Multiplat AFL 26 - Releasing May 8th

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

A reminder before this game's alleged release.

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING
​

Hello. Perhaps you've been here before. Perhaps you haven't. If you haven't, here's what you need to know: these threads have a long history of being dumpster fires. For that reason, we take a much stricter approach to moderation than we otherwise do.


What is okay:

• Heated debate / disagreement​
• Criticising the game / developers​
• Praising the game / developers​
• General shit talk​

What is not okay:

• Personal attacks / name calling / abuse / criticising the person rather than the argument / game
• Repeating the same thing over and over and over and over (and over) to push an agenda or attempt to dominate the thread

We will not hesitate to permanently thread ban you if you are taking too much of our time.

In the wise, wise words of Jasper Beardsley:

 

[GoldbergsGold]

People at the time were desperate for a "next gen" footy game, Big Ant back then actually engaged with the fans and the media in a positive manner (EB play sessions, IGN posted videos of them playing the cricket games before release etc, Big Ant themselves published in-depth gameplay videos of their upcoming games on YouTube etc etc etc), all of which created a lot of positivity.

Then they started releasing completely broken games, lied through their teeth, threatened their fans, banned all media except for a select group of YouTube influencers, and had the gall to fill their broken games with gambling mechanics, and here we are

I'm starting to wonder if Tru Blu had more influence than we thought in the quality control, because since Big Ant ended their partnership with them with Rugby League Live 4, almost all their games have released completely broken or in shocking state. This noticeably started in 2018 with AO Tennis.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

I'm starting to wonder if Tru Blu had more influence than we thought in the quality control, because since Big Ant ended their partnership with them with Rugby League Live 4, almost all their games have released completely broken or in shocking state. This noticeably started in 2018 with AO Tennis.

Yeah, and that's when Ross started trash talking Tru Blu and Wicked Witch and people were bizarrely swept up by that insanely unprofessional behaviour, which led to the dumpster fire of the AFL 23 thread(s), when Ross went from attacking the competition to attacking his customers, egged on by his fans.

Was so strange thinking back on it. Most don't post here anymore.

 

[Xtreme]

that insanely unprofessional behaviour, which led to the dumpster fire of the AFL 23 thread(s), when Ross went from attacking the competition to attacking his customers, egged on by his fans.

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way

 

[BallaratBulldog]

Haters going to hate but I probably had the most fun with Live 2004. Even had a historical mode to recreate or reverse a notable footy match across the decades.

It was just funny that there was a version where they stuffed Port Adelaide so the commentary named a different player to the one you controlled.

98 felt pretty good too.

Why old stuff is more fun than anything WW or Big Ant has ended up doing does make me sad.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

I will die on the hill that the IR Gurus games were great for the time, and were actually fun, and that the shirtfront button in AFL 99 has never been surpassed (nor has its centre bounce and kick in selectable tactics)

IR Gurus did pump out too many though, I believe they released two in 2004!, and I prefer Big Ant's approach of free roster updates for a few years before a new release.

 

[Xtreme]

I will die on the hill that the IR Gurus games were great for the time, and were actually fun, and that the shirtfront button in AFL 99 has never been surpassed (nor has its centre bounce and kick in selectable tactics)

IR Gurus did pump out too many though, I believe they released two in 2004!, and I prefer Big Ant's approach of free roster updates for a few years before a new release.

AFL LIVE PREMIERSHIP EDITION (aka 2004 part 2) was great!

 

[GoldbergsGold]

99 has never been surpassed (nor has its centre bounce and kick in selectable tactics)

Bizarre custom formations were never implemented in any future games.

 

[SugarShane]

I'm starting to wonder if Tru Blu had more influence than we thought in the quality control, because since Big Ant ended their partnership with them with Rugby League Live 4, almost all their games have released completely broken or in shocking state. This noticeably started in 2018 with AO Tennis.

Probably not given they put out AFL Live 2.

I think if anything it's just that the BA team were making a labour of love with AFLL1 and DBC. Now they're just pumping out titles to deadlines and shoehorning in changes for the sake of changes. Kind of like how bands have their whole life to make a first album and then 2 years to make a follow up.

We probably tend to forget too that the team now would be massively different to the team that developed AFLL1 anyway given development started on that like 18 (!) years ago now. Maybe their personnel was just better back then.

I'd also argue the downfall started even earlier with DBC 17. It was a huge step back from 14, and from memory had issues on release. They supported it for about 6 months then kicked it to the curb with many issues remaining unfixed because they jagged the Ashes license.

 

[SugarShane]

I will die on the hill that the IR Gurus games were great for the time, and were actually fun, and that the shirtfront button in AFL 99 has never been surpassed (nor has its centre bounce and kick in selectable tactics)

IR Gurus did pump out too many though, I believe they released two in 2004!, and I prefer Big Ant's approach of free roster updates for a few years before a new release.

I was a yearly IR Gurus purchaser. If they recorded play time on PS2 I would've had some mega numbers on AFL Premeirship 2007. Played that to death from 07 to 11.

From memory they had the same issue. 2004 was by far the best, and each iteration after that tried to innovate something and failed or just simply broke things that worked fine in previous releases.

And of course, the good old days before patches that everyone looks back on fondly. I remember putting up with the shitty umpiring for the 4 years I played 2007 because of a clock glitch. In a 3 minute game they just fast forwarded the clock from 20:00 to 0:00, and somehow the decisions were based on the game clock and not the real time clock. So the game saw you get the ball and get tackled .5 seconds later, but because the game thought 3 seconds had passed it paid holding the ball every time.

 

[SugarShane]

AFL LIVE PREMIERSHIP EDITION (aka 2004 part 2) was great!

Yeah I had PE on PC. Those minigames were absolutely elite. Been wishing something like that would come back for years. Every now and then I still fire it up on PC for a round of Around the World.

 

[SugarShane]

Haters going to hate but I probably had the most fun with Live 2004. Even had a historical mode to recreate or reverse a notable footy match across the decades.

Yessssssss. Scenario Mode, or something like that. Blows my mind how much cool extra stuff these games used to have compared to now.

In round whatever of 20whatever, this team powered home to steal a win against an injury riddled side. Your job, with no interchange and low stamina, is to reverse that and hang on for the win.

Such a great mode.

 

[GoldbergsGold]

Probably not given they put out AFL Live 2.

I think if anything it's just that the BA team were making a labour of love with AFLL1 and DBC. Now they're just pumping out titles to deadlines and shoehorning in changes for the sake of changes. Kind of like how bands have their whole life to make a first album and then 2 years to make a follow up.

We probably tend to forget too that the team now would be massively different to the team that developed AFLL1 anyway given development started on that like 18 (!) years ago now. Maybe their personnel was just better back then.

I'd also argue the downfall started even earlier with DBC 17. It was a huge step back from 14, and from memory had issues on release. They supported it for about 6 months then kicked it to the curb with many issues remaining unfixed because they jagged the Ashes license.

I mean 2018 is when their "disaster" releases started with AO Tennis being completely broken at release, then AFL 23 and then Rugby League 26. The general decline in their sport titles maybe even traced earlier to League Live 3 or 4, since League Live 2 is generally considered to be the peak for their League games.

 

[SugarShane]

I mean 2018 is when their "disaster" releases started with AO Tennis being completely broken at release, then AFL 23 and then Rugby League 26. The general decline in their sport titles maybe even traced earlier to League Live 3 or 4, since League Live 2 is generally considered to be the peak for their League games.

Yeah fair. Long way back now but most of the DBC17 issues I think were QOL issues and not game breakers. Though that might have been the one where the Academy was unusable for like 2 weeks after release? Which meant there was no point starting a career or anything since Academy updates didn't flow into careers and the game was completely unlicensed.

The one that stuck in my mind was colouring things like glasses, gloves etc. The colours were way off, I tried to give my guy black glasses and they came out bright grey. Made them aware of it on release day (first thing I always do is create myself), and it never got fixed. Reckon the game got 2 or 3 patches then it was "**** DBC we got Ashes now, the fix is to buy the new game." That put me off their games for years until I picked up Cricket 19 dirt cheap a few years after release.

 

[GoldbergsGold]

Yeah fair. Long way back now but most of the DBC17 issues I think were QOL issues and not game breakers. Though that might have been the one where the Academy was unusable for like 2 weeks after release? Which meant there was no point starting a career or anything since Academy updates didn't flow into careers and the game was completely unlicensed.

The one that stuck in my mind was colouring things like glasses, gloves etc. The colours were way off, I tried to give my guy black glasses and they came out bright grey. Made them aware of it on release day (first thing I always do is create myself), and it never got fixed. Reckon the game got 2 or 3 patches then it was "**** DBC we got Ashes now, the fix is to buy the new game." That put me off their games for years until I picked up Cricket 19 dirt cheap a few years after release.

The Glassdoor reviews reveal a lot of what's happening. I'm kicking myself I didn't listen to them and bought 23.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Yessssssss. Scenario Mode, or something like that. Blows my mind how much cool extra stuff these games used to have compared to now.

In round whatever of 20whatever, this team powered home to steal a win against an injury riddled side. Your job, with no interchange and low stamina, is to reverse that and hang on for the win.

Such a great mode.

Evo's 2 mode that had all the scores from that season was cool, you could jump in at the start of any quarter to try and change history.

 

[GoldbergsGold]

Evo's 2 mode that had all the scores from that season was cool, you could jump in at the start of any quarter to try and change history.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Evo 2 had a mode where you could choose whatever scoreline and time you had left in a game, similar to that one historical mode in the IR Gurus footy games.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Bizarre custom formations were never implemented in any future games.

Yeah 100% would ad a lot of variety to gameplay if they made a comeback.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Evo 2 had a mode where you could choose whatever scoreline and time you had left in a game, similar to that one historical mode in the IR Gurus footy games.

I thought it was only at the quarter breaks, but I could be wrong. Just upset for WW that their shiny new mode was wrecked by the covid-****ed season

It wasn't perfect, like if you started at three-quarter time the scorelines would be true to life but none of the stats were, like even though you had say 10 goals on the board, all of your players would have 0 goals recorded next to their names, but it was fun. I remember changing history with that ****ing 1 point home loss to Collingwood in the 2020 Elimination Final

 

[GoldbergsGold]

I wonder how long they can keep this up.

 

[Xtreme]

I was one of the "5" people who played AFL 23* on Steam in the last 30 days (a few mini sessions on Friday/Saturday lol).

 

[SugarShane]

Most people put footy games on ice over summer don't they? From July to September it was pretty steady once the new release wore off. I'd imagine it'll pick up again when the 26 update rolls out (assuming they're doing one, considering the game is called AFL 26).

 

[The Lobbster]

Most people put footy games on ice over summer don't they? From July to September it was pretty steady once the new release wore off. I'd imagine it'll pick up again when the 26 update rolls out (assuming they're doing one, considering the game is called AFL 26).

Also I can’t imagine Steam is the main platform where people play footy games. Sports games in general are mostly console based I believe

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

They also probably don't care so long as those 5 are whales gambling

 

[PerfectFooty]

They also probably don't care so long as those 5 are whales gambling

I'm probably one of the five. I haven't left management mode, EVER lol

 

[Xtreme]

They also probably don't care so long as those 5 are whales gambling

loved FUT, but i haven't touched modes like that in years. An AFL game doesn't change my outlook.

I physically play EVO 2 more
AFL 23 is more my AI v AI match sim (funny thing is EVO 2s ai v ai games produce a lot more exciting results. Big Ants AI is heavily slanted toward one team. I know slider tinkering can manipulate things but still)

 

[GoldbergsGold]

Most people put footy games on ice over summer don't they? From July to September it was pretty steady once the new release wore off. I'd imagine it'll pick up again when the 26 update rolls out (assuming they're doing one, considering the game is called AFL 26).

Went from average 21 in finals to 5 in Summer. Was really bad in the footy season, too.