Rugby World Cup 2011 Explained

[TRF_Cymro]

To be edited:

Q. So what's the name of the game?

A. Rugby World Cup 2011

Q. Are EA Sports involved?

A. No they are not

Q. So who's making the game?

A. HB Studios

Q. So who's publishing the game?

A. 505 Games

Q. What Platforms is the game coming on?

A. At the moment only PS3 and Xbox 360 Versions have been confirmed

Q. Is there a release date?

A. 26th August 2011

Q. Is there going to be a demo? If so what will its release date be?

A. Nothing confirmed yet

Q. I have a suggestion / idea for Rugby 2012, where do I post it?

A. Post it HERE

Q. I got a question for the HB Studio guy's where can I ask it?

A. In HERE

Q. Have any questions been answered yet by the HB Studio guy's?

A. Yes, Set 1 can be found HERE

A. Yes, Set 2 can be found HERE

A. Yes, Set 3 can be found HERE

A. Official Game Announcement can be found HERE

Q. What type of game will it be? Rugby Simulation or Arcade?

A. Rugby Simulation

Q. Is there going to be some sort of Video Ref put into the Game?

A. On the wishlist but not top priority.

Q. Are there any screenshots yet?

A. Yes

A. Set 1 Found HERE

A. Set 2 Found HERE


Q. Are there images of the box art?

A. Yes, Found HERE

Q. What licenses and competitions are in the game?

A. Rugby World Cup and its 20 Teams (Possibly more TBC)

Q. Will there be an edit mode?

A. Something that the guys at HB Studios are looking into. But the way the game plays is more important.

Q. Will there be a 7's mode?

A. Possibly through a DLC in the coming years

Q. Is there online?

A. Yes

Q. Will there be a manager mode?

A. No

Q. Will there be DLC's?

A. Something the guys are looking at.

Q. Who will be the commentators?

A. HB are in contact with a few people, so watch this space.

 

[Getofmeland]

Recently with the number of previews and different questions being asked surrounding the game, we have consolidated the list of answers and explanations which Alastair has Answered and Explained.

Please refer to this thread before asking any other questions as it may have already been answered.

Rucking explained

We prototyped a number of mechanics for the breakdown. We found that a lot of focus on the intricacies of the breakdown would devolve into a series of mini-games that slowed the flow of the game and didn't support our goal of creating fast flowing rugby.

With this mechanic you do not add or remove players from the ruck. This is a deliberate choice that has come about through prototyping, testing and balancing.

It may seem a simple mechanic but there is an element of risk vs. reward to it. There is also an additional element of tactical decision making as you can change your ruck support strategy - add forwards with their strong rucking abilities to the breakdown which is a risk that they're late to arrive if you tend to spin the ball out wide, select the Nearest Man option which means that team mates will join the ball to secure possession even if they're a winger with lower rucking abilities, or you can leave it at the default balanced option.

Scrums and lineouts have mechanics that are largely similar to our previous games. Although we have addressed the "twich" - it no longer happens. Again, we've prioritized the work based on feedback from you guys. New mechanic for restarts were not top of the list. If this new ruck mechanic proves to be successful, there are ideas on how to evolve it and build from it in other areas of game play - like scrums. Ultimately though, a mechanic that looks good on paper, doesn't always translate to a mechanic that is fun in practice and will take time to prototype and play test. We're pleased that what we've got in game a.) Preserves the flow of the game b.) Makes the breakdown contestable c.) Is accessible and fun.

One thing that I'd like to clarify is that bringing familiar feel to the game play has been a deliberate choice on our part - bringing the heritage of our rugby game play to this generation of consoles, and on a new rendering and animation engine, however, has not been straightforward and was a significant challenge for the team. The feedback from people who have played the game to date has been that it does feel familiar, but that the additional options, difficulty levels and mechanics have meant that there are new challenges in store for fans of our previous games - which means we've realized our principal design goal for this game.

Not only can you select Nearest Man option to ensure he gets in quickly to secure possession, you may get an X button prompt (square on PS3) - much like you see for an offload - that will allow you to pick up quick ball before the ruck has formed. You'll have to be quick though.

Also, offloads are slightly different this year as in the past you may have noticed that your supporting player has to be running straight down the pitch to be a candidate to receive a pass out of the tackle. Now you have a much greater range of situations in which players can receive the ball. This leads to much more flowing passages of play.

Re-set after re-set of scrums is a characteristic of the contemporary game, as is timing the cadence of "Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage" but it's not something that we think lends itself to accessible and compelling moments of game play. Again, this is an area that can tend to devolve quickly into a series of minigames that take away from our goal of fast, flowing and fun game play. As a result a big revolution in scrummaging didn't make it high enough up the list of priorities this year. It may be an element that we look to in the future, though, especially if we get more positive feedback on this year's ruck mechanic.

Ultimately though, if we want to preserve the ability to produce quick ball while giving an element of contest to the breakdown, this turned out to be the best approach.

As you know, in previous incarnations, your interaction at the breakdown was principally deciding how many players to add to the ruck. The system would then compare the relative stats of the players who had been added to determine the outcome. That's an over-simplification, but captures the heart of it. What we found was that users instinct was to repeatedly press x to add as many players to the ruck as soon as possible. Now there's slightly more thought and caution required when pressing x following the tackle.

We'd prototyped different players being added to the ruck, counter rucking, etc, but in the end this gave us the best balance of risk/reward and quick ball.

You will commit the same number of players on both sides of the contest. In that small window of interactivity following the tackle, there isn't enough time to select how many players you're going to commit and then to decide on the intensity with which you are going to contest the ruck. As soon as we bring both elements into play, we either slow down the production of ball to start the next phase of play, or we have to create controls of such complexity, that it all becomes inaccessible and stops being as fun.

The other thing that comes into play is that by forcing you to commit players to the breakdown on defence, you will have to work harder to stop line breaks, especially around the ruck. It's how we've chosen to balance the way the game plays.


Licenses explained

Under the RWC license we are permitted to include the country names, flags and kits in the colours of the teams participating in Rugby World Cup 2011. The Intellectual Property that belongs to the national unions, i.e. official kits, player likenesses, logos and in some case stadia, all must be licensed by the national union.

New Zealand and Australian licenses have been a priority for us since day one. I know that fans of our game in New Zealand and Australia will be disappointed - Rugby 08 was up in the charts in NZ as recently as 2009, so I know how big a deal it is down there, not to mention the passion coming from the NZ contingent of this forum, I also feel really bad for the players. I know many of these guys have grown up playing our games and now that they have reached the pinnacle of their playing careers and are hosting the World Cup at home but they're not going to be in the official game of the tournament. Believe me when I say that this responsibility has weighed heavily on me this year.

We learned over a year ago that the NZRU and the ARU had granted exclusive license to HES before they knew that HB was going to be making a game independently of EA. Up until then, all that was known was that EA appeared unlikely to be making another Rugby game in advance of the World Cup. I don't say that to suggest that things would have played out any differently had our plans been more widely known, but that's the timeline. I have tremendous respect for how these two unions have supported their licensee. What I will tell you is that there has been a lot of blood sweat and tears that has gone into trying to secure the rights to have New Zealand and Australia in the game - we have literally gone to the mat on more than one occasion in our efforts to do so. On more than one occasion, I had great hope that we'd found a way, but in the end it was not to be.

Player creation tools are extremely time consuming to design, build and test all of their permutations. I've said from the outset that we would be very rigorous in how we would prioritize the features we would put into production this year. A player creator did not make the cut.

This game would not be made without exclusive licenses. The Rugby gaming market is just not big enough.

 

[Getofmeland]

General Game play Questions

Q - Is there just 1 passing technique or is there several for example spin pass, floating pass etc?

A - Types of passes are not selectable. The type of pass is determined by which player you are passing to and where they are in proximity to the ball carrier.

Q – if you have a really strong and powerful player like Sonny Bill Williams, will he break tackle after tackle when he has the ball plus will his offload be like the 1 he does in real life?

A - As you no doubt know, SBW will not be in the game due to licensing restrictions. That being said, I have seen players break tackle after tackle in our game and one of the things I love about our game is the emergence of amazing passages of play that flow from the creativity of those who have mastered the attacking options in the game. The more attacking options we're able to add, the more surprising and delightful those passages of play are becoming.

Q – So there is no possibility of being able to slow down play like say if you were Scotland or a team that plays 10-man rugby? Can we not kill the ball to gather enough time for the defence to set up? This is what I'm assuming if the general idea for this game is to just have quick ball all the time.

A - Hold down R3 before ball possession has been decided at the ruck and you will perform the Kill Ball cheat move. The ball will be killed and ref makes his decision when possession decision time reached. (i.e. either a penalty or scrum for an unplayable ball).

A single R3 press will do the Handling in Ruck cheat move if done before possession is decided.

The functionality is slightly different from previous games in terms of the window of opportunity for when to perform these moves, but the fundamentals are there once more. You just can't do them once ball has been 'secured'.

Q – Does passing operate like previous games i.e. tap button to pass to next player, hold button to skip a player, or is it possible to perform longer/more varied passes?

A - We have taken the same approach to passing controls in this game, though you will find that as this is built on new tech there will be subtle differences in how passes are made when using those same controls.

Q – Will there be yellow cards in the game?

A – Yes

Q - Since you got the official RWC license, will the "World In Union" song be in the game?

A - The World In Union is in the game - I believe this is the first time it's ever been included in a game. It really does set the tone and get you in the spirit for Rugby World Cup.

On the topic of music, you will be able to select and play your own music, on both PS3 and X360.

Ruck Questions

Q - Is it possible to pick and go with a forward after the ruck as formed?

A - Yep. You can pick up from the back of the ruck with a forward or the scrum half. Also these runs no longer force you to run forward. Once your player has picked it up, you have full control and can run wherever you wish. Adds a lot to forward play around the ruck and means that on multiplayer and on harder difficulty levels, mastering the new Guard Control on defence (pressing LB on X360 or L1 on PS3 to have your defending player face up to the ball carrier) is going to be very important.

Q - I do like the sound of the ruck play, but would like clarification on when the Nearest Man/Balanced/Forwards Only option is selected. Is it an option that's chosen in the main menu, or can it be modified during a match on the fly (via the d-pad or whatever)

A - This is selectable during the match on the fly with the d-pad

Player Editor Questions

Q – Is there a player editor and player creator?

A – Just player editor

Q – 1 thing I do not understand is the player name editor and player likeness. Can you explain this to me fully please?

A - Each nation has a roster of 30 players. With our editing options you can edit all skills, attributes and special abilities as well as first and last name of the players in those 30 slots. You cannot edit or create new likenesses for these players. We have made a commitment to the unions who are not licensed in the game that we would not take the **** by creating players like Mike Gateau and Don Charter or creating clever workarounds to get around the fact that we don't have the right to represent their IP in the game.

You'll have the ability to fully edit the players who are in the game and update rosters with any late changes to the side - there will undoubtedly be injuries or late decisions between now and the end of the tournament in October.

Be warned though, making changes to the skills and attributes of players will have a noticeable affect on how the balance of how the game plays. You guys will now however, have the ability to tune that balance somewhat though tweaks to these player stats, skills and abilities and then compare notes on what you find.

 

[HB_AJ]

I know that the Scrum is very similar to that of R08, but I was wondering if you have improved on the pick and goes with the back three and how they can link up with the scrumhalf.

We’ve made changes to the way the scrum half picks the ball up from the back of the ruck, this has not been changed significantly on scrums. I’d like to hear what the feedback is on the approach to rucks and if it’s successful extend this to scrums.

Also did you improve the contest for a ball in the air after a kick? In R08, if no one jumped for the ball it was a bit of a fluke on who got it. Also jumping for the ball lead to a lot of dropped balls, which upset me as jumping for a ball is safer and can lead to penalties and happens very often in a real game, has this issue been corrected a bit, or is it affected by players stats more now?

This is and has always been stats based and this year we have striven to ensure this plays largely the same way.

Is there more than just 1 animation for a sidestep, dummy, shoulder charge etc?

The success of these special moves is driven by the relative stats of the players involved in the contest. We have not introduced new animations for this element of gameplay.

Note that these are easy to perform on Easy level, even with forwards as ball carriers and this is by design. Remember, our goal in tuning the Easy difficulty level is to give people who are new to Rugby and who don’t know the difference between a fly half and a prop a chance at early success in our game.

Similarly is it the same kicking animation again or is there a variation with players?

We have place kick variation as we have in the past. There are also different kick animations for punts and drop goals, but they are not custom per player. I remember the motion capture sessions we spent many many hours working with the mocap performers to capture the subtleties of different players kick styles. If you have your own kicking style that you have developed over years, it is very difficult to purposefully imitate someone else's style. I mean we can all do a caricature of another kick style, but to really create a convincing performance of another kicker is not straightforward. Cadence, rythm, timing, body position, all has to be convincing. Next time you're on a rugby pitch with an iPhone and footage of a player kicking you should try to capture your own attempts and compare them to the real thing.

Maybe in future we'll have the ability to do this with other kinds of kick animations.

Are there more ways to break through tackles? Would it matter if it's a big forward up against a small scrumhalf and visa versa?

There are more tackle breaks in the game this year. This is especially true of the harder difficulty levels. They are stat driven.

How does the new guard defending work?

I asked RWC2011's producer Glen Gavin (HB_Glen in these parts) to give his take on this new feature:

Guard control is done by holding down L2/Left Trigger, similar to what you might find in the other sports ***les when trying to mark or pressure a player on defense.

It is used for defense primarily and is a very important tactic to employ, particularly on hard difficulty. Guard control allows you to hold the defensive line with your controlled player more easily to avoid going offside while also allowing you to face the opposition in preparation to make a tackle. You can even keep the button held and shuffle your controlled player up the defensive line. So you no longer need to have that run up to press on defence, it is easier to stay onside now.

Where this feature comes into its own though is when you take control of a deep winger or fullback. In the past you were better off letting the CPU make the tackle for you at fullback, but with Guard Control you can now line yourself up better with the fullback to make a tackle on a player on the breakaway.

One of those features I can no longer do without, when I pick up Rugby 08 I always pull that L2 button and am disappointed that we didn’t do it sooner. Big positive improvement for defensive play in RWC 2011.

(to me this is one of the greatest improvements to our game this year, I can’t live without it now)​

Have mauls been improved, are they in general play, not just in line outs and kick offs, can you purposely set a maul up or in a set play?

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.

What can you tell us about online play? How will the matchmaking work? Will there be an online leader board/some sort of ranking system?

We feature 1 v 1 online play. (Incidentally, we still feature up to 4 players in local multiplayer) You can invite a friend to a game with the settings of your choice, or you can look for the game to make a match with players who are also currently online looking for matches. We favour better connection strengths and those strengths are made clear in the interface.

We have not included online leaderboards or ranking systems for this ***le. I understand plans are already afoot for ladders and tournaments on TRF, so keep an eye out.

Do dummies work against the AI?

Yep. Dummies are performed by holding LT while pressing LB or RB (L2 while pressing L1 or R1).

will there be interceptions, kick charge downs, and advantage play from a knock-on?

Yes. There are still kick chargedowns. We'll talk about this later, but we now give a longer advantage for penalty offenses, while those for knock-ons remain about the same.

Is there the choice for players to take the ball flat and taking the ball at speed?

Yes

When players receive the ball do they run angles and lines? Not just straight at defenders

You'll find there's been a lot of work done on the lines a player can run while receiving an offload. They no longer have to be running straight down the field to be candidates for these passes out of the tackle. I think you'll find it has greatly improved the flow of gameplay - something reflected in TRF_Getofmeland's experience that he shared with you.

From my perspective, this is an example of why we prioritize something like this over new sidestep animations. I've said this many times, but we have prioritized gameplay over presentation. Does a new animation for the sidestep provide a new and improved mechanic or support our goal of fast, flowing, fun rugby gameplay? No.

Is there any way to control a player in attack that doesn't have the ball? For example, if you are arcing across and want your Fullback to come in and pick a line, could you use the second stick to select his angle and control him, or using another similar method before you've pressed the pass button?

This is something we’ve been investigating recently and that may feature in future versions of our game. It's a feature that relies somewhat on the return of the radar or a different gameplay camera that offers a wider perspective on the backline.

A note on gameplay cameras: We've had all sorts of experience with almost every camera angle you could wish to include in the game. Often times we've simply included them because we could. Frankly many of them were unplayable and shouldn't have been included. This year we've focused on the views that are most often used: Side on and End on.

Liken the connection strengths in the interface, good call, but no leaderboards?. No-one will believe that I'm the best in the world at rugby games dammit.

I think it's safe to say that the best will be found on the TRF and that you'll have plenty of opportunity to back up your words against this lot.

Is there any adjustment available in said camera options, such as zoom in/out or pan in/out or is it simply a fixed setting?

Fixed settings, though you can select on End On whether you want to always be playing up the screen or whether you want to always have the team in possession of the ball playing up the screen.

any news on how often you will be releasing the licenses you have on the game?

There are a number of factors in the timing of announcements. We'll have more in the days and weeks ahead.

 

[HB_AJ]

Thanks for the replies, really appreciated- obv. a lot of time and effort is still being pumped into this project!
Though for the future jukes, spins and crash ball animations (like ps2 maddens maybe?)- i'm sure would mix up the speed of the gameplay and variations on attack.
But hey, really hope you guys have the chance to go on and produce a steady stream of decent sequels to follow what is lining up to be a great game!

Now this moves from the realm of animation replacement to a new feature. This is on our list, but as it's still a presentation issue it didn't make the cut this year. I'll be interested to hear how everyone makes out with the current mechanics and animations on the new hard difficulty level. That will likely affect how high this appears on the list of priorities moving forward.

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

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

One gripe from me though is not at the very least having points for a win that you accumulate or a win loss ratio online is a bit old hat. Even basic stuff, storing a one number points value against your username gives bragging rights and allows comparison with friends and online communities.

Without this online matches can become a but pointless after a bit, it drains some longevity.

You don need to store a leaderboard or anything fancy,just give us a points total and we'll do it ourselves in places like this forum.

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.

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....

Backbreaker is a game developed by Natural Motion, although it is published by 505. We have been talking to the Natural Motion guys for many years about their technology and how it could possibly be used toward a Rugby game. They have a number of different technologies that they license to game development teams around the world.

Endorphin, which is an offline procedural animation tool, Morpheme, which is an animation engine (Sidhe have actually licensed Morpheme as their animation technology of choice for Rugby Challenge) and Euphoria which is the runtime version of their procedural animation technology. Check this video out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HauN98naZ9U

Very cool.

The challenge of bringing rugby to consoles has always been getting 30 players on the field - it was a challenge both to render than many players on screen and to run AI for that many players on PS2 - FIFA had only 22 players.

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.

Rugby games have pushed the limits of tech in the past - capturing scrum animation has been some of the most technically challenging mo-cap work that had been done to date. I'm sure this is another technical challenge that we'll someday be able to overcome.

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).

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.

What game time and match weather options are available?

The stadiums in this game are really spectacular, and as you've already seen they are quite beautiful. There's a real cross section of lighting conditions and weather conditions available in the game. Not every stadium has every lighting condition or weather condition. I anticipate the selections of stadia and weather conditions will expand as time goes on. For instance there's no snow in RWC2011.

If present in the game, does Wind strength affect open play or just for the goal kicking elements?

In our testing of this very question we've found that wind in goal kicking presents a challenge, while wind in open play is frustrating.

Has the general AI, or specific teams AI, (or perhaps it is an individual player variable) been programmed to occasionally infringe at rucks and concede penalties, or will it always stay on the safe side of the law?

They will infringe - this is tied in part to player discipline ratings so the tendencies will be different per team based on their player stats.

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

- If they have been configured to infringe, are they capable of infringing at all the same aspects of the game that the user controlled player can infringe at? e.g. Can they throw a lineout in to the side, can they high tackle/spear tackle, get offside etc

Yes. Based on the abilities and stats of the players.

- If they can infringe, can they also incur yellow cards the same as the user controlled player can?

Yes. Yellow and Red.

Do injuries occur during matches only (and if occurring during a match, can they last for multiple games in RWC mode)

Injuries only occur during a match - there are no "training" or "driving a golf cart into traffic on a motorway" type injuries. This is a design decision. While injuries through the journey to the final is part of the story told following a campaign, the likelihood that a player will see the mode through following an injury to a key player and not just play the match again or restart the campaign is low. Deemed frustrating and therefore not included. A possible inclusion for a longer game mode in the future.

Animation for injured players on the ground has been included this year.

Can they occur in between games in the RWC mode, representing training injuries for example?

No. No carry over.

What levels of injuries exist (if any)... could a player play on during a game or be selected for the next game if carrying a light injury or slight knock, could a player be injured badly enough in a pool match to miss the rest of the tournament?

Light injuries can occur in game that do not necessitate a substitution. More severe injuries require taking the player off before proceeding.

I understand the decision to not include a player-creator to save development time for greater priority aspects and to not take the **** out of the unions you have not got the licenses for, but why was a Create-a-Tournament mode not included?

We'd have prioritized a player creator above a Create-a-tournament feature. This game as the Official Video Game of Rugby World Cup 2011 focuses on the world of the tournament.

Will any representative teams be included for possible one-off international test matches as well as in the pre-WC tours?

Nice idea, not this time. We had our hands full on the licensing front without tracking down the rights to representative teams.

During the main RWC mode, are other teams stats recorded and displayed for user comparison?
i.e. Can I see who is the top try scorer of the competition so far?

Yes.

How far can you drill down, will you be able to see an after match summary for AI only matches in other pools to see who scored what points?

You can review the score and the tournament wide stats. We do not expose match reports for all of the CPU vs. CPU fixtures.

After each match, will there be a roundup facility highlighting other games scores and teams playing well (similar to FIFA11 career mode as an example)

There is a post match screen showing the recent results.

How many player controlled teams can there be in the full RWC mode, can you assign a player to each of the 20 teams or is there a lesser limit?

Up to 20.

While I understand that no DLC plans may yet be in place while you determine if the game will be a success after its release, have you left the core game programming open for DLC inclusion should the game do well enough? Or is it locked down so much that DLC is not viable...

We've been talking about DLC for this game as recently as last year. Over the course of development, our plan for DLC changed. Our focus now that we are nearing the completion of the development work on RWC2011 will not be on DLC that would be released into the RWC 2011 game.

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 used 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.



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

Good suggestion. We'll look at it.

For now, default squads in online matchups. Generic NZL and AUS are rated #1 and #2 in our game.

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

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

Is the hand in the ruck feature (defense) still in or offensive holding on to the ball for support in, and is the window of opportunity larger, less penalties from it? Actually smaller because you can’t after the possession has been secured.

Yes it's in. Opportunity is different with the new ruck mechanic and the concept that the battle for possession is explicitly over once it has been "locked". The new ruck mechanic is explained here. That thread contains a lot of information that is complementary to what is being discussed in this thread today so I'd recommend reading through it for those of you who have not.

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.

We have taken the same approach to mauls this year. They can not be selected as an option in open play and occur at kickoff and at lineouts. There are tackles that might be seen to be mauls before the ball goes to ground, and there's a whole new dynamic to forward play discussed in over in this thread.

What changes have been made to the defensive alignment of the defending team
Am I going to be able to go through the same hole every time like I could in 08 and 06?
or is the defending team going to be able to learn your tactics as you play the game so you have to keep mixing it up.

No learning of tactics, but on Medium and Hard, they’re really good at shutting down the holes. Make no mistake, we could make the AI as smart as we want and guarantee that you’d never make a single line break. Ever. It’s a question of finding the balance to make it fun and to make you work for your territory.

Are the rules going to be fixed? For example, in 08 if you have a penalty advantage and the ball goes out, you just have a lineout. If you have advantage and you miss a drop, 22m drop out. And if you have advantage and the opposing player makes the mark, you play from there.

Yes this was been addressed. The penalty advantage has been considerably improved, so unless you have gained significant advantage you will return to the spot of the first infringement. It’s not an A bug though. ;-)

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.

Noted.

Any news on the kicking aspect of the game? is there still a giant red line showing you where the ball is being kicked?

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.

What will happen about Christchurch In game?

As the RWC matches were moved away from Christchurch, our generic Christchurch stadium is no longer a part of the Full Tournament mode.

You can, however, select Christchurch in our international test mode.

Are you able to release any information on the Music such as a list of tracks, or maybe just one song? ANYTHING!! Thanks

This has been answered elsewhere, but The World In Union is the soundtrack to this ***le. This music has always been associated with the tournament and this year's arrangement has been licensed for inclusion in our game. This is the first time The World In Union has been part of a RWC video game, as far as I know. It definitely will set the stage and gets you in the mood.

You will also be able to select your own music to play from your hard drive through the standard Microsoft and Sony interfaces.

I noticed that you have said you will not be using "**** take’s of player names for Aus/NZ, however, will each player in the respective teams have their correct stats dependant upon each player?

New Zealand and Australia are the two highest rated teams in our game â€" our rankings match the IRB’s world rankings at the time that we send the game off to first party.

So if you have a character, which looks similar to Dan Carter, yet he is called Gary Robson, will he still have the same stats as a licensed Dan Carter?

Also a second question, how similar will the un-licensed players look to their real life counter-parts? Obviously you can’t use the exact likeness, but will it be at all similar?

Generic players on unlicensed teams don’t look like the player, and their names are not remotely similar to the authentic players. The stats on the unlicensed teams reflect the composition of a balanced team of players who collectively have the overall team rating that matches their current position in the IRB World Rankings.

Will there be a Hakka? Seeing though you don’t have the AB licenses.

No. For more info on the Haka this is an interesting read:

http://www.managingip.com/Article/2726287/New-Zealand-grants-trade-mark-for-haka.html

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

Yeah that was a favourite tactic at HB for a while. It's pretty much been shut down on harder difficulty levels. Though it was a tactic favoured by Matt Lane, our game designer so we'll see if he's left the window slightly ajar to preserve his edge against Glen.

it was to do with the drop kicks from the scrums, can you still do that? I hated it when the AI would do it to me, when in the 'rules' you had to pass it twice. I think thats what it said anyway


Think from this rule

That's a good catch - have you brought it up previously? Not sure this has been addressed in this year's game, but we'll look at it in the future. The difficulty with this is how we'd communicate to the player that they drop kick they've just made hasn't added points to the board... worth thinking about some more as we do strive to accurately reflect all of the sport's laws.

How difficult is it to implement a bare bones leaderboard and penalty system? The (head to head mode) in Fifa WC 2010 is perfect!!!! Especially for a WC game.

Is this something that can be included as DLC?

We'll certainly look at this in subsequent versions of the game.

 

[Getofmeland]

Updated!