Let me word it like this. If I am having a public discussion with someone that, like me, doesn't enjoy Madden and hasn't been to Tiburon, about the lack of an arm extension animation, we are both likely to state that there is no excuse for it at this point and if Tiburon really gave an eff about representing football well that would be in by now. Conversely, me having that discussion with someone that is personable with Tiburon and that plans on interacting with them again in the future, they would likely give a more measured response. IMO, while I understand the more measured approach under the circumstances, I wish it wasn't the case. I keep forgetting I can speak more freely on TSO than what I am used to, so in a nutshell, if I feel a certain aspect of the game is ass and/or intentionally being made "fun", ie fucked up, especially after actually going to Tiburon, I am going express that publicly with the same candor I would if I hadn't gone. That's not me trying to show out or get some street cred, that just me being genuine about a hobby/vice I am passionate about and if that meant I couldn't go back to Tiburon, so be it. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, there was a long list of tweets from a guy that used to worked on M13 and had been working on Madden for a few years. He expressed the kind of candor I am referring to, although I think he was a little inebriated at the time. I'm saying I want GCers to to talk publicly about Madden as if their drunk, lol.
I would follow your logic except that it is extremely broken from the start. You saying that there is "no excuse for not having X" in Madden is ignorant. Perhaps there are excuses or design constraints that you are oblivious to? There are no differences in my responses before or after I have been to EA. If something is shit (say the difficulty of recruiting in NCAA 13), it doesn't change my opinion or perception on the subject just because I was involved in the development cycle. In fact, I would say that it has the opposite effect and I become slightly frustrated. I'm free to voice my opinion however I want - positively or negatively. In fact, before retail launch of NCAA 13 I uncovered some MAJOR problems that were able to be patched shortly after the street date. I had 50+ e-mails back and forth about recruiting in NCAA 13 and DB play in which I was very critical. The only reason I would not be asked back to EA is because I broke NDA. However, the scenario you brought up does not exist here at TSO. People can be unhappy with feature implementation, lack of features or whatever. The difference is that we encourage positive criticism here. We don't just say, "this is inexcusable" without offering either insight or feedback on how to move forward. Bitching doesn't get you anything. Ignorant bitching is the quickest way to have me (and probably everyone else) completely ignore you.
Whoa, lol. I don't think I have done any "ignorant bitching" on TSO or anywhere else for that matter, so not really sure where that is coming from. Then again, I guess any complaint I have about Madden can be classified that way since I have never actually been down to Tiburon to personally see for myself. That whole exchange is just odd to me and seems to go back to my point about being more thick skinned but meh. As far as my logic being broken, like I stated in an earlier post I don't limit my perception/expectation on what's acceptable in Madden just on what Tiburon has done with their next-gen football games, I look at what has been done in the sports sims genre. For you whatever reasoning Tiburon gives for why something like an arm extension animation still isn't in the game after going on 9 years may be excusable but not to me. It seems ignorant to think if they wanted to add it they couldn't have by now, considering it was not only in NFL2k but that BackBreaker patched it in. It's all good though sir, you seem to be getting the wrong impression of me but that happens on the internet. The last part of my post was referring to AJ on Twitter and the candor with which he expressed his POV about Madden, both good and bad and is what I was referring to wanting to see/read from GCers.
AJ sounded like a drunk sailor who had been dishonerably discharged. His opinion is about as subjective as you can get after basically being fired. You wonder where most of the bugs originated from in CCM? Guess who.... If you want to put your stock in that guy, after meeting him and interacting with him personally on several occasions, then that is on you. It's not his fault. He had very little, if any, game design experience and was put in a position, because of his relationship with Ian, that he was not qualified for.
I wasn't talking about you in general. I was talking about the general perception of other communities out there. As a GC, it's sort of my role to gather community feedback. Most of it is ignorant. And the twitter rant should be taken as an anomaly. He was drunk and then later apologized. So take that for what it is. Also, the things he said are not uncommon to any company and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to it.
I didn't know AJ any better than I do any GCer, only was able to read some of his posts on OS before and after he went to work on Madden. I can't speak to how true or not his assessment of Tiburon was but it was definitely full of candid praise and criticism of Tiburon and Madden. Again, that's all I am referring to, the fact that he seemed to just give his unfiltered opinion of these things. I don't get that same impression of total candor from WHAT I HAVE READ from other GCers in the past. That's just the way I see it, doesn't make it church and I don't have anything personal against any GCers, lol. Also wanted to add I don't know how fair it is to lay bugs for Madden at AJ feet seeing as the game in general seem to be a buggy mess long before he ever went to work there.
I don't speak with candor on OS because it's pointless. I'm too old to spend my time sifting through the daggers thrown to find the quality posts and legitimate questions and ideas that i might be able to use. Too many times my posts have been moderated or closed because the thread devolves into idiocracy, sometimes led by people who are suppose to be moderating the nonsense. I will answer whatever i can, being as honest as i can without them taking my firstborn child for breaking the NDA. With that said, i would ask you keep your questions simple and direct. No long winded ideas or ramblings about your perceptions, i have trouble concentrating if i have to read big paragraphs and complicated words. Cold, hard things that will improve the game is what i want..
lol, would you mind giving me some examples, so I can differentiate simple and direct from long winded ramblings? I wouldn't want to make your nose bleed from concentrating too hard on my questions.
What's so hilarious about that is if I don't state "optimal", some tool will undoubtedly reply to me "there is no 100% perfect realistic video game", lol.
Drifterbub, RynoAid and I were talking about his yesterday. "Optimally realistic" means as much to me as "superlatively superior".
He's new. He hasn't learned yet that we are all having so much fun playing flawed games that we don't feel the need to repeat the same negativity in every post.
I maybe new here but I have been around the block enough to know that not everybody sees the same thing, the same way. What one person sees as repeated negativity another may see as venting their frustration but to each their own.
This place is to be thought of as it's own entity. You may have been around the block, but this is a different borough in my opinion. I was incredibly active and well respected on OS a long time ago, and it's crazy looking back at the place now. I by no means am diminishing your work on there, or trying to sound high and mighty, but the bottom line is the tone of the conversation there is entirely different than it is here. Even well-intentioned and constructive posts on OS are quickly diluted by unruly and myopic EA haters.
Not to discuss the aspects of OS too much on TSO, I agree with some of what you stated but not the EA haters part. (I had to Google "myopic" and still don't get it, lol). I don't see how certain stigmas can be attached to people just because of where they have spent most their time posting, not saying that's what you are doing, just in general. There seems to be this perception of a regular on OS having a totally different "agenda" for NFL gaming. Truth be told, if not for the NFL exclusive I likely wouldn't be doing much posting on the internet about NFL gaming at all. It was after the first extension of that license that drove me to the internets to try to figure out WTF was going on with Madden and when would it finally be a game I could be immersed in. I am the same poster on OS that I am on TSO or anywhere else but I think there is far too much stereotyping that occurs when people don't share the same POV. I preferred NFL2k over Madden back in 2004 and I imagine how I would react if 2k had got the exclusive instead of EA. The fact that 2k was making the game wouldn't be what would matter to me but rather how much I enjoyed the game they made. So in this hypothetical, if NFL2k13 was a game I enjoyed or didn't for that matter, it wouldn't bother me in the least what others that didn't enjoy it or even hated it, posted about it. So I can't wrap my head around why some people seem to be so annoyed by the opinions of random people on the internet that they don't agree with. Not even sure how much this post even had to do with what you posted I Peench, guess I just wanted to get that off my chest, lol.
It's not as much an agenda thing as it is a general attitude thing. Sure, we all have different expectations; but in the end, we all want the game to be as enjoyable and realistic as possible. Believe me, there is nobody in this world that cares more about the accurate representation of a videogame than Shaun Mason. I think there are different avenues of achieving that, and I feel OS fails on that front miserably. I do believe the developers are severely hamstrung by the red tape and bottom line of EA, but there's nothing anyone can do about that. Last I was at OS, that seemed to be the focus of the complainers. Not how can I work with the developers and provide them the feedback necessary to make a game despite these limitations, but to attack the bureaucratic and capitalistic nature of the business. In my opinion, you hit the nail on the head: you'll have differences of opinion anywhere, but the tone in which both sides articulate their feelings makes all the difference in the world. Some actively look for reasonable solutions, others LOVE to point fingers and dismiss EA all together. There is no stigma attached to you as far as I'm concerned. We have many great members that have migrated over from OS, and I see a lot of quality posts there. The culture and chaos of that place dilutes most ideas imo, and has rendered it uninhabitable for some of the gamechangers and developers. To sum it up, I'll give you the personal story behind why I left OS. One year (either Madden 10 or 11), I received a copy about 10 days before the street date. As a nice gesture to the community, I offered to sim through 10 years of franchise mode detailing progression, free agency, the draft, and statistics. It was quite a project, but I knew I would be eager to get some hands on information about this stuff if it was me waiting another 10 days for the game. It took a great deal of time, and I was staying up late after working full days to lay out a ton of data and answer questions. I made it clear I didn't want to answer player specific questions, as it would just take way too much time. The thread blew up to over 50 pages in no time, as I was the only guy with the game at that point. Predictably, I was flooded with ridiculously specific and insignificant requests. When I politely declined (stating I just didn't have the time and had to focus on big picture stuff), I was attacked by literally hundreds of people. Sure, a lot guys came to my defense and were incredibly grateful for the work I'd done, but the hateful PMs I received were unfathomable...all because I wouldn't tell them what Donovan McNabb was rated in year 4 or if a particular facemask was in the game. When I told some of them to shut the hell up, I was warned I was within an eyelash of being banned. The PM from the mod went something like this: "Dude, I absolutely love this thread. So nice of you to take the time to do this. But we can't have that type of attitude around here. If you attack one more member, you're gone." It might not be clear what the correlation is between that story and the discussion we were having before, but it's that type of culture that undermines constructive and reasonable criticism.
the reason this community is different is we constructively try and find ways to improve the game that we play ALL YEAR ROUND. Other communities bitch about a game they may or may not play for 3 months regardless of how good it is.
We (TSO members) know that our criticisms will be heard; particularly if they are constructive AND reasonable. Our league (12th Man Football) is here not only because TSO is an established sports gaming community, but also because TSO is a resource for EVERYONE to make the game and the gaming community BETTER. We know that it is in the community's best interest to concentrate our efforts and approach the issues in a deliberate and calculated manner. We know that any reasonable (or sometimes unreasonable) suggestions will be heard and the Game Changers on staff will report the legitimate and manageable concerns to the appropriate personnel.
I view internet forums similar to how a do games, I don't care what the branding is, only what I get out of it. You guys are of course entitled to your opinion and POV about OS, TSO or anywhere else but that doesn't mean we will see it the same way. In the case of OS, we don't seem to because I have read and engaged in many more discussions on OS that I felt were constructive than those that weren't. Now that could be due to my approach of trying to avoid interacting in discussions or with posters that I feel are nonconstructive and that I tend to relate to the frustration of disgruntled gamers that just want to vent, rant, repeat negativity or whatever personal label is put on it. I hope to engage in more constructive discussions there, here and anywhere else I feel they can be found, until I get a NFL game I can enjoy and be immersed in again.
Exactly. You related to people who cry about things instead of trying to do something. I don't relate to that. You don't play in a Madden 13 CCM?
