Madden 12 News Post

Madden NFL 12 Super Bowl Halftime Blog: Tuner Sets and Surprise Onside Kicks

09:00 PM - February 6, 2011 by Steve_OS

The Madden NFL 12 Super Bowl Halftime blog is online. Tuner sets and surprise onside kicks are in.

Quote:


	""Tuner Sets", introduced in the NHL series and brought into NCAA Football last year, are hugely important to the development of sports games in that they allow us to tune and tweak many existing parts of game code without the major delay that comes from a full title update requiring 1st party console manufacturer approvals. A quick addition to my hacked surprise onside kick code made this feature easily tunable post-ship, and thus much safer against any exploits that may crop up. This isn't the only thing in the tuner sets obviously...we are in the process of moving as many items into these as possible, from gameplay tuning to franchise data to even presentation aspects. We are excited to the possibilities this will open up to our fans in being able to provide live feedback and having us act on it in near real-time. The days of shipping a disc in a box and forgetting about it are long gone, and we want to be at the forefront of blazing new trails in reacting to our audience and improving the game quickly."

Read the entire blog right here, along with a short video showing off the new surprise onside kick, in action.

UPDATE: The podcast is now on iTunes, for those that couldn't listen to it, via the blog.

EDIT: Per Ian Cummings

Quote:


	"RE: surprise onside, you pick a normal kickoff, then hit the B (or Circle) button as the last press on the meter. Your opponent has no clue!"

UPDATE #2: Via Ian

Quote:


	"Since so many people have asked...surprise onside as of today is only allowed 2x per team per game. That value is also in the tuner set."

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Member Comments

# 1 marshallfever @ 02/06/11 09:01 PM

reading now

# 2 LionsFanNJ @ 02/06/11 09:06 PM

Tuner sets BETTER NOT work like they did in NCAA last year. THEY BETTER NOT. That's all.

# 3 Jono078 @ 02/06/11 09:06 PM

Well... Most exciting thing to me was the new score bug...

# 4 marshallfever @ 02/06/11 09:06 PM

wait what .....A....A....B.... for a secret off side kick..................at least so far the lighting engine looks good

# 5 Senator Palmer @ 02/06/11 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LionsFanNJ


	Tuner sets BETTER NOT work like they did in NCAA last year. THEY BETTER NOT. That's all.

Just curious, what was wrong with the NCAA tuner?

I thought they worked great. It's just the NCAA team tuned to the point of screwing up what was so great about the game, then went radio silent.

# 6 RedZoneD25 @ 02/06/11 09:09 PM

NICE. Tuner Sets in Madden will help greatly. I hope they keep the score ticker on the top of the screen too, it looks nicer.

# 7 MizzouBravesFan @ 02/06/11 09:10 PM

Surprise onside kicks eh...like it but can see it getting abused online.

# 8 LionsFanNJ @ 02/06/11 09:10 PM

The problem was the tuners were attached to the patches. Thus you COULD NOT select what tuner set you'd like to use unlike what happened with NHL's tuner sets.

# 9 jeremym480 @ 02/06/11 09:10 PM

Cool surprise onside kicks and turner sets. I like it.

edit: quick question- will the CPU do surprise onside kicks too? That would be awesome.

# 10 PioneerRaptor @ 02/06/11 09:11 PM

Did the podcast download for some of you have a length of 0:00? Even though the file was 9.06 MBs, it had no audio data for me.

Suprise onside is nice I guess. It's part of Sundays.

# 11 bonannogiovanni @ 02/06/11 09:12 PM

I like the new score bar, it's less obtrusive no more the big EA logo and upper side of the screen, however I was hoping for a real network integration (ESPN, CBS...). Oh well, good blog as a start....

# 12 Joborule @ 02/06/11 09:12 PM

Unfortunately Ian I finished reading this just when the halftime show was starting. You fail. EDIT: I suppose that includes podcast too though. Nevermind.

Glad that you caved in and got the surprise onsides kick in. And I'm really happy that tuner sets are in this year. Will change the post release landscape for you guys quite a bit.

If you guys stay "true to the game," I think this Madden will be more receptive to the hardcore community then M11 was. More simulation/hardcore features = happy me.

Good start to M12.

# 13 Sausage @ 02/06/11 09:15 PM

Good blog, I didn't really expect much.

# 14 Nab_Impervious_XII @ 02/06/11 09:15 PM

Looks like they're sticking with EA Sports presentation.

I know some will point out that they simply didn't add the official broadcast stations yet, but the overlay tends to be the very first thing that's finalized in a Madden Dev cycle - and this one already looks radically different from the Madden 11 overlay.

Don't get me wrong, they can still greatly improve presentation but I think it'll continue to be done on EA's terms for M12.

# 15 lgxjames @ 02/06/11 09:19 PM

Happy for all those who wanted it, however i will def be avoiding those who I don't often play.

good kickoff

# 16 PantherBeast_OS @ 02/06/11 09:21 PM

Surprise onsides might be exploited online to much. Hopefully the AI doesn't do it a whole lot. But nice addtion the game tho. Tuning put in will be help for the game and all. Nice blog overall. Can't wait for late march when the juicy info starts coming out. Thanks alot for posting then Steveo and thanks alot Ian for the halftime blog.

# 17 lolfalconsbeatu @ 02/06/11 09:23 PM

Pretty Cool, I trust that this new feature will be handled with care by EA since Ian definitely really understands this feature has potential to be a disaster for the online community.

Cant wait for the team to get into the nitty-gritty with gameplay and all the stuff the hardcore community wants to know about.

# 18 bonannogiovanni @ 02/06/11 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Line


	good blog??? that was a waste of time to say the least......nothing news worthy for sure

it's february, I believe it's the first time that Madden has shown a video of the upcomig game so early in development.

# 19 BobbyColtrane @ 02/06/11 09:25 PM

Idk man what % of kicks are surprise onside? Just doesnt seem like thebest use of time.

# 20 jaosming @ 02/06/11 09:27 PM

no physics for tackles, more BB for meeee

but seriously, after BB'd tackles I still can't go back.

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