NBA Live 09 Community Day Q&A

[Andrew]

Now that I've been cleared to talk about most aspects of the game, I'd be happy to try an answer any questions you may have at this point. I'll try to answer as many as I can as best I can, but please note that even with as much time as we had to play the game (more than any other event I've attended thus far), it's not enough to see every single scenario played out. For example, none of the games I played went into overtime so I'm not aware of any overtime related bugs/issues at this juncture.

With that said, bring on the questions. I do encourage you to read my Community Day coverage first though as you may find the answer there and in much greater detail.

Last edited by Andrew on Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Can you make defenders fall with the "quickstrike anklebreakers"
INSTANT REPLAY SOUNDS GREAT
So for sounds like live know what they are doing
NBA Academy is simply amazing

Are you able to run 28 and 56 game seasons? Or are we stuck with 82 games like last year?

1) who got new sig shots?

2) is there a new default shot for the people without sig shots??

Can you make defenders fall with the "quickstrike anklebreakers"

I don't think you can, I didn't see anyone fall over when they got beaten.

Are you able to run 28 and 56 game seasons? Or are we stuck with 82 games like last year?

I'm pretty sure it's restricted to 82 games again, I will double check that though.

1) who got new sig shots?

2) is there a new default shot for the people without sig shots??

1. I don't have a list, sorry. I didn't have time to go through 400 players to see who had a new signature shot.

2. It's probably been redone but it looks pretty much the same. There are different shot trajectories though, depending on when you release the shoot button.

any facial dunks like in 06
and is steve kerr anouncing

Did you try the All-Star or Superstar Mode when you played?

Is it harder to beat the CPU this year?

How does the CPU play, do they run plays or do the PG's usually run the show, with the most shot attempts?

Are you able to run 28 and 56 game seasons? Or are we stuck with 82 games like last year?

I'm pretty sure it's restricted to 82 games again, I will double check that though.

Hmmmm.... thats quite dissapointing, looks like I might take a pass on Live this year....

I have several questions regarding the Dynasty feature:

1. Do Computer Generated Rookies have pictures on their profile?

2. Are there 3 team trades?
2a. Is the trading interface any different than last year's?

3. Can you trade future draft picks(i.e. 2010's)?

4. Can you set the amount of minutes your players play a game? (not just a general amount, but actual numbers)

5. Do player ratings change during the season? (like does a player's rating go up mid-season when you put him through a training session)

6. Can you fire/hire head coaches?

7. Can you assign your player 'roles'? (star, bench warmers, etc)

8. How big of a role does chemistry play? Will it dramatically affect a player's rating/performance?

9. Can you resign from your position and actually be able to choose a team to work for instead of getting a offer from a bad team?

10. What is Steve Nash's rating?

These are more general:

11. When you are choosing teams to play, are there additional ratings for a team(i.e. Offense/Defense)?

12. Is gameplay fast?

If you don't want to spoil too much info, you can PM me instead, I won't tell anyone.

Edit: A thank you in advance for all the hard wark you've done on the site so far and if you ever get to my questions.

Last edited by NY Project on Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Hi Andrew

First of all, just wanna say a big THANK YOU for compiling a very informative and comprehensive report on the Live 09 Event.

These are some of the questions which I'm curious to find out more (if you're not under any embargo):

1. Dynasty Mode
- You mention abt earning dynasty points for upgrades in the offseason. What kind of upgrades can the team make?

2. FIBA
- Will there be a schedule (similar to the Dynasty / Season mode) whereby International Teams can play against each other for a championship (like the Olympics or World Championship)?

3. Presentation
- Will there be commentary just after tip-off on the respective teams chances of winning the game?

4. Odds & Ends
- Will the 2006-2007 Washington Wizards alternate jersey (Gold/Black) be made available?

Thanks again for the report, Andrew!

Will every star player have more than one go to move? And how Allen Iverson sig shot look like and what go to moves he has?

And something for fiba improvement in NBA LIVE 09


Man Serbia ***** they are not 78 they about 71-73. On the EuroBasket they were last they didn't win a single game! Croatia s 77 better than Italy. Croatia was 6th on EuroBasket, now they are in the qualifying tournament for the Olympics in Beijing! And we beat France for the qualifying tournament, France is not on the qualifying tournament for the Olympics in Beijing!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.athens2008.fiba. com/pages/eng/fe/08/olymQual/men/teamPlay/p/openNodeIDs/6934/s elNodeID/6934/fe_teamPlay_teaSear.html


http://www.eurobasket2007.org/en/default. asp

LOOK

FINAL STANDINGS
]1. flag Russia
2. flag Spain
3. flag Lithuania Teams are on the Olympics!
4. flag Greece
5. flag Germany
6. flag Croatia
7. flag Slovenia Teams there are in the qualifying tournament for the Olympics in Beijing
8. flag France
9. flag Italy
10. flag Portugal
11. flag Israel
12. flag Turkey
13. flag Czech Republic
14. flag Latvia
15. flag Poland
16. flag Serbia

Marko Popovic scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half as a balanced Croatia booked their spot in next summer's pre-Olympic qualifying tournament by beating France 86-69 in the 5th-8th classification round of EuroBasket 2007. http://www.eurobasket2007. org/en/cid_BqypGFJPHy-Nw4lwIAq,v3.teamID_2168. compID_qMRZdYCZI6EoANOrUf9le2.season_2007.roundID_5169. coid_x5ijpp9zHBgIOcfWbjM910.articleMode_on. html

Quater Finals
Zoran Planinic missed two foul shots with 1.02 seconds remaining, allowing Lithuania to hold off a motivated Croatia 74-72 and book their spot in Saturday's semi-finals against Russia.
Darius Songalia scored 20 points, grabbed seven rebounds and gave Lithuania the winning basket with 46 seconds left. Craoti almost in Semis! http://www.eurobasket2007.org/en/cid_BqypGFJPHy- Nw4lwIAq,v3.teamID_2168.compID_qMRZdYCZI6EoANOrUf9le2. season_2007.roundID_5169.coid_VLZ4sLrsG4MWe1hwRE17a2. articleMode_on.html


Germany finished their EuroBasket 2007 performance with an 80-71 win over Croatia in the 5-6 classification game.

Croatia tried to ride the wave of their good performance last night, and led for almost 30 minutes, but once Germany took over the game went in one direction.

Dirk Nowitzki made sure to leave EuroBasket 2007 with a sweet taste. Loss for the fifth but Croatia had advantage of 18 points in the second half and suffered loss!


And one more question can you edit go to moves and sig shots?

A few queries & notes:

GAMEPLAY

One of the problems in past games has been that your CPU teammates aren't always very helpful, particularly at the offensive end. 1) You will see your teammates moving around, cutting to the basket and so forth so you don't have to do everything yourself but Pick & Roll Control takes playcalling a step further as you'll essentially be able to control two players on the floor at once.

1) You stated that your CPU teammates move around a lot more, can you elaborate any further? On the surface, it sounds good as one of main problems a lot of people have complained about in past is lack of "realism" from the CPU players & the AI just isn't there.

2) Did you get a chance to check out AI in certain situations? End of game situations? Substitution patterns?


DYNASTY MODE

1) Sounds like they're on the right path, but it always seems like yes, we've done this, but not until next year. But yep, some good strides by the sounds of it, a few 2k additions. Would be nice to see Commissioner announce the draftees, or have ESPN crew rate picks as they go along, or at the very least, a post-draft summary, not just grades.

2) On a side note, I too miss the re-order roster screen. It was so simple & subs worked off a combination of the re-order & the player positions. It was simple, yet effective. I don't like to worry too much about minute rotations as it seems the computer doesn't keep to them anyways.

3) Big question, can you retire player's jerseys like you could in NBA Live 2004? I don't recall them having it since that version of Live.


NBA ACADEMY

1) Sounds good in theory, but for it is just one of those icing on the cake features, not a game mover. Good that you can practice jumpshot timing though.


FIBA

1) First off, what a load of crap that New Zealand isn't in there. They've been a top 12-15 team for at least the last 6 or so years. How the heck do they have England in there over them? Japan? Where's Nigeria? How the heck is Iran above Australia?!? Australia shits all over them with their 2nd string team. And below England?!? I know Russia won Euro Champs, but I wouldn't put them above Spain. To me, this is typical of EA, they have taken the teams from the bigger markets (England, Japan etc) over more worthy teams (New Zealand, Nigeria etc). I can understand England if they have Deng & Gordon on their team, but not say Japan & Mexico.

2) Did you query the production team how they could overlook teams like New Zealand & to a lesser extent Nigeria? To me, this decision to exclude worthy teams as a game mode killer. No point playing FIBA mode for me at least, but I guess NZ is such a small country it doesn't matter to EA. Considering I don't expect NZ to make it to Beijing, I don't expect them in next season either.

3) Do you know if college players appear on international teams (i.e. Patrick Mills on Australia)? Or is it paid professionals only?


ODDS & ENDS

1) No retros suck. I hope they don't expect people to pay for them. I would like it better if they are unlockables in the game.

2) I'm keen to see what the ground-breaking feature is. I'll be disappointed if it's just something online-related, as it's not a feature that a lot will use.


Anyways, great write-up, sounds like you had a good time. Shame they can't extend the Community Event to a week for you guys

What about the PSP? It is never mentioned on the main site, but you can preorder in some (and Ea-)shops. And do you know something about other EA PSP releases? Thanks

A few questions

This is stupid but I want to be sure, can you play with only a player (lock on him)?

When you say "various graphical representations of player development have made their return and can be viewed during the course of a season" it's that I can see a fat Kobe?

Can you add player from the fiba teams to the NBA teams and if so what happens with players who appears in both (fiba and NBA)?

any facial dunks like in 06
and is steve kerr anouncing

There seems to be a few. And yes, Steve Kerr is doing commentary again this year.

Did you try the All-Star or Superstar Mode when you played?

Is it harder to beat the CPU this year?

How does the CPU play, do they run plays or do the PG's usually run the show, with the most shot attempts?

I tried All-Star and Superstar. We were mostly playing against each other because there weren't enough consoles set up for us to play solo but I did spend a bit of time playing against the CPU and there didn't seem to be any position domination. Hopefully that doesn't change by the time the game ships.

I have several questions regarding the Dynasty feature:

1. Do Computer Generated Rookies have pictures on their profile?

2. Are there 3 team trades?
2a. Is the trading interface any different than last year's?

3. Can you trade future draft picks(i.e. 2010's)?

4. Can you set the amount of minutes your players play a game? (not just a general amount, but actual numbers)

5. Do player ratings change during the season? (like does a player's rating go up mid-season when you put him through a training session)

6. Can you fire/hire head coaches?

7. Can you assign your player 'roles'? (star, bench warmers, etc)

8. How big of a role does chemistry play? Will it dramatically affect a player's rating/performance?

9. Can you resign from your position and actually be able to choose a team to work for instead of getting a offer from a bad team?

10. What is Steve Nash's rating?

These are more general:

11. When you are choosing teams to play, are there additional ratings for a team(i.e. Offense/Defense)?

12. Is gameplay fast?

If you don't want to spoil too much info, you can PM me instead, I won't tell anyone.

Edit: A thank you in advance for all the hard wark you've done on the site so far and if you ever get to my questions.

1. I'm pretty sure they did, similar to the ones they had last year.

2. No and no.

3. No.

4. Yes, the rotation feature is still in the game.

5. Yes.

6. No, unfortunately.

7. No.

8. It's in there but we were told it's not an overpowering factor.

9. No.

10. I didn't write down any ratings as they were due to be updated.

11. No, but I liked those old ratings/rankings in the early series so I wish there was.

12. Not really, but the sliders can take care of it if it's not to your tastes.

1. Dynasty Mode
- You mention abt earning dynasty points for upgrades in the offseason. What kind of upgrades can the team make?

2. FIBA
- Will there be a schedule (similar to the Dynasty / Season mode) whereby International Teams can play against each other for a championship (like the Olympics or World Championship)?

3. Presentation
- Will there be commentary just after tip-off on the respective teams chances of winning the game?

4. Odds & Ends
- Will the 2006-2007 Washington Wizards alternate jersey (Gold/Black) be made available?

1. You can develop your staff so that they are better at scouting, help players stay injury free and so on.

2. No, just the regular tournament mode.

3. There's the usual banter/analysis after the tipoff. Not a lot has changed there, there some new lines but it's generally the same sort of thing.

4. It should be in there as they're still using it as an alternate, but I didn't use the Wizards in any of the games I played so I didn't notice whether it was in there or not. Sorry.

Will every star player have more than one go to move? And how Allen Iverson sig shot look like and what go to moves he has?

No. Some will have more than one, others won't.

And one more question can you edit go to moves and sig shots?

No, but when you create a player you can select a shot style.

1) You stated that your CPU teammates move around a lot more, can you elaborate any further? On the surface, it sounds good as one of main problems a lot of people have complained about in past is lack of "realism" from the CPU players & the AI just isn't there.

2) Did you get a chance to check out AI in certain situations? End of game situations? Substitution patterns?

It does seem that CPU teammates will recognise when they can cut to the basket and move around of their own accord, it seems to work better when you call a quick play though.

I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked playing against the CPU so I wasn't really able to observe a lot of specific situations, such as reacting intelligently in the closing seconds of a close game.

3) Big question, can you retire player's jerseys like you could in NBA Live 2004? I don't recall them having it since that version of Live.

It's been in every game since then. Pretty sure it's in there again this year.

1) Sounds good in theory, but for it is just one of those icing on the cake features, not a game mover. Good that you can practice jumpshot timing though.

I'm not sure about it being a huge selling point for everyone either but it is more than just a gimmick. It's a pretty cool addition to Dynasty Mode with the way you can scrimmage 5-on-5 and invite the rookies in, as I said in the report I didn't get a full impression of how it will affect training but it will come into play there too. It should be a bit more exciting than assigning some time and waiting for the game to generate results. But yeah, it may not be the kind of thing that sells people on the game.

3) Do you know if college players appear on international teams (i.e. Patrick Mills on Australia)? Or is it paid professionals only?

Patrick Mills is on the Boomers squad, though I wasn't doing very well with him when I was playing with Australia. The ratings do seem a bit off, I'm not sure if they're due for an update as well. The omission of New Zealand is a bit surprising, I'm not sure what their criteria is there. I'm guessing England's rating has been boosted by the presence of Deng and Gordon.

What about the PSP? It is never mentioned on the main site, but you can preorder in some (and Ea-)shops. And do you know something about other EA PSP releases? Thanks

No idea what's going on there, sorry.

This is stupid but I want to be sure, can you play with only a player (lock on him)?

When you say "various graphical representations of player development have made their return and can be viewed during the course of a season" it's that I can see a fat Kobe?

Can you add player from the fiba teams to the NBA teams and if so what happens with players who appears in both (fiba and NBA)?

1. Only in Be a Pro Mode.

2. No, there are various graphs and charts that display player improvement and decline available to view in Dynasty Mode.

3. Doesn't look like it, unfortunately.

Thanks Andrew for answering my questions. Did you played as Croatia, just guessing? Because thats my country.

No, Australia was the only FIBA team I played with.

Yo andrew i hear this form EA.com

"The reason I'm not going to talk about Dynasty because it's enhanced more, but there's NBDL contracts that you can send your player off to a different league for them to improve."

its this true you can send teams to the nbdl
and can you edit players go-to-moves

Thank you so much for your time Andrew. A few more questions and I'm done.

1. Can your players' rating drastically rise/fall during Dynaaty Mode?

2. Can you have less than 8/more than 15 players in the offseason before the season starts?

Can you tell us more about the "Be a pro" mode?

Andrew,

1. Did you use the Nets in any of your games, and if so, is there the alternate jersey in the game???

2. Do the jerseys look okay? If not, is their anyway anyone on the NLSC can patch them?

I cant wait to play my hizhornets fazizzle
do tyson chandler have a go to move
he should have one with paul

Andrew anybody played with the hornets?

Thanks for the reply, Andrew! Much appreciated.

EDIT: Would you care to share with all of us your overall impression of the game (even though it's still WIP) and if it's better than any of the series you've played thus far?

Great report Andrew!

Just wondering if you checked out the create a player feature and your thoughts on it. The last Live I played was 07 on PS2 and create a player was terrible. Just wondering if it's improved much

Also did you ask whether they were considering adding a career mode to the game eventually?

And finally, do you know how much longer they plan to make the game for current gen (PS2)?

Thanks

3) Big question, can you retire player's jerseys like you could in NBA Live 2004? I don't recall them having it since that version of Live.

It's been in every game since then. Pretty sure it's in there again this year.

It has?!? I don't recall seeing it in Live '05 or '06, guess I just wasn't lucky enough to see it