NCAA Football 13 Not Using Infinity Engine (Real Time Physics)

[Rudy]

NCAA also had 7 more weeks at the beginning of the cycle too. Do they just pick their noses for 2 months until the Madden team is ready? We get the same excuses every time Madden adds new things. It honestly feels like they put the JV team in charge of NCAA and they sit around until the Madden/shared gameplay team makes all the decisions and they pick 75% of them to try too. Each year they fall further behind.

[steelerfan]

NCAA also had 7 more weeks at the beginning of the cycle too. Do they just pick their noses for 2 months until the Madden team is ready? We get the same excuses every time Madden adds new things. It honestly feels like they put the JV team in charge of NCAA and they sit around until the Madden/shared gameplay team makes all the decisions and they pick 75% of them to try too. Each year they fall further behind.

I understand the frustration, I'd love this to be in NCAA too. However, look at last year. NCAA got Custom Playbooks, just as Madden did. Madden has never had a full online Franchise, while ODs have been in NCAA for years. I don't think the broad brush you're using is completely fair, let alone completely accurate.

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[JBHuskers]

NCAA may have 7 weeks ahead, also has 7 times less of a budget.

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[JeffHCross]

NCAA also had 7 more weeks at the beginning of the cycle too. Do they just pick their noses for 2 months until the Madden team is ready?

Okay, let's say that they started with this tech day 1 when NCAA 13 development started. Hell, let's say they've been working on it since NCAA 12 development started (I have no idea).

That still doesn't mean that the date it gets done moves. If it was done in May, NCAA couldn't have added it, while Madden could. Cam Weber said that he didn't expect either title to get RTP this year. That means that it's a surprise it's in either one. It means that if Madden released in July and NCAA released in August, NCAA would be more likely to have it than Madden. If it was done in mid-March, I bet both have it. But it wasn't. Them's the breaks.

[ryby6969]

I agree with the posts above. The fact that RTP isn't in NCAA is not, in itself, disappointing. The fact that I have to find that out via news and community websites is more of a sock in the gut.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "time constraints", but shipping almost two months later is a huge difference in development time.
By the time the May CD event would have rolled around (basing this off of last year, I don't even know if there was a May event this year), the game would be about (this) close to going final. Bug fixes are difficult enough to get implemented in retail code in that time frame. No way can you roll out a feature, especially something as fundamentally game-changing as RTP, in that time frame. We're not talking NCAA Backbreaker level ... we're talking the potential for gameplay fundamentally broken level.

Even the May timeframe is probably a red herring. They might have "decided" to use it then, but it had to be well integrated by that point anyway. They certainly weren't starting from scratch at that point.

Now, could NCAA have made that decision ~mid-March? Maybe that's what you meant. Sure, they could have. But I'm guessing the reason Madden waited to "decide" until May was because it wasn't ready until May. Sometimes you have no choice.

I can't overstate how big a difference seven weeks makes in a development lifecycle. Most crucially here, you can still make mistakes when you have seven "extra" (compared to when another title is releasing) weeks in your pipeline.

What I am saying is it seems as though they have been working on this for some time now, and after letting the CD attendees try it in May decided it was okay to use in the final product. That means they said at the beginning of the dev cycle they were willing to at least TRY to get it in this year. If not, nobody would be upset because no one had a clue it existed. But to say they basically went in another direction is a slap in the face.

Also, I agree NCAA having OD's is huge for the series compared to what Madden has had. But in the last few cycles Madden has tried to add fundamental changes to the gameplay that the NCAA team has not.(different qb ratings, DPP, now physics)

[ryby6969]

Okay, let's say that they started with this tech day 1 when NCAA 13 development started. Hell, let's say they've been working on it since NCAA 12 development started (I have no idea).

That still doesn't mean that the date it gets done moves. If it was done in May, NCAA couldn't have added it, while Madden could. Cam Weber said that he didn't expect either title to get RTP this year. That means that it's a surprise it's in either one. It means that if Madden released in July and NCAA released in August, NCAA would be more likely to have it than Madden. If it was done in mid-March, I bet both have it. But it wasn't. Them's the breaks.

The problem with that theory is that this whole idea of RTP was brought up a month or two ago during the Madden Presentation blog. There was video of RTP in it that was not supposed to be leaked so that means it was in fairly good working condition then.

[JeffHCross]

The problem with that theory is that this whole idea of RTP was brought up a month or two ago during the Madden Presentation blog. There was video of RTP in it that was not supposed to be leaked so that means it was in fairly good working condition then.

That's still late April. NCAA 12 went Alpha on March 11. I don't know when they went Beta (which begins when the software is "feature complete"), but it wouldn't have been late April. Madden probably was still Alpha when the Madden Presentation blog was shown.

Listen, I'm not trying to make excuses here. It still sucks to get the second-level of the feature set. But having a seven week earlier delivery date has an effect. That's all I'm trying to get at. And I even said that there's no way they didn't have it integrated in May, but that's when they "decided" (I guess that's the word) to go forward with it. Going by the timeline, the same decision would have needed to be made in mid-March for NCAA. Or earlier. I'm guessing, just guessing, that RTP was nowhere near final by then.

[Dr Death]

Okay, let's say that they started with this tech day 1 when NCAA 13 development started. Hell, let's say they've been working on it since NCAA 12 development started (I have no idea).

That still doesn't mean that the date it gets done moves. If it was done in May, NCAA couldn't have added it, while Madden could. Cam Weber said that he didn't expect either title to get RTP this year. That means that it's a surprise it's in either one. It means that if Madden released in July and NCAA released in August, NCAA would be more likely to have it than Madden. If it was done in mid-March, I bet both have it. But it wasn't. Them's the breaks.

I've been out of town - went to St Paul to see Roger Waters perform The Wall - and I am dead-ass tired and going to bed after I post this, but let me ask an obvious question... did anyone at EA give one thought to holding off on NCAA this year and releasing the game later to get RTP included???

Seems to me the community would be perfectly fine w/ a release date two months - or one month - later if this was going to be implemented and functioning properly. And being released in August would still be in time for the start of college football in real life. Why is July the deadline??? For f*ck's sake, I remember when Madden shipped in freakin' November!

Heading off to sleepy-ville now...

[steelerfan]

I don't know the real answer, Dr. Death, but with Madden releasing in August and with NHL and FIFA in September (I don't know when NBA releases, surely it's around then), I doubt EA wants NCAA hitting the shelves in a time frame when they have so much competition - from within.

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[ram29jackson]

I've been out of town - went to St Paul to see Roger Waters perform The Wall - and I am dead-ass tired and going to bed after I post this, but let me ask an obvious question... did anyone at EA give one thought to holding off on NCAA this year and releasing the game later to get RTP included???

Seems to me the community would be perfectly fine w/ a release date two months - or one month - later if this was going to be implemented and functioning properly. And being released in August would still be in time for the start of college football in real life. Why is July the deadline??? For f*ck's sake, I remember when Madden shipped in freakin' November!

Heading off to sleepy-ville now...

[Deuce]

I don't know the real answer, Dr. Death, but with Madden releasing in August and with NHL and FIFA in September (I don't know when NBA releases, surely it's around then), I doubt EA wants NCAA hitting the shelves in a time frame when they have so much competition - from within.

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I think they have to release NCAA in early July. They have to separate it from Madden.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I think they have to release NCAA in early July. They have to separate it from Madden.

makes sense. if both football games came out in august, a lot of people would choose one and not the other. with ncaa releasing a month earlier, ea gets a lot of sales from people who buy ncaa, and later trade it in for madden.

[steelerfan]

makes sense. if both football games came out in august, a lot of people would choose one and not the other. with ncaa releasing a month earlier, ea gets a lot of sales from people who buy ncaa, and later trade it in for madden.

Yep. Or from people who keep it after discovering they like it when they only bought it to get their football fix until Madden released.

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[JBHuskers]

Okay, let's say that they started with this tech day 1 when NCAA 13 development started. Hell, let's say they've been working on it since NCAA 12 development started (I have no idea).

That still doesn't mean that the date it gets done moves. If it was done in May, NCAA couldn't have added it, while Madden could. Cam Weber said that he didn't expect either title to get RTP this year. That means that it's a surprise it's in either one. It means that if Madden released in July and NCAA released in August, NCAA would be more likely to have it than Madden. If it was done in mid-March, I bet both have it. But it wasn't. Them's the breaks.

This basically breaks it down.

[JeffHCross]

I've been out of town - went to St Paul to see Roger Waters perform The Wall - and I am dead-ass tired and going to bed after I post this, but let me ask an obvious question... did anyone at EA give one thought to holding off on NCAA this year and releasing the game later to get RTP included???

It wouldn't work. The lost sales would be killer.

The hardcore community would deal with it (though "be perfectly fine" is a stretch), but the more casual players would leave it droves. And you could say bye-bye to at least 50% of the people that buy both. You'd be better off cancelling the game for a year, and that certainly wouldn't happen.

Madden's release date is a bad example It changed practically every two years until Madden '99. Since Madden '99, it's released in August except for one year.

NCAA was actually June from 1993-96, then August for 1997-98. It's been July every since. There's a reason for that.

[baseballplyrmvp]

i just hope its made clear, that with rtp being confirmed for 14, the bar should be placed really high.

[ryby6969]

That's still late April. NCAA 12 went Alpha on March 11. I don't know when they went Beta (which begins when the software is "feature complete"), but it wouldn't have been late April. Madden probably was still Alpha when the Madden Presentation blog was shown.

Listen, I'm not trying to make excuses here. It still sucks to get the second-level of the feature set. But having a seven week earlier delivery date has an effect. That's all I'm trying to get at. And I even said that there's no way they didn't have it integrated in May, but that's when they "decided" (I guess that's the word) to go forward with it. Going by the timeline, the same decision would have needed to be made in mid-March for NCAA. Or earlier. I'm guessing, just guessing, that RTP was nowhere near final by then.

You are not getting my point. The Madden team decided at the beginning of the cycle to try to get it in, but if not it would be no harm no foul because nobody had any idea what they were trying. The NCAA team decided they did not want to try this year. I am sorry, after the issues with the release of NCAA last year, they should have aimed for the stars. Now, I am not saying this is how it went down for sure, but from the sound of the podcast this is the case. In my eyes, that is unacceptable.

[Rudy]

NCAA may have 7 weeks ahead, also has 7 times less of a budget.

This is exactly my point though. The NCAA team isn't leading any of the evolution in gameplay and never will because they are the red-headed step child. The Madden team is Wally and we get the Beaver. Resources, time, quality of developers, whatever - it feels the NCAA series is getting short changed. The last couple of years Madden has added ratings and features to gameplay that the NCAA team is not getting. It's just very frustrating.

I still remember the love I had for NCAA 06 and many thought the NCAA team did a better job than Madden with regards to gameplay on the PS2. I feel the exact opposite about the series right now and I don't want to. I'd rather be sucked into playing a college football dynasty, which has always been better than the Madden franchise mode, but I can't overlook some big things I'm missing in NCAA.

[Rudy]

You are not getting my point. The Madden team decided at the beginning of the cycle to try to get it in, but if not it would be no harm no foul because nobody had any idea what they were trying. The NCAA team decided they did not want to try this year. I am sorry, after the issues with the release of NCAA last year, they should have aimed for the stars. Now, I am not saying this is how it went down for sure, but from the sound of the podcast this is the case. In my eyes, that is unacceptable.

Totally agree. I question the vision and direction of NCAA Football. Where is the pursuit of excellence? They seem scared to push the boundaries and really shake things up. They are content with doing small evolutionary steps and then borrow cool polished tech from Big Brother when it's available. Just frustrated.

[oweb26]

As a general rule hasn't madden been getting things first for years? Im not sure I really get the surprise or even the anger when that has always been the case. Outside of a couple of features Madden has always gotten the features first and then brought over to NCAA until this generation where they started trying to do things at the same time which I think anyone with some sense can say if it was a problem in one it was a problem in another.