Originally Posted by
Paakaa10
Since most of the conversation so far has trended towards the nuts-and-bolts of recruiting and Dynasty/Online Dynasty workings, I figured I would begin my impressions of the NCAA Football 13 Dynasty Improvements on the presentation (ooh, dirty word!) side of things, since--as many of you who have been here a while know--I do spend a lot of time thinking about and working with that side of the game when I'm given the opportunity to head down to EA Tiburon for the Community Events.
Playing in Dynasty/Online Dynasty with the true, full-featured ESPN BottomLine seems like such a simple addition but it adds so much to the atmosphere. I'm sure that everybody here spends Saturdays glued to ESPN during the college football season, and now that experience of watching one game but being able to keep tabs on the other action is going to be available in NCAA Football 13. During my time with the game at the latest Community Event, I was able to see numerous "Upset Alerts" trigger in the BottomLine, and all the logic seemed to be sound as far as that was concerned. I found that when an "Upset Alert" was triggering, very often the "Studio Update" would focus on that game over the course of my play time as well.
At first I wondered whether or not having that persistent BottomLine would end up distracting me from playing the game I was actually a part of, but--as mentioned in the paragraph above--I've become so conditioned to experiencing the broadcast that way, so it really doesn't distract from the game I was playing. Time will tell whether this becomes an issue for some people, but I really do believe that most of us are so used to it that it doesn't become a distraction. After all, players are trained not to watch the out-of-town scoreboard, right? :D
On the subject of "Studio Updates," which are going to be a cool addition to the game this year, it's great to have the broadcast presentation using even more of the ESPN design package and incorporating Rece Davis from the commentary side of it. During the time I spent with the build at the last Community Event, I would say that on average I saw 4 or 5 "Studio Updates" trigger per game in the Dynasty/Online Dynasty games; no idea whether or not that is the frequency that they'll occur in the final game or if it'll be more or less frequent than that. The logic was pretty good about following up on the same game multiple times as well, so if there was a real shoot-out or an "Upset Alert" then there was a good amount of attention spent on it over the course of the game. As Tommy mentioned previously in this thread, it would also appear that the "button through" timing has been tweaked on the back end so that it is more difficult to "cancel" out of a "Studio Update" than it was to get out of a "Game Track" last year; I think this piece of feedback/criticism was one thing that every Community Event guy brought up regarding presentation when we were at the studio for the first event in January, so the team knew that something had to be done about it.
One thing that was still being tweaked with "Studio Updates" at the last Community Event was how games are selected for feature during the game you're playing. Oftentimes the "Studio Updates" would track rivalry games, conference games, or Top 25 clashes, but there was an oddball as well; I was playing a game as Oklahoma State against Kansas State and I got multiple "Studio Updates" from a game between Tulsa and UTEP. From a geographical standpoint, that makes sense--Tulsa and Stillwater being only about an hour away from each other--but it was hard for me to believe that if Oklahoma State was on ESPN, the real-life "Studio Updates" would be so focused on a C-USA clash during a Big XII game. I did note it in my feedback to the developers and was told that it was still very much a process that they were working on. That was really the only "head-scratcher" I encountered during my time with the game, so it didn't sound like something that will be an issue come launch.
That's what I have for "story time" this morning, since I'm off to work. I'll hit the thread again tonight to see if anybody has any questions and to try and contribute some of my thoughts on the more "nuts-and-bolts" pieces of Dynasty/Online Dynasty for NCAA Football 13.