NHL 13 creation zone updated?

[B5KoshYou]

I just moved across the state and had a great surprise while packing up my garage. In with my hockey cards I found the original 1988 Bethesda Wayne Gretzky Hockey for PC. Not only that, I also found Gretzky Hockey 2, and all the expansion 5.25” discs for several NHL seasons, the 1987 Canada Cup teams, and the equally great Hockey League Simulator. Great memories.

But it also makes me wonder, why hasn’t EA done much with classic teams? Bethesda did a great job back in late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s. 2K Sports had a history of providing lots historic teams, peaking with 60 classic teams in NHL2K8. EA has only dabbled in this area with a Montreal Canadians centennial team in NHL10 and a few hall of fame players licensed for NHL12.

Wouldn’t it be great to play with the 1987 Canada Cup team featuring Gretzky and Lemieux? Their series against Russia in the cup final is still considered to be the best hockey ever played.

What about the 1980 Olympic semi-final “miracle on ice” where USA beat Russia?

The NHL has been around since 1917. NINETEEN SEVENTEEN!! That’s over 90 years worth of great teams and players. Add to that all the great Olympic teams, Canada Cup, World Cup of Hockey and other tournaments. How about minor leagues like the ECHL, USHL, IHL, Central Hockey League etc.?

What about men’s and women’s NCAA college hockey? While NCAA hockey probably wouldn’t sell very well as a standalone game, it would be a great addition to the NHL game for ‘be a player’ mode to have a choice of going to a Junior team or college.

Women players are another demographic EA has barely tried to market. You can create a female player in creation zone, but she’s only playable in local ‘play now’ mode and it’s still with a distinctly male player motion capture. All there really is for women’s hockey are NCAA college teams and the national teams.

This seems like a great way to increase the fan base and shelf life of the NHL series. With the core gamer now in the ‘thirty-something’ demographic, now seems to be the perfect time to give the gamers the great teams of their childhoods, or at least the tools to create them.

NCAA 13 has TeamBuilder. FIFA has Creation Centre. Both are filled with a wealth of user created teams that make those games great. Want to settle an argument about which team is better? Download it and let the CPU play it out right before your eyes.

The demo of NHL 13 has a Creation Zone option but it’s not viewable. I wonder what awaits us in a few weeks…

[Reiny09]

Quote: Originally Posted by B5KoshYou

I just moved across the state and had a great surprise while packing up my garage. In with my hockey cards I found the original 1988 Bethesda Wayne Gretzky Hockey for PC. Not only that, I also found Gretzky Hockey 2, and all the expansion 5.25” discs for several NHL seasons, the 1987 Canada Cup teams, and the equally great Hockey League Simulator. Great memories. But it also makes me wonder, why hasn’t EA done much with classic teams? Bethesda did a great job back in late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s. 2K Sports had a history of providing lots historic teams, peaking with 60 classic teams in NHL2K8. EA has only dabbled in this area with a Montreal Canadians centennial team in NHL10 and a few hall of fame players licensed for NHL12. Wouldn’t it be great to play with the 1987 Canada Cup team featuring Gretzky and Lemieux? Their series against Russia in the cup final is still considered to be the best hockey ever played. What about the 1980 Olympic semi-final “miracle on ice” where USA beat Russia? The NHL has been around since 1917. NINETEEN SEVENTEEN!! That’s over 90 years worth of great teams and players. Add to that all the great Olympic teams, Canada Cup, World Cup of Hockey and other tournaments. How about minor leagues like the ECHL, USHL, IHL, Central Hockey League etc.? What about men’s and women’s NCAA college hockey? While NCAA hockey probably wouldn’t sell very well as a standalone game, it would be a great addition to the NHL game for ‘be a player’ mode to have a choice of going to a Junior team or college. Women players are another demographic EA has barely tried to market. You can create a female player in creation zone, but she’s only playable in local ‘play now’ mode and it’s still with a distinctly male player motion capture. All there really is for women’s hockey are NCAA college teams and the national teams. This seems like a great way to increase the fan base and shelf life of the NHL series. With the core gamer now in the ‘thirty-something’ demographic, now seems to be the perfect time to give the gamers the great teams of their childhoods, or at least the tools to create them. NCAA 13 has TeamBuilder. FIFA has Creation Centre. Both are filled with a wealth of user created teams that make those games great. Want to settle an argument about which team is better? Download it and let the CPU play it out right before your eyes. The demo of NHL 13 has a Creation Zone option but it’s not viewable. I wonder what awaits us in a few weeks…

The problem is EA doesn't want to make a game with a great shelf life. They want you to get bored with each version in under a year so you get excited for the next years version and go out and purchase that one.

As much as I would like to see this stuff in the game, I just don't see them doing most of it. EA depends too much on people spending $60 a year to upgrade to the newest version. I would love to see them go all out with this sort of stuff so it would have an increased replay-ability, then they could put out a game every 2 or 3 years instead of every year. Imagine what they could do with a development cycle of a couple of years after seeing all of the improvements they made just this year.

[peter21]

Your mention of the 'Miracle on Ice' game got me thinking a little bit about the new "NHL Moments" feature in 13. I mean, if there ever was a challenge for you to take up, how about taking over the U.S. and trying to hold on in the 3rd period over that vaunted Soviet squad? That would be pretty cool.

Granted it's not an 'NHL' moment, but that would be a cool feature that could deliver a pretty satisfying result if you were to hang on for the win. Hell, if you could even push another goal or 2 past Myshkin in the 3rd.

I believe in miracles! Which is what it would take to have this included in the game, but still...

[B5KoshYou]

Quote: Originally Posted by peter21

Your mention of the 'Miracle on Ice' game got me thinking a little bit about the new "NHL Moments" feature in 13. I mean, if there ever was a challenge for you to take up, how about taking over the U.S. and trying to hold on in the 3rd period over that vaunted Soviet squad? That would be pretty cool. .

Sadly, those teams were in NHL2K8 along with over 50 others including the 1987 Canada Cup teams. The graphics were not anywhere close to what EA is doing now, but man was it fun.

Especially this late in the 360/ps3 life cycle, it would make a lot more sense to me for EA to put out a full version of the game every other year with the off year having a $20 DLC team update. They would probably make a lot more money without the manufacturing and distribution costs of a full release.

[bwiggy33]

EA will not do most of this stuff, even though we want them to. I mean ultimately we all know the EA would need licensing in order to have the NCAA. The older teams is a terrific idea and I wish they would do that over having the legends. 2k had the classic teams down perfectly. All you had to do was name the rosters and you were golden. I loved playing with the 95 and 01 Avs (my two favorite teams in hockey history). I just don't think EA will spend time on this stuff because it is very time consuming and takes a lot of work.

Reiny, I think the opposite. IMO they should make us want to play this game year round. Why? Because we would be more apt to buy the next version just to see how much they did to improve the already great game.

The Show is a prime example of this. I love that series to death. It's the only sports game I've ever been able to play all year round. People think The Show is the exact same every year, I don't. They tune the game and have made great improvements from year to year. Do they seem minuscule? Maybe to some, but I can notice the differences.

They also work their asses off every year to add in the little details (90% of players have exact faces, exact LED templates, stadiums). That's an area where the NHL team hasn't been able to touch because they were to busy the past few years on fighting goalies, broken glass, and the list goes on. The Show is able to do it because they got the gameplay mostly where they want it and can have people focus on bringing the game to a whole new level of realism that no other sports game replicates. The effort that The Show Dev team shows from year to year is the reason I buy it every year. I appreciate their hard work and for that reason alone I will give them my $60 every year. If they ever steer away from that, I will no longer be willing to do that. With NHL, Madden, NCAA, I don't ever know what to expect and am totally scared to give my $60 away. Just my take on it, and I definitely see your point Reiny.

[B5KoshYou]

Quote: Originally Posted by bwiggy33

I mean ultimately we all know the EA would need licensing in order to have the NCAA. The older teams is a terrific idea and I wish they would do that over having the legends. 2k had the classic teams down perfectly. All you had to do was name the rosters and you were golden. I loved playing with the 95 and 01 Avs (my two favorite teams in hockey history). I just don't think EA will spend time on this stuff because it is very time consuming and takes a lot of work.

They don't need NCAA licensing. They also don't need to do much work. NCAA Football and FIFA both have fairly good team creation modes.

To do the above they would just need to take TeamBuilder a step further where you would classify what gender and level of team you are creating along with different custom assets like arenas, and equipment. Let the users upload their own artwork (like in NCAA football) and pick all the equipment and arena details for their teams. This would be great for a team manager mode or the 'be a player' mode.

The point is, EA just would have to provide the tools to do so and let us do the work making our own teams, leagues, tournaments. Everything from high school, juniors, minor leagues, Olympics, NHL, and World Championships would be possible from the fans here on OS.

Granted, this would be a 'fine line' when negotiations come up with the NHLPA, NCAA and other leagues/player associations. "We didn't make the teams, we just made the software to make the teams" isn't going to hold up.

[B5KoshYou]

Lets not forget to include the Federal League featuring the Charleston Chiefs with Reg Dunlop, the Hanson Brothers, and Dave "Killer" Carlson.

C'mon EA, you know everyone working on NHL would want to do this!

[Reiny09]

Quote: Originally Posted by bwiggy33

EA will not do most of this stuff, even though we want them to. I mean ultimately we all know the EA would need licensing in order to have the NCAA. The older teams is a terrific idea and I wish they would do that over having the legends. 2k had the classic teams down perfectly. All you had to do was name the rosters and you were golden. I loved playing with the 95 and 01 Avs (my two favorite teams in hockey history). I just don't think EA will spend time on this stuff because it is very time consuming and takes a lot of work. Reiny, I think the opposite. IMO they should make us want to play this game year round. Why? Because we would be more apt to buy the next version just to see how much they did to improve the already great game. The Show is a prime example of this. I love that series to death. It's the only sports game I've ever been able to play all year round. People think The Show is the exact same every year, I don't. They tune the game and have made great improvements from year to year. Do they seem minuscule? Maybe to some, but I can notice the differences. They also work their asses off every year to add in the little details (90% of players have exact faces, exact LED templates, stadiums). That's an area where the NHL team hasn't been able to touch because they were to busy the past few years on fighting goalies, broken glass, and the list goes on. The Show is able to do it because they got the gameplay mostly where they want it and can have people focus on bringing the game to a whole new level of realism that no other sports game replicates. The effort that The Show Dev team shows from year to year is the reason I buy it every year. I appreciate their hard work and for that reason alone I will give them my $60 every year. If they ever steer away from that, I will no longer be willing to do that. With NHL, Madden, NCAA, I don't ever know what to expect and am totally scared to give my $60 away. Just my take on it, and I definitely see your point Reiny.

I agree with you 100%. I know what you mean about MLB The Show as well, as I have bought it the last 3 years since I got my PS3. I agree that I have no problem spending $60 a year for a game like The Show that makes great strides every year and continues to put out a great game. But EA doesn't do this every year. Just look at how much people have been talking about how great the NHL team has improved the game this year. We'll see a dev cycle like this maybe once or twice per console generation, whereas, MLB makes improvements on this scale every year. If NHL would make improvements like they have this year, every year, I would have no problem paying $60 each year and supporting the company and the work that they do.

When EA is making minuscule improvements each year like we have seen with the last 3 or so iterations, it makes it difficult to justify going out and spending $60 for virtually the same game. It would be even more difficult to justify it if we had the ability to customize the game to the extent you guys have been talking about.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't absolutely love to see this stuff in the game. I just don't see EA doing it until they can start consistently having productive dev cycles like we have seen this year.