Ashes Cricket described - part 4

[Biggs]

Automatic fielding suits me fine, because fielding in cricket is laboriously boring unless you're actually in the field for real - so until there's some mechanic that can make that exciting, I would much rather focus on bowling and batting. The strategy of cricket (field placings and captaining a side) is vastly more interesting to me than button-mashing mini-games for catching.

Thanks for Part II - everything sounds positive and the field placings sounds like its exactly the kind of progress needed from previous titles - being able to place fielders anywhere for specific scenarios and not having to rely on orthodox fielding templates - Bat/Pad catching is probably the main thing I'll be looking for in this new iteration...

 

[EdgedAndGone]

I agree much better seeing it fly to the slips!! Felt so awkward with the dodgy cam!!

Thats right. I also didnt enjoy the catching. Thanks God this is optional now.

 

[sami ullah khan]

^Its not optional. Its automatic.

 

[raghavhari]

waiting for part 3......

 

[Bravo]

Previous catching system was good, though it required some tweaking. It would have been better if both Manual & Automatic options were there.

 

[EdgedAndGone]

But it doesn't change the core mechanics where you will still have the same pre-conceived notion of what the game interprets as good (light green), ok (yellow) and poor (dark green) line & length.

Chief, will a good delivery be still judged by cursor colors? most of the dark green cursor color positions on the pitch were in fact good delivery balls. This is one thing I didnt like about IC2010.
please confirm. Anyone?

 

[007avenger007]

Automatic fielding suits me fine, because fielding in cricket is laboriously boring unless you're actually in the field for real - so until there's some mechanic that can make that exciting, I would much rather focus on bowling and batting. The strategy of cricket (field placings and captaining a side) is vastly more interesting to me than button-mashing mini-games for catching.

Thanks for Part II - everything sounds positive and the field placings sounds like its exactly the kind of progress needed from previous titles - being able to place fielders anywhere for specific scenarios and not having to rely on orthodox fielding templates - Bat/Pad catching is probably the main thing I'll be looking for in this new iteration...

i guess with no manual-catching , trickstar want to get as far away as possible from a career mode...

 

[Biggs]

I think it's safe to assume this game is being targeted more at the casual cricket-gamer/player than us high-end users. That's probably something that hasn't been articulated well and possibly not helped by the lack of images and trailers. If you're targeting that demo, then fielding would be about the least-interesting thing for them to be a part of. This is a game for the T20 crowd, basically.

That's not a bad thing, in my eyes, because there's a place for that style of game in the market. Cricket is such a niche sport anyway, you factor in those that want to play it at home on a console it's percentages of percentages at that point.

They're trying to appease us with the gameplay/fielding mechanics while making it accessible for those that might consider cricket "boring" to watch but "fun" to play a quick game batting and bowling, but would probably not want too much depth in the fielding aspect... and there's no reason to doubt their market research, since they've said they did just that.

The tactics of what fielders you put where, their strengths/weaknesses are what they're gambling on being crucial and entertaining for us to play around with. They've spoken a lot about the field placements and so on, so there's no reason why that side of the game can't be just as interesting as key mashing for catching and running.

It's a shame they couldn't incorporate an exciting way to cover such an important aspect like fielding, but I also can see from their perspective why that's a feature that's had less focus than say, batting or bowling. If they nail the physics for better batting, bowling and things like bat-pad catches then it won't bother me that much...

It's all really down to execution.

 

[Chief]

I think it's safe to assume this game is being targeted more at the casual cricket-gamer/player than us high-end users. That's probably something that hasn't been articulated well and possibly not helped by the lack of images and trailers. If you're targeting that demo, then fielding would be about the least-interesting thing for them to be a part of. This is a game for the T20 crowd, basically.

Hmmm. I can't really agree it's for a "T20 crowd", what with it being the official game of the Ashes...

That's not a bad thing, in my eyes, because there's a place for that style of game in the market. Cricket is such a niche sport anyway, you factor in those that want to play it at home on a console it's percentages of percentages at that point.

... but I would agree with the sentiment. For a cricket game to succeed commercially you have to create an authentic, accessible and fun experience for the casual fan, and to succeed critically you need depth for the more core players. The trick is to do both simultaneously.

The tactics of what fielders you put where, their strengths/weaknesses are what they're gambling on being crucial and entertaining for us to play around with. They've spoken a lot about the field placements and so on, so there's no reason why that side of the game can't be just as interesting as key mashing for catching and running.
It's a shame they couldn't incorporate an exciting way to cover such an important aspect like fielding, but I also can see from their perspective why that's a feature that's had less focus than say, batting or bowling.

I'd argue that it is much more interesting than "key-mashing", that it's equally (if not more) exciting, and that it's had just as much focus as other mechanics, but then...

It's all really down to execution.

Well indeed: let's talk when you've played with it.

 

[Biggs]

I should clarify; By "T20 Crowd" I meant younger-people, rather than those (older) among us that are heavily invested in cricket gaming as a hobby (enough to post ad nauseam on a forum) as well as the more specifc ins-and-outs of real cricket and gameplay. Ashes as a title is a marketing decision based on top-of-mind branding, moreso than it has to do with Test cricket which is insanely popular in the UK around the ashes. It's top of mind so people know what it is and what they're getting, but the kids aren't going out to buy the title to play a 5 day weather-affected test... Same reasons why DRS isn't in this title, I would imagine, as well. The targeted demo is not really "us" but there's enough depth to keep us entertained.

Or at least, that's my summation

 

[nahid]

I'm not doubting he said it sir: merely confirming what he would have meant by that. In the same way that we said that we think that this is the first time the MCG has ever officially been licensed in a game (certainly we've never had it before), but some people took that to mean the ground had never been in a game before (Variations of unlicensed "Melbourne Stadium"s have indeed appeared in many!)

Sorry chief im so stupid. Thank you

 

[barmyarmy]

Part 3 (we really don't have that many photos!)

Whilst talking about the match situation, this is another area of massive development in this title.
In the background there is a constant computation of the match situation looking at the current score against time/wickets remaining in the match.
Each stadium has par scores for each format of the game, according to the conditions. It is aware of who currently has the advantage, and by how far, and adapts its strategy according to that, going after runs or wickets and properly setting its objectives.
Again from the educational side, a casual football fan can very quickly assess the match situation looking at the current score versus time remaining. With cricket it?s obviously much harder to do this.
So a big part of Ashes 2013 is through the commentary, constantly re-enforcing the player with how they are faring: if a team is way behind and needs to score quickly, the commentators will mention it which will help players understand what they need to do.

Particularly in test matches, where controlling your run rate referenced against par scores is a hard thing to do (often even for very experienced players!) we wanted to find a way in which to have the commentators guide you through it.
A lot of sports games have very reactionary commentary, explaining what just happened: usually people saw what just happened and it?s just there for extra flavour: in this game it is functional and informative, and really helps the player think about how their actions ball-to-ball affect the match at the same time.
One of our key goals when setting out to make this game as what we really wanted to get was a sense that each match is a totally separate event: each match should feel, look and sound different.
So every ground in the game (we have over 20 set in areas all round the world) has its own characteristics, rather than just looking different.
Firstly you?ll notice this in the pitch conditions: they behave much like real life: so in India you?ll get some bounce early on in the game, but later it will deteriorate quickly and turn into a spinners wicket. In England you generally have greener pitches and cloud cover.
This really affects how you have to play the game: you really need to take the conditions into account if you?re going to succeed. That weather is based on real geographical data so expect conditions to be very much like you?d expect them to be in that country.

 

[Westindies]

another good piece of info abt Ashes 13 great!! i think Ashes team asked barmy army to present like this as part of their marketing strategy

 

[MattW]

another good piece of info abt Ashes 13 great!! i think Ashes team asked barmy army to present like this as part of their marketing strategy

It's more our marketing strategy to keep you coming back to PlanetCricket...

 

[79cricket]

Thanks Barmy, sounds good. How many more parts are there mate.