NCAA Football 2010 - Megathread - Teambuilder is ALIVE!!! - Season Showdown is Alive!

Jan 29, 2009
7,187
NCAA Football 2010
Official Website: http://ncaafootball.easports.com/home.action

More info below in posts, will be adding screenshots as released.


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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Platforms: All Gaming Platforms
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Genre: Sports Simulation
Players: 1-2
Release Date: July 14th, 2009
PSN or Disc: Disc Based
Trophies: Yes, no list has been released
Best Screenshot:
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Description:

True to the tradition of the award-winning franchise, NCAA Football 10 continues to push the bar on innovation with new online modes. NCAA Football 10 brings the excitement of college football to fans across the nation like never before with its newest feature, Season Showdown: in this new mode, every game counts as fans declare their loyalty to a favorite school and give the ultimate show of support in a nationwide competition. Settle who's number one once and for all with NCAA Football 10. With the eyes of college football upon you, begin your Road to Glory in a fully customizable career mode featuring player progression, and authentic college football atmospheres. From controlling a player's overall progression to controlling the pace of a game, make an historic run for glory with NCAA Football 10. This is a football simulation game in which you can select teams from real NCAA collegiate conferences, create and execute plays, and manage the recruitment and development of athletes. Football games are presented with extensive player statistics, real college "fight songs," and commentary from Professional broadcasters.

Features:

* Practicing against an opponent's playbook during the week with up to 10 plays on offense in order to increase your chances against live competition.
* Experience the all-new Season Showdown, a career mode that includes Web-based games and a trivia challenges that sets players on the road to capturing the Heisman Trophy.
* The EA Sports TeamBuilder that allows you to build your favorite FCS, historical, or high school teams, and share them with the rest of the nation.
* An all-new play calling system featuring simplified game controls and playbooks makes NCAA Football 09 the most accessible college football game ever.
* Running back comboand other moves that allow you to set defenders like never before by stringing together multiple moves, including jukes, spins, and stiff arms.



Teambuilder:

Teambuilder is LIVE!!!! - Make your team now so its ready on July 14th!!!!

http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/n...reate_a_school

Download the list of TeamBuilder created team names HERE that have audio accompanying them in game.

Season Shown:

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/showdown.action

Go here to support your team in Season Showdown!!!

http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas...ickidfinal.txt


Sweet Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKadQ...layer_embedded
http://www.pastapadre.com/8802/e3-2009-day-one-videos



Screenshots:

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NCAA Football 2010 - Megathread

The New NCAA is coming, are you getting it?


First Screenshots!

NCAA10WIP700.jpg


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Hey guys, Adam Thompson here to bring you this week’s NCAA Football 10 update blog. This week we’ll take a look at the new stadium additions and renovations for this year.

New Stadiums

Mackay Stadium
Forty-four year old Mackay Stadium sits on the campus of the University of Nevada in Reno, Nevada and seats 30,000.

http://vimeo.com/4192030


Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium
Located on the campus of the University of Tulsa in Tulsa Oklahoma, this 69 year old stadium seats around 30,000.

http://vimeo.com/4192182

UB Stadium
Home of the MAC champion Buffalo Bulls, “The Bullpen” was built in 1993 and seats 29,000.

http://vimeo.com/4191794

Kelly/Shorts Stadium
Sitting on the campus of Central Michigan University, the Chippewas play their home football games at this 37 year old stadium with a capacity of just over 30,000.

http://vimeo.com/4191848

Peden Stadium
The oldest stadium in the MAC conference, Peden Stadium has been located on the banks of the Hocking River in Athens, Ohio for 70 years. Seating 24,000, an over-capacity crowd was on hand when the Ohio Bobcats beat the Pittsburgh Panthers here in 2005.

http://vimeo.com/4192150

Doyt Perry Stadium
Opened in 1966, the home of the Bowling Green Falcons seats around 24,000 spectators. This stadium was named after the Falcon’s coach between 1955 and 1964.

http://vimeo.com/4191778

Romney Stadium
Named after Utah State’s all time winningest football coach, Romney Stadium opened in 1968 and seats 25,500.

http://vimeo.com/4192296

Movie Gallery Stadium
Previously known as Veterans Memorial Stadium, the home of the Troy Trojans opened in 1950. The stadium was expanded in 2003 and now seats 30,000.

http://vimeo.com/4192165

Alamodome
The City of San Antonio owns the Alamodome, a multipurpose stadium and convention center that has hosted college bowl games as well as professional basketball and football teams. It was built in 1993 and can seat up to 72,000. There is no basement in the Alamodome.

Stadium Updates

Along with the new, there were many renovations and updates needed to be done. With over 150 stadiums in the game, we are constantly making art updates.

Memorial Stadium (Illinois)
For the last 3 years or so, the University of Illinois has been giving this stadium what they call the “Illinois Renaissance.”

ILLI.jpg


BB&T Field
The Deacon Tower is the centerpiece of Wake Forest’s ongoing six phase stadium renovation.

WF.jpg


Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
More and more stadiums are installing LED video scoreboards these days.

OKLAh.jpg


Bronco Stadium
Famous for the blue turf, Bronco Stadium now has a state of the art pressbox.

BOISE.jpg


Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium
Another member of the LED scoreboard club is the home stadium for the FSU Seminoles.

FSU.jpg


California Memorial Stadium
Berkley already has one of the most scenic campuses in the country, so we touched up the backgrounds in addition to removing the stadium tarps and adding flags.

CAL.jpg


Autzen Stadium
DuckVision is the largest video board in the PAC-10.

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Papa John's Cardinal Stadium
Another stadium debuts their new LED video board

LOUV.jpg


Other Updates

Davis Wade Stadium – New scoreboard
Carter-Finley Stadium – New scoreboard, player entrance
Nebraska Memorial Stadium – Additional video boards. How many they have now?!
Boone Pickens Stadium – New video board
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium – New video board and player entrance area
Reser Stadium – New endzone seating, new scoreboard
Ross-Ade Stadium – Updated edgewalls
Amon G. Carter Stadium - Added athletic center to the endzone
Neyland Stadium – Update edgewalls
Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium – New endzone seatings
Legion Field – Removed upper deck from East side
Malone Stadium – Added tarps to seating sections
Mountaineer Field – Updated endzone seating
 
It's a big news day for NCAA Football 10 fans. Along with announcing the cover athletes for the 2010 version of the game, EA Sports also announced a new feature (TeamBuilder) and a brand new way to play the game (Season Showdown).

The cover athletes are Michael Crabtree of Texas Tech for the Xbox 360 version, University of Utah's Brian Johnson for the PlayStation 3, USC's Mark Sanchez on the PSP and the PlayStation 2 cover will be graced by Texas Longhorn Brian Orakpo.

ncaa10ps3cover.jpg


TeamBuilder brings back the popular Create-a-School and improves on it by allowing players to create and share their own content. Not only will you be able to create your own logos and customize uniforms, fields, rosters, you'll be able to upload these and share them with other players.

Season Showdown is a new game mode where you pick your favorite team and earn credits for them by blasting opponents in online gameplay, winning games offline and playing mini-games on the web. As you rack up credits, your team will grow in the standings. In the end, the team with the most rabid fans will stand alone at the top of the rankings.

Read up on all the new features in NCAA Football 10.

Here's some new NCAA Football 10 screenshots of the new cover atheletes in action:
 
I might have to pick this up this year. Last NCAA that i bought was 08, and like madden i don't think it's worth it to pick up the same game on consecutive years.

And to sweeten the deal it looks like they got my boy Brian Johnson on the cover. And for the first time in a long time they have a non-generic stadium for Utah State. I think i'll be picking it up.

I also enjoy recruiting in the college game more than managing salary caps in the NFL.
 
I might have to pick this up this year. Last NCAA that i bought was 08, and like madden i don't think it's worth it to pick up the same game on consecutive years.

And to sweeten the deal it looks like they got my boy Brian Johnson on the cover. And for the first time in a long time they have a non-generic stadium for Utah State. I think i'll be picking it up.

I also enjoy recruiting in the college game more than managing salary caps in the NFL.

once i get unbanned from br, i can post a bunch more info, the game is looking really good this year.
 
Ever since NCAA Football first made its way onto next-gen consoles, it has been without a hugely popular feature that debuted back in 2000 on the PlayStation. For the last three years (the first iteration of NCAA on Xbox 360) people have been waiting for the re-launch of Create-a-School. Thankfully that wait is now over.

This week in New York City EA Sports revealed TeamBuilder, a reworked Create-a-School feature that incorporates new technology and mechanics to bring your created squad into NCAA Football 10. Cooler still is the fact that fans of the collegiate videogame series will be able to create their dream program well before the game hits store shelves.


Video Walkthrough - Watch or download the video here (HD available).

This time around Create-a-School (TeamBuilder) is all web-based and operated from your PC. Pigskin fanatics can hop onto TeamBuilder.com, (once the site is live) sign in with their EA Sports ID, and then get down to the nitty gritty of designing the look and attributes for their school. EA Sports was kind enough to create IGN University (average GPA 1.1) to give us a look at just how deep the creation goes.

There are hundreds of pieces to every uniform and many can be tuned to your liking. From the stripes on your pants to whether your logo appears on the helmet or your uniform number (ala Alabama), there's a lot of depth there. There are more than 70 base styles for your uni and 11 different logo placements aside from the helmet designs that I just mentioned. There's less customizability to the pants, but it's a similar mechanic. As fun as it is to fiddle with the look of your uniforms, what really impressed me was the freedom afforded to nailing down a team logo.

The IGN field EA Sports created for us.

First you'll need to track down a primary logo which must be a 256x256 PNG file. Next, you'll need to convert that image (or find another) into a 128x128 PNG. Keep in mind, there really aren't any restrictions on what that image contains. That means you can take an already-established logo, massacre it in any number of ways in PhotoShop, then upload it to TeamBuilder. EA Sports thankfully used the traditional IGN logo and color scheme for ours. Picking your colors is a simple process that has you place three markers on your logo to ensure that you aren't using fuchsia when you really just wanted pink (and who doesn't).

Next you'll pick from any of the pre-existing college, generic or high school stadiums to act as your battleground. Thankfully the fans in your stadium will be wearing your team's colors. For IGN University that meant a sea of intimidating red. Be afraid.

After picking out your stadium, it's time to design the field itself. You can pick from four field types: turf, blue (Boise State style), grass, and multi. Then you can place your logo in the middle of the field and at opposing 20, 25, 30 or 35 yard lines. As if that wasn't enough, you can then design the text that will appear in both endzones.

From there you're off to design the attributes and player rosters for your school. This is the one area that worried me about TeamBuilder. Since you can upload your created team to Dynasty or Online Dynasty modes, the fact that there's nothing stopping gamers from maxing out both their school's attributes as well as the players' skills seems like it could create an unfair advantage. All the usual school attributes are tunable. That means you can mess your school's academic prestige, your fan base, television exposure, even the amount of athletic facilities on-campus. Unsurprisingly, IGN had none.

That's me handing off to Mike Pereira.

Once it's time to customize your rosters you'll first need to select a school's already established roster and tweak from there. Again, all the usual speed, strength, and awareness attributes can be maxed out if you like.

After you've set your created school in virtual stone it's time to take to the field. You can create and save up to twelve schools that can then be downloaded by your friends over Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. It's important to note that if you decide to take your team into a dynasty mode (online or off), you'll need to replace one of the schools from the conference you're inserting the team into.

It's about time EA Sports made a Create-a-School mode worthy of this generation of hardware. The online integration and the interaction between your PC and 360 or PS3 should be great if everything goes to plan. It's also a wise move to offer up TeamBuilder to players before the game ships so you can have your custom squad fully built in time for launch.

Check back on Monday for our preview of Season Showdown, yet another new mode in NCAA Football 10.

caliblue15 said:
Can someone please put the images in, I'm too drunk.

Source: xbox360.ign.com/articles/975/975993p1.html
 
NCAA Football enthusiasts are already rejoicing- promotional materials tout a "teambuilder" feature in NCAA 10 that signals the return of "Create-a-School," which has yet to appear on any next-gen versions.

Tuesday, the back side of a GameStop placeholder for the game made its way to the forum NCAA Strategies. One of the details listed is the "revolutionary, in-depth create-a-school mode." Then Thursday, EA Sports confirmed the existence of "Teambuilder" in its announcement of the four different cover boys for this year's game.

NCAA Football 10 introduces TeamBuilder, an all-new, online create-a-school feature that will enhance the user's ability to produce personalized content. With the capability to upload logos and numerous customization options for uniforms, fields, rosters, and much more, TeamBuilder gives users the opportunity to design completely original teams with infinite possibilities. Plus, preloaded logos for several Football Championship Subdivision schools will help users create authentic teams for NCAA Football 10. With its intuitively designed online database that is searchable across several fields, TeamBuilder allows users to share content with ease. A football fan's dream, TeamBuilder will enable users to experience the excitement and pageantry of college football, defined by their own personalized creations.

So, that sounds to me like the entire family of FCS schools, which used to be a feature in previous-gen versions, still isn't in NCAA 10. But if you want to you can create as many as you want - with official logos and colors - and bring them to the bigtime on your own. So if you're sick of opening the season against "FCS Southeast" in your Dynasty Mode, go ahead and create Appalachian State. Or play as Delaware, if you like.

Whatever its capabilities, I don't care if Teambuilder is exactly the same as the previous gen create-a-school, including it will be an improvement and help get the title back to what it was in its prime, where you could pour model-railroader obsession into creating an entire world of college football. Hell yes, this matters to me. I spent countless hours playing as the University of Denver, against rivals Colorado College and Colorado School of Mines - and all of them wore colors matched to the official RGB values. It was enormously gratifying to raise up some out-of-the-way college to powerhouse level on all-American difficulty. Sounds like this will restore and also streamline that creative process.

Yesterday, when I saw the news about the cover athletes, I missed the Teambuilder announcement and honestly felt like I had no reason to buy this game. But now I do.

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The NCAA Football 10 dynasty video that went up yesterday displayed the menu screen which includes a mode called Teambuilder. Probably the two most frequently requested features from the community have been for the return of Create-A-School and FCS. It has widely been expected that at least one, but probably not both, would make it in this year.

At this point it is just speculation but Teambuilder representing what has been known as Create-A-School certainly makes sense. It would be easier to market as a new feature by giving it a new name. The concern would be that there was nothing evident in the video during dynasty creation of a way to import a created team.

Also displayed is Road to Glory, which appears to be a re-branded Campus Legend. This sounds like a name that works for the individual career mode in any game. Similar to how EA Canada has its Be a Pro across all its titles, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Road to Glory as Tiburon’s with Superstar in Madden 10 receiving the new name as well.

ncaafootball10teambuilder.jpg
 
TeamBuilder is a web-based create-a-school feature that allows anyone with Internet access to log on to teambuilder.easports.com to create and share schools with the rest of the NCAA Football 10 community. These created schools can be downloaded in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of NCAA Football 10 and can be used in Play Now, Dynasty, and Online Dynasty modes. TeamBuilder will go live approximately one month before the launch of NCAA Football 10. For more, Jason Thompson of EA SPORTS Live sat down with NCAA Football 10 Producer Russ Kiniry to chat.

http://vimeo.com/4357708
 
Let's say you've had a falling out with your favorite college football team. Not to name names here but, hypothetically speaking, let's just say your team which, in recent seasons, had an incredible run near the top of its conference spent the past year lingering in futility, with a faltering offense that barely managed to find first downs, much less the end zone. Your favorite team lost to its archrival in an embarrassing shutout and, in the offseason, fired its long-time coach in favor of an unproven and unpopular choice.


Clearly things aren't going well for you and your team. But if you're an Auburn Tigers fan--oops, we said we wouldn't name names here--what do you do? Well, if you're playing EA Sports' upcoming NCAA Football 10, you just might consider replacing your favorite team with one of your own creation. An incredibly deep create-a-school feature makes its debut in EA's upcoming college football game, and we got a chance to see it, and the rest of the game, for the first time at EA Sports recent New York City press event.

Technically, create-a-school isn't new. The previous generation versions of the NCAA Football series gave you the option to create schools from scratch, along with a limited number of options for school color and uniform style. With NCAA Football 10, create a school has been blown out; it's so big, in fact, that the tools you use to create your school are completely separate from the game itself. Instead, the tools will be released as an application on the EA Sports World Web site. EA is aiming to release the application about a month prior to the game's July release, which means you'll get a head start on creating exactly the program you want, and have it ready to go on day one.

As for the tool itself, it's an easy-to-use Web application that takes you through the various steps of creating your school. You start with the basics--name, location, nickname, etc.--before moving on to the real meat of the tool, the graphics and uniform editor. Because this is a Web app, you can import any sort of graphic to serve as your team logo--or alternate logo, if you like--and the number of uniform options is much larger than in the old PS2/Xbox days. Handy tools such as a color matcher will let you identify and nail just the right color scheme for your team and you'll even be able to choose from any stadium in the game to serve as your home stadium. There's no custom stadium creator, unfortunately, but you can choose from a handful of generic stadiums if you don't want to use a well-known locale. In addition, you'll be able to customize things like grass patterns and color (for that all-important Boise State look), as well as end zone appearance, and on-field logo placement.

While the new create-a-school tool is great for people who want to dream up their own dream team, create actual FCS (Division II-A) programs that have heretofore been missing in the game, or recreate their high school or middle school programs, it seems like its going to be an equally functional tool for making sure your favorite team's roster is fully up to date, or for accurately recreating classic college teams (complete with their real lineups). The Web-based creation tool will let you create and rate every player on your team and long-time NCAA fans know that typing in roster names with a mouse and keyboard is infinitely preferable to hunting and pecking with the in-game keyboard. Better yet, the ability to upload created schools as well as search through the thousands user-created programs will mean that you'll be able to explore and download from huge variety of user-created schools.

Created schools will be available for play in both online and offline dynasties, as well as quick play matches, but will not be available in Campus Legend mode, or in online head-to-head matchups. This is because created schools become part of the online dynasty file that is shared between players in the dynasty; while in head-to-head matchups, sharing the data on both schools would result in a download too large to quickly get the game going. The other new feature on display for NCAA 10 was the Season Showdown, an over-arching feature that looks to work off the rivalries that are already so prevalent in college football. Essentially, anything you do in NCAA 10 will earn you credits towards an overall score for your favorite team in NCAA 10. From playing games against the CPU, taking on opponents online, or even playing Web games on the EA Sports World Web site, everything you do will contribute to your team's overall score for that week. Essentially, even if your team is stinking it up on the field, with enough fan support, they might be winning games in Season Showdown.


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The new create a school tools are easy to use and indepth.​

Each week during the college football season, those points will go towards your team's head-to-head Season Showdown matchup against whichever team they'll be facing that week in the real world. The team with the most cumulative Season Showdown points at the end of that weeks' match-up wins the game, and the competition begins again the following week. Full season stats will be tracked in the mode, with a 32-team playoff kicking off late in the season, resulting in a championship Season Showdown match-up that will coincide with the BCS National Championship game.



In addition to simply playing NCAA 10 to earn credits, how you play the game will also go towards your team's score. For instance, the game will reward you for sportsmanship (by avoiding cheese tactics like going for it on every fourth down, or running up the score on an opponent). If you're consistently loyal to your favorite team, and play them regularly, that will earn you points. And of course, good old-fashioned skill on the sticks will also help you on your quest to help your team's chances.


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Yeah, we'll have to go with Texas here.

Caliblue15 add in: Um, that's Tennessee not Texas, LMFAO!

In terms of on-the-field gameplay, the NCAA 10 team seems to be taking some risks this year, introducing some new features that might end up being controversial for hardcore players. Foremost among them is the concept of chaining plays. This essentially is a way for players to link similar plays together in an effort to fool the opposing defense and burn them for a big play. The example shown during our demo was a simple fullback run up the middle. In the team's playbook, that simple run play was linked to a play action pass right next to it. By calling one play or the other, you essentially begin to set up the other play in the link. It takes several calls of that play to full set up its sister play so you'd need to run the ball up the middle several times to set up the play action effectively. But, once you do, the chances of the defense "biting" on the play action is increased, allowing you to make something happen with the pass. Plays set up gradually as you call them and, once a play is fully set up, you can use it at any time in the game.

The concept of linking plays makes sense--it is, after all, what coaches and teams try to do on Saturdays in the real sport. We're just hoping that it doesn't come off as canned and overly powerful in its implementation in NCAA 10. At the very least, it's going to require an even more diligent eye for the player on defense to try and recognize the play before it unfolds.

A new gameplan feature will let you set preferences for every position on the field. For example, on pass defense, you'll be able to choose from options like "go for the pick", "normal" or "swat". While there's an obvious reward for instructing your defensive backs to try for an interception, there's the counter-risk of those backs getting beat if they miss the ball and get caught out. Similarly, if you instruct your players to go for more strip ball attempts, you might end up with a forced fumble or two, but you run a similar risk of getting called for more facemask penalties as a result. Your gameplan can be as fluid as you like in the game and you can make adjustments at any time to try and react to what your opponent is doing.


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There will be lots of ways to earn credits for your school in Season Showdown.​

Another tool in your defensive toolbox will be the concept of keying in on the offense. This is essentially a guess on the part of the defense of what the offense will do. You've got four choices: run right, run left, run middle, or pass. Successfully keying in on a play call will increase your odds of stuffing it, while failure might result in a big play for the offense. In addition, you can key in on specific players--such as focusing on a star receiver when the offense is in the spread formation looking to convert a long third down. Keying in on players doesn’t necessarily mean double coverage; rather, it means that the CPU players will be more aware of that player's position on the field, and try to put themselves in a better position to stop him or break up the play.

Last year's NCAA Football 09 practically reinvented online play with its ambitious online dynasty feature and we've got big hopes that this year's game will improve upon that feature, as well as its offline counterpart. EA wasn't ready to go into detail about those improvements yet. We have yet to hear what's new in store for this year's Campus Legend mode, but we expect to learn more about the game, and get our hands on it for the first time, at E3 this year. Until then, check out the GameSpot sports blog for all the latest NCAA Football 10 news leading up to its release in July.
 
Last week was the start of some great info on NCAA Football 10; we released the details on Season Showdown and then followed this week with the huge drop of TeamBuilder. If you have not seen anything about it there is a video here: What is TeamBuilder? and we are not done; expect to see even more details about Season Showdown in the upcoming weeks.

Also a couple weeks ago we released a video about Dynasty on the NCAA Football 10 website. To be fair that video did not even come close to explaining the amount of detail that has gone into Dynasty Mode this year (and Online Dynasty). Luckily I am able to take a little time and explain the other tuning we've been able to get done over the year. We also took a handful of screen shots to show... like so:

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A lot of what was tuned for NCAA Football 10 was feedback gathered from forums and community day (held here in Maitland a few weeks ago). Before getting started I just want to say; Thank you everyone for helping us get together many of these details.

This blog is going to cover five different parts of our Dynasty Modes:

* Recruits
* Scheduling
* Poll Logic
* CPU Logic
* Progression

Ok get ready for a pretty long read :)...

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Recruits have undergone an overhaul to when they are created in Dynasty Mode. We are creating a situation where you simply do not "reload" with freshmen every year and instead have to actually allow your players to grow into juniors or senior for the majority of your roster. Here is a list of what was done with Recruits for NCAA Football 10:

* Recruits will not come in as highly rated. Overall all recruits have been lowered in how high their Overall rating will be when they are created.
* Not as many "elite" recruits. Instead of the majority of recruits starting out at 80+ there will only be a handful.
* Recruits will take the quality of the school more into account when they are created. Location was too important when recruits were created in NCAA 09, going forward the quality of the school will be the most important factor. This also helps to slow down the growth of smaller schools when under CPU control.
* 40 times are more realistic - you will not see any recruits come in with a 4.19 time.
* ATH will now have more ratings to play different positions; the ratings have been redone to include attributes to make them true athletes. For example you'll find some ATH with Route Running and Man Coverage ratings that will allow you to place them at either WR or CB.

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Scheduling in Dynasty has gotten a pretty major update; we've addressed a few issues from NCCA 09 as well as improved future year's schedules.

* Big East Champ no longer tied to the Orange Bowl. Previously if you won the Big East you were forced to play in the Orange Bowl (unless playing for a National Title).
* Big 12 schedule is now on a two year cycle. You play everyone in your division and then you play 3 teams from the other division for two years. In those two years you alternate between home and away. In years 3 and 4 it will switch to the other 3 teams in the other division (home and away).
* Big 10 will not have night games in November. This was a new rule put in this year.
* Arizona State always played Cal & Oregon State on the road in NCAA 09, this has been fixed.
* Additional Rotations for conferences that do not a true rotation (Pac-10 for example) now games will not be on the same date every year. For example Stanford - Cal will always be the last game of Pac-10 schedule but Stanford - Oregon will be different dates in future years of Dynasty.

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Poll Logic has been tweaked to allow for more early season movement as well as taking better account for the ranks of your opponents.

* Biggest example is an unranked team beating two highly ranked teams can now become ranked.

CPU Logic has been updated in how they recruit, handle their rosters, and simulate games.

* AI after filling all their needs will begin to target a specific position. In years past they would always go after QB's and FB's now in NCAA Football 10 the CPU will select different positions to attempt to add depth.
* CPU will perform position changes. For example if they have two Right Tackles (84, 87) and one Left Tackle (75) they will move one of the RT's over to LT.
* We revisited some of the simulation logic and now less teams are going undefeated

Lastly with the changes to recruits we had to make some changes to Progression.

* With players coming in lower some stats will now progress faster. This also means ratings that did not progress in years past will now go up; for example Speed.
* Team Prestige is now a much bigger factor in Progression; the quality of your team will influence how fast your players gain attributes.
* Position Changes will no longer cause athletic attributes to go down (SPD, STR, ACC, etc.). When you move a player from WR to CB you will no longer see his speed drop.

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That's quite a bit of information for Dynasty Mode (and Online Dynasty)... I feel like I'm back in school writing a 1000* word essay.

Thanks for taking the time to read over our updates. I look forward to getting the game in your hands as July 14th fast approaching.

-Russ Kiniry
Designer - NCAA Football 10

* - Technically it ended up being 975 (yes I counted this as well)
 
The NCAA Football '10 voice talent is in the building at EA Tiburon. Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit are hard at work recording their commentary for the new game. We know they are super busy and don't want to bug them too much, but here are a couple of shots of Lee and Kirk inside the studio today.

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What would you most like to see in the NCAA Football '10 commentary? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
 
Hey I’m Russ Kiniry, a Designer from the NCAA Football 10 team and wanted to jump on here and offer a little feature added to NCAA Football 10.

http://www.vimeo.com/3285958

Really quick about me: I’ve been here at Tiburon since 2000 when I started as a QA tester. I’ve spent the majority of my EA years on our football titles (and many years before as I grew up on Madden/NCAA like many of you). Currently I’m working on Dynasty and Game-Play features for NCAA Football 10; by far the two most important areas to me personally so it’s a good fit, in my opinion at least J. I’m ecstatic to be here and want to get as much info out as we can to all you guys.

A feature we get asked for by some of the more simulation (SIM) oriented crowd is the ability to just call plays and let the CPU make the moves on the field (basically “Coach Mode”). Just calling plays hasn’t worked in years past because the Quarterback would never throw the ball so you would be stuck making at least one decision on the field.

A new option in the Game Controls Settings called Auto Pass aims to solve the problem. Very simply put when it is turned on your QB will be under CPU control if you just snap the ball and don’t move the analog stick. Note: This option is OFF by Default, so make sure you visit the Game Controls – Passing screen and turn it ON when you pick up the game.

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Ideally this provides a different way to play the game and give some of us football purists a way to settle the occasional game by play calling alone (as much as I LOVE giving someone a little D-pad juke).

There are so many more things I want to (and will get to) talk about… Technically I’m not breaking the news so I should be able to get away with a second feature from the Game-Play side of things …

If you’ve been reading this site and seen Ian’s post February 1st Madden NFL 10: First Look which pertained to Procedural Awareness you’ll be happy to know the same technology exists in NCAA Football 10. Please make sure you give the post a look; I don’t want to take away from a great read. Let me say my controllers may actually make it through a year; it’s amazing to see DB’s and WR’s track the ball in the air.

Keep checking back here every week or so for more sneak peeks into NCAA Football 10 from myself and the rest of the team.
 
Time for this week’s look at what’s new in NCAA Football 10 for the PS3 and Xbox 360!

I am Adam Thompson, one of the designers on NCAA Football 10. I’ve been at EA SPORTS since 2002 working on every NCAA Football title since 2004. I am in charge of content related features such as art and commentary, and I’m going to show you some of the new updates to the in game experience this year.

Camera Flashes, Field Goal Nets, and Windsocks

One small detail we added this year is camera flashes going off in the stands. The bigger the game, the more flashes will be going off. This will help give the bigger games that “big game” feel. We were able to borrow this from Madden NFL and are tuning the intensity of these now.

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Field goal nets have been missing for too long, so we were sure to bring these to the current gen consoles this year. Nothing too exciting, but it brings a little more realism to the game. Another small detail you’ll notice are the wind socks on top of the goal posts. Want to add a challenge to the kicking game? Don’t look at the meter for the wind factor and use the socks instead.

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Swappable Bowl Endzones

Ok, enough of the little things. Here’s the addition I’m very pleased to FINALLY get in the game. Team specific bowl endzones! We call these “swappable endzones” as we can swap them around dynamically when we please.

Unlike the previous generation of consoles, the high definition consoles we have today require much more detail for the fields. The technology for having team specific endzones on the PS2 wouldn’t get the job done, so we had to come up with a new solution for the current generation.

Fortunately, our brilliant graphics engineers created what is called the Texture Compositor. This was originally developed for handling created stadiums and uniforms for Madden. It allows the game to take multiple pieces of art and combine them into one as the game loads. Before we had to use a single piece of art for every field. With 120 teams and 38 bowl and championship games there was no way to create a field for every game with every possible team matchup and fit it on the disk (I was going to do the math but gave up quickly!). Instead we have 38 bowl and championship fields with blank endzones, and 120 custom endzones (one for each team). When you load into a bowl or championship game, the Texture Compositor takes the three pieces of art and combines them into one field.

One of the nice things about this system is that instead of getting an endzone from your home field and throwing it on the bowl field (like on PS2), we have a bowl game specific endzone for each school (though for many schools we went with the design of an endzone used on their home field). Instead of slashes across the endzone for Notre Dame, you’ll actually get this:

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This addition is long overdue, but we finally have it on NCAA Football 10. Below is a gallery of each team’s endzone. Click each thumbnail for the full sized image.

Be sure to check in every week as we roll out new features, updates and changes that are going into NCAA Football 10. See ya next time!

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Hello Madden, EA, and NFL faithful - welcome back to another weekly update provided by yours truly, Ian Cummings, lead designer for Madden NFL 10. Can you believe that this is already our 6th official post? If you haven't had a chance to read all of the other posts yet, I'd strongly suggest you do so...they should give some key insight and hopefully show you (slowly but surely) the goals and direction for this year's game.

You can check them out here:

1. Team introduction / Mission Statement [link]
2. Procedural Awareness [link]
3. New Ratings Philosophy [link]
4. Half Sacks / Tackle Assists [link]
5. Improvements to the QB position & layered blending technology [link]

After that quick look at what's been discussed so far, now comes this week's installment: a focus on improvements made to the DB and WR positions.

As most folks already know, as a design team we've been very active on the forums recently (starting about a month or so before the Madden NFL 09 release). Within minutes of talking with the community it's easy to tell that one of the most common areas requested for improvement is DB/WR play. Obviously, we're listening to you, and here are just some of the other improvements and changes that you can expect to see in Madden NFL 10 come August.

Defensive Assignments / Matchups

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This screen has some pretty broken stuff all over it, but what the heck, you guys can look at early software objectively right? :)

For any that aren't totally familiar with this feature, in a nutshell it allows you to assign a defender to ALWAYS shadow a specific receiver around the field. So if someone is moving Randy Moss all over the place and you can't keep track of him, then you can assign your best defender to always keep him covered. I am not really going to dwell on this feature too much as it did exist in the PS2/Xbox days, but I did want to mention that we finally have it back (and it sure feels good to have back). Also of note - this is a Madden only feature.

Route Running and Man Coverage
We've really spent quite a bit of time on the 'game within the game' of WR/DB interaction. There are two improvements that I'd like to expand on first (as I feel they are the most important), and both are animation related.

First, we replaced nearly every single receiver route animation in the game, with the goal of more accurately recreating real life acceleration and momentum. We are also utilizing the route running rating much more now when selecting these animations. We totally re-tuned which cut moves play (and how 'open' the WR gets) based on an elite/agile/non-agile separation in regards to that rating. Check out the video below - it should really show you what kind of difference this makes from 09 to 10:

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We did basically the exact same thing for defensive reactions while in man coverage. This has allowed us to really re-work our man coverage AI to use animations as the true determination of how open the receiver gets. Before, there would typically be a time delay placed on the defender's reaction time based on his (and the receiver's) ratings. Now, we can specifically pick different animations to determine how fast he reacts, or whether he gets faked out or not. This creates a much more believable and realistic simuation of momentum. Here are two example cut moves for a defender backpedaling with the receiver in front of him:

[media=youtube]MUy0NCOM0Y4[/media]&...ult.aspx?PageIndex=11&feature=player_embedded

Second, we took a page from the FIFA team and added in the concept of 'jostling'. Personally I am extremely stoked to have this in the game because I've written a design for it for 5+ years in a row...unfortunately we just never had the technology to accomplish it. The 'jostling' concept is a set of looping 2-man animations that can play for the WR and DB as they run downfield. The main reason that I am so big on these animations is that it really helps alleviate a balance problem that has existed in Madden for years. I'm talking about the fact that traditionally you can send a player with a 99 speed rating (regardless of his other ratings like route running, catching, etc) on a streak and easily get behind a defender in man coverage. In real life, regardless of the difference in speed, a good defensive back can use his body to keep the receiver in check... a fly route is rarely an untouched foot-race sprint to the endzone. So here's a video example of just one of the many jostling animations you can expect to see in Madden NFL 10:

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Adding these animations also allowed us the ability to call more realistic pass interference penalties. We've added a lot of variety that ranges from minor hand-fighting to severe push-offs and holds, so now we can make sure that pass interference gets called in a much more accurate manner. We're using the man coverage rating of the defender to determine how well he keeps the WR in check and how often he gets penalized.

Here are some other changes that have been made so far for route running:

* Added support for slip & fall receiver cut moves in bad weather (chances of slipping come from route running ratings)
* Re-factored all double moves to work correctly, including defensive cut moves that are companions to the WR cuts (chances of defender biting come from man coverage rating, play recognition rating, as well as boosts for correctly timed pump fakes)
* Added all new start play WR animations with more realistic acceleration (should be visible in the videos above)
* Added "pop" animations where say a LB will hit a WR as he comes across the middle through his zone

Press / Release
Another area that we thought needed definite improvements was in the battle between receivers and DB's at the line. Below is a list of all the fixes we've made so far:

* Deleted all previous chuck animations, re-added all newly captured ones from scratch
* Extended animation time drastically on chucks. Longer times not only mean smoother looking animations, but also more realistic reactions from WR's (i.e. they can't catch the ball while they are being chucked so you can't fire the ball over to them immediately and expect them to catch it as they aren't looking for the ball)
* Removed all animation compression on chucks to increase visual fidelity.
* Found and fixed an issue where the players wouldn't align properly during the chuck animation which used to cause some weird clipping through each other
* Fixed "suction" bug where press animations could start from like 5 yards away.
* Fixed a bug with zone / man chuck animations...in 09 the chucks for DB's in zone coverage looked just like chucks in man coverage.
* Re-factored the logic for win/loss on chucks based on the route the receiver wants to run. For example, if the WR wants to run inside (i.e. a post), and he "wins" the press, then he won't just pick an animation that beats the press, he'll pick one of many press beating animations that actually break inside. Likewise for defensive players...they'll push the player inside if they "win" the press in like a Cover 2 situation.
* Made it so chucks can now start from stand

Lastly, we've started to use Procedural Awareness (so far just as a purely visual thing). We recently got head tracking in pre-play for WR's so they now look in towards the ball at the snap. This has been long overdue. We also enabled Procedural Awareness head tracking for DB's. In man coverage they will directly 'track' the eyes of the WR, and in zone coverage they will track the QB's eyes, with the ability to also randomly swap targets based on proximity of guys entering their zone.

That's it for this week! We hope these updates and improvements are starting to really show everyone our vision for Madden NFL 10 - one of a true football simulation. For those that would like to know, the NCAA team took all of these improvements (except for the Defensive Matchups - that's Madden only) for NCAA Football 10.

As always, we want your feedback! Definitely let us know any other improvements you'd like to see in this area. We actually have some more improvements still planned to this area but we always want to hear your feedback and any ideas you may have.

Ian Cummings
Lead Designer, Madden NFL 10
 
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What’s up everyone, this is Greg Heddlesten and I’m a designer on NCAA Football 10 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I started with the team late in NCAA Football 08 cycle, after concluding my duties on NFL Head Coach 09, and have been with the team ever since. I work in various areas of presentation including custom stadium Sounds, Super Sim, PA audio, cameras, and more.

Speaking of Super Sim here’s a little scoop of what’s to come for NCAA Football 10…

• On-the-Field presentation: This helps keep you “in the game” by drawing the simmed play bars directly on top of the field. Once you are ready to go back into the game, the lines are erased and the players are thrown back onto the gridiron.

• Updated CPU Clock Management: We’ve been able to update our CPU Clock Management logic, which now causes our CPU coaches to call time outs when needed late in the half or game. Also, the team that is up will attempt to burn out the clock by running the ball late in the game, or by having the QB kneel the ball (once their opponent has exhausted all three timeouts).

• Skip Play in Campus Legend: Everyone is already used to seeing Super Sim when their Legend is on the bench, but we have found another way to leverage this feature. Skip Play is new to NCAA Football 10, and it does exactly what you think it should. Tired of having to block on offense as a WR or HB? No problem, hit Skip Play from the Legend Play Call screen, Super Sim will simulate that down and return you to the huddle the next play call. And it’s all at the press of a button.

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On-the-Field Presentation: Stanford has a long drive that ends in a 36 yard FG.

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Updated CPU Clock Management: Cal has just turned the ball over on downs late in the 4th quarter and has no timeouts remaining. USC runs QB Kneel to end the game.

Hope you enjoyed this quick preview of our updates to Super Sim in NCAA Football 10. I look forward to sharing more about other areas of the game with everyone over the next few months.

-Greg
 
Hey Everybody, I’m Ben Haumiller and I’m a designer on the NCAA Football series. I’ve been at Tiburon since 2000, starting out as a tester in QA, and I’ve been a member of the NCAA Football design team since NCAA 06. Since joining the team I’ve primary worked on our career modes (Dynasty, Campus Legend, etc.) our Online features, as well as a lot of the features you’ll find when checking out the My NCAA and Team Management sections of the Main Menu . You would be hard pressed to find a more passionate college football fan than myself, so working on the NCAA Football series has been a dream come true.

On NCAA Football 09 I was the designer for what had been long considered the “Holy Grail of NCAA features”, Online Dynasty. I couldn’t have been more excited to get this feature into the game. Dynasty is without a doubt my favorite feature in any sports game, and bringing that experience online brought a tremendous amount of life into an already great game mode. Based on the feedback from the community I was not the only one that was able to resurrect gaming rivalries with old college roommates that now live on the other side of the country, increase my desire to sign the recruits in the nation for no other reason than to force the other dynasty members to settle for a 3 star prospect, and feeling the pressure of knowing the result of your head to head game will mean the difference between a BCS berth or finishing your season in December.

When it comes to any Dynasty (online of offline) it all starts with which team(s) will be human controlled. One of the most difficult decisions to make is which conference will be used. If you are all about the head to head games and want that BCS tie-in then the PAC-10 and Big East are great options since you know for sure you will play everyone each year. If you have a full 12 members and want to decide the conference title in a championship game, or if you want the challenge of taking a “mid major” and turning them into the next powerhouse you have a number of options.

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However, sometimes it’s not that easy, sometimes it can be next to impossible to find a conference with the right mix of teams to make everyone happy. Well in NCAA Football 10 we have made life easier on commissioners across the nation with the addition of Custom Conferences. Now you will be able to swap any school in or out of your conference and replace them with another FBS school. Each conference will keep their current number of members, so if you feel it’s about time that Notre Dame joins the Big Ten you’ve got to decide which school will become an Independent. Since there are 120 FBS schools in real life, you will need to keep 120 FBS schools in your dynasty. While Michigan fans won’t be able to prevent Ohio State from ever playing football again, they can take pride in relegating them to the MAC.

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Custom Conferences will allow for increased flexibility in your dynasties. Now it’s entirely up to you how the college football landscape will look in your dynasty. If you can’t play with anyone but your Cornhuskers, and your friend feels the same way about Clemson don’t just duke it out in a non-conference game, put a conference title on the line.

Wanna create a super conference with the top schools in the nation? Go right ahead. Do you miss the days of the old Southwest Conference, dust off the old wishbone playbook and put them all in the WAC, Mountain West, or Sun Belt. In NCAA Football 10 it’s up to you how you want to set it up.

-Ben