NHL 11 Rosters Arrive Tuesday, November 2nd

[Jeremydudeman93]

EA can f*** off for all i care

RIDICULOUS. It's a freaking MONTH since the season started. Almost 2 months since the game came out.

I'm sorry EA, but you guys fail at running a business.

[misch13fRoyale]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bama83

How do you do that? I heard they took out roster sharing and it borks the whole thing up. I would gladly use a 3rd party roster. I think that's why Littman was moved to the Live team. My guess is they were WAY behind on their deliverables and they need a good project lead to ensure that there were no set backs. Littman was unable to work a miracle and NBA missed it's intended deadline. It looks like the NHL devs are going down the same road. Developers are wonderful, but need a bit of direction from time to time. Prioritization and people ensuring targets are being met. They need Littman back.

The unfortunate thing is that its a bit of a lengthy process, for you have enter everything manually, whether it be player edits, or create a player, and some roster movements, but I have been using these guys' updates since NHL 08 i believe and its great... http://petrpuck.blogspot.com/ give it a whirl.... im pretty satisfied, i just finished my first season in BE a GM... i played the majority of the games, and just went through my offseason last night, ready for season 2... the player developement needs to be a bit better but thats through a patch... but overall, am i 100% satisfied? NOPE!! but, can i live with my own tweaks to the game based on others hard work? yes....


Littman isnt totally out of the loop from what i gathered in the article, but he needs to be at the helm, like before... things ran ALOOOOT smoother with him around... reaction time was great!!!

[mkharsh33]

without the patch the roster update is worthless. BAGM is broke, so I can see the rosters coming out, and they'll be fun to play some exhibition games with, but the patch is needed. haven't heard a timeframe on that yet.

[casbruce]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bama83

They've directly said it'd be done multiple times. This is just the first time they've given us a concrete date rather than a time frame. It should not, in any situation, take 60+ days to release a completed roster where most of the edits are shuffling lineups within a dedicated database or application.

Again, without having worked on a sports video game there is no way you can state as fact that it should never, in any situation, take 60+ days. No one can know if they aren't in the room and in the meetings. I know EA used to use outside firms to handle ratings and such for the rosters. Maybe they were waiting on that company. Who knows? I have no extra information than you, but I think it's irresponsible to be making statements about the work ethic of people you've never met.

And I'm sorry, but just because someone isn't completely outraged over A ROSTER UPDATE doesn't mean they are "sunshine pumpers."

[Bama83]

Quote: Originally Posted by mkharsh33

without the patch the roster update is worthless. BAGM is broke, so I can see the rosters coming out, and they'll be fun to play some exhibition games with, but the patch is needed. haven't heard a timeframe on that yet.

See, again, open lines of communication would be nice here.

"Here's the planned date to get it to MS/Sony review. Here's the planned implementation points/changes, barring any unforeseen complications. Here's the status. If edit a particular feature that may impact a current season/BeAGM/etc, explain how patch will address currently active sessions."

[Bama83]

Quote: Originally Posted by casbruce

Again, without having worked on a sports video game there is no way you can state as fact that it should never, in any situation, take 60+ days. No one can know if they aren't in the room and in the meetings.

This is the primary purpose of a PM -- to ensure that outside factors do not impact the project.

So, even if something came up, a proper PM would explain to the customer and the employer how this will impact the deadlines. They would also propose a solution.

I cannot imagine an implementation plan that would not have the majority of players (regardless of licensing) created and ready to insert into the lineups. I cannot imagine they wait until after some deadline to begin work. If so, that's a piss-poor project plan.

Quote:

I know EA used to use outside firms to handle ratings and such for the rosters. Maybe they were waiting on that company. Who knows?

Again, a proper PM deals with vendor management and their deliverables are still part of the project plan that is owned by the project lead. This would not be an acceptable excuse.

Quote:

I have no extra information than you, but I think it's irresponsible to be making statements about the work ethic of people you've never met.

I don't need to meet them. The simple fact is they did not meet the delivery date. Period. End of story. This means they did not properly plan the project and did not make proper alternative strategies at critical points in the development.

Quote:

And I'm sorry, but just because someone isn't completely outraged over A ROSTER UPDATE doesn't mean they are "sunshine pumpers."

I don't think it does make them sunshine pumpers because of that. It's the blind defending of everything EA.

Someone dropped the ball. Plain and simple.

To have people get defensive on behalf of EA is ludicrous.

[kestrel]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that they HAD to wait until now to release it. With the time teams have to move players around then those players to join the appropriate unions (if they haven't already), around a few days from now would be when an official "start-of-season" roster should be available. EA had to wait until all moves would be finalized, 10-or-so games into each NHL team's season, whether or not they have been working on them before now, whether or not they had prepared anything in advance (and if they had, they would have plenty of preparations to undo, I'm sure).

Now, I'm not trying to sound like an EA apologist, because there is a problem in all of this (more than one, to be sure).

Problem one lies not in the date now announced for release, but in all of the overly zealous and completely impractical guesstimates that were announced. These shouldn't have ever been mentioned. Last year, they mentioned the time it takes for teams to finalize their rosters, games into the season--why would that have changed this season, especially with the addition of the CHL?

Problem two is the lack of communication with regard to client updates. There is very little talk of what problems/bugs/glitches are being acknowledged, which ones are being worked on, how far along they are in fixing those problems, if they are encountering problems fixing these problems, just a simple explanation on what's taking so long.

It's all backwards, too much and all too wrong communication with regard to one update and too little with another.

[casbruce]

Saying it will be out November 2nd is the first date they've given. So they have not missed it. Giving a general statement about it being out in a couple of weeks is not a deadline. I've never been in any situation where saying "it'll be done in a couple of weeks" is considered a deadline. Deadlines are exact dates/times. If you've ever given your project team an actual deadline of "in the next couple of weeks" than you have a very fortunate, lucky project team.

And why is it ludicrous to defend EA on something? I'm sick of this attitude that you have to criticize the gaming companies for everything otherwise you're just a stupid fanboy who doesn't know any better.