn't like dynasty mode or something, it is something rather trivial

[bkrich83]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bears_16_and_0

im a cs major and i dont care about editing equipment (i dont think ive ever done it) nor do i own an xbox 360 and heres my take: you already have player editing, you already have equipment, you already have a working program that lets you edit equipment (current gen). I couldnt see it taking more than an 8 hour work day to put in equipment editing. The time consuming things would all be in the GUI (graphical user interface), but that wouldnt take much more time anyway. plus you wouldnt have the GUI programmer wasting time on this stuff instead of working on player AI or something anyway. Like i said, I dont care either way but it isn't really something that is so complicated that it is excuseable or resonable not to be in the game. It isn't like dynasty mode or something, it is something rather trivial

I don't know how much real world software you have developed. But in my experience, it's all about time management. Now sports games are very unique in that you have a very 'hard' completion date, due to them being so seasonal.

I imagine what happened is that on the list of things to do an equipment editor was low on the priority list and they ran out of time. Or, for whatever reason it broke something, and due to time constraints instead of fixing it, they simply removed that feature.

[Bears_16_and_0]

yeah, but getting down to the actual implementation though... it basically comes down to setting a few variables that ALREADY exist (because every player already has the ability to wear equipment) it isn't groundbreaking.

perhaps if people put all equipment on every player it would lag the graphics ingame or something.

im guessing that they just never tried to implement it.

[bkrich83]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bears_16_and_0

yeah, but getting down to the actual implementation though... it basically comes down to setting a few variables that ALREADY exist (because every player already has the ability to wear equipment) it isn't groundbreaking. perhaps if people put all equipment on every player it would lag the graphics ingame or something. im guessing that they just never tried to implement it.

Or as I said, just not high on the priority list, and they simply ran out of time.

Personally, I don't know, nor do I care..

[Bears_16_and_0]

exactly, which points to the crux of the whole problem with sports games being stagnant in general. If the extra 4 hours of work is going to make or break your deadline, you have not enough programmers spread far too thin on something that rakes in a ton of profit everyyear.

I just really don't want to see this next year on the back of the ncaa box:

- Customize the looks of your players on the field!


when it is something that didn't take much work to add then we are supposed to be rejoicing when we get it wrapped up and sold to us in a brand new $60 shiny box. just kinda venting on the state of sports gaming in general. I really really really hope we see a shift to a new game every 2 years with the standard of broadband connectivity that all the systems basically have now. Charge us $80 give us 2 years of current rosters and get your **** together before you put it back out or else the titles will eventually collapse under their own weight. Hell, hire twice as many programmers and double the price of the game. we are already paying $50 (now going to 60 next gen) for games that are essentially the same, so i dont think getting someone to pay $100 for a new NCAA that is twice as good as the last years would be out of the question...

Every year the programming gets more and more complicated yet the deadline stays constant, something has to give.

[Resin]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bears_16_and_0

exactly, which points to the crux of the whole problem with sports games being stagnant in general. If the extra 4 hours of work is going to make or break your deadline, you have not enough programmers spread far too thin on something that rakes in a ton of profit everyyear. I just really don't want to see this next year on the back of the ncaa box: - Customize the looks of your players on the field! when it is something that didn't take much work to add then we are supposed to be rejoicing when we get it wrapped up and sold to us in a brand new $60 shiny box. just kinda venting on the state of sports gaming in general. I really really really hope we see a shift to a new game every 2 years with the standard of broadband connectivity that all the systems basically have now. Charge us $80 give us 2 years of current rosters and get your **** together before you put it back out or else the titles will eventually collapse under their own weight. Hell, hire twice as many programmers and double the price of the game. we are already paying $50 (now going to 60 next gen) for games that are essentially the same, so i dont think getting someone to pay $100 for a new NCAA that is twice as good as the last years would be out of the question... Every year the programming gets more and more complicated yet the deadline stays constant, something has to give.

Stick to Computer Science, my friend! You gotta be a business major or an actuary if you want to determine if doubling your staff and price point will net you the same or more money.

Edit: I do like your idea of 2 year development cycles with roster downloads.

[jonesha2000]

Quote: Originally Posted by BGSU98

OK, here's my take on the situation: Editing equipment could have easily been added to the next-gen 360 version. In fact, I would expect them to add ALL the features of the previous games - not take them out. If you take a look at this from a coding perspective, it's quite simple. When editing player names, you are basically making read/write instructions to a database entry (be it Oracle, Access, etc.). We're talking very few lines of code here. Editing the equipment would be the same idea. The only thing they have to write is the front-end (the stuff you see on screen) that interfaces with the database, AND since they already allow editing of names, the base class is pretty much already written for you. Why wouldn't they add editing equipment in? Why don't they allow player names online? The only reason I can think of for them scaling back features is marketing. They can't come up with more ideas to market this game for the duration of the next-gen consoles. So, they scale the game all the way back and slowly add features in each year. Furthermore, since there is no competition, they don't have to worry about losing the fanbase. With no other company to push them, why wouldn't they be content with scooting by with "just enough" each year? Just my thoughts.....

A bro, I'm right behind you. I don't think it's rocket science either. If they can implement the options in the current gen, surely they can add them in the 360 version. Like the other guy was saying, they already have the code to allow players to wear equipment, how hard can it be to edit? I would literally have more respect for EA if they just came out and said they flat out forgot to add that option rather than saying it would cause slow down or some other excuse..that's nuts. And then they charge us $10 more and tell us to beat it...