NHL 2K11 - Road to the Cup By: 2K Admin Ron | Wednesday August 18 2010 Hi everyone, My name is Ben Bishop, producer for NHL 2K11, and I’m here to talk to you a little bit about our new Road to the Cup mode, as well as offer up a few extra tidbits on other new things that have been added to the game this year.
In NHL 2K10, we had the Mii Superskills mode, which allowed you to compete with your Mii characters in events themed after the Superskills Challenge at the NHL All-Star Game. It’s a lot of fun to actually see your Mii out there pulling off hockey moves like an NHL player would, so it seemed natural to try to expand that for NHL 2K11.
Road to the Cup is our biggest new game mode addition that once again pits Mii characters against one another in an attempt to earn as many fans as possible on the way to a final competition for the Stanley Cup. Players take turns by spinning a wheel that dictates what type of mini-game or event will take place, with the winner of each one earning a set number of fans. When one player gets to 1000 fans, the final event is played to determine who gets to claim the Cup. The more fans you have going into the final event, the better chance you have of winning.
Road to the Cup offers a fun alternative to the simulation hockey that you’re going to get throughout the rest of the game. It’s best played with 4 human players, but it still works well even if you’ve got only 1 or 2 other players there to join you. And if you’re on your own, don’t worry. Single players get to face-off against a Mii-styled Ryan Kesler. There are even special Mii-style appearances by Team 2K members Joe Thornton, Rick Nash, and Marty Turco too, so keep your eye out for them.
To break down the mode a little further and give you an idea of what the experience is like, here are the possible spaces you can land on when spinning the wheel during your turn:
Multiplayer – All 4 players compete at once in a fast-paced mini-game. Single Player – One player plays an All-Star Challenge mini-game based on the Skills Competition events at the NHL All-Star Game (similar to what you might remember from our Mii Superskills mode in NHL 2K10). Mini-Rink – The 4 players are randomly placed on teams and play a 2-on-2 game to 2 goals in our mini-rink environment. Trivia – Answer NHL trivia questions to earn fans, some text based, others using player headshots to identify the correct answer. +100 Fans – Get a free 100 fans. -100 Fans – Lose 100 fans.
The events take place in the various NHL arenas, with a map of North America acting as the backdrop. When you spin the wheel and land on Multiplayer, an NHL division is chosen at random, and you get to pick from one of the teams in that division, each having a different mini-game assigned to it. Single Player events take place in Carolina’s arena, where the All-Star Game will be held this year.
Here is a list of the Multiplayer events you can choose from:
Hot Streak – Skate around the ice with a colored tail trailing behind you, which is used to try and trip up opponents. Each player starts the round with 3 lives, and the last one standing wins. Barrels of Fun – Avoid barrels moving at different rates of speed all over the ice surface. Each player has 5 lives, and again, the last one standing wins. Capture Points – Hold the puck in various locations on the ice to try to “capture” that section while the other players attempt to get it away. Most points captured when time runs out wins. Graffiti Circles – Skate over colored icons scattered all over the ice that are worth up to 4 points each to turn them into your player’s color. Most points when time runs out wins. King of the Hill – Hold the puck in the circle at center ice for as long as possible while the other players try to get it away. Whoever has held the puck in the circle for the longest when time runs out wins.
And here is a list of the Single Player events:
Fastest Skater – Skate laps around the rink as quickly as possible. The better your time, the more fans you’ll earn. Be careful on the turns. Hardest Shot – Take a slap shot on an open net. The harder your shot, the more fans you’ll earn. Accuracy Shooting – Try to hit targets placed around the perimeter of an open net. The more targets hit, the more fans you’ll earn. Breakaway Challenge – You have 6 chances to go 1-on-1 against the goalie and try to score. The more goals you get, the more fans you’ll earn.
The final event is a ton of fun, and one of the best parts is that even if you didn’t do so well leading up to it, you’ll still have a chance to make a comeback and wind up winning the Cup. Overall, we’re really excited that we were able to find a more fun and in-depth way to integrate Mii characters into the game while still keeping that tie to the sport of hockey and the NHL. Whether you’re on your own or you’ve invited a few friends over, give it a shot when you feel like taking a little break from your regular action on the ice.
And finally, before wrapping this insight up, I also wanted to mention a couple other additions to the game that you might find interesting:
Winter Classic Mode We’ve continued our tradition of including the Winter Classic in our games this year, but now it’s significantly easier to get to, as now it’s a separate mode. Right off the main menu you’ll be able to select Winter Classic, and immediately be set up in Fenway Park with both Boston and Philadelphia wearing their Winter Classic uniforms. Fenway Park is also still an option during Quick Game if you’d like to play with two other teams there. And Wrigley Field is even available too if you want to go back one more year.
New Equipment We’ve done some updates to the equipment, with a specific focus on getting the goalies as accurate as possible. So you will be seeing new goalie pads from Reebok, Bauer, and Sherwood (Martin Brodeur model) in the game. We’ve also added Bauer’s popular new 9900 helmet worn by many of top NHL players, including Ryan Kesler.
In closing, we’re really looking forward to everyone getting a chance to play NHL 2K11. Even though we’re only on Wii this year, we really feel like we’ve delivered an authentic hockey experience, and with additional features like Road to the Cup, hopefully there’s a little something for everyone. Get your copy on Tuesday, August 24th!
My Career By: 2K Admin Ron | Thursday September 02 2010 Hey everyone, This is Erick Boenisch again, Producer for NBA 2K11 although many of you may know me by my forum name, SimBaller. I spoke a few weeks back about MJ: Creating a Legend. I’m here today to talk to you about the My Player mode and some of the exciting changes we have made to it this year. NBA 2K10 saw the birth of My Player, the first true career mode experience ever for the NBA 2K series. With one year of this mode under our belts, we’ve learned quite a bit; things like what works, what doesn’t work, and what you all want to see in the mode this year. Enough chatter, let’s dive into what NBA 2K11’s My Player is all about…
Career Path The first thing you’ll notice upon starting the mode is that My Player no longer begins in the Summer Circuit. This year, you will be taking your created player to the NBA Draft Combine at Attack Athletics in Chicago, Illinois. This fully licensed and rendered gym will be your player’s home for the first three games of his career. Your goal at the Draft Combine is to impress the scouts and coaches in attendance at the event. If you perform well enough, you’ll find yourself attending the NBA Draft at Madison Square Garden in our authentically rendered draft environment. If you are lucky enough to get drafted, your My Player will walk up the steps and be greeted by David Stern at the podium. Enjoy the photo op while you can, the going gets rough from here on out.
My big day has arrived, at last. What will the future hold?
Once the draft is over, you will be invited to participate in the Summer Circuit. You will play four games to prove to your team that you belong on an NBA roster. If at any point you slip during the Summer Circuit, your team will either cut you outright, or ask you to join their NBA D-League affiliated team. Your road to the NBA won’t be over, but it will certainly be a lot more difficult if the latter happens. If you do manage to last the 4 games of the Summer Circuit as well as impress your team’s management, then you’ll be invited to the 12-man roster for the upcoming NBA season. This is just the beginning of your story...
My Career I call it a story, because this year, your career will be defined by whatever persona you want to take on in the all-new My Career feature. My Career is the new hub where you can go to find all things central to your career as an NBA player. You’ll find a detailed breakdown of your minutes and where they are coming from/going, a Timeline detailing important career milestones, a place to view all of the Endorsements you have received, and of course, a place where you can go talk to management and tell them that you’ve had enough and that you want a trade (the choice is ultimately theirs though, unless you force their hand…).
The high level concept with My Career is that every action you take in your career has a reaction. The reaction may be positive or negative. This leads to the most innovative component of My Player and easily my favorite feature in the game this year. Following games, you will participate in Press Conferences where members of the media will grill you on pressing events happening around you and the team. Did the game come down to a last second shot, but you didn’t take the shot? The media are going to want to know how you feel about not taking that last shot. The team’s on a 5 game losing streak? They’ll be asking you what you think about your teammates. Have you recently requested a trade? They’ll ask you why. How you answer these questions shapes how people around the league perceive you. Check out this video...
My rookie season isn’t going so well. We’re two weeks away from the trading deadline and my name is being thrown about in the rumor mill. How I answer this could have a big impact on if I stay or go…
**NOTE: Individuals are not blurred as shown in video during gameplay. Other members of your organization will be at the podium with you during NBA 2K11 game action**
You have three character traits that define you and change based on your actions:
- Teammate Chemistry: If you have your teammates’ back, they will have yours. If you start throwing them under the bus, you’ll quickly find them starting to freeze you out on the court. Get open all you want, they’ll just look the other way for their next pass. On the other hand, if you can prove to management that you are a great teammate, they will come to you looking for suggestions on who they should trade during the season and who they should try and sign during the offseason.
- League-wide Popularity: Being a dominant player isn’t the only way to make a name for yourself. You can also do this in the Press Conference room. Showing endless confidence, and even a little arrogance, is definitely one way to catch the attention of fans around the league. The tricky part is trying to build this while keeping your teammates and the local fans on your side. The prize? As you guys have seen from the Ronnie2K teases on the NBA 2K FB page, Endorsements aplenty if you can raise your popularity high enough. If you manage to reach the pinnacle of popularity, you’ll find yourself designing and naming your very own signature Jordan Brand shoe that other players around the league will be seen wearing as your star rises.
- Local Fan Support: The key to building your League-Wide Popularity starts with the grassroots support of the local fans for your team. Earn the adoration of the local fans and they’ll reward you with undying support, thundering applause, and MVP chants. If you are disrespectful of them in the Press Conferences, you’ll find they will be the first people to let you know you aren’t wanted anymore. If things go bad enough, you’ll find the crowd chanting ‘Trade Him’ whenever you touch the ball. No one wants to be THAT guy, right?
Teammate Grade 2.0 Another big focus for us with My Player this year was increasing the quality of the existing features in the mode. So many games make the mistake of adding bigger and better things, all the while forgetting about the foundation. It was important for us to stabilize and build upon the foundation that defines the My Player experience. The single biggest piece of A.I. in the mode is the Teammate Grade logic, and I’m pleased to say that it has received an extensive overhaul in its logic.
We were very ambitious in our design for Teammate Grade in 2K10’s My Player. While I think we achieved great success with it, basketball is a game filled with nuances, and there were plenty of situations where I’m sure you didn’t agree with the outcome. A common one that we received feedback on was the ‘Allow man to score’ following a defensive switch. Your teammate would be guarding ‘your man’ and when he scored, you took the hit for it. These are the types of issues that we spent months isolating and eliminating. The under-the-hood work we did here isn’t flashy; it isn’t going to make you jump out of your seat with excitement, but it will absolutely make your time spent playing My Player a much more satisfying and enjoyable experience. Here are a few examples of some of the new additions:
- Pass Leading to Assist/Foul: Commonly known as the ‘hockey assist’, this is often the instrumental pass that sets up a basket. We want to make sure you get your credit this year for being the playmaker.
- Bad Pass Out of Shot: For those guys whose reaction is to shoot first and then decide mid-animationthey want to pass out, and you pass to a player who is already fully covered, you’re going to take a negative hit to your Teammate Grade. Smart passing is not recommended, it’s required in 2K11.
- Allowed Inside Pass: If you allow your man to establish a favorable position in the interior through a lapse in defense, you’re going to get dinged for it.
The Little Things The ‘Little Things’ is my favorite section of any Developer Insight that I write. This is the area where we talk about some of the lower profile additions to the mode. On their own, they don’t necessarily carry a lot of weight, but together, they define the attention to detail that we strived so hard to achieve. I’ve compiled a quick list of just some of the changes you’ll find in My Player this year:
Key Games: The NBA season is often described as a long 82-game grind. Not every game has the significance of a playoff game or a matchup against a rival. New to NBA 2K11, Key Games are games played during the season that are of more significance than other games. This may be because you are matched up against a star player at your position, or it may be because the game is against a hated rival. Due to the significance of these matchups, users will earn a 2x multiplier to their Skill Points during these games. Key Games don’t come easy, but if you can perform in the clutch, you will be rewarded handsomely with an abundance of Skill Points.
Attribute Caps: In an effort to make each Playstyle mean more, we are enforcing attribute caps on players this year. An example of what this means is a Defensive PG might have a max stealing attribute of 99 while a Shoot First PG might have a max stealing attribute of 80. This is going to pay off when you you’re playing My Player Pick-Up games. In 2K10, without attribute caps, this would mean that you might be playing against a 7’2 center that had a ballhandling rating of 99. That’s not realistic and not an experience we want you to encounter.
Adjustable Qtr Length and Sim Qtr Length: The ability to change in-game quarter lengths is something that was not supported in My Player until the release of the patches last year. This year, I’m proud to reveal that not only are adjustable quarter lengths supported, but simulated quarter lengths as well. This means you can adjust the length and pace of simulated games to ensure that the pace you play at results in scores that are similar to the other teams around the league.
Sim To End of games: Another nice little feature is the ability to simulate to the end of the game s(available once you reach the NBA). If your team is getting blown out, or you are blowing out your opponent, you will now have the option to simulate the remainder of the game. Our simulation engine will ‘play’ your character for you as you continue to rack up stats for your player.
Skill Point buyback: This one is quite simple. In 2K11, you are now allowed to buy back Skill Points should you later change your mind on an attribute you had previously upgraded. The catch? You only get 75% of the original purchase price back. This means that if you spent 100 Skill Points upgrading your Offensive Awareness, you will only receive 75 Skill Points in return should you choose to sell it back at a later date. This affords you greater flexibility in developing your My Player without being able to do so in a fashion that negatively impacts My Player Pick-Up games.
Scaled in-game goals: With the addition of the ability for users to customize the quarter length of their My Player games, it only seemed to make sense that we make the game objectives commiserate to the length of the quarter. If you choose to play 5 minute quarters, you may get an objective to record 5 assists in a game. This same objective in a 10 minute quarter might require that you record 8 assists. The idea here is to provide a realistic challenge regardless of the quarter length you choose to play.
NBA 2K11’s My Player is a mode built entirely on the feedback from you, our fans. Looking at the items above, I’m sure that comes across quite clear. Honestly, I feel like there is so much more I could talk about here, but I’ve gone on long enough as it is. To find out what else is in store for you and your career, stay tuned to the NBA FB page (Ronnie2K wanted me to tell you guys that there is at least one more My Player surprises this week that I didn't mention so make sure you stay tuned to FB... that guy is such a marketing shill...) and make sure to pick up NBA 2K11 in stores on October 5th. Also, keep an eye out for Michael Jordan; he’s watching your every move in My Player mode this year. If you perform well enough, he’ll be in touch…
Franchise Mode By: 2K Admin Ron | Wednesday January 27 2010 Hey everybody, My name is Mike Del Santo, and I am one of the producers for Major League Baseball® 2K10. I’ll be giving you a little bit of a sneak peek into what’s new in our Franchise mode this year. While we spent a lot of our development time implementing our new “My Player” career mode feature, which we’ll talk about in further detail in future Developer Insights, we still managed to add quite a few new features to our Franchise mode that we’re really excited about. We are lucky to have some smart Franchise programmers who also happen to be extremely knowledgeable baseball fans which made setting up our new features and implementing them effectively go very smoothly.
So let’s get into it! This year we added 40 Man Rosters/September Call-Ups, Compensation Picks, Spring Training, Trade Finder, Player Finder, Super Sim, Franchise Blogs, Variable Contracts and MLB Today presentation (we’ll also have a lot more about this in an upcoming Insight). I’ll go into a few of these new features in more depth later on in this write-up.
I want to get a quick concern I know many of you had last year out of the way immediately: we have brought back full ability to edit players and their stances/windups, including the ability to give any player any signature stance/windup that we have (this will be available both in Franchise mode and in the front end). This year we also added the ability to play Double-A and Triple-A games in both Franchise and regular exhibition mode. We have nine great looking new stadiums for Minor League teams, including some very cool Double-A and Triple-A Minor League stadiums, and a couple of Spring Training stadiums.
Making a return from last year are the improved Fantasy Draft and Amateur Draft (which now takes place during season in June), full 30 team control ability, full CPU roster editing options, the MLB.com front end integration, the MLB Futures Game, Home Run Derby and Sabermetric Stats. As with last year our Franchise mode allows for full automation of both the Major Leagues and the Minor Leagues. If you are the type of player that wants to keep your Franchise completely accurate and up to date with real life rosters and trades, you will be able to do that. If you just want to play games and have fun being the GM of your favorite team but don’t want to worry about any of the day to day roster, injury or lineup management tasks, you can turn on the automation options and you will never have to deal with them. If you want to manage tasks for just your Major League team but don’t want to worry about the day to day tasks for your Minor League teams you will also be able to customize your Franchise that way.
New Features
40 Man Rosters/September Call-Ups For the first time ever, we now have 40 Man Rosters and September Call-Ups. This was a feature we wanted to add for a long time and we are pretty excited that we were able to make it happen this year. You will be able to use your 40 Man Rosters in Spring Training and in the regular season from September 1st to the start of the postseason. Calling up your top prospects at the end of the season and being able to bring them into meaningful games is pretty cool.
Compensation Picks While we expect people will be pretty excited about 40 Man Rosters and September Call-ups, we think the new feature that will have the most impact on how users play through Franchise will be compensation picks. In a lot of Franchise modes (especially in baseball games with the wide payroll ranges between the big market and small market teams) it is very difficult to ever take a team like the Royals, Pirates, or any other low payroll team and turn them into a legitimate contender. Compensation picks can be thought of as something that can help these lower payroll teams to level the playing field against the big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox.
Compensation picks essentially work like this: if you are unable to re-sign a top player on your team and you lose him to free agency (as is frequently the case with many low payroll teams), you will get compensation in the form of draft picks for losing that player. Depending on how good the player is, you will get either the first round draft pick from the team that signs him and a compensation pick (which occurs in the Supplemental Round of the Amateur Draft) if the player was considered a Type A player or just a compensation pick if the player was considered a Type B player.
In the past if you had a good player on your team who was becoming a free agent and you thought you would have a difficult time re-signing him, you would have either had to try and trade the player before the end of your season, or play out the season with him and let him become a free agent in which case you wouldn’t end up getting anything in return for him. Now if you lose a top player to Free Agency, you will get compensation picks, so you will always get some kind of value back. But this works both ways; if you are a high payroll team and you sign a top free agent, you will give up your top draft picks as compensation picks. This adds quite a bit of risk/reward to the mode and forces players to make the tough decisions that real GMs face of trying to sign top free agents and win now or keeping their teams’ draft picks and building their organization from the ground up.
Super Sim I like to think I love baseball more than anyone I know, but even I will admit that the baseball season is long. Playing through a full 162-game season in a video game takes a lot of time and is a lot to ask. Like most people I hate simming through games and feeling like I have no control over my team’s performance. Super Sim is a great way to get through games during your season that you don’t particularly want nor have time to play, but still want to have some control over.
With Super Sim, you have three simming options: you can simulate one play at a time, one half inning, or one full inning. You will be able to follow along with the game play by play as you sim through it and will be able to jump into the game and play whenever you want (you can also jump back to the Super Sim screen whenever you want after you are in-game). So if you are simming a game using Super Sim and see that the game is getting heated in the late innings, you can easily jump in and finish the game, or just jump in for an at-bat or two, then go back to the Super Sim screen. On the flip side if you are playing a game and have built a big lead and don’t want to finish playing it all the way through, you can go to the Super Sim screen and quickly sim through to the end of the game and follow it that way.
Trade Finder Trade Finder is a cool feature that lets you quickly find trades that CPU teams would make with your team. It has two main functions: you can select players from your team that you want to trade and see what offers you will get for them from interested CPU teams, or you can also select players on CPU teams that you are interested in and see which players it would take from your team for the CPU team to trade them. Teams will be very unlikely to offer you trades for certain players, so good luck getting the Mariners to part with a young superstar like Felix Hernandez.
Player Finder Player Finder is a handy feature that lets you sort and filter players based on things like position type, age, salary and all the key attributes/ratings. You can also filter through different types of players, like power hitters, defensive specialists, complete players, and speed demons as well as a few others. If your team is in the pennant race and you want to quickly find a speedy Jose Reyes-type of player to have on your bench as a pinch runner in the Postseason, this feature will be a helpful way for you to find him.
Conclusion For the most part we were pretty happy with our sim stats last year, but we spent a good amount of time working on improving them, as well as making our sim logic smarter. We also spent quite a bit of time improving our progression system and our trade logic. Everyone on the franchise team is excited about our game this year and we think all the Franchise players out there will really have a lot of fun with it. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback so feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts!
- Mike Del Santo Assistant Producer
NEXT MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL 2K10 DEVELOPER INSIGHT: “MLB Today,” by Asif Chaudhri– Friday, January 29th, 2010
