NHL 15 News Post

NHL GameChangers Event Recap: "You Should Be Excited"

11:21 AM - February 5, 2015 by RaychelSnr

OS'er Oohwayy recapped the special EASHL committee which EA held in Vancouver recently with some interesting new details on where the NHL franchise may be heading. In the post, it was proclaimed that gamers "should be excited" about the direction on EA Sports' NHL. Compiling points from various sources, here is what came out of the meeting, with much of it being nothing more than vague rumors and hints -- so if that isn't your thing you probably shouldn't read on:

There was a lot of back and forth at the event, with developers being very interactive and open about the process.
NDAs were signed so a lot of things can't be revealed obviously.
EASHL will be very exciting for both casual and competitive players, big changes are coming to the modes which have been planned well in advance.
The future is bright for offline gamers too.
A lot of highly requested features are being implemented this next year.

So basically, a lot of vagueness, which is to be expected at this early point in the development cycle. The 'big' news is easily that EASHL is definitely going to happen in NHL 16, but that is neither shocking nor unexpected. It also sounds as if the mode will be getting some pretty big changes versus what it used to be, which could be taken as either a positive or a negative.

Otherwise, from the general tone coming out of this meeting -- plus the tone coming out of EA period -- there is no reason not to believe NHL 16 won't make a huge step forward this year both in terms of modes offered and the usual yearly gameplay enhancements.

What do you want to see from NHL 16 this year?

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# 21 Simple Mathematics @ 02/07/15 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryHood059


	i'm getting the same sense as you, and am not too thrilled about it especially when you have MLB the Show go out of their way to include their customers/fan base in the decision making process- all the while conducting this process with clear transparency not at a secret gathering for a selected few. ergo, i'm not the least bit excited.

I have always wondered this. Why is everything always a secret amongst game developers, most notably EA? What is the big secret and why can't they tell us their visions for the game? Wouldn't that just get more interest in the game and therefore create more sales?

And if they keep secrets because they don't want to make promises that they might have to break, well I think that's a little better than continuously underwhelming with their finished products.

# 22 jkra0512 @ 02/08/15 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simple Mathematics


	I have always wondered this. Why is everything always a secret amongst game developers, most notably EA? What is the big secret and why can't they tell us their visions for the game? Wouldn't that just get more interest in the game and therefore create more sales? And if they keep secrets because they don't want to make promises that they might have to break, well I think that's a little better than continuously underwhelming with their finished products.

You basically answered your own question, and correctly IMO. I would add they don't make these promises because of expectations. Think about it, if they can temper expectations from its fanbase, then incremental improvements can be touted as monumental features.

Plus, it's a business move and one SCEA and their Show series is beginning to see, which is product fatigue. If you give your customer base everything they want in one iteration, then you need to spend money on innovation (e.g. defenseman playing sound defense), which costs much more than making small changes and touting them as game changers (e.g. new card packs for HUT!).

Unfortunately for us the hardcore fans, HUT is where it's at. EA is a business, and while it's tough for us to swallow the fact that they spend so much time & resources on HUT, that's their cash cow and they'd be foolish not to take advantage of that. That said, NHL 15 is the future of how EA will treat their hardcore fans, and I'm sure most of you have already seen that coming.

You hear it all the time, if you don't like the product anymore, don't support it. If EA is to change anything, it'll come from people not frequenting the message boards, people not hyping up the game for them, and people ultimately not buying the game. EA only sees one thing, money, and each and every year the same people are buying the same game and have the same complaints...but the one common factor is EA still gets its money. If you do buy the game, don't do it day-one, don't use HUT, and buy used or at an extremely discounted price!

Finally, in regards to this specific event, it's an EA-sponsored event, who the heck is going to come out of there and say, "Man, they've done NOTHING with this game, you should just turn away"? C'mon...

# 23 FBeaule04 @ 02/08/15 10:08 AM

Completely agree with BigWill on that one. Couldn't have said it better myself to be honest.

The NHL series to me is like the actual Oilers. Run by people who doesn't seem to know what they are doing, too much passengers that don't care, huge holes on defence, no goalies and over and over again, telling you that it's going to be better next year.

Like the Oilers, I'm only going to say that no matter how hard you're telling us it's going to be something next year, I'll believe when I see it!

# 24 Simple Mathematics @ 02/08/15 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkra0512


	You basically answered your own question, and correctly IMO. I would add they don't make these promises because of expectations. Think about it, if they can temper expectations from its fanbase, then incremental improvements can be touted as monumental features. Plus, it's a business move and one SCEA and their Show series is beginning to see, which is product fatigue. If you give your customer base everything they want in one iteration, then you need to spend money on innovation (e.g. defenseman playing sound defense), which costs much more than making small changes and touting them as game changers (e.g. new card packs for HUT!). Unfortunately for us the hardcore fans, HUT is where it's at. EA is a business, and while it's tough for us to swallow the fact that they spend so much time & resources on HUT, that's their cash cow and they'd be foolish not to take advantage of that. That said, NHL 15 is the future of how EA will treat their hardcore fans, and I'm sure most of you have already seen that coming. You hear it all the time, if you don't like the product anymore, don't support it. If EA is to change anything, it'll come from people not frequenting the message boards, people not hyping up the game for them, and people ultimately not buying the game. EA only sees one thing, money, and each and every year the same people are buying the same game and have the same complaints...but the one common factor is EA still gets its money. If you do buy the game, don't do it day-one, don't use HUT, and buy used or at an extremely discounted price! Finally, in regards to this specific event, it's an EA-sponsored event, who the heck is going to come out of there and say, "Man, they've done NOTHING with this game, you should just turn away"? C'mon...

The thing that scares me with the NHL series is if enough people dont buy the game to prove a point, there won't be a game the next year because EA would just cancel the franchise. It's NHL, it's not Madden or FIFA. Their NHL franchise seems to be becoming a cheap money-grab. And if it's no longer making money, I can see EA pulling the plug on the NHL franchise very quickly.

# 25 jkra0512 @ 02/08/15 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simple Mathematics


	The thing that scares me with the NHL series is if enough people dont buy the game to prove a point, there won't be a game the next year because EA would just cancel the franchise. It's NHL, it's not Madden or FIFA. Their NHL franchise seems to be becoming a cheap money-grab. And if it's no longer making money, I can see EA pulling the plug on the NHL franchise very quickly.

That's definitely a possibility. So the question becomes, do you continue to support a subpar product or are you happy enough with the games they release each year? For me, I could definitely move on, just like I did with their NCAA Football product (before EA pulled the plug because of the player licensing cases)...however, I can see that being more difficult for others who have grown more attached to the NHL product than I have.

# 26 MavsUCCB @ 02/08/15 10:45 PM

If EA had any guts they'd fly BigWill out for a sit down with no NDA required and let him get everything he ever wanted to get off his chest. I'm picturing Frank Costanza on Festivus but I think it would show that these community events aren't just going to be lip service.

# 27 Simple Mathematics @ 02/08/15 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkra0512


	That's definitely a possibility. So the question becomes, do you continue to support a subpar product or are you happy enough with the games they release each year? For me, I could definitely move on, just like I did with their NCAA Football product (before EA pulled the plug because of the player licensing cases)...however, I can see that being more difficult for others who have grown more attached to the NHL product than I have.

Oh I have already been exploring my other options. Franchise Hockey Manager 2 is sounding like it will be much better than last year's version and I can see myself getting very into that product. I have also downloaded the NHL 2004 Rebuilt mod and just started playing that again. I have also looked into downloading the NHL Hitz Pro mod.

Of course I would prefer a brand new EA NHL game to play. But if that's not an option, there are other ways I can get my hockey fix.

# 28 Smirkin Dirk @ 02/08/15 11:06 PM

I'm not sure bigwill33's post can be improved upon.

But on the sliding scale of utter pessimism -----unbridled optimism, Im slightly more to the right of bigwill33.

Why? Because EA might not listen to hardcore fans, but they'll have seen the sales figures. And the average amount of play sessions players elected to play. And they would not have been positive.

# 29 bigwill33 @ 02/09/15 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MavsUCCB


	If EA had any guts they'd fly BigWill out for a sit down with no NDA required and let him get everything he ever wanted to get off his chest. I'm picturing Frank Costanza on Festivus but I think it would show that these community events aren't just going to be lip service.

Haha thanks. But truth be told, EA doesn't need to fly me out to know how I feel. They just need to read posts like these http://www.operationsports.com/forum...n-systems.html and truly take them to heart.

I probably have a more profound understanding of how the game industry works and how hard it really is to implement things into the game. That I did get from being a community leader some time ago. And I appreciate that and use that knowledge often, especially to try and inform others at a place like OS. The program can be a good thing to have and many companies, including EA Vancouver, has/does take the things that those members say to heart. It just seems that in recent years some of them also use it to try and get the hype machine rolling in the fan forums because they realized that we do a better job of touting or downplaying the game. Word of mouth is huge in this industry, the declining numbers of sales for NHL speaks to that.

If the current NHL staff at EA Vancouver would ever want to get in touch with me, pick my brain or anything, I am always open and willing. I come off brash in my criticism, but I am easy to work with and get along with in a personal setting. I just call things for how I see them because there is no point in wasting time. We (EA and I) had a pretty good relationship in the past, but that faded as their NHL staff turned over.

Overall, I just want to see my favorite sport represented well in a video game again. It doesn't have to be me that flies 3000+ miles away to have that happen. I trust plenty of others to help in the same manner. The only thing that I would ask of anyone else that is in discussion with EA is to relay my findings and suggestions. And then let me know that this happened and what is going to be done in moving forward.

# 30 jyoung @ 02/09/15 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SVCbearcat10


	We are extremely impatient and have unrealistic expectations.

Madden 25, FIFA 14, MLB 14, and NBA 2K14 all shipped with most of their features from the previous console generation.

NHL 15 came out a year after all of those games, and at its launch, had maybe 33% of the features from the previous console generation.

Even Pro Evolution Soccer 2015, which debuted on next-gen the same year as NHL 15, and was allegedly "rebuilt from the ground up," like EA claims NHL 15 was, managed to included most of its features from the previous console generation.

Blaming the fans for being impatient (after they already waited an extra year) and unrealistically demanding makes no sense, when you consider that every other sports franchise (besides NBA Live) was able to achieve feature parity by the time (and in most cases, a year before) NHL 15 released.

# 31 Smirkin Dirk @ 02/09/15 03:05 AM

I disagree with you about NBA2K14. It was a shell of a game. The gameplay was so good, most us chose to ignore what was missing.

# 32 canucksss @ 02/09/15 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigwill33


	What "Gamechanger", "Community Leader", etc. in history has ever come back from a community event that a developer has flown them to and come away from it with a less than positive outlook? This is the huge grain of salt that needs to be taken with these types of things. When companies bring these people in they do all the right things, just like a recruitment trip for a college athlete. You don't see the flaws and problems because the focus is on the positives. But what really can be accomplished over 8 hours of sitting down and discussing the game? Was there hands-on with a current build of the game in which the group of visitors got to test the game out? What legacy issues are still prevalent. When a company just talks about what was wrong and what they are hoping to fix or what will be different they aren't showing anyone anything that may still be wrong or that is broken. It isn't until extensive time with a game that most major flaws come to light. And with 8 hours of sit down what really can be gathered and changed in the development cycle for the next iteration of a game? These programs can be good in that there is some interaction between a fan base and a developer, but overall what the rest of us are left with is hope and hype. And every year each game has a hope and a hype factor. I can tell you this, if we get into August without major media of NHL 16 or without a list of game modes again what are we to believe will be great about this game? Basically all we have at this point is a handful of people that were super stoked to have been "selected" to go on a free trip to play video games. They were wined and dined and made to feel as though they were important for a day or two. In the end we hear "The game is gonna be awesome! Oh, but I can't tell you why or anything about that for quite some time. When? Well until EA gets ahead of the official hype train and spins everything in a manner that won't negatively impact sales." To EA it is important to get the most "popular" members that can influence others into believing the hype being sold. If I trust joeyoutube's assessment that the game will be awesome because he said so and I agree with other things he says about the game then I can't be lead down the wrong path. Where is the tangible evidence? What is being done that is different? There are things that can be said that wouldn't violate an NDA. Furthermore, the fact that people are so afraid to even tread on the grounds of the grey area surrounding an NDA because the main fear isn't that they would face legal repercussions, but rather they worry that they will have blown the privileges that accompany the position they have gotten to. When would we ever get the person that flies back home after one of these events and says to the general audience of a game "You know, they just aren't where I think they should be given how bad recent versions of the product are."? Because with every event like this we see nothing but positives being brought back, but then somehow we still get games that have bugs, legacy issues, horrific game play, glitch or money plays, and features that have been removed for some reason. And if any of it is brought up all we get are excuses. Well there wasn't enough time, but we hope to fix it one day. The damn thing has been that way for 5 years! When is 'one day'? Why should I care how hard it is to program something? It is hard to do a lot of things at most jobs, yet somehow they still get done. Other game developers manage to do more with less even. These are excuses! And I am tired of them! Nobody at a site like this is asking for a reinvention of the wheel. IN FACT, most of us are just asking for things that have already been accomplished in a hockey or sports video game, if not by another developer by the very company that is making this current game now, but in the past. There is a whole wishlist thread in our NHL forum and 95% of that is just asking for stuff that has somehow disappeared from the NHL series. These are things that were in the game already, some of them 10 or 20 years ago! EA used to do things that others didn't because they felt they had to. Now they don't do things that others are doing or even things that they have done in the past because they no longer have to. And for someone to come in and tell us that this next game is really going to be awesome when the past 4 or 5 have trended downward towards a near pitiful level, what right minded person would jump aboard that boat? Let's hope that someone all the hype is true, but let's take this for what it is at the same time, people.

Words are so chEAp with EA that their words or promises meant NOTHING for me now UNTIL I see it in the final product.

I cant agree more to your write up bigwill33...again

# 33 Vikes1 @ 02/10/15 11:25 AM

Must say that imo too, bigwill nailed it. If you want the real lowdown on any future NHL game, only trust yourself. Myself, i'm expecting it to be a long road back.

# 34 GROGtheNailer @ 02/10/15 04:11 PM

Three things, get back all our features that we lost. Make the game play like hockey again. Give us some meaningful tools so users can tune the game they want and share it.

# 35 s_mkheidze @ 02/10/15 05:08 PM

I aint buying it. Them douches tried to pull one over on me with NHL 15...but I am not a fool and put my wallet back into my pocket. If I am to shell out the money for NHL 16, they better show me that it is worth it. None of that crap that they pulled last year; "look everyone...it's so new and shiny". I need to see the value. This year was the first one since 1994 that I did not purchase and EA NHL game. Let's see it they are going to make it 2 years running.

# 36 Sick_McQuick @ 02/26/15 05:26 PM

I cannot stand when they say that GM Connected is not worth our time since not enough people played it. I love the concept I loved off-line be a GM. The reason no one played GM Connected was because it lacked a fantasy draft and a prospect draft that would go round by round. My friends love building teams but were drawn away by the lacking features and incompleteness to the game mode. Please EA I beg you to not leave GM Connected you see how successful similiar features are in games like Madden. It is not the concept that revolted people but it was more so the lacking feature that revolted people.

# 37 TDKing @ 02/26/15 06:01 PM

They are trying to blame us for a poorly implemented mode.
GM connected needed the option for shorter seasons, custom sliders and faster sims along with a real draft.

# 38 milesizdead @ 02/27/15 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sick_McQuick


	I cannot stand when they say that GM Connected is not worth our time since not enough people played it. I love the concept I loved off-line be a GM. The reason no one played GM Connected was because it lacked a fantasy draft and a prospect draft that would go round by round. My friends love building teams but were drawn away by the lacking features and incompleteness to the game mode. Please EA I beg you to not leave GM Connected you see how successful similiar features are in games like Madden. It is not the concept that revolted people but it was more so the lacking feature that revolted people.

I think the biggest reason why people didn't play this game mode more is that most people can't handle losing games. Everybody thinks they should win the cup, every season. When they come across better players they just quit.

I ran a league of 30 GMs for six seasons during NHL13/14, and the biggest challenges were:

1) to find 29 GMs who played the game in a sim hockey style, following a set of written rules that limited TOI of players and limited all sorts of cheese to a minimum.

2) replacing said 29 GMs with people who followed the rules and didn't leave the league because of losing to better players.

After two years, I think only 6-8 GMs were originals. Six cups were won by three different players, so the rest stayed in the league because it was run well, and all the games were played like hockey, not EA's arcade hockey.

(I'm fairly certain, that if EASHL will allow private tournaments within the game, this will be the biggest hurdle keeping the tournaments alive.)

I spent an incredible amount of time running that GMC, enforcing rules, recruiting GMs, honing the rules, organizing games etc. But it was worth it, best online gaming mode ever.

Not enough gamers played GMC? Monetize it then you morons, leagues could be like rented servers in Battlefield.

# 39 THESHAMISASHAME @ 02/27/15 03:35 AM

I would take anything EA NHL said with a grain of salt especially with hype as my favorite was "good things come to those that wait "and it was a Habs centennial team to name one which was nice but not the greatest thing ever as touted and other goofy stuff most dont care about .

But That being said I would like these few things

Real Faces on all NHL players

Real on Ice team Intros

Presentation with Real 3 stars on the Ice and more Eddie and Doc dialog .

Roster Share

Real Goalie Masks or a Editor

and most important gameplay not dictated by the hitting and Intimidation as the catalyst through a tilted ice factor .

# 40 actionhank @ 02/27/15 12:47 PM

I hate to sound so negative, but this is the same song and dance we get every season.

What i want this year, just to keep it short, is for them to show me the changes. Not cutesy videos of obviously staged animations and mechanics. I want to see it live. I want to see that sliders actually do something, I want to see the players moving more naturally, without the awkward pivoting, i want to see that defense isn't still just aimless poke check mini-game while waiting for the next huge hit out of the 50+ that game, i want to see goalies make saves they should, with good positioning and not having to resort to a diving desperation save at light speed every 2 saves.

This can get me back as a customer. For NHL15, i only started to get suspicious when EA themselves never addressed things in detail, and never released any actual gameplay. There were teasers, and little trailers showing things off...but never gameplay. Then when gameplay footage did leak, it became pretty apparent to me just why they hadn't released any...nothing looked that changed. The coat of paint was nice and fresh, but the engine was still busted.

I'm giving EA a last shot with NHL16. I want to be proven wrong more than anything on this release. I would love to be sitting on my couch, playing the game, and thinking to myself how foolish it was to doubt that EA could bounce back. Unfortunately, if the past is any indication, I'll just feel foolish for holding out hope. Here's to hoping they're realizing there are more game modes than just HUT that could use a lot of work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by milesizdead


	I think the biggest reason why people didn't play this game mode more is that most people can't handle losing games. Everybody thinks they should win the cup, every season. When they come across better players they just quit. I ran a league of 30 GMs for six seasons during NHL13/14, and the biggest challenges were: 1) to find 29 GMs who played the game in a sim hockey style, following a set of written rules that limited TOI of players and limited all sorts of cheese to a minimum. 2) replacing said 29 GMs with people who followed the rules and didn't leave the league because of losing to better players. After two years, I think only 6-8 GMs were originals. Six cups were won by three different players, so the rest stayed in the league because it was run well, and all the games were played like hockey, not EA's arcade hockey. (I'm fairly certain, that if EASHL will allow private tournaments within the game, this will be the biggest hurdle keeping the tournaments alive.) I spent an incredible amount of time running that GMC, enforcing rules, recruiting GMs, honing the rules, organizing games etc. But it was worth it, best online gaming mode ever. Not enough gamers played GMC? Monetize it then you morons, leagues could be like rented servers in Battlefield.

I wish i had known about that. It actually sounds like a lot of fun! I always wanted to try GM Connected, but i just assumed it would be like every other time i tried multiplayer, which turned into guys just playing to score goals, not play hockey.

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