[Scott_Arm]

Is anyone listening? *echo* *echo* *echo*


Hey, me, how do you think it looks? I think it looks pretty good, me. The new skating system promises to be a pretty big change to the way the game plays. You now have a more realistic way of boosting your speed that lowers your agility, balance, puck control and shot accuracy. You can hustle to move really fast, but you have to be careful when you use it. You have your best agility, balance, puck control and accuracy when gliding, and normal skating is somewhere in between. Skating fast now requires you to make wide turns, as momentum affects the way your player moves. Very cool! Should be a lot more realistic, but will definitely cause a steep learning curve for defensive play. A pinching D-man is going to need help from his forwards more than ever. If he pinches and turns the puck over, in the time it takes for him to pivot an opposing forward will hustle with that lose puck and be long gone, limiting the D-man's ability to catch up. The momentum will limit some of the dangling type forwards from pulling off unrealistic moves to get to the front of the net through traffic, so that'll help the D in other aspects of the game.

Other things mentioned, as always, are improved AI and goalies. EASHL (6 vs 6 league - effectively the equivalent of clan play) match making is supposed to be improved, and I'm interested in learning about that. Everything else I don't really care about.

Watch the vids!

[RobertR1]

Thread ruined!

[NRP]

I would love to play hockey, but I can't skate.

[RobertR1]

I don't think the controller knows that, NRP

[Scott_Arm]

Originally Posted by NRP

I would love to play hockey, but I can't skate.

You skate with the left stick.

[deathindustrial]

Last iteration I bought was NHL 10 and it was buggy as all get out. I doubt I will wade in again unless EA does away with the $60 a year model just to get roster updates.

[Scott_Arm]

Originally Posted by deathindustrial

Last iteration I bought was NHL 10 and it was buggy as all get out. I doubt I will wade in again unless EA does away with the $60 a year model just to get roster updates.

They should definitely do once every two years, with maybe a big DLC update for the 2nd year. 2011 had the big physics update, and 2012 was just kind of a refinement of 2011. It probably could have been DLC or something ... or just make the game $40 or something, instead of full price.

They also need to start doing a 2 week beta before release, to get most of the kinks out. All I care about is the online play. I don't play any offline play at all, or even 1 vs 1 or ultimate team. I just play EASHL and online team play.

[Shifty Geezer]

We tried NHL once. We liked the fights. It felt like a pretty daft sport after that.

[Dr Evil]

My glory days were during the NHL 09, I haven't really had the motivation since then to sink enough time into it to challenge my friends who still play a lot.

[Scott_Arm]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

We tried NHL once. We liked the fights. It felt like a pretty daft sport after that.

Aren't all sports daft? Hockey is definitely a weird one though. I mean, you have a bunch of guys wearing body armour, caged into an ice-rink with walls and glass, skating around and brutalizing each other while manipulating a frozen rubber puck with a long stick, and they have to put the puck into a net all while obeying seemingly arbitrary rules regarding physical contact and puck movement. That said, it can be pretty awesome. I think the fighting should be banned.

[Shifty Geezer]

It was a the violence in the computer game that made us laugh. Ice hockey doesn't get airtime in the UK, so we've no idea how realistic it was or not. It was just funny that every game part-way through, it changed from hockey to wrestling. If it was just hockey, it'd have been a fast-paced variation on 5-a-side football (at which point may as well just play 5-a-side football and sensible, stable grass ).

[Gubbi]

Originally Posted by Scott_Arm

...t all while obeying seemingly arbitrary rules regarding physical contact and puck movement. That said, it can be pretty awesome. I think the fighting should be banned.

Hockey has a simple and clear ruleset.

Wrt. fighting, there are pros and cons.

Generally, a player only gets in a fight if he wants to, or if he has made something that could potentially injure a player. I like the self-policing aspect of hockey: Do something un-acceptable and you *will* face the consequences, - that includes diving (which is why hockey is infinitely better than soccer).

Also, fighting in the NHL is very well regulated. In the rulebook there is on average a half to a whole page describing each offense and their punishment, and a *lot* of pages describing how fights are to be conducted. A fight is always one-on-one, a fight ends when one gets down. Two on one fights, or fighting to hurt your opponent results in game misconducts (and severe penalties afterwards)

Sometimes matches descends into mass brawls which can be a bore, and sometimes opponents aren't matched, like Beagle vs. Asham:



But in general, fights help maintain a high level of sportsmanship, IMO.

Haven't played NHL since 2011, never got the hang of skill stick and got owned by my friends

Cheers

[Shifty Geezer]

The fights are a legitimate part of the sport with rules?!? That's like mixing Queensbury's rules with soccer.

[willardjuice]

I'm either getting this or fifa 13, not sure which one yet.

[Scott_Arm]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

The fights are a legitimate part of the sport with rules?!? That's like mixing Queensbury's rules with soccer.

Well, you get a penalty and have to sit out 5 minutes of the game, so it isn't exactly legal, but it isn't punished in any significant way. Also, the refs won't try to break up a fight until the guys are tired, or one guy has clearly lost.

[scooby_dooby]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

The fights are a legitimate part of the sport with rules?!? That's like mixing Queensbury's rules with soccer.

Yep, cause players are better at policing each other than referee's who have only 2 eyes, and often make mistakes.

Not to mention, the embarassment of getting beaten up in front of millions of people is vastly greater than the fear of sitting in a box for 4 minutes. That just basic human psychology.

Since the attempted removal of fighting, by creating an instigator rule, we've seen an explosion of cheap shots, knee on knee's, elbow's, head shots into the boards... all as a result of the lack of player to player enforcement that hockey once enjoyed.

p.s. Scott I love your threads Have been totally let down with NHL 2012 though, they're just getting lazy at this point.

[poopypoo]

Definitely. no fighting made the playoffs a mess.

[Scott_Arm]

They say they've revamped the goalie controls a bit. I'll believe it when I see it. I have a lot of fun playing nets, but it always felt like it was missing something. Here's hoping, because I wouldn't mind splitting my time in EASHL 50/50 with nets and out as a skater.

[Yemeth]

Hello Scott_Arm and all the others!

I play "Be a GM" on NHL 11 so much that I am now in the year 2035 with "my" Anaheim Ducks, so you can say I like drafting, trading etc. When after x years playing with my team I look at my superstar statistics and say "round 3, in your face" it is quite a nice feeling...

Could not find much about the improvements from NHL 11 in the GM -> NHL 13, anyone here with more info?

I skipped NHL 12, because the differences between NHL 11 and NHL 12 were not enough to justify a purchase (by playing just the demo, of course).

But, I will probably buy NHL 13 anyway, if nothing else just to get the latest AHL affiliates changes, players and to drive a nice body check into Justin Schultz ...

Cheers...

[Scott_Arm]

I've never really played the GM mode. I don't like playing against the CPU, so I kind of stick to online. Isn't there some hockey manager game that's really good that's basically all GM functions but you don't play the games? Anyway, I would say NHL 12 wouldn't be worth it for a GM only player. NHL 13 might be interesting, because the revamped skating will hopefully change the way you play a bit. Don't know much about GM features year to year, or what improvements they're making to NHL 13.


Here's the goalie video

[Scott_Arm]

Forgot to post this to my thread! It's the gameplay reveal trailer! Check out the new skating, the new goalies and the new mechanic for swiping at loose pucks! I don't understand why they keep going on about being able to skate backwards at any time. You were always able to do that by pressing LT/L2. I guess they turned off "auto-skate backwards" and called it a new feature. The new skating momentum looks great though, as does the new "sprint/speed burst" or whatever they call it. Swiping at the pucks should be a big help to the defenseman. No longer do they have to go into the corner, collect the puck and make a play, risking getting pinned or stick lifted for a turnover. Now they can just bat the loose puck up the boards if there's a guy right on their tail. Should be cool. The new goalies really do look awesome.

[Scott_Arm]

Details on improvements to "Be A Pro" mode and EASHL:

http://www.easports.com/nhl/news/art...e-improvements

Didn't read the "Be A Pro" stuff, because I don't care. EASHL, on the other hand, is the good stuff. Looks like they will try to do a better job of matching teams by location and skill level to hopefully give you better games. Teams that play with 6 players will get big performance bonuses in terms of ranking points. Also, there is a 6 player leaderboard, so you can tell the top clubs that play with 6s from the ones that play 2s or 3s and glitch like crazy. If you back out of match making, you will now receive a penalty to whatever points you earn for your next win. I like it all!

[Scott_Arm]

HDR lighting! True-to-life stadiums, broadcast style replays, broadcast camera and some other presentation tweaks.



Read more about it here ... http://www.easports.com/nhl/news/art...verhaul-nhl-13

There have been a lot of graphical upgrades! Way more than you'd expect in a EA Sports game: New HDR lighting model, players cast shadows on each other, bounced light, sub-surface glow (scattering?), HDR reflection cubemaps, motion blur, fog, film grain (highlights), dynamic ice wear, etc.

I kind of wanted Frostbite engine, but seems like they're doing some real upgrades to the visuals for once. I hope the frame rate is improved.

[Scott_Arm]

Demo is up on Xbox Live, according to twitter. I imagine PSN as well.

[Scott_Arm]

Also, there is a new trailer to go with the demo.



I haven't said much about GM Connected, which is new this year. I don't really know too much about it, but I think it's a 750 player custom league, where each team has a player as a GM that can make trades etc. Each player on each time can be controlled by a human player, so you can do full 6 vs 6 games using NHL players. I imagine a lot of the meta leagues like the VHL, EHL, League Gaming and whatever else will look at this.