With the help of our readers and 2K Sports, we had an opportunity to interview the Project Manager of College Hoops 2K8, Zach Timmerman. 

Operation Sports:  Has the sim engine been updated to have more accurate results?  

Zach Timmerman:  Yes, the simulation engine has been updated in 2K8 to provide more accurate results.  As you’ve seen even so far this year, upsets are simply a part of college basketball.  Who would have ever predicted the upsets we’ve seen Kentucky, Michigan State and Ohio State suffer over the past week?  Upsets will be a part of 2K8 or the experience would not be fun, unpredictable and realistic.  However, it’s been well documented by OS posters that our simulation engine needed some work so we put forth some good effort in making it better.

Statistics have been tuned as well to provide more realistic results.  As a stat geek, I took as much time as I had to work with our Legacy engineer to ensure that the statistics that were derived from the games were as close to being on par with real-life as we could get them. 

Operation Sports:  Fouls and foul shooting. Last year, the CPU was automatic from the line and the take charge animation was so slow that no charges were called and instead, most calls went against the defense. Have these issues been addressed?

Zach Timmerman:  We’ve tuned the AI free throw shooting ability for more accurate results.  The take charge animation has also been tuned (sped up) to allow for more realistic and fair calls.     

Operation Sports:  In years past, we've had a problem with the tournament where teams from the same conference will be paired up with each other, or within in the same bracket to face in the 2nd round. Has this been fixed? 

Zach Timmerman:  This is something that is much harder to fix that it seems given our system and the limitations it has.  We know this has been a problem in the past and we’ve done what we can to address it. 

Operation Sports:  Will the players know where they are on the court? I’ve seen players shooting behind the backboard or hitting the bottom of the rim, only to see the ball go out of bounds. 

Zach Timmerman:  Players know where they are on the court when shooting.  When a player hits the backboard or bottom of the rim, it’s a rare instance in College Hoops and only happens when the player is either shoved (and a foul is not called) or has low offensive awareness. 

Operation Sports:  How many animations have been added to CH 2K8? Are there plenty of them, that we haven’t seen in NBA 2K8? 

Zach Timmerman:  I’m not sure of the exact amount, but there are tons.  Lots of new shots, isomotion moves, double team animations and all new alley-oops (which look very nice, btw).  We have a lot of ambient celebrations for players, cheerleaders and mascots that are new this year as well. 

Operation Sports:  Do coaches resemble their real-life counterparts and can their names be edited? 

Zach Timmerman:  As some of you may know, we had the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches) license over the past few years that allowed us to use real coach likenesses, names and information.  While it was great to have, it was such a hefty task to maintain and we wanted to focus more of our time on other graphical parts of the game, so we unfortunately had to make the decision to cut the license.  As a result, we instead created several generic coach heads and assigned them to the coaches throughout the game.  Thankfully, everything with a coach can be edited, including his likeness and name, so if you feel as though the coach head that was assigned to your favorite coach looks nothing like the real life counterpart, hopefully you can find a likeness within the database of coaches to fit his appearance. 

Operation Sports:  In terms of presentation, have more mascots and fight songs been added? 

Zach Timmerman:  We have upwards of 100 different mascots in the game, with some of them completely redone from the ground up.  You will notice that some of the top schools (North Carolina, Michigan State, Duke to name a few) have mascots that look significantly better than they have over the past few years as a result.  Last year we had nearly 200 fight songs and this year we exceeded that with a total of approximately 220. 

Operation Sports:  Is international recruiting more difficult this year? In past years, it has been far too easy to steal these guys for absolutely nothing. 

Zach Timmerman:  International recruiting has been tuned to provide more realistic results.  The problem we had in 2K7 was that no schools wanted to spend the points necessary to recruit international players, as they require more points to recruit than U.S. players.  This left them pretty untouched throughout the year, allowing you to jump over there and snatch them up pretty easily.  That has been tuned, as well as the caliber of the players you can recruit from over there. 

Operation Sports:  Is the studio show improved? 

Zach Timmerman:  The studio itself has been completely redone to give it a fresh new look.  All new commentary has been added and the menus themselves have been redone.  

Operation Sports:  Are there any tweaks to what recruits are looking for in a program, i.e. playing time, NBA exposure, etc.? 

Zach Timmerman:  Rather than spending a lot of time on what a recruit looks for in a program, we spent the majority of our time working on the scouting aspect of recruiting, which is why we introduced the ABL (Amateur Basketball League).  Within this mode, users are now allowed to “see” just about every single high school recruit we have in the game, from high school freshman through seniors.  We wanted users to be able to scout their recruits in action, whether they’re playing the games with them or watching them, so they can tell if they’re the types of players they would like to have on their team.  Do they fit your style?  Do they hustle?  Are they too hesitant to score?  Can this 2 Star prospect help my team?  These types of questions and more can be answered in the ABL.  Also, playing and completing the games themselves will give you an added bonus to your recruiting points to spend during the season, which is very key to a smaller school that simply does not have the same type of a budget that a larger school has.   

Your goal in the ABL is to schedule out games that consist of players you want to recruit throughout the regular NCAA season, so you can spend the majority of your recruiting points enticing the recruit to come to your school rather than trying to find out “ability” information that you could have unlocked in the ABL.  It provides a very realistic recruiting tool that we’ve been lacking over the last few years, ever since we removed the ability to play high school games in 2K5. 

Operation Sports:  Is the player-match up issue from NBA 2K8 corrected in CH 2K8? 

Zach Timmerman:  We do not have this issue as we know it. 

Operation Sports:  Are coaching changes still a part of OPEN Legacy mode for 2k8, even without real coach licenses? 

Zach Timmerman:  Coaching changes are still a part of Open mode. 

Operation Sports:  Have any individual player ratings been added?

Zach Timmerman:  Yes, we’ve added several new player ratings, including Dunk Standing, Quickness, Vertical, Strength, Hustle, Shoot off Dribble and Shoot in Traffic. 

Operation Sports:  Are the crowds fixed for neutral site games? 

Zach Timmerman:  The arena will be a more even mix of fans from both teams, rather than being dominated by one team.   

Operation Sports:  Has the tourney/poll logic been improved? 

Zach Timmerman:  We’ve tweaked and improved how the logic works with this for 2K8, yes. 

Operation Sports:  How has recruiting been improved? Can we create a recruit this year? 

Zach Timmerman:  Recruiting has been improved in a few ways, including but not limited to the addition of the ABL and the tuning of international recruiting (both mentioned above).  You are now able to create a recruit in 2K8.  It works just like creating a player in that you’re able to change likenesses, vital stats, attributes, shooting styles, etc.  The player will be thrown into the recruiting pool and recruited just like any other prospect. 

Operation Sports:  I believe the 3pt line has been extended for next season (2008-09?), will this rule change be included in subsequent Legacy seasons? 

Zach Timmerman:  This is a great idea and is something that we simply wouldn’t have had time for on 2K8.  It would change the way the AI works and the way our plays are run (requiring a lot of work), but you will definitely see this in 2K9. 

Operation Sports:  Do we get the full NBA 2K8 set of in game on-the-fly strategy options?

Zach Timmerman:  Yes, except we replaced NBA’s “Coach Mode” on-the-fly option with the ability to turn on/off PlayVision.  PlayVision is a feature that shows step-by-step diagrams of the plays you are running in the game to let you know what each player is supposed to do.  We all know plays mean a whole lot in college basketball, especially compared to the pro game, so PlayVision now gives you an exact idea of what you’re supposed to do on the court.   

Operation Sports:  Have more 3rd/alternate jerseys been added? 

Zach Timmerman:  Yes.  In 2K7, we had only 37 alternate uniforms available.  2K8 almost triples that amount with 107 alternates.  Select teams will have a 2^nd and even a 3^rd alternate uniform available. 

Operation Sports:  How many players are we allowed to create? 

Zach Timmerman:  You are allowed to create up to 18 players, however, each player in our game is essentially a created player as you can remove them from teams, place them onto different teams and fully customize them into a completely different player.  With upwards of 6,500 “created players” in our game, we simply do not have the ability to allow many more. 

Operation Sports:  Can you give us some more detailed information about the 6^th man feature? Can it be turned off, if we choose to do so? 

Zach Timmerman:  6^th Man Advantage is something we introduced because it’s fully understood how much of an impact the home crowd has on a game and we wanted to work that into gameplay.  Based on how well you do as the home team, a meter shown above the score bar will increase to represent how into the game the home crowd is.  The better things you do, the more the meter will hike up.  Once you peak the meter, your players will receive a confidence boost and a slight increase in energy.  This will last as long as the home team can keep the meter in the peak zone.  The away team has the opportunity to bring this meter down at any point by doing good things on the court or calling timeouts.  In neutral games, both the home and away teams have a meter and an opportunity for a 6^th Man Advantage boost.   

The 6^th Man Advantage has been tuned heavily to ensure that it’s not a “cheese” feature that makes the game unrealistic or unfair.  I do not feel that users would want to turn this off, however, if you are the type of user that would rather not have “outside” factors determine how the game is played you have the option of switching it off in the Options menu.   

Operation Sports:  Has the collisions in the paint been improved to better account for lower body contact and arm to arm contact, leading to more realistic fouls and blocked shots? 

Zach Timmerman:  Slightly, yes. 

Operation Sports:  Can you "jump into" a game being simmed and play it out? 

Zach Timmerman:  This was something we actually wanted to do on 2K7 when we introduced the Hoopcast Simulator.  However, with so many other features introduced this year we had to knock this off our list for a later time.  It’s something we’re definitely looking into heavily for 2K9. 

Operation Sports:  Will there be an option to use NBA 2K8's control scheme? 

Zach Timmerman:  Yes, I believe its controller configuration C. 

Operation Sports:  Have you tweaked the full court press at all?  

Zach Timmerman:  Full court presses have been slightly tuned for 2K8.  People last year were having trouble with traps as their player would sometimes fall down and lose the ball, however, traps have been adjusted and, if done smartly, users should have less trouble getting through a press. 

Operation Sports:  Has continuation on fouls been tweaked? 

Zach Timmerman:  There will be fewer situations where you felt you should have gone to the line when fouled while in the act of shooting, but instead had to inbound the ball.    

Operation Sports:  Will there be consolation games with the pre-season tournaments? 

Zach Timmerman:  Yes, a new smaller feature added to 2K8 is consolation games.  They appear near the bottom of the tournament tree. 

Operation Sports:  We would like to thank you for your time with this interview, is there anything else you would like to add? 

Zach Timmerman:  We would like to personally thank all of the Operation Sports posters that have provided us with school information and wish lists over the years.  It has been a tremendous help and we will continue to visit the site regularly for assistance and reference.  Please understand that we read nearly every post in the College Hoops forum and take everything possible into consideration.  Our goal has and always will be to deliver the most authentic college basketball game that we possibly can and your help goes a long way in ensuring we can do so.  The more information you provide us early in the development cycle the better and more accurate the game will be in the end.  Thanks again and I have no doubt that you will enjoy College Hoops 2K8. 

Zach Timmerman
Project Manager
College Hoops 2K8