NCAA Football 11 - Locomotion, Pro-Tak, Dynasty Wire, & More - July 13 - Demo Out Now

[FriskyTanuki]

Thanks to SeanAmI for pointing this out in the CAGCAA thread.

http://sports.espn.go.com/videogames/news/story?id=4949103

EA SportsThe exclusive first image of "NCAA Football 11." How many new features can you spot?

Numbers on helmets might seem inconsequential to some gamers, but if you're an Alabama fan, the fact that the video game recreation of your school doesn't accurately represent the uniform details you cheer so hard for on a weekly basis has been driving you message board mad & as in, leaving threats of "I'll never play the game again," on any sports gaming board you could find in hopes someone at EA will finally hear your cries.
Cry no more.

"Alabama fans, we hear you," says "NCAA Football 11" producer Ben Haumiller. "This game's for you."

That's right, not only will "NCAA Football 11" finally feature Alabama's famed look that includes numbers on helmets, but now when gamers create their own schools using the wildly popular "Team Builder" (over 500,000 teams were created last year), they can put numbers on the sides of their helmets then watch as they actually appear in-game.

But that's not all the "NCAA Football 11" creative crew has in store for this year's game.

ESPN caught up with producers Haumiller and Russ Kiniry to get the dirt on some of the improvements being made to "NCAA Football 11" that they will be blogging about for EA Sports beginning next week. And while a slew of much bigger features will be announced in the near future, anyone who plays the game passionately will find some additions to the game in this list that have been sorely needed for years.

"This is all stuff the fans and the community have been asking for," says Kiniry. "It's fun to finally be able to say, 'You wanted this? Got it.'"

1. The Men in Stripes

The best thing a referee can do is stay out of the spotlight. EA might have taken that a bit far with "NCAA Football," though, as the officials weren't even on the field as you played. But with "NCAA Football 11," not only will the refs be on the field during every play, they'll even use some advanced avoidance logic to stay out of your way.

"You notice that they're not there," Haumiller says of the previous "NCAA" games, but now to see them on the field just makes everything seem much more authentic. Now you see them before the snap, during the play, setting the ball and that sort of thing. You see them actually interact as they would during a real game.

"And while they do have collision detection, what's key is that they have avoidance. It's not like the old PS2 days where you'd use the ref as an extra blocker for you. Remember how you could set it up a certain way where the defender would float into the ref and just fall over? That's not happening anymore." Also not happening, South Carolina quarterbacks getting dropped by a polygonal official who suddenly has a flashback to his old playing days. "We're fortunate not to have our refs tackle as good as our middle linebackers," jokes Haumiller. "No forearm shivers from the refs in our game." South Carolina fans still aren't laughing.

2. Gang Tackles

In "Madden," they refer to the gang tackling technology as Pro Tak. Does that mean they need to rename the technology Amateur Tak for the college game?

"It's not as simple as just bringing the technology over from 'Madden'" says Kiniry as he talks about bringing the up to nine man gang tackling system over from the pro game. "It has been tweaked and tuned to improve on the system. Like last year, when you played "Madden" and one of the big tackles happened, play would almost stop, like it would pause for a second. We wanted to make it more smooth and make sure we had the right guys involved in every tackle and make sure we had the right frequency. It's bringing over the system from 'Madden' while at the same time making it better."

Adds Haumiller: "New technology will always have some kinks to work out, but we have those addressed now and really smoothed it out."

3. Auto Save

Ever play a game and forget to save, only to turn the system back on later in the day and wonder what happened to the bowl you had just won or the stats you had worked so hard to accumulate? EA finally has it covered for those of us (me!) who forget to save their progress at the most inopportune times.

"Auto save is now there for all parts of the game," says Haumiller. "Whether you're saving settings or rosters, whether you just finished a game in Road to Glory or whether you're competing in an offline Dynasty, it's all saved. Say you were playing in a Dynasty last year and you won five trophies and while you saved your Dynasty, you didn't save your profile, you lost those trophies forever. That sucked. That was no good. Now your trophy case will be filled with whatever you won and you no longer need to worry about whether or not you remembered to save. It's all taken care of for you. We saw how great this worked in games like 'FIFA' and 'NHL' and it was just natural for us to do it too.

"It's just one of those things that slips your mind sometimes. You're hustling to get out of the house and you don't think about saving. We had the quick save feature, and that was nice, but it was still something you had to physically do. Now it's all just automatically taken care of for you."

And for those who don't like the auto saves for whatever reason, there will be an option to turn it off.

4. Auto Load Rosters

If you like to switch between modes often, this next one is for you. "This was just a glaring omission in years past," admits Haumiller. "When you finished a Dynasty game and backed out to the main menu, we would dump out the roster you were just using in your Dynasty file and reload the roster that came on the disc. That's fine if that's the roster you always use, but if you're someone who always edits your roster or if you just downloaded a roster, that new roster is the one you pretty much want to use when you head into a new Dynasty or if you go into Play Now or start a Road to Glory. So you would go through high school in Road to Glory and finish those four games, and you've already invested so much time into creating this character, but then you get to college and realize that you don't have the roster file that you thought you did.

"This is one of those features that you really won't notice now that it's there, but you always missed when it wasn't. Now as soon as you download a new roster online, you can check it out right away. You no longer have to go through the whole process of loading that new roster into memory. Now that's done for you automatically. When you download a new roster file, it will automatically be loaded as the current roster file. It's just a way to help clean up the experience and making it an easier process so you don't need to jump through a bunch of hoops to get where you want to go."

5. Formation Subs

If there's one thing that has been driving me nuts about "NCAA Football" lately, it's the omission of formation subs. I just couldn't figure out why it wasn't possible to substitute on a per-formation basis anymore. PlayStation 3 technology is better than PlayStation 2, right? The producers finally heard my pleas.

"Formation subs are back & that's the best way to put it," says Kiniry. "It's exciting for us as well because I love running two back systems, and there's nothing better than to be able to setup different formations with different backs. So now, just like how it worked on PS2, you'll be able to go in and for each formation, you'll be able to choose who you want in there. Cool thing is, you can do it while in-game in the pause menu, but for me, the biggest part is that it's a front-end option in Dynasty as well. So now, you can setup your Dynasty and Online Dynasty in the beginning of the year, and barring injuries, you can let it ride out, and those are your formation subs for the rest of the year.

"Now you can setup who you want as your hands team for an onside kick or who you want as the up back when you're running a fake punt & stuff like that. And even in a bigger case, if you plan to run with an option quarterback, now you can setup your flexbone and wishbone formation and not have to worry about subs when you're calling your plays. Now you have your formations subs already in there and you're ready to go.

Adds Haumiller: "This is by far the biggest request we've received from the community. They've asked for it and we were finally able to deliver this year. We're excited to let fans know that this is the type of approach we're taking with 'NCAA Football 11.' This year is really all about giving the fans what they want."

Derick E. Hingle/US Presswire
Will Tim Tebow be on the cover of "NCAA Football 11?"

6. New Equipment

When creating players, you can never have too much equipment. Whether it's visors or facemasks or helmets, EA is providing even more for gamers to tinker with in terms of the overall look of players this year.

"We have a handful of new facemasks and helmets, like the Revolution Speed helmet, says Kiniry. "We also added some injury gear like a knee brace, ankle brace, elbow guard, and an elbow brace. So now your offensive lineman will have one or two knee braces, and this just really helps bring more authenticity to the look of the game. For us, it's about keeping up with what's new on the field and making sure we have all of this equipment in the game.

"There are also some new sleeves in the game as well, like three-quarter sleeve, half sleeve, and then you can do right and left sleeve separately. And then the biggest two for the new equipment are towels and hand warmers. So now you can setup your QB with the hand warmer and a towel & everybody loves towels. There's just a certain look to a player that you want to have, and hopefully now you can do it. You want to make sure your players are looking right."

7. Single Bowl Season

If you played Online Dynasty last year, and had to wait for days while the long process of bowl games played out, you'll be happy to know that the issue has been addressed with what EA Sports is calling the single bowl season.

"Previously, all of the bowl games were played over the course of three different weeks," says Kiniry. "So if someone was playing in week one, but you weren't playing until week three, you had to sit and wait for him to finish before you could move on. So now, basically what we did is combine all of the bowls together so that everybody can play their bowl games just like it was any other week in Dynasty. It just really speeds up the process and makes it way easier to get through.

"What we noticed last year is it was taking forever to get through bowl season for most online dynasties out there. Bowl season was taking three, four, five days to get through, while the average week was only taking a couple of days at most. We don't want you to have all that dead time waiting for everybody to finish."

8. Dynamic Conference Logos

One of the strange graphical glitches in last year's game was when you switched a school like Stanford out of the Pac-10 and into a conference like the WAC. Sure, they might have switched conferences in the menu, but when you actually played a game and looked at the Stanford field, it still said Pac-10 on it.

"Like you said, during Dynasty and with custom conferences where you can switch teams around put a team like Miami in the SEC or whatever, the field art last year still had the old conference logos on it," explains Kiniry. "So what we did now is have it where the field art updates anytime a team changes conferences. This gives you a more authentic, real appearance, especially since we adjust the conference logos to make them look like the team really moved. What would the SEC logo look like on a Miami field? A lot of times they colorize the conference logos to match the colors of the school that just changed."

Adds Haumiller: "So instead of getting a bland, generic WAC logo, if you move Alabama to the WAC for whatever reason, the logo will take on that crimson and white look as far as the outlines and the colors for that WAC logo. It will look as if Alabama really went to the WAC in terms of what that conference logo will look like on the field.

9. Numbers on Helmets

Touched on this in the intro, but Alabama fans, EA is listening.

"This is just one of those things where we finally figured out how to get over that technological hurdle of displaying dynamic numbers for all the players on the field for Alabama or for a Team Builder school that wants to utilize this feature," says Kiniry. "During the actual gameplay, we just couldn't display the numbers before, but now you'll actually see them. It will finally look and feel like you would expect when you play as Alabama."

"This is an iconic look and I'm glad we were finally able to get it in the game," adds Haumiller. "If you are an Alabama fan, you looked at our game last year with the solid colored helmets and it just killed you. We wanted to do a little make good with Alabama fans on this one, and it's just one of the things that fits with our theme this year, and that's creating the game that the community and the fans have been asking for.

"It's very exciting, the stuff we're doing with the game. I personally haven't been more excited with a feature set than what we're doing with "NCAA Football 11.' What we just told you about, these are just some of the small things that we've added, some of the building blocks. We have a lot more to announce in the coming months, but this is a really exciting year for us. This is the game the fans have been waiting for. "

The Auto Load Rosters are the biggest for me since it was a pain to make sure I had the right rosters loaded for a new dynasty and I hated that I couldn't use custom rosters for Road to Glory.

 

[schuerm26]

meh.... Don't get me wrong. I like NCAA Football, I like it more than Madden. This is exactly why yearly updates are stupid.

 

[FrankySox]

How long do you think we'll have to wait after the game is released to receive these updates in a patch? With that said I can't wait for NCAA 11, hopefully they put some work in on some of the bigger issues. Not having numbers on the helmets and not having formation subs until now is a complete joke, they are way behind. I'm a smuck though, I'll purchase this game no matter what.

 

[Jess Stryker]

My question. Any knowledge if Erin Andrews will be in this one?

 

[FriskyTanuki]

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=blogid10

The new Executive Producer for NCAA Football 11 made a genuine blog post about wanting to make the necessary fixes and changes the series has been needing for a while now:

It's clear that we have some of the most passionate sports and sports gaming fans in the country. And for many of us, NCAA Football isn't just another video game. It sustains us through the off season, it's the center of our gaming universe, the one we always come back to, the experience around which all other games must orbit. And just like the real sport of College Football, it's a tradition many of us have grown up with. I know some of you out there have been with us since the very beginning; since the first EA SPORTS Bill Walsh College Football came out in 1993!

I joined the NCAA Football team last summer once "10" was out the door. As the Executive Producer for the game, I'm completely dedicated to the NCAA Football franchise. And it's been a great experience working with a very talented Tiburon Studio team putting together this year's product. Before officially taking the helm I had a number of weeks to prepare and transition from my old gig. The previous NCAA Football 10 team was still wrapping things up so it gave me time to do a lot of research. I spoke to everyone on the team, reviewed our metrics, read the game reviews, forums posts, blogs, the love letters, the hate mail, and even watched a few poignant YouTube videos created by our most passionate fans. And while it's clear we did get a lot of things right, we also recognize we have some work to do to take this game from good to great.

So I'm using my first blog opportunity to set the stage for what you're going to be hearing about over the coming weeks and months as we roll towards launch this July. No major announcements here, but I did want to outline our approach to NCAA Football 11. It comes down to three key elements:

• Core Experience
• Authenticity
• Innovation

Core Experience
At the end of the day we all know what ultimately matters in a football video game is what happens on the field. Controller in hand, heart pounding, clock running down, season on the line. That's where it all counts. Running, blocking, passing, it all has to perform and perform well. It's the foundation upon which all other major game modes are built; dynasty, career, etc. As a long time fan of NCAA Football, it's clear that great core gameplay is fundamental to a great game experience.

For NCAA Football 11, we've gone back to the very heart of our football engine and made some major upgrades. Lots more to come on this topic; I promise the core improvements will be worth the wait.

Authenticity
Fans of college football know it's so much more than just the game of football itself. It's what surrounds and supports the experience. It's the pageantry, passion, and tradition that make college football one of the greatest experiences in sports today. We've taken some deserved criticism in this area over the past few years, but we think you'll be impressed by what you'll see in NCAA Football 11. And to set the record straight for my friends out there on Pasta Padre, NCAA Strategies, and Operation Sports, the screen shot we released was not 'shopped. It's 100% pure, right out of the game. (Replays aren't looking too shabby either...)

As a Michigan Wolverine fan, I want an NCAA Football that resembles the Saturday afternoon experience at the Big House. The sights, the sounds, and the traditions. (And of course, the return of a winning season. ;-) But it's not just about visual presentation. It's also making sure that my team - and all 120 FBS teams that we include in the game - look, feel, and play like my team. There are style variations across teams in the NFL but if you want to see true variety, it's all about College. We recognize that NCAA Football needs to more closely model and reflect those differences as part of gameplay.

Innovation
We've always had a history of innovation on the franchise. It was the first EA SPORTS game on Xbox Live back in 2004. In 2009 it was Online Dynasty, giving you the ability to compete with your friends across the country. Or last year's web-based team creator, TeamBuilder, where (amazingly) you guys have already created more than half-a-million custom teams! By the way, these teams will all work in NCAA Football 11 as well...

Before I came onboard the NCAA franchise, I worked on a number of online games and technologies across EA SPORTS and also led the team that helped bring EA SPORTS games to Xbox Live and Sony PSN. Without giving too much away, you can probably guess that online will be a big component of some of the new areas we're exploring this year.

Looking Ahead
NCAA Football designers Ben Haumiller and Russ Kiniry have already covered a few of the minor updates in their recent blog. Things, frankly, we should have gotten to a while back... So please keep the faith, the "real" stuff we need to talk about for NCAA Football 11 is still up ahead!

Thanks and Stay Tuned!
===
PS -- Part of my research included a NCAA Football 10 web survey that some of you may have filled out. I'd like to open it up wider, so if you're interested in participating, please follow the link below:
NCAA Football 10 Web Survey

You can also email me at [email protected]. Given the amount of email I get daily, I don't always have time to reply, but I do promise I'll read everything you send. Just keep it civil and spam free ;-)

 

[FriskyTanuki]

Some new blogs with info about new visual stuff and the new Locomotion Engine:

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=locomotion

Hey there NCAA Football fans, I am very excited to talk to you today about one of the big changes coming to NCAA Football 11. Over the past several months, we've been working hard on a new momentum-based locomotion engine that will significantly change core gameplay. Locomotion includes running, turning and cutting; basically what any player is doing for the majority of a play. The goal of this new locomotion technology is to create more realistic movements, while also maintaining responsiveness for the user.

One of the first areas we concentrated on for NCAA Football 11 was to create more realistic player acceleration. In previous versions, there wasn't a noticeable difference between players with a high acceleration rating versus players with a lower one, as speed was the only thing that seemed to matter. For the first time in NCAA Football 11, acceleration will be a huge factor into how quickly a player can reach their top speed. This new acceleration will also help differentiate the styles of players across the various positions on the field. For example, a "Possession" type receiver may have a high acceleration rating but not have that breakaway speed that a "Speed" receiver possesses in the open field. However, this possession receiver will have the ability to get in and out of his cuts, and back to full speed on his routes quicker. Another area where acceleration is a big factor is differentiating speed type rushers versus the more conventional run-stopping defensive lineman. Defensive ends that have a high acceleration rating will be able to get off the ball and to the quarterback quicker, due to their top end speed. The bigger interior type defensive lineman will have a harder time trying to speed rush, as it will take them longer to accelerate to top speed.

Momentum is another piece of our new locomotion technology that improves the NCAA Football 11 experience. Momentum will be even more noticeable than ever by requiring players to realistically slow down before making a drastic direction change or turn. When going full speed in one direction, it's nearly impossible to stop and turn without momentum carrying you a few more steps in the original direction. A huge goal of ours is to keep the responsiveness in these situations so that users have full control throughout the play. We also now layer in a dynamic leaning system that is based on how much a player is accelerating or turning. Our ball carriers will keep their shoulders square up field, for the first couple of steps after a cut. This allows them to quickly get moving back up field again. Agility ratings will determine how much speed a player can maintain while attempting to turn.

Locomotion also plays an important role during longer runs. In previous years, when a ball carrier hit the open field for a long breakaway run, his steps would look somewhat choppy. In NCAA Football 11, we were able to implement a longer run cycle for the first time in franchise history, through a new approach in motion capture. By setting up a special field (consisting of 40 yards), this allowed us to capture a full sprint, whereas in years past we had much more limited space. Can't wait to see some of the new highlights on EASPORTS.com! You can see some clips, from our latest mocap shoot, in the video. (click the link for some in-game footage)

These new locomotion changes help make NCAA Football 11 much more realistic; it's just like watching a game in your favorite college stadium on a Saturday afternoon. Thanks for reading and expect more gameplay info for NCAA Football 11 in a few weeks...

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=ScreensAndLighting

Here we are now just a short 4 months away from our July release date and busy as can be here at Tiburon. There were a few questions about whether our first screenshot was actually in-game or not, so I sat down with Jean Adams - Art Director on NCAA Football 11 - to talk about why the game looks better this year. We hope this blog will shed some light on the situation... (That is easily the worst pun I've ever had in my life).

Without getting too much into the art/technical details, we wanted to talk about a couple of graphic improvements; the first being linear lighting. This lighting technique allows us to more accurately control the material properties of everything that makes up the player. To put it in basic terms, we now have control over how bright or dark things get without losing detail. It also helps us get the authentic color on the uniforms.

Linear lighting also allows us to tune helmets, jerseys, and other player gear in a much more realistic way. For example; you'll notice the skin looks more lifelike and less like plastic. Helmets and jerseys reflect the right amount of light. Colors are less saturated and react to lighting in a more realistic way. You might remember looking at previous versions of NCAA Football and feeling like things were too saturated and flat. We think we've addressed these issues thanks to this new level of control.

Jean is also a big into gear so he wanted me to point out the leg brace, Nike Jet gloves and the Air LT cleats.

Overall we wanted to make lighting feel realistic and dramatic at the same time. At the end of the day we are hoping that you like the crisp and detailed graphics of NCAA Football 11.

Here is a comparison of NCAA Football 10...

and NCAA Football 11.

We think graphics are key, but before you ask... YES, there are bigger details coming on gameplay and Dynasty, so please be patient. In a couple weeks we are scheduled to release the first gameplay feature blog. I think you are going to like it; really cool stuff, no question about it.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=espn

New update on better ESPN integration into the presentation:

Hey everyone, this is Greg Heddlesten and I’m a Designer for the NCAA® Football 11 team here at Tiburon. My main area of ownership is presentation and, as Roy mentioned in his previous blog, when we began work on NCAA 11 it was very important for us bring even more authenticity to the product and continue to blur the line between real life and the game. One of our first goals for this year’s title was to give our in-game presentation an upgrade with the audio and visuals of ESPN College Football.

Previously, we had only gotten our feet wet with ESPN integration by implementing the ESPN SportsCenter updates and the news ticker. But everyone here, as well as everyone on the forums, felt that the ESPN experience just wasn’t complete without the ESPN College Football theme music and the in-game visuals and presentation. We all got our first taste of what an ESPN style broadcast could bring to our college sports products in NCAA® Basketball 10. The excitement, imagery, and sounds they were able to implement gave their game an entirely new vibe. With that in mind, it was time for us to dive in and really give our in-game presentation a new coat of paint with the help of ESPN.

One of the cool things about working with ESPN on the visual side was we were able to see the new graphics package they were going to roll out in 2010 before everyone else. The general public got one of their first glances of this new visual style during the Bowl Season this past winter. It was really important for us to have the graphics in the game match what you would be seeing during the College Football season this year. The reference provided by ESPN really helped our artists replicate the look and UI animations you’ll see on television and help us continue to blur the line between NCAA Football 11 and watching a broadcast of ESPN College Football. So, without further delay, let’s take a closer look at what’s to come!

The sights and sounds of ESPN you can expect in NCAA® Football 11:

Updated In-Game UI:

Game Clock: As some of you recently speculated in the Tim Tebow interview article, the game clock has been updated to reflect the new visual style that ESPN revealed during bowl season. We’ve recreated nearly every animation in the game clock from the Touchdown animation to how the clock opens out from the single ESPN cell.

Banners: Banners received a face lift to match the ESPN style with new data like home town info for Impact and Injured player banners. In addition, we’ve also created a “Dual Threat” banner to support our mobile quarterbacks now that everyone will be taking advantage of our locomotion update mentioned in our previous blog.

Replay Wipes: ESPN logo intro wipe plays as you start the replay and outro wipe plays as you exit back to the field. These aren’t just videos played back over the screen, the wipe is actually a fully animated 3D animation rendered in real time. It’s pretty slick.

The Monolith! It’s our take on the broadcast bumper you see before every game with the College Football shield logo. This thing is completely rendered real time in the stadium you are about to play in and helps us kick off the broadcast. Coupled with the ESPN College Football Theme…awesome.

Updated UI in the Main Menu and Screens:

The new ESPN look wasn’t only integrated into the in-game broadcast. The entire game has been accentuated by the ESPN style to really give the entire game a new television broadcast theme.

Other ESPN additions: On Demand Improvements You can now filter ESPN news articles by you favorite Sports, Conferences and Teams ESPNU Top 150 Recruits ESPNU lists their top 150 recruits that are available in your dynasty

From the new look of ESPN’s game clock and stat banners to the ESPN College Football theme; we’ve infused our game with the iconic sights and sounds of College Football on ESPN. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this sneak peak of what’s to come for our presentation updates in NCAA® Football 11. Stay tuned for more presentation announcements as we get closer to launch. I can’t wait to show you guys our next major presentation update!

*all images are work in progress

 

[XXXplosive1]

I can't wait.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

Missed a bunch of updates on the official blog, so I'll try to be succint when possible and offer links to the more wordy details:

Real Assignment AI (video)

On the reworked entrances (video in link):

After all the pieces were ready, we built the sequence of cut scenes in our newly developed presentation tool and inserted it into our pregame flow. From that point we tuned the pacing and cameras even more to get the best angles possible for each scene (as shown below).

Once timing was locked down, the audio files were created and aligned with each scene to bring the whole experience together. You'll be taken through the tunnels with the clacking of cleats, the murmur of the fans echoing off the tunnel walls, and the jawing of players hyping each other up for the forthcoming run out onto the field. The team's cheerleaders and mascots get the crowd amped for the game and the entire presentation reaches its thunderous climax when your favorite team bursts onto the field accompanied by the band blasting their team's fight song.

I hope you have enjoyed this look into how our new pregame entrances were created and implemented into NCAA® Football 11. We're really excited to bring this new experience to everyone and continue to strengthen the presentation in our title. In the video below, you'll see some of our run outs in motion. I look forward to sharing more updates as we get closer and closer to our release.

On improved QB play with and against them:

Defending the Dual-Threat QB

a. Contain QB assignment in UI

b. Defensive Ends are shown with contain assignments (white play art)

The second addition to helping the defense slow down scrambling QB's is a new option in the gameplan called "QB Contain." This option, if you set it to 'Aggressive', will cause your defenders to react quicker to a scrambling QB by leaving their zones sooner to try and contain the QB. This will affect defenders in short zone assignments such as hook, curl/flat, and flat zones. Defenders in deep zones will not be affected by this. Another thing to keep in mind when using this option is that only the best blitzer will actually rush. There are many factors that determine who that is, including which defender can break out of their zones, when they should break out of their zone, where the QB is currently scrambling to, how many receivers are in the defender's zone, is another defender already in a spy assignment, and how many defenders can actually have a chance to make the play.

Choosing an aggressive QB contain can definitely help stop a scrambling QB, but will also have a greater chance of leaving receivers open as the defenders in short zones will view the QB as the bigger threat. If you want to play it safe and are not worried about the QB scrambling, you can set this option to 'Conservative'. In this gameplan, the defenders will stay on the receivers longer and give up the QB Scramble by not attacking him until he is right near the line of scrimmage.

Throw Out of Sacks

The first thing we did was to sit down as a team and determine what actually factors in to being able to throw out of a sack effectively and not so effectively. We came up with the idea that number one, Strength, is an important factor as well as the QB's Awareness. You don't often see the smaller, inexperienced QB's make great decisions when they are getting hit. Often times you see an ill-advised throw go up in the air and go the other way for a defensive touchdown. However, after watching a bunch of different games we noticed that players that were stronger and more aware (again Tim Tebow fits this description) and were able to still make decent throws and decisions while getting tackled by a defender.

To accomplish a more animation driven result, our terrific gameplay animation team went through and added new branch windows for every sack animation. The branch windows include accurate, inaccurate and uncontrolled. These windows are placed throughout the animation and can overlap in certain parts. So for example, say you are starting a pass and you get hit by a defender and you are in between the accurate and inaccurate window, the QB's ratings will determine which pass will trigger. If the QB has higher strength and awareness ratings he will more than likely still be able to get off an accurate pass. However, a less aware, smaller type QB will more than likely throw the inaccurate pass. The same calculation happens when the window is between inaccurate and uncontrolled.

Revamped phone calls in Dynasty
Revamped prospects for recruiting


Offensive Styles: Spread Offense (lots of videos)
Offensive Styles: One Back Offense

The Prospect stuff is a really cool upgrade since they've changed the entire ratings system so that there are less players at 99 overall and that trickles down into the prospects, where the best of the best recruits may barely crack 80 overall. They've reworked the rankings of the ESPNU 150, which replaces the top 100 list, to emphasize importance of the position, potential, JUCO status, and overall instead of just the overall rating in previous years.

The demo will be out next week (June 14) and it seems that it will features Ohio State versus Miami as the demo game.

 

[kingtut313]

i will def cop this when it drops

i just hope mobile QBs actually scramble and run on pass plays.. playin against a QB with 90 speed who stays in the pocket all game and only runs when the team runs a QB draw is weak

 

[FriskyTanuki]

http://espn.go.com/espn/thelife/vid...l-11-takes-dynasty-web?readmore=fullstory&654

This year, the team behind "NCAA Football 11" is finally taking the feature full-force to the Web, enabling gamers to log onto their dynasty anywhere they have access to the Internet, whether it's on a computer, iPhone, or even an iPad.

That's right, now if you an extra 20 minutes to kill at work (or if you just don't feel like working), you can log onto your team online, schedule a game, try to recruit that strong-armed quarterback for next season, and even write up a news story about how you destroyed Florida the night before and post the story to Facebook.

Talk about a productivity killer. "NCAA Football 11" is set to cost corporate America millions of dollars in lost time just so Dan from Palo Alto can try to convince some virtual running back that Stanford is the best place for him to high-step down the field next season.

But that's just the start of what EA has planned.

Jon Robinson: Last year you guys introduced online dynasty. How are things changing now that gamers will be able to access their dynasties on the Web?
Russ Kiniry: Everything that you'd expect to see is there. You can look at stat leaders, schedules, Top 25 polls, and also this is the first time where we have public dynasties. You can set it to private if you want, but if you're looking to join a dynasty, there is different search criteria you can look through to find a good fit. But one of the biggest things is that you can do all of your recruiting on the Web. Everything you can do to recruit players in the game is now online. You can search for players, look through all their details, check their ratings, add them to your board, move them around your board, and even make phone calls. Basically, you never have to do recruiting on the console again if you don't want to. We took everything and moved it online, and actually some things are actually easier to do now. Moving guys around on your board is really easy now because it's all drag and drop. You can click on any of your players and see all of their information instantly, which makes comparing players easier than it is on the console. And then with the phone calls, you can do everything from offering scholarships to scheduling visits. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every piece of the console recruiting is now online. Recruiting is in two spots now and you can do it wherever you want.

Recruiting is made a lot easier via the Web.

Ben Haumiller: That was the main goal behind the Web this year, that you'd have reason to go there, something to do. It's not just about viewing stats, although you can do that as well, but we wanted to give you something that you can go to on a weekly basis and it will benefit you and help you keep moving your dynasty along.

Another thing we added this year is e-mail alerts. You can sign up for e-mail alerts and you'll be notified every time you get a dynasty invite or your dynasty advances. If a game is played, you'll get an e-mail with a recap of what happened. If you're the last in your group to play a game for that week, you'll get an e-mail to prod you to play your game. And if you're the commissioner and everyone is done, you'll get an e-mail to let you know that you can advance the season. Now you can be as into your dynasty and as connected to your dynasty as you want to be because it's always a touch away. Anywhere you can get an Internet connection, including smart phones, you can access your dynasty. And while we won't have a native app for the iPhone, you just go through the dynasty.easports.com URL on a browser and you have full access.

Jon Robinson: Talk about murdering workforce productivity.
Ben Haumiller: Luckily there is only so much you can do per week. Eventually you get cut off. [laughs] And remember, this doesn't even have to be multiplayer as you can also play an online dynasty by yourself. Think of it more like a connected dynasty as I can't even think of a reason to play offline anymore. You just have so much ability online.

A look at the online schedule.

Jon Robinson: Another big improvement I keep hearing whispers about is something called the Dynasty Wire. Can you explain how this will work?
Ben Haumiller: Dynasty Wire is essentially a hub for all stories that are happening in your dynasty. To us, this is one thing that really helps give dynasty a life of its own and helps blur that line between fantasy and reality. When you're in a dynasty and you're heavily invested in a dynasty, the ones that last the longest and are the most fun to be in are the ones where we're all communicating with each other. It's the dynasty where once that game gets done, we're sending e-mails talking about how I just beat you to everyone else in the dynasty, and by the way, here are some highlights to back it up. But this was all legwork that you had to do on your own before. You had to manually do all this. You had to save all of your highlights and manually upload them on your own. You had to compose the e-mail.

Now, we're doing all of that for you. With Dynasty Wire, it's a collection of all of these stories that have happened in your dynasty. So every game that gets played by a user, you have five photos that automatically get uploaded by the game as well as all of the stats for the game including player stats, team stats, and the scoring summary. All of this gets uploaded and a story gets created about that game. You can then go in and not only edit the story however you want, you can add addition photos as well as up to five videos. Those will all be uploaded to the game as well so when somebody wants to see what happened in the game, they can view all the stats, they can check out the photos, and even watch the highlights of the game you just played. Then on the Website, you can go in and edit the headline, the captions, and the body so you can tell your side of the story. And that's really where the meat of this is. Now you have the ability to basically go in and play the role of journalist for your dynasty and talk about everything that happened.

And this is now available for everyone to see, both on the Web and on the console. Every member of the dynasty can them comment on the story. So you will have these long discussions going back and forth and it's a great way for everyone to be in constant communication.

And when the week advances, there's also a week advance story that gets created at the start of every new week that tells you who won last week, who is playing this week, and any prospects who have committed, whether they commit to your school or to another school. Say I was going after the number one quarterback in the nation and I'm playing as Alabama, but that kid signs with Tennessee who is not any of the user controlled teams. Now, that story will say he signed with Tennessee, so I will finally know what happened to that kid now that he's no longer on my board.

Russ Kiniry: Another great thing about the weekly story is that it serves as a forum to help you schedule your games as you can leave comments back and forth with your next opponent as you work out a time to play your game. And these comments show up instantly on either the console or the Web, so I don't need to be on my console to schedule a game anymore. I can just post a little comment on that week advance story and find out a time to play.

Scroll through the stories of your season.

Jon Robinson: You say people can act as the journalist for their dynasty. How in depth can you get?
Ben Haumiller: This is where me, as a member of a dynasty, can create complete user generated stories. I can create a story on anything I want to. A good example of this is a preview of an upcoming game. An even better example of this is something Russ recently did. He was playing through his dynasty as Buffalo. It's not a great school, but it's a school he's having fun with because of the challenge. And because of this challenge, he's become closely attached to some of his players. Maybe a little too attached. [laughs] So when his All-American graduated, the guy was such a key to his success that he created a story that was a retrospective of his career. And he was pulling highlights from every game this player has played in. You have every highlight that was uploaded from any year available to you, so you now have a full chronicled history of your dynasty years. Russ created a full chronicled history of this player with highlights from his freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year all within this one story.

If you want, you can even create a story that is the Top 5 Reasons Russ is a Bum, and pull different highlights from different opponents that show his worst plays. You can create a story to show the top highlights of the year, and I can pull highlights from games that anyone in my dynasty has played. They're all available to you, not just from your team. You have the full archive of your team's dynasty history. And that goes for all 60 years of dynasty. If you make it all 60 years, you will have 60 years worth of dynasty highlights. That can be thousands of highlights available to you.

What will your story be in "NCAA Football 11"?

Russ Kiniry: Another thing this does is create a history for your dynasty. You can see where you were at through every single week. You can see the results of every single game and see who won. You have a full archive. If you're in year ten, you can go back to year two and read through your old stories. I can't think of another game that has done this. You get to play the role of journalist and it keeps track the entire length you're playing.

And the cool thing is, these stories show up as the first thing people see when they log into their dynasty. Not to mention, you can also publish these stories out to Facebook and Twitter. You can even link people back directly to your story so they can watch the highlights for themselves. So if you spend an hour creating the coolest story of all time, not only will everyone in your dynasty see it, but you can tell all of your friends and everyone who follows you on Twitter. Now if you beat one of your friends, you finally have the chance to not only shame him, but shame him to the world.

 

[FrankySox]

[quote name='FriskyTanuki']http://espn.go.com/espn/thelife/vid...l-11-takes-dynasty-web?readmore=fullstory&654[/QUOTE]

Amazing! I can't wait for this game it looks like they've finally taken a much needed step forward in the series. Can't wait to try out the demo out next week.

 

[moonknight25]

Holy crap, I'm pumped for this!! Is it to early to reserve my team?! Got Holtz??? USF Baby!!

 

[slickkill77]

I'll be getting this game again after skipping last year. It finally looks like they "get it". They need to make major upgrades and they finally have. The demo is going to have 5 match ups in it.

Ohio St v Miami
FSU v Florida
Missouri v Clemson
And one other to be announced tomorrow

 

[BigAT]

Wow, the dynasty additions look very impressive.

 

[slickkill77]

Tex vs Okl is the last match up for the demo.

http://www.pastapadre.com/2010/06/10/final-ncaa-football-11-demo-matchup

 

[BigAT]

The demo is out on XBOX Live. Here's the link to the download page.

 

[Flyersfan]

The demo is ... ing amazing, at least to me.


This went from a "someday" purchase to a day one purchase to me. I've been playing it for the last 2 hours.

 

[pjb16]

Online dynasty looks absolutely sick. Can't wait to try the demo.

 

[slickkill77]

Looks like they are finally getting things right this year. Demo feels good.

 

[BigAT]

I just played a game, as Miami against Ohio state on All-American (2nd highest difficulty), here's some of my thoughts.

-It appears that there's no more Lee Corso doing commentary this year. Erin Andrews is back on the sidelines.

-The team entrances look pretty good, but nothing that you won't be skipping after the first time you play the game. It seems like Nike is quite a big sponsor this year.

-Kicking meter is the same. I guess they're only changing it for Madden.

-The switch to an ESPN-like presentation looks better. Fresher at the very least.

-There's now a clock runoff similar to Madden, I didn't see an option to turn it on/off at will like last year.

-Gameplanning (setting whether you want to be aggressive or conservative on certain aspects of your team) is back.

-The game plays much slower than last year. I wouldn't say it's quite as slow as Madden, but it's significant considering how fast NCAA 10 played. Players also can't change directions/accelerate as quickly, they definitely have a "weighty" feel to them now.

-QB scrambling seems significantly less effective. It takes a good second to start scrambling when you hit the sprint button and even then it seems like QBs can't escape pursuers nearly as easily as they used to be able to.

-There's an interesting thing presnap on running plays, all of the blockers seem to call out/signal who their assignment/responsibility is. I love this in theory, but I don't know if it actually works well. For one, there were times when the blockers simply would go after completely different targets after the snap then they were signalling to just a moment before (even simple stuff like an OT not going after the DE right in front of him). The other is that it seems that sometimes, and this seemed especially true for fullbacks, the blocker would focus on their assignment far too much, ignoring players that were directly in their path and unblocked. I had my FB just running past incoming linebackers because their presnap target was a safety.

-The CPU went no huddle at the end of the game. There's an interesting option now where you can call a play from your playbook while your team is scrambling to the line. It was nice not to have to rely purely on audibles in that situation.

-I absolutely HATE the play calling system. It's a single line that shows just three plays, that you scroll through left or right and only the A button will select a play. Up or down will switch between formations (like from 4-3 Under to 4-3 Over) and there's an annoying latency that comes with that. I'm doing a poor job of describing it properly, but my gripe is that you see hardly any plays at any given time, it takes quite a while to scroll through them, and it's impossible to call a play quickly. At least in NCAA 10 you could hold a trigger to gain the option to use all four face buttons for plays, I didn't notice anything like that while playing. With the clock runoff and my unfamiliarity with the playbook, I felt like I had virtually no time to find something I was looking for.

-Shaking routes and rumbling controller is back presnap for nervous quarterbacks on the road, but there's another aspect to it that's new. The passing icons on your targets will actually fade away shortly after the snap. It was starling and disconcerting the first time it happened. I was rolling out and had no idea what to press to throw to the receiver I had open.

 

[slickkill77]

Crossing routes seem to powerful as always

 

[FriskyTanuki]

I'm surprised that they pretty much hide the gameplan stuff from you without it popping up at the beginning of the game. I didn't need it to show up on each timeout, but I'd like a quick chance to set it before the game begins. I'm also surprised that they kept the penalty perks, which you have to set to conservative to not get facemasks, offsides, or other penalties like that a bit too often.

I prefer this play-calling screen than the previous years versions, as I didn't care for that style of playbook. They got rid of the commentary on the play they'd suggest and commentary when you tell your DBs to press, which is nice since that was an annoying part of the commentary. The rest of the commentary isn't much better than last year's game, though having the other guy is at least a nice change of pace compared to the past several years of Corso.

Had quite a bit of fun with the demo, though the locomotion system didn't do as much for changing up the animations as I'd have hoped. It just helped make movement on defense and offense a lot less robotic. I like that being hit while throwing doesn't make it an automatic lame duck pass. The option to hold B and using the analog stick to quickly switch defenders is a great change so I don't have to play the button-mashing game to get back to my preferred defender.

I also liked that we got a full game rather than one half with two minute quarters. Plus, if you play while signed into to EA's servers, you unlock two Nike Pro Combat uniforms for each game to use in the full game along with getting an extra set of three uniforms for suggesting the demo to a friend. I'm not a huge fan of that style of uniform, but it's more interesting than nothing.

 

[SeanAmI]

Onside kicks are glitched as hell.

 

[Ultimate Matt X]

I don't necessarily mind the setup, but man only have 3 plays to pick from at a time sucks. So does have to hold down a trigger to pick something other than the one highlighted. I'd hate to play my buddies in the same room in this game.

Gameplay wise I liked everything, though it seems like there is a little slowdown after plays sometimes. Doesn't impact gameplay, but it just throws things off seeing it after a play. Still think I'll pick this up since I enjoyed the league and I think I'm passing on Madden this year.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

I'm guessing that you go through the formations to make your picks, as Ask Coach brings up a bunch of plays that I can rotate through. It seems to be much better about picking plays on fourth down, as 10 told me to go for it ~60% of the time.

 

[SeanAmI]

No one else is experiencing really easy onside kicks? I tried 6 in a game and got them all.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

I only got one out of two. Didn't seem like anything was out of whack.

 

[Jackboy]

Wow the onside kick is gay everytime I do that I always have the ball WTF?? What if ur playing it online??? And people are just gonna use onside kicks rather thatn kicking the ball? hope that they change that.

 

[Steggy]

where is the thread for signing up for cag online dynasty?

 

[stocker08]

I played a friend in this demo and got beat several times in a row. Doesn't help that he is the least graceful winner ever.

Prior is WAAAYYY too good. Faster than every player on the field, breaks multiple tackles, and has a knack for throwing amazing, no look, running backwards passes. Drove me nuts.

I set AI to All-American for our games, yet my computers were horrible. Play recognition was absolutely broken for them. QB would scramble and the computer would simply watch until he was 5 yards across the LOS. I really hope that this is fixed. Prior is pretty much a cheat at this point.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

Some new blog posts:

Recruiting Logic

One of the biggest changes to Dynasty Recruiting this year is a new setting allowing control of the difficulty. It has four options: Freshman, Varsity (the default setting), All-American, and Heisman. What you will see as you increase the difficulty is the computer controlled teams will maximize the amount of points they earn each Phone Call. In turn, you really need to be on your game on Heisman mode to sign the Top Prospects.

A huge part of the Recruiting Logic is making the Prospects have a more realistic approach to what school they are going to attend. To accomplish this, we made a few changes to the Prospect’s thought process. First, before a Prospect can pick his final school, he has to have his Top 10 in order. Second, the better a Prospect is, the more it takes to get him to come to your school. Finally, for some Prospects staying near home is a major deal, and it should give those close schools an advantage. To ensure this happened, we did the following:

1. Worked on the logic each Prospect uses to decide what schools he will consider for his Top 10 at the start of a season. The objective was to limit the amount of lower caliber Prospects that were filling their Top 10’s with the best schools in the nation. Now, they take the Team’s Needs and Prestige more into account.

2. In years past, each recruit was given an equivalent point total that would have to be met before signing with a school. The process now bases the total number of points upon the recruit’s caliber - meaning, a 1 Star Prospect is significantly easier to sign than a 5 Star Prospect.

3. There is now a chance that a Prospect will have a bonus to any school close to home. For some of the Prospects, every school in their home state will get a different amount of extra points when he is created.

Example of a Top 10 start for a top Prospect in Week 1.

Example of a Home Town bonus in Week 1.

Once Prospects were working properly we moved on to the CPU Teams and how they recruit. In years past, the CPU has not been very competitive in Recruiting. To ensure they would provide a challenge, we changed how the CPU goes about all aspects of Recruiting; from how they order their Recruiting Board to how they pick which Prospects they are going to call:

1. CPU Teams will now go for Instant Commits more often. If a Prospect has their school number 1 in his Top 10 list, the CPU will be far more likely to offer a Scholarship for that chance at an Instant Commit

2. CPU Teams will reorder the Recruiting Board more often and ensure the best players are near the top of the board. Team Needs is still a big part of filling and ordering the Recruiting Board, but the Caliber of the Prospect is going to have a significant impact upon ranking.

3. The logic behind how the CPU calls prospects has been completely reworked. If the CPU wants a Recruit, they are going to start spending the maximum amount of time possible early and often until he signs. At the same time they are much smarter at giving up on Players they do not have a shot at signing, so they don’t waste Recruiting Time. The real key to this rework is how the system changes over the course of a season. For example, early in the Season it’s still anyone’s game for most Prospects, so they will continue to call a Prospect even if they are behind to try and make up ground. As the season progresses, that gap gets smaller and they really start to focus on Prospects they can get to commit.

New Stats and Trophies:

It was just awesome! I’ve rambled on long enough; let me get the last few details into this blog before I break the size limits. We also added a bunch of new Trophies to Dynasty Mode and started to track Half Sacks and Assisted Tackles for every player. Here is a list of the new Trophies:
* Walter Camp
* Nagurski
* Ray Guy
* Biletnikoff
* Outland

Play Calling

Basic vs. Advanced Play Calling
Since every player, no matter what skill level, has to be comfortable with the play call screen, it's important to be as flexible as possible so that a novice player can understand what they are doing. However, we also want the hardcore audience to have full control of their playbook. In NCAA Football 11, you will have two different play call styles: 1.)'Basic' for the novice players and 2.) 'Advanced' for all the guys Bobby Bowden referred to as "PlayStation All-Americans." The screenshot below shows the 'Basic' play call screen. Here you will be able to cycle through a series of plays pre-selected based on the situation. The only options available in this mode are selecting a play, bluffing your call, and flipping the play. You will notice that in the bottom right hand corner of each play we have added a Run/Pass tag to quickly identify what type of play you are calling. This is an extremely simple and easy way to select plays, and will give newer players the ability to quickly and easily call plays without confusion.

Bluff Mode
When playing a head to head game on the same console it's important to bluff the play you are calling so that your opponent doesn't see your play selection. There are two ways to bluff your playcall. First, you can hold the A button down on the play you want to run and continue to cylce plays. Once you release the A button, the play you initially selected will be the play you are running. The other option is to hold down LT, to bring up the bluff play view. In this view you will be able to move left/right between plays but will not have the option to change formations. The Bluff Mode view also allows you to cylce through 3 plays at a time so you can quickly find the play you want.

Here's a look at the bluff play screen:

Gameplan
Gameplanning makes its return to play call with a few new additions. The previous options remain, but we have created additional gameplan options to help get your team to play exactly how you want them to. We will talk about these additions in an upcoming blog, but for now here's a look at the offensive gameplan screen.

Offensive Personnel
I've held my favorite update to play call for last. In previous versions of the game you knew how many skill players your opponent had coming out of the huddle, but you never knew who they had coming out for the next play. As you will see below, you will not only see the skill personnel that will be breaking the huddle, you will also see the jersey number of those players. The best part about this is that if your opponent tries to get sneaking and sub in his lightning fast corner back to try and beat you with a streak, you will know he's on the field before you select your play.

Dynasty Wire

Dynasty Wire
In its most basic terms, the Dynasty Wire is your central source for the stories in your Online Dynasty. The latest story is the first thing you see when you enter the dynasty or access the Dynasty website, which helps keep the Dynasty fresh since that lead story can be different every time you get into your Dynasty. There are three basic types of stories: Weekly Updates, Game Recaps, and User generated stories - and I'll get into each of these in a bit. First I wanted to give a quick example of what you might be greeted with when you access your Dynasty from both the console and the web:

Console:

Web:

The first thing you see when you enter your Dynasty is an image from the story, the headline and caption for the story, and on the web you can see the body of the story and the comments right from the front page. On the console you have the ability to shuffle through the 5 most recent stories from the main Dynasty hub. From here you can access the actual Dynasty Wire, which is the list of available stories from your dynasty, broken up by week (including a list of the latest stories no matter what week they are from), and segmented out by the Dynasty Season. This allows you to quickly and easily find the story you want and get update on what's hit the Dynasty Wire since you last checked:

From here you can select any available story to get all of the details. As I mentioned above, this is a complete archive of the stories from the length of your Dynasty. So if you are in week 7 of year 10 you can go back and see the stories that were created in week 2 of year 3 if you want. I'll get to the best part about what this allows you to do a little later in this blog.

Comments

Each story allows you, the members of the Dynasty, to participate in an active discussion by using the comment system. Members can comment from both the web and the console, so no matter where you are you can be a part of the discussion. Comments are all tied to the story they were created in, and you can see how many comments a story has from the Dynasty Wire view, as well as know when the last comment was posted so you will always be able to find where the hot topic is located. Here's a screenshot of the comments from the console:

So now that you know the basic structure of how stories are viewed, let's dive in to how these stories are created.

Weekly Updates

Every time the week advances, a Weekly Update story will be created that recaps the events from the previous week and sets up the news for the current week for each human controlled team. These recaps show the results of last week's game, who each team is playing in the current week, and for you recruitniks, which prospects from your recruiting board have committed in the past week. The best part of this is that the recap shows anyone from your board that's committed, even if it was to another school. I'm a fan of this because I always want to know when a prospect I was after has made their commitment, even if it wasn't to my school. This same recap is displayed on the web, and is one of the emails alerts you can sign up for to help keep you connected to your dynasty.

Since these updates are a central point for all members of the Dynasty, this is a great place to try and coordinate a game time for a head to head game. Use the comments to tell your opponent when you want to play to help move the scheduling along. Or if you are controlling Oklahoma in the scenario above, you can taunt Texas about how you are absolutely crushing it in recruiting.

Game Recaps

After every human controlled game is played, the recap of that game is created and posted to the Dynasty Wire for everyone to see. This recap contains the stats from your game (Scoring Summary, Team Stats, and Player Stats) as well as the highlights from your game. Five photos from your game are automatically created and uploaded, and you have the ability to create up to five additional photos and save off up to five video highlights from your game that will be uploaded for you. In total, each game played can have up to 15 highlights showing off the action from your game. Since we automatically create and upload those photos, even if you don't feel like adding additional highlights to your recap, every game will have some media attached to it for everyone to view. Each recap has a headline and caption automatically generated for you, which you can then edit from the web to say exactly what you want. The cherry on top of all of this is the ability to go to the web and write up your own text recap of what happened in the game. This is your blank slate to tell everyone just what happened in your game. Since it's never fun to type using a controller, the headline, caption, and story body are editable on the web instead of the console. Here's a look at what the full story details look like on the console:

All of the highlights are inside of this screen, so you can shuffle through highlights, read the story, check out the stats, and view/add a comment all from this one screen. The web is structured in the same way so that all of the contents of that story are located in one spot.

User Generated Stories

Where the stories really take on a life of their own are in the User Generated stories. Here, Dynasty members can create a story about anything they want. Absolutely anything (as long as it passes the profanity filters) can be a subject for your story. Sign the top prospect in the nation? Let them hear all about it. Win the Heisman? What better way to rub it in than to create a story with that player's greatest highlights. About to play your biggest rival? Create a preview story filled with highlights from previous contests. The beauty of these stories is that you have every highlight that's ever been uploaded in your dynasty available for use when creating a new story. Did the greatest player in your dynasty just graduate? Create a story about their career where you pull in highlights from their freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. As I said earlier, Dynasty Wire is your archive for every human game played in the Dynasty. If you have a 12 man Dynasty, with a 13 game a year schedule, and every game has 15 highlights saved, for all 60 years of a Dynasty you would have 140,400 highlights at your fingertips when going to create a story. While this is the absolute extreme scenario, the fact still remains, if you want to write a story, there's a great shot that you will have the visuals to support that story.

The user generated stories are laid out exactly like the game recaps in the same, easy to digest format. Here's an example of a user generated story from the web:

On the left side you will see that the stories about USC are all grouped together for quick access so you can jump from story to story about the same school.
StoryBuilder

Now that we've shown you what the stories look like as finished pieces, let's go into the actual creation process using the StoryBuilder. When you want to create a story from scratch, or edit your game recap you will need to head to the website to utilize the StoryBuilder feature. Here you will be able to edit all of your text and add/remove highlights as well as update the order that those highlights are displayed.

Here's a screenshot of the StoryBuilder:

And let's take a look at that same story once it hits the Dynasty Wire:

Facebook and Twitter

If it's not enough for you to share your stories with the other members of your Dynasty, you can publish stories out to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The world is your audience, and you can let them in on all the fun you are having. If you beat a good friend in your Dynasty, why should the other members be the only ones that can enjoy your ridicule? You've got to embarrass them in a true public forum. Since each story has its own unique URL, people outside of your Dynasty will be able to directly link to the story you want them to see. What's the point of telling your story if everyone can't listen?

 

[n8rockerasu]

Has anybody else confirmed onside kicks being really easy to recover? I haven't had a chance to download the demo yet, but I've been curious about it. Obviously, if it's something EA is going to have to patch, there's no sense in buying the game till said patch is released. I could see online play being an onside kick fest until then, haha.

 

[BigAT]

[quote name='n8rockerasu']Has anybody else confirmed onside kicks being really easy to recover? I haven't had a chance to download the demo yet, but I've been curious about it. Obviously, if it's something EA is going to have to patch, there's no sense in buying the game till said patch is released. I could see online play being an onside kick fest until then, haha.[/QUOTE]

For what it's worth, I've heard that the demo is a build from over two months ago and that the build at E3 was essentially final build. I have no idea if they fixed things in that time period, but it's entirely possible that they did.

 

[n8rockerasu]

[quote name='BigAT']For what it's worth, I've heard that the demo is a build from over two months ago and that the build at E3 was essentially final build. I have no idea if they fixed things in that time period, but it's entirely possible that they did.[/QUOTE]

Ehhh...that's not good enough for me. Not with the luck I've had with sports games lately (NHL 10, MLB 10: The Show, UFC 2010). I'm sick of patches, and sports games have made me cynical, lol. I'll wait to hear what the consensus is after it's out.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=DemoUpdates

They detailed the bug fixes they have made to the build from when they finished the demo to the day that it went gold:

On Monday the 14th, the demo for NCAA Football 11 was released on Xbox Live and the Playstation Marketplace, and so far the impressions have been overwhelmingly positive. But some are wondering, is the Demo truly NCAA Football 11? It came out a month before the game is due to hit shelves, so does that mean we put another month of work into the game after that? Yes it does! As a matter of fact, we finished the demo on the 1st of May and finished the game on the 1st of June. In this blog I will address some of the differences between the demo and the final product.

What's Been Done Since the Demo?
The following is a list of the most common issues reported on the demo that will not occur in the retail game:
• On Xbox 360, the Reese's Perfect Play of the Game will not always be the final play. As some of you have already speculated, we temporarily save off highlights to the hard drive during the game so you can view them later, however this is not something we are able to do in the demo.
• The CPU team will now decline penalties.
• Front four defensive linemen will generate a better pass rush. There are many contributing factors to this that have been tweaked. CPU defensive linemen will rush the pass more aggressively and will not get thrown to the ground as often when "losing" to the blocker. Defensive ends will also do a better job of getting off their blocks at more appropriate angles to help contain a scrambling quarterback. Additionally, you can always tune the pass rush to your liking using the AI sliders if you still feel it is lacking (or overpowered) in the final product.
• A major issue was fixed where the sound would cut out and eventually cause the game to freeze.
• Pass defense has been greatly improved, both in man and zone coverage assignments. They will do a better job defending crosses, slants, and the flats in man coverage. Also, deep zone assignments have been improved to defend against the deep pass. Like the pass rush, you can further tune this to your liking using AI sliders.
• Improved lead blocking by pulling linemen and fullbacks on tosses and sweeps.
• Fixed an issue where place kickers were getting subbed out for (usually) quarterbacks on kicks.
• Fixed issue where the commentary would occasionally sound garbled on Xbox 360.
• Dual Stick Ballcarrier Control has been improved, making R-Stick moves look and feel more responsive. Also made some visual improvements with turning and leaning animations.
• Fixed some issues that caused receivers to drop catches they should have made. Again, this is also something that can be tuned further using AI Sliders.
• Quarterbacks will no longer stutter when scrambling and crossing the line of scrimmage.
• Fixed several situations where the wrong team was celebrating after a big play.
• Playcall will not suggest going for a 2 point conversion when it shouldn't.
• In general, we made defenders a little better at getting off blocks. This helps in defending against outside runs and quarterback scrambles as mentioned before.
• Fixed several camera issues on kickoffs, including the one where the camera would not follow the ball on the ground.
• Fixed a broken play where the quarterback would get stuck in his handoff animation and just run backwards away from the line of scrimmage.
• Fixed FB Fake HB Toss play so the quarterback will not toss the ball behind the running back.
• Improved head tracking for ball carriers, receivers and defenders.
• Fixed some issues with auto replay cameras where it was too low to the ground and was not focusing on the correct targets.
• More general tuning was done on option plays to make them run smoother.
• Fixed an issue with playcall where it was not remembering the last formation you called.
• Fixed an issue where receivers couldn't make a tackle quickly after an interception.
• Removed an exploit that would allow for "Rocket Catches".
• Fixed an issue where the CPU Ballcarrier would continue to cover the ball during long runs, even if no defenders were near.
• Defenders will now be able to press receivers when they are in preplay motion.
• Fixed an issue where defenders would turn the wrong way on curl routes.
• Fixed an issue where defenders in man coverage would make a bad direction change after pressing the receiver.
• Tuned some out-routes out of the backfield that were too effective against man coverage.
• Fixed an issue where linebackers would stutter in pre-play and would get stuck.
• Fixed some issues with players bumping into each other during preplay adjustments.
• Fixed some issues where defenders would get caught offsides a lot against the no huddle.
• Fixed the issue causing a delayed whistle in post play.
• Fixed an exploit that disables bump and run after a play is flipped, causing coverage to go back to normal.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed you to consistently recover onside kicks.
• Adjusted CPU AI for kick returns so that they will not attempt to catch kickoffs that are headed out of bound.
• Improved CPU clock management so they will call a timeouts properly to set up a late field goal.
• Fixed an issue where the Read Option would not be executed properly from the hash marks.
• Numerous Commentary Fixes and Additions.
• Various other tweaks and tuning to improve general gameplay.


Thank you again for all the terrific feedback. I hope you continue to enjoy the demo until July 13th, when you can pick up the full retail version of NCAA Football 11.

 

[BigAT]

In case anyone hasn't seen already, Dell has a preorder for $40 shipped as well as 10% BCB.
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265145

Frisky, any idea when you'll be making the thread for the new season?

 

[FriskyTanuki]

Probably when I get the game and can spend some time with the online dynasty mode, which should be late next week.

 

[Steggy]

[quote name='FriskyTanuki']Probably when I get the game and can spend some time with the online dynasty mode, which should be late next week.[/QUOTE]



really looking forward to this

 

[MSUHitman]

Why did they get rid of Corso?

Also is it REALLY worth putting out a demo that buggy? People not in the know are going to assume that stuff isn't fixed when the full game comes out. If that many bugs are found a in a month, I don't want to know what wasn't caught.

 

[n8rockerasu]

[quote name='MSUHitman']Also is it REALLY worth putting out a demo that buggy? People not in the know are going to assume that stuff isn't fixed when the full game comes out. If that many bugs are found a in a month, I don't want to know what wasn't caught.[/QUOTE]

This. I'm aware that I've become cynical as hell with sports games lately, but I just can't feel good about developers saying "Don't worry! We caught the 25 odd bugs that made it through to the demo! Haha, we got em!" I mean, kudos to EA for finding them this "early" I guess, but it doesn't really reassure me that the final product is going to be solid. I'm very much "wait and see" at this point. I'll let those less jaded than me see if the game is glitch free right out of the gate.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

[quote name='MSUHitman']Why did they get rid of Corso?

Also is it REALLY worth putting out a demo that buggy? People not in the know are going to assume that stuff isn't fixed when the full game comes out. If that many bugs are found a in a month, I don't want to know what wasn't caught.[/QUOTE]
People not in the know probably didn't notice much of anything at all since you kind of have to be looking for issues to really notice them. These aren't really issues in the demo since they finished it and the game before anybody actually got to play it, so these bugs were the natural bugs they'd fix in the last few months of development anyway.

I know nate would complain loudly if no demo was released along with many others that expect pre-release demos for their sports games, which like any game out there will be from an unfinished build of the game. The benefits outweigh the negatives for them.

It's dumb to even think the game could be glitch-free, as no game is ever glitch-free.

 

[n8rockerasu]

[quote name='FriskyTanuki']It's dumb to even think the game could be glitch-free, as no game is ever glitch-free.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but there's a difference between "Oh, the logo is on the wrong side of the helmet" and "Wow, they can get the ball back whenever they want". I know the list said they fixed the onside kick problem, and that's good. But if there's anything else like that in the game (ie. a game breaking exploit that will need to be patched), it's not worth $60. Plain and simple. Hopefully there's not, but I've grown weary of sucking off developers based on their own hype machine.

 

[SeanAmI]

Just wait for the reviews and the first week out feedback then. The guys that make NCAA usually come through better than the other EA sports guys.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

[quote name='n8rockerasu']Yeah, but there's a difference between "Oh, the logo is on the wrong side of the helmet" and "Wow, they can get the ball back whenever they want". I know the list said they fixed the onside kick problem, and that's good. But if there's anything else like that in the game (ie. a game breaking exploit that will need to be patched), it's not worth $60. Plain and simple. Hopefully there's not, but I've grown weary of sucking off developers based on their own hype machine.[/QUOTE]
Then wait for the reviews rather than preemptively complain about the issues you don't know about.

 

[MSUHitman]

Also I would say the run blocking, which is supposed to be one of their most improved features, varied from the usual crap to actually pretty decent in my demo experience, plus the play of the game always being the last play are things that anyone would notice right away. I see those things are improved from what the demo was, but I would assume if I didn't know better that was exactly what it would be in the retail game when it's not.

I understand it's a no-win situation in demo vs. no demo, but when the developers are saying you should buy our games at full retail or you have to pay us extra to play online or even just get roster updates, and then their demo comes out 1 month before the retail release and they have to brag about finding and eliminating 40 bugs, that doesn't make me feel confident about the full game.

In regards to Sean's point, only 2 sites really get into the nuances of issues with sports games, OS and Pasta Padre, and OS won't say anything negative or let their users say anything negative about a game or they'll ban you. IGN and the like try to make their sport game reviews for everyone instead of concentrating on the issues fans are going to care about.

To Frisky's point, I would still say the JRPG lineup from 08 (Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, and Valkyria Chronicles) show that games can be completed in this era without being bug-filled and needing patches as soon as they hit retail shelves. If that's too much of an apples and oranges comparision, I don't remember any game breaking bugs in All Pro Football 2K8, Blitz The League 2, or either of the Forza games.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

The play of the game thing is one of those things that I'd think anybody that's reasonable would realize that it's because of the limited time demo that it's not showing anything but the last play.

Bragging? They posted it because people were complaining about how broken the game is, so they had to show that they noticed and fixed that stuff in the last month of development.

Also, OS/Pastapadre fans and the average fan you were talking about are completely different in what they need to hear about how good a sports game compared to its predecessors.

So you're saying that if I do a google search for any of those games, that I wouldn't find at least a few people running into glitches? Not patching it doesn't mean that it's a perfectly-made game. Just looking at the Lost Odyssey thread here, I found the last post to be about an audio glitch.

 

[SeanAmI]

I haven't been on OS for so long, I used to go there alot back when it was Madden Nation, and Pasta Padre was just a normal member on the site. Oh the good ole' PS2 Socom games.

To be honest, every point you have MSU is over exaggerated. Banning for negative attention, cmon.

 

[slickkill77]

The average Pasta Padre fan's thoughts all revolve around the Madden release date and roster updates