We are proud to present our interview with Ben Brinkman, Producer of MVP 06 NCAA Baseball.

Operation Sports: What is the scheduled release date?

Ben Brinkman: Spring 2006. We here at EA can’t comment on release dates. I can say it is right around the corner though.

Operation Sports: Will the Xbox version be playable on the 360 or do you have a 360 version in the works?

Ben Brinkman: We are working with our studio operations group to try to make it backwards compatible for the 360. We certainly hope that it will be, as well as the other MVP games. There is currently no 360 game in the works.

Operation Sports: What changes will be made to the pitching?

Ben Brinkman: Pitching remains largely unchanged with regards to the mechanic itself. That said we have tuned it to make it more costly when you miss the “perfect” area. Also, when you mis-execute on the pitch meter this year you will pay a much heftier price.

Operation Sports: Will we actually be able to get doubles down the line and have runners score from second on singles?

Ben Brinkman: Yes on the “doubles down the line” especially with Load and fire Batting. Yes on runners scoring from second as well.

Operation Sports: Do the ballpark scoreboards update during the game or are they a static scoreboards that don’t update?

Ben Brinkman: Yes scoreboards will update. We added this in MVP05.

Operation Sports: Will there be a behind the fielder view when playing defense?

Ben Brinkman: This is something we prototyped but with all the other new features we added we decided we couldn’t get it to the high level of quality we wanted so we shelved it. This is not an easy thing to do. I admire the ASB guys for trying this a few years ago. Maybe next year for us.

Operation Sports: How many uniforms will each team have?

Ben Brinkman: Home and away. We wanted to do more, but again we did so much stuff we had to cut scope in quantity.

Operation Sports: How do the graphics compare to other games in the MVP series?

Ben Brinkman: This is the best looking MVP game yet. We doubled down on the graphics because we felt like MVP05 was looking a little worse for wear. One plus with doing the NCAA game is that we didn’t have to spend a ton of time and money on player faces and we could spend those resources elsewhere, like dynamic time of day, normal maps (XBOX) etc… Each platform has its own little twists but overall I am very happy with the way the game looks.

Operation Sports: When we create a school, can we put them in a conference? Do we have to replace an existing team?

Ben Brinkman: Yes on both accounts.

Operation Sports: Will the scores be more varied?

Ben Brinkman: Not exactly sure what this means, but there will be more scoring for sure. The pitching just isn’t as good and the aluminum bat helps.

Operation Sports: Will the stadiums be able to be exported and shared?

Ben Brinkman: This is another one we explored (wanted to be able to import MVP 2005 stadiums as well) but alas it was not meant to be.

Operation Sports: With a smaller slate of teams in this series of game this year as compared to the full slate of D-1 schools that field a baseball team, how large is the post-season (College World Series) field going to be? Will it be a 64 team field for the tournament (as I believe it currently is) or will it be smaller on the order of 48 or 32 teams?

Ben Brinkman: It’s still going to be 64 teams. We tried our best to keep it as authentic as possible even without all the teams.

Operation Sports: Will there be any weather in the game that affects gameplay? If there is, what is actually affected? I've heard rumors that the game has dynamic time of day and that time actually goes by as you play. Will wee see it go from day to dust during a game? Will it rain for a few innings and stop later?

Ben Brinkman: Yes on all accounts. Rain affects the friction of the ball (not totally overt but there is a difference). We believe we finally have wind working exactly as we want it to. Dynamic time of day is one of my favorite things. You can start a game from 8 in the morning to 8 at night and the lighting will change as it would in real life, obviously sped up since our games are 3 hours long. When it rains you will see the clouds come in. The rain will start. Sometimes it will stop right away, the clouds will roll out and that’s it, while other times it will keep raining.

Operation Sports: How much are you integrating the ESPN license in your game?

Ben Brinkman: All the ESPN integration this year will revolve around the online experience. ESPN Radio updates every 20 minutes, ESPN ticker at all times in the front end, loading screens, pause menu, as well as in the batter/pitcher view. Finally, ESPN News featuring the latest and greatest from ESPN. The core of the ESPN integration is Online Everywhere. After your first online sign in, each subsequent boot of the game you will be silently signed online (if you choose this to be the case). This is a big technology change for us and no small feat to accomplish. There is much more on this to come (depending on when these questions are posted. The story could have already come out). We think this is really cool and only a small sampling of what is to come with the EA SPORTS/ESPN relationship.

Operation Sports: How will dual players (Pitcher/Position) be handled?

Ben Brinkman: Same way they are in real-life. The one change is that if you want to bring your SS in to pitch he won’t need to warm up in the bullpen because we assume he is already warm and following his warm up pitches he will be good to go. We didn’t want to overcomplicate things. The most intriguing thing is the rules for how to handle this swap in the batting order. It’s all very obtuse. We did our best to nail it. Being a gameplay guy it’s one of my favorite new things.

Operation Sports: In Dynasty Mode, are schedules customizable and if so is it just the out of conference games or can you customize it all?

Ben Brinkman: This is one I really wanted but just couldn’t fit into scope this year. Schedules are set. We had a lot of work tackling the schedules since we don’t have all the teams.

Operation Sports: What have you spent the most time on improving or adding? If the majority of your time is being spent been on items specific to NCAA, what percent of your development time was on gameplay improvements?

Ben Brinkman: That’s a tough question. We spent a lot of time on everything this year. If you look at our feature set we have new gameplay features (Load and Fire, Precision Throw Control, Imperfect CPU Fielders, Other assorted AI improvements, new batting and pitching animations, co-op multiplayer, the list goes on and on), new Dynasty (recruiting, NCAA Challenges, etc…), creation zone (create a school, create a player, create ballpark), online (online everywhere, multiplayer, ESPN features, etc…), new FE look, new NIS, overhauled visuals, 29 new stadiums, 256 new uniforms. It’s hard to put a number on these things. We didn’t just slap some NCAA teams in MVP05 and call it a day.

Operation Sports: Will you be able to upload draft classes into MVP?

Ben Brinkman: No.

Operation Sports: Will there be coach turnover?

Ben Brinkman: Yes, if you choose to take on another team or start a new team in Dynasty. There isn’t a lot of reward to a CPU manager leaving his team so we didn’t go down that path.

Operation Sports: Will you be able to save games in progress or "simulate to end"?

Ben Brinkman: Simulate to the end. We decided that since we had this option it wasn’t necessary to add an “in-game save” feature.

Operation Sports: Will there be a game cast feature where you can decide to join a game in progress?

Ben Brinkman: Yes. We actually started this in MVP03 with interventions and continued to expand it with Manager Mode (now called Coach Mode).

Operation Sports: Will academics affect your recruits?

Ben Brinkman: Yes. Players who aren’t strong academically could find themselves suspended for periods of time. Be aware of this when recruiting.

Operation Sports: Will "summer league rules" include wooden bats?

Ben Brinkman: Yes, as well as take out slides, home plate collisions and no 10-run rule. There is also a “Custom” option to create a hybrid of NCAA and Summer rules.

Operation Sports: "Southwest Missouri State University" is listed to be in the game. That school switched its name to "Missouri State University" in August. Which name is in the game?

Ben Brinkman: It’s Missouri State University.

Operation Sports: Will the rosters be 2006 numbered players or 2005? What will we be able to edit? Will the announcers say that players name if we edit it? Would you compare the editing to the NCAA football series?

Ben Brinkman: The Rosters will be based upon 2005 and will be numbered players. At the time the rosters were done, there wasn't enough information to do accurate 2006 rosters. Editing players is very similar in nature to what NCAA Football has done. Users will be able to edit pretty much everything about a player. Their first and last names, number, home state, primary and secondary positions, handedness (for batting, pitching and throwing), school year, height, weight, Career potential, etc… We had Mike Patrick (our PBP announcer), and our PA Announcer record over 600 different common last names (Smith, Rodriguez, Jones etc…). In our Create Player screen, the user is able to see if their chosen last name matches a supported name that we have in our Audio database. When the created player comes up to bat, you'll hear Mike and our PA announce the player by last name.

Operation Sports: Are custom batter/menu soundtracks going to be supported this year?

Ben Brinkman: Custom Soundtracks are supported for the Xbox. Users will be able to pick 1 of 7 ditties when they create/edit a batter, but we don't support custom batter ditties. The only music that you'll be able to hear in the stadiums is the batter ditties.

Operation Sports: Will it be possible to have three guys with the same number on your team?

Ben Brinkman: It is possible; however the only way to get this to occur is to edit the player's numbers yourself. If you want, you can edit every single player on your team to have the same number. That being said, when we generate players for teams in Dynasty mode, you will not see multiple players on the same team sharing the same number.

Operation Sports: Will recruits have speed? What other attributes will we see in our recruits?

Ben Brinkman: Yes, recruits will have an “estimated” speed rating in MVP06’s Dynasty mode. When you first view potential recruits, via the Recruit Watch Lists, you can see an “estimate” of a recruit’s basic attributes such as contact, power, speed, stamina, and pitch ratings etc. And then once you send an Assistant Coach to Scout a recruit you can see an “estimate” as to where his attributes will be for the coming 1-5 years via the Skill Line (more on that later).

Operation Sports: When recruiting will players we are trying to recruit get drafted and decide not to go to college? How will scholarships be used in the recruiting process? Can you give us some more detailed information about the recruiting process?

Ben Brinkman: If you want to make sure you land a potential recruit you have to fill his Interest Meter by spending Recruit Points on Recruiting Actions: such as sending emails, making phone calls, school visits, etc. The more Prestigious your program, the more Recruit Points you get each week. If you show interest in a recruit, he will show interest in your program. The more you fill up his Interest Meter, the more likely he will end up on your team the following season. Early in the development cycle we decided that it would be cruel to you guys to have a recruit get drafted instead of signing with your program since there is allot of work involved in year round recruiting, especially when it comes to jumping through the hoops of signing a Top Recruit. When we were testing this, we all agreed that just having a dice roll determine whether a player got drafted, after all of your hard work, took away from the quality of the experience. Players can and will get drafted once they are on your team though. That way, at least you get to play with them for a year or so before they decide to move on. This is something that we are keeping a close eye on for next year. So please let us know your thoughts on this.

Operation Sports: Will there be multi-player dynasties? How many seasons will dynasties last?

Ben Brinkman: Since we had a hefty overhaul of Dynasty this year we chose to focus our efforts on providing you with the best single player Dynasty experience we could muster. MVP06’s Dynasty mode is 30 years long, with an average of 60 games per year, depending on what goes on in the post season. If you do the math, that’s roughly 1,800 games of Dynasty goodness. And just because you start a Dynasty with one team doesn’t mean you won’t have the choice to end up with another, or with a program you were given the opportunity to start from scratch using our Create Team feature.

Operation Sports: Skill wise will there be a good mix of different types of players (recruits)?

Ben Brinkman: Absolutely. All different shapes, sizes, positions, and skill sets. We’ve got potential All-Americans, Over-rated bench warmers, Diamonds in the rough, and pitchers capable of hitting in the 3 and 4 spots in your line up. The more you improve your Scouting ability, by successfully completing Team Goals, the better you’ll be at judging potential talent.

Operation Sports: How will you handle fatigue, especially for pitchers, in tournaments and a weekend series?

Ben Brinkman: Since pitchers generally have more days off in NCAA ball than in the pros, we made them fatigue a bit faster (and recover a bit slower). This will cause a team, and its pitching staff, to be hit hard when they play lots of games in a row, i.e. in tournaments and in weekend series. This is when the depth of your pitching staff comes into play, since you’ve only got a 3 man rotation. Here’s a tip, when in doubt, recruit a pitcher.

Operation Sports: Can you tell us what happens during the off-season?

Ben Brinkman: The first thing I do, before entering the off-season, is check Baseball America’s Award Watch to see if any of my players were selected for All-American, All-Conference, and All-Freshman teams, or won the Roger Clemens Award to name a few. We’ve actually attached winning some of these honors to Team Goals this year, so they’re not just eye candy.

The Off-Season flow works like so. First you see the players that are leaving your program, either because they graduated, were drafted, transferred, or left for personal reasons. If a player transfers you will get to see which team he ends up on, so the next time you see him you can brush him off the plate :). Next, is player progression. We have done more work tweaking progression this year and feel it’s the most polished iteration to date. Player progression is a combination of a couple things. First, your recruit’s skill line, and secondly, your Coaching staff. We’ll get to more on that later. On the player progression screen you can also use your trainer to try and switch up a player’s secondary position. This helps when you’re deep in one position but lacking in others. Next, is the Incoming Players screen. This is where the wheeling and dealing happens in regards to Scholarship and Playing time offers. Recruits can accept, reject, and counter your offers. This is also where you first see potential Walk-ons and Transfers. Lastly, we have the Staff screen. If you successfully completed any Team Goals during the season you will be able to choose from potential Coaches that want to offer their services. Each Coach has his own strengths and weaknesses that are directly associated with Player progression. Then it’s on to next season with your new, and hopefully improved, team.

Operation Sports: Can you give us some more information about the new load and fire batting?

Ben Brinkman: I have spent a bit of time on OS talking about Load and Fire Batting lately, but here it is again. With Load and Fire we tried to break batting down to the most basic level: the right stick is your swing. To “Load” your swing, pull down on the stick. To “Fire” your swing you pick up the pitch (the Hitter’s Eye is still around and tweaked a little bit, in a good way) and push the stick forward towards the pitch. Here’s what I mean by “towards the pitch”; if the pitch is down the middle of the plate you would pull back and then push the stick straight forward for the best contact. How you push the stick forward is determined by where the pitch is heading. If it’s outside you push the stick forward towards the outside pitch and vice versa for an inside pitches. Load and Fire Batting is 1 part timing and 1 part execution but more than anything I think it’s intuitive. Don’t get me wrong, it will be easy to learn, tough to master. I think this is the case for any game mechanic worth playing. Practice will be the key for Load and Fire Batting since it’s different than anything previously seen in a baseball title. For practice I suggest two things. 1) We polished up our Batting Mini Game so you can go and practice there. 2) We also added a “Strikes Only” mode so the CPU or your human opponent can only throw strikes. This is for hackers like me who swing at anything.

Operation Sports: How are injuries handled in the game? Can injured players play through it? Will a player with a leg injury run slower or a shoulder injury cause a weakness in the throwing arm?

Ben Brinkman: Injuries are handled the same as previous MVP titles. If you are hurt, day to day or otherwise, you come out of the game immediately.

Operation Sports: Can you give us any more information about the create a park feature? How many created schools in one dynasty can you add?

Ben Brinkman: The Create-a-Ballpark provides the user an easy and quick way to create their Ballpark in mere seconds. It is so quick and easy to create a ballpark that we have added a ‘Quick Create’ option in the Select Stadium screen in Exhibition and Dynasty where you can create a stadium for that game. This is similar to selecting a map in a FPS game. One of the unique features in Create-a-Ballpark is the ability to adjust wall distances, wall heights, and wall slopes. You can freely adjust the wall distances and wall heights one section at a time or adjust them as a group. You can further customize your walls by adding slopes to each wall section that will certainly add to the gameplay experience when you swing for the fences. Other features such as selecting your field surface and patterns and selecting your location backdrop which includes everything from a farm to a metropolis will make your Ballpark feel authentic and it can be your home Ballpark for your created school. You can replace any existing school with your created school. You can have 128 created schools in your Dynasty if that’s what you choose.

Operation Sports: How detailed is create a player? Has it changed much from the MVP series?

Ben Brinkman: The Create-a-Player feature is more detailed than it has been in the past. Keeping most of the options we had in the MVP series, we were able to add more equipment options to choose from which includes details such as making your player wear the cap off kilter, wear your hat at different heights, etc... However, you will see the largest improvements with the new facial morphing feature that will give you the ability to adjust facial details such as eye position and nostril width, the likes of what you have seen from other EA SPORTS games like Tiger and Fight Night. All the morphing is seen in real time on the player head model smoothly with optimal placed cameras that capture every morph adjustment in detail. The morphing is carried over to key body areas as well and combined with the new batting stances makes this year’s Create-a-Player feature deeper than ever.

Operation Sports: We would like to thank you for your time with this interview, is there anything else you would like to add?

Ben Brinkman: MVP06 doesn’t have the pro license but it is the best game we’ve made to date…by a long shot. As you can tell we’ve added a bunch of new features, polished everything to a nice shine and created what I believe to be the best baseball video game to date. I promise you will get more than your money’s worth.