Tag Archives: 2K Pro-Am

Episode #277 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Join Kenny and I for your weekly dose of basketball gaming discussion, including the latest content updates for NBA Live 19 and NBA 2K19, the second annual March Modness, and what we’ve been doing on the virtual hardwood.

On this week’s show…

• New rosters have come through for NBA Live 19, along with a new Creator Challenge LIVE Event featuring Cream E Biggums. His custom model leads to a discussion on expanding the variety of body types in NBA Live 20 and beyond.
• LeBron James 20th Anniversary packs are now available in NBA 2K19’s MyTEAM. Neither of us have scored a Pink Diamond LeBron, but fortunately Locker Codes have been helping to beef up our squads.
• The second annual March Modness has tipped off! In addition to celebrating modding and hopefully giving away a game to a talented modder, some NLSC releases are still in the pipeline. A brief status report is included, along with some reflections on the differences between modding rosters for NBA Live and NBA 2K.
• Our Week in Basketball Gaming included an impromptu session in the Jordan Rec Center, and more grinding in the second year of our respective MyCAREER games. Does the Hall of Fame await?

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 51:23 — 35.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Got a mailbag question or topic suggestion for the next show? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

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. This week, I’m tipping things off with a few thoughts on the divide between online and offline enthusiasts within the basketball gaming community, and how it’s affecting the development of hoops titles.

By definition, fanatics are not always logical, with measured, reasonable opinions. It’s a rare fanbase that doesn’t have some sort of schism, if not a multitude of factions that hold differing opinions. I touched on one such example in last week’s feature, noting that there’s often dissonance when it comes to younger gamers, and those who have been playing basketball games for a long time (in some cases, more than a couple of decades). There are a lot of things that most basketball gamers want and can agree on, but also some very different ideas about features, identity, and overall direction.

The most noticeable schism within the basketball gaming community would have to be between online and offline gamers. The rise of online gaming in general, and the expansion of multiplayer modes in basketball games specifically, has led to a faction of hoops gamers who play exclusively online, with little interest in the offline modes. At the same time, there are a lot of gamers who prefer the single player experience. In the middle of the Venn diagram are gamers who play both online and offline to some extent, sitting in the crossfire of two passionate factions who are not only taking shots at developers, but also each other. Unfortunately, it makes us a hard group to please.

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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. This week’s Five discusses five ideas that NBA 2K should borrow from NBA Live.

The time has come to compile and finalise our Wishlist for NBA 2K20, and send it off to the development team at Visual Concepts as soon as possible. While NBA 2K is currently a very deep and successful NBA sim, I would suggest that most basketball gamers would agree that there’s still room for improvement. This includes polishing up existing features and addressing some gameplay concerns, but as far as changing concepts and approaches, or implementing new features, I do believe that NBA Live has some ideas that NBA 2K could borrow.

A lot of people may scoff at that and dismiss the notion out of hand. After all, when you’re the premier product, you lead; you don’t follow. However, even though NBA 2K is undisputedly the brand leader and NBA Live continues to rebuild after many rough years, EA Sports’ long-running hoops title has featured some really good ideas, even as it’s struggled to make a dent in NBA 2K’s sales. Great as it is, there are some aspects of NBA 2K that feel dated or problematic, and some of the solutions may lie in NBA Live’s approach to those features. 2K has borrowed from NBA Live before – right stick dribbling being a prime example – and it could stand to do so again.

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Episode #269 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Arcane, Kenny, and I are back on the air following our holiday hiatus, and we’ve got some news to catch up on. We’ve also been hitting the virtual hardwood during our time off, and have some stories to share about what we’ve been playing.

On this week’s show…

• Patches 1.16 and 1.17 came through for NBA Live 19 after we went on break. We give our thoughts on the latest content, gameplay tuning, and other adjustments and fixes.
• NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 also received a title update in time for Christmas. Patch 1.04 added new players and other content, but is it enough to get us hooked on the game?
• Visual Concepts are advertising a temporary position for a production assistant. The role will be focused on MyCAREER, which leads us to speculate on the mode in NBA 2K20.
• Controversy erupted on Christmas Day when a Locker Code for a Pink Diamond LeBron James card in MyTEAM was leaked, and the card later removed. We discuss 2K’s handling of the situation, and the subsequent show of goodwill.
• Vlad delivered the NBA 2K modding community a Christmas present in the form of new versions of RED MC and REDitor II. The comprehensive tools are now completely free!
• Arcane floats an idea for a community project that should appeal to anyone with aspirations of developing their own basketball video game.
• Our Week in Basketball Gaming – or rather, Our Holidays in Basketball Gaming – included milestones in MyCAREER, good pulls in MyTEAM, and a suspected troll in the Jordan Rec Center. Also, the NLSC squad finally got to play team Pro-Am, but ran into disappointment that went beyond the scoreline.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:33:00 — 63.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Got a mailbag question or topic suggestion for the next show? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

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. This week, I’m breaking down what I feel are the five worst parts of playing with randoms online.

One of the best parts of modern basketball games is that we’re able to meet up with a bunch of other people we don’t know to play online. Likewise, one of the worst parts of modern basketball games is that we’re able to meet up with a bunch of other people we don’t know to play online. Snarky echoes aside, online gaming will always be a mixed bag, no matter what the genre. Not everyone is about playing fair, or being cooperative. The experience is usually better if you’re teaming up with people that you know, but that isn’t always feasible.

That’s when you end up teaming with randoms. Again, this isn’t unique to basketball games, but hoops games present some unique drawbacks. Since there’s only one ball, not everyone can take an active role at all times as they might in other genres, such as a shooter. Everyone is used to being Player One, and is therefore unwilling to defer to teammates they don’t know. In all fairness it isn’t always a nightmare, and it’s better than not being able to play at all, especially with the new restrictions on team Pro-Am. Nevertheless, it’s often a less than ideal basketball gaming experience. Here are, in my opinion, the five worst parts of being in that situation.

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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. This week’s Five offers five tips for earning and managing VC in NBA 2K19’s MyCAREER.

Fighting the urge to buy VC to level up faster in NBA 2K19’s MyCAREER? You’re not alone, as the game is designed to push you in the direction of microtransactions. Since the situation is unlikely to get better anytime soon, I’ve decided that it would be more productive to focus on some content that helps gamers rather than critiques 2K’s design choices. After all, while microtransactions are strongly encouraged, VC can indeed be gained without spending real money. With that in mind, I’ve devised five tips that I hope will be useful for both earning and managing VC.

Before I get to the tips, I should emphasise that it’s still going to be a long process. As the push for recurrent revenue is quite aggressive, the grind is very real. Perseverance will pay off, however. Aside from the pre-order bonus for the standard edition, I’ve not spent any VC that I didn’t earn in-game, and as of this writing, I’m sitting at 74 Overall (starting from the base rating of 60). I did skip The Prelude for this player, though as a bonus tip, I would suggest that you play through it in order to get a head start on upgrades and Badges, as well as an opportunity for a higher salary out of the gate. With that being said, let’s take a look at some strategies for VC budgeting!

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Episode #267 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Unfortunately illness and jetlag got in the way of us recording an episode last week, but Kenny and I are back this week to catch up on the latest news and talk about what we’ve been doing on the virtual hardwood.

On this week’s show…

• Patch 1.15 has come through for NBA Live 19. We discuss the latest changes, recap some of the other additions and fixes in recent patches, and give our thoughts on where the game is at after a couple of months.
• EA Sports recently announced that NBA Live Mobile is the most downloaded basketball game this year. We reflect on how it’s helped the brand, even if it’s not something we’re into ourselves.
• NBA 2K19 has also received another update recently, namely Patch 1.06. Unfortunately we still haven’t seen the functionality we want to see patched back in for 2K Pro-Am, but there have been some other noteworthy and welcome changes.
• The in-universe value of Virtual Currency in NBA 2K19’s Neighborhood is truly astonishing this year. We note some of the oddities and issues with the exchange rate.
• Could a new college football game be paving the way for other college sports titles, including basketball? Can a sports game without licensing succeed in 2018?
• Our Week in Basketball Gaming included setting records in MyCAREER, playing with WNBA players and taking control of courts in NBA Live 19, and trying to unlock a team that’s close to our hearts in Basketball Classics.
• We wrap up Episode #267 of the NLSC Podcast with this week’s NBA talk. Topics include surprising results in the East and West, standout rookies, and more thoughts on Carmelo Anthony.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:56:42 — 80.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Got a mailbag question or topic suggestion for the next show? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

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. This week’s Five takes a look at five ways that NBA 2K pushes microtransactions on basketball gamers.

As much as I’ve criticised microtransactions in previous articles, I have to admit that I’m guilty of partaking in the practice. On some occasions, I’ve been more willing to drop some spare change on content because I’ve been enjoying the game so much. At other times, it’s been through gritted teeth because the grind has been so painful, and I’ve wanted to play online sooner rather than later. I’ve never broken my budget with microtransactions, but simply out of principle, this year it’s been my goal not to spend any real money on any form of virtual currency (in particular, Virtual Currency).

So far, I’ve made good on that resolution. The only VC that I didn’t earn in-game was the 5000 VC pre-order bonus for the standard edition of NBA 2K19. I’m currently 73 Overall, and I would have to say that grinding up the hard way has been a rewarding journey. It is most certainly a grind though, especially now that ratings upgrades are getting more expensive. You really notice how actively (and sometimes, aggressively) 2K pushes microtransactions when you’re trying to avoid them! Metaphorically, it’s gone from a gentle nudge to a firm hand shunting you in the small of your back. Here are five ways that NBA 2K games pressure us in the name of “recurrent revenue”.

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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. This week, I’m tipping things off by addressing the situation with 2K Pro-Am in NBA 2K19.

As you may or may not be aware, a significant change has been made to 2K Pro-Am in NBA 2K19. Whether it’s organised squad games or the Jordan Rec Center – this year’s version of Walk-On – you need five users per side to start a game. In previous games, it was possible to play with at least three users per side, with the remaining spots being filled by AI players. This has made it more difficult for a lot of people to play a mode they’ve enjoyed in recent years. Our NLSC squad is in that boat, and so we’re among the people wanting to see the old functionality patched into the game.

However, not everyone is on board with that idea. 2K themselves haven’t made it a priority to address the situation, and there’s also been pushback from NBA 2K19 gamers. It’s admittedly hard to please everyone in this situation, but the change was myopic, while the pushback has highlighted some of the toxicity that sadly exists in the NBA 2K community. To that end, I’d like to address both Visual Concepts and the dissenting gamers in this week’s Monday Tip-Off. Call it an open letter, call it a rant; call it whining if you’re the close-minded and toxic type. It’s a situation that I believe must be addressed, and to that end, I’m stating the case for my side.

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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. This week, I’m tipping things off with a look at the in-universe value of VC in NBA 2K19’s Neighborhood.

Last year, I calculated the in-universe value of Virtual Currency in NBA 2K18’s new open world, The Neighborhood. I noted that most consumables and clothing cost as much as a single game’s base salary for your MyPLAYER (if not more), which was already stretching reality. Converting VC to real dollars via the salary that’s listed on our MyPLAYER’s bio card determined that 1 VC was equivalent to around $29. This meant that in-universe, a basic t-shirt cost over $17,000, while a headband would set you back a whopping $29,000. That’s some serious sales tax!

In NBA 2K19, VC rewards were increased slightly. It’s possible to negotiate a higher first year salary upon completing The Prelude, incentive-based bonuses come along quite early in your career, and there are other ways of earning some extra VC. The catch is that upgrades are still quite expensive, as are clothing items. In other words, it’s been more of a case of inflation rather than parity. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to make the same conversions and determine the in-universe value of Virtual Currency in NBA 2K19 as well. Are the prices just as ridiculous when you put a real dollar value on them this year?

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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. This week, I’m tipping things off with a few thoughts on juggling time between multiple basketball games.

Compared to other sports, we’re in an enviable position when it comes to basketball games. There are two developers working on sim-oriented titles, and while one game is in the lead, the other is steadily improving and becoming a viable option. We’ve also seen the resurrection of the arcade basketball genre, providing us with a brand new alternative to the sim experience. Throw in a wonderful retro concept in the form of Basketball Classics, and we’ve got quite a few options these days as far as the virtual hardwood is concerned.

That does present a certain problem, of course. There are only so many hours in a day, and only so many of them that we can commit to video games. With so much to do in modern basketball games, it can be difficult to spend ample time with each of them if you do decide to buy more than one. As far as problems go, this is admittedly very low stakes, and indeed a desirable one to have, but those tougher issues in life are beyond the scope of a website dedicated to basketball gaming! In any event, if you’ve invested in more than one basketball game this year and you’re trying to get the most out of each, know that you’re not alone.

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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. This week, I’m tipping things off with a few thoughts on the ideal starting ratings for career modes, and why they must be a little higher than they currently are.

The only reason that I’m considering spending any time in MyCAREER this year after feeling burned out on the experience is to build a player for the online modes. Since our NLSC squad has spent a little time in the Jordan Rec Center so far, I’d like to have a player that stands a chance of being competitive online, without having to spend any money on VC this time around. Fortunately, Badges are easier to earn in NBA 2K19, but the process of levelling up from 60 Overall is still quite a daunting task if you don’t have a stack of VC on hand for an initial boost.

In previous articles, I’ve talked about how the grind has turned me off MyCAREER, and how it makes starting over every year feel wearying and unsatisfying. While I’ve vaguely touched on some solutions, I’d like to offer up some more definitive ideas on how to address the problem. One of the key issues that must be addressed is the low starting ratings we begin with every year. It’s a delicate situation as those ratings can’t make the game too easy or too hard, the journey too long or too short. Throw in the matter of competitive and accessible online play, however, and I think it’s clear that starting ratings in MyCAREER must be higher.

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Episode #264 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! After a long hiatus, Arcane and I are back to our weekly discussions about basketball video games, and a little bit of real basketball as well. Since it’s been several weeks and patches since the last episode, we have a few things to catch up on!

On this week’s show…

• We tip off the episode with some housekeeping matters, including an explanation for our unplanned hiatus.
• NBA Live 19 has received some significant updates since launch, and the game is better for it. We discuss the various additions and changes, what we’d still like to see, and the modes we’ve been playing.
• Updates have also been pushed through for NBA 2K19, though a couple of much-desired changes have yet to be made. Apart from that though, we do have some positive impressions and stories to share.
• NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 launched during our hiatus. Has the partnership between 2K Sports and Saber Interactive yielded a better product than last year’s release?
• Turning our attention to modding, we talk about the enjoyment and satisfaction of updating an old favourite. This time, it’s a work-in-progress roster update for NBA 2K11.
• Episode #264 of the NLSC Podcast wraps up with a quick discussion of the real NBA, including a career night for Derrick Rose, and a contentious situation with Jimmy Butler.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:44:47 — 72.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Got a mailbag question or topic suggestion for the next show? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

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. This week’s Five is a list of five ideas that future basketball games should consider borrowing from titles in other genres.

Basketball games, like all sports titles, differ from other genres of video games when it comes to their nuances and our expectations. In many video games, there are several breaks from reality that are not only acceptable, but desirable. The lack of realism in specific aspects of gameplay doesn’t break our sense of immersion the same way it will in a game that is attempting to accurately depict a sport. To that end, certain features, functions, and concepts that we find in other genres of video games aren’t necessarily a good fit in basketball titles.

At the same time, while Da_Czar’s famous catchphrase of “Don’t play video games; play basketball!” is a great philosophy for developers and basketball gamers alike, the fact remains that basketball games are still video games. There are aspects of real life, such as commercial breaks, that they don’t need to replicate. Similarly, there are good ideas for features, functions, and even content that can be utilised by a wide variety of genres. Even though the concepts aren’t basketball-centric in and of themselves, they could still greatly enhance future NBA Live and NBA 2K releases. Here are five such ideas that basketball games could stand to borrow and make their own.

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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. This week, I’m tipping things off by firing up NBA 2K17 and NBA 2K18 to see if anyone is still playing them online.

Unless 2K plans on extending their support for NBA 2K17 beyond the 27 months the company pledged following the controversy surrounding NBA 2K14, the game’s servers will be shut off at the end of this year. That gives anyone who is still playing the 2016 release a couple of months to get as much out of it as they can before online support finishes. Anyone still playing NBA 2K18 will have a little longer, as its servers aren’t due to be shut down until the end of 2019. This approach essentially affords each game two seasons worth of online support, plus three months.

While that won’t appease everyone, it’s a reasonable assumption that most gamers will have moved on to a new release in that time. Indeed, we can assume that a bulk of the fanbase has already moved on to NBA 2K19, but how many people are holding out and still playing NBA 2K18? For that matter, how many people have stuck with NBA 2K17 for the past couple of years, or picked it up again? I recently booted up both games on PlayStation 4 to see if I’d find many people still active in MyPARK and Pro-Am Walk-On, rather than hooping it up in NBA 2K19. The results were certainly interesting, at least on the Australasian servers.

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