First Look!

[nahid]

Well unlike Big Ant's game, this is using photos for faces, so the facemaking would be more like what patchmakers are used to.

So i can hope for only little bit of Face likenesses of each players! Its pretty good.

 

[79cricket]

Great read but no screens again, still it's out soon. To chief is there 20 stadiums or 28 as these numbers are very different. Thanks.

 

[MattW]

Great read but no screens again, still it's out soon. To chief is there 20 stadiums or 28 as these numbers are very different. Thanks.

Well I can say it's certainly not a transcription error from our interview, Mike certainly said 28 to us.

Perhaps 8 licensed stadiums and 20 unlicensed?

 

[79cricket]

Well I can say it's certainly not a transcription error from our interview, Mike certainly said 28 to us.

Perhaps 8 licensed stadiums and 20 unlicensed?

Could be but there is 10 stadiums for this back to back ashes, maybe 2 places said no, who I wonder.

 

[BlitzBerg]

Well unlike Big Ant's game, this is using photos for faces, so the facemaking would be more like what patchmakers are used to.

I personally like this over Big Ant's way of dealing with it.

For a person like me who never got close to making a good enough face, I'll always be looking for them made by others. In some time later, there would be thousands of Cooks, Starcs, Sir Jadejas.... And I would certainly not want go through each and every one of those, half of what would be crap. So downloading players off the Cricket Academy doesn't really amaze me(at least for now). I am more comfortable looking at some known-for-his-work-modder's thread and downloading stuff directly from there. I haven't been able to read quite a lot of mid-pages and don't quite know how they are going to tackle that. (Certainly there is the likes-sorting, but I'm not sure how effective would it be).

Again, many aren't aware of PlanetCricket or PlanetCricket rip offs to get them, so what Big Ant has done is certainly more helpful to those people.

 

[Aswin8]

So i can hope for only little bit of Face likenesses of each players!

I think we cannot simply conclude that.Facemaking with photos are much realistic(in-game) in EA Cricket 07 than made through editor in Big Ant.I am afraid how the faces will be looking in-game of Big Ant cause the side view of faces are looking terrible in the editor!

And now the Ashes 13 sounds great as well!

 

[Biggs]

The BigAnt player-creator is a genius bit of crowd-sourcing, to be honest. Plus it gives us a bit more of a personal-attachment to the game since you can customize the downloaded players to suit your own visually pleasing aesthetic.

...I mean there's lots of "Beast-Man" downloadable Kallis' that people seem to love in that player-creator thread, Umosay is doing the more 'realistic' players and there's a way to sort/save your favorite player-creator (along with downloading whole teams) so it's easily enough done.

But there's a good few people (me) who don't really care about pretty faces or stadium licenses and just want a decently entertaining cricket simulating game. I'm more interested in correct uniforms, for example... so I'll go back to modding/making them eventually, leave the faces and whatever else to other folks.

 

[MattW]

Could be but there is 10 stadiums for this back to back ashes, maybe 2 places said no, who I wonder.

Well unlicensed doesn't mean not in the game - I certainly wasn't aware that the MCG wasn't licensed in any previous game - I just saw the overall look of the Melbourne stadium and just assumed it was licensed.

Again, many aren't aware of PlanetCricket or PlanetCricket rip offs to get them, so what Big Ant has done is certainly more helpful to those people.

With luck both games will help make people more aware of PlanetCricket.

Regardless of how good the released game is, patchability creates a hard to match longevity - if Cricket 07 wasn't patched as much as it was then it would have fallen off the radar long ago.

But there's a good few people (me) who don't really care about pretty faces or stadium licenses and just want a decently entertaining cricket simulating game. I'm more interested in correct uniforms, for example... so I'll go back to modding/making them eventually, leave the faces and whatever else to other folks.

I've never once noticed whether a player is holding their correct bat or brand of gloves. A patch for the logos and fake names is usually all I need on games I play.

 

[Aswin8]

I personally like this over Big Ant's way of dealing with it.

For a person like me who never got close to making a good enough face, I'll always be looking for them made by others. In some time later, there would be thousands of Cooks, Starcs, Sir Jadejas.... And I would certainly not want go through each and every one of those, half of what would be crap. So downloading players off the Cricket Academy doesn't really amaze me(at least for now). I am more comfortable looking at some known-for-his-work-modder's thread and downloading stuff directly from there. I haven't been able to read quite a lot of mid-pages and don't quite know how they are going to tackle that. (Certainly there is the likes-sorting, but I'm not sure how effective would it be).

Ya,I completely agree with you.
BTW,hope Ashes 13 face models would be realistic,in the Ashes 09,the face models were terrible and its not editable.

 

[Biggs]

I certainly wasn't aware that the MCG wasn't licensed in any previous game - I just saw the overall look of the Melbourne stadium and just assumed it was licensed.

I had to crank up AC09 to have a look at that Melbourne Stadium, looks pretty similar to me but nowhere does it have "MCG" or any of the stadium branding... There's sections which look a little different, but it looks close enough to my eyes. Neat they got the official "okay" to reproduce it but, like you, I genuinely wonder if it's worth it?

Regardless of how good the released game is, patchability creates a hard to match longevity - if Cricket 07 wasn't patched as much as it was then it would have fallen off the radar long ago.

I think it's success is a cross between the patches but also the required system specs and the amount it's been whored via piracy to be honest. But you're right, having a nice open ability to mod this stuff goes a long way to game longevity. I think that's possibly where the BigAnt title might have the edge because of the in-built features it's shipping with (Be a pro, tour-creator) will be heavily manipulated I imagine.

EDIT:

It all depends really on how fast the NEXT Cricket title comes along. That's a ways down the road, but lets assume both sell really well. How much effort goes into modding the titles before, say, Trickstar punches out an update in 2015 or a Big Ant "World Cup" version or something. Dunno, just be interested to see the mod-response assuming both titles do reasonably well and/or are reasonably popular? There's something to be said for getting your product out 'first' to capture the mod-community here, maybe?

I've never once noticed whether a player is holding their correct bat or brand of gloves. A patch for the logos and fake names is usually all I need on games I play.

Yeah, see I'm almost the exact opposite. Which is kinda cool. I don't worry about correct players or names too much (outside of NZ, Australia and whomever NZ is playing at the time) and more on the team kits being accurate. Pads/Bats not so much, but I got a bit anal retentive about that in AC09 just for the NZ team so I was churning out bats on a regular basis.

I look forward to seeing how the uniforms are handled in the AC title compared with the BigAnt title. It seems the BigAnt title is a little more complex with how it handles that stuff, so may not be as easy to mod without a bit of help from Ross.

...whereas, the AC title may keep the time-tested "layer" approach which may make them easier to mod from our end, may reduce the visual appeal.

We'll see...

 

[barmyarmy]

I like bats being correct. Was the reason I first started making stuff for c2k2 (where the whole team had to use the same bat!).

 

[Sathish_kumar]

I personally like this over Big Ant's way of dealing with it.

For a person like me who never got close to making a good enough face, I'll always be looking for them made by others. In some time later, there would be thousands of Cooks, Starcs, Sir Jadejas.... And I would certainly not want go through each and every one of those, half of what would be crap. So downloading players off the Cricket Academy doesn't really amaze me(at least for now). I am more comfortable looking at some known-for-his-work-modder's thread and downloading stuff directly from there. I haven't been able to read quite a lot of mid-pages and don't quite know how they are going to tackle that. (Certainly there is the likes-sorting, but I'm not sure how effective would it be).

I Agree.
BTW,If Ashes 2013 have Editable Face Textures & Models.It will be Great than Big Ant's Game definitely.

 

[nahid]

I think we cannot simply conclude that.Facemaking with photos are much realistic(in-game) in EA Cricket 07 than made through editor in Big Ant.I am afraid how the faces will be looking in-game of Big Ant cause the side view of faces are looking terrible in the editor!

And now the Ashes 13 sounds great as well!

As they are saying that they have worked on modeling over 600 player, seems like only the faces will be correct cause all players are not licensed . And anyway we can fix rest. AC 13 coming out good.

 

[BlitzBerg]

I've never once noticed whether a player is holding their correct bat or brand of gloves. A patch for the logos and fake names is usually all I need on games I play.

Yeah, I never cared for bats/gloves or other accessories. Just the correct logo, kit and faces is all that I would need with good gameplay. I've never played any tournament in any sports game till date. When everyone hyped about the career modes and tournaments, all I was concerned about was if there would be good freelance experience and a multiplayer mode. Not a 'hardcore gamer' as others here, but I think the majority of the population who would play the two games would be like me, and that's where you got to nail it.

As far as patchability is concerned, Big Ant would suffer(until we have the tools at least). There is no doubt w.r.t to Cricket Academy's capability, but still its for those who can really know to use it. And certainly the face textures would be easier to make using photoshop than the tool. As Win said, the side profiles did look terrible earlier.(Not sure if there was some improvement made). I hope BA has done enough for us to patch the game. Their RLL2 section of the forum was quite dull.

 

[MattW]

It all depends really on how fast the NEXT Cricket title comes along. That's a ways down the road, but lets assume both sell really well. How much effort goes into modding the titles before, say, Trickstar punches out an update in 2015 or a Big Ant "World Cup" version or something. Dunno, just be interested to see the mod-response assuming both titles do reasonably well and/or are reasonably popular? There's something to be said for getting your product out 'first' to capture the mod-community here, maybe?

Well Cricket 07 got a step up initially because almost everything carried over from Cricket 05 - so within a few months of release the downloads section was going with full kits, batpacks and the like.

With Brian Lara 07/Ashes 09, almost nothing could carry through so those early months were spent working on getting the file formats broken before work could really start, and by then there wasn't the momentum for the games.

For the 2005 forums where BLIC and Cricket 2005 were more or less even at the start, both seemed to be fairly well modded, Cricket 2005 was a bit easier to do stuff with so probably got more, but you could certainly get everything you needed for both games. I'd expect something like that this time around.

Their RLL2 section of the forum was quite dull.

Well that was PS3/360 exclusive, so it's kinda like the lack of modding for IC2010 - it's just too difficult on consoles to do much.