Madden NFL 10 Blog: The Importance of an Early Community Day (New Screenshot Included

[Rocky]

Quote: Originally Posted by Valdarez

Madden has a larger field than AFP2K8, and even APF2K8 struggles to cover zones properly, especially on the wide part of the field. I think that's why the Zone Warp bug was so bad in '08 and they have constantly tuned it down. Our ability to see the 'whole' field is a huge advantage over what a QB gets to see. I think 2K's approach of shrinking the field to allow proper momentum / player movement to be in play was a good choice, though I will admit I enjoy Madden's look of the open field. I would like to have both, but if a smaller field helps add to the realism in the player movements and counters the player vision, then I'm all for doing what needs to be done to make the game play the best it can be.

This is the one aspect in where Madden is superior to APF. It feels like there are more routes available in Madden because of the spacing. Outs, ins, posts, go's, and corners are generally done better in 2K8 while drags and sit routes are done better in Madden. In Madden, you get a better sense of "if this is taken away, I can go to this".

[streamline]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Press and man work well. Zone is the one with some questions at the moment. Minor, though, and Ian was quick to pick up on it when I showed him. I think that's one of the high priority stuff.

by any chance did they mention a possible demo sort of like last seasons? (thanks again for answering all of our questions, the madden nation is a very curious group )

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rocky

This is the one aspect in where Madden is superior to APF. It feels like there are more routes available in Madden because of the spacing. Outs, ins, posts, go's, and corners are generally done better in 2K8 while drags and sit routes are done better in Madden. In Madden, you get a better sense of "if this is taken away, I can go to this".

Madden also has better playbooks... real playbooks. Always has. 2k5 had a lot of hype surrounding ti's playbooks, but they've always be way behind the times. Anthony White, EA's playbook guy, is top notch. Be nice to see him given a bit more space for the playbooks.

[NFLHITMAN]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Madden also has better playbooks... real playbooks. Always has. 2k5 had a lot of hype surrounding ti's playbooks, but they've always be way behind the times. Anthony White, EA's playbook guy, is top notch. Be nice to see him given a bit more space for the playbooks.

Are you saying that the playbooks are better than APF? APF has almost 7,000 plays that you can personally add or delete and make your own personal playbook. You can even move your favorite plays up in the formation so its easier to get to.

Is the playbooks in Madden 10 as personal as APF is what I want to know.

[Rocky]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Madden also has better playbooks... real playbooks. Always has. 2k5 had a lot of hype surrounding ti's playbooks, but they've always be way behind the times. Anthony White, EA's playbook guy, is top notch. Be nice to see him given a bit more space for the playbooks.

I've always felt that the 2K series (even still with APF2K8) had superior playbooks with regards to defense and the running game. Madden has always had vastly superior passing plays though, which game them an overall edge. Madden does do a top notch job of getting team specificity right. NCAA is another story (the option playbooks are laughable).

[Moostache]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

You know, the more I think about it, the more I understand it. It's not hate, it's utter confusion. I think everyone expects Madden 10 to be several strides ahead of Madden 09, but I don't think anybody is expecting to see what we saw. Let me put it this way... we've spent 18 hours with the game. We watched a power point presentation in which damn near every jaw in the room hit the floor. We've seen it, it's a hell of a lot easier for us to believe it's actually come that far. We've all tempered our views, we've all pointed out the flaws, but we've always said "hey, this might get fixed, this is so close" etc.. And to have you, LBzrule, and BezO come back praising it like you have... I can imagine it smells fishy to some... how does Madden, who was hard pressed to figure out how to get defensive hot routes back into the game 3 frickin' years later, ever make this much progress in one year? Hell, I was asking them that when I was there.

As one of the "idiots" and "shills" and "non-football people" who had attended and reported on previous versions of Madden Community Days (2007, 2008 and 2009 - the more traditional kind), I have a few items to throw on the wall...

Point the first - a big thanks to the guys who had the chance to get hands-on with the Alpha build and to provide feedback...I cannot believe that I have actually read this entire thread to this point, but the limited feedback sprinkled in between the nonsense has been excellent. I was glad to see that at least some of the questions in this magnum opus thread were getting very solid replies today.

The previous Community Days for Madden have been great experiences; but, getting to actually give advice on issues with enough time remaining in the cycle to actually see them addressed is the best yet by far. One of the greatest frustrations that many of us felt at last year's NCAA/Madden combined event was the fact that problems we immediately found in NCAA and Madden simply could not be addressed due to the proximity of the release.

I personally spent time with Ian showing him exactly why the DE-contain was a joke in NCAA 09 by taking Pat White on Heisman difficulty and running around in a 30-yard box (literally running around the defensive linemen and "pass rush") before firing off bombs to wide open Noel Devine...I was also with Scott from ConsoleSports when he was showing the glaring problem with man-coverage of LB's attempting to cover RB's in the flats or on out routes. These previous events were not utterly useless as they have been painted in this thread. They were simply too late to be of any practical use to the developers, at least as it pretained to changing the upcoming releases at that time.

(Of course, once the games released and the angry villagers found these vary issues - among others - and their pitchforks and torches; those who actually DID point out things like a glaring lack of pass rush and OL-DL interactions and god awful coverage gaffes were tarred and feathered as if they had been asked how to break the game at the community day instead of providing feedback on ways to improve it!)

Point the second - no matter what happens or how thorough the guys were with EA's dev team, there WILL be glitches and there will be exploits in the game; especially in the world of online and head-to-head play. There is ABSOLUTLEY ZERO chance that the 8-guys there - in 18 whole hours that go by like a blur - and the development team, can possibly catch them all in the same way that several MILLION gamers will in the first two weeks after release.

With so much of the game being redone and/or changed - OL-DL, DB-WR, QB drops as three MAJOR issues that will be rife for exploits - I can guarantee that something being put in to make the game better is going to fall into the wrong hands and cause the masses to decry the game as "broken" and those who initially were impressed as "hopeless, EA shills".

Point the last - the guys who went to previous EA events were not some collection of imbeciles that found golden tickets to Ian Cummings magical funhouse...they were all much more dedicated than myself (someone who considers it an honor and a fluke that I was brought down to EA ever! ) and all went down with the intention of providing as much feedback as possible to help make a better Madden experience for everyone.

I certainly understand the guys who went down their last week being pissed about getting trashed in this thread and having their football acumen and dedication questioned; but it remains unfair to keep on painting previous Community Day Events and the attendees of those events as a bunch of pikers. Guys like cdj, the former Russell05, Bobby, Rhombic, Damon and Andy, Craig and Scott, MadScientist and Shopmaster (and everyone else for that matter...sorry if I did not call them out by name specifically) did a lot of work with guys like Mike Johnson, Raczilla and Ian and Phil to get the whole community-developer relationship built up to where it is today.

So, I read this thread and the constant harping and attacking on the very people selected from among the community itself with both empathy and a little bit of hurt e-feelings too...lol!

The importance of having a solid foundation is clear when you look at the story of COD2/COD3 and COD4/COD:WaW. When Infinity Ward handed over COD3 development to Treyarch to focus their own resources on COD4, they did not hand over a fully functional engine and process for making COD3...and the result was a very mixed bag...I personally loved playing COD3, but many did not...fast forward to last year's COD:WaW, also made by Treyarch, but on a totally different model than the previous COD3 process. Treyarch made complete use of the COD4 engine and gameplay and then built from there...and the result was a much better game because of it.

My sincere hope is that we see a similar type of synergy for Madden NFL 10...that we see the feedback from everyone at Tiburon last week actually filtered down into the final release and a much better product as an end result...

[Rocky]

Quote: Originally Posted by NFLHITMAN

Are you saying that the playbooks are better than APF? APF has almost 7,000 plays that you can personally add or delete and make your own personal playbook. You can even move your favorite plays up in the formation so its easier to get to. Is the playbooks in Madden 10 as personal as APF is what I want to know.

He''s definately right about the passing game. There are relatively basic passing concepts in Madden that aren't anywhere to be found in APF. Madden even has some advanced passing concepts in there game. I have to hot route to get the concepts I want in APF, where in Madden they are built in.

The running game is another story however.

[Megatron2k7]

Quote: Originally Posted by Megatron2k7

Did any of you guys who went have any feedback for Donny on the player ratings you saw ? I know you can't go into specifics on any ratings you saw..... I was just curious about whether or not any of you saw a few ratings that you debated with Donny about. I always thought they had a team of guys, or at least a few guys working on player ratings. It seems like a lot of work for just Donny to do. I have faith in Donny, but he's only human. It has to be hard for him to remain unbiased with every single player. IMO it would be better if there were at least a few guys to brainstorm on the ratings and average them out in cases where they didn't agree. If you asked a question in here about what a player should be rated, you know as well as I do that we'd see a pretty big debate about it. That's why it seems like such a tough job for just one person.

With the fast rate the posts are coming in, I fear this may have gone un-noticed. I am really curious about this. Especially after Adembroski mentioned how Asomugha was maybe too good. (he is a beast though, and should be the top rated corner in M10.) Can anyone please reply...???