NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

Feature Article

Submitted on: 08/22/2008 by Chase Becotte

The folks up at EA Canada are nearing their goal as NHL 09 skates towards its September release. They are undoubtedly working very hard since they have a hard act to follow considering how well NHL 08 was received by most gamers. Also, with such high expectations, it's no surprise that the OS community has tons of questions when it comes to NHL 09. Due to this fact, we here at Operation Sports felt it was important to get the NHL developers to answer some questions from the Operation Sports community. So every Friday, until NHL 09 releases, OS will be running five-question-Q&A sessions with NHL 09 developers. This is the third Q&A session we have had thus far. Enjoy!

bad_philanthropy: Will we be able to play multiple seasons with any of the Euro leagues?

Andy Agostini: You can play multiple seasons with the Euro league by substituting the Euro teams into Dynasty mode. We are looking into doing something specific for the Euro leagues in future titles of NHL.

ChubbyBanana: I remember how the AI would adapt to the way you played in NHL 08. Any chance this has been fine tuned for this year’s installment?

Sean Ramjagsingh: We have made some refinements mainly tied to new user tendencies that we are tracking this year. Over time, the AI will identify these new tendencies (along with the old ones) and try to counter them. You will see and hear those tendencies in the end of period feedback and commentary.

NHL 09 is set to Skate onto the nearest console near you next month.

kerosene31: Have the goalie controls been refined or tweaked at all?

SR: The goalie controls themselves are similar to 08 (we tweaked the hug post control, and made the movement control less twitchy). We have also added new goalie animations and improved the overall feel.

Flyermania: There have been rumors that custom soundtracks will only be available for the 360 and not the PS3. Can you confirm or deny this rumor?

SR: For NHL 09, the Custom Soundtrack feature will be for Xbox 360 only.

gobladesgo: Have the new affiliations been changed for Dynasty and the main rosters? (see: Florida - Rochester, Anaheim - Iowa, Buffalo - Portland) And how is the Dallas situation being worked into both?

AA: All AHL affiliations are going to be correct for the upcoming 2008-09 season. So all examples listed above are in the game. Due to Dallas not having their own farm team their players reside on two teams currently, Rochester and Portland, as we don't know exactly where these players are going to be playing in the upcoming season. As this information is made public we will update the players to their proper teams in roster updates.

NHL 09 Videos

Member Comments

# 21 rellix1 @ 08/26/08 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChaseB


	This is an argument that was valid more than a year ago. It's not anymore.

Can't pass the class without showing your work.

I really don't understand what makes this year invalid vs. last year. This is the first year EA Canada has implemented this type of feature - are we forgetting that?

# 22 ChaseB @ 08/26/08 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rellix1


	Can't pass the class without showing your work. I really don't understand what makes this year invalid vs. last year. This is the first year EA Canada has implemented this type of feature - are we forgetting that?

I'm just saying the, "well it's hard to develop on PS3" argument is very tired, don't let developers and publishers keep using it. These major third parties know what they're in for at this point.

# 23 rellix1 @ 08/26/08 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChaseB


	I'm just saying the, "well it's hard to develop on PS3" argument is very tired, don't let developers and publishers keep using it. These major third parties know what they're in for at this point.

Just from my experience as a professional programmer, I've always found that the first time you try something in an unfamiliar environment, the odds of issues arising are much much higher than usual.

Agree to disagree on this, I suppose.

# 24 ChaseB @ 08/26/08 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rellix1


	Just from my experience as a professional programmer, I've always found that the first time you try something in an unfamiliar environment, the odds of issues arising are much much higher than usual. Agree to disagree on this, I suppose.

F U I say, F U!

# 25 rellix1 @ 08/26/08 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChaseB


	F U I say, F U!

no u

# 26 OddyOh @ 08/27/08 06:50 AM

Hmm, I'd hadn't visited EASportsWorld Beta for about a year...not since it had all those server problems back on the Tiger Woods 08 launch. Looks good now. YouTube seems a little easier to share on, but I can see why they'd want to reinvent the wheel for their own games. At least I won't have to film my TV with my digital camera anymore...

I agree with rellix that the NHL custom music feature is probably more specific than simply custom background music. Who knows, Sony may not even have prepared for such a thing in their software. Hopefully EA is bugging them everyday for support for this type of feature if that's what the problem is, as it should be standard across all sports games. Ideally, you should be able to map a "penalty" or "home goal" to a folder or playlist of songs, and not just one song per event. That way you don't get sick of a single song. Basically like how the old PC versions used to work.

Hopefully they patch it, like most other PS3-savvy developers are doing. I realize EA isn't big on patches, but this could be the year they step up. Why get an 8/10 rating, when you can get 10/10. The Burnout guys are the gold standard for how to do multi-platform development. Basically you set your goal of 60fps on all platforms, and then don't rest until you get there, finding every single bit of power/features on all systems in the process. They even cranked out a PC version after all that, which nobody expected. Best dev team ever.

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