Interviews

Producer Tristan Jackson talks about EA Sports Rugby 06
By Michael Lafferty

“Getting the AI of the players correct is what the true rugby fans watch for.”

To some, the game of rugby seems unrefined, a curious mix of American and European football with players who totally disregard their bodies and fly about the pitch with reckless abandon. It is a game of field position, of figuring out angles of attack.

But the game is huge throughout the world and it has a fan base of video gamers that grows with each successive release.

Rugby 06 sports a variety of terrific features, including:

  • All-New Impact Players: Whether you're playing on a dominant team or a squad of underdogs, the world's finest rugby stars can take over a match and lead teams to victory.

  • Increased Tactical Plays: Map tactical set plays that best suit your playing style directly to your controller, and then take over a match by selecting the most effective options on the fly.

  • Off-Load Passing: Pass out of a tackle and off-load the ball once the defender is drawn into the action. Exploit the gaps left open by the opposition to continue your attack.

  • Comprehensive Commentary: Legendary All Black star Grant Fox and Ian Robertson provide all-new authentic play-by-play and color commentary.

  • Enhanced Stadiums and Conditions: Improved stadium visuals include rolling banners and 3D grass accompanied by different pitch patterns and team-specific animated flags. New snow and fog weather conditions highlight visible player breath and steam rising off the packs in cold weather conditions.

  • More Teams and Tournaments: EA SPORTS Rugby 06 features more licensed teams and tournaments than ever with the inclusion of the Guinness Premiership.

  • World League Mode: Build a World League super team via a deeper transfer market. With all-new club objectives and performance-based offers from rival clubs, only the best managers survive.

  • Quick Penalties and Lineouts: Maintain a pace or flow of attack by executing quick penalties and lineouts immediately after they've been called.

To find out more about this title, GameZone chatted with Producer Tristan Jackson:

Question: The franchise has now seen several iterations, so obviously this is a title that has a pretty strong fan base. Do you see that base growing with each successive release and what do you think drives that?

Tristan: Our core audience definitely grows with each iteration. We saw a big influx of new users during the last Rugby World Cup, which introduced a lot of people to the sport and also our game. We are very pleased with the way our user base has grown. Rugby has made tremendous strides in the last few years and I think our fans appreciate the amount of time and budget that is being spent on our game. Sticking with one developer and gaining some great technology through FIFA has allowed us to create a distinct vision for our product that we can grow on year after year.

Q: Rugby is still a relatively minor sport in the United States and competes for video game time with other high-profile titles. What aspects of the game do you think make for a compelling video-game experience?

Tristan: Rugby is actually a great fit for the US market. It is a fast, free flowing game that features huge tackles. American Football is derived from rugby so it contains a lot of the same elements, but without the stoppages in play. The amount of freedom you have with the ball is a lot of fun, you can choose to pass, kick, or run and if you get tackled, you get the ball back to try it all over again. Defense is also a lot of fun, the hits are huge with no pads to soften the blow. While it takes a few moments to learn for those new to the sport, once you have a hang of the basics you’ll be hooked.  

Q: Tell us a little about the new moves that have been incorporated into the game. What lent itself to deepening the gameplay mechanics like this - as in, were these always on the burner but not available because the technology was not in place, or the international sport is evolving and your game is reflecting that?

Tristan: The game of rugby has definitely shifted toward a more open style of offense. This trend is a lot more fun to watch and to play. We decided early on that we wanted to emulate this style of play and bring free-flowing rugby to our consumer. What we had to figure out was how to balance the technology to allow us to implement features that would allow us to replicate this style of rugby. With a lot of hard work, we were able to include a host of features this year designed around keeping the ball moving and keeping the user out of menus and in the game. Off-loads in particular have really helped increase flow. These involve drawing your defender into the tackle and then passing off the ball at the last moment to an oncoming teammate. This avoids having to restart the play with a ruck or maul and can allow your team to continue pressuring the defense. Combined this with quick line-outs and penalties, and sending the fly-half on the run, and the pace becomes very fast paced. The result really paid off and Rugby 06 is a lot of fun to play. Of course, we didn’t ignore the defense; this year there are even more thrilling hits that you can use to punish the offense.

Q: How have you configured the control scheme to allow players to call set plays on the fly?

Tristan: Set plays on the fly were first employed in Rugby 2005, but were not really called out to consumers. We have really blown this feature out this year and included some great additions. Set plays are able to be triggered on the fly from the backs of scrums, rucks and mauls, by pressing the D-Pad in particular direction. Depending on which play is associated with the button press, your backs will run that particular pattern allowing you to choose from up to four different recipients for the ball. Included this year, is the ability to map one of eight set plays to each direction on the D-Pad before entering a match. These four different set-plays, combined with up two four different possible outcomes for each play, allow a huge number of running options for your backs. By mapping particular plays to the D-Pad before a match you can tailor the plays to your team’s strengths or your opponent’s weaknesses. This feature is a lot of fun, and a great tactical advantage.

Q: Will the game feature multiplayer online modes and if so, will there be a matching system in place, or ranking system?

Tristan: Unfortunately we do not have an online component to EA Sports Rugby 06. When we were looking at the feature set for this year, we decided to focus on features that would benefit the most number of users. With the uptake of online gameplay quite low for similar products in Europe (our primary market), we chose to postpone this feature. It is an element that we are definitely hoping to include in the future. We would love the opportunity to bring together fans of Rugby throughout the world on-line.

Q: Rugby is such a free-flowing, momentum-filled sport that it must have been a challenge to graphically capture the essence of the game. How many hours of motion capture went into the creation of the game? (and how many rugby players were injured in recreating those bone-jarring hits? :) )

Tristan: Motion capture is a huge part of our game, and it can very tricky. For this year’s game, we have over 20 hours of additional motion capture that we conducted featuring up to 10 simultaneous actors at once. We were once again able to get some very talented rugby players to conduct everything from line-outs and scrums to huge tackles. These guys are very professional and really put their bodies on the line; they definitely suffered their fair share of injuries to get us what we needed. The results speak for themselves – you can almost feel the intensity of the hits when playing.

Once we have found talent who are willing to give it their all, the next big challenge we face is capturing so many actors simultaneously. There can be up to 10 guys packed together in a scrum which proves very difficult for the animators to get quality readings. It is only thanks to the excellent technology and hard working staff at the EA motion capture studio that we were able to get such good results.

One great new feature we were able to include this year, thanks to great mo-cap, is all new player specific animations for the world’s best kickers. These subtleties really help add some excellent polish to the title, and it is something dedicated Rugby fans will really appreciate.

Q: Getting the audio to reflect the nuances of the game was likely, also, a monumental task. Considering how quickly the game can change, how were you able to provide commentary that kept pace with the action?

Tristan: Commentary can be a big challenge. We start off by assembling excellent talent. We are very pleased to welcome back BBC commentator Ian Robertson for another season. This year we complemented Ian’s play-by-play by adding one of the All-Blacks leading scorers, and Rugby legend, Grant Fox in the color commentary role. We work with both these gentlemen to get the huge number of sound clips we required. We then edit these sessions into short clips. These clips are then linked to events within the game so that in any given situation, the appropriate clip is played. This is a very challenging procedure as the game is very fast paced and there are a great deal of different events going on at any given time. We spend a lot of time working with our quality assurance team tweaking this feature so that it sounds a realistic and natural as possible. We are very happy with the way it turned out this year.

Q: What are the biggest challenges to overcome when creating a title like this? And what do you have to ensure is part of the package, that perhaps only true rugby fans would notice, when the game releases?

Tristan: Rugby faces a great deal of technological restrictions due to many factors, from the number of players on the field (and their varied roles) to the sheer number of gameplay options in any given situation. Balancing these restrictions proves to be a greater challenge every year as we add more and more new features. While the visual upgrades are important to us, we don’t want to sacrifice the gameplay and AI as a result. Getting the AI of the players correct is what the true rugby fans watch for. We spend a great deal of time trying to get the running patterns, field position and behavior of the AI just right so that it represents what happens on the field in real life. The true rugby fans also appreciate the depth that our World League (career mode) provides. We spent a great deal of time this year enhancing this feature so that the fans of our game can spend a great deal of time with our game in a fun and challenging mode.

Q: What are your favorite elements of the game?

Tristan: There are many areas that I appreciate about this year’s game. One area that turned out very well, and is an incredibly important addition, is the off-load passes. Getting around the technical restrictions we faced and getting these working in game has done wonders for the pace of the game. The game flows beautifully this year and really has the feel of fast, free flowing rugby.

The other area that came together very well this year is the rugby authenticity and feel of the game. The menus in the game feel much more like rugby to me - they really represent the gritty, hard nature of the sport. There are also a lot of great atmospheric additions, from visible breath of the players to supporter flags in the crowd to new crowd audio, it really has the feeling of a rugby match. There are a great deal of subtle effects that we have included that really help the fans get immersed in the sport they love.

We are very happy with this year’s product. All our hard work had paid off and in the end it’s a lot of fun to play. I think our fans will love it.