OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mistake?

[KingV2k3]

I'm not very tech savvy at all, so I rely on the guys around here to let us know what are fixable issues and EXACTLY how to go about it...

Therefore it seems to me that all the rationalizations and excuses offered up by the developers are pretty weak, at best...

'Skillz mentioned "pride" in his post re: workmanship, etc...

What ever happened to "fear of getting fired"?

I've never had this much latitude to fail in my professional endeavors...

[psychicDB]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

You can just play ONE game against the CPU and come away with a notebook full of problems with the CPU AI. So how in the world did the EA Game Changers, QA department, producers and everybody else that was involved in the game NOT see that many obvious issues with the game ?

Agreed. If you gave an advance copy of NCAA to OS you would have a dictionary-sized list of everything wrong with it within a few days.

[canes21]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

Well, I'll just put my .02 out there. After the mess that is NCAA 12, I did not buy Madden 12 this year and will not be purchasing NCAA 13 or Madden 13 next year unless it is very late into the year or early 2013 when they are dirt cheap.

[andygilbert]

I have bought every NCAA football game dating back to Bill Walsh College Football and this is the first time I have seriously considered boycotting EA with any game. Case in point I sent a message to customer service at EA in which it tells you that they will reply within 24hrs. or less that was October 14th. I got a response today November 3rd. I mentioned this to show everyone how Jonny on the spot they are over there. I have worked in sales and customer service for more that 10yrs. and if this were the way I handled things when one of my customers have a concern and I let it linger this long they would purchase from another company or would not purchase a product of want not of need.

[andygilbert]

I have bought every NCAA football game dating back to Bill Walsh College Football and this is the first time I have seriously considered boycotting EA with any game. Case in point I sent a message to customer service at EA in which it tells you that they will reply within 24hrs. or less that was October 14th. I got a response today November 3rd. I mentioned this to show everyone how Jonny on the spot they are over there. I have worked in sales and customer service for more that 10yrs. and if this were the way I handled things when one of my customers have a concern and I let it linger this long they would purchase from another company or would not purchase a product of want not of need.

Sorry left that kind of hanging but I guess that lets you know where I stand in my future purchases of ea games

[fistofrage]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

I'm not very tech savvy at all, so I rely on the guys around here to let us know what are fixable issues and EXACTLY how to go about it...

Therefore it seems to me that all the rationalizations and excuses offered up by the developers are pretty weak, at best...

'Skillz mentioned "pride" in his post re: workmanship, etc...

What ever happened to "fear of getting fired"?

I've never had this much latitude to fail in my professional endeavors...

But they didn't fail because We The Sheeple lined up and bought over 1 million copies. Given the limited resources they apparantly put towards this title, I am sure the board of directors gave them a big pat on the back and probably a nice Christmas Bonus. I mean the reviewers all gave it 8+. You don't have to produce a quality product when you have a monopoly, a good hype machine and the reviewers in your back pocket to boot.

[khaliib]

I believe this issue will have an imact on gaming forums also.

Come next year, gamers will want to press Ben & Co on real issues, instead of dumb questions about what's their favorite part of the game.

Forums such as OS have to walk that fine line, because you "Want" a relationship with developers, but you "Need" gamers to read/utilize your site.

How this will impact OS is will they allow gamers to voice/press the developers when given the chance, or will the hammer be laid down against members to preserve that developers relationship?

We will see!!!

[$NevaBroke$]

I'm one who has bought this game every year since '99 of ps1. I've seen ncaa football evolve over the years, but has hit a wall in recent years with glitches, bugs, and that god awful mascot mash-up feature. True ncaa heads on here have put in hours of OS blog time, slider tweaking, stadium sound dl's, patch wait time, and life loss that can't be returned to us. This will be my last year buying ncaa as the problems with the game have gone from bad to wtf. Too many "Why" questions for me to pay $60 for a known unfinished game another year: Why are there soo many launch day game issues? Why do the same problems with this game persist every year? Why is it that we the customer have grown accustomed to knowing there will be patch updates before we even buy this game? Why does ea not release a beta for this game and make an effort to show its faithful yearly customers that it wants to get better? Many on these posts will claim they will wait next year to buy the game until after patch updates. Others will say they won't buy this game ever again, but will be on here next year posting their same gripes for ncaa 13. Then u have the 5%ers who are truly tired of being "wife beated" over the years by this game and will really move on with their gaming life, not buying ncaa 13. I have made my choice brothers, which will you choose?...

(now stepping off my soapbox)

[fistofrage]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

It all comes down to a numbers game for EA. TYhey know they are going to lose X% of their customers every year for various reason. As long as they can recoup those numbers with the hype machine and having the exclusivity, things probably won't change.

They already said they can't patch the game because they don't know their code well enough to not break things in the process. They aren't revamping the engine. Do you honestly think the development team is going to spend money and resources learning the entire engine and fixing what's broken? No, because the formula they have is put in a few new fancy features to put on the back of the box to attract new customers. Years and Years of current gen games have proven their MO. Year after year, even the hardcore sim guys still shell out money in hopes of things changing and it never does. They are banking on that trend continuing.

[kingg d]

Nice way to bash an EA product, but for some reason I don't see anything like this about nba2k12 (a game way more broken than NCAA) And mods even delete or block every thread complaining about the game.

Now you can delete this comment if you want.

[LionsFanNJ]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

I believe this issue will have an imact on gaming forums also.

Come next year, gamers will want to press Ben & Co on real issues, instead of dumb questions about what's their favorite part of the game.

Forums such as OS have to walk that fine line, because you "Want" a relationship with developers, but you "Need" gamers to read/utilize your site.

How this will impact OS is will they allow gamers to voice/press the developers when given the chance, or will the hammer be laid down against members to preserve that developers relationship?

We will see!!!

OS will never see the NCAA devs again. EA is all about social media now.

back on topic. I'm curious to see if this tendency thing goes further back into previous iterations into the game. Based on the information in the patch notes it seems the database is just corrupted to the point that it will take a major overhaul time consuming process. That leads me to believe when thy initially wrote the code for next gen database tendencies this was wonky from the get go. I don't have any of the past ones anymore so i can't really check.

Ideally i want them to implement maddens tendencies and DPP in the next game.

[shadia147]

Well, what I would like to say to the OS guys in the above article... A lot of us read your previews every year. We base our opinions on whether to buy or skip on release day on your previews.
So, that means that you have a responsibility to us here at OS before EA's PR Dept each year.
I don't feel that has always been the case. I realize that EA is an advertiser to this site. And you're obligated to somewhat act as PR for your sponsors.
All I'm saying to the guys above....Stand your ground next year. It's important to us, your audience.

[KingV2k3]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

But they didn't fail because We The Sheeple lined up and bought over 1 million copies. Given the limited resources they apparantly put towards this title, I am sure the board of directors gave them a big pat on the back and probably a nice Christmas Bonus. I mean the reviewers all gave it 8+. You don't have to produce a quality product when you have a monopoly, a good hype machine and the reviewers in your back pocket to boot.

Yup...very good points...

I'm admittedly "part of the problem" because I buy both football titles pretty much every year and find a way (with the help of this forum) to make them enjoyable enough to play the heck out of them...

Frustrating, when you're hooked on console football and you know what other sports titles have managed to accomplish...

[mWolfe]

Re: OS Roundtable: The Player Tendencies Snafu - Short Term Blunder or Long Term Mist

It all comes down to a numbers game for EA. TYhey know they are going to lose X% of their customers every year for various reason. As long as they can recoup those numbers with the hype machine and having the exclusivity, things probably won't change.

They already said they can't patch the game because they don't know their code well enough to not break things in the process. They aren't revamping the engine. Do you honestly think the development team is going to spend money and resources learning the entire engine and fixing what's broken? No, because the formula they have is put in a few new fancy features to put on the back of the box to attract new customers. Years and Years of current gen games have proven their MO. Year after year, even the hardcore sim guys still shell out money in hopes of things changing and it never does. They are banking on that trend continuing.

Your right they do know that they will lose costumers every year our problem is that we the hardcore gamers are to few to put a dent on thier pocketbook for them to see a difference. This is this first year I have bought Madden since 09 and this will be the last time to buy both NCAA. And Madden again till the next systems debut. I know I can say this because I ditch Madden 09 for Madden 08 on the PC and been playing that more than I have Madden 12 so if I really get tired of NCAA 12 ill just buy me another PS2 and pick up NCAA 06 and play that. Now will this affect EA at all no but I will still get my football fix and enjoy the other games that come out rather than worrying if he new football game is good or not.

[HustlinOwl]

After the BS EA pulled with my beloved NCAA Basketball 10, 2010 was the last year I bout an EA Sports product. Wish more would have seen this then.