MyNBA Courtside Report

[bigE819]

https://nba.2k.com/2k24/courtside-report/mynba/

2K introducing the LeBron era (starting in the 2011 season), new News features (like NBA.com/social media), MyNBA Lite, dynamic player aging and more!

What are your all’s thoughts?

[ThePointForward]

IIRC LeBron era was announced or leaked some time ago, so it's not a surprise, but it does make sense.

Player aging sounds like a really nice feature, but... it's almost certainly going to be reserved for limited amount of players, presumably those present in MyTeam and historical teams. So I'd expect it mostly for superstars. That said, that's probably who people remember best anyway.

The Era appropriate news is a nice addition, it's for all intents and purposes a way to replace the missing social media tab that is in more modern eras.

[RayRay_953]

As a big retro fan, MyNBA needs dramatic improvements for me to give it a second chance. They can add all these features like the newspaper headlines/web 1.0 sections (which do look pretty cool), but the mode as a whole needs a rework. There are salary cap issues that prevent you from signing certain players, or transactions become glitched which results in you losing your star/rookie. The trading logic is also broken, as I had an instance where the Bulls wanted to trade Jordan for a rookie Allen Iverson all because of his draft rank. There are a bunch of other problems related to the mode that the community and Reddit have pointed out, but I'm going to primarily discuss the historical perspective in my post.

What made me disappointed the most was the abundance of historical inaccuracies present in the rosters due to a poor, rushed effort. Players have jumpshots that don't even closely resemble their real-life counterparts. Nique and Jason Williams with set shots, Gary Payton using Gary Payton II's animations, Isaiah Rider using all of LeBron's animations (tons of players are cloned from other NBA players), etc. Several jersey and courts are missing, including their rebrand periods. Some jerseys missing or incorrect include the mid-'90s Hawks jerseys, late-'80s Clippers jerseys, mid-'90s Sixers jerseys, no Raptors purple jerseys with "RAPTORS" text, wrong away jersey for the '13 Heat, '01 Sixers still using the 1998 jersey designs. The 1984 Nets also wear the wrong jerseys, as they switched back to their old ABA style by then, with the next rebranding being the early '90s jerseys. Many rebranded courts for late-'90s Pistons, late-'90s Hawks, late-'90s Rockets (even though one of the courts is used in MyTEAM, but nowhere else), mid-'90s and late '90s Sixers, mid-'90s Lakers (the '92 Lakers use the wrong floor), etc are missing, and these are only a few examples. Speaking of courts, some of the teams like the '90s Rockets, '84 Lakers, and '98 Jazz still use the old textures 2K made before they obtained the licenses to use the authentic names. These look out of place, and low-quality compared to the other courts (they are used everywhere else in the game, so why not include them). On the matchup screens, some of the arena names range from generic names (again, they have the licenses, so this shouldn't be an issue) to completely wrong. For example, I've seen several teams in the Jordan era with the stadium name "Magic Arena." I also played a game with the Bucks in the Magic vs. Bird Era, and instead of being called, "MECCA Arena" the game uses the modern arena name, "UW–Milwaukee Panther Arena" even though the MECCA branding is still present and the name is correctly used elsewhere. Finally, my biggest gripe is the generated draft players. It's one thing to not have the rights to a select pool of players, but the generated draft players are ridiculous. 2K didn't even try with the generated players, as they all wear modern accessories, hairstyles, tattoos, and/or shoes. It's a complete eyesore, and it kills the era immersion the mode is trying to achieve. Also, the 1984 Draft class is the ONLY draft class with modified short sizes, whereas all the other draft classes use long shorts. If 2K is going to have playable eras in time, I don't know why they can't at least make the draft classes feel era-appropriate. Also, when more shoes are added through updates, there's a good chance the generated players will wear the new shoes, but if you're using an older roster file they show up with the ugly gray 2K Generic shoes. Not to mention, players like Marc Gasol, Harold Miner, Ruben Patterson, etc. were all added in MyTEAM, but were never officially added to the draft classes or appropriate classic teams.

All in all, is MyNBA Eras more immersive than what other sports titles offer? Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to set the bar so low that I'm going to ignore all these issues which take away from the replayability, presentation. I was very disappointed with the mode, but I hope 2K can really focus on making it better.

[Andrew]

It's my hope that they'll continue to add more Eras, and ideally a couple of different starting points within each Era. That's probably a long-term goal if anything, and adding the LeBron Era is certainly a start.

I agree that the biggest issue with Eras is the accuracy and attention to detail. There were some sloppy mistakes last year like Terrell Brandon being 5'1" instead of 5'11" - I mean, it happens, but it's still not a good look - and a lot of rushed copy and paste jobs with ratings, tendencies, and so forth. Likeness rights are obviously going to keep some players out of the game and they can only do the best they can there, but there were also placeholder players with appearances that weren't era-appropriate. I love the concept, but the mistakes, oversights, and shortcuts are a distraction, and it shouldn't be on the community to undertake the lengthy task of fixing them every year.

Details like players aging into different faces is definitely cool, but as noted, not every player is going to benefit from it. It's good that they're making use of the resources that they do have, though. Changing up the presentation with era-specific media (newspapers, Web 1.0, then into the social media age) is a nice touch. That kind of stuff is great for immersion, and it'd be great if it could help jumpstart our Stories section again.

It doesn't feel like a lot was added this year, which might be underselling the amount of work that went into it (especially accounting for the new CBA stuff), but fortunately the mode is deep and robust for the most part, way ahead of most other franchise modes in basketball games or other sports titles. Hopefully it continues to see some additions and enhancements in the future, but I'm honestly not too surprised that this wasn't a huge year for MyNBA after last year surprised us with Eras.

[vinrich10]

Posted this in the Discord but I figured I'd post it here too - it's so disappointing.. MyNBA Eras leaves a lot to be desired.

This sums Eras up for me..

[Andrew]

Comes back to attention to detail. Some might say it's nit-picking, but it's the point of the mode, and immersion-breaking.

[vinrich10]

Comes back to attention to detail. Some might say it's nit-picking, but it's the point of the mode, and immersion-breaking.

100% spot on. For someone who works on web design, attention to detail is very important to me - now I know web design and game development is completely different but the fact that these little details are missed blows my mind

[juanivitale]

As a big retro fan, MyNBA needs dramatic improvements for me to give it a second chance. They can add all these features like the newspaper headlines/web 1.0 sections (which do look pretty cool), but the mode as a whole needs a rework. There are salary cap issues that prevent you from signing certain players, or transactions become glitched which results in you losing your star/rookie. The trading logic is also broken, as I had an instance where the Bulls wanted to trade Jordan for a rookie Allen Iverson all because of his draft rank. There are a bunch of other problems related to the mode that the community and Reddit have pointed out, but I'm going to primarily discuss the historical perspective in my post.

What made me disappointed the most was the abundance of historical inaccuracies present in the rosters due to a poor, rushed effort. Players have jumpshots that don't even closely resemble their real-life counterparts. Nique and Jason Williams with set shots, Gary Payton using Gary Payton II's animations, Isaiah Rider using all of LeBron's animations (tons of players are cloned from other NBA players), etc. Several jersey and courts are missing, including their rebrand periods. Some jerseys missing or incorrect include the mid-'90s Hawks jerseys, late-'80s Clippers jerseys, mid-'90s Sixers jerseys, no Raptors purple jerseys with "RAPTORS" text, wrong away jersey for the '13 Heat, '01 Sixers still using the 1998 jersey designs. The 1984 Nets also wear the wrong jerseys, as they switched back to their old ABA style by then, with the next rebranding being the early '90s jerseys. Many rebranded courts for late-'90s Pistons, late-'90s Hawks, late-'90s Rockets (even though one of the courts is used in MyTEAM, but nowhere else), mid-'90s and late '90s Sixers, mid-'90s Lakers (the '92 Lakers use the wrong floor), etc are missing, and these are only a few examples. Speaking of courts, some of the teams like the '90s Rockets, '84 Lakers, and '98 Jazz still use the old textures 2K made before they obtained the licenses to use the authentic names. These look out of place, and low-quality compared to the other courts (they are used everywhere else in the game, so why not include them). On the matchup screens, some of the arena names range from generic names (again, they have the licenses, so this shouldn't be an issue) to completely wrong. For example, I've seen several teams in the Jordan era with the stadium name "Magic Arena." I also played a game with the Bucks in the Magic vs. Bird Era, and instead of being called, "MECCA Arena" the game uses the modern arena name, "UW–Milwaukee Panther Arena" even though the MECCA branding is still present and the name is correctly used elsewhere. Finally, my biggest gripe is the generated draft players. It's one thing to not have the rights to a select pool of players, but the generated draft players are ridiculous. 2K didn't even try with the generated players, as they all wear modern accessories, hairstyles, tattoos, and/or shoes. It's a complete eyesore, and it kills the era immersion the mode is trying to achieve. Also, the 1984 Draft class is the ONLY draft class with modified short sizes, whereas all the other draft classes use long shorts. If 2K is going to have playable eras in time, I don't know why they can't at least make the draft classes feel era-appropriate. Also, when more shoes are added through updates, there's a good chance the generated players will wear the new shoes, but if you're using an older roster file they show up with the ugly gray 2K Generic shoes. Not to mention, players like Marc Gasol, Harold Miner, Ruben Patterson, etc. were all added in MyTEAM, but were never officially added to the draft classes or appropriate classic teams.

All in all, is MyNBA Eras more immersive than what other sports titles offer? Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to set the bar so low that I'm going to ignore all these issues which take away from the replayability, presentation. I was very disappointed with the mode, but I hope 2K can really focus on making it better.

Totally agree on this 100%. I have to say tho. I can see roster inconsistencies and incompleteness being the result of a rush effort, but at this point, I don't think the missing jerseys/courts are an accident anymore. I could believe that with 2k23 considering that was the first installment of the "eras" thing. But when you didn't add those courts and jerseys in the mode after an entire year I'm starting to believe It's just a dirty trick to finally add them in future versions so that we are forced to buy them.

Think about this: I'm also a big retro fan and as such, I would be perfectly settled for quite a handful of years (or at least as long as this gen of consoles last) if I had a complete mode that included the 80, 90s, 00s and 2010s. 2K knows this. 2K also knows that if hey had added all of those jerseys and courts we wouldn't even need to connect to the 2K server in order to download them or create them ourselves. On that note It's also a VERY suspicious coincidence that now the court editor is "glitched" (you can't select no-color on any part of the court, or you're left with a solid beige color instead of bare wood). So not only they didn't add the missing courts, now we can't make them ourselves...

Also this thing about adding the jerseys that were missing last year (96 Sixers, '14 Hornets, '12 Nets, etc) and to NOT include them in the eras.... seriously?? It's like they trying to piss us off on purpose...

2K24 is by far the worst investment I ever made...