Update on Madden 12's new features

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/116/1168180p1.html

if this applies to online franchise i think it'll be really bad ass

more info to come on monday...

New Features lol. It's nothing but the Weapon system from '08. But iv'e always been a fan, so i'm glad it's back. I just hope they don't have the icons under the players, when on the field.

nah i think its more about how your weekly progression and overall progression will be affected, -20 - 20+ point swings depending on a hot/cold streak. we'll find out more on monday, but its a good start.

I have serious doubts this will be included in online franchise, as crappy as the servers have been in online franchises (no contracts, no caps, no realistic progression, same draft classes) It would be an incredible upgrade and at least a 20 fold in server space required sorry I don't see EA doing it. I hope they will but....

20 Fold in server space? C'mon now Rui, thats you just making up shit now lol.

Rui_F wrote:I have serious doubts this will be included in online franchise, as crappy as the servers have been in online franchises (no contracts, no caps, no realistic progression, same draft classes) It would be an incredible upgrade and at least a 20 fold in server space required sorry I don't see EA doing it. I hope they will but....

i doubt it as well, but i don't see how it would require that much more data usage...i only doubt it cause online franchise seems to get the shaft every year, but then again so had madden through its lifespan on next gen.

EA and server space shouldnt be an issue. im sure EA is a top 5 company when it comes to developing games so they are paid. for a game as big as madden is i think they should pull most of their resources in to making the game online play as well as it can. its crazy when every response to what EA does when it comes to madden or ncaa is "ill see it to believe it"

Fr8trainShane wrote:20 Fold in server space? C'mon now Rui, thats you just making up shit now lol.

20 times seems like alot but in reality its not if you look at how little space they use for the online franchises now. At this point the online franchise is just a collections of lists for each franchise. 33 team lists (one is FA) , and 10 draft pick lists and maybe 1 list for retired. That is it the only thing the online server tracks is the players on these list and once a year it runs 2 algorithms to determine progression and retirements. So the current server is a small ass file keeping track of 45 lists consisting of about 3000 players at the most and 2 math problems that happen 10 times per franchise.

The only other factor injuries is handled purely by the game engine and the game engine adjust availability of the player on the lists. The space needed for that is pretty miniscule.

Now if you add things like a constant list with 20 variables (player attributes) and algorithms that make changes to that list on a per game basis actually based on performance (more variables) and the system still needs to track the starting point and possibly maximum potential for each player. Then it might also need to possibly determine salary and how it could be affected by players capabilities or his likely wanting to be on a team or not then all the sudden you have a lot more then a series list.

For every small variable you add it magnifies space and processing power. And while EA is a huge company they also don't work for free and have to answer to share holders and while they are the only game in town they have very little pushing them to be spending money they probably feel they don't need to.

Its nice to hope and dream and every year for I think about 15 years now I have done that, but you always have to wake up from the madden dream.

server capacity is an issuethat cant be ignored- and i think MLB the SHOW has great policies that EA coud easily emmulate - The servers get bogged down by MEANINGLESS ONLINE FRANCHISES - that are created for no purpose other than curosity and boredom - these Online Franchse that have a single owner - and just sit unplayed for the entire year except for the first 15 minutes the guy created it - these LGs require the same sever space as the LGs that have 32 ownes and play all there games - These meaingless LGs can bog down the servers and are a drain on server space and resources...

Sony did 2 things...

1) Erased inactive LGs when their was clear inactivity - they were just automatcally dumped....

2) They had minimum requirements that players had to have to have to be able to create a LG (or online fraNCHISE) - For the show that was a minimum of 10 Online games played - and a Minimum theshold in its sportsmanship rating (the sportsmanship ratingis is influenced negatively if u fail to finish entire games, if you have DCs and other things i am not totally sure of - continuoius been balls is known to a negative impact on the sportsmanship) - anyhow having these mninimum requirments would stop guys from making gratuitous LGs that they have NO intention on playing - Tacticslike this could do a lot to help mainatin adequate server capaity and the only people it would effect are the goof balls that sholdnt be running LGs anyhow...

Rui makes some great points in his last post in this thread... We would love to have EA adjust their mandate around MAdden to become: TO CREATE THE MOST SIM FOOTBALL GAME WE CAN - but thats not their mandate - their mandate is much more susinc! - EA's mandate is to MAXIMIZE SHAREHOLDER VALUE!

Madden developers have LIMITED RESOURCES - they are required to INVEST these resources in aspects that give the HIGHEST RETURN (thats why we see wasted programming on stupid things like Red skins fight song, and making sure the colour of VICKS laces on his shoes are correct!) - these are NOTICEABLE "enhancements" to the general public and sadly the avg gamer inturprets it as VALUE ADDED (and they cost litle to develop)- where as the hard corp gamers see it as the MEANINGLESS FLUFF!!! - but there are more of the general public than the hard corp gamer!

The same dollar and cents anaolgy can be used in regards to server space - The programmers have a breakdown of the required server space that would be needed to move the game forward in various aspects of the Online Franchise form of play (the programmig is nothing new - its already been developed in the offline game - THE ONLY VARIABLE IS THE SEVER SPACE REQUIRED TO RUN ANY INNOVATIONS for that part of the game) - Financial Officers of the EA do a simple cost benefit analysis - they estimate the increases in revenue they would get for enhancements in Online Franchise form of play - if they revenue increases outweight the cost of additional server space, they consider the investmnent (this is a simple way of looking at it when investment fund are UNLIMITED - but when INVESTMENT funds are limited WHICH THEY ALWAYS ARE - other more profitable innovations must be considered in the analysis as well)...

the problem that companies have and EA and Madden are no different, estimating the effect of enhanced Online franchise play to the bottom line of Madden is difficult to determine... Will guys stop playing if they dont mke this investment? will more players start to play online Franchise because of the enhancements? these are hard things to determinie the extent of (and they are just 2 examples - there are thosands of way EA could look at investing in Online Franhise and how it would impact the bottom line of the game)...

In the end - its not a simple mathamatically equation that EA directors will look at when considering such investment decisions (there will be some solid math but a good portion of the analysis will be made up of CONJECTURE!!!) If all aspects of such deciions were quantifiable in percise dollars and cents - the decision would be smple exercise of mathamtics but there is more to it than that... - But one thing cannot be ignored - EA SPORTS IS A FOR PROFIT COMPANY AND THEY WILL MAKE DECISIONS NOT FOR THE "GOOD OF THE GAME" BUT TO MAXIMIZE SHAREHOLDER VALUE - all we can hope for is that the development of Online Franchise form of play is seen as critical for the enhancement of shareholder value -

i am sure that investent in Online Franchise will have a direct relaionship to share holder value but my guess is that there are more PROFITABLE areas that will get the dollars before Online Franchise and us players who enjoy this form of play will be treated as the "red headed step child!" - i hope i am wrong!

Rui_F wrote:

Fr8trainShane wrote:20 Fold in server space? C'mon now Rui, thats you just making up shit now lol.

20 times seems like alot but in reality its not if you look at how little space they use for the online franchises now. At this point the online franchise is just a collections of lists for each franchise. 33 team lists (one is FA) , and 10 draft pick lists and maybe 1 list for retired. That is it the only thing the online server tracks is the players on these list and once a year it runs 2 algorithms to determine progression and retirements. So the current server is a small ass file keeping track of 45 lists consisting of about 3000 players at the most and 2 math problems that happen 10 times per franchise.

The only other factor injuries is handled purely by the game engine and the game engine adjust availability of the player on the lists. The space needed for that is pretty miniscule.

Now if you add things like a constant list with 20 variables (player attributes) and algorithms that make changes to that list on a per game basis actually based on performance (more variables) and the system still needs to track the starting point and possibly maximum potential for each player. Then it might also need to possibly determine salary and how it could be affected by players capabilities or his likely wanting to be on a team or not then all the sudden you have a lot more then a series list.

For every small variable you add it magnifies space and processing power. And while EA is a huge company they also don't work for free and have to answer to share holders and while they are the only game in town they have very little pushing them to be spending money they probably feel they don't need to.

Its nice to hope and dream and every year for I think about 15 years now I have done that, but you always have to wake up from the madden dream.

20 times their server space is absolutely a ridiculous amount of space. I'm I think you are way way oversimplifying things. The current server size is going to be pretty tremendous, not only do these servers have to keep up with continuous game action for thousands upon thousands of users, it also must be able to sync those actions between the 2 players. All while handing the weather conditions, the permutations of the in-game and playing game code and handle offline activities like progress, etc...

I disagree with Greenerrr about the dormant franchises meaning anything. Despite his insistence that I am a Humanities major , I was actually came out of college as a coder. The servers in question would be no doubt designed in one of 2 ways. Each server would either be built to handle x number of franchises, and successfully run those franchises. Therefore the servers that only have 1 owner, or lay dormant, actually would not affect the activity of the other franchises on the server. The 2nd possibility (and the most likely), is that there are dedicated servers for franchise space (basically the data on players, roster, attributes, seasons etc), and then a set of servers for the online connectivity which loads the information from the first set of servers, and then syncs them using the connectivity servers. In both situations, the dead franchises wouldn't affect, as its just server space, and its not going to be accessed.

A corporation the size of EA would actually have server space available to handle at a minimum 3x their expected top level traffic. The reasoning is if a server goes down, or needs maintenance (which probably happens weekly at a minimum) it doesn't completely disrupt the online game. As much as we all talk about the issues being the servers (which no doubt they sometimes are), I imagine the real problem lies in internet capacities of the providers. Madden 11 sold 1.8 million copies in their first month alone last year. Thats over $90 million gross revenue. Video game sales usually are larger than most blockbuster movies. There is no doubt at all that EA has more than enough money, and spends more than enough money in their servers. I would wager my annual income that the reason we have server issues is often coding issues, dealing with connecting servers worldwide and the transmission of said data across the world.

Actually Fr8th the servers that keep track of online franchises and those that deal with game play of thousands of players are two completely different types of mechanics. The game play side of the servers do not require very much storage space since during the game most of that stuff is held on the systems they simple require a high player capacity and plenty of bandwidth once a game ends then if you happen to be in an online franchise the stats are moved from the game play server into storage in the franchise servers. Two completely different things to try to compare.

EA is willing to spend money on there game play servers because they now that is a big selling point and once they are up the can be used year after year at no additional cost servers (other then maintenance) and have very little storage capacity other then a master ranking list and players stat lists because most information is held on the counsels during game play and the server is only acting as an intermediary. wile storage capacity for online franchises at the moment are probably only one or two large storage units for the whole game and act like a giant hard drive but this server is what holds a much more broader list of information for the online franchises. Now if you add more for it to keep track unless ea figured out a way to use the ps3 hard drivers of say the commish to store the information then cumulatively it would require allot more space. All you have to do is compare the size of an offline franchise from ps3 madden to the one of a ps1 madden game. the reason for that size increase is because of all the extra things the madden franchise over the years have added from the different stat tracking to the payroll and more attributes, now that size difference would be similar to what ea would have to do to increase there current pathetic online franchise save file to one that resembles at least what they currently offer offline.

As far as servers themselves EA probably runs multiple server farms that they either own themselves or more likely these days lease out depending on demand. 3 times there maximum expected usage, there is no way. They probably run 110% over previous year on big months like madden releases and adjust on a weekly or monthly depending on if they own or lease the majority of their equipment.

20 fold STORAGE capacity (not bandwidth capacity) is a rough off the top of my head estimate but I don't think I am off by much.