**I posted this on the Madden forum but it's about all EA games and I wanted to make sure hockey gamers saw this too... if the mods feel this is too much I apologize**
Let me start off this post by saying that if you don't agree with me, that's great, please respond with a thought out and constructive reply. I'm taking my time to write this out and would appreciate it doesn't turn into a flame war or a stupid argument.
My background as an avid EA gamer began with NHLPA 93. To this day I consider that 3~ years of gaming on Genesis a golden age of sports gaming. Madden was amazing and was becoming well polished, and NHL 95 was perhaps the all time climax of hockey games. Back then tho, there was no franchise mode or real depth. They were simply great hockey games that you could play for hours on end by yourself or with friends. I consider this the old era of gaming, while it wasn't perfect it had its charms.
The time from 1997~ to early 2000's was very hit and miss for me. After genesis there was no real great sports console. I played some video games on PC more than ever... especially later in the 2000's. Editing of NHL on computer was available to anyone willing to learn it, and it was very rewarding. I'd also like to make a mention and a big point here about how Sega made a huge splash with the 2k series. Perhaps this is what got EA going again in the mid to late 2000's. NFL 2k was a phenomenal series with staying power, and in my mind was better than Madden for 2 full years. Last time this happened was NFL Gameday 98 (or 97 I cant remember which). Unlike Gameday 2k and Sega looked like they had staying power and could threaten EA. Then... the NFL ruined video games by selling exclusivity to EA and killing competition.
I'm not going to drone on and on about a thousand seperate things but I'm going to tell you about a few things that EA could have done years ago to help boost the immersion of the game. I firmly believe that one important, vital part of a video game is to NOT remind players they're playing a video game. It's one thing to make a game realistic looking, but you can't stop there. So with that in mind here is a list of changes or additions that are largely easy but also could make things so much better.
1) Crowd noise. Some EA games have this better than others, but even the best of them fail. The crowd should cheer when it's appropriate and sit on their hands when they should be.
2) Eliminate canned video. NCAA is really bad for this, as is NHL. Stay with me on this and imagine it in your minds eye, I know reading this may come across confusing or not translate as well as it should.
-Let's take a NCAA entrance. All the players are already coded the same they are on field, they aren't super high def or anything. So there is code that tells them how to run out, and where to go. So instead of making a canned animation... do it like a gameplay. Players come out the tunnel and randomly celebrate as they come out. Let's say the clip takes 60 seconds... and you use 6 camera angles. You could use any camera angle in the stadium and randomly choose the order in which they appear. Now each and every entrance for the game looks different with players doing unique things (+ you can see stuff like Miamis smoke from say the 2nd deck one game and right on field level the next). I know this seems like a small change but ask yourself this, do you even bother to watch these intros? No because they remind you that you're in a game and are boring and stale after a week.
3)more Camera work
-Take my above point and apply it to game winning celebrations. Each player should have a list of 5-10 random ways to celebrate and there should be 5~ fixed camera angles or more. Mash them up, and you have unique super bowl winning sequences every time.
4) more depth for the management of your team. Why is EA removing things like medical redshirting? Academic suspensions? For Madden... I can't even count on my hands and feet how many things were removed. Stop removing features, then adding them back 4 years later as a new improvement.
5) COMMON SENSE. Each year progression for both games, NFL and NCAA is a massive headache. Here's a quick fix... take the number of players and dive by sum of the overall ratings. Lets just say that means each team is an average of 82 * 52 players... 4264 overall points per team... * 32 teams 136, 448. Great... now make a super nice and easy formula that will adjust each season to be within 2% of that number each season, and distribute the ratings evenly based on stats. DONE. No more ridiculous regression in the quality of players/teams over 5-10 years, because there cant be.
6) Common sense continued. If you can't release these games without massive bugs being reported by our community each year that are at the game breaking level (fake pump backwards for TD's each play) that means you need to start releasing a beta to thousands of people so they can play test for you. We will happily do this for free.
7) MORE common sense. If QB scrambling is too high one year, don't over compensate and make them useless one year. Same goes for defenses. For 5 years now at least over compensating has put EA in hot water every single year, especially with Madden, and its just mind boggling to think that no one has picked up on this at EA.
8) Presentation, Presentation, Presentation. NFL 2k had amazing presentation with amazing weekly wrap ups. Why is it that 5 years later on a newer gen system the Madden series is still not as good? Why is it that on NHL nothing like this exists at all?
9) Winning the big one. From Fifa, to NCAA, to NFL, winning the big one means almost nothing in game. I already covered what I think will fix it earlier when I suggested more dynamic camera work combined with random and numerous celebration styles.
I grew up loving EA games but I only buy Madden once every 2 years as do I buy NHL. NCAA has become an annual purchase because I haven't yet learned better. EA it's time to start respecting your customers and put out a better product.
Let me start off this post by saying that if you don't agree with me, that's great, please respond with a thought out and constructive reply. I'm taking my time to write this out and would appreciate it doesn't turn into a flame war or a stupid argument.
My background as an avid EA gamer began with NHLPA 93. To this day I consider that 3~ years of gaming on Genesis a golden age of sports gaming. Madden was amazing and was becoming well polished, and NHL 95 was perhaps the all time climax of hockey games. Back then tho, there was no franchise mode or real depth. They were simply great hockey games that you could play for hours on end by yourself or with friends. I consider this the old era of gaming, while it wasn't perfect it had its charms.
The time from 1997~ to early 2000's was very hit and miss for me. After genesis there was no real great sports console. I played some video games on PC more than ever... especially later in the 2000's. Editing of NHL on computer was available to anyone willing to learn it, and it was very rewarding. I'd also like to make a mention and a big point here about how Sega made a huge splash with the 2k series. Perhaps this is what got EA going again in the mid to late 2000's. NFL 2k was a phenomenal series with staying power, and in my mind was better than Madden for 2 full years. Last time this happened was NFL Gameday 98 (or 97 I cant remember which). Unlike Gameday 2k and Sega looked like they had staying power and could threaten EA. Then... the NFL ruined video games by selling exclusivity to EA and killing competition.
I'm not going to drone on and on about a thousand seperate things but I'm going to tell you about a few things that EA could have done years ago to help boost the immersion of the game. I firmly believe that one important, vital part of a video game is to NOT remind players they're playing a video game. It's one thing to make a game realistic looking, but you can't stop there. So with that in mind here is a list of changes or additions that are largely easy but also could make things so much better.
1) Crowd noise. Some EA games have this better than others, but even the best of them fail. The crowd should cheer when it's appropriate and sit on their hands when they should be.
2) Eliminate canned video. NCAA is really bad for this, as is NHL. Stay with me on this and imagine it in your minds eye, I know reading this may come across confusing or not translate as well as it should.
-Let's take a NCAA entrance. All the players are already coded the same they are on field, they aren't super high def or anything. So there is code that tells them how to run out, and where to go. So instead of making a canned animation... do it like a gameplay. Players come out the tunnel and randomly celebrate as they come out. Let's say the clip takes 60 seconds... and you use 6 camera angles. You could use any camera angle in the stadium and randomly choose the order in which they appear. Now each and every entrance for the game looks different with players doing unique things (+ you can see stuff like Miamis smoke from say the 2nd deck one game and right on field level the next). I know this seems like a small change but ask yourself this, do you even bother to watch these intros? No because they remind you that you're in a game and are boring and stale after a week.
3)more Camera work
-Take my above point and apply it to game winning celebrations. Each player should have a list of 5-10 random ways to celebrate and there should be 5~ fixed camera angles or more. Mash them up, and you have unique super bowl winning sequences every time.
4) more depth for the management of your team. Why is EA removing things like medical redshirting? Academic suspensions? For Madden... I can't even count on my hands and feet how many things were removed. Stop removing features, then adding them back 4 years later as a new improvement.
5) COMMON SENSE. Each year progression for both games, NFL and NCAA is a massive headache. Here's a quick fix... take the number of players and dive by sum of the overall ratings. Lets just say that means each team is an average of 82 * 52 players... 4264 overall points per team... * 32 teams 136, 448. Great... now make a super nice and easy formula that will adjust each season to be within 2% of that number each season, and distribute the ratings evenly based on stats. DONE. No more ridiculous regression in the quality of players/teams over 5-10 years, because there cant be.
6) Common sense continued. If you can't release these games without massive bugs being reported by our community each year that are at the game breaking level (fake pump backwards for TD's each play) that means you need to start releasing a beta to thousands of people so they can play test for you. We will happily do this for free.
7) MORE common sense. If QB scrambling is too high one year, don't over compensate and make them useless one year. Same goes for defenses. For 5 years now at least over compensating has put EA in hot water every single year, especially with Madden, and its just mind boggling to think that no one has picked up on this at EA.
8) Presentation, Presentation, Presentation. NFL 2k had amazing presentation with amazing weekly wrap ups. Why is it that 5 years later on a newer gen system the Madden series is still not as good? Why is it that on NHL nothing like this exists at all?
9) Winning the big one. From Fifa, to NCAA, to NFL, winning the big one means almost nothing in game. I already covered what I think will fix it earlier when I suggested more dynamic camera work combined with random and numerous celebration styles.
I grew up loving EA games but I only buy Madden once every 2 years as do I buy NHL. NCAA has become an annual purchase because I haven't yet learned better. EA it's time to start respecting your customers and put out a better product.
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