Madden 12 News Post

Madden NFL Designers Podcast #4 w/ Special Guest, Pasta Padre Available Now

04:13 PM - December 23, 2010 by Steve_OS

In Madden NFL Designers Podcast #4, Ian Cummings and Donny Moore take a look at the football gaming industry as a whole with special guest, Pasta Padre.

If you have problems, try this link. The audio does seem to drop in and out on occasion.

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# 61 illwill10 @ 12/27/10 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgiles36


	As for presentation, I did suggest to Ian via Twitter that they do a podcast on the shortcomings of presentation the past couple years and what the vision is for it. He responded that it may be feasible, but also noted that there should not be any shortcomings this year presentationally. I know better than to get too excited about that, but take it for what it's worth. For a sports gamer like myself, presentation is the big thing this game is missing. I can have fun with the gameplay, but everything else is so boring. The overlays (or lack thereof), the bland & fragmented commentary, and whatever else you want to pick out make this game boring. Let's face it: not every play in football is a big play. It's not fun to watch 3-4 yard runs or short passes. That's why presentation is SOOOOO important! There's gotta be stuff in between plays that keeps the user engaged. Otherwise, you're just going through the motions.

I agree. The gameplay is playable, but presentation is boring. Without good presentation it is useless to play franchise mode. There needs to be more stat overlays, season stat overlays(ex 1200 rush yards), there is no franchise commentary at all. There needs to be out of game presentation.

# 62 Hova57 @ 12/27/10 02:16 PM

more in depth presentation would be great, but if they do it. it can be small flashes of info andmake sure you can see not like ncaa 11 were you barely can see the stat. I never understood how well presentation can be done and feel til i played nba2k11 no that has its issues, but even something along that direction would be good for the game. Whatever they do Franchise and Season modes need the most attention for stats they should be able to talk about stats during hafltime and end of week.

# 63 Keenan G. @ 12/27/10 02:39 PM

They need to have their presentation like NBA2k11. That would keep me coming back. As of right now Madden 11 is boring and its sitting on my shelf collecting dust. I just want Madden to be more immersive.

# 64 bakersville123 @ 12/27/10 03:14 PM

Long time football gamer, strictly offline franchise. There was a time when I thought Sierra Sports FB Pro 99' was going to be the biggest disappointment in football gaming history. Looking back a decade ago I couldn't have imagined how wrong I would be.

I have listened to the podcasts for MAdden 12. I hear sincerity in the devs voices. I get the impression these guys are passionate about football. But at the end of the day, no one can argue that since the exclusive license was signed, football gaming has become stagnant. No question about it.

Why?

If you have no competition, no one breathing down your neck, why innovate?

Not a slam on the Madden devs. Just that listening to the podcasts, hearing 'this feature takes time, that feature takes time...' it get old REAAAAAL fast.

In fact, it's insulting to the end user.

Here's a company that eliminates the competition.

Then they (EA as a company) have the audacity to sit on their haunches and dink and dunk a genre that has gone BACKWARDS from old gen to current gen.

I guarantee that there some company out there who would, if given the OPPORTUNITY, release a game that didn't sacrifice realism, depth and innovation for the quick buck and allure of the casual gamer.

2010 marks the first year I didn't buy Madden. I love football, and get my fix by playing Front Office Football.

No offense, but it's bothered me for years that one guy, ONE GUY, (Jim Gindin) could release a statistical game engine that could be so realistic and unpredictable, while delivering an immerse football gaming experience. Yet franchise mode simulated stats in Madden have suffered for years.

# 65 RGiles36 @ 12/27/10 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	@Rgiles, *I feel like you took just a snippet of my post and commented.* My point was that visuals are critical to every area of a video game including control. If a feature adds user control but does not translate well visually in-game, it can detract from the enjoyment of the feature in general, like with protak. I feel your point about the presentation upgrades but the "icing", as I keep calling it, want matter much if the cake ain't right. I am all for improved commentary, new overlays and a general upgrade in Madden presentation. However, if Madden 12 adds similar presentation from NFL 2k5, like the highlight shows and reels, *without addressing the way player interactions play out, on the field, it would most likely hurt the NFL immersion of Madden, even more.* *They really need to get the all player interactions visually, reasonably represented before that start actually putting a spotlight on these areas with highlights and game recaps.*

Sorry that my post came off like that -- I may have misinterpreted what you were collectively trying to say. My bad

. My point is the same though...

As far as player interactions, I guess I'd say that I don't think the player interactions in Madden are awful now. Yes, they can be improved upon -- and there are some wrinkles to iron out. But the animations in Madden are serviceable. They're not 2K great...but ok.

So I would say that it wouldn't hurt the immersion if they slapped presentation on M11 as is. It just wouldn't. The animations in 2K5 weren't flawless: think of the awkward running animation, or how stiff the QB looked when standing in the pocket. Granted, this is a 6-7 year old game and we are forgiving of those eye-sores. But my point is the presentation as a package helped us to overlook those "issues". I feel as though the same can be done for Madden: gradually improve the animations/interactions, but in the meantime, gimme broadcast presentation!!

# 66 favre4thewin @ 12/27/10 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keenan G.


	I just play only offline franchise. I am hoping that M12 will be deeper and more immersive.

Same here. Offline franchise is the games bread and butter for me. It is way too easy to build amazing teams. I wish scouting and free agency was a bit deeper and more challenging. It is frusturating to see 3 interior lineman go in the top ten picks of the draft and not have 1 QB taken.

# 67 kmart2180 @ 12/28/10 05:40 PM

In my opinion Offline Franchise is what put this game so high on the map. I think the higher numbers to online vs is do to the fact that Offline Franchise mode has grown stale that last few years. So people like myself who are not big on online vs are starting to dive into that.

What needs to happen in Offline Franchise mode is it needs to become tougher. There needs to be more of a struggle to improve or maintain your team. The Cap needs to be portrayed realistically. I should not be able to resign my entire team and still have 32mil to spend. I want to have to struggle with my decisions like do I resign Vernon Davis for a Mega contract and risk losing Manny Lawson,David Baas, Deshaun Goldson or sign the 3 and let him go.... We should not be able to sign whatever free agents we want and still have $$$ to sign all are rookies.

The Franchise Tag would mean more if we actually had struggle in keeping our players. Ive never had to use it cause I just resign everyone with no problem.

Overall the difficulty needs to be harder to make us work to win SuperBowls (I dont care much for All Madden do to its cheap tactics but its really the only way to get a challenge) I use sliders to get a better challenge but if would be great for if some way possible when u play Franchise mode All Pro mode will play a bit tougher than when in just play now.
Why i mention this is cause It is hard for me to get a set of sliders to make the 49ers a average team like they are in real life. In Madden they are like a Power House. And my current theory is if Im gonna win anyways I mind aswell be the Colts,Patriots ect..... I hate taking a team like the 49ers/Browns/Raiders to a 15-1/14-2 record. I end up deleting the franchise. There has got to be a way to get a struggle with these average teams.

Just realized im way off topic!!! Sorry!

# 68 PantherBeast_OS @ 12/28/10 06:31 PM

For some reason I can't get my pc to where I can listen to the podcast. But from what I'm reading here so far is some people like the direction the Dev. Team is heading in and others don't think they have a clue to what they want to do. I honestly think their focus for this year is try cleaning up the game play and make it much better and work on the D and the AI. Work on making offline/online franchise mode make it much better then it is currently and also clean up the presentation part of the game aswell. Stop trying to add things fans don't want and focus on things fans do want fixed in the game. That's how you get people to buy the game when you give them a good product.

# 69 Reejer @ 12/29/10 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	...it was crazy how many people were exclusive offline or online gamers.

As a 39yo Offline only guy, who has bought Madden since it's inception: Strat pad, and Gameflow weren't the reason that I didn't buy M-11', but it didn't make me want to buy it either.

I personally didn't buy M-11' because Offline Modes were once again disregarded. If Offline Franchise and SS Modes were improved to M-06 (PS2) standards, I would have probably overlooked the controversial additions.

Is there any thought of producing two seperate titles, one for online, and one for offline? Possibly making each title $40-$50 ($70 for a box set), especially since there is such a split of use between online/offline use (so you wouldn't have to worry about alienating a large group of customers).

Good to see that you guys didn't give up (on podcasts) after the fallout from the last one. I do have a tidbit of advice for you guys: I understand that the online socially connected youth are the future buyers of Madden. However, the old-farts (that traditionally prefer Offline play) that have been buying Madden since it's inception aren't dead yet, and have years of purchases ahead of us.

# 70 kiddlex @ 12/29/10 09:39 PM

I know no less than 20 people that no longer purchase Madden because the Offline Franchise is lackluster. Build the offline franchise, and they will come.

# 71 Reejer @ 01/01/11 02:13 PM

I did like to hear Ian state that individual game customization is important.

Because I think that if you guys didn't remove any features (from year to year), and made them a toggle option the following year, you would make everyone a bit happier. And it would quiet the talk about "gimmicks" that come one year and disappear the following year.

As an example: Vision cone, I didn't like it, but some folks did. So why take it out completely? If you would have made it optional, it would have nipped the discussion in the bud.

Another example: Progression/regression being stat based and having it occur every 4 weeks (approx.). If it wasn't broken, why "fix" it with the pre-destined Potential Rating. You can make the potential rating editable (on a 0-99 scale), or at least you should make an option of which style of progression/regression you prefer.

# 72 DaSmerg @ 01/04/11 12:48 AM

A little late to the party but hey...

At some point in time, folks like Pasta Padre and even all kinds of folks involved here at OS are just going to have to get it through your heads that everybody doesn't have to be all buddy-buddy in order to get things done.

This isn't to say that this gives someone license to be a douche with Ian and Donny but this Podcast was barely listenable. A great example, the various flawed logics that continue to go into the year-in-year=out disconnected development of Madden aren't brought to task and Ian and Donny aren't held to task to provide a real concrete answer. Another great example, yet again, the intelligent points that people, in their spare time, bring up about a variety of games, like Madden, and take the time to break it down, frame by frame and in a way that even some of the youngest of our community members can understand are brushed off as "...those kooks..." and/or "...that latest internet fad...".

# 73 BezO @ 01/05/11 10:53 AM

Just a couple of things I wanted to comment on...

"Customization is king in sports gaming" - Nah, authenticity is king. Make the game more of a simulation THEN worry about customizing. IMO there's too much time spent trying to please everyone. EVERY aspect of the game is poor at this point. The people having fun with Madden are those who can overlook the lack of authenticity, don't care for authenticity or are not familiar enough with the sport to know the difference. Unfortunately for the rest of us, that's a lot of folks.

"Realistic Animations" - I'm sure making moves at speeds not possible by humans is fun, but it kills the spacing & timing of the game. Many problems would work themselves out if the game moved more realistically. Pass rushing, pass defending & outside runs are all "off" because of missing or unrealistic animations.

# 74 Ian_Cummings @ 01/05/11 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BezO


	Just a couple of things I wanted to comment on... "Customization is king in sports gaming" - Nah, authenticity is king. Make the game more of a simulation THEN worry about customizing. IMO there's too much time spent trying to please everyone. EVERY aspect of the game is poor at this point. The people having fun with Madden are those who can overlook the lack of authenticity, don't care for authenticity or are not familiar enough with the sport to know the difference. Unfortunately for the rest of us, that's a lot of folks.

We were on the topic of customization dude. Not really fair to take that out of context and act like that's my sole purpose in life to create more customization. Authenticity is obviously more important in the bigger picture.

# 75 ryan36 @ 01/05/11 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	We were on the topic of customization dude. Not really fair to take that out of context and act like that's my sole purpose in life to create more customization. Authenticity is obviously more important in the bigger picture.

Yeah, I'm taking Ian's side on this . I've been critical of the product's flaws, and pleased with what it did well, but I don't think one could ever make the case that authenticity has been "low on the list" for the Madden series since Ian and Phil took charge.

It's important to look at the context of the conversation...

# 76 Reejer @ 01/05/11 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tazdevil20


	Both online AND offline franchise should be shared code and should work exactly the same. Everything in offline, should be in online.

Here is something that we both agree 100% on. I have just been frustrated with the "streamlining" (stripping of good features) from the Offline modes, to focus on Online modes. If all of the last-gen features were on both Online and Offline modes, I think most customers would be pretty satisfied.

I know that not all old-farts are offline only, but when I was on the EA boards there was a topic that asked how old, and what kind of player you were, and the majority of the older folks were primarily offline players.

I think that the main issue with Online play that turns me off, is being called the "N" word, and cussed at by some snot-nosed little punk, and I can't schedule a time in my day to play against someone that I don't know, or care to know. I guess I am electronically anti-social.

# 77 roadman @ 01/05/11 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	I am looking forward to Madden 12 being focused on real football, like they said in podcast 1 and don't want to belittle anyone's effort in Madden over the years. Madden is beloved and revered by millions so anyone working on the game should take great satisfaction in this fact. Also, there is a quote I like from boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. that says, "People always want to tell you how to do what you do, when they can't do what you do" or something like that. LOL That said, I don't really agree with the claim Bezo took anything out of context when looking at the big picture for what has been said and done with Madden, even if we start at Madden 10. If Madden had a more authentic NFL football simulation foundation, the comment about customization would fall in the context of "now that the NFL simulation foundation in Madden is solid, we can focus on letting individual gamers adjust their own experience". Madden, in its' current state makes this comment, along with a few others, fall in the context of " a NFL simulation is not for everybody out the box so lets add more customization so individual gamers can make Madden more realistic." I don't think that's being rude or overly critical but a rational assessment of the perspective some Madden devs seem to have when creating Madden. I think that's why Bezo posted that, not just because of that one comment in the context of that conversation but do to the bigger context of how user customization is repeatedly referred to as a tool to for more realism. However, in a NFL simulation game like Madden, simulating NFL reality, should be priority "out the box", with customization available for gamers to alter NFL reality, in-game, as they see fit and not the other way around. So when looking at the ENTIRE context of how customization has been discussed concerning Madden and more importantly, the content of customization in Madden, Bezo wasn't being unfair, IMO. He actually pointed out a different perspective that could hopefully change the way some devs seem to view customization and NFL authenticity in Madden. �It�s not what you say you�re gonna do, it�s about how you do what you said you�d do when it comes time to do it.� Kelly Ferguson, a former Army boxer and strategist.

With all due respect TLC, I do love to hear the phrase, Customization is king. I think Ian was trying to say, authenticity is in the big picture, as in now and the future.

Can't change what's been done in the past. In the past, (talking about 06, 7, 8 and maybe 9), we all weren't on the same page regarding authenticity. Now, I get the feeling that the bigger pictures includes more, Everything you see on Sunday.

I'm sure I'll get feedback on that, but I'm used to that. I have a better feeling it's going towards that way than I did several years ago.

# 78 roadman @ 01/05/11 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	Customization is appropriate for adding diversity in Madden's "court" but simulation should always be King.

I don't think the present developers disagree with you, do you?

I really don't think it is that cut and dry what sim in the NFL is to some people. If you went out and asked 10 different people, you would get 10 different answers.

# 79 at23steelers @ 01/05/11 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	I sure most people like the phrase but the main thing is the context and meaning of it. I am not ranting and raving about customization being acknowledged, I am talking about what some devs seem to mean when they discuss customization and realism in relation to how they are implemented into Madden. They seem to be of the perspective that "customization is king" for users to get a more authentic and realistic NFL experience in Madden. I whole heartedly, respectfully disagree with that perspective towards creating Madden going forward because it is supposed to be a NFL simulation video game to start with. Customization in Madden should be a way to attract gamers who are NOT that interested in NFL authenticity and want to experience football in their own unique way. Not marketed to or created for simulation gamers that actually want and expect NFL realism to be standard in Madden, to use to achieve "their own version" of sim. I don't mean any harm but I really don't know why so many people prescribe to the notion that sim is subjective and opinionated. There is the way the NFL actually is and then there is the way different people want it to be. Recreating the way the actual NFL is in a video game is creating a NFL simulation, allowing users to recreate the NFL how they think it should be or what it is to them, is customization. Customization is appropriate for adding diversity in Madden's "court" but simulation should always be King.

I agree with what TLC is saying, and in a short, concise way: Customization does not create authenticity. Authenticity allows for users to use customization and still create a realistic NFL game.

# 80 BezO @ 01/05/11 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	...That said, I don't really agree with the claim Bezo took anything out of context when looking at the big picture for what has been said and done with Madden, even if we start at Madden 10. If Madden had a more authentic NFL football simulation foundation, the comment about customization would fall in the context of "now that the NFL simulation foundation in Madden is solid, we can focus on letting individual gamers adjust their own experience". Madden, in its' current state makes this comment, along with a few others, fall in the context of " a NFL simulation is not for everybody out the box so lets add more customization so individual gamers can make Madden more realistic."

EAXACTLY what tlc12576 said. I didn't want to get into that, but I'm not taking the comment out of context. I'm putting it in context with the current state of the game, which I don't feel is an authentic simulation of NFL football.

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Madden NFL Designers Podcast #4 w/ Special Guest, Pasta Padre Available Now