This past week, we had the chance to sit down with the team from EA Sports and EA Tiburon, and discuss their upcoming title NCAA ’11. Set for release, NCAA ’11 is this years iteration of EA’s yearly college football release. For the interview, we were fortunate enough to talk shop a bit with one of the lead designers for this years game, Ben Haumiller. Take a look at what Ben had to say, and be sure to check out our review for NCAA ’11 coming the beginning of next week. Also, be on the lookout for the game itself, as NCAA ’11 is available in stores July 13th.
GEV - How closely do you work with the Madden team on implementing ideas to both franchises? Are there any features from Madden that you’d like to add to NCAA?
- Ben - We work very closely with the Madden team on everything from brainstorming sessions to asset/feature sharing. We have a centralized gameplay team that works on both titles, allowing us to share comment gameplay elements while also creating features specific to each title. Every year both titles add features that the other game team wants to include so we work well together to share technology and features. While there is some sharing between the game teams, the two titles are hardly carbon copies of each other. We specialize in delivering an authentic college football experience which is very different then Madden’s brand of football simulation.
GEV – The big news in college football this summer has been the rearranging of all of the conferences. Will this year’s franchise mode adjust to the changing landscape of college football as you play through multiple seasons? If not, can players expect a patch of some sort down the line?
- Ben – While we were going through our development cycle the concept of conference realignment was really just a minor blip on the radar. The actual rearranging happened after we had already submitted NCAA Football 11 for certification so we will not be supporting the conference changes in this year’s title. We do have the ability to customize conference members at the start of a dynasty, which allows you to swap schools in/out of a conference without increasing the size of the conference (i.e. you can add Nebraska to the Big Ten, but will need to move an existing Big Ten school to the Big 12 to keep the Big Ten conference size the same).
GEV – Is there any chance we’ll see some form of online co-op in NCAA 11?
- Ben – Online Co-op is not a feature available in NCAA Football 11.
Oklahoma vs Texas
GEV – Fair or not, one of the complaints we hear from gamers about sports games in general is that often they are little more than $60 roster updates. When you go into production of NCAA every year, what goals do you set to differentiate each year’s game from the previous version to ensure that gamers are getting their money’s worth?
- Ben – This is the largest misconception we deal with, mostly from the non-sports gaming sector. Every year there are a lot of new features and game enhancements that go into the title, and the goal for every year is to create a large enough improvement over the last year’s title that our fans are counting down the days until the new game’s launch. This year we attacked three main aspects of the game, core college gameplay, authentic college presenataion, and innovating online through the Online Dynasty website/StoryBuilder. By focusing on these three aspects we were able to deliver the single largest upgrade to the NCAA franchise in years. From the moment someone sits down with NCAA Football 11 they will instantly be able to feel and see the difference from previous versions of the game, and through the Online Dynasty website gamers will be able to stay connected to their dynasty in ways they have never been able to do before.
GEV – With well over a hundred schools in division 1 football, how much work does your team put into player ratings to make sure that they’re as accurate as possible? Is it even possible to accurately rate players from some smaller schools?
- Ben – First and foremost, the design team for NCAA are all huge college football fans, so with that we have a good base of knowledge for all 120 FBS schools. That knowledge is used to determine the ratings for each school. Since we don’t have the ability to create real players (since they are amateur athletes) our goal is to rate the teams in a way that represents the style for each school. Players from Texas are naturally going to be higher rated than those at North Texas, and a school like Georgia Tech better have players rated in a way that allows them to effectively run their flexbone option attack. The teams have to resemble how they play in real life in order for the game to feel authentic. If Georgia Tech’s roster was made up with players that were better suited to run an Air Raid offense the game would feel incorrect. So while we don’t actually create real players, the ratings are based on how the teams perform in real life.
Agility and acceleration are key in NCAA '11
GEV – What are the new features that have been added this year and how do they contribute to the gameplay?
- Ben - Gameplay received a huge upgrade this year in the form of the new Locomotion system. Locomotion essentially means player movement, and the two attributes most affected are acceleration and agility. In the past the speed rating was really the only thing that mattered. Now with Locomotion, a player’s acceleration rating determines how quickly they can get to their top end speed, and their agility rating determines how much speed a player will lose when attempting to change direction. In addition to Locomotion, a feature called Real Assignment A.I. has had a big impact on gameplay. This feature allows for true option blocking, leaving a defensive end unblocked allowing the QB to read that end and make the decision to keep the ball or pitch it. This is the first time we have had unblocked ends to read off of, which has made this the most true to life blocking system we have ever had. Real Assignment A.I. also comes into play when determining the running lanes for the CPU ball carriers. In the past the CPU ball carriers would make similar somewhat robotic moves, now they will look to cut upfield If they see a seam and try to get first down yardage rather than always break the big gain. This has added a lot to the competitive balance of the game. Finally, since we are talking about college football we have to talk about all of the different offenses in the college game. In NCAA Football 11 every school’s offense is accurately represented from their playbooks to their playcall styles, each school will run their offense like their real life counterpart. This year we have added the Spread No Huddle offense which allows you to get to the line in a hurry running a no huddle offense where you have full access to your playbook (instead of just a smaller subset of audible plays). If you can get to the line fast enough and call your play you can actually snap the ball before the defense is set, so you are able to really set the tempo for the game. In addition to the spread no huddle schools will run the Pistol offense, Option, Pro Style, One Back, multiple sets, Air Raid, and the Run and Shoot.
GEV – In a game with a cyclic release schedule such as NCAA, how difficult is it to do major game overhauls such as graphics engine or physics?
- Ben - It’s a very tight schedule, and some members of the team start working on the next year’s title even before the current year’s game is done. We have a lot of very talented people working on this team that are able to figure out the best way to do major overhauls within our time limitations.
Impressive details make the game more immersive
GEV – At crunch time right before a title launch what is the type of work that is typically being done?
- Ben - For the dev team, most of the heavy lifting has been done about a month before the title hits the shelves, and years ago we would have turned almost 100% of our attention to the next year’s game as the anticipation built for that year’s release. Now with the heavy increase in online features there is much more of a focus on live team support as we build toward launch. Servers are being stress tested, features are being propped to production servers, and we are doing everything we can to make sure we are ready for launch day.
GEV – What were some ideas for new features for this year that may have been shot down in early in development?
- Ben – As a designer, this is always the hardest part of the job. Since we are on very tight timelines we have to be very strict in determining how we use our limited capacity for the year. Because of this, features that you really want to see in the game get cut for one reason or another (technical challenges, not enough time, etc.) While this can be frustrating, there are times where it works out for the best. Back on NCAA07 I had a whole design for adding text messaging to recruiting since that was one of the hot button topics of the time. The feature got cut, and it turned out to be a good thing because shortly after the NCAA stepped in and outlawed text messaging. We dodged a bullet with that one, there’s nothing worse than doing all the work to put in a feature only to have to pull it out a year later.
GEV – In a game like Madden, developers have the advantage of working with the NFLPA license. How do you handle only having the NCAA license, as opposed to being able to use real player names and likenesses?
- Ben – Through that NCAA license we do have direct contact with the schools, so we are able to get reference for new uniforms/stadium upgrades directly from the source, so we do have our advantages with our NCAA license. When it comes to player ratings, as mentioned earlier, we are looking to rate the teams based on the theme for that team. Wisconsin is well known for their power running game, so when you look at their team they have a bunch of huge offensive linemen that are great runblockers and a big power running back who can chew up yards.
Feel the power of Central Michigan
GEV – Where do you see the series going in the next several years?
- Ben – Without a doubt the future of the franchise is online. With the addition of the dynasty website this year we are allowing you the ability to recruit from the web, and increasing the actions you can perform from the web will only increase over time. Allowing you to interact with the game from anywhere allows you to stay as engaged with the game as you want no matter where you are. We’ve only scratched the surface of where we can go in the online space.
GEV – As developers, how do you handle competitive balancing? In years past, rubber banding in sports games has become a prevalent problem, how do you combat this so that results are accurate yet fair?
- Ben - I think the best way to handle competitive balance is to give the gamer all of the options to tune the game to their own specifications. We can set the “out of the box” experience and make sure the game is tuned the way we want the default settings to be, but it’s important to then expose the different elements that effect gameplay so that each person can tweak the game to play just the way they want it.
GEV – What was Tim Tebow like to work with in regards to the cover art?
- Ben – As a Florida State grad it’s very difficult for me to admit, but Tim was great to work with. He’s a huge fan of the game and was honored by the selection of cover athlete. As for getting the right cover art photos, Tim is a total pro, he’s been firmly in the media spotlight since he stepped on campus and the photo shoot was just another day at the office for him.
The Blue Turf of Boise State makes yet another appearance
GEV – Can you tell us a little about the Dynasty Wire system?
- Ben – The Dynasty Wire is a first for sports video games, this is a feature that essentially serves as the blog for your online dynasty. After each person in the dynasty completes their game, a story gets generated for them including their stats and highlights from the game. That person can then go to the dynasty website and write up their own game recap for what happened in the game. This story is available for all of the dynasty members to view, and you can even publish the story to facebook and twitter to share the story with people outside of your dynasty. In addition to game recaps there are weekly updates generated on each week advance that update you on the status of each dynasty member. There’s also the ability to create a story from scratch on any topic you want. All of the highlights from every human game played are stored and available to be added to this story, so you can be in year 4 of your dynasty, and create a preview story about an upcoming game against your rival pulling highlights from your game in year 1, year 2, and year 3. Literally every highlight from every game from every year is available to you.
GEV – What’s it like working with the ESPN Gameday crew?
- Ben – The ESPN crew is tremendous to work with. Kirk is a huge fan of the game and whenever he comes in for a commentary recording session he’s anxious to hear what’s new with this year’s game. Kirk will even make sure to give us a shout out during his broadcasts as he references the game from time to time.
GEV – Lastly, how do you feel NCAA 11 separates itself from previous iterations of the franchise? Other than a new roster, what is going to entice a player to pick up this game?
- Ben – This is a huge upgrade year for the NCAA franchise. From the additions to gameplay (locomotion, real assignment AI, true college offenses), presentation (true ESPN in-game broadcast, linear lighting, player self shadowing), and online dynasty innovation through the dynasty website/dynasty wire this game is a huge step up from last year’s game.
We’d like to thank our friends at EA Sports, and EA Tiburon for taking time out of their busy schedules to make this interview possible, and we hope you’ve enjoyed our brief glimpse into the world of NCAA Football ’11, as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Be sure to check back early next week for our full review of NCAA Football ’11, here at Gameseyeview.com.
