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gschwendt
07-06-2011, 10:24 PM
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SportsGamerBlog.com has posted an audio interview with NCAA Football 12 Developer Ben Haumiller talking about some of the changes that we'll see in the game this year. While most of this has already been covered through other mediums, there does seem to be a few tidbits here and there that haven't really been touched on in the past.


Today we bring you an interview that we conducted with NCAA Football 12 Associate Producer, Ben Haumiller.

In the interview, here are a list of some of the topics that we covered.


What he feels is the most important change to the game for this year.
How suction tackling has been removed and how animations have been changed as a result of that.
Adjustments that have been made in relation to how some sorts of animations can have a greater impact on fumbles and other aspects of play.
Issues with clock management and how they struggle with them and what they are trying to do to correct them
How the weather effects are implemented and the limitations that you may see in the game with them
The large amount of changes included in the Road to Glory mode, how the experience points are handled, and if it’s really possible to lose a position or “benefit” once you gain it.
The decision process for charging an additional amount for SuperSim online capabilities
Talking about the Coaching Carousel component to the dynasty feature, what it offers and the limitations of the new feature
What small changes have been made to the recruiting aspect of the dynasty mode
How the conference customization is handled and what you can and cannot do with it.
What they do to balance out things such as new presentation elements versus requested gameplay fixes that people have noticed.

Source (http://www.sportsgamerblog.com/2011/07/06/riding-the-pines-ncaa-football-12-interview-with-ben-haumiller/)

http://www.sportsgamerblog.com/pods/Ep68.mp3

gschwendt
07-06-2011, 10:26 PM
Ben sounds at least a little bit more candid in this discussion than we've heard in the past, certainly more than in any of the marketing-associated push.

SmoothPancakes
07-06-2011, 10:28 PM
Just started listening to it right now. Definitely some good questions in that list, getting a little more in-depth with the specifics of the question than what we have seen in the past couple months.

Jayrah
07-06-2011, 11:23 PM
listening now.

SmoothPancakes
07-06-2011, 11:44 PM
I really liked hearing that the idea of having contracts for scheduling, like a home and home with a school, or a 2 for 1, etc has been brought up before in their meetings, they just haven't had the time to work on it. That has been an addition I would like to see added for a while now. Not even full contracts but even have it been something like NCAA Basketball, where when you try to schedule a team, they can accept or decline.

Say if I was playing a dynasty (in NCAA Basketball) as Mississippi Valley State University, and I tried to schedule a home game with Duke, they'd laugh me out of the building and decline because it would be such a one sided affair and playing us would be of no help to them. In NCAA Football, it'd be like San Jose State trying to schedule Alabama at home. Never gonna happen. San Jose State offer Alabama a 5 for 1, and Alabama still would never agree. So if you tried to offer that in game, they'd laugh at you and decline.

Even just a system like that, I'd be fine with, if anything, in the short term until they were able to do something like a full fledged contract system for scheduling games.

prime9
07-06-2011, 11:52 PM
Lemme know what the interview says about supersimming online games please!

gschwendt
07-07-2011, 12:03 AM
I really liked hearing that the idea of having contracts for scheduling, like a home and home with a school, or a 2 for 1, etc has been brought up before in their meetings, they just haven't had the time to work on it.
In all honesty, they have probably had at least some level of a discussion on probably 95% of the features that are out there. It's just a matter of building priority, getting approval for features, etc. Probably the only one that they've been surprised by recently (and I think the whole community was surprised at how quickly it took off) was the ability to edit players in a dynasty. I think cdj & I do a fairly good job of adding things to our wishlist tournament but that's something we ourselves never even discussed... just because the community didn't really discuss it.

jaymo76
07-07-2011, 12:03 AM
I really liked hearing that the idea of having contracts for scheduling, like a home and home with a school, or a 2 for 1, etc has been brought up before in their meetings, they just haven't had the time to work on it. That has been an addition I would like to see added for a while now. Not even full contracts but even have it been something like NCAA Basketball, where when you try to schedule a team, they can accept or decline.

Say if I was playing a dynasty (in NCAA Basketball) as Mississippi Valley State University, and I tried to schedule a home game with Duke, they'd laugh me out of the building and decline because it would be such a one sided affair and playing us would be of no help to them. In NCAA Football, it'd be like San Jose State trying to schedule Alabama at home. Never gonna happen. San Jose State offer Alabama a 5 for 1, and Alabama still would never agree. So if you tried to offer that in game, they'd laugh at you and decline.

Even just a system like that, I'd be fine with, if anything, in the short term until they were able to do something like a full fledged contract system for scheduling games.

I agree with you in theory. However, I would need an "override" option to "make" a team play me. One on the major issues I had with NCAA BASKETBALL was that I could never play the teams I wanted... (I still have not been able to schedule Harvard).

SmoothPancakes
07-07-2011, 12:25 AM
In all honesty, they have probably had at least some level of a discussion on probably 95% of the features that are out there. It's just a matter of building priority, getting approval for features, etc. Probably the only one that they've been surprised by recently (and I think the whole community was surprised at how quickly it took off) was the ability to edit players in a dynasty. I think cdj & I do a fairly good job of adding things to our wishlist tournament but that's something we ourselves never even discussed... just because the community didn't really discuss it.

Oh I know they've probably talked about almost every idea out there, but just hearing Ben actually say that they have sat down and talked about it seriously and given it a good bit of thought, they just haven't had the time to really think it out and potentially work on it, gives me some hope that one day they'll have the chance to implement sometime down the road.

SmoothPancakes
07-07-2011, 12:34 AM
I agree with you in theory. However, I would need an "override" option to "make" a team play me. One on the major issues I had with NCAA BASKETBALL was that I could never play the teams I wanted... (I still have not been able to schedule Harvard).

Agreed! Definitely need an override option. I think Harvard is a team I also have never been able to schedule in my NCAA Basketball dynasties. :D If they were to go the route of something like NCAA Basketball, for those of us who want it to be realistic like with regards to certain teams laughing you out of the building, you have that built in.

Using some realistic schedule, Alcorn State, who went 4-24 this past year. Their toughest teams they played were Purdue and Kansas State. You're not going to see them playing Florida, or Ohio State, or UConn, because going into such a whooping like that wouldn't do them any good. Nor would Florida, Ohio State, or UConn want to play a team like Alcorn State, because while an extremely easy win, they'd take a massive hit in their SOS and RPI.

However, for someone who does want to schedule Alcorn State, or schedule UConn as Alcorn State, an override option would allow you to do that.

And just a notice in general to anyone reading this, I realize I pretty much was using college basketball teams and college basketball situations, but you can pretty much switch around the various teams with college football teams to set up similar situations.

ThatSnickelfritz
07-07-2011, 01:16 AM
I've always wanted scheduling contacts such as Home/Homes and or what ECU usually ends up getting screwed with Away/Home/Away with a good team. Neutral site games I'd really really like to see added too.

steelerfan
07-07-2011, 01:41 AM
Good listen. Ben does a great job handling all of these questions. This interview may give those who haven't met the devs a little insight into how they see some of the current features developing down the line as well as some of the features they have in mind to add.