Q & A with Alastair - The Answer Thread

[teron14]

just a question,the tackle system will be like backbreaker?

 

[teron14]

Why do you ask? Interested to know what it is about the Backbreaker system that appeals?

Is difficult to explain in english (i'm Italian ),i think that the backbreaker tackle system is pretty cool,realtime impact maybe will be a good think in a rugby game and base on a tipes of tackle the ruck can have different quickness too...Sorry for my English,i hope i have explain my will.
505 games has developed backbreaker too i think....

 

[teron14]

Last question,i can perform the offload when i want or is like rugby 08? thank you so much for the patience.

 

[TRF C A Iversen]

As this is our first online Rugby game, there's lots that our online guys have been focusing on and will need to be monitoring as the game is released into the wild at the end of August.

Leaderboards are high on the priority list moving forward, but were moved off the list for this year. As points aren't awarded for wins or losses, rage quitters, while annoying, won't be consequential to your online record. Definitely something we'll be looking at in the future. For now, I suspect being quit against will be a badge of honour... ;-) It will also be interesting to see if the character of Rugby players sees fewer rage quitters and shows them to be better sports than Football gamers.

With a lot of these features, we have to be very disciplined in including or not including their development in our plan. We have to ensure that we don't bite off more than we can chew if we're to hit our dates. I'll speak more to this in the future.

Also, it'll be safe to say that if people play online with their TRF contacts, the quitting or "accidental disconnects", could be a lot less. I'm not sure people will want to be recognised for repeatedly being a known quitter hereabouts.

As someone alluded to earlier, is the side camera a little higher, angled back and zoomed out to show a little more of the field now? My gut feeling was that it was just a little less than perfect (maybe around 5% off in those areas).

 

[ds_cru]

Although realtime simulations make tackles look pretty, they don't necessarily add to gameplay. Is Backbreaker more fun than Madden PS2 because of its Euphoria based tackles? Where I could see runtime behavior simulation adding substantively to gameplay mechanics is in precisely the area that would be most technically challenging. The number of players on which you would have to run concurrent behaviours to simulate a dynamic scrum, ruck or maul, is, I believe, beyond the capabilities of even this generation of consoles.

I'm a big fan of the 2K NFL games. They had a good system when it came to contact, it gave the illusion of realtime simulation because the animations didn't occur until the hit (or the last possible moment).

In madden and ea rugby, the motion cap animations take place sometimes well before the contact took place.

Where you able to cut down animation time before contact in this release?

 

[TRF C A Iversen]

It is.

The cameras are really tuned, however, for widescreen TVs - though we used 4:3 TVs in development as well. I'll be very interested to hear your feedback on these new cameras and whether they've struck the right balance. We're pretty happy with them, but we've been surprised by peoples' camera choices in the past.

We're pretty adamant that side on is the primary camera in our game, but polls have shown in the past that most people play end on. Personally, I think that's tantamount to cheating. ;-)

Interestingly, the advent of online means you can play side on camera against someone else playing end on camera. I wonder if this means that masses of side on players are going to suddenly find they prefer end on!

We discovered during development a very new dynamic for multiplayer emerge which is pretty exciting. Playing local multiplayer in the past, you could always see the opponent's kick arrows appear, and set plays being selected. Not so online.

Wow, that ALL sounds great. I can imagine that end-on might have some advantages in an online experience (I hope not too much ), but a lot of people play offline with friends in tourneys etc, so I'm sure side-on will still have plenty of following. Like that you can't see set-plays or kick arrows online, that'll make for an experience where players will simply have to be more reactive.


On another note, any chance you could tell us the match lengths available online and offline? I've decided not to be greedy and ask a question I know others have been interested in over the development time. I remember a lot of people asking about a game length in between 5 and 10 mins (usually 7mins).

 

[ACT1NUP]

Sweet you can edit height and build, good news. Noticed there isn't offload in attributes is that a combination of strength and passing? or similar

 

[TRF C A Iversen]

An aside, here are the stats and abilities you will be able to edit in game:

Bio

• First Name
• Last Name
• Primary Position
• Secondary Position
• Alternate Position
• Height
• Weight
• Preferred Foot

Attributes

• Attack
• Defense
• Speed
• Acceleration
• Agility
• Handling
• Passing
• Kicking
• Kicking Power
• Goal Kicking
• Tackling
• Strength
• Rucking
• Scrummaging
• Hooking
• Lineouts
• Discipline
• Aggression
• Stamina
• Consistency
• Temperament
• Creativity
• Bravery

Special Skills

• Command
• Passer
• Playmaker
• Scoring
• Goal Kicker
• Tactical Kicking
• Crash Ball
• Tackle Breaker
• Ball Winner
• Defensive Organizer
• Scrummager
• Jumper

Yes, height and weight editing, that means we'll be able to do a real shuffle around of players and that'll really ad to the customisation options!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic!!!!!

Looking forward to this like mad now!

 

[BenzDG1]

Hi AJ, If you play a player out of position will he have really bad handling like in rugby 08?

 

[Sam Hanning]

The inclusion of the L2 defence thing will help with the camera issue. Defending against even the worst team was a nightmare!

 

[ACT1NUP]

Yes, height and weight editing, that means we'll be able to do a real shuffle around of players and that'll really ad to the customisation options!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic!!!!!

Looking forward to this like mad now!

But I wonder once edited can you then use that online? I could make a team of 130kg giants as NZ. Or do you have to make do with the generic squads online?

 

[ds_cru]

But I wonder once edited can you then use that online? I could make a team of 130kg giants as NZ. Or do you have to make do with the generic squads online?

No chance. Online will always be default.

Otherwise, chaos ...

 

[TRF C A Iversen]

But I wonder once edited can you then use that online? I could make a team of 130kg giants as NZ. Or do you have to make do with the generic squads online?

I'm thinking it won't be acceptable to use customised squads online, although it would be great if in future they allowed a stats point limit for certain teams (and obviously limit the number of tackle breakers per team and other things to the default squad levels), so that people could use customised squads, but couldn't overshoot the amount of ability points used online from the default squads.

Make that my first suggestion for the future should they make another game in which licensing is an issue.

No chance. Online will always be default.

Otherwise, chaos ...

Although if the idea above is used, it wouldn't be so chaotic.

 

[lionmaull]

We've been prototyping rolling mauls since pre-Rugby 08.

In the absence of real time animation in Mauls, there's not a huge leap forward that we'd be happy to move into production and that would not devolve into a mini-game contest that is inaccessible to players outside of the hard core. The jury is still out on whether physics based animation systems can support the number of real time simulations required to have than number of players in a dynamic maul.

We have focused on getting the core of our gameplay working on this generation of consoles - which we're confident we've been able to do.

Dynamic mauls and rolling mauls remain on the feature wishlist, but still haven't moved beyond prototyping into a feature that was greenlit for production.

Sorry don't mean to be repetative, but I didn't understand correctly. I understand there has not been much done with the maul system, but is there some sytem in place? Some type of maul with same mechanics as before(rugby 08), the rugby spectator review replied that a maul could be started in reg play(not just line out or kick offs) but he thought it was automatic, is this statement true. Because I actually didn't think the maul sytem in 08 was all that bad( could be improved) but at least mauls where represented some how,(you could even score some tries from mauls) you could definately gain more distance by timing your adding of players to the maul, so there was some strategy. Thanks for the replies.
Cheers and Salud

 

[stan_stan]

Wouldn't it have been better if knock-ons were determined by the players rating though?

 

[TRF C A Iversen]

Yup. You're penalized for playing your players out of position. This is by design.

I agree that the handling should be bad, but sometimes they'd drop nearly EVERY pass out of 10. It'd be good if they were absolutely shocking (10 out of 100), but their handling got better each time they caught it, or every 10mins of the game. It'd still be a huge penalty for playing them out of position, but would be more realistic and less unforgiving over a longer period.

 

[beerholder]

I'd love to see an Off-ball player control like in the NHL games or early FIFA... this would make set plays waaaay more interesting...

 

[HB_AJ]

I'd love to see an Off-ball player control like in the NHL games or early FIFA... this would make set plays waaaay more interesting...

Me too.

 

[lionmaull]

We've taken largely the same approach again to our kicking controls. Grubbers are faster to pull off and as I've mentioned elsewhere, we've added the chip kick and drop goal mechanic has returned to the model we used for 06.

The colours of the arrows match the buttons used to trigger them on the controller. Consequently, they'll be different colours on different consoles.

Good to hear the drop goals have reterned to 06 and not 08 I thought the kicking was next to perfect, accept for sometimes being able to grubber all the way down to a try

 

[CDN_Rugby]

Hey Alastair, thanks for answering these questions.

Are warm up games included in the RWC mode? What I mean is, is it possible to schedule warm up games prior to the RWC so players who are in form can assert themselves as starters or injured players are out of the lineup?