APF 2K9: What Could Have Been

[CPRoark]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

Great article? When the author is talking about the game context could've had something to do with the "football gods" ruling over every city and... I had to stop reading that junk. Like so many other throwaway OS articles of late. Pretty much nothing useful in it but the title.

Sorry you feel this way. I knew when I was writing that there would be some who wouldn't buy what I was going for. If you would have finished reading, you would have seen that we agreed with the full customization aspect. That was certainly something that was lacking.

You also criticize me and IGN ripping the game for what it wasn't. That wasn't my intent at all; that's why the article wasn't "APF 2K8: What wasn't." As it is, 2K8 was a fine playing football game. In my opinion, which is contrary to yours, they didn't do enough to differentiate themselves from Madden. We were left with a great playing, albeit very generic feeling game.

To me, without customization, context is huge. I want a universe that seems tangible and ongoing. You are right, a bare-boned franchise mode wouldn't have worked--it would have felt empty. My "football gods" thing was a creative way to incorporate the legends--assuming that APF 2K9 would not have abandoned that concept--using imagination and maximizing replay. Using legends messes with any franchise attempt--what about retirement, drafting new players, etc.? If you legends never change, that removes a huge element of what's interesting about traditional franchises.

The point is these games will never do well without some creativity--on the part of the developers or the users (Winning 11, et al).

Whether or not my article is of use beyond the title, it has at least spurred some conversation about this game that may never come back.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by CPRoark

Sorry you feel this way. I knew when I was writing that there would be some who wouldn't buy what I was going for. If you would have finished reading, you would have seen that we agreed with the full customization aspect. That was certainly something that was lacking.

Personally I felt the football gods concept felt a little too out-there, but that isn't me talking down to your idea. And I definitely didn't mean to lump you in with IGN - I despise IGN's editorial and sports review content. I did mean what I said about OS's articles, because they have been mostly disappointing. That aside, I was trying to underscore the difficulty of how the game should be framed. Even in this thread we've seen x-number disparate ideas/directions people feel 2K should've taken, everyone feeling their idea was the right one. We had this debate leading up to APF's release - everybody had their own ideas about how franchise should be, how many teams, how many conferences/divisions, themes, etc. I just think we underestimate how difficult it was to try to create a viable football game essentially from scratch.

Most of us feel the player abilities system they were putting in place showed a lot of promise, but how might that have worked in a franchise mode? How might progression work? Or players declining in ability? Or if that should be taken into account at all? There was so much that was vague about the system to begin with, it's hard to see how they might've implemented it in the first year because people are so used to seeing numbers.

I agree w/your points on expanding on the personalities of the players. To some degree the players are somewhat distinguishable by the abilities, and I'm sure they would've expanded on that in future games. But the expectation seems to be that they have things relatively set on their first attempt. All I'm saying is trying to come up with a viable scheme that would please most is difficult, because there were a lot of hurdles to overcome. That they got the game made and it played very well on the field should've been considered a success in it's own right. Instead you had people saying the presentation sucked because it didn't match 2K5 - even though the game looks to be presented better than a new game like Madden '09 will be. No franchise. Game looks horrible (mostly 2K's fault in large part because of the ridiculous uniform choices imo). Just a lot for an unlicensed game to have to match up to

[CPRoark]

You are right...I don't think they could ever win trying to please everyone. It couldn't be an NFL sim, might be too arcadey, presentation might be off, etc. That's why I think they either have to go the way many suggested, full customization, or go way out there with something that's focused and consistent. It doesn't have to be crazy, it just has to be implemented fully.

Madden will always be the big NFL game, Blitz is the arcade title. We know these are true because they've always been true (except maybe for Blitz: Pro). The NFL 2K series, I think, was gaining a reputation as the "true fans" game, i.e., if you are a real die-hard NFL fan, you'll like this better than Madden. But without the license, that rep was lost.

APF might be known as the Legends game, but it didn't do that well enough to gain a market share.

Again, it comes down to making it "our" game with customization, or it has to be the ______ game (fill in the blank with a solid ID). That could be the "football gods" game or something more grounded. In either case, it has to be creative and consistent.

[burnwood]

Quote: Originally Posted by asu666

"Balls to the wall is what they should have done." That's called Blitz and it stinks for sim fans. They should have done something simular to Pro Evolution Soccer is to FIFA, but let the community build everything and share it.

Blitz most definitely wasn't what I shooting for in my post. The individual things in my previous post were though.

[asu666]

1. Drop the Legends it's Cheaper and Less Limiting
2. Full Customization (Players, Stadiums, Team Names and Locations Uniforms, Play Clock, Penalties, Game Play Sliders)
3. File Sharing
4. Owner Mode/ Franchise Mode

The concept is that a new league is starting up and the first draft is life a Necessary Roughness or The Replacement Players Concept. You are the league Commisioner and a Franchise Owner. The goal is to build your team and the league into the premier football league in the country within 30 seasons. The league acts like a character in an RPG, you start off small and grow. I would like to see variable attendance as an option too so I can see more fans packing my custom stadium as the league and my team does better.

[CPRoark]

Quote: Originally Posted by asu666

1. Drop the Legends it's Cheaper and Less Limiting 2. Full Customization (Players, Stadiums, Team Names and Locations Uniforms, Play Clock, Penalties, Game Play Sliders) 3. File Sharing 4. Owner Mode/ Franchise Mode The concept is that a new league is starting up and the first draft is life a Necessary Roughness or The Replacement Players Concept. You are the league Commisioner and a Franchise Owner. The goal is to build your team and the league into the premier football league in the country within 30 seasons. The league acts like a character in an RPG, you start off small and grow. I would like to see variable attendance as an option too so I can see more fans packing my custom stadium as the league and my team does better.

Good ideas. If only OS readers and staff had the resources to make a football game.

[metallicatz]

I played APF for 6 Season Mode go-rounds and it just got boring. Very little replay value for offline guys who like franshise mode. Plus, the whole legends gimmick got old pretty quick because it added a huge arcade element to the game. The legends were programmed seemingly by guys who watched NFL Films highlights of these guys under the assumption that guys like Earl Cambell or Walter Payton rattled off highlight reel calibur runs on every down. That just wasn't the case in real life. The game was every bit the mediocre product the cumulative review scores indicate.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by metallicatz

I played APF for 6 Season Mode go-rounds and it just got boring. Very little replay value for offline guys who like franshise mode. Plus, the whole legends gimmick got old pretty quick because it added a huge arcade element to the game. The legends were programmed seemingly by guys who watched NFL Films highlights of these guys under the assumption that guys like Earl Cambell or Walter Payton rattled off highlight reel calibur runs on every down. That just wasn't the case in real life. The game was every bit the mediocre product the cumulative review scores indicate.

I'm a huge 2K guy, but I have to agree with you here, metallicatz. The game was fine, but in the end, it did seem like a incrementally-improved NFL2K5 without the NFL part. I have to say I think the game was mediocre, and I agree that the legends were a bit overly impactful on games.

Having said that, the football gods idea wasn't bad - it's a way to go to give the game character. Personally, I just think a stripped-down game with a boffo engine and next-gen graphics which the community could customize the hell out of was THE way to go. Give us the tools to re-create the NFL, and I promise the game would be a better recreation of the league than Madden, because the hardcore users would take all the inconsistencies they point out in these forums and translate that into the game directly. I don't see how that would be that difficult. Hell, if you built in enough customization (and frankly I don't see why they couldn't - it's just a matter of letting you put as many teams in a league as you want and customizing the structure of a season), you could even make it so that the game could either be a pro (NFL) OR college (NCAA) game. There's really no reason that couldn't happen.

BTW, my idea for a different way 2K could've gone would have been to make a high school football game, wherein you could set up your own leagues/divisions/conferences, customize all the schools (so you could make your own high school!), and play out a high school season to the state championship. Has anyone ever tried this? It seems kinda cool to me...