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Just found this at http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3203313a1899,00.html, not a bad read:

Originally posted by www.stuff.co.nz@ 1st March
Rugby 2005 breaks new ground
01 March 2005 

Finally a game that is like 'watching rugby on TV', writes Gerard Campbell.


"The inherrent difficulties with the collision that we have and the flowing gameplay intertwined with collision in rugby makes it an extremely challenging game to make."

Andrew Wilson A brief video presentation showing bumbling and fumbling American football players was enough to convince powerhouse games publisher Electronic Arts (EA) that it was worth investing heavily in Rugby 2005.

The publisher had already made Rugby 2004, but it fared poorly against its already established sports brands, Madden (American) football and Fifa soccer â€" and received a drubbing from gamers and reviewers alike.

Rugby 2004 producer Andrew Wilson knew the company could do better, but he would need more resources and â€" more importantly â€" more money. He told EA executives so when he made the pitch for the 2005 version.

"I told them I'd need 10 times the budget and would have to move to EA Canada. I thought'd they'd say no, but they didn't," he said.

The video that swayed the executives showed the bumbling, fumbling American football players then cut into the crunching, hard-hitting action of Super 12 and international rugby. As well as the bigger budget, EA gave Wilson and his development team complete access to EA's Canada studio, which has the world's biggest motion- capture studio.

At the launch of Rugby 2005 in Auckland late last month, Wilson told me that when Rugby 2004 was released, gamers said "thanks for the game, but you're going to have to do better than that next time".

A playtest of the game showed they certainly have. The first thing that is instantly noticeable is the character models. Gone are the blocky and angular rugby players from the 2004 version. The rugby players are now more realistic, and many â€" although not all â€" bear a resemblance to their Super 12, Tri Nations and international counterparts.

Wilson said the ability to use EA Canada meant that for the first time they were able to use the same graphics engine used in the Fifa soccer games, and extensive use of motion capture â€" where people wear a special suit dotted with photosensitive balls â€" made for more life-like models and more fluid motion.

Wilson is the first to admit that Rugby 2004 had a slow graphics engine, which hindered gameplay. With the faster Fifa engine, programmers were able to speed up the action, facilitating faster passes and implementing hits and tackles.

To make the 2005 version more realistic than the last, Wilson and his team used members of the Canadian national rugby team for the motion- capture work. The team spent four days "tackling, tackling, tackling", says Wilson.

The New Zealand Maori rugby team, who toured Canada during the production of the game, recorded the sound for the All Blacks haka. It was a stirring rendition, Wilson said.

"They were in the sound booth, doing the haka, then suddenly the players took off their shirts and shorts, and were just standing in their underwear. I said `what are you doing?' and they said they were not getting the authentic `slapping' on their skin when they had the clothes on that is crucial for the haka. When they left they had red marks on their chests and thighs. This is an authentic haka."

Last year, Wilson said he wanted to get the Rugby franchise to the same level that the Madden series was now at. Has he achieved that with Rugby 2005?

"I think we are so much closer than we've ever been before. We have an ongoing challenge with rugby and that is we've got 30 players on the pitch, and when it comes to a television screen, the most simple way I can do it is that there are only so many dots on the screen, so much resolution. So for Madden, who kinda have helmets on everyone, they load in the same head for every single player, and for Fifa, they only have 22 people on the pitch, but we have 30 people on the pitch and we have to load faces and heads for all those separate guys, so it's a much bigger task. I think that certainly the engine quality, the technology behind it and overall gameplay experience is every bit as fun as Madden and Fifa is."

Wilson believes that the jump from Rugby 2004 to Rugby 2005 is "probably, hands down, the biggest step that's been seen in any EA Sports product since the beginning of the brand".

"Y'know, it's kinda like when products went from PSOne to PS2, and now going from Xbox to Xbox 2 â€" that's the kind of jump in product quality that we've seen."

Wilson says the biggest challenge for Rugby 2005 was getting the core rendering engine to work with the physics of a rugby product. "Building any game is difficult, no game is easy to make. Fifa is a fairly linear game, Madden is made up of set pieces. Rugby is 30 guys running at each other for 80 minutes. They pile on top of each other, they get back up, so the inherent difficulties with the collision that we have and the flowing gameplay intertwined with collision in rugby makes it an extremely challenging game to make.

"That's something that I think a lot of people discount when they play it and think, `oh, well, y'know, why doesn't it look like Madden or Fifa', when the reality is that it is so much more challenging to make. What I do think, though, is that when people see Rugby 2005 they're gonna go `wow, it finally looks like Madden or Fifa', which is pretty cool."

Wilson said Rugby 2004 sold more than 500,000 copies and he wanted the rugby franchise to be a must-have product each year.

"The goal was to deliver a Madden for the Southern Hemisphere â€" I believe we have achieved that."

All Black and Auckland Blues wing Joe Rokocoko is the face of Rugby 2005, and he said he was honoured to be a part of it â€" although seeing lifesize cardboard standups of himself, used to promote the game, was a bit freaky.

Rokocoko said he was amazed at the realism of the gameplay. "It has improved heaps on 2004. It seems like you're watching rugby on TV, it's more realistic. You actually see the emotion on a player, in the haka, if he's tackled or penalised."

Rugby 2005, from EA Sports, will hit store shelves this month.
 
The bit about the NFL clips video was pretty funny I thought
<
. Sorta hinted that the EA executives have never seen rugby...
 
Nice find!

If Andrew is really trying to make a "Madden for the Southern hemisphere", then he better put the stats of the England national team down considerably in the next version
<
 
Very good find.

Quick question: I've never seen the Maori play, either live or on television, but don't they do the same haka that the All Blacks do? Why don't they do the haka in the game then?
 
Originally posted by captainamerica@Mar 1 2005, 06:54 PM
Very good find.

Quick question: I've never seen the Maori play, either live or on television, but don't they do the same haka that the All Blacks do? Why don't they do the haka in the game then?
diffeent haka.

are the samoan/fiji/tonga/maori hakas not in the game?
 
Originally posted by woodie+Mar 2 2005, 07:13 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (woodie @ Mar 2 2005, 07:13 AM)</div>
<!--QuoteBegin-captainamerica
@Mar 1 2005, 06:54 PM
Very good find. 

Quick question: I've never seen the Maori play, either live or on television, but don't they do the same haka that the All Blacks do?  Why don't they do the haka in the game then?
diffeent haka.

are the samoan/fiji/tonga/maori hakas not in the game? [/b]
Cheers woods.

I know for certain that the Fiji/Samoa/Tonga war dances are NOT in the game.

Wasn't too sure about the Maori haka. It is not in as well, though they did the All Blacks one in motion capture. (Kinda strange...)
 
Maori one is slightly different. They line up in a different formation to New Zealand...
 
i guess rocko hasnt played it if he reckons you can see the emotion in the haka, when they get tackled score i try. ie, tackled-ooh how disappointing, score-i'm happy,haka-us non-maoris look f***ing stupid dont we! i love the bit about the faster fifa engine, a:its slow, b:its animations once set off just follow through (like locks has said about tackles) and its the same in fifa if u pass or are tackled etc, its not instant atall, especially if someone else has started an animation! Pro Evo style reactivity is the next step but for now this does look bloody good, shame i'm leaving to go travelling for 6 months on march 8th!typical!
 
this is the best read on rugby 2005 - apart from locksleys reviews of course

it also summed this up:
the fact that andrew wilson knows nothing, and is NOT the best person to make a rugby game
he was going to have the maoris do the haka in full clothes ie, the slapping on their thighs would then be "thud, thud", and the fact it took a bunch of Rugby union players to actually improvise and take their clothes off, to make it sound authentic - this just emphasises the lack of lateral thinking on Andrew Wilsons behalf.

Andrew Wilson should just issue the requests for $$ from the execs and then foward that money to a bunch of Rugby Headed programming freaks.

The only tie between andrew wilson and rugby is because he is australian (apparantly anyways),he clearly doesnt know much on every issue of the sport, the rules (2k4), the sounds, and ins and outs to truly translate the expericne into our living rooms.
all he has got is a degree in programming, and an australian passport, and thats all u need to be head of EA's rugby gaming committee.....SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

I like what he has done with Rugby 2005 - but sorry mate, thats 1yr past ur 2004 deadline, u bloody rugby illiterate fool.
 
oh shut up!!!!

That was the most ridiculous post I have read in awhile!

Are you going to deny the fatc that this is not a major improvement over 2004!!! Go suck on a bottle you spoiled brat!!! People like you are the ones that ruin good things with your pessimistic rhetoric!!!
 
TRU, ths ak47. Do u care bowt everything small and worthless.
Without ths guy there wouldnt be rugby 2005.
U idiot!
 
I don't know about that.

I can understand wanting to make a product but not having the budget and making sacrifices but R*gby 2**4 is unplayable. It was a step backwards. It was horrendous.

That he's gotten stuff together since then is commendable, and in a way, about time! Why release 2**4 if there are glowing errors and crap gameplay. It is not enjoyable.

Rugby 2005 -- which the majority of us have not played yet -- looks to be a considerable improvement. But, as noted by some that have played it, it's far from perfect.

Now, let's not all start kissing Andrew Wilson's ass for giving us Rugby 2005. Wilson even said he took video footage from NFL games and Rugby games to get the necessary money -- do you really think he took R*gby 2**4 into the meeting and said, "Now, this barely passes as recognizable for the sport, so can you give us more money to do it again?"

Let's hope Rugby 2005 is the new starting point for a great series. Let's also hope that competition from other companies (as well as other codes) deliver great games and have great sales. This must stay a competition if they're going to progress.

But we still have every right to to be weary of Mr. Wilson until he starts delivering -- it's kind of OUR JOB as consumers. We mean no ill-will towards him, and stuff that gets said is always exaggerated, but the ****-taking should never stop.
 
Originally posted by Canadian_Rugger@Mar 2 2005, 02:57 PM
oh shut up!!!!

That was the most ridiculous post I have read in awhile!

Are you going to deny the fatc that this is not a major improvement over 2004!!! Go suck on a bottle you spoiled brat!!! People like you are the ones that ruin good things with your pessimistic rhetoric!!!
a little bit embarressed are we canada

i mean after 2004, who wouldnt be

I am correct in saying Andrew wilson is a liar and an idiot - look at 2004

I am correct in saying thanks to EA, Andrew Wilson could outsource the technology to make rugby 2005 better..........once again Andrew Wilson does NOT deserve the credit here..........EA do for letting him use their technologies


Without AW we wouldnt have a Rugby 2005 game...............if i used that logic i could say without John Madden we wouldnt have an NFL game either - stupid stuff mate........we have Mario with NRL, and Swordfish for WCR

We would have a rugby 2005 game without Andrew Wilson..........and I'll go out on a limb and say we would have a better one............this brilliance of 2005 should have been 2004..............if he didnt stuff up 2004, imagine what the real 2005 would have been like............we are 1yr behind, and that is factual!!!!

Go get AW a forgiveness card for 2004........i'll get him a RED CARD
 

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