Will not purchase next year...
To whom it may concern, I have owned every NHL games since NHL 94 and I actually even had NHLPA 93 before the rights to players association and were acquired and NHL 23 will be my last one. I have ...
Forum Discussion
2k is miles ahead of the NHL series but that's to be expected... Basketball is a WILDLY more popular sport than hockey and this means the number of fans of the sport is much higher which in turn means the number of gamers willing to buy the sport's game-version is much higher, right? In turn, this allows for 2k to allocate more resources( i.e. DEVS) to the yearly project which results in the product you're raving about.
NHL will quite literally NEVER be on par (or even close) with NBA 2k. It's just a fact of life. Reality, if you will.
Another thing that should be noted is that it isn't "easy" to add a fully voiced, fully acted, fully animated career mode to ANY game. It's basically the equivalent of building a game within your game. I'm not saying that means it shouldn't be done, so don't get me wrong... but saying things like "It would be so easy to just do X thing," shows in ignorance in regards to software development.
Again, just because something is hard/labor-intensive doesn't mean it shouldn't be done... it just means sacrifices would have to be made in other areas to re-allocate those resources. The bottom line is this: In order for EA NHL to become the game we all want it to be, the sport of hockey would have to SOAR in terms in popularity, become a world-wide phenomenon, and become something that most sports fans are interested in. That's never going to happen.
@NeonSkyline21 I agree we can't expect NHL to be on par with 2K.. I don't need a whole city to walk around.. a small block would be cool, again not needed. Voiced characters wouldn't be hard NHL BAP starts with that.
My problem is that NHL is at keast 30 years behind. It's one thing to not be on par.. it's another to be MILES behind. The fact these games are made in the same year and at the same price is insane. I also think FAR more people would buy if they improved the game (not to 2k levels)
It's too easy to give them the pass and say they don't have the resources.. resources for what? Look at the list of things they added last year and the year before that. Do you think their budget is so small that that's all they can do? No matter how you dice it they're not doing enough. It's extremely frustrating. There are some devs of games that LOVE their own games, are always asking the opinions of their fans and trying to make a game everyone loves as well. EA Vancouver hides behind a wall, we dunno what they're working on, what direction they're going in, who they're taking idea ls from, if they read these forums. We just wait until just before release to hear the few things they changed.. then we write pages upon pages of bugs and we all stand around doing rain dances hoping the next game fixes probs, improves the game more, fixes bugs and every year it's the same.
Does anyone get the feeling the devs/ management at top cares about this game or making a quality game? I'm really wondering.. the fact we have the same bugs every year makes me think they don't care, they likely don't even play it.. If I made a game that I loved and played it, I would at least have some common bugs fixed after a year.
My problem is that NHL is at keast 30 years behind. It's one thing to not be on par.. it's another to be MILES behind. The fact these games are made in the same year and at the same price is insane. I also think FAR more people would buy if they improved the game (not to 2k levels)
It's too easy to give them the pass and say they don't have the resources.. resources for what? Look at the list of things they added last year and the year before that. Do you think their budget is so small that that's all they can do? No matter how you dice it they're not doing enough. It's extremely frustrating. There are some devs of games that LOVE their own games, are always asking the opinions of their fans and trying to make a game everyone loves as well. EA Vancouver hides behind a wall, we dunno what they're working on, what direction they're going in, who they're taking idea ls from, if they read these forums. We just wait until just before release to hear the few things they changed.. then we write pages upon pages of bugs and we all stand around doing rain dances hoping the next game fixes probs, improves the game more, fixes bugs and every year it's the same.
Does anyone get the feeling the devs/ management at top cares about this game or making a quality game? I'm really wondering.. the fact we have the same bugs every year makes me think they don't care, they likely don't even play it.. If I made a game that I loved and played it, I would at least have some common bugs fixed after a year.
@rsandersr47 wrote:
Does anyone get the feeling the devs/ management at top cares about this game or making a quality game? I'm really wondering.. the fact we have the same bugs every year makes me think they don't care, they likely don't even play it.. If I made a game that I loved and played it, I would at least have some common bugs fixed after a year.My opinion is that those in positions to direct massive, fundamental changes to gameplay, modes etc. are not willing to take that risk and/or they don't feel supported from the people above THEM to take those risks. They may also feel shorthanded with such a small development team. Deciding to take a risk on a big change to any given mode comes with so much anxiety at effecting the bottom line - they give into complacency in an effort to ensure just enough things change so that the game can be marketed with 'new' features, and the ROI is .025% higher than previous years.
The loss of Ben Ross (and the loss of Geoff Harrower, who developed big things for the motion engine in NHL/UFC) does not bode well for either series. Although it might be refreshing to get some new blood under the hood of these things, the fact that these two left EA (and now Brian Hayes as well) sets of alarm bells that maybe there is a lack of vision coming from the top and a lack of trust in the truly creative people within their development teams.
That said, executives at EA need to take a long, hard look at the NHL series and its current stalemate when it comes to modes, features and being compared to other games such as MLB The Show and NBA2K. What really grinds me as a fan of sports games is the drumbeat of microtransactions and how a majority of time and effort goes into ensuring players are coming back to those modes by way of addiction rather than by way of an immersive and compelling virtualization of our favorite sports.
I don't think the core development team of the NHL series "doesn't care". Sure, there are people there just collecting a decent paycheque for software development, engineering, etc. But having actually met with and interacted with the development team in-person, albeit 10 years ago, they are genuinely passionate about the product they put out.
- @KidShowtime1867 Great post. Thing is, I'm not sure there's passion in putting out the product they have this year and charging an absolute premium for it, as well as microtransactions. If nothing else this game needs a constant stream of bug fixing. Not even gameplay additions (which would be good), but legitimate bugs that have been ignored going back years that transfers to each new iteration of the game when they recycle broke code.
