Madden NFL and the Future of Video Game Sports (Grantland)

[dfos81]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

I don't know why everyone thinks there is a "game engine". There isn't. There are some small chunks that you could call an "engine" for certain things, but there is no game engine that drives madden.

Probably b/c of the Blogs from tech sites:

"Square Enix is hard at work on what is going to be their next gen engine, moving away from their past titles’ art work and into photo realism. Square is hoping to do what the Unreal Engine did for this generation, with their Luminous Engine Next Gen."

http://www.ps3blog.net/2012/01/06/lu...lism-next-gen/

While on the subject of "game engines", it would be nice if EA or 2K started using the Euphoria or a similar type engine from Natural Motion.
I know, wishful thinking.....




70MB of additional RAM unlocked for PS3 developers
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/23/70...s3-developers/


They need more storage for more improved A.I., better animations, etc. etc. Blu-Ray can hold all of this. http://techland.time.com/2011/03/30/...h-for-blu-ray/


The visuals will benefit from the additional RAM but what about the major improvments we are searching for. Heres a quote from the article: "Generally it probably won't change design, but might allow extra effects resolution or dynamic lights or something. Probably more beneficial from the systems and art side then from design/gameplay."

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by dfos81

Probably b/c of the Blogs from tech sites: "Square Enix is hard at work on what is going to be their next gen engine, moving away from their past titles’ art work and into photo realism. Square is hoping to do what the Unreal Engine did for this generation, with their Luminous Engine Next Gen." http://www.ps3blog.net/2012/01/06/lu...lism-next-gen/ While on the subject of "game engines", it would be nice if EA or 2K started using the Euphoria or a similar type engine from Natural Motion. I know, wishful thinking.....

Yes, but the developers have said there is no "game engine". They might now have built a few engines that can be used to drive certain aspects of the game, like maybe a franchise engine or something like that, but there is no single "engine" driving the gameplay of madden. Maybe that's part of the problem, they need more generic code that drives certain aspects of the game.

[cmidd]

What happened to the "A year is not enough time to make significant improvments" excuse? Now its a console memory issue?!? Soccer has 11 players on the field per team, crowd AI, etc. fifa's devs aren't making excuses their making great games

[TNT713]

Quote: Originally Posted by cmidd

What happened to the "A year is not enough time to make significant improvments" excuse? Now its a console memory issue?!? Soccer has 11 players on the field per team, crowd AI, etc. fifa's devs aren't making excuses their making great games

Game devs from all over the world have recognized Madden for the difficulty of programming a football game at the E3 conference. Only guys that don't program anything fail to recognize this difficulty.

Console limitations has always been the 'excuse' because it's the reality of developing games...

Football is easily the hardest sport to program because of the resources required to calculate all of the collisions required to simulate the sport.

Soccer isn't even close to the same programming difficulty... Calculating each collision require resources. Soccer NEVER has more than one to three player simultaneous colliding. Football ALWAYS does.

The challenges are NOT the same even though the number of players is.

Later

[tfctillidie]

Quote: Originally Posted by TNT713

Game devs from all over the world have recognized Madden for the difficulty of programming a football game at the E3 conference. Only guys that don't program anything fail to recognize this difficulty. Console limitations has always been the 'excuse' because it's the reality of developing games... Football is easily the hardest sport to program because of the resources required to calculate all of the collisions required to simulate the sport. Soccer isn't even close to the same programming difficulty... Calculating each collision require resources. Soccer NEVER has more than one to three player simultaneous colliding. Football ALWAYS does. The challenges are NOT the same even though the number of players is. Later

IIRC Naturalmotion's game had the GPU calculating it's collisions which I don't believe is the case with Madden.

It's silly to deny how much potential that kind of technology has, it was simply designed by a very small team with no real interest in making a good football game, they just wanted to showcase their technology with it. Put that in the hands of a larger team with EA's resources and we might see something incredible, but that's not something we're going to see anytime soon...or ever.

So lets not paint a picture that "football games" are like this, EA's style of sports game is like this and creates this difficulty based on it's own design choices. For example, you could free up computing power if the game isn't constantly referencing animations from memory, which in turn frees up space for data which they have explained is a limitation for them in the past.

Simply put, EA's way is not the only way to make a game. Their limitations are from their own design.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by tfctillidie

IIRC Naturalmotion's game had the GPU calculating it's collisions which I don't believe is the case with Madden. It's silly to deny how much potential that kind of technology has, it was simply designed by a very small team with no real interest in making a good football game, they just wanted to showcase their technology with it. Put that in the hands of a larger team with EA's resources and we might see something incredible, but that's not something we're going to see anytime soon...or ever. So lets not paint a picture that "football games" are like this, EA's style of sports game is like this and creates this difficulty based on it's own design choices. For example, you could free up computing power if the game isn't constantly referencing animations from memory, which in turn frees up space for data which they have explained is a limitation for them in the past. Simply put, EA's way is not the only way to make a game. Their limitations are from their own design.

As someone who has been writing software for a living, we have certain mantras. Things like "that's impossible", "it can't be done", "it's too hard", etc. etc, are not permitted. That's a crock. It just takes work and effort and a lot of time. It's not a business for the 9 to 5er who takes 2 hour lunches and 5 weeks vacation. Nothing is impossible. In fact, we know it isn't, because the older generation football games were much better than what we have now (yes, both Madden and 2k). Whatever they did to the code on next gen, they must have really screwed the pooch. There are less "tools" and the player interaction is still laughable. It's 2012 and we still have synchronized player models moving in unison, we have 11 defenders reacting to the ball the second it's released from the QB's hand and we still don't have the actual penalties, challenge system, pass trajectory, etc. etc. that we should. Then you can even go into the other problems. How come I can't practice with my online franchise roster? How hard would it be to enable the user to export his online franchise roster file to play unranked games with it from within his online franchise community? I bet it would take a developer 2 hours to write that code, yet we still can't do it.

You have to wonder sometimes why things are so hard. Usually in software, when it's really hard to extend something or add to it, it means it was designed wrong in the first place. You write code to be extensible and maintainable. You write a lot of generic code that is reusable elsewhere, so you don't have to keep re-writing things or make changes in multiple places when the code changes. It's clear that not a lot of this was done on this generation for this product.

[TNT713]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

As someone who has been writing software for a living, we have certain mantras. Things like "that's impossible", "it can't be done", "it's too hard", etc. etc, are not permitted. That's a crock. It just takes work and effort and a lot of time. It's not a business for the 9 to 5er who takes 2 hour lunches and 5 weeks vacation. Nothing is impossible. In fact, we know it isn't, because the older generation football games were much better than what we have now (yes, both Madden and 2k). Whatever they did to the code on next gen, they must have really screwed the pooch. There are less "tools" and the player interaction is still laughable. It's 2012 and we still have synchronized player models moving in unison, we have 11 defenders reacting to the ball the second it's released from the QB's hand and we still don't have the actual penalties, challenge system, pass trajectory, etc. etc. that we should. Then you can even go into the other problems. How come I can't practice with my online franchise roster? How hard would it be to enable the user to export his online franchise roster file to play unranked games with it from within his online franchise community? I bet it would take a developer 2 hours to write that code, yet we still can't do it. You have to wonder sometimes why things are so hard. Usually in software, when it's really hard to extend something or add to it, it means it was designed wrong in the first place. You write code to be extensible and maintainable. You write a lot of generic code that is reusable elsewhere, so you don't have to keep re-writing things or make changes in multiple places when the code changes. It's clear that not a lot of this was done on this generation for this product.

Nice post... While I don't write software, I have a decade of user support experience. I'm sure you'll agree that the USER is always the wildcard. The USER may press the wrong button, but still wants the right thing to happen and will be frustrated when it doesn't even if it's his fault.

That said, you said that building code properly takes effort and time. No doubt, the effort is there but how much can you really do within a 9-month cycle - especially when support for the previous title continues after the title release. As odd as it sounds, it makes me nostalgic about the days when there was no after-release support, patches, updates, or online communities to rail against the game...

IMO, in the history of console video games, only 3 fall into the category of "GOOD." Super Tecmo Bowl, Madden, and NFL2K - in chronological order. The rest of the pro football gaming choices have ranged from ABYSMAL to barely passable. This speaks to the difficulty of producing a football game...

That said, what we have now as a NG football product is a casualty of the first 3 years of NG Madden. Those 1st 3 versions were horrid and it took 3 more years to get back to a 0 point. Madden 12 may have been in our hands years earlier had it not been for the scramble to reverse the course and correct the "Ortiz" years... In essence, the pooch was screwed and the code was built wrong and we are suffering because the game tried to go in a different direction from Madden '06-'08. We're 3 years behind where we ought to be.

Later

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by TNT713

Nice post... While I don't write software, I have a decade of user support experience. I'm sure you'll agree that the USER is always the wildcard. The USER may press the wrong button, but still wants the right thing to happen and will be frustrated when it doesn't even if it's his fault. That said, you said that building code properly takes effort and time. No doubt, the effort is there but how much can you really do within a 9-month cycle - especially when support for the previous title continues after the title release. As odd as it sounds, it makes me nostalgic about the days when there was no after-release support, patches, updates, or online communities to rail against the game... IMO, in the history of console video games, only 3 fall into the category of "GOOD." Super Tecmo Bowl, Madden, and NFL2K - in chronological order. The rest of the pro football gaming choices have ranged from ABYSMAL to barely passable. This speaks to the difficulty of producing a football game... That said, what we have now as a NG football product is a casualty of the first 3 years of NG Madden. Those 1st 3 versions were horrid and it took 3 more years to get back to a 0 point. Madden 12 may have been in our hands years earlier had it not been for the scramble to reverse the course and correct the "Ortiz" years... In essence, the pooch was screwed and the code was built wrong and we are suffering because the game tried to go in a different direction from Madden '06-'08. We're 3 years behind where we ought to be. Later

Agreed on all counts. That's not to say there aren't a lot of good things in M12. I'm not one who can play against the computer (other than practice mode), so it is cool to see that many real football principals CAN be applied to Madden. I do agree too that many times, people expect something to happen just because they feel they called the right play at the right time. Execution is huge in football and it is still a big part of playing Madden. There are always times where we have hit the wrong button, made a bad read, or held the ball too long. Those are a part of football and are represented fairly well in my opinion. The player warping through other players and things like that that you mentioned are the frustrating elements that plague the series.