Operation Sports - Press Row Podcast: Madden NFL 25 Next-Gen with Vic Lugo

[royounggoku]

Quote: Originally Posted by LBzrule

I'm not going to accept this as an excuse when shooters are going to have up to 16 players playing at once, with destructible environments and then MS is touting much greater A.I possibilities through the use of Azure/Cloud. Nope, I'm not accepting it.

Yeah that's bull...

We've had open world sandbox games since the PS2 days. Today they happen to look like this...







...and that's current gen

[royounggoku]

Quote: Originally Posted by Hiro1

I've wanted this game to be good so bad. Every day I come to OS for updates it feels like a kick to the balls. I wouldn't say I've lost complete faith, but in the past couple of weeks it's dropped down to an all time low. I hate basketball as a sport so bad, but That trailer released on Thursday has me seriously considering purchasing. I know everyone likes to compare all sports games, but I imagine football is THE most difficult to program. Basketball has 10 men on the court at a time who brush against each other from time to time. Football has 22 players on the field all of which we expect to think, react act collide every play without hiccups.

Brush against each other?...

...time to time?

[LastExit]

Overall I liked what I heard in regards to where the game will be headed. I don't expect a complete overhaul for another 2-3 years so I'll take a much-impoved game both graphically and gameplay-wise.

What did jump out at me, however, was the moment when Vic mentioned that they polished up the game and removed as many bugs with the time that they had. I'm not expecting a perfect game, but please EA don't release a bug-riddled game. This is what I fear the most right now......that the game will drop and the bugs thread will explode. This is something that has to change at EA with this game......releasing a demo for the PS3 where the players disappeared was hopefully the low point.

[dat swag]

Quote: Originally Posted by LastExit

I don't expect a complete overhaul for another 2-3 years .

How did that work out for ya when the game went from ps2/xbox to the 360/ps3?...What makes you thik EA will change anything...The writing is on the wall...they will never overhaul this game...They ill continue to do patchwork and hit us with catchy slogans like INFINITY or IGNITE, TRue step technology etc.

The EA Madden business model is McDonalds...They will never change their formula because it sells every year...There will never be an overhaul of the game...if they didn't overhaul it from the last generation what makes you think they will this time around?...From a business perspective they know that too many people love the game the way it is and there is absolutely no reason for them to invest resources in a different game that is not what people are accustomed to. Its the same reasoning used when you go to McDonads and get a cheeseburger and fries...No matter where you go they are always the same and thats what people want consistency. The money that EA will spend will be to shut out the competition not innovate the game.

[playajay98]

Guys, for anyone wondering about how accurate Vic's statements are, listen to the podcast again...only from the POV of a hiring manager listening to a guy trying to sell himself (his game) to get a job (your $60). He stumbles over the same EA talking points like a job applicant that's clearly not qualified but wants you to give him a job because he's a 'hard worker'. Whats especially telling is when Rich asks Vic to describe ONE stand out gameplay moment in Madden 25 next gen from his time with the game. That should be an EASY question to answer A. for someone who has put in the time Vic has with it and B. if there was in fact dynamic gameplay that actually produced WOW moments. Vic's answer at 43:30 in the podcast is...."uuuuuuum...it's..to me the things that are most amazing..yeah like you said..the emergent things that happen...so..I've stiff armed a guy...umm..done a juke.. he's fallen in front of me...got caught in a tackle..." c'mon SON!!!!!!!!!! We have ALLLLLLLL done that!!!! Vic, if you can't describe an event related to locomotion...something I haven't seen or done a million times in previous Madden titles, who can?

[playajay98]

Also hard to believe in true Step being an entirely different locomotion then CG when it contradicts itself in a trailer EA released. I'm not great at .gifs (someone please illustrate this for me) but at the beginning of the trailer with AP running in slo-mo, it looks great! You can see each step make contact with the ground in a very realistic way. True Step is looking good....then right before it cuts away, he does a juke then his feet skip trying to get back into the run animation again. This has been happening in current gen for years now! How in the world is it possible for this foot skipping to make it's way to next gen if true step is indeed totally different locomotion that takes advantage of next gen power, additional animations, and is calculating on the fly?

[Big FN Deal]

I want to mention something from the interview after just watching the latest NBA Live 14 trailer and reading some of the support for it. In the Lugo interview, he tells an anecdote where the increased power of the new consoles supped up Force Impact and ball carriers were stiff arming defenders "out of the stadium". No biggie, bugs happen, they fixed it but when he is talking about the issue, he and Grisham both equate that issue to being "fun". WTF?

Now I'm not taking that out of context or trying to make it a bigger deal than what it was, that concept of "fun" before realism is the core philosophy at EA Tiburon. They make their games realistic to a certain extent and claim that anymore than that wouldn't be fun, which is the point of playing video games, right? smh

I'm not even mad, just disappointed not having a NFL game striving for realism to play anymore. I keep going back to what Da_Czar states about "play basketball not video games" and it's clear that EA Tiburon is making video games not football. It's best for me to fade into the background and become an OS lurker again until some other developer can make football games.

[Gjordan]

I don't think we're getting any gameplay video today fellas...I can "Feel It". Lol

I think EA is "Feeling It" more than we are this week.