Every year, we soak up information weeks before 2K's release, eagerly anticipating news of each year's big updates. Without fail, we are always being blown away by details regarding one new mode, one new feature, or substantial improvements to an old one. That are-you-serious, game changing addition to a franchise already marked by passion and ambition. Now if you're a reasonable person, you realize that some things might be necessarily modified, simplified, or even lost from one year to another on the often windy road to progress.
But if you're anything like me, you're also hoping that this might be the year. The one year where the other shoe DOESN'T drop. You're quietly suppressing that tiny sense of dread, the one that tells you there's going to be one change-- THAT change-- that is going to hurt, and hurt bad. Not just because it's a technical issue. Not just because it's lost in the streamlining of gameplay. But lost because it makes so very little sense to lose, because it was one of the strongest aspects of the game just a year ago, because it's been a mainstay to the franchise, and because it was a decision that seems otherwise incomprehensible. No basketball reasons. But seemingly just because.
Or rather, because somewhere, somehow, at the 572th hour of design meetings covering every minutia of simulating the sport in which SO many things go SO right, the priorities were confused in one small, tiny moment.
That moment brought us this moment. The one I dread each year. Indeed, my time has come.
Getting drafted is the BIGGEST part of starting a MyCareer. It was the one remaining item of authenticity in the game regarding the career starting process after the Draft Combine, Summer League, and D-League was removed since 2K11. And now the last shred of authenticity-- the Draft-- is gone.
THE NBA DRAFT. IS GONE.
The summer event that makes and breaks franchises. The singular event almost all players worthy of mention are judged by and the context whose careers are framed around. This is the actual storyline I know I care about. And now our players will never be allowed to connect to a franchise and the league's history in this manner. All presumably to shoehorn in a script of an extremely unlikely NBA career that parallels almost none of the greats or 99% of players most folks can even name.
Now playing for 10-day contracts seems interesting. But where are we actually playing these games? They could have been lent an air of authenticity if they were actually played in the D-League affiliates-- hoping that a stint for the Red Claws or Big Horns might catch the eye of a scout or assistant GM of the Celtics or Kings. But a playable D-League was one of the first casualties of the MyPlayer authenticity axe. Are we playing pickup against a hopefully no-longer-mute Cousins? One-on-one against a rehabbing Rose? Horse against Steph Curry for Bob Myer's phone number? Okay admittedly, this might actually be somewhat amusing.
At any rate, MyCareer has been and should be an NBA career simulator with story elements to lend immersion and authenticity. Unfortunately, it seems 2K is progressively getting it the other way around. Linsanity was great, but we don't all need to be forced to play out that story. I'll still have fun with it-- my last name is an upside down letter away. I'll go with the story in my head that I'm mockingly named Liusanity-- but this is a huge, huge blow to the MyCareer experience, especially when we're FINALLY able to see our real selves in the game.
Every year there seems to be one major 2K change that makes you go HUH?, severely hurts the package as a whole, and seems utterly unfathomable if it were suggested any of the previous years. This looks to be this years' glaring omission that holds 2K15 back from a having a common sense, no-duh approach in all modes and features.
It's a shame because we seemed oh so close.
But if you're anything like me, you're also hoping that this might be the year. The one year where the other shoe DOESN'T drop. You're quietly suppressing that tiny sense of dread, the one that tells you there's going to be one change-- THAT change-- that is going to hurt, and hurt bad. Not just because it's a technical issue. Not just because it's lost in the streamlining of gameplay. But lost because it makes so very little sense to lose, because it was one of the strongest aspects of the game just a year ago, because it's been a mainstay to the franchise, and because it was a decision that seems otherwise incomprehensible. No basketball reasons. But seemingly just because.
Or rather, because somewhere, somehow, at the 572th hour of design meetings covering every minutia of simulating the sport in which SO many things go SO right, the priorities were confused in one small, tiny moment.
That moment brought us this moment. The one I dread each year. Indeed, my time has come.
Getting drafted is the BIGGEST part of starting a MyCareer. It was the one remaining item of authenticity in the game regarding the career starting process after the Draft Combine, Summer League, and D-League was removed since 2K11. And now the last shred of authenticity-- the Draft-- is gone.
THE NBA DRAFT. IS GONE.
The summer event that makes and breaks franchises. The singular event almost all players worthy of mention are judged by and the context whose careers are framed around. This is the actual storyline I know I care about. And now our players will never be allowed to connect to a franchise and the league's history in this manner. All presumably to shoehorn in a script of an extremely unlikely NBA career that parallels almost none of the greats or 99% of players most folks can even name.
Now playing for 10-day contracts seems interesting. But where are we actually playing these games? They could have been lent an air of authenticity if they were actually played in the D-League affiliates-- hoping that a stint for the Red Claws or Big Horns might catch the eye of a scout or assistant GM of the Celtics or Kings. But a playable D-League was one of the first casualties of the MyPlayer authenticity axe. Are we playing pickup against a hopefully no-longer-mute Cousins? One-on-one against a rehabbing Rose? Horse against Steph Curry for Bob Myer's phone number? Okay admittedly, this might actually be somewhat amusing.
At any rate, MyCareer has been and should be an NBA career simulator with story elements to lend immersion and authenticity. Unfortunately, it seems 2K is progressively getting it the other way around. Linsanity was great, but we don't all need to be forced to play out that story. I'll still have fun with it-- my last name is an upside down letter away. I'll go with the story in my head that I'm mockingly named Liusanity-- but this is a huge, huge blow to the MyCareer experience, especially when we're FINALLY able to see our real selves in the game.
Every year there seems to be one major 2K change that makes you go HUH?, severely hurts the package as a whole, and seems utterly unfathomable if it were suggested any of the previous years. This looks to be this years' glaring omission that holds 2K15 back from a having a common sense, no-duh approach in all modes and features.
It's a shame because we seemed oh so close.
Arguably a poor addition, however. 
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