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a d  $17,459 | Rep: POWERFUL | The Official NBA 2K10 Thread NBA 2K10 Q&A
Submitted on: 08/24/2009 by Chase Becotte
All right, so instead of re-listing all the questions from the other thread and then answering them here, I'm just going to try and answer as many of those questions as possible as I pepper through these various portions of the game. Obviously you can ask more questions, and I can try to answer them as well.
You should also know that I played four matchups, all against other human players -- three against my OS cohort Rich Chavez, and one against 2K developer Rob Jones. I was at the studio from like 10-5 (minus one hour for lunch) so I got time to be walked through pretty much every aspect of the game before playing at the end of the day.
-The matchups were Spurs vs. Suns (me) on Christmas Day -- this was just a feature for the demo, you won't have access to last year's game via NBA Today. The developers want NBA Today to be, well, all about today in the NBA. The other matchups were Jazz (me) at Portland, OKC at New York (me) and Atlanta at Golden State (me). My Player/Create A Player
Creating A Player
-50-something hair styles to choose from (including the Gooden patch).
-Facial hair is improved in the visuals department.
-50-60 different types of tattoos per body part.
-When working on the created player's face, the developers got rid of the 125 sliders or whatever and instead now there are various presets to choose from for each part of the face. Then after you choose a preset, you can still go to this 2-D style plane and work on each part of the created player's face -- it's just a more simplified version of the old sliders, so it should be more user friendly. Think of the presets like Mr. Potato Head, and then you can still get really deep into creating the guy via the 2-D plane.
-Finger straps, ankle braces, compression shorts, undershirts are all now available.
-All the major shoe brands are in the game, and you can customize the colors for every shoe -- pretty much can make 15 million different shoe combos if you want. You can also have home and away versions of the shoes.
-For the accessories and headbands, you can choose white, black, secondary team color and primary team color
-You no longer have to apply an entire "package" to your player. In other words, this means you don't have to pick a specific dunk package or whatever, you can choose various types of dunks per created player instead -- if your guy has enough hops you can choose 10 different dunks for your guy to use. Once again let me be clear, you are not choosing a "Josh Smith" dunk package, but rather specific dunks that make up your own unique dunk package.
-When you originally create your 'My Player', you don't have access to every specific animation in the game -- your attributes won't be good enough at the start for you to select some of the more spectacular dunks for example.
-The only portion of your guy that is still tied down by a specific "package" is the layup package because the layups are all pretty basic outside of stuff like floaters. The floater is really the unique part of the package so to speak -- Nash and Parker have their own specific floaters like in the past.
-The 'My Player' create-a-player system is the same one used for the standard create-a-player system. Same goes for editing existing NBA players. This means if you don't think a certain player can do a specific dunk anymore, or you find a dunk that you think is unstoppable or something, you can remove it from any player.
-The lighting on the player you are creating is much improved within that CAP hub, and he just looks more realistic looking as you are creating him.
-In 2K10 once you DL your 'My Player' from the 2K server -- assuming you did the Draft Combine before the launch of 2K10 -- he goes where Kobe would be on the start menu screen (aka the screen you see where it says 'press start'. You can change it back to Kobe if you don't want your created guy on there.
-You can only upload one 'My Player' to the server.
Draft Combine
-Your player starts around a 37 overall when you create him.
-The goals you get before a game are based on your play style. So a rebounding center will have goals based on something like getting a certain rebound total rather than scoring 15 points.
-Speed is insanely expensive (as it should be) so it will be very hard to earn enough points to boost your player to a high level in that department.
-You can lose skill points if you play real poorly.
-The Draft Combine is not exactly what 2K10 will be like from gameplay perspective, and because most of the virtual players within this portion of the game are subpar, you won't see a lot of the new animations etc. in this mode. I'd say treating the Combine as a nice RPG element and filler to tide you over until the game actually releases is the best way to look at it -- assuming the other option is judging the gameplay as being exactly like 2K10, because it's not.
Beyond The Combine
-When you get 2K10 and download your player from the server, you head to the NBA Draft. If you get drafted, you go to the summer league with that team. 2K has the 30 unique summer league jerseys and also the actual summer league rosters -- of course only the names will show up for players in the NBA already. It will be generic names for players who are not in the NBA.
-If you perform well enough in summer league, you get to go to training camp. If you don't perform well enough, you might get an invite to another team's training camp (assuming you were a second-round pick and got cut), or you might get no invites and have to join up with a D-League team before training camp.
-Training camp consists of five games. The team invites 20 players and only 15 can be on the roster, so one player gets eliminated after each game. This should be the first point where you feel a difficulty spike because you'll be playing against other NBA players on your team rather than other prospects. All five games are intrasquad games.
-If you make the team, you'll probably start by getting 2-3 minutes a game. In other words, you have to build your way up. You might also get a different role at points. If you get drafted as a SF by the Warriors and make the team, you might find yourself playing PF a good amount. So be ready to handle different positions and styles.
-If you don't make the team, you are sent down to the D-League, assuming you were drafted in the first round. If you were drafted in the second round and get cut during training camp, you have to go find a spot in the D-League.
-If you get two 10-day contracts from the same team, if you get that third 10-day contract, you get to stay on that team for the rest of the year like in real life.
-It is meant to be hard to make it to the NBA and stick as an NBA player in this mode. 2K feels like most career modes basically give you an easy road to the pros/becoming a legend, whereas in this mode the developers want you to earn your way to being a legit NBA player. Their thinking is that it's a way to make their mode stand out from the rest.
-There are other camera views to pick from if you don't like the modified 2K cam when being your player.
-You always have a one-year contract. The better you play, the more offers you will receive during the offseason. It seems like this route was taken because the NBA is not a huge fan of players demanding trades, and in addition, the developers didn't want you to go through a two/three/four-year rookie contract, then get your first max deal, then get another max deal because it wouldn't allow you to change teams if you wanted to play for someone else -- especially if you were drafted for a team you do not like in real life or are stuck behind a superstar at your position. Take that for what it's worth.
-When you take 'My Player' online and use him, you play in what are called Pick-Up games. You play these games in outdoor environments and earn points for your player in the same way you would offline -- sans getting goals before the game. In these games, you will be playing with nine other humans who are also using their 'My Player.' The game will match you up so you are the only PG or SG or whatever on your team. Presentation
-If you had a beef with the presentation in the past, I'd say this version will be the best chance to redeem itself in your eyes.
-Three stars on your team will be shown with their stats, rather than a video of one player on each team before the game.
-The game gets to the starting lineups right away when the game launches before cutting to something happening on the court before the tip-off.
-In addition to a lot of the postgame stuff you have come to expect, there is also this new "slideshow" feature that basically takes still images of some of the moments of the game and flashes them on your TV in slideshow form. You can save these images if you want.
Graphics
-Lighting has been redone this year. So individual arenas should have more unique lighting.
-Textures have also been redone. Nash and other white players I checked out looked a bit better because of it.
-In general the game looks amazing graphically, I came away very impressed. It's a clear-cut improvement over last year's game.
-This is the only Live/2K comparison I'll make, and I only do it because Dwight is the cover athlete of Live. The Dwight in 2K10 looks better than the Dwight I've seen in Live 10.
Commentary
-Examples of what the commentary duo will discuss: They talk about injuries that occurred in real life, will mention Valentine's Day is coming up, and will even tease upcoming games and say tune in to play/watch so-and-so game this Sunday. They will also discuss trades that occurred in real life.
-During quick games, the commentators will still talk about the real-life standings and all that, so it's not just tied to when you do matchups within NBA Today.
-Kevin Harlan's "right between the eyes" comment is not allowed to be in the game because it's a violent reference -- would affect the ESRB rating.
-The commentary and presentation might sound cool when reading about them, but you will appreciate these aspects a lot more when you're actually playing the game. And what's nice is that is the commentary will be fresh throughout the year, because it won't be until playoffs time that you see the duo discussing the playoff matchups going on and all that.
NBA Today
-This is the hub you see when you start the game. It shows today's matchups, as well as box scores and stats from yesterday. You can also access the league leaders, All-Star voting and so on right from this screen.
-When you get the game, the NBA will be just starting preseason games (I believe) and so the announcers will pull stats etc. from those games -- so NBA Today is in effect once you get the game.
Signature Style
-Teams that stand up until their team scores the first points of the game will do that in the game.
-To give some example of the non-gameplay signature style:
* DHo does his fadeaway before the game
* KG and Pierce will be screaming on the scoreboard during the initial zoom in to a game in Boston.
* KG will bang his head off the stantion under the rim.
* Ray Allen also rocks the powder before the game.
* Wade will lift himself on the rim.
* Vince will lift himself on the rim.
* Cleveland will do the picture thing before the game.
* Shaq will do his bowling thing.
* Cleveland will also do the knocking it out of the park thingy.
* LeBron of course has his powder.
* Boobie and LeBron will do the brush off your shoulders and salute thing.
-The cool part about a lot of these pregame rituals and so forth is that you won't see the same ones every time. So maybe you see KG bang his head off the stantion one time, but the next time you see Ray Allen making sweet love to the powder. It happens this way because the camera is dynamic so it won't always focus on the same stuff or players.
-I was told LeBron and Kobe got new shots, but I didn't see those teams in action. As for the players I did see, Ray Allen got a new shot, as did SJax, Deron Williams, Korver, Boozer and Nash. Many many more apparently got new shots, but I didn't have time to scope them out.
-Nate Rob has his free-throw routine in the game.
-The ImageMetrics people (the folks behind GTA IV) created the signature and generic facial animations in the game. I didn't see too many signature ones while playing, but was told that LeBron puffing his cheeks out after he does something big-time is in the game. The facial animations looked good when I saw them, and the eyes looked pretty lifelike as well.
-The organ will be playing at Madison Square Garden.
-Signature play involves all the signature stuff done before as well as the tendencies. The AI system was also built on the tendency system. How does a player like to get to a particular spot, what moves does he like to do to get to that spot -- think of it as "the how" -- is where 82games.com comes into play. So the point is that someone like Iverson would not do a spin move to get to where he would want to go on the court, he would do a crossover -- so the tendencies tie into that fact.
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