Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

[Bjones84]

Here is my issue. I can't stand the idea that the game is going to be dumbed down for pick-up and play ease. If you need a refresher just throw in madden 92. Most of us get so good at the game in such a short period of time tiny mistakes, money plays, cheats and glitches become apparent quickly. That is the very reason Madden's evolution has led it towards a simulation based title.

When you hire a former creator of "Blitz" to help with the development of Madden you are asking for a title that lacks any more depth than a coin-op arcade game. Lets explore what a Madden arcade version would look like. Oh wait! we did that already and it sucked balls. This guy is doing all of us a huge disservice, because not only are we forced to bare witness to his improvements that basically amount to menu adjustments and control reassignments, but they are also stripping the title of its nuts. I am not interested in playing a game that benefits button mashers and money plays.

If the idea behind these changes is to draw more people to the title (increasing profits) I have a very strange suggestion;

MAKE A BETTER GAME!

Thats right! Improve the visuals, fix the glitches, add better (less narcoleptic inducing) announcers, tighter controls (less motion capture) and perhaps ever changing story lines for season play. Follow the folks from back breaker and revise tackling. How about fixing the passing system. Can i have more than Bomb, average and bullet in my passing arsenal? NOW I AM GETTING A LITTLE TICKED!

Jumping jack rabbits, they just gave us refs back. Remember people, we have naked sideline, injuries and everything associated with them are devoid of presentation. When you win the super bowl there lacks any sense of accomplishment.

I am receiving the message from EA loud and clear. We need to make money and there are enough naive people out there that we do not need loyal fans like you. You know, the kind of fan that stands outside waiting in line until midnight. The kind of fan that throws a huge 24 hour Madden party. The kind of fan that regularly buys ten copies a year and sends them to his nephews so we can all stay in touch an play vids online.

I can see how people could read this thinking i am over reacting, but I have been playing since this title appeared on apple. This is not the first time EA has delivered a crappy product to us. It is this type of behavior that brought us 2k Sports, Game Day football and Blitz. Don't get me wrong. I love Madden. I love it so much that I care what happens to it and who is involved in it.

i agree with everything your saying, i'm tired of keep writing about madden issues, it's obvious that it's simply all about the money. Madden NFL 10 was the first Madden that I’ve enjoyed since I’ve played since Madden on the PS2. It had a lot of additions that the series sorely needed, each of which were meant to replicate the fundamental aspects of real life football. Quarterbacks finally have accuracy broken down in ranges, pocket formation, multi-man gang tackles were implemented, along with fight for the fumble, but the most important thing is that Madden was, and still is fun to play. Me playing Madden a month after the game release was unheard of for me a month after the game release on the current consoles. The NHL series from EA has taken a full on charge on being amongst the top sport series in present day while Madden was lacklustre.

This year the series seems to be back. But it still has a long way to go as there is still many fundamental football aspects not being replicated well enough in the game. Blocking AI is an issue, adaptive AI isn’t working properly, lack of frequent penalties, and kicking is still too easy once you get the hang of it within a couple hours. For Madden NFL 11, those need to be addressed along with other work done to the AI and new additions to the series...

[Bgamer90]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

When you hire a former creator of "Blitz" to help with the development of Madden you are asking for a title that lacks any more depth than a coin-op arcade game. Lets explore what a Madden arcade version would look like. Oh wait! we did that already and it sucked balls. This guy is doing all of us a huge disservice, because not only are we forced to bare witness to his improvements that basically amount to menu adjustments and control reassignments, but they are also stripping the title of its nuts. I am not interested in playing a game that benefits button mashers and money plays.

.

The gameflow feature isn't for money plays... if anything it prevents people from using them since it gives plays based on what teams do in real life situations that match what's going on in the game.

No one is forcing people to play this way... there is an option to have it off. This will be a good feature, especially for franchise mode to play like the real teams do instead of using money plays or picking random plays.

Madden needed creativity in terms of making things simpler for users while still being sim. I'm pretty sure that this feature was created by Mark Turmell (Blitz). They wanted him for creativity since the Midway arcade games had good implementation of creative things (even if they were over the top). Earlier this gen there was Rewind and backtrack but that didn't work real good since it was long and people weren't being forced to play a certain way. The gameflow feature looks like it will solve these issues. So again, while it might be casual catered (complete games faster) it's also sim catered as well since it forces people to play the way teams do in real life and not rely on money plays.

And again, this obviously isn't the only thing being added to the game so I don't know why you guys are acting like it is. You guys are saying "Instead of game flow, how about improving this, or that" when they could have and they just didn't announce it yet.

[creed200569]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

I though it look it look good to be very honest. To many people are getting to ahead of themselves. It's only in Alpha Build right now. Plenty of time to tune and tweak it.

They can have all the time in the world,it wont matter cuz they dont know what they're doing. The gameplay has always been bad and this trailer looks worse than Madden 10.

[stux]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

I have yet to see one of these trailers from EA that ever makes me want to buy Madden.

I get way more out of the blogs. The good ones that go into the more detail the better.

[yardz23]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

Was Madden 10 not simple? I thought it was pretty straight forward, no complaints about game length...

I'd be happy if M11's focus was on core gameplay improvements, but those running highlights looked exactly as clunky as before.

[RayAllen20]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

I guess I'm the only one that likes it.

I don't know how the people that bash on EA with this, saying this is horrendous and shameful, expected. You can't expect a game to make a huge jump. Also, do you guys really think EA took out playbooks? No way in hell would they do that. What they did was, for almost 1/2 of the people that play this game that don't care too much about playcalling, is have the computer do it for them. Also, I like this because I think they improved the CPU playcalling with this. Plus now I can gameplan the first 15-20 plays, and if the coach is smart, then I can handle it, and will probably like it better than normal playcalling, since sometimes I get frustrated and just start passing every down.

Anyway, I am actually liking what I see here. Running looks pretty good, WR catching is fixed, something that bothered me sooo much about Madden 10. The WR/DB interaction was fixed a good amount, and there seems to be so much less suction blocking in the vid, plus double teams. Maybe once I saw a suction block which atleast looked natural. Last year, there were eight on a play. The presentation looks much improved with Drew Brees and the Saints getting all riled up. Maybe other teams will have good intros too. And I have a man crush on Gus Johnson plus if EA had network presentation, they'll break it out in a blog.

And for the people complaning about no franchise updates. LOL, you do realize the game doesn't ship until 4 MONTHS!!! Why would they give us ALL the information now? They gotta give us something until then.

I am not an EA fanboy, and am not riding the hype train. I skipped on Madden 09, so if this game ends up being terrible I'll do it again, but I am just liking what I see. Eventually though, I'll base my decision on whole gameplay vids, and the demo. Just my 2 cents.

[HealyMonster]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

...you can still pick your own plays genius. Lets be honest here madden is damned if they do and damned if they don't. No one will ever be completely happy with their produce especially in comparison to the juggernaut that is NFL 2k5. I'll wait until the demo before I start proclaiming this game the worse thing ever. Although, I'll probably end up buying Madden for my football fix : x

its not even that 2k5 was a "juggernaut" it was just better than madden and every madden since. The issue with Madden is that these Devs saw what worked yet every year they went in the "opposite direction" of 2k5. They tried "on the field" and it didn't work, they tried the Hip Hop Ballin be a superstar with the catchy game intros etc and that didn't work. They tried "upping the presentation" last year and failed in comparison to 2k5 yet again.

Its like every year we are like here take this game(2k5) and do that. They say OK, a few months later Madden comes out and we are like wtf dude, did you play 2k5? They are like wait, what? oh ok next year. and then we do it all over again lol.

[LoostheMoos]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

Am I the only one that is sick to death of the phrase "In Madden XX, it's all about (fill in the blanks with marketing catch phrase)"?

Madden 08 : "It's all about 'twitch control'."
Madden 09 : "It's all about '(I forget this one, but I remember there WAS one)'."
Madden 10 : "It's all about 'everything you see on Sundays'."
Madden 11 : "It's all about 'simpler, quicker, deeper'."

I want to scream already when I hear that damn phrase....they should change the company slogan from "It's in the game" to "EA Sports, This year it's all about..."

Someone needs to fire ALL of these guys already, clean house from Frazier, Cummings et al to Ben and the NCAA crew as well for a total lack of creativity. How can we expect this group to actually innovate and create a better game when they cannot even invent a new way to discuss their puke every year? I've seen more creativity in second grade art class projects than this!

Seriously, people always wonder why there is a perception that EA does not care about their audience or their product and they can never seem to figure out why...well, I believe that using the same annoying and inaccurate "catch-phraseology" every year, year-in and year-out is probably a contributing factor!!!

[boooey]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

Maybe this will be the first year where we don't expect much and the Madden team will surprise us... because that trailer honestly did nothing for me.

Looks exactly the same as Madden 10 with some slightly different running animations.. but it still doesn't look "real" to me.

It looks like a cartoon still, and these canned animations are the stone age now.. real physics next gen.

[Bgamer90]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

Seriously, people always wonder why there is a perception that EA does not care about their audience or their product and they can never seem to figure out why...well, I believe that using the same annoying and inaccurate "catch-phraseology" every year, year-in and year-out is probably a contributing factor!!!...

Someone needs to fire ALL of these guys already, clean house from Frazier, Cummings et al to Ben and the NCAA crew as well for a total lack of creativity. How can we expect this group to actually innovate and create a better game when they cannot even invent a new way to discuss their puke every year? I've seen more creativity in second grade art class projects than this!

So you hate them for using simple PR/advertising tactics that most popular products use...

Nice.

Also, you shouldn't blame the devs for how the trailers/ads are. Most don't have much influence on it. Ian said to me last night that he didn't see the trailer before it aired on Spike (and that he can't comment on it since EA is keeping his mouth pretty much shut at the moment).

[yardz23]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

Did anyone else laugh pretty hard when the voice over guy goes "INNOVATION IS: Simpler, Quicker, Deeper."

i couldn't help it. You know whats innovative?

[marktg30]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

So you hate them for using simple PR tactics that most popular products use...

Nice.

I think most people are upset with them because they feel that the 'progress' they claim to make is often misrepresented/over-stated.

[Oscar-cortes]

this is stupid.madden has no idea whats going on. for example..up until madden 9, we have had training camps in franchise mode.i for one enjoyed having the chioce to make players better by training. madden 10 came in looking promising but came with the exclusion of training camps and put in this garbage player progression b.s. superstar mode used to be entertaining when you had your own place to live in and could get tats, go to the barber shop. now its just calendar and screens. everything good about madden gets taken out he following years. now playcalls? shorter game lengths were not a problem because if you werre blkowing out your opponent in the 2 qtr, you could simply sim it to the end.all im saying here is WTF

[Bgamer90]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

I think most people are upset with them because they feel that the 'progress' they claim to make is often misrepresented/over-stated.

The progress the devs claim or the progress that the ads claim?

If the latter, that's basically true about all advertisements.

[Valdarez]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Exclusive Debut Trailer

I find Quicker. Simpler. Deeper. to be a funny marketing slogan. When I hear deeper, I'm looking for boots and a shovel, which definitely isn't the way you want to end your marketing message (your 'hook').

I suggested 'On the field. In the action' or something along those lines. That seems to be the goal this release (sadly), to streamline the experience, keeping the gamer in the game and less in the menus.

I honestly don't understand the decision to focus on streamlining the experience when they haven't gotten the experience down right yet. Feels like the cart is in front of the proverbial horse. We're going to make it easier to do something that doesn't quite work right yet. I'd much rather spend the extra time in the menus and play something that works. Their goal was to bring in the casual gamers though, not to make more realistic/sim game of football this release. That's not to say they aren't trying to make some aspects of it more realistic (such as locomotion), but it's easy to see that their ultimate goal was to engage casual gamers (GameFlow, Coach in Ear, Breaking down plays).

I can't quite fault them for making the game for the casual gamers. The game has really gotten too complex for casual gamers. Unfortunately the casual gamers needs don't meet this gamers needs.