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Guileless · Feb 13, 2007

Far, far from the frontlines of the sports gaming world, last week EA released MVP NCAA Baseball 2007. Underscoring the relative unimportance of this event: it is only available on PS2, and for the budget price of $29.99. This series only exists because Take Two bought the third party license of Major League Baseball. And of course, college baseball itself is a niche sport, and its popularity is extremely regional. Outside of a few traditional powers and teams in the South, few people could name a single player on their alma mater's team.

All of this is true. But I still gave them $29.99, and what did I get? Not just last year's rosters. In fact, last year's game (MVP 2006) had the rosters for the previous season. Since it was the first game in the series and roster information in the sport is comparitively hard to come by, this is somewhat understandable, if not laudatory.

This year, EA did something different. They did not update the rosters, nor did they simply plug in the rosters used in last year's game. Instead, they completely mixed them up in this manner: the roster of the team ranked #1 in last year's game (Texas) was simply transferred to the team ranked #1 in this year's game (Oregon St.), and so on down the line. So, for example, if in MVP NCAA Baseball 2007 I choose to play as the Ole Miss Rebels, I will in fact be using a team made up of the players from the 2005 Alabama Crimson Tide.

The mind boggles.

Jeff-DSA · Feb 13, 2007

:lol

It shouldn't be so funny...but, well, wow.

Tempy · Feb 13, 2007

Guileless said:
This year, EA did something different. They did not update the rosters, nor did they simply plug in the rosters used in last year's game. Instead, they completely mixed them up in this manner: the roster of the team ranked #1 in last year's game (Texas) was simply transferred to the team ranked #1 in this year's game (Oregon St.), and so on down the line. So, for example, if in MVP NCAA Baseball 2007 I choose to play as the Ole Miss Rebels, I will in fact be using a team made up of the players from the 2005 Alabama Crimson Tide.

The mind boggles.

...

...

I have no words except "lol".

X26 · Feb 13, 2007

How on earth does that happen, if this was Madden it would be as if Tom Brady was the Colts QB

Brannon · Feb 13, 2007

...

That's... that's retarded beyond all comprehension.

Safe Bet · Feb 13, 2007

This has got to be a joke...

bdoughty · Feb 13, 2007

Effort
Avoided

dskillzhtown · Feb 13, 2007

I guess since they can't use actual player names it is easy to just shift rosters around. Did last year's game sell? If not, that just makes it easier to not really update rosters as hardly no one would notice.

Speaking of roster updates, why is it that NBA2k7-360 has some crappy updates. The Rockets have players on the team that were cut last season! Players that were signed in the off-season are still not on the team. I guess that since sports games sell so well, publishers feel like they don't need to actually work on them.

thmst30 · Feb 13, 2007

Everyone remember that NBA Live glitches thread. Well looks like we can start a new one with March Sadness 07. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEKeHehsmHs

bdoughty · Feb 13, 2007

On a similar note if you were unfortunate enough to purchase March Madness 07 (PS2 or 360) you will find that they were too lazy to put each teams schedule in the game. You get a random schedule. They have been doing this for years with MM.

speculawyer · Feb 13, 2007

Well . . . it is a niche throw-away title. They should just make a good system for allowing users to create AND SHARE their own rosters on the Internet and let the consumer do it. There are usually a few dedicated fans that will take up the task.

Haunted · Feb 13, 2007

Guileless said:
Far, far from the frontlines of the sports gaming world, last week EA released MVP NCAA Baseball 2007. Underscoring the relative unimportance of this event: it is only available on PS2, and for the budget price of $29.99. This series only exists because Take Two bought the third party license of Major League Baseball. And of course, college baseball itself is a niche sport, and its popularity is extremely regional. Outside of a few traditional powers and teams in the South, few people could name a single player on their alma mater's team.

All of this is true. But I still gave them $29.99, and what did I get? Not just last year's rosters. In fact, last year's game (MVP 2006) had the rosters for the previous season. Since it was the first game in the series and roster information in the sport is comparitively hard to come by, this is somewhat understandable, if not laudatory.

This year, EA did something different. They did not update the rosters, nor did they simply plug in the rosters used in last year's game. Instead, they completely mixed them up in this manner: the roster of the team ranked #1 in last year's game (Texas) was simply transferred to the team ranked #1 in this year's game (Oregon St.), and so on down the line. So, for example, if in MVP NCAA Baseball 2007 I choose to play as the Ole Miss Rebels, I will in fact be using a team made up of the players from the 2005 Alabama Crimson Tide.

The mind boggles.

I have located the problem.

That's got to be a major screw-up made by someone - that just can't be intentional, right? ...right?

RubxQub · Feb 13, 2007

I can't imagine this to be true?!

It's hilarious either way. EA fails again...

What do you think the college guys think when the flick on the game only to not find themselves at all...and then finding out they are on their rivals team?!

bdoughty · Feb 13, 2007

dskillzhtown said:
I guess since they can't use actual player names it is easy to just shift rosters around. Did last year's game sell? If not, that just makes it easier to not really update rosters as hardly no one would notice.

Oh people would notice but it would be a select group. I am sure over at OS and a few other sports gaming sites they are working on rosters for the game. Trying to edit rosters can be a pain when you have to edit the appearance of every player.

speculawyer · Feb 13, 2007

dskillzhtown said:
I guess since they can't use actual player names it is easy to just shift rosters around.

Why can't they use the player names?

dskillzhtown said:
Speaking of roster updates, why is it that NBA2k7-360 has some crappy updates. The Rockets have players on the team that were cut last season! Players that were signed in the off-season are still not on the team. I guess that since sports games sell so well, publishers feel like they don't need to actually work on them.

Have you gone online and downloaded the latest roster?

If so, I hope you emailed 2K Sports. They seem to be somewhat OK on their rosters . . . they do issue several updates. And I've seen them correct errors upon being informed of the error.

Z_Y · Feb 13, 2007

They did this with NCAA 07 for the PSP too. Although they didn't even bother with shifting the rosters around...they just flat out used the previous year's rosters and rankings. Shamful, EA...just shameful. It's not like they didn't want to bother doing the research for the updated rosters as they were readilly available from all the other versions. And don't even get me started on the rushing bug.

bdoughty · Feb 13, 2007

thmst30 said:
Everyone remember that NBA Live glitches thread. Well looks like we can start a new one with March Sadness 07. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEKeHehsmHs

Hah that's classic. I guess EA Canada was borrowing animation assets from Tiburon who accidentally sent them some Superman stuff.

LJ11 · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
Why can't they use the player names?

Violates NCAA rules.

Edit: You can't use a players name on NCAA merchandise as well. Basically, you can't use current players to sell any NCAA product.

Tamanon · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
Why can't they use the player names?

Have you gone online and downloaded the latest roster?

If so, I hope you emailed 2K Sports. They seem to be somewhat OK on their rosters . . . they do issue several updates. And I've seen them correct errors upon being informed of the error.

Because it's an NCAA game. No NCAA games allow names to be used.

Bloodwake · Feb 13, 2007

EA is pathetic.

LJ11 · Feb 13, 2007

Z_Y said:
They did this with NCAA 07 for the PSP too. Although they didn't even bother with shifting the rosters around...they just flat out used the previous year's rosters and rankings. Shamful, EA...just shameful. It's not like they didn't want to bother doing the research for the updated rosters as they were readilly available from all the other versions. And don't even get me started on the rushing bug.

EA actually replaced NCAA Football on the PSP. Same thing with Madden the year before.

Their QA is beyond pathetic at this point

bdoughty · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
Why can't they use the player names?

NCAA prohibits the use of player names in all of their games.

C4Lukins · Feb 13, 2007

thmst30 said:
Everyone remember that NBA Live glitches thread. Well looks like we can start a new one with March Sadness 07. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEKeHehsmHs

That was amazing. EA should have just combined their crappy Superman game with their crappy basketball game. Just let superman toss crap at the players, and have people jumping out of the stadium. It would be more interesting.

Meier · Feb 13, 2007

Wow, that's mindblowing. :lol I picked it up on Xbox last year but when I got a 360, obviously could no longer play it (LAME!) and was disappointed that it still has not made the next-gen leap. I'm happy to see the Noles are off to a 6-0 start and ranked 5th by Collegiate Baseball. Should be at the game on Saturday at good ol Dick Howser.

For those curious of the sales last year... they were fairly healthy (from the Next-Gen article):

37. MVP 06 NCAA Baseball
PS2 plus Xbox
700K
$20 million
78%
January / Sports / Electronic Arts
Lance Kwok (PSX Extreme): Put simply, MVP 06 NCAA Baseball is MVP Baseball 2005 stripped of the MLB license. As such, the controls, physics, and overall baseball-ish nuances are superb, but the atmosphere suffers greatly from the absence of MLB teams, stadiums, and players.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?o...=view&id=4691&Itemid=46&limit=1&limitstart=11

Guileless · Feb 13, 2007

For people who actually pay attention to college baseball, this completely breaks the game. If they had just used the same rosters as they did in last year's game, they would be two years out of date but at least you could sim two seasons and have some recognizable players on the team. Now, when I play with Ole Miss, my pitcher is in reality some random insurance salesman in Birmingham who is already tearing up when he watches the "Glory Days" video on VH1.

thmst30 · Feb 13, 2007

I swear if ANYONE bought this crap... All they did was re-rank the teams but not change the rosters, all the teams are now completely screwed as they have the wrong players, and the only thing they added to the game was a few gimmicks like all of their games. People have GOT to spread the word more that EA sucks. It pisses me off SO much when I walk into EB or Gamestop and the whole place is decked out in EA posters and signs. I feel like I'm in corporate headquarters. Quit supporting this sh!t.

speculawyer · Feb 13, 2007

LJ11 said:
Violates NCAA rules.

Edit: You can't use a players name on NCAA merchandise as well. Basically, you can't use current players to sell any NCAA product.

And since they have an agreement with the NCAA, they have to follow that rule.

So if one doesn't have an NCAA license, you should be able to use the player's names. (First Amendment ftw!) APF 2K8 could really screw with NCAA 08 by creating actual rosters of college players & states . . . since they don't have any agreement with the NCAA, they are not bound by the NCAA's internal rules.

And regarding the original post . . . how can there be any current roster at all if you can't use player names? ?!?!? I'm very confused now.

Zep · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
And regarding the original post . . . how can there be any current roster at all if you can't use player names? ?!?!? I'm very confused now.

Listen...NCAA Football just goes by the players number and gives them ratings based on how they are in real life. So for example Troy Smith(OSU) would be #10, which is his number in real life, then they'd give him ratings that reflect his skills in RL. So your just left with editing players names...Which EA allows you to do. Problem with NCAA baseball is they dont even have the numbers correct...so how could you edit rosters?

dskillzhtown · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
Have you gone online and downloaded the latest roster?

If so, I hope you emailed 2K Sports. They seem to be somewhat OK on their rosters . . . they do issue several updates. And I've seen them correct errors upon being informed of the error.

I have the latest roster. It is funny as it relfects Yao's injury, but they still don't have 3 players who have been on the roster all season and one player who was cut in the off-season is still on the 2k7 roster.

Meier · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
And regarding the original post . . . how can there be any current roster at all if you can't use player names? ?!?!? I'm very confused now.

As mentioned, the games are supposed to have current rosters, just without their actual names. To be 2 years behind and now completely mixed up is well, insane to put it mildly.

LJ11 · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
And since they have an agreement with the NCAA, they have to follow that rule.

So if one doesn't have an NCAA license, you should be able to use the player's names. (First Amendment ftw!) APF 2K8 could really screw with NCAA 08 by creating actual rosters of college players & states . . . since they don't have any agreement with the NCAA, they are not bound by the NCAA's internal rules.

And regarding the original post . . . how can there be any current roster at all if you can't use player names? ?!?!? I'm very confused now.

You're beyond confused. The players are bound by those same NCAA rules. If a player's name appears in any game, whether it's licensed from the NCAA or not, that player would forfeit his college eligibility.

ronito · Feb 13, 2007

You have to buy the new rosters per team via micro transactions (although you'll have to call a special 1800 number to do it for PS2). All for the low low cost of $12.99 per team, which is a steal considering that they sold you the game for so cheap.

borghe · Feb 13, 2007

My god people.. STOP BUYING THEIR ****ING GAMES!!!!! IS IT THAT ****ING HARD? ARE THEY HOLDING GUNS TO YOUR HEADS!!?!

people have been bitching about EA sports games for YEARS now yet they still ****ing buy them.... wtf???? You may have a gaming problem when you can't NOT buy a game even when you know it's probably going to be crap... wtf....

Ranger X · Feb 13, 2007

Some publisher and devs are truly getting expert at the now classic "what could we avoid to do" way of thinking. Bravo EA. Way to go.

bluemax · Feb 13, 2007

speculawyer said:
And since they have an agreement with the NCAA, they have to follow that rule.

So if one doesn't have an NCAA license, you should be able to use the player's names. (First Amendment ftw!) APF 2K8 could really screw with NCAA 08 by creating actual rosters of college players & states . . . since they don't have any agreement with the NCAA, they are not bound by the NCAA's internal rules.

And regarding the original post . . . how can there be any current roster at all if you can't use player names? ?!?!? I'm very confused now.

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/review_latack_janfeb06.msp

Maybe this will help. The way I've always heard it was something to do with the NCAA's amateurism rules. But this page clears it up a bit.

Found this on the NCAA wikipeida page:

wikipeida said:
Glitches

Some ***** at EA will leave program gliches in the game each year. Glitches are particularly irritating when playing in online mode. Guys like userskills7 always **** with the damn glitches just to get a win. I once saw the ref take a dump on the field. The opposing team picked it up and ran it in for the score. This is the kind of stuff that limits the playability of the game.

Flynn · Feb 14, 2007

Guileless said:
For people who actually pay attention to college baseball, this completely breaks the game. If they had just used the same rosters as they did in last year's game, they would be two years out of date but at least you could sim two seasons and have some recognizable players on the team. Now, when I play with Ole Miss, my pitcher is in reality some random insurance salesman in Birmingham who is already tearing up when he watches the "Glory Days" video on VH1.

I would pay money to see this in a cut scene.

Deku · Feb 14, 2007

EA makes me really hate the American consumer.

Mrbob · Feb 14, 2007

Guileless said:
This year, EA did something different. They did not update the rosters, nor did they simply plug in the rosters used in last year's game. Instead, they completely mixed them up in this manner: the roster of the team ranked #1 in last year's game (Texas) was simply transferred to the team ranked #1 in this year's game (Oregon St.), and so on down the line. So, for example, if in MVP NCAA Baseball 2007 I choose to play as the Ole Miss Rebels, I will in fact be using a team made up of the players from the 2005 Alabama Crimson Tide.

The mind boggles.

Ok, this is so damn funny. I'm literally laughing out loud. Good job, EA.

Danthrax · Feb 14, 2007

bluemax said:
I once saw the ref take a dump on the field. The opposing team picked it up and ran it in for the score. This is the kind of stuff that limits the playability of the game.

I'm not here to defend EA, but I have trouble believing something as outrageous as this when it's found on Wikipedia.

Tobor · Feb 14, 2007

If milk smells bad, it's bad. You don't have to drink it to be sure.

Alex Anderson · Feb 14, 2007

This is completely inexcusable. They were able to put year-old players and stats into last year's game, how hard would it have been to do the same again this year? Gathering the data is work ONE person could have done.

So, what did they do other than slap a 2007 on the cover? Can players with Contact and Power ratings of under 75 hit the ball out of the infield yet?

Gowans · Feb 14, 2007

LAME!

/Reminded about why I started my EA games ban & why its still in full effect

Tornado Condor · Feb 14, 2007

Phoenix · Feb 14, 2007

Guileless said:
This year, EA did something different. They did not update the rosters, nor did they simply plug in the rosters used in last year's game. Instead, they completely mixed them up in this manner: the roster of the team ranked #1 in last year's game (Texas) was simply transferred to the team ranked #1 in this year's game (Oregon St.), and so on down the line. So, for example, if in MVP NCAA Baseball 2007 I choose to play as the Ole Miss Rebels, I will in fact be using a team made up of the players from the 2005 Alabama Crimson Tide.

The mind boggles.

If that's not a bug, somebody needs to be ****ing fired.

speculawyer · Feb 14, 2007

Thanks to the people correcting me on the obvious method of using player numbers. Duh, what was I thinking?

LJ11 said:
You're beyond confused. The players are bound by those same NCAA rules. If a player's name appears in any game, whether it's licensed from the NCAA or not, that player would forfeit his college eligibility.

The players would have no control if someone else uses their names in a game. So I doubt the NCAA would penalize the players for someone else's actions. However, 2K Sports would probably honor the NCAA rule and just do the numbers thing that you guys just explained.

speculawyer · Feb 14, 2007

salva said:
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/salvamag/eanazi3tm.gif

I understand people's dislike of EA, but that is beyond the pale.

speculawyer · Feb 14, 2007

bluemax said:
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/review_latack_janfeb06.msp

Maybe this will help. The way I've always heard it was something to do with the NCAA's amateurism rules. But this page clears it up a bit.

Very interesting article . . . thanks . . .

The article points out more things that 2K Sports could do and then point out EA does the same thing. For example:

artcile said:
Especially since an owner of the video game can change QB #11 to Matt Leinart by fiddling with a few buttons. Once the owner inputs a player's name, it appears on the back of the player's jersey and can be shouted by the virtual announcers who do the play-by-play for the games within the game.

So . . . could APF do the same thing . . . allow players to enter NFL/NCAA player names and then the announcer could suddenly announce the name. They could throw in a few hundred other random names to make it look like there were not specifically targetting just NCAA/NFL players. And that way people could enter their own high-school teams and have a decent chance of having the announcer be able to say their name.

Fantasmo · Feb 14, 2007

Drop your pants and bend over boys!! Larry Probst is comin!
Oh stop yer fussin! It's only a few times a year and you seem to be enjoyin it anyway!

LJ11 · Feb 14, 2007

speculawyer said:
Thanks to the people correcting me on the obvious method of using player numbers. Duh, what was I thinking?

The players would have no control if someone else uses their names in a game. So I doubt the NCAA would penalize the players for someone else's actions. However, 2K Sports would probably honor the NCAA rule and just do the numbers thing that you guys just explained.

The NCAA would sue the pants off anyone who tried to pull a stunt like that. For god sakes, the NFL sent their lawyers after a church group in Indiana that was going to show the Superbowl on a 60+ projector screen. It violated some obscure NFL rule. Both the NCAA and NFL control their product like you wouldn't believe.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/10927835/detail.html

speculawyer · Feb 14, 2007

LJ11 said:
The NCAA would sue the pants off anyone who tried to pull a stunt like that.

No they wouldn't. We have something called the First Amendment. Player names & stats are non-copyrightable facts. However, 2K could not use team names, logos, player likenesses, etc.

LJ11 said:
For god sakes, the NFL sent their lawyers after a church group in Indiana that was going to show the Superbowl on a 60+ projector screen. It violated some obscure NFL rule. Both the NCAA and NFL control their product like you wouldn't believe.

That's different . . . the NFL owns rights to publically broadcast their own games . . . the church public display would be a public performance. The NCAA and NFL can only control what they have rights to control.

This is the important case.

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