Andy Agostini here to tell you about an all new game mode that we're featuring in NHL 10. Another year has come and gone in our development of the NHL series and this year we have added so much to my areas of the game that I almost don’t know where to begin.
So I will list out a few of the new features in our new Be a GM Mode.
Be A GM is our new mode this year where we took the idea of becoming a legend player in Be a Pro and associated it with being a Legend GM. Some real life legend GM’s are Glen Sather (Edmonton Oilers Dynasty), Toe Blake (Montreal Canadiens Dynasty), Bill Torrey (New York Islanders Dynasty) and Ken Holland (Detroit Red Wings). These men are famous for putting together franchises that had great success for a very long period of time.
To work your way to becoming a Legend GM you will need to complete GM Tasks. There are over 140 tasks to complete and they are wide ranging. Some are as easy as completing one trade and some are as hard as winning five Stanley Cups in eight seasons. Each task gets you task points which you earn to unlock the 6 different levels of your road to Legend GM. Another thing that the task points are good for are for upgrading your staff. New to this year we have 4 staff types that will help you in creating a dynasty franchise. These 4 types of staff are Trainers, Amateur Scouts, Pro Scouts and Assistant Coaches.
Each staff member helps in doing the following things.
Trainers help heal your players faster as well as help your players durability to long term injuries.
Amateur Scouts will provide information on the upcoming draft class.
Pro Scouts help you know about rumors around the league in regards to who is up for trade on the all new trade block and rumor mill.
Assistant Coaches will help your player development so that you can develop superstars thru the draft and your system.
So doing well as a franchise allows you to improve your staff. These staff members will be able to provide a lot of extra information and will make your franchise stronger.
Another aspect of the GM Tracker that is brand new to Be a GM is GM Reputation. Every GM in the league will have a relationship with you and depending on how you work with them when it comes to making fair trade offers they will have a relationship with you. Free agents also are aware of your reputation. Nobody will want to come to your team if you sign players and then trade them away right away. This reputation is extremely important when it comes to one of our newest features.
The Entry Draft and Trading Deadline this year are extremely important as you will now be able to trade on Draft day as well as on the Trading Deadline. Your GM Reputation plays a part on these days as the better your reputation the more phones you will have at your disposal to make deals with. This is one of my favorite features in Be a GM as you only have so many phones to make something happen during each round and if you can’t finish a deal then you have wait till the next round. The CPU teams are making deals during this time as well so the deal you thought you were close to completing with a team might not be available any longer, as that player might have been traded during the round and you will have to restart negotiations to get him with his new team. Also once a team gets a player it might take a lot more to get him now as the new team wanted him for a reason.
The screenshot below shows you one of the phones that will be available to you on the Entry Draft and the Trade Deadline.
To go with the new trading mini games we have also rewritten our Trade AI from the ground up. This AI now takes into account so many factors that we have been shocked at which players show up on the trading block. We had Ryan Whitney on the trading block in our game the day before he was traded to Anaheim. I was actually laughing at Pittsburgh’s trading block thinking I don’t think the Penguins would ever trade him. I was ready to make some minor tuning tweaks to the logic then the next day he was traded. Shows you how much I know about what teams will do.
The basic fundamental of the trade AI is every team knows what type of team they are. There are 5 types of teams.
Rebuilders
Playoff Hopefuls
Playoff Bubble
Playoff Contender
Championship Contender
Depending on where a team is in their development cycle they will all be looking for different things when it comes to making trades. This along with knowing its team’s strengths and weaknesses led us to trades that will actually make more sense.
So a rebuilding team is probably looking for draft picks and prospects over older veterans and a team who is a championship contender is more than likely willing to give up a prospect or pick for another veteran to add to their team for the final playoff run.
Now as the season progresses if a team is doing better or worse than their original season prediction for itself it will change its team type on the fly and will react to their situation accordingly. This makes our new Trading Block much more important.
The trading block in other games that I have seen were mainly about which players are you willing to trade. Ours has that as well as sliders which tell the CPU what you are looking for and what you are willing to give up in return. This makes it easier to get a lot of offers or very few offers if you are looking for something very specific. The screenshot below shows that the sliders are by position as well as what type of player or pick you are willing to give. This makes the trade offers be tailored to what you are looking for.
I know I have rambled on for a while but here are a couple of other things for you to chew on as you wait for NHL 10.
You can get fired and hired by other teams. You will have a contract that you will have expectations each year laid out for you, depending on how you do you will either get a renewal or you might be let go and have to find another team to run.
We have added contract buyouts to the game. I have read on some message boards saying we don’t have a way to cut a player during the year. So just to clarify the CBA rules says you are not allowed to release a player during the season. The only way you can release a player is to buy him out in the offseason or put him in the minors during the season but still pay his full salary while he is there. Attached below is a screenshot of our new contract buyout screen which shows you what the salary cap penalty will be for buying out a player.
Well that’s it for me right now. I am very excited about this year’s game and I know you guys will love the new features we added to this year’s Be A GM. Good luck becoming a Legend GM.