Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

[Chairman7w]

I was hoping there'd be some cool creative, dynamic camera stuff.

Like:

Since golf is pretty much a spectator sport once the ball leaves the face of the club, you could have a dozen or two different angles after impact. A shot from the gallery. Or an actual flyby starting way back and passing the ball up in the area, and panning out as the ball hits the green. Or an elevated overhead camerashot when your guy blasts out of a bunker. Or a tower camera shot when you strike a long putt that slowly zooms in on the ball as it nears the hole. Or a floating camera that slowly pans around on a medium length putt, keeping the golfer and hole in view the whole time. Or a worm's eye view from the fairway as the ball lands after a drive and rolls up next to the camera, or a slowly, rising camera behind the golfer that captures the post swing and eventually zooms into where the ball lands, or... or... The possibilities are literally endless.

Instead we have, despite the increased power of today's systems, the same visual layouts and scripts from every TW game ever. It makes me sad.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

I'm with you... there are some basic features that don't seem to be that tech dependent that they shouldn't be there, like live hole-by-hole leaderboards for online tournaments, for example. I got an answer from one of the devs on the playoff question years ago that probably still holds today. The reason they can't do it is twofold: 1.) They can't represent a non-licensed player, even with a formless ghost player because even showing their shot telemetry along with their name could be seen as unauthorized use of their likeness. 2.) they really don't have statistically built/attribute based model of the unlicensed players you might be playing in the playoff against, so the game would have no real basis for recreating how that particular player might play, even with telemetry representation only. The unseen "AI" players on the leaderboard are nothing more than spreadsheet results based on scoring trends.

I guess I'm not sure I understand this...so they have the names of actual PGA Tour players in the game that don't have an in-game representation? So you might see on the leaderboard, "P. Mickelson", but Phil isn't actually in the game? That seems odd to me. Also, if that's the only hold-up, just get rid of the names of all unlicensed players (since you can't play as them anyway) and have everyone that isn't playable in the game be a CPU-generated AI player. Then you can have a playoff anytime you want. Seems simple, unless I'm missing something. But not having playoffs is a pretty glaring hole IMO; it'd be like a basketball game where there were no OT's or baseball where if it's tied after 9 you get a "W". Seems unacceptable in this day and age...

Also, not having shot replays seems like a pretty devastating omission to me...I replay almost every shot I hit in most golf games (usually from the reverse angle). Presumably this is easily fix-able, though.

[Dogslax41]

Quote: Originally Posted by Thrash13

I pre-ordered this one and have about 1/3 of it paid off so far. I can't remember being as excited for a sports game as I have been for this one since it was announced, but these impressions are definitely a downer. I still really want to get this game, but I'm wondering if I should transfer my pre-order money to something else and get this when the price drops and/or more golfers and courses are released. I was truly hoping EA Sports would knock it out of the park with this one, but I've had my doubts since the rough news during E3 week...

I had it fully pre-ordered and immediately cancelled after playing it. In my opinion there is another option that does everything better than this game with respect to all the areas that are important to me (sim). I was watching a twitch stream a bit earlier where two people were playing on tour difficulty and in the span of 3 holes I saw a hole in one and two chips 40-60 yards that were line drives directly in the cup never touching the green. From a sim standpoint the game has regressed more to me than the regression due to the features that they cut out.

[Chairman7w]

Yeah, I'm betting this gets roasted in reviews.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dogslax41

I had it fully pre-ordered and immediately cancelled after playing it. In my opinion there is another option that does everything better than this game with respect to all the areas that are important to me (sim). I was watching a twitch stream a bit earlier where two people were playing on tour difficulty and in the span of 3 holes I saw a hole in one and two chips 40-60 yards that were line drives directly in the cup never touching the green. From a sim standpoint the game has regressed more to me than the regression due to the features that they cut out.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by Chairman7w

Just makes you wonder why. What the H$%L have they been doing for two years? To me, it seems absolutely unforgivable to come out with a NEXT-GEN game, that doesn't even have what the previous GEN had! Isn't that the whole idea of next gen??? To be better, to improve, to expand?? How could they take a year off, and come out with a Next Gen game, that is less featured, less courses, less golfers, and still has some of the problems the old versions had?? (playoffs, in particular) It's totally baffling.

Here's the deal. Not baffling at all if you understand NG game design and the decisions being made in this game market today. The RM Tiburon Golf Team is likely smaller than the TW14 Tiburon Team. The budget is likely smaller because they lost their @ss on TW14 commercially.

Moving to Frostbite 3 was a resource intensive and expensive move, but one that HAD to be made. The old TW engine was 10 years old and had 9 versions with features added, subtracted, etc. It was held together with baling wire and TW14 had glaring patch issues that EA finally gave up on and walked away from.

What have they been doing for 2 years? You would have to ask HANDSWARD, but I doubt he would go into any sort of detail. Since I have had a relationship with EA for the past 15+ years and I have been on the inside of the Golf operation, I will tell you what I think happened.

As I stated above, the Frostbite 3 transition did not come overnight. The staff had to be trained and brought up to speed on the new engine as it was unfamiliar to them. Then they began to learn how to build assets like what they had in TW that they wanted to bring over as well as new assets. All new Mo-cap sessions, etc. Rebuilding each course in FB3 and transitioning the laser scans and artwork from each course to the new engine. These guys work 12-14 hour days. They, like many teams at EA are being asked to do more with less. They set out on a plan to deliver a certain amount of content and they either reached that plan or didn't. NG games take up more resources both in time, people and money than ever before and Devs and Publishers are trying their best to do less with more. I believe this is why we are seeing the initial games coming out with less content than their predecessors. I did not in any way think RM would match or even come close to matching the features or courses that TW14 did. In all honesty, I did think they would have brought more content and polish than what we have. However, I am hopeful they will bring forth the kind of support that we are not accustomed to by supporting and updating this game with the content we have been accustomed to.

IMO, this game has NONE of the problems from TW. They have similar design decisions, but bugs and issues from Tiger are not there. The lack of a playoff is a design decision that has legal implications as described above. Does TGC have a playoff? Are you chastising them for their Season mode that came out broken on the Xbox causing users not to be able to play it? I like TGC and have over 500 rounds of play invested in it. There are many who claim RM is not a NG title. Just as many say the same about TGC. They are different approaches to the game of Golf. Sorry to draw TGC in here for this discussion, I just had to draw one parallel to compare.

At the end of the day, why can't people just accept the fact that opinions about ANYTHING, much less Golf games are SUBJECTIVE and PERSONAL. You think EA dropped the ball on RM. That is your opinion and others agree. But I would say its 50/50 on those who like versus don't. I can somewhat understand the exasperation over RM's lack of content and I hope this helps explain what may be going on from someone who has been on the inside and has some perspective on the situation. Hang in there, I think the game has a good foundation and the great thing about FB3, is it is a VERY scalable engine that is light years better than the old TW engine and the best is yet to come IMO.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

I guess I'm not sure I understand this...so they have the names of actual PGA Tour players in the game that don't have an in-game representation? So you might see on the leaderboard, "P. Mickelson", but Phil isn't actually in the game? That seems odd to me. Also, if that's the only hold-up, just get rid of the names of all unlicensed players (since you can't play as them anyway) and have everyone that isn't playable in the game be a CPU-generated AI player. Then you can have a playoff anytime you want. Seems simple, unless I'm missing something. But not having playoffs is a pretty glaring hole IMO; it'd be like a basketball game where there were no OT's or baseball where if it's tied after 9 you get a "W". Seems unacceptable in this day and age... Also, not having shot replays seems like a pretty devastating omission to me...I replay almost every shot I hit in most golf games (usually from the reverse angle). Presumably this is easily fix-able, though.

Unfortunately, due to no PGA TOUR Players Union, this is a sticky situation that EA would have to get a license agreement from each and every PGA TOUR Pro in the game to have their likeness portrayed in the game just for a playoff. You don't think EA is a bit gun shy about not getting player licenses after what happened with NCAA and the lawsuits?

[cbuhl79]

Quote: Originally Posted by DivotMaker

Unfortunately, due to no PGA TOUR Players Union, this is a sticky situation that EA would have to get a license agreement from each and every PGA TOUR Pro in the game to have their likeness portrayed in the game just for a playoff. You don't think EA is a bit gun shy about not getting player licenses after what happened with NCAA and the lawsuits?

I miss NCAA

[TheNinjaGuyDon]

Quote: Originally Posted by Thrash13

I pre-ordered this one and have about 1/3 of it paid off so far. I can't remember being as excited for a sports game as I have been for this one since it was announced, but these impressions are definitely a downer. I still really want to get this game, but I'm wondering if I should transfer my pre-order money to something else and get this when the price drops and/or more golfers and courses are released. I was truly hoping EA Sports would knock it out of the park with this one, but I've had my doubts since the rough news during E3 week...

I'm thankful for EA Access which allows me to really get an idea of what I'm getting into. Personally, if I had to choose, I'd just buy the Golf Club at half the price and the better gaming experience. If you like half-finished games at full price, then this is right up your alley.

I expected a deep career mode after all the time they've had on this. The level of customization is also a joke. It's bare bones similar to NHL 15 imo. And if you go check out what people say about that, it pretty much sums this up. Except they have faster menus but bet they fixed that after feedback from other games like NHL.