Madden 10 - Will they prove us wrong?

[matthewk]

The plan: More women-friendly titles like a rival to the bestselling Wii Fit, advertising on women-geared TV outlets like the Oxygen Channel, and endorsements from Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer."

Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer? Wow, that's a ringing endorsement right there.

It fits their business model perfectly. Get women to buy EA Fit. After initial success they love it. Then, by the same time next year they are back to their original weight and depressed. But wait, here comes EA fit 201 to save the day with new and improved features!!

[bdoughty]

http://www.operationsports.com/forums/m ... okout.html

EA Fit to be bundled with Madden 2010. Kidding, first news will be dropping Thursday about when they will release the first news on the game. Or something like that. Blogs are involved and we all love us some bloggage.

My guess is that the game will now include things that should have been in this generation Madden games since Madden 06.

[Brando70]

They'll probably be adding a strip club shooting mini game to Superstar mode.

[XXXIV]

They'll probably be adding a strip club shooting mini game to Superstar mode.

As long as they dont add a dog fighting mode they should be okay.

They do have alot to work with in this area.

Entertaining would be adding a holding out on the driveway while making a joke of your dumbass weight lifting mini
game.

[bdoughty]

I always find the developers answers more funny than insightful.

http://www.operationsports.com/forums/m ... hting.html

Pretty simple question asked.

In Madden 10 will there be progressive lighting? ( something that was in Madden 07 and 08 )


The reply:

You are pretty close to spot on with many of the changes that had to be made for 60 fps. The graphics / rendering team had to effectively cut all of their stuff in half - when we made the decision to move from 30 to 60. Now they didn't have to just down-res everything by half, but they did have to optimize a lot of things in many different ways. So things like 3d grass and player detail (i.e. the holes in the jersey) were optimized and/or removed to make the game fit. Also you should know it took probably took 1.5 years to make the final 60 fps decision...it was very difficult to accept the losses to graphics.

But the change is truly for one thing - gameplay. It's hard to remember now but the switch from 30 to 60 fps actually makes a major difference in the actual control of your players, one that I/we still feel is the much better decision to make. Madden is at its core a competitive sports game...it's not a visual tech demo. There's no doubt that we wouldn't mind having some of the cool graphical stuff you see in Gears 2 or COD, but gameplay is king for us.

That being said, there are also things that I can clarify that actually *weren't* because of 60fps.

- The new player models/sizes were a design decision...none of us really liked the old "meathead" proportions. We're still tuning them down some more this year.
- Progressive lighting (i.e. sun setting throughout the game) was a design decision as well. Our game can still support blending between the two lighting models, but the art team wasn't able to really tune it (since instead of just a few keyframes you have hundreds). You'd get a lot of times during the game where you could barely see the players because of weird shadows and such...I know you all probably remember that (if you ever played at some place like Arizona at 4:15).

I'll say one last thing - I personally would LOVE to have visual settings like in PC games, where basically you could choose to play at 30 fps and then gain more graphical details. I actually mentioned it this year (as well as the option to drop your resolution down like COD4 did) but it wasn't received well by the art team (and the higher ups), so I just basically dropped it. We're making some great strides this year graphically, so this time next year maybe we can re-visit this topic...mainly see if we still even need to investigate this kind of approach.


Does that mean no? Are you referring to the topic at hand or the one you brought in out of the blue, in regards to visual settings like PC games? You made the statement above that "dynamic lighting" did not have any effect on 60fps, so what does the PC settings have to do with anything?

Just answer the freaking question. Yes, No or We are not able to give out that info yet.

[bdoughty]

http://www.operationsports.com/forums/m ... -news.html


[EXCLUSIVE] Madden NFL 10 News!
Everything you see on Sunday, see it in Madden NFL

Wow. Just 3 more days until the NFL season officially ends. To all of us that typically triggers a long lasting bout of sports-related depression that doesn’t subside until a few weeks before the NFL draft, we here on the Madden team are trying to make the best of this opportunity by starting to release information about next year’s game, officially titled Madden NFL 10.

We have a big team full of incredibly smart and talented people working on Madden NFL 10, but I wanted to take the time out to introduce a few more people that everyone will get to know over the coming year. We will primarily be the members of the team communicating outwards with the community. There are a lot of new faces on the team for this year’s game, but luckily I think many of you may know these folks already:

Phil Frazier (http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/profile/8207621)
Phil “Fillycheze” Frazier is the Senior Producer of the team – “The Don” if you will. Phil has worked on countless versions of Madden in a production capacity, including pretty much every single one on PS2/Xbox/NGC consoles. Phil took over Madden 09 last year very late in the cycle, so (like me) he is quite stoked to have a full product year take place under his direction.

Josh Looman (http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/profile/10842560)
I’m extremely happy to present the news that Josh Looman has also just recently joined the team. Josh was the lead designer for NFL Head Coach 09, a game that will go down in history as one of the deepest and most realistic football games ever. Josh is helping out all across the game, but will primarily focus on Franchise mode. You won’t find many more people with the attention to detail that this guy has.

Donny Moore (http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/profile/10843815):
“Commish Don” was Josh’s partner in crime on NFL Head Coach, and along with Josh, Donny is going to work on Franchise mode. Donny worked on the rosters for NCAA & Madden for quite a long time until Head Coach started up. He’s also the resident EA Sports fantasy guru, so look around for “commishdon” on the EA fantasy site for his expert advice during the 2008 season (feel free to call him out on his predictions that went wrong).


At the start of the year when we all joined the team, we all got in a room and immediately came to a unanimous decision on what Madden NFL 10 was going to be all about. You saw it in the title of the post, but I’ll say it again: “Everything you see on Sunday, see it in Madden NFL”. “What does that mean?” you may ask…well it means that we have one goal, and that is to make an NFL football game that is as true to life as possible.

We aren’t about gimmicks; we aren’t about fluff; we aren’t about catering to glitchers or cheaters. We’re focused on emulating what you as an NFL fan are used to seeing on TV, and what many of you players and coaches have seen on the field. For every single update we provide you with throughout this year, feel free to call us out if anything doesn’t stand up to our new mantra.

Since we are mostly new to the team, a big goal of ours was to shake things up and we’re hoping to create a lot of “firsts” for Madden’s history this year:
1. We will be talking directly about features in the game about 4 months earlier than normal.
2. We will be releasing information on a very regular basis this year (looking at once a week as soon as we get things rolling).
3. We will talk about brand new tech that has been implemented before features have even been built around it, and take community feedback to choose what features we actually build.
4. We will be directly communicating on the forums throughout the development cycle, and also making changes in the game based directly on feedback gathered from the posts.

So the big question…”When does the real info start dropping?”

Check back here at Halftime of the Super Bowl for the first real bit of news regarding what is going into Madden NFL 10.

Your pals,
- Ian Cummings & the rest of the Madden team

[bdoughty]

hmm...

Everything you see on Sunday, see it in Madden NFL

[dougb]

Translation:

We can't figure out how to get our piece of sh*t football engine to give us 60 frames per second, gameplay, and graphics on Next Gen Systems.

But then they haven't been able to figure out how to get their engine to produce realistic line play, db/wr interaction, or ball physics. Either that or they simply don't care.

Best wishes,

Doug

[wco81]

I think it means sales are down and we have to start building hype earlier than usual.

Problem is, by the time they start talking about the game, it's too late to add features the community wants. Why interact with the community if all they can do is promise things for the future but not this year's version?

And by the time the future rolls around, the wanted features are forgotten again.

The community invariably wants things like online franchises or completely revamped AI. Will these things ever happen?

There's probably going to be disappointments like online leagues last year (a useless implementation which might be fixed and touted as an achievement).

Honestly, based on the records of the last few years, they should give the game to EA Canada -- yet another offshoring.

[Danimal]

Or it could just mean that maybe they have a new team that is trying to give people what they want.

The only way some people will ever be happy is if they open their copy of Madden and inside is a NFL2K DVD that jumps out and sucks them off.

I've been very critical of Madden the past few years and heck I got in a little verbal match with this guy. But I am willing to give them a chance, Donny & Josh earned that from me with Head Coach

[bdoughty]

The only way some people will ever be happy is if they open their copy of Madden and inside is a NFL2K DVD that jumps out and sucks them off.

FUN FACT: We actually went 2 1/2 pages in a Madden thread without 2k's football game being mentioned (Rodster did it early on page one). Nice to see some things never change with Dan throwing out a 2k dig.

Anyway, I can fully understand why any football gamer could still be cynical in regards to Madden 10. When you allow the quality of Madden 2006, 07, 08 and 09 out the door.

Or it could just mean that maybe they have a new team that is trying to give people what they want.

Ian did work on Madden 08 & 09. He might not have been lead producer but he worked on them. Not exactly new and I am sure there are plenty of guys on the team from the previous editions. Calling it a "New Team" is a stretch by any imagination.

But I am willing to give them a chance, Donny & Josh earned that from me with Head Coach

Phil Frazier was the senior producer of NFL Tour. Should we not give them a chance because he was a big wig on that pile of garbage? Some still think Ben Brinkman is the greatest thing since sliced bread for what he did with MVP 05. How well did that work out for the 2k baseball games? Kinda hard to judge a game by a few individual people working on it, as other factors have a bigger impact (dev time/$, # of hours allotted, # of testers, etc, etc)

I am buying Madden 10, no matter what ends up happening. That said, in such a short time, I am not expecting the second coming of Madden. It will be improved, how can it not? Factor in one year of dev time and EA laying off staff at Tiburon, it is hard to be overly excited about what is to come.

[JRod]

The only thing with Madden is that it has never taken the next step. Whatever that step is.

Until it hits that level, what's the Madden is irrelevant to me.

[Rodster]

FUN FACT: We actually went 2 1/2 pages in a Madden thread without 2k's football game being mentioned (Rodster did it early on page one). Nice to see some things never change with Dan throwing out a 2k dig.

I did and like I said i'm not a die hard 2K5 fan because that year both products were pretty good and I bought both for the Xbox. The biggest problem for me with regard to the current Madden is that it's just plain boring. It's so bland, non exciting, and it lacks soul. Whereas with NFL2K5 the presentation just jumped out of the game and I as a gamer felt like playing another game.

I don't feel that with with Madden 09. I have yet to finish a 5 minute Qtr. game. That's how boring it is to me. I'm not a stickler for all the technical stuff that goes into it but the game just lacks fun in my view.

Here's the weird thing. My favorite Madden, is 09 on the PSP. It does so much more than any next gen Madden with 3 slider tweaks. The CPU plays great on both sides of the ball. They are unpredictable as well as taking advantage of your play calling. And get this there are penalties in the game, all types too.

[Brando70]

Having Looman and Moore working on the franchise mode is promising. They did a very nice job with Head Coach, and I don't think they had a lot of resources at their disposal.

As I've said before, Madden 09 was much more improved over the last few games. I think it does lack atmosphere and still has a long list of flaws, but I think it moved to "above average" this year.

I would never hold my breath for this series but I think they might make a good game this year.

[Danimal]

FUN FACT: We actually went 2 1/2 pages in a Madden thread without 2k's football game being mentioned (Rodster did it early on page one). Nice to see some things never change with Dan throwing out a 2k dig.

FUN FACT: If the shoe fits wear it. 2.5 pages of discussion, yeah ok. 2.5 pages of digs. vs 1 post. As I said veiled shots are the same as blunt ones, don't like move on.

Ian did work on Madden 08 & 09. He might not have been lead producer but he worked on them. Not exactly new and I am sure there are plenty of guys on the team from the previous editions. Calling it a "New Team" is a stretch by any imagination.

You seem to have a vast knowledge of the team, lets see a break down of what the entire team has worked on. Animation guy been on Madden before? Donny? Josh? Ian worked on 09 in what capacity besides posting on the forums late in the dev cycle? Maybe New Team doesn't fit your definition of the words, but it seems like some guys who made a great product last year are on the series now, not sure what they can do in a year though.

Phil Frazier was the senior producer of NFL Tour. Should we not give them a chance because he was a big wig on that pile of garbage? Some still think Ben Brinkman is the greatest thing since sliced bread for what he did with MVP 05. How well did that work out for the 2k baseball games? Kinda hard to judge a game by a few individual people working on it, as other factors have a bigger impact (dev time/$, # of hours allotted, # of testers, etc, etc)

What exactly does that have to do with my point about Josh and Donny? Triple Play was s*** then we got MVP it's not unheard of for things to change, although in one year doubtful.

But hey sorry I crash the negative party. Like you said BD it's nice to see some things never change

[Jared]

Dan is welcome to post whatever positive things he wants to post about Madden. Others are welcome to disagree. However, please let's not turn this thread into a pissing match.

[Slumberland]

The only way some people will ever be happy is if they open their copy of Madden and inside is a NFL2K DVD that jumps out and sucks them off.

This is indeed the version of Madden that I want.

[wco81]

The only way some people will ever be happy is if they open their copy of Madden and inside is a NFL2K DVD that jumps out and sucks them off.

This is indeed the version of Madden that I want.

Not me. That game had its own issues and nostalgia is not a good way to evaluate games.

EA should be aiming for something better, not a retread of a former competitor's game.

[hellbent]

The reply:

You are pretty close to spot on with many of the changes that had to be made for 60 fps. The graphics / rendering team had to effectively cut all of their stuff in half - when we made the decision to move from 30 to 60. Now they didn't have to just down-res everything by half, but they did have to optimize a lot of things in many different ways. So things like 3d grass and player detail (i.e. the holes in the jersey) were optimized and/or removed to make the game fit. Also you should know it took probably took 1.5 years to make the final 60 fps decision...it was very difficult to accept the losses to graphics.

But the change is truly for one thing - gameplay. It's hard to remember now but the switch from 30 to 60 fps actually makes a major difference in the actual control of your players, one that I/we still feel is the much better decision to make. Madden is at its core a competitive sports game...it's not a visual tech demo. There's no doubt that we wouldn't mind having some of the cool graphical stuff you see in Gears 2 or COD, but gameplay is king for us.

That being said, there are also things that I can clarify that actually *weren't* because of 60fps.

- The new player models/sizes were a design decision...none of us really liked the old "meathead" proportions. We're still tuning them down some more this year.
- Progressive lighting (i.e. sun setting throughout the game) was a design decision as well. Our game can still support blending between the two lighting models, but the art team wasn't able to really tune it (since instead of just a few keyframes you have hundreds). You'd get a lot of times during the game where you could barely see the players because of weird shadows and such...I know you all probably remember that (if you ever played at some place like Arizona at 4:15).

I'll say one last thing - I personally would LOVE to have visual settings like in PC games, where basically you could choose to play at 30 fps and then gain more graphical details. I actually mentioned it this year (as well as the option to drop your resolution down like COD4 did) but it wasn't received well by the art team (and the higher ups), so I just basically dropped it. We're making some great strides this year graphically, so this time next year maybe we can re-visit this topic...mainly see if we still even need to investigate this kind of approach.


Does that mean no? Are you referring to the topic at hand or the one you brought in out of the blue, in regards to visual settings like PC games? You made the statement above that "dynamic lighting" did not have any effect on 60fps, so what does the PC settings have to do with anything?

Just answer the freaking question. Yes, No or We are not able to give out that info yet.

Wow....not that I give a crap about dynamic lighting or other such eye candy enhancements, but it was a straight question that deserved a straight answer.

I haven't tuned into the OS Madden thread / circus since October or so, but it has always seemed like the EA reps posting on there are more about marketing (or, at least some of the responses similar to the above diatribe were written by someone in marketing) than problem solving or actually trying to make the game better in fundamental ways.

On the fundamental enhancements note - I wonder if we'll finally see an accelerated clock in next-gen Madden (I apologize in advance if this was actually added via a patch in recent months, b/c I only rented it this year).

Or...dare I mention...in-game saves?

[GTHobbes]

I do think Ian and co. are going to right the ship this year (finally!) But I also agree with WCO...these guys at the end of the day are really adding to the hype due to decreased sales. I saw the NCAA developer say on that board they're a week or two away from being done with the game (with the remainder of the time set aside for bug fixing and production). If that's the case with NCAA, then how much can the community interaction affect what we'll see in Madden, at this point? Likely not much. Still, I do think we'll see better OL/DL interaction, more playable camera angles, in-game saves, and many other things Madden has been missing for 4 or 5 years now.

[Danimal]

I do think Ian and co. are going to right the ship this year (finally!) But I also agree with WCO...these guys at the end of the day are really adding to the hype due to decreased sales. I saw the NCAA developer say on that board they're a week or two away from being done with the game (with the remainder of the time set aside for bug fixing and production). If that's the case with NCAA, then how much can the community interaction affect what we'll see in Madden, at this point? Likely not much. Still, I do think we'll see better OL/DL interaction, more playable camera angles, in-game saves, and many other things Madden has been missing for 4 or 5 years now.

Oh without a doubt they are adding to the hype and they can't possibly deliver what everyone wants ever, more or less this year. I'm just saying I am giving them the benefit of the doubt because of the guys from HC being moved on the team.

I know they can't possibly move the HC features into Madden in a year or maybe ever, but it won't take much effort to improve that piece of s*** franchise mode.

[bdoughty]

Dan is welcome to post whatever positive things he wants to post about Madden. Others are welcome to disagree. However, please let's not turn this thread into a pissing match.

Great and there was no issue there. The 2k comment was completely unnecessary though. People are going to complain about Madden, such is life on the internet.

[Danimal]

EDIT: Sorry saw Jared's request.

[bdoughty]

Wow....not that I give a crap about dynamic lighting or other such eye candy enhancements, but it was a straight question that deserved a straight answer.

I haven't tuned into the OS Madden thread / circus since October or so, but it has always seemed like the EA reps posting on there are more about marketing (or, at least some of the responses similar to the above diatribe were written by someone in marketing) than problem solving or actually trying to make the game better in fundamental ways.

On the fundamental enhancements note - I wonder if we'll finally see an accelerated clock in next-gen Madden (I apologize in advance if this was actually added via a patch in recent months, b/c I only rented it this year).

Or...dare I mention...in-game saves?

I love the eye candy stuff but it is not a deal breaker (still play NCAA 09 every chance I get and they removed dynamic lighting from it, too). Just really hate it when they take out features from previous games. Especially when the game is already missing a ton of features already from last gen.

It really makes me wonder how much dev time these guys are allotted, in comparison to other games. One would think you could allocate more resources as you are releasing it yearly, which means you are selling it yearly and making money yearly, versus non sports games. Of course I am sure that NFL exclusive burns a pretty big hole in the pocket.

[Brando70]

There's also the dollars and cents aspect of making these changes. If they invest in doing these things, will they get a return that justifies the cost. I think Madden is pretty close to peak sales as it is, so the answer is probably no. This is where the lack of competition hurts. It's not really an issue of whether one game is better than the other, it's that the presence of another product forces a company to work harder for its market share.

It is idiotic that they haven't had in-game saves. Not just them, either, but other titles like NBA 2k.