NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by sroz39

Out of everything I said, THIS is what you focused on? Lol. Seems you missed my point. I'm playing Madden 08 on the original Xbox and Madden 10 on the 360 is the first current gen Madden that is finally catching up to the last gen game in playability and just in general, the whole package that the PS2/Xbox Maddens offered. For what reason? It was completely pointless to change a solid engine. And that was my whole point, that the NHL series, at this point, is a finely tuned and fun, mostly realistic hockey game engine and people looking for wholesale changes are probably barking up the wrong tree. Rightfully so, might I add. This engine doesn't NEED a huge change. What they're doing, by adding key, sim gameplay functions like boardplay, is making a great, fun game even better. And yes, moving from last gen to the current gen systems, they overhauled the engine. But that's because they had to. This engine does not need changing, just a few gameplay tweaks, a bit of tightening up of the animations and we're good. I don't want them adding a ton of things half-@$$ed and those additions ruining the game.

I think a huge difference is the NHL team was afforded the luxury of taking a year off from having to ship a product while building from the ground up, while the Madden team was not. I would account thats the major reason the NHL sku is so much further along then the rest of the EA sports lineup when it comes to the current gen systems.

Agree with pretty much your entire post on the whole though Sroz, the game doesn't need major changes, just continue to make solid tweaks and add layers of polish like they've been doing, though taking a page out of 2k's book and getting the arena's more true to their real life counterparts and adding specific arena intros would pretty much seal the deal at this point.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by infinityBCRT

Of course its not simple, I understand a 1 year dev cycle makes it hard to radically improve the fundamental engine because you run the risk of not being able to complete such a change or all of the focus on one feature will make it seem like there was very little work done to the game. But thats why I'm here, to criticize and to push you to try to think out of the box and to do better things. Serving out kool-aid would be far more dangerous, especially if you believed it. Maybe this is a cheap shot at the competitor, but for the last few years they really have been drinking their own kool-aid and the kool-aid of their biggest cheerleaders which is why they thought ideas such as cinemotion or two speed bursts were good when anyone outside of the bubble could see what a disaster such ideas were. I do think if EA is able to move to a subscription based model where the main development occurs continuously it will allow the team to do two things: 1. Allow for the implementation of bigger features such as a more robust physics engine. Development wouldn't have to be constrained to a 10 month dev cycle. 2. Allow for quicker rollouts of smaller features, stuff that can be rolled out every few months instead of every year. And if any new features/changes completely screw up the game, they can be rolled back instead of the user having to wait another year for it to be fixed. Boxed copies which are snapshots of the game at the start of the season could still be put out as 50% of the sports gamers out there likely are not active online gamers as well, but I think a subscription model is a great way to give more flexibility to the development team. -- Okay I got a little side tracked there. By the way, What I really think the next generational leap for hockey games will be after getting the skating engine down is to get movement and collision detection in tight quarters down. If you look at any exciting scramble in the NHL there are players that are able to navigate through tight spaces to get to the puck and thats important. The only video game I can think of that has implemented anything like that is Assassin's Creed with it's crowd AI. I guess its similar to the stuff that natural motion is doing as well, or even some of the stuff in fight night (glancing blows, inside fighting). Having total collision detection with sticks is another goal that needs to be reached. I know its something that seems trivial and minor but if its implemented it will do wonders for many aspects of the gameplay. And finally (and maybe the most least), jerseys would need to be modelled as cloth so that sticks would be able to get caught in them and it would also fix the abnormal texture stretching that occurs during player animations. Just look at the first goal scored in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLw3WVyD6tE&hd=1 . Something like that is impossible to model because players can not move and react realistically when they are that close together in the game, but once thats possible, we will wee some incredible gameplay moments. Its all a little pie in the sky but thats the next step IMO. Once a new physics engine is in place, the gameplay and presentation can move ahead in meaningful ways.

While you make some good points (well except for the whole subscription thing, I'm so not about that) when it comes to physics calculations and the like, I think you need to take into consideration that the current consoles although theyhave multi core processors neither one has much ram, (512 megs on the 360, 256 megs on the PS3) the amount of memory needed to do the precise animation calculations you're laying out, while keeping the framerate solid (something the 360 and PS3 have issues with even now since the're really both underpowered ram wise) is just not going to happen with the current gen machines.

[infinityBCRT]

Quote: Originally Posted by RealmK

While you make some good points (well except for the whole subscription thing, I'm so not about that) when it comes to physics calculations and the like, I think you need to take into consideration that the current consoles although theyhave multi core processors neither one has much ram, (512 megs on the 360, 256 megs on the PS3) the amount of memory needed to do the precise animation calculations you're laying out, while keeping the framerate solid (something the 360 and PS3 have issues with even now since the're really both underpowered ram wise) is just not going to happen with the current gen machines.

Everything can be approximated to some extent. I think I learned that in my linear algebra course . I understand that the 360 and PS3 cannot do everything but if not this gen, then it should be prepared for next gen. A makeshift way to go possibly could be to develop a PC version (oh yes, thats a whole other can of worms... but look at what blizzard is doing with starcraft 2 and thats the answer to pc piracy) which uses a more powerful physics engine until the next generation of consoles arrives and to use a scaled back version on the consoles until the next gen.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by infinityBCRT

Everything can be approximated to some extent. I think I learned that in my linear algebra course . I understand that the 360 and PS3 cannot do everything but if not this gen, then it should be prepared for next gen. A makeshift way to go possibly could be to develop a PC version (oh yes, thats a whole other can of worms... but look at what blizzard is doing with starcraft 2 and thats the answer to pc piracy) which uses a more powerful physics engine until the next generation of consoles arrives and to use a scaled back version on the consoles until the next gen.

/off topic rant Don't get me started on the most overrated developer in the history of gaming (blizzard) on not only stripping out lan play due to "piracy" or breaking the single player into three seperate skus so they and their new Activision overlords can milk SC2 for all its worth. Or that the Warcraft3 engine even with the spit and polish they've added in the current SC2 builds is still showing its age. Or that they couldn't ship a game in a timely manner (ya know one that isn't a 5+ year dev cycle) to save their lives. /end off topic rant

I hear ya though never to early to prep for the PS4 and Xbox 720, wouldn't mind seeing the NHL series return to the PC either as long as its in NG form this time.

[infinityBCRT]

Quote: Originally Posted by RealmK

/off topic rant Don't get me started on the most overrated developer in the history of gaming (blizzard) on not only stripping out lan play due to "piracy" or breaking the single player into three seperate skus so they and their new Activision overlords can milk SC2 for all its worth. Or that the Warcraft3 engine even with the spit and polish they've added in the current SC2 builds is still showing its age. Or that they couldn't ship a game in a timely manner (ya know one that isn't a 5+ year dev cycle) to save their lives. /end off topic rant I hear ya though never to early to prep for the PS4 and Xbox 720, wouldn't mind seeing the NHL series return to the PC either as long as its in NG form this time.

Actually LAN play will likely be in SC2 they revealed recently, but they are using online DRM. You'll always have to be connected to the internet though to verify that you do have a valid license to play the game and a lot of the game's functionality is tied into battle.net (such as the friends list, leaderboards, etc) so whether you like it or not, it increases the willingness of someone to purchase the game rather than pirate it. Offline DRM or one-time activation DRM can always be cracked and is rather ineffective because it punishes the legit buyers and does nothing to deter the pirates.

By the way, I wanna say that EA_Redshirt is a good guy for doing this and opening the lines of communication between the developers and the community. With this plus Rammer's twitter it feels like more than ever the team is listening to the community.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by infinityBCRT

Actually LAN play will likely be in SC2 they revealed recently, but they are using online DRM. You'll always have to be connected to the internet though to verify that you do have a valid license to play the game and a lot of the game's functionality is tied into battle.net (such as the friends list, leaderboards, etc) so whether you like it or not, it increases the willingness of someone to purchase the game rather than pirate it. Offline DRM or one-time activation DRM can always be cracked and is rather ineffective because it punishes the legit buyers and does nothing to deter the pirates.

Which defeats the whole point of keeping a LAN party offline so as not to have guys run off to "help a guildy in wow real quick" or "check email real quick" not to mention lan competitions, god all those SC players in China must be pissed about this. etc etc. I'm all for supporting developers, especially on games I like (Bioware's titles come instantly to mind having just preordered the CE PC edition of DragonAge) but all the draconian DRM in the world is only going to hurt PC gaming more than its going to help sales imo. Gah must not derail thread! naughty naughty infinity, ya made me go off on a rant.

[ether]

Quote: Originally Posted by Flyermania

My thought is they make fighting a user 's choice at all times...whether you are trying to initiate it or the CPU (just like it was done in 2004). Have a graphic pop up on the screen where you have to hit a specific button to start the fight. I don't want to risk pinning a plyer on the boards with Gagne or Carter and run the risk of a fight occurring and I lose one of my superstars for 5 minutes. For me, this takes away a degree of control and realism that I want in my hockey game.

Definitely, from that perspective, it does take away from the game a bit. I'm actually pretty impressed with the new first-person fighter, it's certainly a big step up from what we've had in the past. I guess they already give the option to choose the fight when they are trying to instigate you so to have it work both ways should be an easy fix and just makes a lot of sense.

[Myloman]

This is the most realistic sports game I've ever played, and saying that without sliders is pretty damn amazing.