Open question~ PATCH PHILOSOPHY

[hcopenhagenh]

Quote: Originally Posted by mattbooty

I hate to keep sounding like I'm totally backing up EA on this, because there are issues that need fixed and certainly major mistakes were made (and I certainly don't agree with every decision they've made), but to be frank, every piece of software that is ever shipped has a broken something. You just may not have noticed or found it. There is no such thing as a perfect piece of software (unless its 5 lines of code or a hello world program). There are certainly different levels of broken but every piece of complex software has something in it that doesn't work as was intended, its just the way it works. As a developer you just hope that those things are either very minor, or patchable. If, as you said, no one ever released software with a broken anything, no software would ever be released. This thread has gotten very off topic, but remember there have been numerous games over the years that outright crash when certain variables are achieved, some making the game impossible to progress once a certain point is hit. THAT is broken. NCAA 2009 (we still don't know for sure on 2010) may have some glaring flaws but the game works. It may not do everything the way you want it to, but it works. I'm not entirely happy with the progress NCAA has taken the last few years, and for the first time may not buy this year's game, but as a developer I have a problem when this game is called "broken" or "unplayable".

In the REAL world it is Broken.

I see an advertisement on a Transformer for that says "Bumble Bee will play 10 different songs when I press the button...". I take my kid and buy this Transformer and when I get it home it only plays 7 songs. This product is broken and I am taking it back to the retailer for a refund or a new unbroken product. If they don't, then I am going to make the appropriate calls to the better business bureau. There are things that I can do.

Unfortunately, in the world of software it is not that way. Laws should be written to protect consumers from faulty Software. Unfortunately, Laws are not written.

EA being aware of the circumstances makes it even worse.

NCAA 2009 was Broke... Field Degradation and Weather Channel were both Advertised features. These features didn't work. I will also argue that EA advertised a Collegiate football game. 4 Defensive linemen getting pancaked every pass play doesn't constitute a collegiate football game. That is more like a High School playing against a Middle School. EA new about this feature and did NOTHING about it. They said they would patch it, but didn't. The OL/DL made this an unplayable game.

[doctorhay53]

Quote: Originally Posted by Adam_Thompson_EA

The real key is that what is done is done. Deciding who's fault it was doesn't help anything. We have to focus on fixing the problem and putting in a better process in the future for making sure bugs are caught before the game is final.

I would agree with you if this post was from 10 months ago. However, since it's happened 2 years in a row, I believe it is important for someone to think about what caused this problem and ways to avoid it in the future.

The way I see it, if you guys can spend less time patching major bugs, that should give us a higher chance of getting other patches, such as community requested gameplay tweaks, etc into the game instead of simply fixing problems.

[JerseySuave4]

Quote: Originally Posted by hcopenhagenh

In the REAL world it is Broken. I see an advertisement on a Transformer for that says "Bumble Bee will play 10 different songs when I press the button...". I take my kid and buy this Transformer and when I get it home it only plays 7 songs. This product is broken and I am taking it back to the retailer for a refund or a new unbroken product. If they don't, then I am going to make the appropriate calls to the better business bureau. There are things that I can do. Unfortunately, in the world of software it is not that way. Laws should be written to protect consumers from faulty Software. Unfortunately, Laws are not written. EA being aware of the circumstances makes it even worse. NCAA 2009 was Broke... Field Degradation and Weather Channel were both Advertised features. These features didn't work. I will also argue that EA advertised a Collegiate football game. 4 Defensive linemen getting pancaked every pass play doesn't constitute a collegiate football game. That is more like a High School playing against a Middle School. EA new about this feature and did NOTHING about it. They said they would patch it, but didn't. The OL/DL made this an unplayable game.

you're making the mistake of calling it broken. It's not broken, there are bugs & glitches. The game is still playable and if you dont read message boards on the game and just buy it and play it you would prob never even notice there was a problem with the rosters. But we are diehards and know everything thats wrong with the game and what it should be so these things bother us and we know there is a problem. But to a casual gamer they may never even notice.

So don't call it broken because its not broken.

[hcopenhagenh]

Quote: Originally Posted by JerseySuave4

you're making the mistake of calling it broken. It's not broken, there are bugs & glitches. The game is still playable and if you dont read message boards on the game and just buy it and play it you would prob never even notice there was a problem with the rosters. But we are diehards and know everything thats wrong with the game and what it should be so these things bother us and we know there is a problem. But to a casual gamer they may never even notice. So don't call it broken because its not broken.

I disagree. I have a buddy that used to be die hard. He was at 3 or 4 websites a day. He put down 08 after a couple of months and didn't even purchase 09. He doesn't post anywhere anymore. I see him online last week for the first time in over a year and he was playing NCAA 09. Come to find out, he bought the game used really cheap.

He messages me... "Bro, this game is about as broken a video game I have ever played."

This is a person that hadn't played in forever. People do notice. That is why there is a trend of lower sales numbers.

Again, in THE REAL WORLD... this game is broken. If the volume on a Sony Home Theater Receiver was broken would you take it back? That is reality. If the pass rush is Broke then the game is broke. I don't care about bugs, glitches, or whatever. That is all semantics. A bug or glitch means the game is broken.

[mattbooty]

Quote: Originally Posted by hcopenhagenh

I see an advertisement on a Transformer for that says "Bumble Bee will play 10 different songs when I press the button...". I take my kid and buy this Transformer and when I get it home it only plays 7 songs. This product is broken and I am taking it back to the retailer for a refund or a new unbroken product.

I don't think that is a valid comparison, you are talking about something that does a handful of functions vs something that is comprised of hundreds of thousands of lines of code. Plus you are saying the product you bought 30% of it absolutely doesn't work. What your saying about NCAA is the equivalent of "It plays all 10 songs, but 3 of them I don't think sound as good as they should."

Quote: Originally Posted by hcopenhagenh

I will also argue that EA advertised a Collegiate football game. 4 Defensive linemen getting pancaked every pass play doesn't constitute a collegiate football game. That is more like a High School playing against a Middle School.

Your argument is the equivalent of my dad saying columbia records should be sued because he doesn't think rap is music so it shouldn't be advertised as such. That is completely subjective. I don't think the pass rush or ol/dl interaction was very good either, but it doesn't mean its not a college football game.

Quote: Originally Posted by hcopenhagenh

The OL/DL made this an unplayable game.

The first person who can show me an instance of where the lack of a pass rush made it physically impossible to finish a game then I will agree it was unplayable. Unplayable does not mean was not up to the standards you expected it to meet.

I agree that the game is/was no where near as good as it should be, or even as good as previous generations. But it is going to an extreme to say it isn't even college football or that the game is unplayable.

[dmm0816]

I think there should be a $10 or $15 price drop...i can't keep throwing out 60 bucks every year for an incomplete or broken game...just my opinion, i think if there was a price drop that would satisfy a lot of people.

[Adam_Thompson_EA]

Quote: Originally Posted by JerseySuave4

adam, when it comes to patches i was wondering if something like the camera can be changed or fixed in a patch? I'm not saying you must do this but is something like this even possibe? What i mean is, is it possible to put a patch in where we have the option to use the old camera angle instead of the one currently in the game?

I'm not sure how possible it would be. There are 3 main "parts" of a video game... code, data, and content. For example, game logic is code, playbooks are data, audio is content (or as we call them "assets").

Code can be patched easily. Data is tricky. Content cannot be patched.

Our cameras are not "hard coded," they are "data driven." So every camera in the game (gameplay, cut scenes, beauty shots, replays) has a data file that sets up the camera's position, its target, FOV, stuff like that. So we'd have to find out if we can include a new camera file via the patch.

Assuming we could, the next step is determining how the end user will switch between cameras. There needs to be an option in a menu somewhere. This is part of our UI, which is conent and cannot be patched. However, some of our UI is driven by code so we might have a place to do that.

There would certainly have to be some investigation done and designs written to patch cameras. It might not be feasible at all... we really wouldn't know unless we spent time investigating it. Who knows, maybe we already are investigating it?

Sorry I don't have a clear yes/no answer. As you can see there are a lot of questions that all must come up as "yes" before answering yours.

[hcopenhagenh]

Quote: Originally Posted by mattbooty

I don't think that is a valid comparison, you are talking about something that does a handful of functions vs something that is comprised of hundreds of thousands of lines of code. Plus you are saying the product you bought 30% of it absolutely doesn't work. What your saying about NCAA is the equivalent of "It plays all 10 songs, but 3 of them I don't think sound as good as they should." Your argument is the equivalent of my dad saying columbia records should be sued because he doesn't think rap is music so it shouldn't be advertised as such. That is completely subjective. I don't think the pass rush or ol/dl interaction was very good either, but it doesn't mean its not a college football game. The first person who can show me an instance of where the lack of a pass rush made it physically impossible to finish a game then I will agree it was unplayable. Unplayable does not mean was not up to the standards you expected it to meet. I agree that the game is/was no where near as good as it should be, or even as good as previous generations. But it is going to an extreme to say it isn't even college football or that the game is unplayable.

I guess I am just old school.

To me what your saying is unacceptable. This lacks customer service and putting out a quality product. I don't care how hard it is or how much code is written. If they can't produce a game that doesn't need a patch DAY 1 to play the game then it is BROKEN!!!! They shouldn't be manufacturing the game if that is the case. They should delay the release. What they are doing is poor business practice.

Do you watch College Football? Someone on the DL does not get pancaked every play. NCAA 09 at least one got pancaked every pass play. THIS IS NOT COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!! EA is advertising a Collegiate Football Game and the OL/DL is not up to the level of collegiate football. There are other thing broken on this game also.

[Adam_Thompson_EA]

Quote: Originally Posted by doctorhay53

I would agree with you if this post was from 10 months ago. However, since it's happened 2 years in a row, I believe it is important for someone to think about what caused this problem and ways to avoid it in the future. The way I see it, if you guys can spend less time patching major bugs, that should give us a higher chance of getting other patches, such as community requested gameplay tweaks, etc into the game instead of simply fixing problems.

From my quote: putting in a better process in the future for making sure bugs are caught before the game is final.

[Vikes1]

Quote: Originally Posted by CandyEyes32

Owning the responsibility for the issues says a lot about you. Thank you again for this post Adam.

Well said CandyEyes...and very true.

Making a mistake makes you human. Owning up to it makes you a man. Adam has done that. Gotta respect that.