Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

[ChaseB]

Operation Sports is happy to bring you an exclusive look at the changes that are being made to NHL 12's EASHL and Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) modes. EA Canada developers Andy Agostini and Nate Ng will be detailing the changes to these popular features.

Hey everyone, we have a lot cooking in the NHL 12 Online Innovations Blog and we’re really excited about it, so let’s get to it! Producers Andy Agostini and Nate Ng will be breaking down what’s new and improved in the HUT and EASHL modes. Enjoy!

Read More - NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

[SinisterAlex]

Re: Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

I love the fact that we are able to save presets for all 5 positions now!!! That has been one of my big requests since 09! Everything else sounds, good, but doesn't blow me away.

[LuGer33]

Different builds for different positions is an awesome addition.

[BaylorBearBryant]

EASHL continues to be the future of sports gaming.

[neifro]

and a cheesers paradise.

[stew514]

Re: Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

I like everything I read about EASHL with the exception of the cool down period for club hoppers. It's not a big deal if they give us multiple dressing room, but the reason club hopping was so big this year was because people like to play 6 on 6. A lot of the top teams were pretty friendly and if they were a man short and saw a guy not in a game they would ask him to play. I really don't see why this is that big of a problem and I feel like this decision is just going to make it tough to get 6 on 6 games.

[stew514]

Re: Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

and a cheesers paradise.

As someone who played HUT and EASHL pretty competitively I find the community to be far less cheesy in the EASHL as opposed to HUT. Just my experience but I played idiots who go up 1-0 in HUT and try to rag the puck on you.

[plaidchuck]

Whew say bye bye to human goalies. I barely have enough time to play 100 games in the EASHL let alone play 150 per skater and goalie.

Also I wish they'd get rid of the letter grades.. maybe mirror the offline BAP and have you reach certain goals when playing each position for the cards.

[cup4blues]

Re: Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

Making it even harder on the goalies, alright! I guess with separate legend cards we will never see a legend goalie that can stop a puck. Next thing they'll be taking away the auto-save and forcing the use of overhead cam.

[ladyboyfriend]

I'm still concerned that they might not have addressed the ability to "juice" your skater. Hopefully, they fixed the loading screen hangs, as well. EASHL has so much potential to be great, but these holes in the game really drag it down. Although, I keep coming back for more.

[SinisterAlex]

Re: Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

I just realized one thing that I've been asking for, wasn't on that list.

They still haven't added a key part of a team, the captain and the two assistant captain's. I could care less if they were in OTP but in EASHL where it's YOUR team, why can't we have "C" and "A" on our jersey's?

[john1842msu1977]

how about new online community additions for offline gamers? What I mean by this is the reintegration of the EA Locker. I really would like to be able to download other users roster files for myself and would like to share my roster files with the community. Waiting for EA to upgrade the official NHL rosters just hasn't been cutting it. They need to give us the option to create and share our own rosters AND share our created teams...

[mondoguitar]

Re: Exclusive NHL 12 Producer Blog: Online Innovations

Love the different attribute slots for positions as everybody does. But as a "casual" goalie, I hate that I'll now have to play 150 games as skater and 150 games as goalie (legend quality at that). Disappointed in that and don't have time for that most likely.

What about customizable options? More jersey templates? Logos? 3rd jerseys? etc?

[Pharrell]

I do NOT play HUT for one simple reason.....the Career count on each card. It's hands down the most frustrating part of the game. It takes so long to earn enough to buy players like Sid, Ovi or Stamkos so that when you finally get them you only get them for X amount of games. Also it's takes you forever to get the right mix of players to play around them only to continuously lose players. Finally it devalues the players value when you want to sell them. So many guys selling All Stars with 1 game left. Worthless! Get rid of it. FIFA Ultimate Team is perfect, just copy it!

[Roadstar]

Whoa, position presets are something I've wanted since NHL 09. Huge thanks to EA for including that in NHL 12!

However, I'm not thrilled about the club cool-down period. I play rather regularly in two different clubs depending on which one has players online. With a three-hour cooling period I'd actually need to know well in advance which one of the clubs will be having players online for any given evening, and that's not going to happen. It's rather annoying that as a result of some pathetic idiots win trading I end up getting less chances to play legit games. I hope there would be a better solution for the win trading problem. One that doesn't punish legit players.