Sean O'Brien Issues Apology for NBA Live's Quality, Promises Improvements

[potsey7]

I've got an honest question...no sarcasm intended. When they are making these games do they ever look at the competition and say "wait a minute, our game doesn't look nearly as good" and go back and work on it a little more? Or "man our dribbling mechanic doesn't work as well as another game i've played" and go change/refine it? It's like the techs live in a bubble and never see or touch another sports title

[kingpnp3]

Quote: Originally Posted by potsey7

I've got an honest question...no sarcasm intended. When they are making these games do they ever look at the competition and say "wait a minute, our game doesn't look nearly as good" and go back and work on it a little more? Or "man our dribbling mechanic doesn't work as well as another game i've played" and go change/refine it? It's like the techs live in a bubble and never see or touch another sports title

yes they do this which is why elite was cancelled the next live was again cancelled. because they didnt look any where near the competition.

the problem with them working on it more is that they never have done so. they only allow these devs to work one normal game cycle on these lives. and then they keep scrapping everything. they scrapped everything from live 10. and came with elite. ok fine. elite didnt pan out. they said they kept some stuff from elite but scrapped everything else. the next one never came out. and now thats its NEXT GEN. they completely scrapped all of that previous stuff.

so we've been watching ea not drop games and it seems they should've had more time to develop. but the reality is they didnt.

[Fiddy]

did O'brien every apologize for having Littman on the dev team and trying to turn the NBA game into an NHL one? i swear, that is where this series went down hill, is when he was in charge of the game. so frustrating!

with that said, im enjoying Live 14. some solid stuff in there despite its flaws. i just hope a patch or two makes it a bit better and that we see a version next year.

[Rhouston]

Man, I'm just having a hard time with this "apology." Let's disect a bit, shall we?

"I’m sorry if the game doesn’t live up to your expectations."

This makes me mad. He's not apologizing for releasing a subpar game. He's apologizing that we think it's a subpar game. With this statement, it's as if he still thinks it's a good game.

"First, you’ve told us that the game is too hard to learn, and that the only way to figure it out is through frustrating trial-and-error. ... We realize that every single one of you is a new user and know we need to make the game easier to understand and simpler to pick up and play."

Wasn't this one of the main complaints after the Elite demo? Don't you think they would try to make it a little easier BEFORE releasing it? I don't think it needs to be dumbed-down but rather more intuitive. I fear, however, that the former will be the end result.

"In order to get gameplay up and running this year we had to prioritize. We felt authentic gameplay, control and the connected experience would provide the best foundation for the future. As a result, game visuals and animation polish suffered."

Someone said it already, but I will repeat it -- YOU CAN'T HAVE GOOD GAMEPLAY IF YOU DON'T HAVE GOOD ANIMATIONS! Even if the pace, spacing, physics and strategy of basketball WAS in the game, if the movement of it all LOOKS terrible, it's not going to be authentic gameplay.

Long story short, I would encourage you all to not take pity on Sean O'Brien, because in my eyes, he knew what he was releasing and isn't REALLY apologizing for it.

[Phreak50]

You make some good points that most of us are thinking mate.


To me that last part about the visuals and animations suffering is a kick in the guts to fans.


Especially given how much they hyped this so called new engine being NOTHING BUT NEXT.

[lynkraid]

So the graphics can improve with the same game?

[westview33]

How many of you guys find it mind boggling that this series has never excelled from an animation standpoint since the PS2 days?

I think Live 10 was the highest peak they could reach in terms of animations and even then it was average at best.

The thing that bothers me about EA is that they have this vision every year of taking the game to another level which is fine. But in order to fix the future you need to start with the present.

If this game had top notch animations dating back to Live 07 this series would have still survived and kept a solid fan base.

I don't care if the animations had to be canned even that would have been better than the junk we have seen on the floor over the last 5-6 years with this series.

How hard is it to make things believable on the floor when watching the players animate/move?

They could have put a lot of their resources into just adding hundreds of new animations to this game and ported NBA Live 10 over with improved synergy and this game would have rocked right out of the box.

But instead they went back to the drawing boards for the like 3rd time since the PS2 days and for the 3rd time they FAILED miserably.

[kingpnp3]

Quote: Originally Posted by westview33

How many of you guys find it mind boggling that this series has never excelled from an animation standpoint since the PS2 days? I think Live 10 was the highest peak they could reach in terms of animations and even then it was average at best. The thing that bothers me about EA is that they have this vision every year of taking the game to another level which is fine. But in order to fix the future you need to start with the present. If this game had top notch animations dating back to Live 07 this series would have still survived and kept a solid fan base. I don't care if the animations had to be canned even that would have been better than the junk we have seen on the floor over the last 5-6 years with this series. How hard is it to make things believable on the floor when watching the players animate/move? They could have put a lot of their resources into just adding hundreds of new animations to this game and ported NBA Live 10 over with improved synergy and this game would have rocked right out of the box. But instead they went back to the drawing boards for the like 3rd time since the PS2 days and for the 3rd time they FAILED miserably.

you are 90% correct. the 10% you're not correct on is saying you dont care if the animations were canned as long as they were good. SORRY i aint down with that at all. you want live to be 2k. go buy/play 2k then. its really that simple.

the more canned animations you have the less control the user has over each player. sorry i dont buy games to watch the cpu make all the decisions for me. thats called a ROLE playing game. where you make a choice, sit back and watch the rest. No thanks. i want my controls to be 1:1 i hit a button it reacts. if that reaction doesnt pan out like i want as long as the outcome is reality based. then i'm good to go. thats what live needs to work on as well as better 1:1 controlled animations.

the next level of basketball games will not just be pretty graphics. it will be how to get out of any locked in animations without it looking unrealistic and glitchy.

2k still has a lot of canned animations in their game, not nearly as many as they had in the past. but it looks great

live doesnt have many if any at all. but it doesnt look good enough


the gap has to be bridged. i refuse to be ok with 2k with a business as usual approach or a live below level graphics just to get away from canned animations, approach.

i wouldnt be surprised if some other company came along and showed them both how its done right. cause it seems like they are both so stuck in the way they usually do things they really dont know how to bridge that gap.