Ok so , im just curious , can we have a intelligent debate about how every single year , madden comes out , there are always alot of issues, that somehow "slipped" past their testers before they release their game. It seems every single year, this is an issue , and they have to have patch after patch after patch. I personally only play Online CFM, and dont care about nor play anything else, if not for that i wouldnt even buy Madden. Im just wondering , why EA wouldnt let us help them , AHEAD OF TIME. Why not put out a beta a month before release , and let players pick 1 area they want to "help test". Like if your mainly a MUT guy , you get to test out MUT, if you into offline CFM, you test out only that, If your online CFM guy, u just test only that. To me this seems like it would benefit them greatly, seeing as how the people who actually turn on the game and use these modes seem to find the flaws fairly quickly and easily. Not to mention , its basically free testing for EA. It would give them a month to make the real fixes they need to before its release. Thus giving a better overall happiness with customers, thus creating better word of mouth advertising( which is also free) while helping them create a better game at launch , thus actually helping sales , instead of reducing them . Why is this so hard to do /understand , it could really help sales. Its pretty clear either their current testers arent doing their job, or some of these issues can only be found when numerous people are using the item from different places. Either way , it would give them a much better test for bugs process than what it currently is. Am i the only one who thinks like this?
-
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
Nothing you describe is free, distribution, even QA of beta builds, etc, are all additional costs. No matter how this is framed, it doesn't make much sense for them to give away early copies of the game for play testing. -
Re: A serious debate about Madden
No, because what you are suggesting has been suggested since video games have come out.
I recall people were calling for the same thing when High Heatball was made on the PC. High Heat Baseball was considered to be a sim baseball game, but with a lot of bug issues.
We live in the world of patches of yearly sports games. It's not going to change. Even NBA 2k last year had VC and server issues.
10 million eyes are better than 1,000 eyes, sadly.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
Remember the days of old when games release dates were not set in stone. The release date would approach and it would get pushed off a week or 2 because there were bugs. Now they just release it and say "yea there's issues, we are working on a patch". Basically saying here's a broken game but we will eventually fix it since we have your money now lol.
Sorry I love Madden and all but I was 1 of those rare people who didn't have a problem when a games release date was pushed off. Now a days most sports games announce the delivery date 6 months in advance and stick to it no matter what.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
The bugs in Madden take two eyes. Playcall glitch almost every single game, h2h cfm games not counting, unlimited confidence by shuffling depth chart, awful commentary, etc. are not exactly latent defects.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
I feel you OP and something like this would be nice, imo, maybe one day if some company leads the way, others would follow suit. Until then though, it's likely status quo and some kind of cost benefit analysis. As long as the status quo is widely accepted and doesn't impact sales too much, that's likely what will continue to be done.
In the case of Madden there is also the obvious element of no direct competition, which likely widens the range of known shippable issues. I agree with your general point and think something like you're suggesting is a win/win for gamers and company sales but not seen as a necessity.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
This.
I think the root of most of Maddens issues, and bugs/glitches specifically, are the because 1 thing and 1 thing only: RESOURCES.
For whatever reason EA does not devote enough resources to bug testing and QA. Good examples are like: the wind arrow being backwards for 3 years, the much touted sim engine improvements having a glitch at launch, poor implementation of the financial changes to CFM, legacy issues like OPI/DPI penalties never getting called, the white sleeve glitch for 2 years.... ALL of that stuff. They know about it. But resources are never dedicate to fixing it.
Who knows why.
Maybe it's Dev Team laziness, or lack of coding knowledge. Or maybe they are specifically told by executives not to fix known glitches and to work on new features instead. Maybe it's a combination of all 3.
But it's been this way for a decade and the entire last gen on PS3/360.
Madden will never implement user beta testing, they would need put additional $$$ or resources into it.
And even if they did, the Dev Team might not have to technical skills to implement changes noted by beta testers anyways.
I think Madden is what it is, and has been, for a decade. With the current landscape I don't see this changing anytime soon. It's a decent product, it won't get worse, but I wouldn't bet on it getting better. And certainly don't expect it's propensity for glitches to change.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
Just speculation, but I think the biggest problem is how much money they actually make off the game. They absolutely rack, and even though WE as a group complain, they dont really have an incentive to make substantial changes. I'm not even going to touch MUT, and I dont want to offend anybody that likes that mode, but man... Anyway. Lets look at everything that has been omitted from CFM lately. Actually, lets start with the fact that they rolled all the old modes into simply one "CFM"? instead of fleshing out create a player, and franchise mode as individual, they just mush them all together. Secondly, with regards to coach/owner mode: back and front loaded contracts, stadium editor, holdouts, actual draft busts, uniform editor, playbook creator (where you move the individual X's and O's around a field)... I can go on and on. At the end of the day, I truly believe, at least in some capacity, that the Madden dev team loves football and wants to put the best game out that they can, but they are clearly hamstrung. Until EA sports doesnt have an exclusive license, or they see a significant dip in sales (~30%), I think what we gripe about will be lost in the mix. Just one mans opinion.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
Based on the in-game credits, Madden NFL 15's total QA staff for PS4 / XBOX One is well over 100 people, closer to 200 and possibly even 300. I admittedly lost count. The point being that there are plenty of eyes on this game before it gets into the public's hands.
None of the above. It's because things like fixing a specific glitch with equipment get pushed so far down the priority queue that they don't get touched year-over-year. Other bugs which we the consumers never hear about and never see - because they get squashed during the QA process - take priority, and rightfully so because the things that get priority are bugs which outright cause the game to crash, corrupt a game save, or cause a competitive exploit for a server-dependent game such as online ranked matches, Connected Franchise, or Ultimate Team.Maybe it's Dev Team laziness, or lack of coding knowledge. Or maybe they are specifically told by executives not to fix known glitches and to work on new features instead. Maybe it's a combination of all 3.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
HEY, HEY, HEY you can't use the "B" on here! The game isn't broken, it just needs tweaking.
In all seriousness I agree with you completely, if the game isn't ready don't release it. But that will never happen, especially with Madden because the release has to correspond with the start of the NFL season.WHO DAT! | GEAUX TIGERS! | LET'S GO RANGERS!
"If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?" -TucoComment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
By the same token, back in those "good ol days", patches did not exist because there was no such thing as an internet-connected video game console. Once a game was released, that was it, you're stuck with whatever bugs are on the cartridge or disc.
The video game industry has also grown up a ton since the 1990s, there's so much more money involved now. A decision to delay a game is no longer something a AAA studio can make on a whim.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
A: They release the game before its ready, and then they use sites like this where users identify the issues that they find while playing the game in the first few weeks.
Then, EA fixes it (after we complain) via the QA and Devs they currently have on their team, without having to hire more people (which would mean if they simply just hired more QA/Dev folks, these issues would be fixed BEFORE released to the public. But that would cost extra money).Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
i mean , i guess i see other games out there put out betas for people to test things for them, seems like a win /win situation. They get more eyes looking for issues, so they can find them sooner and get to working on a fix , before a game comes out , then when they put out a game that dont need numerous patches right out the box, word of mouth spreads, and soon they would be selling even more copies than the do.One poster here said , the wont be giving out free copies of the game, i never said that or suggested it . They can make it a time limit , say 1 week . after that you cant go back into it again. I just feel like we need CFM players looking over CFM , MUT guys looking over MUT , and etc. Those are the peps with the most experience with those modes and know what to be looking for. And as mr Hoe stated, things sure was different back in the good ol days , and you was stuck with what came out. Heres my thing, we live in a new day , where they could get 100s of 1000s of their customers to look over a game for them, thanks to the internet , and really have a good spectrum of what needs attention. I just think its a win /win for both company and consumer. But really at the end of the day, it really is all about money, and EA could give a flip less most the time when it actually comes to the customer. Not saying the devs, but the suits who run the company.Comment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
If they really do have 100+ people in a QA environment and they still let these bugs in CFM just pass on through, they either don't have a good understanding of what should happen in the game, or they just did a really bad job. Or EA just doesn't give a hoot and pushed it out knowing full and well that the problems existed. Kinda think its a mix of both.
I just find it hard to believe that over 100 pairs of eyes didn't see these problems. Maybe they had huge problems we don't know about that everyone focused on. Maybe they're ignorant to football in general. Maybe they had extremely limited time. Who knows? We sure as hell don't, it's just insanely frustrating seeing these game experience ruining problems exist year in and year out while we get the "We're looking into it" bsComment
-
Re: A serious debate about Madden
I have always thought this. They just don't know football. If not for people wanting realism they would just make blitz every year. They want fun and opening day sales. They paid a lot of money to be the only game in town. I do believe people played it, tested it, and loved it, high fived each other and said "they are going to love this" and everyone does. It typical gets a 7.5 to 9 rating every year and people flock to get it. If you want realism. those days are over. The madden team doesn't know enough about football to ever understand.
Now the Show, nba 2k, sports games like this seem to have guys that bleed realism, most realistic sim plausible. Madden team doesn't even want ccm, or offline play. They want Mut (I've never even played) and online. Judging by what I've read cause I don't enjoy playing 10 year old quitters, it seems they have made an amazing product.
I had the first madden on a black and white computer where you picked the plays and it ran them. I've played them all since. The last one I remember being offline real and fun was 2005. It's been gone since. Online killed the offline player. Just like video killed the radio star.
It may be time for me to be done as well and grow up, listen to my wife. Sell the systems. Be a man............ NahComment
Comment