Is madden building on a broken foundation?

[fanforlife21]

I know there are a lot of posts talking about the trouble madden has had this generation but after seeing some of the madden 12 gameplay although early I see the same problems again. I'm not gonna go into detail because I am sure everyone has heard this stuff already, but where did the Madden franchise go wrong?

I remember back on the PS2 days madden was one of the biggest franchises in videogames. I still remember picking up my ps2 and a copy of madden 2001 and how great that game looked and played. They just seemed to nail every detail. Even though it was their first time on a new console it seemed like EA really took their time and made a good game.

Fast forward to Madden 07 for the the PS3 although the game looked very pretty it just did not feel like madden. It was very clunky and had numerous AI problems. Now being a yearly game the EA sports team behind madden does not really have the time or resources to build a new engine when they have a game coming out every year. While I understand this I can see why this generation has really turned south for the Madden franchise.

Madden is building on an engine that was pretty much completely broken to begin with. The madden 06 game was rushed to market and it seems the team just built upon that engine for years to come. I obviously do not know this as fact but the game seems to play very similar to these early titles with some refinement.

I know this was a very long post and some of the things might have been said before, but I am interested in hearing your opinions on the topic. To me it just seems like EA needs to go back to the drawing board rather than try to fix something that is completely broken to begin with. There is so much to this game of football that we love and Madden just seems to ignore so much of it this generation of games.

[tatmanfish]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

personally, I think your partly right. I know they just coded over the old gen codes. Thats where a lot of these problems occured. Then they have to go back and try to recode things. Not everyone codes the same so it can be very tedious to go back and not only try to figure out someone elses code, but then try to code over it or recode it makes it even worse.

This is my theory anyways.

[TheDelta]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

As I've said often before, the problem is simple: money. Back in the day, Madden had to compete for the football video game market. To compete, you need to make a superiour product (or better, a product the consumer considers superious) than the competition, that costs money.

When Madden gained the exclusive license, that competition was gone. Since american football IS the NFL, there simply is no room for a major market share for a non-NFL game, much as I'd like to see one succeed. But 90% of all customers surely wouldn't even think of buying a football game without those magical three letters on the cover. So EA was in the comfortable situation to be able to release a game that's pretty much the same as last year's installment, as long as the rosters are accurate, it looks a little bit better and the game is at least playable, people will buy it.

So do you throw more money than necessary after a game that will sell anyway? Of course not, this is a business, after all. EA isn't there to make games as great as possible, it's there to make as much profit off of those games as possible.

The problem is that I'm quite sure the Madden budget was already seriously downsized by the time next gen came around. Making a new game costs a lot more money than just updating another one, and since there was no reason to spend money (because there were no other next gen football game to compete with), it's easy to see how the engine for next gen was probably not as well made as could have been possible with more funds (and thus, more manpower)

Since the exclusive license is here to stay, thinking that EA will really "go back to the drawing board" seems pretty naive to me. Going back to the drawing board costs a LOT more money than just building on what you have, so no, I'm quite sure we won't see a new engine or anything like that before the next generation of gaming system makes that necessary.

[Smoke6]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

Yes they are, I do not understand there development process as each year subtle features are scrapped instead of kept with more being added on to the game.

Its like having a 4 br 2 bthrm house and you want to add another bathroom and you take out one bathroom and added the other all the while you were aiming to have 3 bathrooms in the house and now you have 2 again.

you are supposed to add to the existing foundation and only scrap what cant be fixed and try to work on whats been broken while adding new features and things to add the overwhelming content the game should of had by now.

Just take this generation as a loss to the gamer and make up for it with the euphoria engine and have rating and physics that truly matter this time.

[TNT713]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

I get my $60 worth even when the game isn't stellar.

Later

[je_2512]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

I get my $60 worth even when the game isn't stellar.

Later

Wow....I'm happy for you....wish I could say the same.

Even Later

[CRMosier_LM]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

Yeah the current dev team got kinda screwed by having to work with what was in place by the previous team. But a huge issue is available memory on the consoles. They are making the same game for 2 consoles and one has very limited availability in terms of memory and capabilities. No I'm not gonna say which one.. it doesn't matter, it is what it is. You have to remember that they are programming on hardware that was outdated within a month of when it was released. Not to mention the intricacies of programming 22 players on the field to do each task in a specific manner takes up a ton of resources. One player on the field doesn't do what he is supposed to do and there you go... Massive problems. If you look at other games, not nearly as much is required to make them top notch. Not to say that other games done put everything they have into a game... Just that there is much more to football.

[jbd345]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

I think people are forgetting that this is a video game running on 6 year old technology what more can they do? The technology itself is already almost becoming outdated. I think by madden 13 or 14 if the next generation consoles are not out by then, Im afraid we've seen the most they can do. I love madden but i believe the technology is holding them back.

[TheDelta]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

I love madden but i believe the technology is holding them back.

I don't buy it, not for one second. Just look around and see what other games can do with the same technology. If you had the money to get back to the drawing board, draw up a whole new engine with enough manpower behind it, I'm absolutely sure the game could be a LOT better with current gen technology.

But as long as there's an exclusive license and thereby a pretty much guaranteed monopoly for Madden, that money will never be there, so the devs have to make the best out of what they have.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

You have to remember that they are programming on hardware that was outdated within a month of when it was released. Not to mention the intricacies of programming 22 players on the field to do each task in a specific manner takes up a ton of resources.

APF did 22 players on the field AND realtime refs AND realtime sidelines (I'd guess) because they took the approach of allocating resources appropriately for such things. They were kinda doing that last generation w/2K4 & 2K5. It's obvious such things can be done with the "limited" hardware resources available. Tiburon seems to have taken the approach placing a disproportionate amount of resources into the 22 players on the field, and the result is what we see today. We're seeing developers across the board make some pretty spectacular games this generation, on both systems. Hardware resources aren't the problem.

[roadman]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

APF did 22 players on the field AND realtime refs AND realtime sidelines (I'd guess) because they took the approach of allocating resources appropriately for such things. They were kinda doing that last generation w/2K4 & 2K5. It's obvious such things can be done with the "limited" hardware resources available. Tiburon seems to have taken the approach placing a disproportionate amount of resources into the 22 players on the field, and the result is what we see today. We're seeing developers across the board make some pretty spectacular games this generation, on both systems. Hardware resources aren't the problem.

As you said, depends on what they spend the most time in. Ian explained a few years ago with a huge thread here that if they allocated resources on the sidelines, then they would lose the graphics on the field.

Catch-22.

[Smoke6]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

As you said, depends on what they spend the most time in. Ian explained a few years ago with a huge thread here that if they allocated resources on the sidelines, then they would lose the graphics on the field.

Catch-22.

Not buying that at all either and other games besides sports games are doing and doing it well. Games with populations of people doing there own thing and games with numerous things going on thruought the entire game.

Lair, Gears, God of War, Ninja Gaiden, NBA games, MLB series, COD, Infamous, KZ2 & 3, Resistance and numerous other titles that maybe console exclusive or what not.

The crowd isnt doing anything spectacular in the game to warrant a memory or graphical downgrade, its been 2.5D sprites from the get go.

Sidelines have been zombiefied for ages.

And features are always missing from one year to the next.

I would rather just take HD versions of whats on the PS2 right about now and those games have way more than what we have on superior hardware.

I'll be to old by the time we do have a madden on current systems with all the bells and whistles, but why cant stuff be DLC like most games do now days to add features or modes into the games? Instead there artist are too busy drawing and crafting things that never make it into the game like those "mythical stadiums" and stuff.

They need some new artist in there for sure and maybe need to use some type of new tech to get the oline/dline interaction down better than it is.

Madden should have been the pinnacle of sports right now imo, but it just falls short on so many fronts. Its like the dev teams scraps there "last years list of features and things that made it into madden".

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

As you said, depends on what they spend the most time in. Ian explained a few years ago with a huge thread here that if they allocated resources on the sidelines, then they would lose the graphics on the field.

Catch-22.

And? It's no different than working within a budget and not spending beyond your means. Which it seems is pretty much what every other developer out there is doing. To me it sounds like a person spending the bulk of their budget on clothes then complaining they don't have enough left for food. The first few NBA Live's this generation were going down the same path, placing a disproportionate amount of emphasis on the players on the court than on the environment surrounding the players - they quickly changed that tune primarily because of what their competition was doing. I'm pretty sure we'd have seen the same from Madden if they had to deal with similar circumstances. While Madden is certainly a pretty game, it's not so beautiful that it's other visual issues like animations and lack of peripheral detail can be ignored.

[bkrich83]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

Tbh of all my issues with Madden graphics aren't one of them. I'd rather they spent more resources on the players. I could care less what the crowd or the players on the sideline look like.

If I had to chose I am glad they emphasize on the field graphics. Graphically the biggest issue for me is their color palette particularly the darker colors like navy blue or emerald green. They tend to look bland or washed out.

Now if we want to talk X's and O's or franchise mode I got a pile of gripes to unload.

[bkrich83]

Re: Is madden building on a broken foundation?

I would rather just take HD versions of whats on the PS2 right about now and those games have way more than what we have on superior hardware.

.

I wouldn't. I despised the previous gen of Madden