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NCAA 10 vs Madden, EA and other issues.
First thing, I have played, coached and watched football at all levels From elemetary school tackle football in oklahoma to semi-pro in Germany(yes) and Colo. I have played video football since the handheld blip games and that rollerball game they had at bowling allies. Tecmo bowl to Ncaa 09 on console.
I am a computer science major. I dont know everything. Everybody is entitled to an opinion. I just want to give my insight and prespective on a few things.
The first thing is Next Generation.
Next generation was going from cartridge to cd(SNES, Sega genesis to dreamcast, playstation) A true upgrade in the size of a game as well as cpu power.
Next we went from cd to dvd(PS2, xbox) again an upgrade in size and power. The next jump to 360, ps3, we got an increase in power but did not increase the size of the game data. We still work of dvd size games, even on the ps3. we get a bluray disc with a dvd size game on it. So in truth you could really only get the same product as last gen in a game if you kept the graphics the same. Ncaa07 showed you what the graphics could look like, but that took up the whole dvd. So they cut features this generation and reduced the graphics until they could learn new ways to stretch the dvd size code.
Ps3 exclusive games are the only true next generation games because the use a full blu ray disc. MLB the Show downloads a 3.2 gb file to your ps3 just to play it. Because third party cross platform games have to use the same code, the dvd limit of the 360 is firm. So those wanting next generation will need to wait for microsoft to use a bigger capacity disc player.
Madden gets all these improvements and NCAA doesn't.
Marketing 101 says you have to create brand separation on 2 different products you produce.
Nissan will never advertise that a top of the line Altima, a Maxima, and an Infifnity are in fact the same car. They will highlight areas in each one. Crest will never tell you that all their toothpaste they make is the same, they highlight the differences.
Ea will never tell you that Ncaa and Madden are the same and really don't want you to think so. Madden sold 5.5 and Ncaa sold 1.6 million last year. Many of the thousands of people who did buy both, would not have bought both games if they were marketed to have all the same features. The dev team has given us guys a lot of hints that go against the marketing strategy, and told you Pro-tak and other things are in Ncaa and madden. You dont see that advertised in 98% of the press releases. So madden and Ncaa will share some things and nobody will mention it at all just from a business stand point.
Online dynasties are full of cheese players
First you have to define cheese. The true term we should use is exploit players. Just because your qb runs, or you throw screens doesn't mean unrealistic play. If guys are using exploits that is the problem. Most dynasties have rules and the commish enforces them. On the gamespot/gamefaqs board we still had 15 dynasties running in March. And if you missed out you missed a true competitive experience, even if the game was flawed. We all had the same handicap. You still came to the line and showed blitz and audibled to zone after the other guy sends his wr in motion. Looking for that bad read you could take to the house the other way..
Every exploit can be stopped in Ncaa 09 with the right call and players. That was the fun of online dynasty. The chess match. pursuit angles are not an issue if i am controlling the chaser. most players avg over 5 sacks a game with out exclusive blitzing. Screens are easy to read and stop, unless its harvin or macklin, who could and would break it in real life.
As a computer science guy I don't know their specifics in programming, but as someone last week posted, I know the rules and procedures to implement season showdown and teambuilder take or took very little resources. Getting five staduims updated with current graphics, took more space than the teambuilder and season showdown code combined. And season showdowns core is in 09, user picks and all that is not new. You get points for user picks, user sacks and other things in 09, and a text box pops up in 09 just like it will in 10.
Nobody i know who went to Wash St, or San Diego St or is from Indiana or from New Mexico will choose Florida as their favorite school. They will use Florida in a online Dynasty or to use in online games, but very few if any will turn their back on their school or their home state. All wins you get with Florida or whoever you use will go to your favorite school anyway.
The other thing season showdown will do is create a vitual online dynasty for everyone. If i go to Iowa St i can go to the season showdown lobby and find the whole lobby wants to use my opponent because its their favorite school. The week Iowa St plays Iowa, you will not have to play guys who only use Fla or USC. The whole Lobby is only Iowa fans, using Iowa in the online matchup against Iowa St. Every week its a new fan base and new opponents.
If you think this wont hit, look at any post on this sight that is talking about overrated or underrated teams and loyal fans and see how many of us hardcore season showdown haters represent our schools. Look at everybodies Avatar. Fla fans are the loudest because its their time to shine, but there are over 500 other colleges out their. That's who Ea is going for with Ncaa 10.
What the community wants.
A guy posted that all the guys on the board should influence EA. The most i have seen on this whole site(it tells you in the top right corner of the page) is 1200. Even if you double that and times it by ten more boards, thats still only 24000 hardcore fans. Ea sold 5.5 million copies of Madden and 1.6 million copies of NCAA. They value our impute but we don't speak for everybody. Their are proabably more 8-10 year old kids who will get NCAA for Mascot mashup(which is only one 99 rated team with different art swaps that takes a day to put in. This is in the info page straight from the developer) than the 24,000 hard core guys posting on forums.
Most of the improvements in Ncaa 10 are geared toward the online community and casual fan interaction. Every thing i have seen will make the 413 games i played in online dynasties better in many areas(gameplan, Adaptive AI, Pro-Tak). The game sucked in 09 offline and proabably wont be that much different or be an improved offline dynasty experience in ncaa 10. sliders did work to an extent in 09 to make the game better but still used unrealistic events to balance the game play(super RB, Qb who couldn't throw straight, even dumber defense, greased pig animation ect...) so i dont count on that as a fix.
The Football games Ea has produced have not been what we want. Ea has not been able to develop a good next generation with the same dvd size.
A positive might come from the nfl union contract that will expire in 2011. Without a union contract Ea probably wont get an exclusive game contract. It looks like their will be no football in 2011 since the owners want to reduce salaries and revenue sharing and the networks will be paying the tv money regardless if there are games or not .( if there are no games the networks will still pay and receive a credit for future games they televise.). The owners will get paid and wait out the players in a lock out/strike. So a strike might just bring back 2k sports as the competition in the sim football market.
My main point is, we as a hardcore community are small, but we could be heard if we come at them with realistic ideas and know what's going on. We all know you stop listening to people that say dumb a$$ things. Don't have the developers tune us out by posting dumb a$$, uninformed posts.
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05-25-2009, 05:18 PM
