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???
Audio By: 2K Joel | Thursday September 03 2009 Hey Fans,
For NBA 2K10, my fellow audio team and I decided that our audio presentation needed to be a major point of emphasis. We really wanted to take the broadcast feel of the audio integration to the next level.
To that end, we overhauled our commentary and crowd, which we believe makes NBA 2K10 one of the most realistic audio experiences in sports games. New dialogue for the NBA Today feature reflects the dynamics of the real-NBA season, providing a level of context never experienced before.
Commentary
While we always added to the commentary on a yearly basis, we needed a way to bring out more of the talent’s personality while delivering natural dialogue. It was time for a reboot.
One of the main complaints about previous versions of NBA2K was that Kevin and Clark didn’t have a connection and didn’t sound like they were in the booth together. The problem was simple—they weren’t. This year, we were able to get them in the booth at the same time, livening up the performances and providing a more natural cadence that comes through on broadcast.
To help with the side-by-side feel, we brought over a new conversational system from MLB 2K that is peppered throughout the game: Return to Topic. For example, Clark Kellogg might mention a team getting outhustled on the boards, and after a few play-by-play calls, Kevin and Clark will return to the topic, expanding upon the rebounding conversation. One of the Return to Topic segments weaved into the action is called game trend analysis: discussions of statistical trends throughout the game and making quarter-to-quarter comparisons. After an in-game conversation or breakdown, Kevin will also follow up with a play call that catches you up on the action: “So now it’s Orlando on offense, following the 3 pointer by Kobe. . .”
Next, we needed to make the season come alive with our new NBA Today feature, calling out the details that help put the particular game in context of the season. NBA Today is discussed in a previous Insight. You’ll hear a totally new approach to the introduction sequence, breaks in the action, and our in-game play-by-play and color analysis flow.
Our broadcast introduction has been completely overhauled, bringing a fresh vibe to the game, while debuting many of our new NBA Today elements. Kevin Harlan will set the stage, pointing out streaking or lagging teams and players, injuries, and trades, while Clark Kellogg provides the analysis of the teams and explains why they’re playing well or why they’re struggling.
During breaks in the action, Kevin and Clark will go Around the League and provide scoring updates from the NBA, discuss leaders for all the major stats, update you on conference standings, including playoff seeding and game implications, and deliver single game promotions of upcoming NBA games, including the All-Star game.
During the action, the play-by-play commentary is interspersed with real-life facts that touch on how the players and teams are doing during the season and how they played in their last outing. You’ll hear Kevin and Clark discuss a team’s previous win or loss, and what the determining factors were in that game. We also recap the last matchup between the two teams, for example mentioning Detroit won by 3 points last time they played the Knicks earlier in the year. When two teams meet up for the first time in the season, Kevin and Clark break down last year’s season series, and will also recap the outcome of a playoff encounter between the two teams. Other bits of information are included recognizing a player’s recent performance such as Lebron James coming off a 38 point game against Denver, or the fact that Dwight Howard had an off-night in Orlando’s loss to the Celtics in the previous game.
We’ve also included a “Keys to the Game” segment, which is built into our NBA Today feature. Clark Kellogg will discuss a team or player’s trends going into the game and point out streaks and slumps that are occurring in the real life NBA season or in your Association. Clark has a large amount of new dialogue this year, and is much more involved throughout the broadcast. I think you guys will like Clark’s input much more this year.
In all, we’ve added over twenty-thousand new lines of dialogue this year in support of our new commentary systems. Kevin and Clark were fantastic as always, providing valuable insight and helping to bring these new systems to life. The dialogue in NBA 2K10 is a major step toward delivering natural broadcast commentary.
Crowd and Arena
This year we wanted to provide a more dynamic and varied approach to the crowd systems. We wanted big moments to stand out more from the lower energy points in a game. We rewrote the logic and the crowd behaves much more realistically, thanks to this peaks and valleys concept.
You can also expect to hear more detailed crowd behavior that appropriately follows the action. Whether it’s thundering applause as the coach for the away team calls a timeout to stop a run, or deafening silence when Kobe nails a dagger into the hopes of the Orlando fans as he drains a three. Of course, if you’re playing especially poorly, the crowd will let you hear that as well. Anticipation is a big part of the crowd experience. If you’re lining up a three-point shot with Hedo Turkoglu, you can hear the electricity in the arena build up, and then explode into cheers if he knocks it down.
Every year we try to deepen the arena specific experience. For 2K10, we’ve expanded on our arena specific crowd chants and PA music selections so that every arena has a sound of its own, including stadium specifc organ sounds for common themes like the defense chants at Staples Center. Each arena has unique PA dialogue too which makes you feel like you’re there. For example, at the Palace of Auburn Hills you’ll hear the familiar call and response between the PA announcer and the crowd: “DEE-troit BASKETBALL!”. You’ll also hear the response “Mellow! Mellow!” after Carmello Anthony scores, and when the PA announcer calls out “Jose Calderon for 3!”, the crowd chimes in with “Unos!, Dos!, Tres!”- adding a touch of realism of being amidst the Raptors fans in Toronto.
We’ve also added intelligent crowd chatter with individual voices commenting on the action and the flow of the game. They’ll yell about players being open, what they thought about a shot or play, or just generally whoop it up.
Soundtrack
2K Sports holds to the long-standing reputation of bringing an eclectic mix of breaking and established artists to its gaming audience with NBA 2K10’s soundtrack. No doubt that this is the biggest soundtrack to ever grace a 2K Sports game- both in terms of the number of tracks, and the star power of the artists represented. The full list is below (* denotes tracks that are available to download for free here):
Ace Hood - Top of the World
Adam Tensta - My Cool
Akala - The Edge
Al Kapone - Rock This
Chali2na - Lock it Down (Instrumental)
Chali2na – International (feat. Beenie Man)
Donnie Bravo - Run Away *
Duo Live - Shootin
Flo Rida - ROOTS
Iglu & Hartly - In this City
Illinois - Hang On
Izza Kizza - They’re Everywhere *
K’naan - Wavin’ the Flag
Kanye West - Amazing
Kenan Bell - Like This
Matisyahu - One Day
Metric - Help I’m Alive
Metronomy - Radio Ladio
MGMT - Electric Feel
Mike Snow - Black & Blue
Naïve New Breeders - Can’t Choose
Ratatat - Falcon Jab
Ratatat - Mirando
Saul Williams - List of Demands (Reparations)
Sportrushaz - Iron
The Game - Champion (Exclusive and original track)
The Moog - Joyclad Armies
Vincent Van Go Go - Do You Know
As you can clearly see from the above, the soundtrack offers more hits than ever before with some of the hip-hop highlights include “Amazing” by Kanye West, “R.O.O.T.S.” from Flo Rida, “One Day” by Matisyahu, and “Top of the World” by Ace Hood just to name a few. And we’ve also included a huge selection in the indie & rock categories, as Ratatat, MGMT, and Iglu and Hartly are also some of the emerging acts represented on the soundtrack. And of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our original track by The Game. The Game, who by the way was #1 on PS3 NBA 2K9 leaderboards last time I checked and a winner of Team 2K, created an awesome track called “Champion” for 2K10. He is pretty pumped to be on the soundtrack as he stated recently, “I've been a beast at NBA 2K for years, I was #1 on the PS3 leaderboards, and challenge anybody online to go up against me," said The Game. "When 2K Sports hit me to drop a new track for NBA 2K10, I knew I had to do it."
End of the Road
I know a lot of you have been asking us for this and NBA 2K10 delivers. For the first time, you can import your personal music and have it played through the PA system on your XBOX 360. I haven’t been able to touch on every new audio feature that we have in store for you. Hopefully, you’re as excited about the new features as we are here at 2K. We’re working hard to break some new ground in sports game audio, but I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface of what’s possible. Enjoy!
Thanks,
- Joel Simmons
Audio Lead
NEXT NBA 2K10 DEVELOPER INSIGHT: “Player Tendencies” by Rob Jones – TBD
stop banning me guys! this is getting a lil petty dont cha think!?? im excited about 2k10 and the look and feel of the game,thats alll guys! So let me excited 2k., for i am the most loyalest fan you have! i helped this game get to this point and im not gonna let you guys stop me!
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.
