Many caught on right away, but I wanted to officially clarify that the image we released this morning was an April Fool's joke.
http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/03/31/creating-quot-next-gen-quot-quarterback-play-in-madden-nfl.aspx
Some may say it was cruel, so we are sorry if you feel that way, but after all we are making video games here, we aren't government officials so it seems fitting to have a little more fun right?
Here are the key details I thought would give it away:
- Calling the feature 3.0 when there hasn't been a 2.0
- Green being worse than yellow
- Different shading for lob / bullet
- Jagged lines seemed like a dead giveaway to me - that would be absolutely impossible to understand
- Removing the ability to actually run with your QB (eek!)
- Using an extremely complex button combo to even activate (or de-activate) the feature
In our first blog for the year we made clear that we weren't about delivering gimmicks...we wanted to deliver a PURE and authentic NFL experience. This went pretty much 180 against that vision. :)
To be clear, there will not be a QB Vision 3.0 in Madden NFL 10. But it looks like we still tricked a few of you. Kudos to Josh Looman for coming up with QB Vision as our piece to play the joke.
To extend an olive branch and show that we're not totally heartless, I figured I'd touch really quickly on a REAL improvement to gameplay for Madden NFL 10 (via new animation technology and AI) in the area of sideline catches.
If you have played pretty much any version of Madden, this has probably happened to you:
You throw a nice pass to your receiver as he breaks open on an out route towards the sidelines, but your WR plays a catch animation that gets his foot just out of bounds, nullifying your perfect vision as a QB (sorry, bad pun). This is one of the more frustrating occurrences across all skill levels for every Madden player. We knew we had to fix this.
There are three main things that we will do for Madden NFL 10 to improve this area:
1. Added AI to make players dynamically slow down as they approach the sideline (instead of running full speed)
2. Allow early animation branching at the end of certain animations so they learn to better drag their feet
3. Dynamically "steer" the catch animation as he approaches the sideline. This emulates what a real NFL player does as he tries to keep his feet in bounds...he will try to 'curve' upfield to maximize his shot at getting his feet down where possible.
Check out the video below - an example from Madden NFL 09 is on the left while the new technology you'll see in Madden NFL 10 is at work on the right. You can pretend that the out of bounds line is the edge of the grid. In the example, you can see how just a slight bit of "steering" on a catch animation can mean the difference between a pass being incomplete and complete. You'll also notice how the same animation can branch into a more realistic "toe drag" ending and make the player look much more aware of his surroundings. We can also make players with higher awareness and agility ratings actually "steer" even more upfield, which could hypothetically even keep guys in bounds and able to keep running up field (probably wouldn't apply in this example though).
In summary, we hope this makes up for our little April Fools prank. This new "steering" technology is being used in many other areas that we'll be talking about soon, but even in this simple example I think it's evident how we can really improve the passing game with this addition.
- Ian Cummings
Lead Designer, Madden NFL 10