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One aspect that EA dominated 2K in year after year was NBA Live’s online speed and consistency. NBA 2K10 made a run at Live 10 with its My Player centric Crew mode, but simply being able to handle the amount of players online pushed Live 10’s multiplayer ahead. For the upcoming games EA will have to contend with Online Associations and new additions 2K will bring to the online table.
NBA 2K13: Return of Pick Up Games & Crews
Instead of predicting that 2K will, or will not, fix their yearly online issues, I am just going to assume that it works according to plan to remove that variable. I am also ignoring the complete crapshoot that is NBA 2K online games on PC. Disregarding those aspects, 2K12 has an impressive online feature set with the addition of Online Association. Head to head games have a special presentation that details a specific player at the half, and while the game is loading it tells you your opponent’s tendencies and stats. I am not expecting much to change feature wise, for 2K13, only the return of Crews and My Player Pick Up games.
EA NBA 13: EASBA
My most anticipated feature for NBA Elite 11 was the EASBA, or the EA Sports Basketball Association. Create a player and with your friends join a generic league to rise through different leagues all in a team-up 5v5 environment. It just speaks to me. Player progression, different arenas to play in. I WANT this game mode back.
Wishlist: More Online Integration
I also want a seemless integration of online and single player modes. How awesome would it be to load up EA NBA 13 and see all your other online friends shooting around in the start up gym around you? Or while in Assocation mode you can get ticker updates on how your friends are doing in their offline Associations. Friend stats in online games, offline games, there are plenty of comparisons that could be made. Maybe Autolog from EA racing games will make the jump as well, suggesting new friends and records to beat. The online world still seems to be barely touched in basketball video games; in my opinion, hopefully this year will change that.
Offline modes will still dominate the feature list for each game though, so tomorrow I am going to share my thoughts on My Player and the anticipated Become Legendary modes. Comment, Like, Subscribe….wait wrong site.
Other Predictions:
Improving online stability is a must in NBA 2K13. I definitely understand where you’re coming from holding off on a prediction there, conventional wisdom says fixing those issues would be a point of emphasis this year but the same could be said in previous years as well. I’ve still yet to get online in NBA 2K12 and have pretty much given up on that. Being that I’m chiefly an offline player I can easily make peace with that, but the problems have been a disappointment to a lot of people.
I expect EA’s game will have more robust online support but they absolutely need to follow through on the EASBA that was going to debut in NBA Elite 11 and bring back some familiar features like Online Team Play, Live Run and leagues. It might be asking too much to get Dynasty online this year but those modes with ranked and unranked play might be enough variation if the gameplay is up to scratch and the offline modes are appealing.
I agree. 2K13 has to have reliable online. Even if they do, it might be too late to win back some gamers. I know I use to play 2K9 online with mates but it got a lot worse with 2K10 & then became unplayable.
Agree, EA should be good online.