September 11th. Probably the 7th if you have season ticket.
Confirmed on the EA site as the 7th if you buy season ticket, 11th for everybody else. $25 gets you 3 days of early access via transferrable download, 20% off dlc and a badge. Back in my younger days I probably would have jumped at it, but 3 days for what amounts to more almost half the cost of the game is pretty nuts imo.
Confirmed on the EA site as the 7th if you buy season ticket, 11th for everybody else. $25 gets you 3 days of early access via transferrable download, 20% off dlc and a badge. Back in my younger days I probably would have jumped at it, but 3 days for what amounts to more almost half the cost of the game is pretty nuts imo.
The question I have is if you bought season ticket last year can you still download 13 early this year since it hasn't been a calendar year yet. I believe last year NHL 12 came out for season ticket on the 9th.
I like the performance skating and all, but when they push the puck up like that they look so damn weird when doing it!
Yeah, I'm hoping it's not automatic. If it's like hustle has been in previous years then it might be fine, as most NHLers are more in a controlled stride up the ice, they don't push it like that unless they are pushing the play to take advantage.
Big write up on Gm Connected. Really enjoyed this.
Quote:
GM Brain - The NHL franchise’s Smartest GM/Trade Logic Ever
Both GM Connected and Be A GM also benefit from this year’s addition of GM Brain, a revamp of the NHL 13 GM AI. GM Brain causes the computer controlled GMs to act in a more realistic way than ever before. Instead of focusing just on immediate needs, GM Brain allows the AI to evaluate trades and transactions in terms of immediate, short-term and long-term goals that are best for the organization.
Stay tuned, we’ll be talking more about GM Brain in a future blog.
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Last edited by miraisoup; 07-25-2012 at 12:21 PM.
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Yeah, I'm hoping it's not automatic. If it's like hustle has been in previous years then it might be fine, as most NHLers are more in a controlled stride up the ice, they don't push it like that unless they are pushing the play to take advantage.
But I guess we'll see.
If I recall correctly it won't be automatic, they had it as the L3 button but were seeing what people thought at the community day before they were going to change the button mapping.
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Cool preview. I'm not a fan of the ''back skate'' however. You can already do it to a certain extent in the current game and people online exploit it all the time. If you are skating backwards and a defender hits you from behind, they will always bounce off you, doens't matter how big they are. I've seen a guy hold onto the puck in the offensive zone and no one can touch him...because he has his back to them. And lots of exploiters like to skate backwards in the offensive zone, then as they spin forwards they shoot the puck and the majority of the time, pick the corner of the net. It just doens't happen like that in real life. I can totally see this feature being exploited and everyone complaining about it.
All in all it looks like a cool game. I'll wait and see if they have fixed the online issues before I pick it up.
its not too hard to defend...hip check or stick lift/poke depending on the your angle
Could be opening a can of worms here, but I feel much the same. Generally when I run into somebody who is upset that there is unstoppable strategies they just haven't figured out a way to stop it. A lot of people have one way of defending and they don't like deviating.
I am very good at it, I understand how to keep an appropriate distance, when some moves will work and when they won't, how to read the players moves through the neutral zone etc etc etc.
Playing defence isn't a problem for me. Having fun while playing defence is another aspect of the game altogether.
You see, they develop so much of the game to satisfy the scorers and virtually nothing to defend against it. It's not that I mind playing defence, or that I'm no good at it, my problem is, there is only one way to effectively play the position: be positionally sound and don't attempt to do anything to get particularly involved in the play.
I can hear the guys on the other end raging at me when I stifle their cross crease/cheese dangle moves, but, contrary to their abilities, I'm not really afforded a different way to play the game.
There are all kinds of different and effective ways to play defense in the national hockey league. There are all kinds of different and effective ways to score in the national hockey league. In NHL 10,11,12, there has been one effective way to defend and multiple ways to score.
That's what is frustrating. When everyone joins a game and there are no forward positions left, I'm relegated to playing D, and that means a super boring game, OR hearing about my lack of D from teammates.
There's no room to be a Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Dion Phaneuf or Shea Weber. You can only be Nik Lidstrom or Jay Bouwmeester, and if you don't like it, you're going to get scored on when some guy decides to stickhandle through a group of 4 players and you don't block the shot.
From that aspect, it's a ####ty game.
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I am very good at it, I understand how to keep an appropriate distance, when some moves will work and when they won't, how to read the players moves through the neutral zone etc etc etc.
Playing defence isn't a problem for me. Having fun while playing defence is another aspect of the game altogether.
You see, they develop so much of the game to satisfy the scorers and virtually nothing to defend against it. It's not that I mind playing defence, or that I'm no good at it, my problem is, there is only one way to effectively play the position: be positionally sound and don't attempt to do anything to get particularly involved in the play.
I can hear the guys on the other end raging at me when I stifle their cross crease/cheese dangle moves, but, contrary to their abilities, I'm not really afforded a different way to play the game.
There are all kinds of different and effective ways to play defense in the national hockey league. There are all kinds of different and effective ways to score in the national hockey league. In NHL 10,11,12, there has been one effective way to defend and multiple ways to score.
That's what is frustrating. When everyone joins a game and there are no forward positions left, I'm relegated to playing D, and that means a super boring game, OR hearing about my lack of D from teammates.
There's no room to be a Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Dion Phaneuf or Shea Weber. You can only be Nik Lidstrom or Jay Bouwmeester, and if you don't like it, you're going to get scored on when some guy decides to stickhandle through a group of 4 players and you don't block the shot.
From that aspect, it's a ####ty game.
The new team systems will more or less address your feelings regarding your "only one way to defend" stance. Defensive strategies will force players into different situations where you can act like Keith, Weber and Seabrook.
...well, at least in theory that's what the new defensive strategies are going to do.
Also, you can always play like Dion Phaneuf. Go for the big check, miss it, get scored on. It's pretty easy to do
i think puck/stick physics , likely not until next gen consoles (my guess) that's where the ea game goes to the next level, till then , the game will feel the same just minor tweaks (ie. this skating thing this year).
non-elite players (ie. 80% of players in the league) can't keep possession of the puck at high speeds in traffic. the game just doesn't reflect that, as the puck stays glued to the possessing players stick.
Fifa is a perfect example of how they have unglued the ball from the possessing player's feet so you actually see shoulder to shoulder jostling for the ball. When the puck becomes a live entity, that's where defending becomes more practical (ie. nudging the player with the puck can dislodge the puck from his possesion) instead of now where it's basically a big hit that does this.
'Flash Walken' puts it best. The only way to defend today is playing a lidstrom game, utilizing the poke check and position to be a decent defender. Once the puck becomes live, and shoulder to shoulder nudging causes the puck to get loose, i think you can see rugged dmen type play along the boards and in the slot, where physical dmen are more effective as they can use their body more to dislodge the puck in traffic.
Oh, and of course, seeing sticks going through sticks, without bearing any impact on puck possession has gotta go. it's unacceptable for a game that is stating they have physics in the game.
Big thanks to BigDogg for the NHL 13 cover template. I finally got photoshop and i re-made the Theo Fleury cover that i made a couple of pages back. Looks a lot better if i say so myself:
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Last edited by Hockey_Ninja; 07-28-2012 at 04:40 PM.
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Cool preview. I'm not a fan of the ''back skate'' however. You can already do it to a certain extent in the current game and people online exploit it all the time. If you are skating backwards and a defender hits you from behind, they will always bounce off you, doens't matter how big they are. I've seen a guy hold onto the puck in the offensive zone and no one can touch him...because he has his back to them. And lots of exploiters like to skate backwards in the offensive zone, then as they spin forwards they shoot the puck and the majority of the time, pick the corner of the net. It just doens't happen like that in real life. I can totally see this feature being exploited and everyone complaining about it.
All in all it looks like a cool game. I'll wait and see if they have fixed the online issues before I pick it up.
I'm one of those guys who turns his back, it's a lot more about timing though. Now that they have it so you can do it all the time if you want, and made it a little bit easier to do that it might be a easier to defend it. Also, they might make it so that when a players back is turned they aren't practically invincible. That is what I'm hoping for anyways.
They talk about having addressed that with new momentum etc, but I also hope they seriously address it in terms of the WAY people play.
If I blow someone up mid-deke, that should be it for them.
The confines of the game are such that if you take liberties while on the ice, whether that is passing the puck up the middle in your own end, looking down at the puck in the neutral zone, or trying to make a move at the opposition blueline, you pay the consequences.
If some tabernac shouting frenchy wants to pull a loose puck deke as he's exiting his own zone, he should be doing it fully aware that if I catch him with my massive bodychecking and strength, that's it for him. As in, enjoy watching the game from the bench/a quiet room.
Instead, even though I make full contact with the player, he bounces up, retains possession and goes the other way for a 2-1, instead of taking a 3-1 trip to the hospital like if he'd tried that in a real league.
To me, it's pretty easy to make being a defender easier, and more fun. Defenders just need the same invincibility that forwards have.
TL;DR: If they made the physical aspect of the game matter in the slightest, things would be more fun.
