Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

[cdon2k]

"Ian had mentioned a quicker experience for Madden 10 in a previous thread. He said that games were taking too long to get through (which I agree because I am married and have other responsibilities. I gave this example:

Wife, "we have to go shopping are you playing online?"

Me, "yeah"

Wife, "well, how long is it going to be?"

Me with a grimace, "an hour!?!"

Wife, "well, can't you just quit and play when we get back?"

Me embarrassed, "no, if I quit my record will be punished..."

So Ian put a fix in for Madden 10, accelerated clock, faster presentation for online, and 5 minute quarters. Then the community outrage came and we're back to that one hour mark. PS2 Madden only took about 30 minutes to complete making it easy to get multiple games in if you had some time to spare.

So you may be asking "why does Ian care so much about this issue?". Well, here's your answer - the game takes too long for even the devs to play it! Ian noticed this last year when he could get in a 30 minute game of Fifa here and there but like me couldn't find that hour needed for a game of Madden. As a result he's always playing Fifa and not Madden. I love the sim community, but they are wrong on this one, presentation should be slim to none online. Seventeen minutes of football out of 60? Say it out loud and realize that it's crazy."

Quote: Originally Posted by CreatineKasey

It's not crazy. I remember reading about how much live football is actually seen during a given broadcast. It ended up being around 10 minutes in a 3 hour broadcast. Yes... it was less than a half hour! Football works that way. People need time to select plays and set things up. The actual play lasts for mere seconds. If they could pare down the non-football gameplay we could possibly experience a fair amount of plays in a half hour. I'd love to play 10 minute quarters and finish in 45ish minutes.

Kasey, I enjoy reading your posts, but your comparison here is off... The one thing you forgot about is commercials?!? I understood your point but games on TV have commercials. That skews your data unless you want to place tv timeouts in Madden 11 lol. Even still, we are playing a game and I just don't want to commit a whole hour to it because many things can happen, blowouts, disconnects (which leads to playing the cpu), among others.

[CreatineKasey]

Quote: Originally Posted by cdon2k

"Ian had mentioned a quicker experience for Madden 10 in a previous thread. He said that games were taking too long to get through (which I agree because I am married and have other responsibilities. I gave this example: Wife, "we have to go shopping are you playing online?" Me, "yeah" Wife, "well, how long is it going to be?" Me with a grimace, "an hour!?!" Wife, "well, can't you just quit and play when we get back?" Me embarrassed, "no, if I quit my record will be punished..." So Ian put a fix in for Madden 10, accelerated clock, faster presentation for online, and 5 minute quarters. Then the community outrage came and we're back to that one hour mark. PS2 Madden only took about 30 minutes to complete making it easy to get multiple games in if you had some time to spare. So you may be asking "why does Ian care so much about this issue?". Well, here's your answer - the game takes too long for even the devs to play it! Ian noticed this last year when he could get in a 30 minute game of Fifa here and there but like me couldn't find that hour needed for a game of Madden. As a result he's always playing Fifa and not Madden. I love the sim community, but they are wrong on this one, presentation should be slim to none online. Seventeen minutes of football out of 60? Say it out loud and realize that it's crazy." Kasey, I enjoy reading your posts, but your comparison here is off... The one thing you forgot about is commercials?!? Games on TV have commercials. That skews your data unless you want to place tv timeouts in Madden 11.

Understood, but the point I was getting across is that it isn't crazy to think we don't really play that much actual football given all the other moving parts of a game. I know what you mean though, it's not a linear transition. I was just using that comparison as an example. I want games to be shortened up while maintaining the amount of plays as well.

EDIT: I do appreciate clarifications like this. It helps clear up talking points. Thanks for the input!

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by BezO

Folks playing online, putting in that many hours, already enjoy the game. Survey & check the stats of those who put in LESS game time. Those are the folks turned off. This is the type of analysis I'm afraid of. Excessive picks don't necessarily happen because the passing game is too hard. Most of my picks probably came from the lack of realistic footwork requirments for defenders and other problems that make it impossible to read defenses like I would IRL.

Amen BezO. Half of the picks I throw are because I read the defense, their movement, their location, and then they behave in a way that's completely non-human by making weird moves toward the ball when the QB is just pulling his arm back. How does the DB know there's a hook pattern being thrown and not a deep route before the ball's left the QB's hand or the WR's made a move on his route? Yet he does... Statistics definitely don't tell the whole story by any means.

[cdon2k]

Edited my last post, here's some stuff from the edit in case you missed it Kasey.

Alot can happen in an hour. You can get disconnected and have to play the computer (who drags out the game by throwing the ball the entire 4th quarter). You can have a blowout, which leads to a boring game. In addition, having the game be so long can results in more chance of a disconnect due to network conditions. Longer games means having to have your connection hold up for a longer period of time. Law of averages are that sometime in the 60 minute game, you are going to experience lag at best or a drop at worst.

[CreatineKasey]

Quote: Originally Posted by cdon2k

Edited my last post, here's some stuff from the edit in case you missed it Kasey. Alot can happen in an hour. You can get disconnected and have to play the computer (who drags out the game by throwing the ball the entire 4th quarter). You can have a blowout, which leads to a boring game. In addition, having the game be so long can results in more chance of a disconnect due to network conditions. Longer games means having to have your connection hold up for a longer period of time. Law of averages are that sometime in the 60 minute game, you are going to experience lag at best or a drop at worst.

I completely agree with all of this. On top of those points, the fact that we HAVE to set aside an entire hour to play limits how much we play. I go multiple days without playing because I just don't want to burn an hour doing it when other stuff has to be done. I'm sure many other Madden players can relate.

Remember how quick Tecmo was? I thought that game struck a great balance between the amount of plays and the actual time playing. That turned out to be about 15-20 minute games. If Madden had 30 minute games become the standard while maintaining the amount of plays called as current 7 minute ranked matches, I'd be much more inclined to play more games.

What do you guys think?

[MrDhWhat]

Interesting. I always try going through the playbook...so we'll see how this comes to be...

[Joeyland]

This will not end well

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by BezO

Folks playing online, putting in that many hours, already enjoy the game. Survey & check the stats of those who put in LESS game time. Those are the folks turned off. This is the type of analysis I'm afraid of. Excessive picks don't necessarily happen because the passing game is too hard. Most of my picks probably came from the lack of realistic footwork requirments for defenders and other problems that make it impossible to read defenses like I would IRL.

You're not giving us enough credit boss. First off, there's no such stat to point to an unrealistic amount of interceptions, so that's a moot point. Secondly, we don't just blindly make decisions based on this data. We just use it to help make our decisions. The guy that played once and never played again (as you mention)? Well, we know what happened in that game and can make assumptions on what turned him off and try to make the experience better for him. The goal is to make an authentic game of football. Not cater only to the guy that plays one time, or cater to the guy that plays 6 online games a night. It's to cater to the NFL fan and make a realistic and authentic game. Period. Every time I say that it somehow gets lost, and people still assume I'm over here making an NFL Blitz clone.

Later.