Community Wrap-Up By: 2K Admin Ron | Thursday September 17 2009 Hey all,
This Insight officially wraps up a great past several weeks that featured a wide variety of Insights on NHL 2K10, written by a lot of excited and willing developers. I want to take this time to thank all the developers for coming through and writing an Insight during their extremely busy wrap-up time and in the early stages of recovering from those 18 hour days. Many of the Insights were extremely deep and allowed us to explain game features better than ever before. It’s easy to get behind a product that you are so proud of, and it’s exciting how NHL 2K10 has come through.
Because of the ability to provide more layers of depth and conversation, this is something I would like to do again in the future. Please take the time, if you read a few of our NHL 2K10 Developer Insights, to give feedback to whether you liked the program and what you’d like to see done better next year. This isn’t so much a conversation on overall marketing or timing of things, but rather what I can provide with you community wise, especially in terms of Developer Insights. Any discussion on how we can make this better would be great. I am looking forward to pushing the envelope even more next year!
With that being said, I am working on several new programs that I am sure will take your interest post-NHL Launch. More to come on that soon, including an opportunity to play many of the developers online who wrote these Insights. Until then, go get your copy in stores if you haven’t already, and put in the work. See you on the forums!
Problem lies in the game programming of how the players react. They should do what ever you want them to like in 2K5 and 2K8, but they have a one way direction on how they play, and how they will react. There is time delays that causes other players to get the advantage.
The game play should be open more to the gamer and if you are more talented on the joystick and creative in your mind, with all the great features you give the gamer, then the game will be the way it was ment to be. The best game on ice!
Please try to stay away from controlling the game play, and let the game play be free, like it should.
Hope this helps understand the game and the gamers perspective. Thanks.
You promised more frequent and timely roster updates for NHL2k10 ... you gave us one (Oct. 14) ... you had to "fix" it twice because of careless errors (racial issues and low potential ratings for young players, Nov. 5). then you missed November, you missed December, we're now in Jan. (10th today) and there are 63 players who have played their first NHL game or have been involved in transactions since your last update and you've done nothing ... why should we believe anything we read in these "insight" features???
My Player By: SimBaller | Tuesday August 25 2009 Hey NBA 2K fans, this is Erick Boenisch, and I’m back for another exclusive developer Insight. Today I’m going to talk about our all-new My Player career mode. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the mode, let me take a few sentences to show you the design process we went through as a development team in creating this new mode.
Early in the production cycle, we identified three key concepts that we wanted to mold My Player around:
1) Authenticity. We don’t believe that starting you off at the end of the bench on an NBA team is a realistic, fun, OR rewarding experience. Where is the sense of progression if your career starts off in the NBA? You deserve more than that.
2) NBA is a Team Sport. Piggybacking off of the Authenticity point, we felt that emphasizing team play over ‘me first’ play was very important in our design. Players who try to overly-dominate the ball and/or otherwise play in a fashion that is detrimental to the overall success of their team will not reap the rewards this mode has to offer. On the other hand, those who respect their teammates, set picks on offense, box out for rebounds, double team when called for, will earn a much larger amount of Skill Points in addition to better grabbing the attention of the NBA scouts who are looking to fill their teams.
3) Pace/Dynamism. With all of the depth that we have added to this mode, we didn’t want you languishing in any one aspect of it for an unnecessarily long period of time. A key element to this is targeting what you want to do when you play the mode, and making sure that’s what you’re doing. From the time you create your player, every single game you play means something; every game can make or break where your career takes you next. When you talk to your friends about their career, it likely will have taken a completely different path from yours. We love that!
Starting My Player
Many of you who plan on purchasing NBA 2K10: Draft Combine have been asking what happens when you have created your character and finished running him through the Combine. Well, when you boot up NBA 2K10, the very first thing you’re going to notice is your created player bumping Kobe Bryant off the screen as the Cover Athlete for NBA 2K10. Sorry Kobe. It’s a small thing, but there is something pretty satisfying about seeing yourself on the title page for NBA 2K10!
When you select ‘My Player’ from the menu, you will instantly notice that your created player is already there waiting for you. Selecting to ‘Continue’ your career will instantly jump you to Madison Square Garden for the 2009 NBA Draft. David Stern is on hand to welcome you to the NBA -- if you get drafted that is. It’s here where we find out if you have what it takes to slip into the first round. Let’s be honest, you’re no Blake Griffin (yet), so going #1 overall might be a bit of a stretch.
Once the draft concludes, it’s time to head out to the Summer Circuit…every rookie's first stop on their journey towards becoming an NBA player. If you didn’t purchase NBA 2K10: Draft Combine, this is where your experience begins. As you didn’t participate in the NBA Draft Combine, you aren’t even on the radar of the NBA teams. Fortunately for you, the NBA 2K Insider has connections, and he’s gotten you an invite to play on an NBA team’s Summer Circuit squad as an undrafted free agent. Your road is going to be much tougher, and will almost certainly result in a stint in the NBA D-League (yes, of course we have it!)
Summer Circuit
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here; first you’re going to have to face the challenges of the Summer Circuit. During the Summer Circuit, your teammates are going to consist of young players from the NBA team, other drafted players, and a number of other players who are trying to make the team. The Summer Circuit consists of a 6-game schedule. Unlike the Draft Combine, you’re going to have to share the court with your teammates here. This means you’ll find yourself riding the pine a fair amount of the time.
What is life like on the pine? Well, when your player is on the bench, you’ll be able to watch the game play out in real-time with our new ‘bench-cam’. This is a great way to keep up with the flow of the game and strategize on what you are going to do when you get back on the court. If sitting around watching your teammates play isn’t your cup of tea, no problem. With a single press of the button, you can jump right into our ‘Courtside Sim’, which will show you the action from a ‘Gamecast’ point of view. Possessions happen quickly in the ‘Courtside Sim’, which makes this the ideal way to quickly simulate to the next time you are substituted into the game.
Your coaches aren’t interested in you wasting their time. If you stumble out of the gate and never recover, you have to expect that they are going to cut you before the Summer Circuit is even over. In the event that this happens, the NBA 2K Insider will be working the phones trying to get you a spot with an NBA D-League team. Nothing is for certain in this business. Hopefully you played well enough for one of those teams to give you a chance. On the other hand, if you did perform well enough in the Summer Circuit, your team (or other teams in the league) will be interested in extending you an invite to their Training Camp.
Training Camp
This is where things start to get, well, a little rough! You are no longer playing against the likes of Adam Morrison, you’re now playing against guys like Kobe, Pau, and Ron-Ron. Training Camp is no joke.
Every team invites 20 players to their custom Training Camp facility with the intention of taking a 15-man roster into the NBA season. Training Camp consists of 5 games, with a player getting cut at the end of every single game. By the end of the 5th game, the team will be down to 15 players, and those are the players the team is going to move forward with. Obviously, this doesn’t leave you a lot of room for error. It’s not easy for a young, struggling 48-rated rookie to hold his own against a superstar like Kobe Bryant, but, welcome to the league. Nothing comes for free in the NBA.
There are three possible career outcomes for you in the Training Camp chapter of your career. 1) You can get cut at any point during the team’s Training Camp. 2) You can survive the final day of Training Camp, but immediately be sent down to the team’s NBA D-League affiliate. 3) You can survive the final day of Training Camp and make the NBA squad. We’ve made sure that the coaches are very picky about who they choose for their teams; don’t expect this to be a walk in the park.
NBA D-League
As you can see by now, a lot of roads lead to a good amount of your early career being spent in the NBA D-League. When you first arrive with your NBA D-League team (unless of course you were lucky enough to bypass the NBA D-League entirely), you’re going to be receiving minimal time off the bench. Your goal at this point in your career is to play to the best of your ability, get good teammate grades, accomplish your objectives (which are scaled for your reduced minute allocation), and ultimately, impress your coaches. If you can do these things, the coaching staff will start to give you more minutes and a bigger role on the team.
Once you arrive at the NBA D-League, you will have 10 drills available at your disposal. Every 10 or so days during the season, a new drill will be added to your allocation. It’s important to use these drills at your earliest convenience in order to have a greater chance at getting that NBA call-up.
If you arrived in the NBA D-League by being cut in either the Summer Circuit or Training Camp, you will need to bide your time by doing everything that is asked of you. This doesn’t mean dominate the ball and score all of your team’s points. When NBA teams are scouring the D-League, they are looking for players who can fill a role on their team, not someone who will come in and disrupt their team chemistry. That’s something to think about as you play through your NBA D-League games.
In the event that a team in the NBA is suffering through injuries or decides to waive a player that isn’t working out for them, there is a chance they may start looking your way. If they decide they are interested in you, a 10-day contract will be extended your way. Now, you only have 10 days to prove to the team that you belong with them. At the end of the 10 days, the team will either release you (which sends you back to the NBA D-League) or they may offer you a second 10-day contract to evaluate you further. At the end of this second 10-day contract, they must either send you back to the NBA D-League or sign you for the rest of the season.
Don’t let the NBA D-League define your career. Keep in mind, it is a means to an end.
NBA
So, you’ve made it to the NBA! Now what? Just because you’ve made it to the NBA doesn’t mean you are here to stay. If you don’t play well enough to hold down your spot on the team and/or aren’t getting enough minutes, your team will either send you down to their NBA D-League affiliate or they will cut you outright. As always, you can avoid this by being the ultimate team player and doing everything that your coach asks of you.
Similar to when you first arrived in the NBA D-League, your minute allocation will be very small from the outset. You’ll need to perform well to earn the trust of your coach. The NBA is a different beast than what you’ve see thus far. Everyone’s faster, bigger, and better than you in almost every way. Fortunately, you are given 10 drills upon arriving in the NBA, so use those wisely to increase your player’s attributes as soon as they are available.
My Player features a ‘Milestones’ menu that contains a number of goals for you to accomplish over the course of your career. The majority of the goals are NBA-based, so now that you’ve made it to the NBA, it’s time to start taking aim at these. They range from very simple (“Play in an NBA game”), to difficult (“Win the MVP”), to legendary (“Score 38388 points in your career”). Completing these Milestones will result in you earning a large number of Skill Points, which you can immediately use to improve your player’s overall rating.
Once you’ve played through a full 82-game season (which doesn’t take nearly as long as it sounds as you can use ‘Courtside Sim’ to get through periods of time when you’re on the bench), you will get to choose what you want to do with your career next. Depending on how you played, your team may want to re-sign you. Other teams may be interested in your services as well. The better you play, the better the teams are that are interested in signing you. At this point, the question becomes, are you interested in showing loyalty to the team that gave you a chance, or are you ready to jump ship to the best team offering you a contract?
What you do with your career is completely up to you. That’s the beauty of My Player.
Pick-Up Games
Let’s shift gears here and talk about another exciting way to progress your player in My Player mode. It was important to us to allow our users to be able to play online games within this experience. Pick-Up Games afforded us this opportunity. Allow me to explain. Pick-Up Games are online ‘Team-Up’ style 5-on-5 games where you are playing with your user created player. When I say ‘Team-Up’ style 5-on-5, I’m of course referencing 10 human controlled players playing 5-on-5 in a single game simultaneously.
Players are rewarded at the end of these games strictly based off of their teammate grades rather than their individual stats. Scoring 50 points doesn’t mean anything if you got all of those points off of bad shots. Setting picks, making smart passes, calling for the ball only when you’re open, boxing out on rebounds, these are the types of things that will earn you a good Teammate Grade, and thus, a good number of Skill Points. This is all about team play folks.
Pick-Up Games are available for you to play at any point during your career regardless of whether you’re in the Summer Circuit, Training Camp, the NBA D-League, or the NBA. I urge you to spend some time developing your player in this fashion; it’s been a ton of fun for us doing so. Plus, you get to see all of the cool and creative created players that people have made. There are more details here, but I don’t want to steal the thunder from the upcoming Insight regarding what we have done in the online department this year!
Final Notes
Now that you know that online play is a piece of the puzzle, I want to be clear on a few questions that you may be asking yourself. This won’t be a mode with a bunch of 99-rated players running around. It will take players most of their career to get this plateau, if they can at all. We’ve designed this game in such a way that you need to strategize on how you will develop your player. Being a complete jack of all trades will result in your player simply being average in each skill (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).
Also, everyone will be playing on a level playing field. For those of you who have thoughts of increasing all of the shot sliders and lowering the CPU sliders to your benefit, sorry, that’s a no go. We’re very serious about delivering a fun and balanced experience to our fans with this experience. We think this is a big feature, with a lot of potential moving forward.
Well, that about wraps it up for me with My Player. As you can see, there is a lot going on here. It will definitely be exciting to see all the players you guys and gals come up with. I’ll be back in a couple weeks with another Insight to talk to you about what we’ve done with the Association this year. Here’s a hint about what’s going on there; my philosophy with Association this year has been, “The Year of the Fan”. We’ll see what that means soon…
As for your My Player career, I have just one question for you. How will you take over?
Erick Boenisch
aka SimBaller
NEXT NBA 2K10 DEVELOPER INSIGHT: “Audio,” by Joel Simmons – Thursday, September 3rd
Pick up games are horrible, It keeps Disconnecting, plus this mode has millions of bugs, glitches, etc, I might make a thread enlisting them, if i have time, because there are just SO many bugs.
Pitchers vs. Hitters Battle, Part I By: 2K Admin Ron | Monday February 08 2010 Hello,
My name is Sean Bailey and I am a gameplay designer on Major League Baseball® 2K10. I want to share with you a quote straight from the white board in my office. Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn once said, “Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.” After winning more games than any left-handed pitcher in baseball history, Mr. Spahn is as well versed as anyone when it comes to the battle at the plate between a pitcher and a hitter. In Major League Baseball® 2K10, we have provided an experience where the gamer will really feel the benefits and challenges of upsetting timing, as Warren Spahn so eloquently put it decades ago.
Let’s walk through an at bat together and touch more on the pitching improvements that make this year’s game the most enjoyable baseball game I’ve ever played.
Right now, I literally have the controller in my hand with recently acquired Roy Halladay on the mound for the Phillies.
As you can see, we allow you to select your pitch this year before performing the gesture. By selecting the pitch before doing the gesture, we prevent you from accidentally throwing a pitch type that you never wanted to throw in the first place. The pitch selection means that you will always throw the pitch type that you intended to throw, regardless of how far off your gesture was. With Pablo Sandoval at the plate, I am going with my catcher’s suggestion in the 0-0 count: Cut Fastball. Upon selecting your pitch, a diagram will show you how the gesture should be performed in order to throw a pitch with the optimal control, break, and aim. The green zones in the diagram are the targets for where you want to move your right stick.
Since Halladay has a good control rating, these gesture targets, or green zones in the diagram are larger than those of some of his teammates, like Antonio Bastardo. Bastardo’s control rating is only a 70, making it tougher to precisely stop the 2nd gesture in the right spot.
Now that I’ve selected the Cut Fastball, it’s time to let it fly. The Inside Edge report shows me that Pablo Sandoval bats over .300 against right handed pitchers in all but 3 zones. Luckily, 2 of those 3 zones are low in the strike zone. Sorry Pablo. I’m not serving you any high heat just yet.
The first pitch is a ball. The Cutter missed the low, inside corner that I was trying to paint with Halladay and almost grazed Pablo’s leg.
On my gesture, I was supposed to stop at 9 o’clock. However, I moved the right stick too far past 9 o’clock (more like 7 o’clock…whoops), resulting in the pitch being overthrown in that direction. Had I done the opposite and completely stopped short of my gesture, the pitch would have been closer to the middle of the plate rather than outside for a ball. The right stick gesture this year dictates the placement of the ball in a way that is predictable. No more random pitch gestures with random results. If you stop short of your gesture on a 12-6 curveball, the pitch will be hung. If you go past your gesture on a 12-6 curveball, the pitch will be overthrown below the strike zone, or even into the dirt. This 1-to-1 relationship between the right stick gesture and final location of the pitch is consistent for each pitch type. Even better though, it gives the gamer a sense of command on the mound. And like we touched on earlier, the pitcher’s control rating plays a heavy role in how far off a pitch misses when the gesture is performed inaccurately. After pitching earlier today with Jonathan Sanchez, I really feel how much bigger the margin for error is with an ace like Halladay.
Back to Halladay vs Pablo. After going with the slider, I filled the meter 100% for a max pitch .
The Panda swings for the fences. Strike 1. When getting a max pitch, the batter’s contact chance is decreased and the pitch is thrown with ideal velocity and movement. The smaller the pitch meter is, the less breaking balls will move and the slower fastballs will travel. Think of a full meter as a way to represent the pitcher’s ratings. If I fill the meter 50% instead of 100%, Halladay’s cut fastball is no longer a rating of 88 for that pitch. This is crucial considering how important a pitch’s rating is to the batter’s chances of making solid contact, or just contact in general. And don’t worry - the likelihood of timing a max pitch is easier or harder depending on who is pitching and how tired they are. The 2K10 dev team did a great job making sure that the player ratings, player tendencies, and performance of the gamers’ pitching mechanics all come together in a realistic, learnable fashion. While accurately nailing the gestures is required for perfect aim, the degree of difficulty varies from pitcher to pitcher, and pitch to pitch. Since the slider is Halladay’s lowest rated pitch, it requires more accurate movement on the right stick and more precision in timing the meter compared to his higher rated sinker.
Let’s get back to this 1-1 count between Halladay and Sandoval. Better yet, now that I’ve touched on the pitching mechanics, let’s pause the game and switch sides. I’m taking over for Pablo. It’s time to go over the new hitting mechanics.
As I take over at the plate with Pablo, I am informed that Sandoval is a .315 hitter with 9 HRs and 37 strikeouts after a 1-1 count . If pitching is about control, command, and avoiding the big mistake, hitting is definitely about waiting for the right pitch and working the count. Get ahead in the count, and you’ll be more likely to see a fastball for a strike. Fall behind in the count, and you’ll be chasing breaking balls outside of the strike zone. Face a pitcher like Halladay, and both the balls and strikes are separated by inches. Face the 4th or 5th man in the rotation, and strikes are down the middle more often while the balls are way outside of the strike zone. That’s the beauty of incorporating Inside Edge™ into the CPU AI hitting and pitching logic. Per count, every pitcher will throw what he throws in real life and will try to hit the spots that he hits in real life.
Sticking to the realism theme, every batter has a new eye rating this year (both vs lefties and righties). The higher the eye rating, the more likely your batter is to see the pitch type as it is being thrown as well as what part of the strike zone it is being thrown to. By pitch type, I mean fastball, breaking ball, or change-up. You won’t know the exact pitch type, but by knowing which of the 3 categories the pitch is, your timing will be that much better on the swing.
Unfortunately for me, Pablo’s eye rating vs righties is only a 64. The next pitch is a 12-6 curveball by Halladay that just drops into the strike zone. No swing. Strike 2. The pitch started out looking a lot like a fastball that would have been high for a called ball 2. If Pablo had the eye rating of a guy like Albert Pujols, I would have had a chance at knowing it was a high breaking ball and waited to unload on it. If I hadn’t read so deep into Halladay’s scouting report, I wouldn’t have ruled out a 12-6 curve being thrown.
Only 18% of his pitches in real life are 12-6 curveballs compared to 71% which are fastballs. I should clarify that by no means are the pitch tells too effective. They simply provide occasional and subtle hints to the batters in real life who are patient, read pitches, and draw walks. While Pablo had an outstanding 2009 season, he is not what we would call a patient hitter.
Looking to end the at bat, Halladay delivers a cutter low and away, hoping to graze the strike zone. Knowing it is a strike (thanks to the new batting camera and new strike zone which make it so much easier to watch the incoming ball), I swing away with the contact swing. Foul ball.
My timing was a little late, but I’m still alive. In Major League Baseball® 2K10, we completely re-wrote the physics of the hit distribution. The location of the pitch and the timing of the swing have everything to do with where that ball is hit and how hard it is hit. Replicating real life, the location of the pitch and my late timing is what drove the ball 20 feet foul to the left of the 3rd base line. Had I timed my swing perfectly against that low and away strike, Pablo could have been looking at a line drive base hit over the 3rd baseman’s head. My timing was late and the angle of the bat during contact resulted in a foul ball. Want to pull a ball and rip it down the base line for a double? Start the swing early against an inside pitch when making contact, just like in real life. If you want to hit a blooper over the infield to opposite field, swing a little later against an outside pitch. Major League Baseball® 2K10 is about playing baseball, not spamming the swing stick in hopes of base hits that are randomly sprayed about the field. If you find yourself hitting too many fly outs to the outfield, it’s time to lay off the power swing against high pitches. If you find yourself grounding into double plays, it’s time to lay off those low and away pitches being thrown for balls.
Oh, by the way, while writing this, Pablo just grounded out to 3rd. Faced with a 1-2 count, I resorted to the defensive swing. The defensive swing is a new swing type in Major League Baseball® 2K10. Flicking left or right on the right stick will perform a defensive swing. This swing is a low risk, low reward swing that is good to use when faced with 2 strikes. If you aren’t sure whether an incoming pitch is going to be a ball or a decisive 3rd strike, flick the right stick to the left or right to protect the plate. It’s all about working the count and waiting for the right pitch. This is a good way to foul pitches off to stay alive. In my case with Pablo, the defensive swing resulted in a ground out to 3rd. For other players with a lesser contact rating, they may swing and miss. However, you still have a better contact chance and a higher foul ball chance when using the defensive swing. In addition to staying alive with 2 strikes while waiting for the dream pitch, defensive swings can also wear down a starting pitcher who is trying to go the full 9 innings by racking up a high pitch count.
i was getting this game anyway cause i dont care how good "mlb10 the show" looks it is boring to play.Commentary and presentation play a huge role in sports games and theres nobody better than visual concepts at doing presentation.
looking good...graphically games kind of lacks that shine that 2K7 had but its all about gameplay to me.. I plan on mostly playing the CPU and some online. I am happy they will be patching the check swing. I really thought 2K9 would have been at least a playable game last year for me but I traded it in to gamestop because it kept freezing (not online) and my pitcher would wander off the field at the end of inning.. I hope they addressed these issues!
im really excited for this game 1. cuz its definetly bttr thn 2k9 and 2. theres ANOTHER my player mode and i liked it in the nba version cept there were 2 many glitches
the batting mode is horrible i think that is really stupid three stick movements ,we should be able to swing with a normal button ,im not the only one who will complain about this so i think you gonna need a mod for it.and there is no any information still about an option for the automatic fielding because i dont know a single person who likes to play the defense in a baseball video game.
