NCAA 09 Media & Information thread

July 15th can't get here fast enough.

PP is at some EA event and has some game videos

1248: For the specific videos: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 I’ll try to get more later but likely won’t post them until late tonight.

http://www.easports.com/ncaa09/news....=playbook_blog


Screens and videos at the link above.


06.05.08
Playbook Additions Blog

Hello everyone thanks for taking the time to check out my blog post, my name is Anthony White and I'm a game designer here at EA Tiburon. My primary responsibility is designing, testing, and implementing the offensive, defensive, and special teams plays which are used in all of our football titles at EA.

Before I dig into the nuts and bolts of what's in store for the playbooks for NCAA Football 09, I'd like to give props to everyone behind the scenes (engineers, animators, design team, and support staff) who each played a role in helping us deliver fresh new playbooks for 09!

With the theme of this year's game being "Wide Open Gameplay" we really want to capture the spirit of what makes the college game such an exciting and unique brand of football. In the college game you see such a wide variety of play styles every Saturday during the season along with big plays and exciting schemes designed by imaginative coaches. In NCAA Football 09 we set out to capture that spirit by literally overhauling the team playbooks.

All 120 team playbooks (including Western Kentucky) are now much more unique and authentic to their real life counterpart's style of play. We watched roughly 500 hours of game film in an effort to deliver authentic playbooks. We also followed and took offseason coaching/philosophy changes into consideration, for example traditional pro style offensive teams such as Auburn and Michigan now utilizing spread offenses or Georgia Tech's conversion to a triple option based attack are all reflected in the game.

With the amount of film study we were able to put in we added roughly 20 new formations and over a 1,000 new plays. There's much more variety in the passing game with the introduction of new concepts such as mesh, shallow cross, spacing, X and Z spot, as well as new smash concepts. Attention was also given to the running game with the addition of the inside zone and my personal favorite the old fashioned Power O!

The size of the playbooks have been increased which allows for much more variety. Each team now has 18 offensive formations and 315 plays. The plays within the playbooks have been rearranged to make better use of our four play playcall interface. The plays are logically grouped so that runs are aligned next to complementary playaction passes, while all automotion plays are now aligned with other plays that use similar motions.

Now granted 18 formations and 315 plays may seem daunting to some. So in order to ease the learning curb for new users as well as the seasoned vets, the plays are based on concepts. Nearly every team at every level of football takes the approach of using just a handful of concepts but running those concepts from multiple formations and sets. To the defense this gives the appearance of a highly complex offensive team whereas the offense is using virtually the same plays over and over. This minimizes the need for the offensive players to learn entirely new concepts and caters to efficient offensive execution.

This is the approach we took in NCAA Football 09. As you scroll through your team's playbook you'll notice some similarities from formation to formation while glancing at the plays. Multiple formations will have variations of Curl Flat, Corner Strike, Y Shallow Cross, Z Spot, etc. For the user this minimizes the need to learn an entirely new group of plays and it allows them to keep the defense off balanced by running the same play but from a different look. There are some formations that are entirely unique but generally speaking the organization of concepts is seen throughout each formation.