Modding

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown.

It’s been a few years since I released my last roster update for NBA Live, and although I’ve tinkered a bit here and there, I’ve never really gotten into roster editing for NBA 2K. That being said, I’m certainly no stranger to making roster updates, having gotten into the hobby when I discovered the NLSC back in 1997, eventually taking over the NLSC rosters when I became webmaster and Lutz passed them over to me. Make no mistake: over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time creating players, moving players around, editing ratings, and updating games for a brand new season.

There are times when I miss making rosters, though remembering the more tedious and time-consuming aspects of their creation makes me realise that I probably made the right decision in moving on. Of course, I’ve also found that making roster updates can be an interesting and rewarding exercise. There are a few things that you learn when you’re making those updates, so I thought that I’d talk a little bit about that in this week’s Five. Whether you’re looking to make your own roster updates for NBA Live or NBA 2K, or you’d just like a little more insight into their creation, I hope you’ll find it informative.

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Episode #181 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Join Arcane and I as we discuss the latest NBA 2K17 news, provide a round-up of some recent retro modding releases, and reflect on some more success in 2K Pro-Am.

On this week’s show…

• A European eSports tournament for NBA 2K17 is tipping off next weekend. We’re not eligible ourselves, and we’re also more casual in our approach to online gaming besides, but it’s cool to see nevertheless.
• The Nintendo Switch (codenamed Nintendo NX) has been revealed, and it seems it will have much stronger third party support, including a port of NBA 2K17. Will we be picking it up?
• As our NBA 2K17 modding community continues to do some great work, we also want to recognise the efforts several users have been making in keeping older games up to date. We quickly round up some of the recent releases for older NBA Live and NBA 2K titles.
• In Our Week in Basketball Gaming: a couple of really fun sessions of 2K Pro-Am with more clutch wins, and a lengthy winning streak in MyCAREER.
• Some interesting rumours are making the rounds about LaMarcus Aldridge possibly being traded by the San Antonio Spurs.
• Elton Brand has reportedly changed his mind about playing one more season, and will be calling it a career. One of us wishes he could’ve spent more time in Chicago.
• We wrap up Episode #181 of the NLSC Podcast with some quick thoughts on the epic finale of the 2016 WNBA Finals between the Los Angeles Sparks and Minnesota Lynx.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 58:12 — 28.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Sound off in the comments below, or here in the Forum. Also, if there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, feel free to hit us up in this thread.

Episode #180 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Join Arcane and I as we discuss the latest official updates for NBA 2K17, an epic game of 2K Pro-Am, a new twist in the Chris Bosh saga, and more.

On this week’s show…

• Patch 1.04 has come through for the PC and PlayStation 4 versions of NBA 2K17. We break down the update, noting the difference in the size of the patches between platforms, and provide some impressions.
• We spotlight some recent NBA 2K17 modding projects, including one that’s been receiving some mainstream gaming press. As always, our community is doing some outstanding work!
• Estimates of the Week 1 sales of NBA 2K17 are lower than the figures for NBA 2K16. Is it just regression to the mean, or is the compressed preview season to blame?
• In Our Week in Basketball Gaming: Arcane’s game gets fixed, the NLSC enjoys an epic double overtime victory in 2K Pro-Am, and NBA 2K14 PC doesn’t compare favourably to NBA 2K17.
• We wrap up Episode #180 of the NLSC Podcast with the latest development in the Chris Bosh saga. Are the Miami Heat shooting themselves in the foot with the way they’re handling the situation?

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:10:37 — 34.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Sound off in the comments below, or here in the Forum. Also, if there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, feel free to hit us up in this thread.

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Start your week here at the NLSC with a feature that’s dedicated to opinions, commentary, and other fun stuff related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games.

In the twenty years that the NLSC has been around, we’ve developed our own sense of etiquette in our modding community. For a long time, many of these rules were unwritten, the “done thing” that everyone was expected to know about. That’s not really the best approach however, so in my most recent revision to our Forum Rules, I made sure to include information about procedures and etiquette when it comes to modding. To be honest, those unwritten rules were long overdue to be written, in order to cut down on any ambiguity and ensure new modders know about them.

Two of the most important rules in our modding community are giving credit where it’s due, and asking permission before using work that isn’t open source. Most people seem to agree with the spirit of these rules, but others are occasionally puzzled by our adherence to them, especially if they’ve been a part of other modding communities that have approached the matter differently. Continuing my series of articles on our modding community here at the NLSC, I’d like to explain why we place so much emphasis on asking for permission and giving appropriate credit when using someone else’s work.

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Episode #179 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Join Arcane and I as we discuss our past week in basketball gaming, a few NBA 2K17 news stories, and a couple of recent events in the NBA.

On this week’s show…

• Patch 1.03 has now been released for the PC and Xbox One versions of NBA 2K17. Further tweaks are also forthcoming.
• Our modding community continues to do some fantastic work, as 3D editing has come to this year’s game.
• It’s been brought to our attention that in order to upgrade your MyPLAYER beyond 95 Overall, you need to level up your reputation in MyPARK. We’re not too thrilled to hear that.
• In Our Week in Basketball Gaming: 2K Pro-Am has actually been fun! Also, some of our recent achievements in MyCAREER.
• Bad news for first overall pick Ben Simmons, as he’ll be out for some time after fracturing his foot before his rookie season has even begun.
• We wrap up Episode #179 of the NLSC Podcast with a nice story about David Blatt.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:03:25 — 30.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Sound off in the comments below, or here in the Forum. Also, if there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, feel free to hit us up in this thread.

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown.

As I mentioned in Episode #178 of the NLSC Podcast, and as you can see in the NBA 2K17 Releases & Previews section of the Forum, our community is already hard at work figuring out how to develop mods (and indeed, already releasing some) for this year’s game from Visual Concepts. Modding – or patching, to use the old name for the hobby – is something that our community has been doing a fantastic job of for over twenty years now. I expect that we’ll see many more great mods being released over the next year, and beyond.

Although I haven’t been extremely active in the NBA 2K modding scene, I do keep tabs on it, and I’ve been involved with NBA Live modding since before I was running the NLSC. Not only have several modders come and gone, but certain types of mods have also seemingly gone in and out of fashion over the years. For this week’s Friday Five, I thought I’d create a list of five types of mods that we don’t see as often these days. That’s not to say that they don’t still get made from time to time, but for one reason or another, they’re not as popular as they once were. With that being said, perhaps we can bring a few of these mods back in NBA 2K17.

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Episode #178 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! We’ve got plenty more NBA 2K17 impressions to share with our listeners this week, as well our thoughts on a couple of recent NBA stories (hey, remember real basketball?).

On this week’s show…

• We tip things off with another quick update on some recent advancements in NBA 2K17 modding. Our community has continued to make some exciting discoveries over the past week.
• Our plans to pick up where we left off with the NLSC 2K Pro-Am team have hit a snag, as the mode has not been kind to us. In fact, following patch 1.03, it’s close to unplayable. We share a few of our complaints.
• Once again, we touch on the fact that Virtual Currency rewards have been severely nerfed in this year’s game, and wonder if the new patch has reduced them even further.
• While we have our complaints this week, it’s not all bad news. We still have a very high opinion of offline/single player gameplay in NBA 2K17, and have some positive experiences to share.
• Wrapping up Our Week in Basketball Gaming, a few thoughts on finishing the Jordan Challenge in NBA 2K11, ahead of next week’s Wayback Wednesday feature.
• After 21 NBA seasons, Kevin Garnett is hanging up his sneakers. We reflect on the career of The Big Ticket, the last remaining NBA player from the 16-bit era.
• From the sounds of things, Chris Bosh’s career might also be over. However, given the health scares he’s endured the past couple of seasons, it may be for the best.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:31:18 — 43.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Sound off in the comments below, or here in the Forum. Also, if there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, feel free to hit us up in this thread.

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Start your week here at the NLSC with a feature that’s dedicated to opinions, commentary, and other fun stuff related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We have a good thing going here at the NLSC, especially when it comes to our modding community. Although the changes to the file formats beginning with NBA 2K15 PC have presented some challenges, our community remains dedicated to creating some outstanding mods. Fantastic work is also being done to keep old favourites up to date, and breathe new life into the retro basketball gaming experience. We can be proud of the work we do here.

Of course, every hobby or “scene” has its issues, and modding is no different. I’ve written about some of those issues in previous Monday Tip-Off and Friday Five articles, because I do want to see our community continue to get better and better. With the release of NBA 2K17 and a brand new season of modding looming on the horizon, I thought that I’d dive deeper into the reasons behind some of the rules and procedures in our modding community. This week, I’d like to discuss an issue that came up just the other day, which I realised we’ve never really explained in detail: why we don’t charge for mods.

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