Planetcricket IC10 Q&A thread discussion

[yamman]

You know what I love about this thread? All the guys (except sachin_rocks) that haven't played the game are bagging out the game and it's features that they apparently know everything about... even though they haven't played the game. And the one guy that -has- played the game chimes in every now and again to say that they are wrong and it's really good. And then they ignore him and continue on bashing a game they haven't played and know nothing about how much better it is than the last one, except that it doesn't have stats tracking.

Love it.

 

[sami ullah khan]

You know what I love about this thread? All the guys (except sachin_rocks) that haven't played the game are bagging out the game and it's features that they apparently know everything about... even though they haven't played the game. And the one guy that -has- played the game chimes in every now and again to say that they are wrong and it's really good. And then they ignore him and continue on bashing a game they haven't played and know nothing about how much better it is than the last one, except that it doesn't have stats tracking.

Love it.

We have all played AC09 and most here have played patched version of it. The Q & A clearly suggests that this IC10 is an improvement over Patched AC 09 so hardcore cricket gamer here have a right to be a little disgruntled.
I also understand that codies are deliberately holding back essential features for future versions for sake of profit. There is no other logical explanation for the poor quality of games we have been having for a decade now. I admire Codemasters for their continued effort though. We can surely have a more desired game within couple of more years.

 

[yamman]

We have all played AC09 and most here have played patched version of it. The Q & A clearly suggests that this IC10 is an improvement over Patched AC 09 so hardcore cricket gamer here have a right to be a little disgruntled.

What? You just contradicted yourself. "The Q & A clearly suggests that this IC10 is an improvement over Patched AC 09" means the game will not just be the patched Ashes, but improved on top of that again. That is what -I- got from reading the Q&A.

I also understand that codies are deliberately holding back essential features for future versions for sake of profit.

Really? You know that for a fact do you?

There is no other logical explanation for the poor quality of games we have been having for a decade now.

Ok, let's set a few things straight here.

BLIC 05 was made by a company
BLIC 07 was made by a different company
Ashes 09 was made by a different company
IC2010 is essentially made by the same team as Ashes 09 with the same code

I can see why the quality wouldn't improve from 05-09, but with 2010 you have a team building on the first game. i.e. fixing the bugs with the first game and improving it, instead of pressing the reset button and starting from scratch again.

As for "the poor quality of games we've been having for a decade", you honestly believe that's because Codemasters were intentionally holding back features in some sort of twisted marketing ploy to get people to buy the next one?

Let me offer an alternative. By switching developers each game, progress was lost in the next game and instead of seeing new features, they had to re-implement again.

I admire Codemasters for their continued effort though. We can surely have a more desired game within couple of more years.

Here's how I think it works in the real world. Developers have a certain amount of time to work on the new game. They mostly pick things to do that the fans want (tournaments, batting and bowling ai, animation, heads, etc), and a few of things to do that they think will improve the game-play experience that 'people didn't ask for' (cameras, game-play improvements). They can't do everything otherwise it would take two years to get the game out, so they split the features up. Stats tracking doesn't make it in. It could have easily been animations, or tournaments, or batting pacing ai etc.

As for bagging a new camera that you haven't even played, that's just ignorant.

Think about it!

 

[sami ullah khan]

What? You just contradicted yourself. "The Q & A clearly suggests that this IC10 is an improvement over Patched AC 09" means the game will not just be the patched Ashes, but improved on top of that again. That is what -I- got from reading the Q&A.



Really? You know that for a fact do you?



Ok, let's set a few things straight here.

BLIC 05 was made by a company
BLIC 07 was made by a different company
Ashes 09 was made by a different company
IC2010 is essentially made by the same team as Ashes 09 with the same code

I can see why the quality wouldn't improve from 05-09, but with 2010 you have a team building on the first game. i.e. fixing the bugs with the first game and improving it, instead of pressing the reset button and starting from scratch again.

As for "the poor quality of games we've been having for a decade", you honestly believe that's because Codemasters were intentionally holding back features in some sort of twisted marketing ploy to get people to buy the next one?

Let me offer an alternative. By switching developers each game, progress was lost in the next game and instead of seeing new features, they had to re-implement again.



Here's how I think it works in the real world. Developers have a certain amount of time to work on the new game. They mostly pick things to do that the fans want (tournaments, batting and bowling ai, animation, heads, etc), and a few of things to do that they think will improve the game-play experience that 'people didn't ask for' (cameras, game-play improvements). They can't do everything otherwise it would take two years to get the game out, so they split the features up. Stats tracking doesn't make it in. It could have easily been animations, or tournaments, or batting pacing ai etc.

As for bagging a new camera that you haven't even played, that's just ignorant.

Think about it!

I did not contradict my self Yamman. Its an improvement over Patched AC 09 but its not the improvement most fans here would have wanted. People here wanted Stats tracking and online quitting problem solved. If you had read three previous pages you would have understood what I meant by understanding the deliberate holding back of the features. Its an idea that was tossed around by someone in an earlier page and I found it to be logical. I might agree with you that not all games over last six years were bad due to this particular theory. But leaving some essential features out of IC10 and codemasters looking to bring these into next installment, gives a lot of weight to theory of deliberately leaving out stats tracking and other such stuff. I hope I made my self clear.

 

[alioz]

well yaman, codes deliberately hold back the patch last year, what do you make of that? I have actually played the patched version of xbox and it was ready to go but never came out. and it was send to codies as well and after that transmission games went down.

I am on the same page as you are, but some of the things could have been done differently by codies. I am thankful just to have new cricket game every year and happy to pay for it. but people want value for their money. And its there right.

and codies track record is not that good aswell. look at ac09. It was full of problems and they had to make a patch but didnt give it to people. Now they have added few more things on top of patch and will charge $100.00 for it. Yhis to me does not seem fair for a 15 year old boy who will ask his parents to buy this game for him. this patch was rightly his for free 1 year ago.

 

[MattW]

What? You just contradicted yourself. "The Q & A clearly suggests that this IC10 is an improvement over Patched AC 09" means the game will not just be the patched Ashes, but improved on top of that again. That is what -I- got from reading the Q&A.

The problem that many have is that save for Transmission collapsing, the patch would have been released, and made it so the 'improve[ments] on top of that again' are all the game has changed. If the improvements over the patched game are minimal, and I'm sure they are there, you are getting basically a game that would have been free to AC09 owners.

But leaving some essential features out of IC10 and codemasters looking to bring these into next installment, gives a lot of weight to theory of deliberately leaving out stats tracking and other such stuff. I hope I made my self clear.

Considering the game would have only been in production for a fairly short amount of time, beyond the concerns that the game is being rushed out (though yearly incremental improvements serve all the major games for other sports well), a deliberate decision to leave stuff out is only deliberate in that other things were focused upon first. Considering AC09 released with broken gameplay, by the fact the game is on a limited schedule, I think they have their priorities right, you have a major new graphical mode to keep casual gamers interested (and they are the majority of sales, not hardcore cricket fans) and a consolidation of the patch's work on gameplay.

Yes, it is a shame that they won't do more, but I think Trickstar and Codemasters need to be backed, they need to give this game time. As yamman mentioned, Codemasters' chopping and changing of developers did no good to the game. These minor updates are the only way the investment in cricket games can be paid back. If you know you can sell a cricket game and make enough money to keep funding development over the years, eventually it will be seen as a target for more and more investment and thus long term the game will reach the point we all want it to.

In the context of the troubles with Transmission and the Cricket games market, I don't see a problem in this release. In the context of a paying customer, I get the anger over the lack of progress.

Yes, the lack of competition in the market is not an excuse, but the realities are that if Codemasters don't see the game as viable, you are left with near-amateur games like Cricket Revolution, or games that are years away and will likely disappoint regardless, like Cricket Life and TAOC.

AC09 is the best cricket game, for all its flaws, that we've seen. People only like Cricket 07 due to patches and time making it seem better, it was as much if not more cynically released after Cricket 05 as IC010 will follow AC09.

 

[yamman]

well yaman, codes deliberately hold back the patch last year, what do you make of that? I have actually played the patched version of xbox and it was ready to go but never came out. and it was send to codies as well and after that transmission games went down.

Did they? As far as I remember:
1. Transmission made the patch, got it to a final state
2. Transmission closed down
3. During the time when Codies would have had to send the patch off for approval to MS & Sony, Transmission were no more i.e. they had no dev team to fix bugs on it. Therefore this was impossible, and patch was in danger.
4. By the time Trickstar appeared from the, ahem, 'ashes' of Transmission (months later), it would have been wiser to get Trickstar to start working on the next game asap instead of going back and patching a game that was close to 5 months old at that point, considering how much time was left.

 

[MattW]

and it was send to codies as well and after that transmission games went down.

Not in a releasable form. The patch still needed further QA and bug fixes. The Transmission guys were literally locked out of their office after collapsing, so could not work on those issues to release it. Had they survived a fortnight or month more, it'd have made it imo.

 

[alioz]

well yaman, codes deliberately hold back the patch last year, what do you make of that? I have actually played the patched version of xbox and it was ready to go but never came out. and it was send to codies as well and after that transmission games went down.

Did they? As far as I remember:
1. Transmission made the patch, got it to a final state
2. Transmission closed down
3. During the time when Codies would have had to send the patch off for approval to MS & Sony, Transmission were no more i.e. they had no dev team to fix bugs on it. Therefore this was impossible, and patch was in danger.
4. By the time Trickstar appeared from the, ahem, 'ashes' of Transmission (months later), it would have been wiser to get Trickstar to start working on the next game asap instead of going back and patching a game that was close to 5 months old at that point, considering how much time was left.

Not in a releasable form. The patch still needed further QA and bug fixes. The Transmission guys were literally locked out of their office after collapsing, so could not work on those issues to release it. Had they survived a fortnight or month more, it'd have made it imo.

Ok guys i get it, it never went to codies. What ever the case is i m happy with whatever we get. But some people around here do have logic. well whatever the case we will find out once the game comes out.

 

[Cricketdude]

The reason they are releasing it early is because of next years world cup. If you release it in January there really is no point.

 

[saiyaman]

Overall nice interview. It's really sad that there's no stat tracking and no version for the PC as well.

Coming to the other stuff.....

Wait...what? Let me have a look at this line again....

"We?ve kept the Create A Tournament feature from AC09 but have added many more tournaments."

Is this supposed to be funny? They call starting a tournament with only Quarterfinal and Semi-final options with no way to remove or add teams as a CREATE A TOURNAMENT feature?

Are we supposed to laugh or cry at this?

 

[jkartik]

This Q&A suggests only one thing :

"BOW DOWN TO ME BITCH!! I AM THE MONOPOLY!!!"

i dont see the scenario improving much even in the next 5 years UNTIL AND UNLESS 'EA' or any other big shot company produces a franchise to give tough competition to codies and wake them up!

 

[AbBh]

The scenario is only going to improve if more people start buying Cricket games. Games that sell less than a million copies not considered worthy of a franchise these days.

The game doesn't appear to be a massive improvement on AC09, but at least they are making an effort and seeking advice from the gaming community. They deserve more support than EA ever did.

 

[Simbazz]

This Q&A suggests only one thing :

"BOW DOWN TO ME BITCH!! I AM THE MONOPOLY!!!"

i dont see the scenario improving much even in the next 5 years UNTIL AND UNLESS 'EA' or any other big shot company produces a franchise to give tough competition to codies and wake them up!

Least they get the game out there though, ey?

TG (both companies) deserve a massive pat on the back, they've brought out a game that I'm still playing and lots of others will. Its a very playable game, and by progressing it, it can only mean this version, and the next, will be massive improvements.

 

[Params7]

You know what I love about this thread? All the guys (except sachin_rocks) that haven't played the game are bagging out the game and it's features that they apparently know everything about... even though they haven't played the game. And the one guy that -has- played the game chimes in every now and again to say that they are wrong and it's really good. And then they ignore him and continue on bashing a game they haven't played and know nothing about how much better it is than the last one, except that it doesn't have stats tracking.

Coddies must be like PLANETCRICKET moar liek PLANETCRITICS lolamirite?

C'mon, they left out basically what was the most requested feature since A09 (stats) and said they'll do it next year or even next-next year. Nobody was this gloomy when Ashes 09 was on the way. In any case IC2010 should sell like crazy if the A-Cam is as good as they say, they need to release gameplay videos already to get people talking about that.