Hey everyone, Rammer here. I want to start by thanking everybody for all the great feedback that we've been receiving via the NHL 10 forums and the NHL 10 twitter feed. Just recently, we talked about our first roster update as well as our new tuner sets that allow us to tune over 2000 variables in gameplay on a nightly basis if we wanted to. We will continue to listen to feedback and tweak gameplay as needed but unfortunately, these tuner sets do not extend outside of gameplay.

So, I want to let you know that we have a Title Update that is currently being tested by Sony and Microsoft. Once we get the final go ahead from them, the update will be made live for you to download. We are hoping both console updates will be available to you by November 5th but the way things work at times, it may be sooner (or potentially later). As I get a more solid confirmation of when the TU will be available, I'll post the info on twitter.

Here are a couple of the key fixes that we've made in the Title Update:

Fixed the exploit to slap-shot a 5-hole goal from below the face-off circle.

• Although our goalies are much improved in NHL 10, there was an exploit when shooting from below the face-off circle that resulted in a goal more often than not. The goalies are now tuned to better handle shots from this area.

Increased speed of passes with Manual passing on.

• This year we added Hardcore Passing (manual passing) that gave you total control of your pass speed and direction. Overall, the new passing was well received but the consensus was that you should be able to pass the puck harder and that the bottom-end speed was too slow.  We've increased the bottom-end speed so the passes are crisper and also increased the top-end slightly as well.

Reduced the ability to boardplay players who are far away from you.

• It was a little unrealistic being able to 'suck' a player into boardplay as he was skating away from you so we've made it much harder to pin a player that is skating away. The further he is from you, the less likely you'll be able to boardplay him.

Tuning of trade logic.

• Too many superstars were being offered up for trades so we've dialed this back along with reducing how often players are repeatedly offered up for trade.

Added the ability for a user to apply boost slots to authentic helmets.

• We've added the ability to apply boost slots to an authentic helmet so users can get the benefit of the boosts without having to wear a helmet with a design on it.

Here are some of the other main fixes that will be in the Title Update:

• Fixed the bug that would make a player sometimes exit pass blocking (L1/LT) when they got close to their goalie.
• Fixed the bug that would prevent offline Be a Pro player from getting ice-time in some situations.
• Fixed a crash that could happen on delayed penalty shots.
• Improved logic for how fighting affects teamplay scores in Be a Pro.
• Prevent L1/LT from allowing players to bypass stumble animations.
• Improvements to goalies to reduce 5-hole goals in some contexts.
• Tuned thresholds for injuries from hard shots.
• Added the ability to escape a prefight circle by pressing L2/LB.
• Fixed the bug that made it possible to "shoot" a puck slowly out of the one-handed animation such that nobody could pick it up.
• Improved goalie aggressiveness when poking the puck on cross-crease passes.
• Improved the ability of defencemen are able to do puck pickups behind them to help defend cross-crease passes.
• Reduced the ability to stuff the puck through the goalie by running into him without shooting (most common on wraparounds and reaching puck pickups).
• Reduced accidental interference in front of net.
• Fixed the offline Be a Pro line-change bug where the player is stuck at the bench.
• Prevent slap passes from being deflected at large angles.
• Fixed the bug where the goalie does not react to a shot if he's banging his stick on the ice to signal the end of a penalty.
• Fixed the bug that makes flip dumps to the middle of the offensive zone go over the glass frequently.
• Fixed the bug that makes CPU center win draws to the the same side all of the time.
• Fixed the bug in the stat tracking of passing.
• Prevent accidental saucer passes after receiving the puck while trying to poke check (because both actions are on R1/RT).
• Tuning to reduce occurrence of tripping penalties when the player being tripped is stationary or moving slowly.
• Tuning to game logic to make it a little easier to stay up on the NHL team during 4-game trial in BAP.
• Many other changes to improve our ability to refine the gameplay tuning with via tuner sets.

That's it for now. Join some of the developers and I during next week's NHL 10 Community Playdate where we will also have a Live Chat set up to discuss this and anything else NHL 10 related.  Look out for more details on that soon!

I want to wrap up by wishing good luck to the all the EASHL teams that are battling it out for supremacy this October season.  September was a great start and October is looking to be pretty exciting finish right to the end of the month!

Sean

NHL 10 Gameplay Producer Sean Ramjagsingh continues the tutorial series with a couple of quick videos to help gamers produce better offensive results.

There has been some discussion around some of the offensive controls from last year's game and he shows us that these are still in the game and are just mapped to different controls.

The second video looks at utilizing the new boardplay feature by effectively dumping and chasing the puck as many teams do in real hockey.  We have seen some people talk about not being able to pull off the offensive scheme and this video should help people learn some of the better techniques to pull it off.

Check out both videos on the In the Crease blog:  Gameplay Controls / Dump and Chase

Litty promised a video this week outlining the changes that we've made based on your feedback from the demo so check it out.

In addition to the content in the video, I also want to point out that we've tightened up the goalie to help alleviate some of the goals that you guys were scoring too consistently. There was also some concerns about scoring occasionally on flip dumps into the zone which we've also addressed.

Check out the video at the In the Crease blog:  Demo Feedback

You've been asking about Hardcore mode and we've got Rammer to go in-depth with the new Game Styles and Litty has provided a couple of videos to show some of the different styles.  He played all the games in the videos using all different game styles (from casual to hardcore) and all different levels (from rookie to superstar), just like you will be able to do when the demo hits soon.

Do you really think you're Hardcore?  Well this year we've added a game style just for you. We've even called the Game Style 'Hardcore' (there are also three other game styles that I'll elaborate more on a little later). Before I get into the details of Hardcore Mode, let me back up a little bit to pre-production of NHL 10 which was the phase in the project where we tried to determine all the features that we wanted to add and figure out how we can squeeze it all into one year. It's at this time that we collaborate the ideas that we have with the ideas that the community has suggested through the various forums to form the feature set. We decided that this was the year we were going to give our hardcore users the gameplay experience that they've been asking.

For Rammer's complete blog with gameplay videos from Litty, check out the In the Crease blog:  So you think you're Hardcore?

Sean here to talk about some of the many gameplay refinements in NHL10.  Before I get into it,  I know you’re all dying to see some under produced, raw gameplay footage and I can tell you that we’ve got some clips to post.  Litty has been capturing clips from the games that he’s been playing and we’re extremely excited to share them with you.  I also want to thank everyone that has been following NHL10 on Twitter.  We love hearing all the feedback and suggestions so keep it coming!

Now to the refinements…

One thing I really want to emphasize is that more than ever, this year we concentrated on making hockey.  By that I mean that the focus was on all the little things that make hockey what it is from extreme displays of skill such as deking on your knees and shooting to bad bounces leading to goals.

The first thing I want to talk about is the goalies in NHL10.  We literally had one programmer and one animator working on goalies all year around.  We know that there were some holes in the goalie last year so my challenge to our guys was to make a perfect goalie.  I wanted to ensure that our goalies had the ability to save anything shot at them.  Once we had that, we could then start to give back goals in a controlled manner and ensure that we weren’t creating any ‘always goals’.  I gotta give the guys credit, they added over 150 new goalie animations including saves from the butt, new kick saves, reach backs and swipe-aways just to name a few which made the goalies extremely effective and much more dynamic. 

Once we had the goalies to a state that we liked, we brought in some of the top EASHL players in the Vancouver area to try and find holes.  The first thing they did was try all the exploit goals from 09 which were unsuccessful but they did find a couple situations where the goalies could still be improved.  We took that feedback and made the final tweaks.  I should mention that I’m also extremely pleased with our additions for user controlled goalies which I’ll speak about at a later date.  I will say that people who play goalie in the EASHL are going to be very happy with the improvements we’ve made.  The guys in the office are having blast playing as goalie.

With better goalies, the play in the slot was a huge area of emphasis for us.  I wanted the ability to one-time loose pucks, especially on rebounds without throwing a check.  We now have that and we’ve also captured a part of hockey that I’ve never felt in a video game before which is intentionally shooting for rebounds.  Guys in the NHL do this all the time. They just shoot the puck off the goalie’s pads so that their teammate will have a chance at the rebound.  You can do that this year in our game and I have to say that it’s really satisfying when you do it intentionally and score.

A new feature that we’ve added this year is what we’re calling Precision Passing.  In a nutshell, Precision Passing allows you to have total control of the direction AND the speed of your pass.  Your pass will go exactly where you’re left analog is aiming and the speed is controlled by how long you hold down the RT (or R2 for PS3).  A quick tap will do a short pass and holding it down will lead to a harder pass.  The key is that all passes are untargeted meaning that you can pass the puck into space and let your teammates skate onto the puck.  You can also do things like banking passes off the boards to get around defenders or bank it to yourself.

On offense, we’ve added new moves that I’m pretty excited about.  If you take down a star player on a breakaway, there’s a chance that he’ll end up on his knees with the ability to deke and shoot.  We’ve also added bat-ins so if the puck is in the air, players will try to bat the puck into the net or the defensive team will try to bat it out of harm’s way.  There is also a new fake shot that can be done by pressing R3.  This  is a great way to try to get the D-man to bite and go down or to freeze the goalie.  One of my personal favorite ways to score right now is going leg kick to backhand high (like Crosby) but remember my paragraph about goalies above…well this move has also led to some unbelievable desperation saves which are almost just as exciting to me.

Defensive AI was another big focus for us this year as we tried to make the defense more dynamic and less predictable.  I think one of the first things you’ll notice when you play the demo (Yes, I said demo; No I don’t have a release date; But, I can guarantee that you’re going to be VERY surprised when you find out what’s in the demo) is that the D-men don’t always back right in on their goalie but rather try to stand you up more at the blue line or pinch you off earlier if you try to go wide.  They also have better awareness of their positioning in the defensive zone so that you can’t dance them back and forth then go around them.  The addition of boardplay has added a whole new dynamic to the defense as well as it gives the ai one more option against the boards.  It allows them to contain players without over committing and getting beat.

That’s enough from me…check out the gameplay clips!