Madden NFL 13 Title Update #2 Available Now (Updated to Include Full Details)

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by whaley

I'm a software developer for a living (albeit in server-side business middleware, which I'd argue is way simpler than platform game development). This game has only been released to the public for two weeks. Depending on the bug sometimes it takes that long just to reproducible bug, triage it, and get a patch for it and get it committed to the main code line. This isn't even counting manual QA and several other things that go into the release process. This stuff isn't easy. Chances are the stability fixes being mentioned are things that were causing actual loss of gameplay, crashing, major loss of functionality, but were only rarely occurring such that the risk of releasing the game with those bugs in there was small and they've probably been able to successfully reproduce and patch those critical issues. Developers aren't gods and can't just simply "write more code" to fix something. Give them a break in expecting something so soon. Of course, with this said, there are lots of warts (and CCM gameplay!) that really should be able to get patched in time for that bigger patch that people keep alluding to in 1-2 months. Realistically hold off on being disappointing until then. The fact there actually seems to be a somewhat predictable patch cycle shows that EA Sports actually does care here - I've worked in software shops that didn't care before and never bumped priority on things that caused loss of functionality for a minority of users and didn't plan a patch cycle accordingly.

I've been in software dev. too, and been since the early 80's. Sure, bugs can take time to go through the process, but what about releasing a product that doesn't have so many significant bugs? I think that is one of the things that people are upset about.

[hudgenja]

I don't know if this is the right place to post this or not but I haven't seen the title update posted anywhere so if anyone whom has it could post it, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[FlyEaglesFly3]

So Vague. . . what did they change? lol Come on EA tell us details!

[crpav]

Quote: Originally Posted by whaley

I'm a software developer for a living (albeit in server-side business middleware, which I'd argue is way simpler than platform game development). This game has only been released to the public for two weeks. Depending on the bug sometimes it takes that long just to reproducible bug, triage it, and get a patch for it and get it committed to the main code line. This isn't even counting manual QA and several other things that go into the release process. This stuff isn't easy. Chances are the stability fixes being mentioned are things that were causing actual loss of gameplay, crashing, major loss of functionality, but were only rarely occurring such that the risk of releasing the game with those bugs in there was small and they've probably been able to successfully reproduce and patch those critical issues. Developers aren't gods and can't just simply "write more code" to fix something. Give them a break in expecting something so soon. Of course, with this said, there are lots of warts (and CCM gameplay!) that really should be able to get patched in time for that bigger patch that people keep alluding to in 1-2 months. Realistically hold off on being disappointing until then. The fact there actually seems to be a somewhat predictable patch cycle shows that EA Sports actually does care here - I've worked in software shops that didn't care before and never bumped priority on things that caused loss of functionality for a minority of users and didn't plan a patch cycle accordingly.

As a computer science major in college with emphasis in programming I do understand the difficulty in programming and fixing bugs especially for very large projects like this. However I can't stand for lazy or bad programming to start. I will say ti again, Madden used to be fun and a bit more realistic when it came to pure football. It's a football game first so start there then add in the bells and whistles.

Let's be honest, they have deadlines and budgets so QA and overall quality suffers. The team is about money now and less about what EA started as, sports fans. The designers of these games are gamers first and maybe football fans second if at all. They probably don't have QA testers that know or care about football either so when they test before it's released they only look for the obvious like a game crashing and overlook true football game play.

[ProbieByKO]

Word on the EA Forums is that there is a problem with the patch, and EA is fixing something and we should be able to re-download it later today.

I don't know if this is true, and i don't understand what it means exactly, but several posters on the EA Forums are saying that this is why no changes are evident yet even after getting the update.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by hudgenja

I don't know if this is the right place to post this or not but I haven't seen the title update posted anywhere so if anyone whom has it could post it, it would be much appreciated. Thanks

If you are referring to patch notes, the OP directed us to a link that was the same as yesterday's facebook page.

He said that was all the info he had.

[jpdavis82]

Quote: Originally Posted by ProbieByKO

Word on the EA Forums is that there is a problem with the patch, and EA is fixing something and we should be able to re-download it later today. I don't know if this is true, and i don't understand what it means exactly, but several posters on the EA Forums are saying that this is why no changes are evident yet even after getting the update.

Where on the EA Forums? I just looked in the Madden General Discussion forum and didn't see this talked about anywhere.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by steamboat

Complaint I am seeing a lot on these forums: Why is it such a big deal that it needs to be looked into to simply add editing players into this game? If you have been following Josh Looman as I have he has answered this question. Editing players can more or less make Connected Careers mode crash or not function correctly with the storylines etc. So it is likely that they have to re-do some of the coding with the storylines and the entire CCM mode to accomodate for editing of players. Last thing I want is for them to rush out editing players and then CCM crashes/freezes every time I play it because of it.

Then it was designed and implemented very poorly. The story lines should have been dynamic (parametrized) so that changing players attributes would not break the story line.

Quote: Originally Posted by steamboat

Why is it so hard to implement a fantasy draft into Connected Careers? They would, in fact, have to rewrite the code for multiple screens of the game and fabricate a whole new screen and process. A new toggle-able option on the CCM startup screen. It alters the flow of the pre-career setup significantly. More signifantly then an edit player option even. It also could potentially lead to a destabilization of the mode if not done correctly.

Then I would rather have them keep Franchise and CCM until CCM is ready to completely replace franchise.

Quote: Originally Posted by steamboat

Then why did they take these things out? They did not take these things out. This is not the Madden that has existed on this console since day one. The entire code was scrapped, and they used very little of the old code in this new game. Therefore, they did not take it out. They were not able to put it back in under the new format in time.

Yes they did take these things out. Were they in last years game? and previous years? Are they in this years game? They have been removed from last year to this year. Those features that were in the game last year are missing from this years game. Saying they were not taken out is just a semantics game.