How far along do you think EA is with development of NCAA 2010?

[doctorhay53]

Nice one Dave, lol....

[fistofrage]

Quote: Originally Posted by dave374

Done Sorry ... couldn't resist.

You forgot to add...now with broken on-line dynasty mode. Whatever features they had right this year, at least one will be broken for next year. They are probably pulling straws as we speak so see what area of working code they'll unleash the gremlins on.

[Cryolemon]

Quote: Originally Posted by dkrause1971

I am sure they could never do that or you would get screams of it being NCAA 2009.5.

That, of course, is the major problem.

[kindella2]

They already have their budget set and new features/improvements chosen according to OMT. So i would assume they are working toward implementation. They will be telling new features after January but you probably wont see anything til March.

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by doctorhay53

I disagree, but not because I think it is the tester's fault. I don't think most tester input on gameplay is taken seriously....they are testing to find bugs, not gameplay tweaks. Think about it....probably 50 people test the game. Between them, if you ask, what do you think of 'this' aspect of the game, how many do you think will say 'good' vs 'bad'? I bet you would be surprised to find that the statistics would not be convincing with such small sample. I don't think the testers input into gameplay matters much, if at all. Not because of the things you mentioned, but because there are going to be tons of conflicting results. There are people, I promise, who think that slower LB's is actually a good thing, since before it seemed you could cover anybody regardless of speed with a LB, and they played like superheroes. The problem is they downgraded their speed but that helped break zone and man coverages. There are people who play as a DL on a great team who will see no problem with QB pressure, even on heisman. It is impossible with a small number of testers to fully represent and understand the issues that we here at OS will have with the gameplay. Which is why we should just test the game

There was a poster here who said that at one time he was a tester for either Madden or NCAA, and he got reprimanded, and then later fired because he kept making too many gameplay tuning suggestions as opposed to just hunting bugs. He could have been misrepresenting things, but either way, it does seem that few, if any, testers are used in a role that improves the gameplay/A.I. of the game.

[OMT]

Quote: Originally Posted by doctorhay53

I disagree, but not because I think it is the tester's fault. I don't think most tester input on gameplay is taken seriously....they are testing to find bugs, not gameplay tweaks. Think about it....probably 50 people test the game. Between them, if you ask, what do you think of 'this' aspect of the game, how many do you think will say 'good' vs 'bad'? I bet you would be surprised to find that the statistics would not be convincing with such small sample. I don't think the testers input into gameplay matters much, if at all. Not because of the things you mentioned, but because there are going to be tons of conflicting results. There are people, I promise, who think that slower LB's is actually a good thing, since before it seemed you could cover anybody regardless of speed with a LB, and they played like superheroes. The problem is they downgraded their speed but that helped break zone and man coverages. There are people who play as a DL on a great team who will see no problem with QB pressure, even on heisman. It is impossible with a small number of testers to fully represent and understand the issues that we here at OS will have with the gameplay. Which is why we should just test the game

As far as gameplay tuning, this is the closest I've seen it speculated on. If there is a consensus opinion on something in gameplay being wrong, they will let us know. One thing you have to keep in mind is that the game is not in a state where you can fine tune the gameplay until the last couple weeks of the project. Right now, there is no way to tune the gameplay because things are constantly being changed, added, and removed. The main job of the testers is to find bugs.... crashes, broken animations, 3rd party standards violations, etc.

[OMT]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

There was a poster here who said that at one time he was a tester for either Madden or NCAA, and he got reprimanded, and then later fired because he kept making too many gameplay tuning suggestions as opposed to just hunting bugs. He could have been misrepresenting things, but either way, it does seem that few, if any, testers are used in a role that improves the gameplay/A.I. of the game.

I doubt he got fired for that. The way it sounds is that he had a very low percentage of valid bugs being entered. It is fine for a tester to put in a suggestion or wishlist bug every now and again, but if you aren't entering actual BUGS, then you aren't doing your job.

I'm not involved in the QA department (I was a tester once though), so I'm not sure what their criteria are these days for tester evaluations.

[kindella2]

i dont think even 50 people test i would say 10 max...if they used that many testers there would be enough input about various aspects of the game. thats why they opened the studio in Baton Rouge to hire more part time people to test.

They should test outside the company to get a true read on how the game is but the version should be a full version with a trial time on it. From the day they play it should be able to work about one week or 10 days. Then those persons who send back lists of glitches, problems etc should be able to get the game at a discounted rate off the EA site.

lets be honest people would test for free and i work 8-5..so why pay testers? keep that money and put it back into the budget for the game.