Be A GM exclusive.

[Gagnon39]

Man, what a day yesterday. Talk about bad news. It seems that EA has really dropped the ball, or puck in this case, on their NHL series. With all the bad news and missing features I've been diligently searching for a silver lining. Just something that makes me have a glimmer of hope that I'll play a hockey video game this year.

Don't get me wrong, I hope EA suffers real, tangible, and most importantly financial repercussions for striping their game down to bare bones. It's one thing to release a game on a new console missing some features at release, but it's another one to hold off on the release to polish the game for a year and yet still release something that has the features of a Playstation 2 game.

Now with all that being said, I honestly don't know if my game experience will be affected that much. Probably 95% of the time I play EA's NHL games I am playing Be A GM/franchise. I have never gotten into the online team play or EA Sports Hockey League stuff. I couldn't care less about Hockey Ultimate Team or anything else like that. I strictly play Be A GM and do the occasional online game, not in a league.

So looking at it from that perspective, what's' missing? The draft. I cannot draft my own players, which definitely sucks. But in all honestly I've probably gotten to the draft twice in my NHL-video game playing days. This is definitely something I can overlook and get past. Most of the time I just take the best available player anyway, so I'm sure that's what the CPU will pick for me.

Next, there's no playable minor league games. This only affects me in the fact that I loved to see minor league stats and I would often call guys up based on their stats as opposed to who was simply the highest rated player in my AHL affiliate. Does it suck? Sure. But again, I can definitely look past this.

So that leaves us to customization. I cannot customize my players equipment. Again, a bummer, but 99% of the time I don't mess with it anyway. The only thing I ever edited was guys that don't wear visors in real life that have them in the game. I can suspend my disbelief in this regard and simply pretend that, in my own little reality, guys that might not actually wear visors in real life, have chosen to do so in my hockey universe. I just really hope EA didn't put a visor on Niklas Hjalmarsson or Andrew Shaw. That always drove me nuts.

So in the end, are these big deals? Maybe more so to some than others. But in each of these I can look past them to be honest. Now, don't mistake this post for me suggesting that we all need to get over what EA's done. I'm not saying that at all. It's really ridiculous and I can definitely empathize with everyone on here as a long-time sports gamer. But if you're strictly a Be A GM guy like I am, can you get past these things or will it completely ruin the experience for you?

In the end I was just really looking forward to hockey on the PS4. And despite all the things that have been left out (I don't think EA really "removed" any as they started from scratch), I think I might still have something to look forward to next week.

But I'm still not quite sure...

[scitychamps87]

Excellent post. I'm the exact type of NHL gamer as you. Now I will miss being able to draft and select my goalies' equipment. But I can live with it. The presentation is great despite no custom music at this point. But when you watch on TV the goal song can be kind of tough to hear anyway. I can live with it. And I'm sure a lot of these minor functionalities such as the draft (which Rammer confirmed) and edit player will be able to make it in. I didnt buy 14 because i was waiting for true next gen hockey. So this is enough of a step up for me. Come Tuesday, I'm ready for hockey. Support hockey. It's what we've got.

[Södy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gagnon39

So looking at it from that perspective, what's' missing? The draft. I cannot draft my own players, which definitely sucks. But in all honestly I've probably gotten to the draft twice in my NHL-video game playing days. This is definitely something I can overlook and get past. Most of the time I just take the best available player anyway, so I'm sure that's what the CPU will pick for me.

This, especially the last sentence, is so freaking true for me.

[Gagnon39]

Quote: Originally Posted by scitychamps87

Excellent post. I'm the exact type of NHL gamer as you. Now I will miss being able to draft and select my goalies' equipment. But I can live with it. The presentation is great despite no custom music at this point. But when you watch on TV the goal song can be kind of tough to hear anyway. I can live with it. And I'm sure a lot of these minor functionalities such as the draft (which Rammer confirmed) and edit player will be able to make it in. I didnt buy 14 because i was waiting for true next gen hockey. So this is enough of a step up for me. Come Tuesday, I'm ready for hockey. Support hockey. It's what we've got.

I forgot about custom music. That definitely sucks as a Hawks fan because I always had Chelsea Dagger blasting after a goal. But again, I can get over it.

And let me reiterate, I know these are deal-breakers for some people. And I understand. So if it's too much for you and you're not buying it, I get it. As petty as it sounds, my breaking point would have been the inability to edit jersey numbers, captains, and especially retired numbers. If the game didn't still have retired numbers I probably wouldn't buy it. So I get how certain features are more important to some than others.

[Vikes1]

Solid post, Gagnon. And yes, a lot of your feelings I share. I just want to enjoy a hockey game on my new PS4. But just wow!, half the game missing.

[Gagnon39]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vikes1

But just wow!, half the game missing.

I totally agree. And I think we need to keep in perspective that EA didn't remove anything. They just didn't get it into NHL 15 on PS4/Xbox One. Is it excusable, honestly I don't know if it is. It's obvious that most players on OS are furious and rightfully so. But at the end of the day I'm only looking at the game for what I want from it and it seems that about 85% of it is still there for me, if not more.

I'll be interesting to see the sales numbers on the game and look at how 15 compares to the sales of past games. I think we all know that we, as an online community, are in the minority of gamers. It's a safe bet that if you're on a sports video game website that you're most likely (but not always) a pretty hard-core gamer. And we're the one's upset about the features being left out. However, I'd say the vast majority of people that will buy and play NHL have never visited Operation Sports and will likely play the game for a month or two and move on. So what I'm getting at is, I wonder if EA will actually see any real repercussions from the features that are left out of the game. In other words, will the average, casual gamer even notice or care?

[racerx]

Great post Gagnon,

I as well am strickly a GM mode player and most of those other modes don't apply to me. Yea not controlling my draft is big but playing AHL games is not a big deal as I dont have that much time on my hands as it is.

There is one omission though for me that I do enjoy and that is the Tournament mode. I do love playing tournaments with the National teams and that not being in the game does hurt my experience. So as of now I am still on the fence with this.

[orion523]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gagnon39

I forgot about custom music. That definitely sucks as a Hawks fan because I always had Chelsea Dagger blasting after a goal. But again, I can get over it. And let me reiterate, I know these are deal-breakers for some people. And I understand. So if it's too much for you and you're not buying it, I get it. As petty as it sounds, my breaking point would have been the inability to edit jersey numbers, captains, and especially retired numbers. If the game didn't still have retired numbers I probably wouldn't buy it. So I get how certain features are more important to some than others.

I completely get where your coming from. If I was a huge hockey fan, I would probably buy the game warts and all. Another thing you have to take into account is sales. The NHL series is dying. Sales numbers have dropped each year since NHL 12, with 14 selling under a million worldwide.