Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

[ChaseB]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

I think another thing that irks a lot of the people who commented is that outside of 3-4 sticky threads, we cannot mention any glitches, or our posts magically disappear.

Yet, day after day, articles that praise the game appear on the main page. I really love OS, trust me, but it gets harder and harder to want to read the forums when the only opinions that are allowed to be expressed are positive ones.

Also, the fact that EA developers are participating on the site now coupled with the "censorship" that may or may not be happening just makes things really uneasy for people. Remember when MLB 2k6 was a completely broken game? I know the site back then was different, but that whole forum was complaint after complaint. And it was justified! Just because a few devs are here doesn't mean we have to cater to them. While NCAA '09 might not be as broken as that game was, it has more flaws than it should.

So do you know who take that problem up with as it relates to moderation? I'm not familiar with it because I don't handle any moderation stuff, but do you know who to talk to if you feel you're being wronged? I mean I assume the mods aren't so unyielding that they wouldn't at least talk with each other to make sure they're doing right by the community if many people felt wronged.

Quite frankly,

I do not understand how the tone of the piece is not recognized immediately as condescending. Words like "soap opera and panic button" infer that the complaints are unfounded. I agree people sometime fly off the handle when game bugs are found, and this NCAA release is no exception. But this happens with every sports game, every year and it is not an OVEREACTION like the author tries to portray.

I think the most upsetting part to me is the part that says:

After the eye of the storm passed, the other problem became abundantly clear: the evil roster glitch. And if you want to see panic, then look no further than a bunch of guys that are without real-life named rosters during NCAA release week.

"Something that is free and provided by ordinary people has become the biggest part of the game to many, and when it was found that the game would freeze, and created names would not work properly, well that is when things really hit the fan."

The game costs $60+ and it is a feature that is expected to function correctly. Whether or not someone takes their time to make a personal roster and share it with others has nothing to do with that $60 price tag.

I guess I need to go back to my basketball forum for some sanity.

I think he's just hitting on what you mentioned, that there is a general hoopla every year and he just accentuated that a bit. I didn't think it was meant to be condescending though.

The free thing I don't see as an issue. It is a thing most people do for free, which is awesome. And he does say it's a big part of the experience for many (including me when I bought NCAA in the past). Eye of the beholder though and if you feel that way that's totally alright.

[thmst30]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Chase we love you man, keeping it real in this thread and taking everything in stride.

Now as for the complaints about the OS Review score. The thing about reviews these days that I find so wrong is that, as you stated, its ONE persons OPINION. Thats not what a review should be, it should hardly touch on the writers opinion at all. A review is a place to put down the straight up facts about a game, both the positive and negative, and then let everyone decide for themselves if they will buy it. EVERY review site out there today is guilty of loading up the reviews with their OPINIONS and leaving many FACTS out. Leave your opinions at home or post them in the forums, for the review we just want the writer to lay it all out on the table and thats it. Again, its nothing against the reviewer or OS, everyone out there is guilty of destroying what reviews are supposed to be about.

[867-5309]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Stop posting review scores? Who cares if you are not listed at Metacritic or gamerankings. I have yet to have someone explain to me what the difference between a 8.5 and a 8.4 rating is? They are for the easily amused.

Daily Radar (US version), long gone, did it best.

Direct Hit - Hit - MISS - DUD

Forces the read to concentrate on the review text, instead of an arbitrary score.

Also for the people posting the likes of the Bill's (Abner and Harris) you have to realize that they do not speak for the majority of gamers. They make some of the hardcore blush. Sure fix the problems, they are there in spades but love it or hate it, they are games. Games are supposed to be fun. Call me silly but running 40yard tests hour upon hour does not seem like a person is having fun. These guys are not speaking for the masses and in fact, Harris loses points for the silly the game is **** comments. It is far from that.

I have owned every Madden/NCAA since their inception and follow Pro and College football as much as the next guy. Stop insinuating that just because a person is having fun with the game is football moron. Some people can detatch between video games and reality. Sure they might want things fixed and notice the problems but they also try to find good in games. I have read both Bill's over the years and I rarely ever see where they try to do that.

The problem is all of you are complaining to the wrong people. Speak to the people who have the purse strings and control the budget. These are the people holding the games bag and allowing these bug filled messes to be released.

You want to make a small difference. Get vocal to Peter Moore.

http://itsinthegame.ea.com/

Everytime he makes a blog post, let him know you dissatisfaction. Post a comment. If there is a big enough outrage there will be hundreds of comments that he has to look over. It is his blog after all.

[brk1078]

GIVE IT FREAKING TIME. And those who think that the defense sucks, USE SLIDERS. goshdarnit.

[ASB37]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

GIVE IT FREAKING TIME. And those who think that the defense sucks, USE SLIDERS. goshdarnit.

This would be all good and dandy.....if the CPU sliders actually worked. This is yet another thing that absolutely boggles my mind. How can this get past testing?

[Cebby]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

GIVE IT FREAKING TIME. And those who think that the defense sucks, USE SLIDERS. goshdarnit.

Clever

[GoVols1985]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

This would be all good and dandy.....if the CPU sliders actually worked. This is yet another thing that absolutely boggles my mind. How can this get past testing?

Yeah, I agree, that is pretty bad.

[yamabushi]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Chase,
I could care less about College FB, video or otherwise (playoffs please), but I do peruse the forums and read about 90% of the front page articles. And its hard not to notice what appears to be a pro EA, pro NCAA slant.

Just my 2c.

[ChaseB]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Chase we love you man, keeping it real in this thread and taking everything in stride.

Now as for the complaints about the OS Review score. The thing about reviews these days that I find so wrong is that, as you stated, its ONE persons OPINION. Thats not what a review should be, it should hardly touch on the writers opinion at all. A review is a place to put down the straight up facts about a game, both the positive and negative, and then let everyone decide for themselves if they will buy it. EVERY review site out there today is guilty of loading up the reviews with their OPINIONS and leaving many FACTS out. Leave your opinions at home or post them in the forums, for the review we just want the writer to lay it all out on the table and thats it. Again, its nothing against the reviewer or OS, everyone out there is guilty of destroying what reviews are supposed to be about.

Well I don't want to completely take this in a reviews direction, but what you bring up is something I've thought about many times. I'm really OBSESSED with preview guidelines and review guidelines because it is a lot of what I do here (though I didn't edit the NCAA review because I was at E3), and in general yes they are a big part of traffic and the site's credibility -- though I'm not entirely in agreement with that for obvious reasons.

However, I tend to not agree with what you're saying because while I do agree you need to post facts and all that, most of the fact stuff should be done via previews and also you can always go to the official site to get that information. I don't think it's a reviewer's job to put forth every little fact because then that's consumer reporting, that's not a game review. You have to connect with the reviewers and know their tastes. Maybe you tend to agree with one reviewer, but not another -- I think that's a good thing.

Plus it's hard to say what's a fact or not a fact at points if you get into that territory. Something gameplay-related might be a positive to one, but not another or whatever. Obviously you point out glitches when you find them and all that, but a simple checklist of facts isn't what a review should be about. It has to be interesting to read and you need to bring a perspective to the table that helps readers understand what you're trying to say. Basically, I think a good review makes someone realize why they're enjoying a game by bringing up something that maybe they didn't notice before. They think about it for a bit and then maybe you remember that review and understand what the reviewer was speaking about. If you're simply trying to make someone think why they should or shouldn't buy a game then that's an outdated way to think. You bring up forums etc. and people can talk about the game in that way, and look at previews, and videos, and developer interviews and so forth. It's not like the old days where you didn't see these games and thus waited for reviews to see if games were worth it. Nowadays a review has to do more than that to me.

I'll just briefly say I am in the boat of more opinionated previews as well. Not falling into reviewing the game, but being negative if there's negatives, don't simply just write one sentence about them or pretend like it will be fixed in a later build. Also N'Gai Croal wrote a great piece about previews in a recent Edge which pretty much sums up how I feel about previews, in a nicely articulated fashion.

[ChaseB]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Chase,
I could care less about College FB, video or otherwise (playoffs please), but I do peruse the forums and read about 90% of the front page articles. And its hard not to notice what appears to be a pro EA, pro NCAA slant.

Just my 2c.

Do you see that for all EA games, or just the football ones at OS? Obviously we aren't going to artificially be harder on EA just so no one thinks this is an issue because then you're not doing your duty as a writer, but I'm just curious in general.

[thmst30]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Well I don't want to completely take this in a reviews direction, but what you bring up is something I've thought about many times. I'm really OBSESSED with preview guidelines and review guidelines because it is a lot of what I do here (though I didn't edit the NCAA review because I was at E3), and in general yes they are a big part of traffic and the site's credibility -- though I'm not entirely in agreement with that for obvious reasons.

However, I tend to not agree with what you're saying because while I do agree you need to post facts and all that, most of the fact stuff should be done via previews and also you can always go to the official site to get that information. I don't think it's a reviewer's job to put forth every little fact because then that's consumer reporting, that's not a game review. You have to connect with the reviewers and know their tastes. Maybe you tend to agree with one reviewer, but not another -- I think that's a good thing.

Plus it's hard to say what's a fact or not a fact at points if you get into that territory. Something gameplay-related might be a positive to one, but not another or whatever. Obviously you point out glitches when you find them and all that, but a simple checklist of facts isn't what a review should be about. It has to be interesting to read and you need to bring a perspective to the table that helps readers understand what you're trying to say. Basically, I think a good review makes someone realize why they're enjoying a game by bringing up something that maybe they didn't notice before. They think about it for a bit and then maybe you remember that review and understand what the reviewer was speaking about. If you're simply trying to make someone think why they should or shouldn't buy a game then that's an outdated way to think. You bring up forums etc. and people can talk about the game in that way, and look at previews, and videos, and developer interviews and so forth. It's not like the old days where you didn't see these games and thus waited for reviews to see if games were worth it. Nowadays a review has to do more than that to me.

I'll just briefly say I am in the boat of more opinionated previews as well. Not falling into reviewing the game, but being negative if there's negatives, don't simply just write one sentence about them or pretend like it will be fixed in a later build. Also N'Gai Croal wrote a great piece about previews in a recent Edge which pretty much sums up how I feel about previews, in a nicely articulated fashion.

OK, I see your side of it as well. I can certainly live with that. I actually just re-read what I typed and it came out all wrong.

[rp71284]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Do you see that for all EA games, or just the football ones at OS? Obviously we aren't going to artificially be harder on EA just so no one thinks this is an issue because then you're not doing your duty as a writer, but I'm just curious in general.

I know this isn't directed to me, but this year, I don't think there has been one negative article regarding NCAA/Madden. If they had a negative view, there was always a "look on the bright side" view as well. Besides football, Fifa & NHL usually get good praise, and they usually earn it. NBA Live gets ripped no matter what site we're talking about.

Another thing that happens too often is previews are always positive. I know you're just an editor, but EA should take a look at the SOCOM blog to see how you get feedback, instead of issuing wordy press releases and flaunting new features to game sites. They're not even in the private beta stage, and they've been taking criticism daily. They even gave in to some of the requests of people commenting on the blog.

[ChaseB]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

I know this isn't directed to me, but this year, I don't think there has been one negative article regarding NCAA/Madden. If they had a negative view, there was always a "look on the bright side" view as well. Besides football, Fifa & NHL usually get good praise, and they usually earn it. NBA Live gets ripped no matter what site we're talking about.

Another thing that happens too often is previews are always positive. I know you're just an editor, but EA should take a look at the SOCOM blog to see how you get feedback, instead of issuing wordy press releases and flaunting new features to game sites. They're not even in the private beta stage, and they've been taking criticism daily. They even gave in to some of the requests of people commenting on the blog.

OK, good to know.

[jfsolo]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Yeah, I get what you're saying, and it does suck that you guys can't play the kind of game you like to play. I just wish that when I say I am enjoying the game, realistic or not, somebody wouldn't immdiately say something like "well you obviously don't know anything about football" and "you should go play NFL Blitz then." you see what I'm saying? Just because I want something differant from a video game than other people, it's like I don't love football as much as them.

I'd like to see a few of these posts made by long time members of the community attacking any other members for enjoying the game, because I haven't been seeing that.

I've seen a few newcomers and hit and run posters doing some of that, but the overwhelming number of disgruntled regulars have been spending all their time cataloging the numerous flaws in the game and imploring the developers to do something about it.

You may not enjoy it, but incessant complaining is not the same thing as attacking you. If any conflict between posters who can tolerate the flaws, and those who can't has arisen, it been when been those who are satisfied with the game have entered threads making comments such as, "you guys just don't know how to play defense". This is the only time that I have seen regular posters engage in any back and forth with people who enjoy the game.

Where are all the positivity threads like "The little things"? Why aren't people creating those threads to discuss what they like about the game? Are they concerned that someone is going to troll the thread and attack them for liking the game.

Many posters are really upset at EA Tiburon for the programming choices they made with this game, and have been expressing that anger quite clearly, but I haven't seen them calling into question the "fanhood" of other posters.

Many are questioning the objectivity of the writing staff, and of the site, but that's another post entirely.

[Dudd]

Re: Summer Storms: The NCAA Release Story

Also for the people posting the likes of the Bill's (Abner and Harris) you have to realize that they do not speak for the majority of gamers. They make some of the hardcore blush. Sure fix the problems, they are there in spades but love it or hate it, they are games. Games are supposed to be fun. Call me silly but running 40yard tests hour upon hour does not seem like a person is having fun. These guys are not speaking for the masses and in fact, Harris loses points for the silly the game is **** comments. It is far from that.

I have owned every Madden/NCAA since their inception and follow Pro and College football as much as the next guy. Stop insinuating that just because a person is having fun with the game is football moron. Some people can detatch between video games and reality. Sure they might want things fixed and notice the problems but they also try to find good in games. I have read both Bill's over the years and I rarely ever see where they try to do that.

How often do you read these guys stuff? I've been reading Bill Harris's blog since his gone gold days, and he is by far the best best reviewer of sports games out there. Just because someone is thorough and documents the problems with the game doesn't make them insane and impossible to please. He's posted glowing reviews of NHL 08, MLB the Show, just to name a few. Hell, he even liked last years game, even though I think he said he spent most of his time simming the actual games and focusing on recruiting. Even when I disagree with him on games, I can see where he's coming from. Just like the article, it seems like you want to paint everyone who has problems with the game as some sort of masochistic bogeyman who can never be pleased, which is a load of crap and just obscures the fact that there are clearly real problems with this game.