Every week, until the release of NCAA Football 10, we'll have a set of interview questions for the Producers of the game. This week, Ben Haumiller, designer of NCAA Football 10, has taken some time out of his schedule to answer these questions for us.

Is it possible to watch other games in your online dynasty? Maybe a gamecast to follow, using the UI from SuperSim?

A: We do not have the ability at this point to view other online dynasty games. This is something that is on our radar and we are working on overcoming the technical challenges that go into broadcasting an online game on a large scale.

Have any additions and/or changes been made to the custom stadium sounds system, i.e. new situations to play sounds, tweaking of when sounds play, how sounds fade out, the number of specific sound events one can store in one profile, etc.? Will stadium sounds have the same number of slots?

A: The Custom Stadium Sounds feature will continue to work the same as it did in NCAA Football 09. With the addition of TeamBuilder, you will be able to set custom sounds for these schools using the “All” setting.

Is formation subs in or are we able to substitute our special team players?

A: Formation Subs are not a part of NCAA Football 10, you are able to make substitutions through depth chart changes and in-game packages.

Will we see post game celebration cut scenes and/or team entrances?

A: We have not announced our updates to pre-game intros yet. These will be announced in an upcoming blog post.

Will there be a deeper online dynasty/league site via EASW?

A: The Online Dynasty widget will be available on EASW again this year.

In regards to Teambuilder, is there a list of Team Names that will be said via Color Crew or PA Announcer?

A: We will be releasing the full list of the 1500+ TeamBuilder names recorded by Brad Nessler at a later date.

Will sliders be more effective in user vs. user online dynasty games?

A: The sliders will work as they did post patch in NCAA Football 09.

Has commentary been updated and improved? (Asides from Erin Andrews)

A: One new addition to commentary this year is the addition of community submitted names. Players were able to log on to EASW and submit their last name and the phonetic spelling of their name, which we had Nessler record so they will be announced when an in-game player has that same name. We also added a lot of new commentary lines for each in-game situation. Additionally, a lot of updates were made to the Ask Corso commentary.

Any hope for more than 12 teams for Online Dynasties?

A: We are always looking into ways to improve our title every year. We did not increase the number of schools that can be user controlled, but we are investigating upping the number in the future.

What kind of defensive gameplay enhancements/tweaks have been implemented into this year's game? What has been done to tone down the wide open gameplay?

A: Here are a few things we’ve done (obviously not everything):
Pursuit Angles, Defensive line tipping passes, Man Coverage has been improved, Press/Release enhancements (from WR/DB interactions), and Adaptive AI all make a really big impact. I should also point out that players in deep zones (depending on zone coverage rating) will be more aggressive in going after passes.

So examples:
• Just taking a speed back and running outside does not equal a score (pursuit angles)
• "Elite" Corners make a bigger impact between the abilities to jam receivers and simply cover better in Man
• Adaptive AI can force you to change up your play calling. I say can because if you are a way better team, all the reaction ratings in the world will not always help the defense
• And just more incompletions in general help defense (tip passes and more realistic misses on passes)

Do defenses react more realistically when it comes to pursuit angles?

A: Yes, they do. When you see open field there isn’t a guarantee that you have a free ride to the end zone. Defenders will cut you off pretty regularly if you don’t have a huge jump on them. A blog about this subject was posted on our Inside EA SPORTS blog page and includes videos of the new updates. The blog can be found here: http://insideblog.easports.com/archi...it-angles.aspx

In dynasty mode, will every game be a sellout crowd or will the crowd be based on the program and how it's doing?

A: We tuned the logic to determine the initial attendance for games. You will still see an increase in the crowd size for the first home game of the season and for rivalry games, but for teams having a poor season vs. a non-premiere opponent the crowd will be smaller.

When will we see custom playbooks, formation subs, or random plays in practice make its return?

A: Selecting random plays in practice mode was available in NCAA Football 09 by either formation-set or by play type. It will also be available in NCAA Football 10.

Will CPU teams recruit players that fit their style of play or will it continue to randomly recruit position needs?

A: The CPU will continue to focus on needs as they recruit in Dynasty, they will not however just target QB’s or FB’s once they are done with those need positions. This year they will attempt to build depth at a different position based on some more logic. Basically you should not see teams with 10 QBs and 15 FBs in year 10.

Has "Jump the Snap" been tuned in such a way, that it doesn't turn players into Superheroes when they succeed?

A: With all the changes to blocking and blocking animations Jump the Snap has been tuned as well in how often it succeeds and the type of animations it gets.

Will there be in-game saves this year?

A: In-game saves will not be a part of NCAA Football 10.

What can you tell us about the presentation aspect of NCAA? Will we see more stat overlays?

A: We’ve added various presentation elements to NCAA Football 10 including flags around the stadiums, windsocks on the uprights, field goal nets, camera flashes, and dynamic bowl end zones. You can read more about this in our Inside EA SPORTS blog: http://insideblog.easports.com/archi...e-details.aspx

In addition, we’ve also added new gameplay cameras that help you see more of the field and updated our special teams cameras to show off more of the environments. The blog on that can be found here: http://insideblog.easports.com/archi...n-updates.aspx The new gameplay cameras also gave us the ability to add Player Lock to the game where we can utilize a special camera view for each position. The blog on that subject can be found here: http://insideblog.easports.com/archi...ve-assist.aspx