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NHL 15
Topic Started: May 6 2014, 09:27 AM (4,753 Views)
Vod
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EA just released some info about NHL 15:

http://www.easports.com/nhl/nhl15

[dohtml]<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ytkPcoi6VMw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/dohtml]
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jacob_jub
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Looks like nhl 14 but with better graphics. Still im voting for 2004.
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The Cheese
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Only thing that entises me about it are Doc Emrick and Ray Ferraro doing commentary for the next-gen consoles. Planning on buying a PS4 so I may invest in 15 too
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jacob_jub
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I hate doc emrick. He also talks poetically and oddly. i prefer our pbp people. But i do like eddie O.
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Vod
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The Cheese,6 May 2014
7:24 AM
Only thing that entises me about it are Doc Emrick and Ray Ferraro doing commentary for the next-gen consoles. Planning on buying a PS4 so I may invest in 15 too

I'm looking forward to seeing most of the new features that they listed in action, especially the new arenas, physics engine and the new cyberface details. I was really surprised to see that they also added dynamic cloth physics. I don't have plans to get a PS4 or Xbox One anytime soon, but it's good to see that they are raising the bar with a brand new game engine. Too bad there won't be a PC release. Someone really needs to capitalize on that..
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trent
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There's nothing to capitalize. At least not financially.

Football (soccer to you guys) is the biggest sport in the world by a ridiculous margin.... but I read somewhere that even FIFA sales numbers on PC are relatively low... because of pirating. The download numbers of pirated versions of PES/FIFA must be staggering... millions...!!

I think the way they see it: PC versions are just taking sales away from consoles.

Even baseball games supply to PC has now stopped. Baseball, American football and hockey are (globally) marginal sports compared to soccer. I mean relatively. ALL sports are marginal sports compared to soccer. There are millions of fans, true... but not millions of potential game buyers. That means no more MLB 2k. Madden has been gone for a long time... Madden 08 is still good though.

NBA 2k and FIFA/PES are the only remaining PC sports series. I don't see a new hockey title coming, unless it's going to be some kind of open source project.

That means NHL04 will have the monopoly for PC in the future as well. It's both good and bad.
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Vod
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Those are some good points. An open source hockey game would be pretty awesome. There are a lot of talented modders out there; If they all pooled their effort into a new game without the restrictions of EA games, it would probably rise to the best hockey game. :) One thing to keep in mind is EA didn't take a loss on the PC NHL games, they just couldn't justify putting resources towards it when those resources can be put towards genres that do much better in sales such as FPS games. It's the same case for 2k who has blockbusters such as Civilization and Bioshock. For a smaller company, it would still be a large profit. The way I see it, their entire business model was flawed and works best for consoles. EA is a bloated company trying to profit off of $50 (PC) yearly updates when many of the changes can be done by modders. I think a smaller, dedicated team which is with the times, uses a modern and affordable distribution platform such as steam instead of expensive DVD distribution, uses established engines such as the unreal engine, does regular roster and bug fix updates and is reasonably priced would do well. It's been proven time and time again that the vast majority of PC gamers still pay for their games if they don't hate the company, are convenient to buy, reasonably priced, isn't full of DRM and has regular updates. EA Sports PC games fails all five. There are countless companies on steam making a killing off of niche games, mostly because they have less overhead, aren't far-removed from the players, don't have a million other games under their belt and are more efficient as a result.
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neonfish
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How about a kickstarter for hockey Game base. no leageus ,basic textures.no soundtrack and advances sound effects Only the brain of the game all the others could be modded. We could organize the kickstarter and find develpers for that if it is successfull.The coders get paid form the money.the game is opensource and moddable. And we can forget about EA sports.

Is the hockey community big enough to support this financialy and mod the missing stuff?thats the question
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trent
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EA console games have semi-decent game engines, but the problem is that consoles aren't a good platform for any hardcore gaming. But then again the masses aren't even looking for that... they're just looking for nice online gaming and some entertaining 1-on-1 action.

New FIFA and PES look very pretty but under the surface they're basically just arcade games with some very heavy scripting engine. They don't even have ai settings! :o That means there is no real customization available. In that sense hockey games are much more advanced... we've had ai settings since NHL 1999 (I think).

I have spent MONTHS trying to adjust these games (esp. PES 2011 and 2013) with roster tweaks but it's impossible... that laughable scripting ruin them completely. Take PES 2013, for example... great game if it only had milder scripting. When I play that game I always think the same thing... all basics are GREAT and it even plays good... but what a wasted opportunity it is.

Those issues could be solved with simple ai sliders... "momentum effect", "referee strictness" and all that. But they don't bother... so the hardcore gamers go back to play PES 5 and 6... ten year old games which haven't been aged as graciously as NHL04.

It's the same problem with KONAMI and EA Sports... they're just corporate pigs who make mediocre games for masses.

It's ironic because PES4 and NHL04 were among the first games that started to utilize the ai scripting. It actually makes them great because the effect was moderate and random... but in PES 2013 it doesn't matter how much edge you give the defense in the rosters... the CPU will score with 90% percentage when it goes into the "scripting mood". You actually KNOW when they're going to score from a free kick or from a "last minute corner kick". That effect transforms a good game to really annoying piece of shit. People have complained about this same thing in new NHL games as well... they don't seem to care about offline gaming at all.

The best option would be completely profit-free, open source project. It would help to get a source code of some old game, like NHL 2004, to have a good base to build from. With our knowledge and "eye" for real hockey we could transform this game to pretty much anything... the base ai very good.

I guess getting the source code is not realistic... but I'm afraid creating a whole new game from scratch would be too much without a huge team.

I'd be happy if we got the damn hooking down. The passing game could be improved as well. The graphics aren't an issue... except the broadcast view... it looks like shit... that's where you see the aged player animations clearly... they look like robots. I think modded overhead view is the ultimate for NHL04... it looks amazing with that view, even today.

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CgyFlames
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I know the idea of creating a new game from scratch sounds sexy, but that's a clear step back from what we have now: an already great game that's being tweaked and improved slowly.

Hundreds of people work full-time on the EA Sports games for months (I was considering going into the industry at one point, glad I didn't). Unless you have a huge team of professionally skilled people behind you, open source is going to be either a dead end or an endlessly slow work.

As far as the trailer, my policy with EA Sports is: I'll believe it when I play the game. I refuse to get burned by the hype anymore after 20 years of playing their games.
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Vod
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The reason why a new game engine sounds appealing is there are some limits that will be very hard to overcome, even with all the reverse engineering that I've done. For one, we are bound to the limitations of the ancient DX8 at the moment which is handled poorly by some graphics chips and drivers and is emulated in software in many cases. There is also the buffer overflow problem that will be very hard to fix and is a huge limitation. The interface is a non-standard resolution and is partially reliant on a barely documented feature in windows that will probably be removed in the future, meaning the IE fix will no longer work. We're holding on by a thread in some cases. The way I see it, the PC hockey scene has a dark future unless a new game engine comes along. Even a 2d game would be a great start. Sure, there will always be people out there who stick with old operating systems and hardware, but most people will upgrade eventually as prices continually drop.
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jacob_jub
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trent,7 May 2014
7:27 PM
I'd be happy if we got the damn hooking down. The passing game could be improved as well. The graphics aren't an issue... except the broadcast view... it looks like shit... that's where you see the aged player animations clearly... they look like robots. I think modded overhead view is the ultimate for NHL04... it looks amazing with that view, even today.

When i play the Vanilla Rebuilt mod i have noticed very little hooking. I dont know if its the player ratings or my AI settings and for passing we could turn up AI passing and pass assistance. And for the new game if we get new to date models of everything that come with animations that could be the upwards of $600 or more.
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trent
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When you play an exhibition game there's less hooking and more hitting.

Hooking is a season/dynasty problem which is tied to team fatigue. More fatigued teams hook more. When the season has just started, there's always less hooking. It has little to do with roster tweaks and the mod.
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jacob_jub
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No ive only played season the past week and ive still noticed it. Well maybe turn up endurance?
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trent
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If you turn up the endurance too much, the third and fourth lines become completely useless in the game... and the CPU 4th line guys will get 0:00 ice time. Not very realistic, huh?

Lower endurance forces the CPU and player to use all lines... and keep the shifts reasonable. That's why I've implemented it into the ai settings.
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