NBA Live 2010 Wishlist Submitted!

[Andrew]

The NBA Live 2010 Wishlist, Wishlist Supplement and an additional Bug List have now been submitted to the NBA Live Development Team. Thanks to everyone who contributed wishes, hopefully we will see the improvement we desire in NBA Live 2010 (or NBA Live '10, whatever it ends up being called).

You can download copies of the Wishlist, Wishlist Supplement and Bug List in .doc format here. Otherwise, check them out below.

Please note that no more wishes will be added to the official NLSC Wishlist but please feel free to keep posting suggestions, bug reports etc as the production team does check out the NLSC Forum and if there's anything significant to add, we could always do another supplementary list.

[Andrew]

NBA Live 2010 Wishlist


Here is the NLSC's Wishlist for NBA Live 2010, compiled using suggestions from the NLSC team members and visitors via email and the NLSC Forum (forums.nba-live.com). The Wishlist has been organised into three categories: Essentials, which comprise existing features, changes and additions we feel are most important to making NBA Live 2010 as good as it can be, Things We'd Also Like To See which features popular wishes that we would like to see in the game but aren't as important and a list of bugs and other issues under Things to Fix & Avoid.


Essentials

• Release NBA Live 2010 for the PC as a port of the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 version.
  
  
• Keep shot selection and scoring averages realistic in both simulation and gameplay.
  
  
• Smoother gameplay with better transition between animations and increased ability to break out of animations including changing directions and passing out of dunk and layup attempts. Fewer two player "canned" animations.
  
  
• Improve directional passing so that players can make quick passes to the players they want to pass to without having to use Direct Passing. Add a quick pass/touch pass animation.
  
  
• Reduce the number of blocks (especially by shorter players) and instead have more challenged shots.
  
  
• Further tweak the simulated stats so that they're more realistic. NBA Live 09 (360/PS3) is a lot better in this regard but there are a few discrepencies with the odd player (often point guards like Steve Nash) averaging too many points per game and finding their way into the league leaders for scoring. The range for the blocks, steals, assists and rebounds leaders could also stand to be 2-3 higher in each category. There's also an issue with assists where players like Derek Fisher lead the league when they don't rack up 10 assists per game in real life.
  
  
• Bring back the traditional Reorder Rosters menu in Dynasty Mode, like the one used to edit lineups from the main menu. The player rotation menu is nice and should stay but it's very cumbersome when trying to changing your starting lineup or reordering the bench; in fact, it's downright terrible for that purpose. The traditional method would be far preferable to the awkward and ineffective method of using the player rotation and inactive list menus.
  
  
• Have each team run specific plays through the use of the Signature Playcalling feature. Allow these to be updated by the user as well as NBA Live 365.
  
  
• Add the ability to save in the middle of a game so that users who don't always have time to finish full length games or have to leave the game for an extended period of time can reload and resume it later.
  
  
• Add a custom team feature similar to the one in NBA Live 2000. Ideally include custom art that consists of generic basketball-themed logos and the like, so that they can be used with a variety of custom team names.
  
  
• Add more collision animations/hard fouls so that players may prevent a shot being attempted.
  
  
• Allow users to toggle between interest, contract size and contract length when putting together trades in Dynasty Mode.
  
  
• Expand Dynasty Mode to include owner/manager duties such as managing the team's finances similar to Madden's Owner Mode as well as the ability to hire/fire head coaches (who would have their own effect on their respective teams), define player roles and other coaching/front office duties. As with the other "push" Dynasty features, allow these features to be automated for users who don't want to worry about them.
  
  
• Retain the "push" Dynasty aspect with automated tasks, free agent negotiation mini-game, trading block and the other enhancements that have been made to Dynasty Mode in the last couple of years.
  
  
• Allow users to select different season lengths in Dynasty Mode (29, 58 or full 82 game seasons) and select multiple teams to control.
  
  
• Bring back Playoffs Mode so that users can set up their own Playoffs whenever they like without having to play or sim through a season first.
  
  
• Add the ability to alter shot attempts in midair (simmilar to the old Freestyle Air control method) and choose whether you want to go up for a rebound, attempt a tip-in or putback dunk on the offensive glass.
  
  
• Balance the effectiveness of Lockdown Defense. Lockdown Defense works quite well in NBA Live 09 but sometimes it's a bit too effective in the hands of the CPU who seem to recover a bit too quickly. It's great that Quick Strike can't be over exploited but it does mean that some really cool and well-timed moves are negated by the CPU managing to catch up when they've been beaten. It should definitely remain effective though, on the whole NBA Live 09 plays a better defensive game thanks to the presence of Lockdown Defense.
  
  
• Better TV Style Presentation. The broadcast style camera angles are good but the overlays for the starting five and so forth could be improved and made to closer resemble a TV broadcast (ESPN I guess, given the license). The NBA Live 365 branding makes sense in 09 being such a big feature but kind of takes you out of the experience. It would also help if the text was a little bigger as it's sometimes difficult to read, particularly in the boxscores and on stats menus.
  
  
• Improve selection of award winners and All-Stars in Dynasty Mode; incorporate voting in All-Star selections and make picks based on two forwards, two guards, one centre approach so that (for example) two small forwards or two point guards may be selected to start instead of rigidly selecting the starters by the five positions.
  
  
• Clean up issues with players stepping out of bounds or back across half-court. One of those things that you can kind of put up with when you get away with it but you hate to see anyone else or the CPU do it. It should be cleaned up though as it's frustrating to force a player to step out of bounds or go over-and-back and not have it called and of course, defeats the purpose of having those calls in the game. Perhaps bring back the "Boundary Force Field" slider if players want to make it more difficult to get called for those infractions but it's something that needs a bit of tweaking.
  
  
• Include Scenario Mode
  
  
• Include Player Lock function
  
  
• Improve fast break logic. In NBA Live 09, players often run wide and fade to the wings rather than taking advantage of the numbers and continuing towards the hoop.
  
  
• Allow the user to save replays, screenshots, boxscores and stats screens in all game modes.
  
  
• Add away-from-the-ball and over-the-back fouls.
  
  
• Allow all accessories to be modified in Edit Player.
  
  
• Add the option to add more bio data info to Create/Edit Player such as draft info. Allow the user to edit all aspects of placeholder players added by NBA Live 365 in case users want to start their Dynasty straight away.
  
  
• Display player career stats in table format, as seen on NBA.com, almanacs and the backs of basketball trading cards.
  
  
• Discourage online cheating by assigning a loss when a player quits or disconnects in the fourth quarter, in addition to adding to their "Did Not Finish" rating.
  
  
• Keep the NBA Live Academy and add more drills, including the ability to practice free throws. Allow users to enter the Academy manually in Dynasty Mode instead of just once a month.
  
  
• Utilise a more PC friendly user interface with the PC version that takes advantage of the mouse (drop down and pop-up menus, use of the scroll wheel, etc).
  
  
• Improve substitution logic so that the CPU will switch players currently in the lineup to a different position when subbing in another player (like NBA 2K) as well as subbing players in based on their secondary positions. Make sure the CPU subs more frequently and players tire at a realistic rate by default, as NBA Live 09 will often play starters for 40+ minutes every time without adjustments.
  
  
• Add more gameplay sliders so that users can customise their experience as much as possible.
  
  
• User profiles with the ability to track individual user stats.
  
  
• Tone down trades in Dynasty Mode so that CPU teams don't trade star players as often and fewer unbalanced trades (stars for role players) occur.
  
  
• Allow the user to select which player inbounds the ball in dead ball situations.
  
  
• Better atmosphere, with the NBA Finals feeling different to a regular season game with louder crowds, more excitement etc.
  
  
• Allow players to save the ball inbounds and dive for the ball; basically improved loose ball situations.
  
  
• Bring back the Pro Hop/Jump Stop move.
  
  
• Allow editing of dunk packages.
  
  
• Fewer running jumpers, make it easier to perform a pull-up jumpshot without having to come to a complete halt and lose momentum and/or allow the defender to catch up.
  
  
• Fewer injuries in Dynasty Mode or a slider to control the frequency so that stars don't get injured too often a few games into a new season.
  
  
• Make it more difficult for the defender to catchup on fast breaks when the offensive player is way out in front, or at least give the offensive player the ability to take the ball up strong for a good chance at the and-one (or at least a foul); defenders should be able to chase down players for a block a la Tayshaun Prince on Reggie Miller in 2004 but it should definitely be a rare exception.
  
  
• Animated play diagrams.
  
  
• Patching supported by PC version!

Things We'd Also Like To See

• Be a Pro expanded into a full single player career mode (similar to Madden)
  
  
• Ability to track career milestones and break NBA records.
  
  
• Expanded selection of FIBA teams
  
  
• Skills Challenge and Shooting Stars events in All-Star Weekend
  
  
• Legendary players and teams
  
  
• Retro Jerseys for all teams
  
  
• Weekly highlight/recap shows & fictional news articles in Dynasty Mode.
  
  
• Have players sitting on the bench wear warmups and inactive players wear suits.
  
  
• Actual player portraits rather than in-game renderings.
  
  
• Add cutscenes to Dynasty Mode (similar to the ones used in NBA Live 2004).
  
  
• Streetball Mode in the absence of further NBA Street titles.
  
  
• Add the D-League or at least allow users to assign players to the D-League in Dynasty Mode as an alternative to regular training.
  
  
• Add Summer League and Preseason games.
  
  
• Add more Creation modes, such as Create-a-Play Mode, Create-a-Jersey, Create-a-Court, Create-a-Fan etc.
  
  
• Expand upon the attributes we're able to edit for original players and players added in NBA Live 365 updates so heights/weights etc can be corrected.
  
  
• Get warnings of impending player retirements and allow users the chance to talk a player into playing one more year with a mini-game similar to free agent negotiation.
  
  
• Allow user to import music and playlists.
  
  
• Take some of the action out of cutscenes and have celebrations etc happen in real time during gameplay.
  
  
• Extend the differences in the bodytypes. Currently, everyone looks like they have detailed muscles. Some NBA players have barely any definition in real life. Add options for wingspan length.
  
  
• Add option for expansion teams/team relocation in Dynasty Mode.
  
  
• Add the ability to have more than 15 players during the offseason then make cuts during training camp.
  
  
• Bring back the Team Info/History screens.
  
  
• Allow swatting the ball into the crowd (only when out of bounds is turned on).
  
  
• Euroleague Teams

Things To Fix & Avoid

• Too many shots fired into the bottom of the rim or behind the backboard instead of players trying to collect themselves and attempt a proper shot.
  
  
• League Leaders in Dynasty Mode don’t seem to take qualifying statistics into account, resulting in percentage leaders having really high numbers (players leading the league with 100% free throw shooting, for example).
  
  
• Players "warping" to the basket for dunks.
  
  
• Players running out of bounds or back across halfcourt and not getting called for a violation
  
  
• Injured players not returning to the active roster in Dynasty Mode when they've recovered
  
  
• Unmodifiable "injured" status in NBA Live 365 updates
  
  
• Crashes/lockups in Dynasty Mode
  
  
• Bench players do not have jersey numbers/jersey numbers disappear and reappear in cutscenes.
  
  
• Players wearing shoes with inappropriate colourways for their current team
  
  
• Users are unable to modify CPU teams even when option is enabled in Dynasty Mode.
  
  
• Avoid delay on blocking animations (post-update results for 360/PS3 version were good).
  
  
• Still some rebounds that hit the floor and loose balls that don't get scooped up by players who are in perfect position to do, making the game feel predetermined

[Andrew]

NBA Live 2010 Wishlist Supplement
(What We Want, In a Nutshell)


As with previous years, I’ve decided to do a write-up as a supplement to our annual Wishlist to sum up the most popular wishes as concisely as possible while still adding a couple of details that get lost in the shuffle in the point-form Wishlist. So, without further ado, here is the Wishlist Supplement for NBA Live 2010.


PC Version

It would be remiss of me not to mention the fond hope of the PC community that NBA Live 2010 be ported to the PC from the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 platforms. The lukewarm reactions to recent PC releases has stemmed mainly from them being ports of the Playstation 2 version and various bugs that have gone unresolved as focus has shifted to the next generation of consoles. The popularity of NBA 2K9 on the PC should hopefully indicate our passion for the platform and the willingness of the fanbase to upgrade where necessary to play ported games that demand better hardware and most of all, that there’s a market for it.

It would also be remiss of me to not to mention our two other fondest wishes in regards to a PC version: that it is moddable (similar to previous PC releases) and has a PC orientated user interface, or a UI that at least takes advantage of the presence of a mouse (utilising the scroll wheel, for example).


Gameplay

The expectations of NBA Live 2010 remain the same as past years; that players reflect their real life counterpart’s performance (including statistical production) and abilities and teams run the plays and play as they do in real life, at least as long as the rosters remain close to the real thing (obviously it gets difficult when users hold a fantasy draft and/or start making trades). NBA Live 09 certainly showed a lot of improvement in this regard with pretty good shot distribution for the most part.

A couple of the areas that do need to be cleaned up are player animations, which are still a bit jerky at times and still sometimes feel a bit “canned” (especially on some collisions) and players running out of bounds or back across halfcourt without a violation. Perhaps bringing back the “Boundary Force Field” slider could help here in preventing players from stepping out of bounds too easily without having players actually commit the violation and not have anything called. It might also be a good idea to remove the “first step” on the turbo button or tone it down as it’s often more awkward than effective. There should also be fewer running jumpers as it’s difficult to pull up on the run without coming to a stop and losing momentum and/or letting the defender catch up.

Passing is another problematic area in NBA Live 09, at least when not using the Direct Pass icons. Directional passing isn’t very reliable in 09 which results in a lot of turnovers. Passing needs to be a bit crisper so that the ball can be effectively swung around the perimeter and bullet passes can be made to open players and on the fast break. Speaking of fast breaks, they could stand to be improved as well as players fade to the wings too often and don’t continue on to the hoop for the easy bucket when their team has numbers.

Fatigue rate and substitution frequency/AI also need a tuneup. Ideally, the default “balanced” fatigue slider should result in players tiring more quickly as even playing twelve minute quarters, the CPU tends to be able to play all its starters at least 40 minutes which isn’t realistic. A substitution frequency slider would also help curb the issue a bit, but the substitution AI could also stand to be improved with players currently on the floor sliding over to other positions when players are brought in as well as players being subbed in at their secondary positions. That way, teams can have more realistic substitution patterns and better distribute minutes by taking advantage of a player’s versatility.

Loose ball situations are also in need of a bit of a fix; it would be great if we could save balls in bounds and dive for the ball when it’s on the floor. There’s also the odd rebound that hits the floor when it really should be grabbed by a player. Obviously some shots rebound long out of bounds and whatnot but it’s frustrating when you seem to have gotten good position and jumped for the rebound, only for it to pass through your player’s hands, bounce on the floor and get picked up by the CPU. It makes it feel like the rebounding is predetermined which is disheartening because the CPU tends to score on offensive rebounds way too often.

Blocking was certainly improved in the official update for NBA Live 09 but blocks were still a bit too easy on the balanced slider setting, especially when it came to shorter players blocking taller players. The blocks themselves are pretty nice but the frequency could be toned down a little. It would be preferable if more shots were altered than blocked by default.

A control method that is really missed is Freestyle Air, which allowed us to alter shot attempts midair and decide whether we wanted to grab the board, attempt a tip-in or try for a putback dunk on the offensive glass. This is a much missed feature that would be enthusiastically welcomed on the next generation of consoles. A lot of users have also expressed a preference for the pro-hop button over a second playcalling button.

Lockdown Defense could also stand to be better balanced as CPU teams are too adept at recovering when they’ve been beaten, an advantage that is not granted to the human player. It should certainly be possible to play tight, effective defense and players shouldn’t be able to drive too easily but weak defenders should get beaten and shouldn’t be able to immediately snap back in front of their man when their ankles are broken.

Finally, shots around the basket also need to be cleaned up a bit as players will too often fire the ball into the bottom of the rim or try to shoot from behind the backboard. The idea of contextually appropriate shot attempts is good but unfortunately the wrong shots seem to be picked a bit too often, which is unfair because the CPU rarely makes the same mistakes itself. Some dunk and layup attempts also seem to pass through the backboard though not as much as in previous years.


Dynasty Mode

The “push” aspect of Dynasty Mode continues to be successful as the new Dynasty hub and recent innovations such as the free agent negotiation mini-game have proven to be very popular. For the most part, we’d like to see that built upon with more player management as well as owner tasks added, with the ability to disable/automate any tasks as desired. Amongst some of the most popular wishes for Dynasty Mode expansion include the ability to hire and fire head coaches as well as the rest of the staff, the D-League, preseason games and the ability to assign player roles.

As far as fixes go, simulated stats still top the list though this was another area in which NBA Live 09 showed a lot of improvement in. Scoring is pretty good though there are a couple of players who still score more than they should (Steve Nash still seems to sneak in there), usually point guards. Assists, steals, blocks and rebounds are better but the upper range could be a little higher in each category and sometimes point guards who don’t average a lot of assists (like Derek Fisher) rank amongst the league leaders. For the most part things are a lot better but could still stand to be polished a bit more.

Another quick note about league leaders, it doesn’t seem that qualifying stats are taken into account as it’s not uncommon to see players leading in shooting percentages with ridiculously high numbers (eg 100% on free throws) but do not have enough attempts to qualify.

I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that we’d like the normal Reorder Roster function back in Dynasty Mode. When it comes to changing the starting lineups and bench order, the current method of playing around with the Player Rotation and Inactive List menus is, frankly, terrible. It’s clumsy, awkward and half the time the CPU seems to make decisions for you and activate players you just deactivated. Please, PLEASE let us use the traditional roster ordering menu in Dynasty Mode, we’ve wanted this one back since NBA Live 07. The Player Rotation function is great for setting minutes and such for simulation but when it comes to changing lineups it absolutely sucks. If there’s but one minor change to Dynasty Mode functionality this year, please let it be this one.

On the subject of Dynasty Mode functionality, it would be really handy if we could toggle between Interest, Player Salaries and Contract Length on the trade player screen so that we could see who has an expiring contract without having to go through the other GM menus. The green tick/red cross method is great in letting us quickly know whether a trade will work under the salary cap but sometimes we still want more information.

It would also be good if we could enter the NBA Academy manually instead of being prompted to train once a month, though there should certainly be a limit on how much progress we can see within a training session. At the very least, we should be able to run five-on-five scrimmages whenever we want as it would be handy to do so after making a blockbuster trade.

Back on the subject of fixes, similar to the simulated stats the selection of awards winners and All-Stars could still do with a bit of polishing. The game still tends to select rigidly by position when in real life, the mere need to select two guards, two forwards and a centre may mean that two power forwards or two shooting guards are selected to start.

Finally, a lot of players would like to have the ability to control multiple teams in Dynasty Mode and select shorter seasons (eg 29 or 58 game seasons) when they don’t have time to play 82 games and don’t wish to simulate.


Be a Pro & Street Modes

With the introduction of Be a Pro, a lot of people would like to see it developed into a fully fledged career mode locked to a single player, either an actual NBA player or a custom player that they have created. With no NBA Street games being produced in the foreseeable future, the addition of a Street Mode is another suggestion that has resurfaced as a popular wish.


Things we’d like to see brought back

The following is a short list of things from previous games that haven’t been featured in recent NBA Live titles which we’d like to see return in NBA Live 2010 (a couple have already been mentioned):

• Reorder Roster Menu in Dynasty Mode
• Shorter season lengths for Dynasty Mode
• Freestyle Air (or equivalent control method; see above)
• Playoffs Mode
• Custom Teams (preferably with a variety of generic basketball themed art)
• Table-based career stats display (as on NBA.com and the backs of trading cards)
• The ability to save games in progress
• User profiles with stat tracking
• The ability to save stats screens and boxscores.
• Substitution Frequency Slider
• Injury Frequency Slider

New things we’d like to see

The following is a short list of some of the most desired additions to the game in NBA Live 2010:

• More FIBA teams
• Ability to hire/fire head coaches in Dynasty Mode
• Preseason/Summer Leagues in Dynasty Mode
• Ability to have more than 15 players on your roster during the offseason before trimming it down come training camp.
• Expanded Be a Pro Mode (see above)
• Expanded Creation Modes (Team, Jersey, Court, Fan, etc)
• Players wearing warm-ups (or suits if they’re inactive) on the bench.

Bugs & Other Issues

We’ve compiled a list of bugs and other common issues as part of the Wishlist and another supplementary article but there are a couple that are worth mentioning again. NBA Live 09 has an annoying bug in Dynasty Mode where injured players on CPU teams don’t return to the active rosters after they’ve healed. This is obviously a problem as it may mean a star never gets back into the rotation. Similarly, there are a few too many injuries so a slider to control the frequency would be handy.


Presentation

A common complaint in NBA Live 09 is that the text is too small, especially on stats screens and in the boxscores. The menus themselves are pretty clean and easy enough to navigate however. NBA Live 09 certainly stepped up its presentation with the cheerleaders and mascots and the camera angles are good but the overall presentation could be made to feel a bit more like a TV broadcast with the starting lineup overlays and more stats overlays popping up during the game. NBA Live 365 was obviously a big feature in NBA Live 09 but all the NBA Live 365 scouting reports before games was a little intrusive and detracted from the overall atmosphere.

And speaking of atmosphere, crowd reactions in NBA Live 09 were better but it would certainly be cool to see that further expanded upon in NBA Live 2010 with Playoff and Finals games standing apart from regular season games and games in Play Now mode, with more fanfare, more hyped up crowds and of course, an elaborate celebration upon winning the championship (the ability to replay the celebration would be cool, too).


Summary

NBA Live 09 on the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 was a very solid product despite its issues and the console only release did upset a lot of fans. However, if NBA Live 2010 continues to build on the positives of 09 and stamp out the most irritating problems then it has a chance to make a huge leap forward and certainly win back a lot of fans. If there is going to be a PC version – and we really, really hope there is – then my final suggestion would be to release a demo the same as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 as we haven’t had a PC demo since NBA Live 2003.

Hopefully our suggestions, bug lists and feedback will prove useful in the production of NBA Live 2010. My thanks to the production team for the opportunity to provide the feedback and thanks to everyone in the community who took part in contributing to the Wishlists.

[Andrew]

Bug List 09
(aka things to fix from NBA Live 09)

The following is a list of noteworthy bugs and other issues in NBA Live 09, in addition to items mentioned in the NBA Live 2010 Wishlist and NBA Live 2010 Wishlist Supplement.

• In Dynasty Mode, players who are injured often stay inactive even after they’ve recovered, quite often resulting in star players sitting out indefinitely if they get injured early on in the season.
  
  
• Players get injured a little too frequently in Dynasty Mode. A frequency slider would definitely help here.
  
  
• The game lags (both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3) on auto replays, with a very choppy framerate.
  
  
• Sprite Highlight Reel sometimes doesn’t show.
  
  
• League Leaders in Dynasty Mode don’t seem to take qualifying statistics into account, resulting in percentage leaders having really high numbers (players leading the league with 100% free throw shooting, for example).
  
  
• Random crashes/lock-ups in Dynasty Mode
  
  
• Players appearing twice in Dynasty boxscores.
  
  
• Players sometimes inbound the ball while standing inbounds (a fair distance out from the baseline).
  
  
• Players wearing shoes with incorrect colourways for their current team.
  
  
• Bench players missing jersey numbers/numbers disappearing and reappearing during cutscenes, such as when players are walking off the court.
  
  
• Strange issue where passes seem to stop dead before slowly floating to the recipient.

[Vychan]

Love the in depth list.. I'm happy that so many people had a voice in this.

From everyone who was offering ideas, I would like to thank those who worked on making the master list.
It could not have been easy reading through everything and having to make a list that ultimatly everyone feels they contributed to.

Well done!

[AMenace]

Nice to see some of my ideas are in there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Andrew]

Thanks guys, glad you like the list. It did take some reading to make sure everyone felt their most important wishes were included but a lot of us tend to feel the same way about what we want to see in the game so that makes it a bit easier.

I'd like to stress that even though nothing will be added to these lists as they've already been submitted, please feel free to keep posting your wishes and depending on whether there's anything major we've missed, we might do another supplementary Wishlist/Bug List.

[bleezy84]

Well I know this maybe too late but I only have 1 wish... Besides all the great wishes that even i didn't realize would make a big difference, I believe the the most realism to an NBA game is the ability to import draft classes from college basketball. It was the only deciding factor for me to choose between NBA Live and NBA 2k this year. (both are great games) There is nothing like recruiting an elite high school player to your college team (NCAA March Madness), train him into a possible all-american, and watch him go as 1 of the top 5 in the NBA draft (NBA Live dynasty mode) EA has done this in i think it was 2004, and then they discontinued it for what reason I don't know. I been playing NBA Live since 95, through all different systems and I just started playing NBA 2k a couple of years ago for the purpose of importing draft classes. Now they discontinued College Hoops 2k, and I would like to revert back NBA Live since EA is still producing NCAA March Madness. I don't see a reason why EA can't connect the NBA with NCAA.

[JaoSming]

the big pain in the ass is that games like Live 2003 thru I think 06 allowed for an NCAA import on the PS2.

needless to say its been wished for and the producers & developers of the game know about the want for that feature back in the game.

[Andrew]

The main reason it's not in the game is the release dates of NBA Live and NCAA Basketball. It's also a feature a lot of people wouldn't be able to take advantage of since NCAA Basketball isn't released outside of North America which limits how much they'd be able to market it.

[bdonenfeld92]

I want to see two things in particular when NBA LIve 2010 comes out.

1. I want the "import draft class" ability so I can have real draft classes. The NBA Live rookies look very unrealistic and really annoy me come draft time in Dynasty Mode. It would be awesome to have real rookies imported from March Madness

2. How about getting players from overseas? It would be great to try and persuade a player to come to the NBA from Europe (like Rubio this year). For this to happen Euro Club Team would be a great idea.

Anyone feel me on this?

[Andrew]

We've discussed the possibility of importing rookies from NCAA Basketball at previous community events and the guys are definitely not against the idea, but there are complications with the release dates of the games and such. Perhaps one of the producers will be able to explain it a bit better than I can when we do our Q&As.

As for including European clubs, it all comes down to licensing and likeness rights. They can't just include those teams, they need to pay for the rights to use them and that could well be more money than is feasible. As it is, they have the FIBA license in addition to the NBA license so we'll keep seeing those teams but it's probably not financially feasible to include any Euroleague teams or some of the top players in European or any foreign leagues just so they can be free agents in the game.

[MikeMan™]

Does EA read your " Wishlist " ?
'Coz they seem not .

[JaoSming]

they read it, ours is actually the only list that makes it to them


the NBA Academy and FIBA teams were both on our wishlists and in the past FSS was "interpreted" from our wishlist

[Andrew]

Quite a few items from past Wishlists have made the game one way or another throughout the years, though I suppose in all fairness you could argue some of those items were part of the natural progression of basketball video games anyway. Nevertheless, our feedback doesn't fall on deaf ears.

[davenz]

I know I'm way late with this and if I'd been on the forums back when the list was being compiled I would have said something. But two huge flaws with the game are:
1) Automatic inbound passes sometimes, rather than letting the User determine when the ball is thrown in. i happens more in online games than anything else and the problem is that cheap a$$ players just stand in front of your inbounder and pick off the pass for easy buckets over and over.
2) In dynasty mode when in "re-sign players" period, the computer will re-sign all of your players to new contracts even if you go into every day manually and don't sign them up, they'll still somehow end up on your roster when the NBA draft night starts. This makes it impossible to ever create cap room. Does anybody else experience this problem. I even tried offering really low amounts to all my players til they were not interested in talking to me anymore, hoping that would work, but the computer still re-signed them (for big contracts too!).

[bdonenfeld92]

In response to you dave...

1. About the inbounds...this is due to frequent tapping of the "A" button before you pass the ball in or before it goes into the inbound pass animation

2. In order to not resign players you must hit "Y" which takes you to your team roster. Then, once you are there you release the players you wish not to resign, as they have 0 years left on their contract and are owed no money. This will not end in a cap penalty of any kind and will make your players free agents.

Hope this helps you out man

[davenz]

Thanks a lot for that reply. I'm feeling a bit dumb now not realising these were the causes of my problems I guess the whole player release thing is abit counter-intuitive but thanks heaps for clearing that up for me. I'll enjoy my dynasties much more now

[Andrew]

I guess in a way it kind of reflects the GM process (and thought process too, I guess), actively choosing to not re-sign players and relinquishing any rights.

[macosxuser]

Release NBA Live 2010 for Macintosh computers! They are discriminated against.

[Bodz]

That's something you don't read often.

[Andrew]

It has popped up through the years though.