NHL 11 - Catch-All

magnus wrote:

Here's hoping the music system is the same this year. :)

They've added goal horn cues this year. So now you can not only replace the goal music with team-specific ones but if you're unhappy with the horn you can replace that separately.

ColdForged wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

Hit me up for a game anytime you want, Cold. You prick!

AVATAR WIN!

I thought you would appreciate that. But somebody has stick up for us old men that can't score. Every time I mention auto-aim I get some abuse.

Manual aim for online games is pretty much a deal killer for me. I'm tired of 0-0 games going to shootouts for 8 rounds before they get decided....

SwampYankee wrote:

Manual aim for online games is pretty much a deal killer for me. I'm tired of 0-0 games going to shootouts for 8 rounds before they get decided....

Pretty much. At least for online play.

NHL 10's offline play was pretty awesome, in my opinion. I finished an an entire 82 game season, playing every game. But I just couldn't stomach much online play. Maxox and I had a few games like we had with 09.

But I'm not holding my breath on it being added for online play. But it's still a day one purchase for me, because it will still get plenty of play from me in offline mode. While you could not turn it on, auto-aim was visible as an option in the demo.

At what exact time is it coming out? I'm pondering taking a day off...

September 7th. It's my wife's birthday. Do you think she will be pleased with her present?

So, like, should we try do do something leaguey this year? We tried and mostly failed the last few years, giving me very little hope it would succeed this year but what the hell.

Great USStream being presented by EA right now detailing NHL 11.

Right now, the Madden team ought to be embarrassed by their Ultimate Team mode.

http://www.facebook.com/easportsnhl?...

*edit* It's down right now, but they just came on and promised it would be up in a fe minutes.

What they are showing of Ultimate Team is so far beyond what Madden delivered, it's not even funny. It really is about as clear of an example of the difference between those two development teams. Madden, in ts second season, basically came in with the same thing, but with some bug fixes.

EA Canada comes in with an entire re-imagining as to what Ultimate Team could be. Seriously awesome.

And it is back up...

ColdForged wrote:

So, like, should we try do do something leaguey this year? We tried and mostly failed the last few years, giving me very little hope it would succeed this year but what the hell.

Third year in a row I say that I'm in

Having said that, I need a couple of weeks with the game first to figure out how to score on y'all first.

If I recall correctly, I played the most games in our league. In fact, the only person I did not play a game against was....who was it? Oh yeah, Coldforged himself. It was either Jayhawker or Counselar who felt the wrath of Ovechkin in a 1-0 overtime shoot-out.

I will play. But if scoring is as hard as it was the last two years for some of us feebs, then I doubt it lasts. But I will give it my best shot.

Wish I could play this year, but at this point I'll probably stick to offline play. I don't think I'll be able to find consistent time for online games.

ubrakto wrote:

Wish I could play this year, but at this point I'll probably stick to offline play. I don't think I'll be able to find consistent time for online games.

You need a correction of your priorities, obviously.

BTW, if there was someone who you knew had the game already, would you know if his impressions were generally positive or negative, hypothetically?

Jayhawker wrote:

BTW, if there was someone who you knew had the game already, would you know if his impressions were generally positive or negative, hypothetically? ;-)

Hypothetically speaking, if this was true, I also would like to know

So I tried the demo last night on my PS3. While greatly impressed by the graphics and physics, I found myself less impressed by the fact that none of the tutorials ever told me how to pass the puck.

I'll keep futzing I guess.

LilCodger wrote:

So I tried the demo last night on my PS3. While greatly impressed by the graphics and physics, I found myself less impressed by the fact that none of the tutorials ever told me how to pass the puck.

I'll keep futzing I guess.

I haven't tried it on PS3 but if it's like the 360 version you'd use the right trigger to pass.

I've had a lot of negative things to say about EA's Ultimate Team modes that they use to extract more revenue from out pockets. But the more I see and read about the NHL version, the more I am inclined to give this a serious look.

The devs are blogging about it now, which is part of their PR to pump us up for the game and mode. But what rammer describes here just sounds like addicting fun. Even more, for a fairly new fan of hockey like me, it seems like an insanely fun way to really learn about more players across the league, including up and coming prospects.

From the blog:

So…after earning a couple packs and making a crafty trade, I get Cam Fowler and Ryan Ellis playing D together. Both these guys played defense for the Windsor Spitfires last year so their chemistry is through the roof. Along the way, I earned several training cards so I decided that I was going to train up Cam Fowler first and try to get him up to a 90+ rating. I put 6 training cards on him and got him up to an 85. A couple games later, I tried advancing to play a game and was reminded that I had a player without a contract. Guess who…Cam Fowler. No problem RIGHT? I’ll just go put a 40 game contract card on him which I had waiting for use on one of my young players. WRONG! I could put the contract card on him no problem…AT TWICE THE SALARY!

GM lesson 101: When you try to re-sign an 85 rated player, he will cost more than trying to sign a player rated in the 70’s! LOCK UP YOUR YOUNG TALENT TO LONG CONTRACTS BEFORE TRAINING THEM UP.

I swear they are going to make me eat my words.

So here we are with a long weekend coming up and the damn game doesn't come out until Tuesday? How cruel.

magnus wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

BTW, if there was someone who you knew had the game already, would you know if his impressions were generally positive or negative, hypothetically? ;-)

Hypothetically speaking, if this was true, I also would like to know ;)

Hypothetically, if I did know a hypothetical someone who was playing the hypothetical game, I would say that he (or she) hypothetically had a lot of positive things to say and that I am hypothetically mad that he (or she) has it and not me. Hypothetically, of course.

I am hypothetically very pleased.

This hypothetical game seems to by aces, hypothetically. I'm just hoping against all hope that they have included online auto-aim so some of us pansies can actually enjoy some online play this year, hypothetically.

magnus wrote:

So here we are with a long weekend coming up and the damn game doesn't come out until Tuesday? How cruel.

I know, right?

I'm biding my time with Tiger Woods 11 for now. This really is a great game. I sank a 62 foot putt for an Eagle last night! I then proceeded to double bogey the next hole. Worse, I finished with an 84 (+13).

But all I really want to do is use the real time physics, using TJ Oshie, and completely blow up Rick Nash. It's the simple things, really.

The blog entry at EA's In the Crease gets into the ratings of the CHL teams.

Unfortunately one of the problems with NHL 10 seems to still be around in this year's game. We don't have the NHL ratings, but if the CHL ratings are in indication, parity is a problem.

the OHL has this spread:

OVR # of teams
73 - 2
72 - 4
71 - 9
70 - 3
69 - 2

The other two leagues that make up the CHL have basically the same spread. For all I know this is a good representation of how closely all of the CHL teams actually are talent-wise. But this is also the kind of spread we saw in the NHL team last season, which lead to teams like Pittsburgh missing the playoffs, and anyone winning the cup in sims.

It's not a deal-breaker by any means. I enjoyed playing through an entire 83 game season last year despite the balanced ratings. But I was hoping to see more disparity.

Yeah, I remember that being an issue last year, when Toronto won the Northeast and Atlanta walked the Southeast by a good 18 points. Obviously, the NHL is not NCAA football or basketball, but I don't think anyone would argue that Edmonton > Vancouver.

Prederick wrote:

Toronto won the Northeast

You hater you.

ubrakto wrote:

Hypothetically, if I did know a hypothetical someone who was playing the hypothetical game, I would say that he (or she) hypothetically had a lot of positive things to say and that I am hypothetically mad that he (or she) has it and not me. Hypothetically, of course.

One positive thing posted.

magnus wrote:
ubrakto wrote:

Hypothetically, if I did know a hypothetical someone who was playing the hypothetical game, I would say that he (or she) hypothetically had a lot of positive things to say and that I am hypothetically mad that he (or she) has it and not me. Hypothetically, of course.

One positive thing posted.

Bill can be hard to please, so that is really good news.

I saw this write up on the GM mode over at OS. Looks like guys that enjoy managing rosters and such are going to have a blast.

With that, let's start with an overview of the key new features/improvements:

• CHL Integration
• RFA/UFA rules per the CBA
• Preseason
• Revamped trade AI for more realistic CPU/CPU and User/CPU transactions
• Ability to trade up to 5 years worth of picks
• Improved trade screen with ability to make up to 5-for-5 deals
• New stats panels in BAGM hub screen by scrolling with R-stick
• Authentic draft pick ownership

Sounds good, eh? But much of this was previously announced and what I'd like to do is give the OS community some insight into some of the finer details that await us in NHL11 BAGM. So without further delay…

One of the little things that I stumbled on was which arena fit my team the best. At first, I was just using whatever arena I got in my latest pack, which at the time was a North American rink. I was playing one of the other guys here and played in my rink - I ended up losing, and his big defensemen had their way with my forwards. We immediately played another game, in his international rink, and the tables completely turned the other way, as my forwards were able to use the bigger ice to their advantage and totally abuse his lack of speed on the blueline. Don’t have to tell you which arena I’m using now!

Source

Want. Now.

For what it's worth to those who have a Wii, I've been playing Slapshot for a few days now and it's pretty interesting. It's not gonna be NHL '11 as a pure hockey game, but if you want to play a modern incarnation of the original Genesis NHL game with a Pee-Wee to Bantam to Juniors to NHL mode it's pretty damn nifty so far. Little Todd just took home the Pee Wee league championship, while leading the league in scoring and getting the playoff (one game) MVP. This afternoon I start at the Bantam level. Gonna be cross-checking Female Doggoes like mad.

ubrakto wrote:

For what it's worth to those who have a Wii, I've been playing Slapshot for a few days now and it's pretty interesting. It's not gonna be NHL '11 as a pure hockey game, but if you want to play a modern incarnation of the original Genesis NHL game with a Pee-Wee to Bantam to Juniors to NHL mode it's pretty damn nifty so far. Little Todd just took home the Pee Wee league championship, while leading the league in scoring and getting the playoff (one game) MVP. This afternoon I start at the Bantam level. Gonna be cross-checking Female Doggoes like mad.

thanks for the impressions. I'm interested in checking Slapshot out. I'm not sure it's what I want in a sports game. Heck, I favored Tiger Woods on the 360 over having to get off my butt. But I have a friend that just moved to two that only has a Wii. He's a hockey fan, so it would be fun for some head-to-head on the couch. If it is good enough to recommend to him, i may pick it up, too.

But NHL 11 is what I'm craving right now.

Amazon shipped my preorder today. Of course, with the holiday, I won't get it until Tuesday.

I'd be down to try another league. Hopefully we can get it to work this year.

I want my crappy Sabres, though.