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

[OMT]

So to address the topic at hand...

We are a little more than halfway through the Production period of the game. Production is when the task list has been finallized, the engineers have done their research and written their technical designs, and everything is actively being implemented.... coding, art, DB updates, tuning.

We will continue through this until I think the end of February. Then we enter the Alpha phase of the project. This is when everything has been completed and we spend 60-80 hours a week in the office just fixing bugs. We'll do this for like 8-12 weeks... I'm not sure what our final deadline is (and it has some wiggle room if we are behind). The goal is to get everything completed and polished in time to hit our street date (generally around the same time every year.. don't know what the plan is this year yet).

It actually takes quite some time from final date to street date. We have to get it tested by EA central QA, then tested by Microsoft and Sony, then manufactured, then shipped to stores etc. It takes like three months!

Just curious...

Is it standard for most sports video games to have such a lengthy bug fixing process?

[rudyjuly2]

Is there time budgeted this year for an earlier Community Day event where feedback can still be implemented into the final version?

[cartmanclone]

Quote: Originally Posted by OMT

So to address the topic at hand... We are a little more than halfway through the Production period of the game. Production is when the task list has been finallized, the engineers have done their research and written their technical designs, and everything is actively being implemented.... coding, art, DB updates, tuning. We will continue through this until I think the end of February. Then we enter the Alpha phase of the project. This is when everything has been completed and we spend 60-80 hours a week in the office just fixing bugs. We'll do this for like 8-12 weeks... I'm not sure what our final deadline is (and it has some wiggle room if we are behind). The goal is to get everything completed and polished in time to hit our street date (generally around the same time every year.. don't know what the plan is this year yet). It actually takes quite some time from final date to street date. We have to get it tested by EA central QA, then tested by Microsoft and Sony, then manufactured, then shipped to stores etc. It takes like three months!

Interesting...

Now what I want to know is what type of improvements are y'all working on in terms of gameplay

[kindella2]

LOL at trying to sneak one in...March is when you will find out.

[OMT]

Quote: Originally Posted by 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.

Because testers are needed on site and year round. They need to be testing the game 8-12 hours a day. Why pay testers? It is a real job. If we were to send out to volunteers a build right now (which we couldn't do because they won't play on your console), you wouldn't be able to play one game. There is so much craziness going on in there right now your head would spin!

And I just checked the credits from 09 in the DB.. looks like we had about 60 testers on it.

[OMT]

Quote: Originally Posted by stewaat

Just curious... Is it standard for most sports video games to have such a lengthy bug fixing process?

Yeah. It is based on the scope of the game. Because we are a yearly title, our bug fixing process is a pretty short period of time. Most big titles spend 3 years in development, so I imagine their bug fixing period is 3 times as long as ours.

[kindella2]

thanks for clearing up my disbelief...