NHL 12 first look video

[JRod]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/119/1195848p1.html

Biggest first week of sales in franchise history...451,000. Glad to see quality rewarded. Hopefully increased sales will push EA to make future installments that much better than what they have already been doing.

I think sports games sales are up across the board. If EA reads into the message good quality sims sell. Cartoony or gimmicky games don't do as well.

[MizzouRah]

Good for them.. I do hope 2k comes back next year with a hockey game though.

[Naples39]

Not nearly as fun as the FIFA contact physics videos, but fairly amusing;

[MizzouRah]

Two minutes for humping!

[LAking]

Saw a nasty bug last night. Kings (me) vs Bruins, 0-0 in the first. Kopitar gets called for high sticking, delayed penalty. Chara scores. Kopitar STILL goes to the box. The Bruins then score again on the PP and now i'm down 2-0. Lost that game 2-1. Pretty annoying.

[vader29]

Saw a nasty bug last night. Kings (me) vs Bruins, 0-0 in the first. Kopitar gets called for high sticking, delayed penalty. Chara scores. Kopitar STILL goes to the box. The Bruins then score again on the PP and now i'm down 2-0. Lost that game 2-1. Pretty annoying.

The high sticking penalty might have been a double minor, therefore Kopitar still would have had to serve one of the minor penalties.

[LAking]

Saw a nasty bug last night. Kings (me) vs Bruins, 0-0 in the first. Kopitar gets called for high sticking, delayed penalty. Chara scores. Kopitar STILL goes to the box. The Bruins then score again on the PP and now i'm down 2-0. Lost that game 2-1. Pretty annoying.

The high sticking penalty might have been a double minor, therefore Kopitar still would have had to serve one of the minor penalties.

Ah, ok. Would have been nice if they explained that somehow.

[toonarmy]

Saw a nasty bug last night. Kings (me) vs Bruins, 0-0 in the first. Kopitar gets called for high sticking, delayed penalty. Chara scores. Kopitar STILL goes to the box. The Bruins then score again on the PP and now i'm down 2-0. Lost that game 2-1. Pretty annoying.

I've had this happen several times on 2 minute minors. Definitely an issue with the game.

[MizzouRah]

I'm starting to get that NHL 10-11 feeling where Pro is too easy and AS is too hard.. I didn't have that feeling with the demo.

[Diablo25]

Had this sweet hit in a BAP game the other night

[MizzouRah]

Speaking of BAP, how is it this year?

[Diablo25]

Speaking of BAP, how is it this year?

I'm liking it a lot. Love that you can sim to your next shift. I was just drafted by the Panthers with the 27th pick. Fighting for a roster spot in the preseason.

[MizzouRah]

Speaking of BAP, how is it this year?

I'm liking it a lot. Love that you can sim to your next shift. I was just drafted by the Panthers with the 27th pick. Fighting for a roster spot in the preseason.

Some claim the games are really long, do you think that's the case?

What difficulty are you playing on?

[MizzouRah]

Started a BAP and I'm having fun (All Star)

For some reason my height, weight, and jersey number have changed since creating my player, is this normal?

I went from a 6' 175 player to a 5'8" 150 player and I'm wearing #12 instead of #19?

[Aristo]

I'm starting to get that NHL 10-11 feeling where Pro is too easy and AS is too hard.. I didn't have that feeling with the demo.

I feel the same way. I tried some Pro sliders put out by mkharsh over at OS. but even though he pegged a lot of the sliders to make them difficult, there is just a lack of urgency among the CPU that you find on All-Star. I've been tweaking the game on All-star to be quite a bit easier instead. I found it to be easier to keep the CPU aggressive enough that there is still a decent amount of neutral zone play.

The only issue I had last night was that I was scoring a little too easily. I had seven goals on 35 shots in one game. It will take some time to get a feel if that is normal, or if it was just one of those games. The game is pretty good about being able to be very defensive or offensive on the same slider settings, which makes me feel like it really is going to be a keeper.

But I think in general, I believe All-Star is the mode to tweak from.

[Lancer]

I see the game is $10 off at BB starting Sunday.

[Naples39]

I've just been doing my thing, playing online HUT mostly. After starting out 3-8 online, I've gotten my overall online record up to 31-20. Took me a while to adjust to the timing and remember how to score, but I keep going for one more game. It's not really noticeably different from last year, maybe with some goalie interaction spicing things up, but I suppose I'm just really in the mood for hockey.

I've played a few season games on allstar difficulty, and the computer plays really tight defense. It's very tough to open them up.

[Leebo33]

I really love the game, but I'm running into freeze problems on the 360. I was playing in season mode and I read that setting the roster control to "custom" causes freezes (which I was doing), however, tonight I played BAP for the first time and the game froze in the 2nd period

I've never ever had a freeze problem before.

[Diablo25]

Got my first HUT win . This mode is growing on me. I need a goalie in a bad way. My goalie gives up rebounds like a champ. Lost a couple games horribly because of him. There is pretty much a money goal in the game also. Hopefully it gets addressed. I just has some clown score 5 times using it. My team has gotten better with some card packs...but no goalies in any packs I purchased.

[Naples39]

Got my first HUT win . This mode is growing on me. I need a goalie in a bad way. My goalie gives up rebounds like a champ. Lost a couple games horribly because of him. There is pretty much a money goal in the game also. Hopefully it gets addressed. I just has some clown score 5 times using it. My team has gotten better with some card packs...but no goalies in any packs I purchased.

Every time I buy a card pack I regret it, getting a bunch of scrubs and "premium card" is something like a 20 game contract card that can be bought on the auction market for 200 pucks.

My tip is build your team from the market. Play out your contracts with your starting scrubs, but instead of using contract cards on them when they run out of games, buy mid-70s rated players on the market for 100/150. Just make sure whatever players you buy at auction still have games on their contract.

Getting steals at auction is one of the most rewarding parts of the mode!! My best deals;
-Saku Koivu, 400
-Dustin Brown, 800
-Tim Connolly, 450
-Jacob Markstrom, 250

[Diablo25]

Got my first HUT win . This mode is growing on me. I need a goalie in a bad way. My goalie gives up rebounds like a champ. Lost a couple games horribly because of him. There is pretty much a money goal in the game also. Hopefully it gets addressed. I just has some clown score 5 times using it. My team has gotten better with some card packs...but no goalies in any packs I purchased.

Every time I buy a card pack I regret it, getting a bunch of scrubs and "premium card" is something like a 20 game contract card that can be bought on the auction market for 200 pucks.

My tip is build your team from the market. Play out your contracts with your starting scrubs, but instead of using contract cards on them when they run out of games, buy mid-70s rated players on the market for 100/150. Just make sure whatever players you buy at auction still have games on their contract.

Getting steals at auction is one of the most rewarding parts of the mode!! My best deals;
-Saku Koivu, 400
-Dustin Brown, 800
-Tim Connolly, 450
-Jacob Markstrom, 250

I've been building with what I have gotten. I just hate my goalie. I've been building up pucks so I'll look into the auction route. Thanks for the advice.

[Diablo25]

Really getting into HUT! Today EA has CHAMPIONS Packs available. 20 or 22 cards with, I think, 7 rares. I snagged a pack hoping for a goalie and got a better one...plus some nice goalie consumables that I added to the new guy. He's definitely better. I also picked up 2 solid NHL defensemen...1 RD and 1 LD. Their names escape me right now. To be honest i just looked at their ratings Beat a guy online in my first game with the new upgrades. We went to a shootout where I won but I dominated him all game...28 shots to 8. Of course he got a cheap goal late but survived. Good stuff.

[Naples39]

Really getting into HUT! Today EA has CHAMPIONS Packs available. 20 or 22 cards with, I think, 7 rares. I snagged a pack hoping for a goalie and got a better one...plus some nice goalie consumables that I added to the new guy. He's definitely better. I also picked up 2 solid NHL defensemen...1 RD and 1 LD. Their names escape me right now. To be honest i just looked at their ratings Beat a guy online in my first game with the new upgrades. We went to a shootout where I won but I dominated him all game...28 shots to 8. Of course he got a cheap goal late but survived. Good stuff.

12,000 pucks is too rich for my blood, and I can't bring myself to spend real money on HUT.

[MizzouRah]

Hi all,

We will be doing a server restart at 1am Pacific/4am Eastern to release a new tuner update - V1.01

V1.01 (effects all modes, except offline with V1.00)
-Small adjustment to goalie hug post to reduce vulnerability to far side goals coming around the net
-Small adjustment to guard the near post on shots
-Increase skating friction while doing protect puck (pretty small amount)
-Reduce stick lift penalties (hitting the hands is not a penalty now)


OTP Specific Changes:
-Disable hip checks (only in OTP/EASHL for now, but want input on this before we change it for Versus as well) The change makes hip check ineffective, but a proper fix will come in our 2nd patch

-Call interference on medium hits more strictly (0.4 to 1.0 – NOTE: not necessarily 100% because other factors are involved)
-Make poke check radius bigger (scale from 1.0 to 1.1)


Please play a few games and get a feel for the changes. The most noticeable being the poke check and the disabled hip checks in OTP.

[Naples39]

Hi all,

We will be doing a server restart at 1am Pacific/4am Eastern to release a new tuner update - V1.01

V1.01 (effects all modes, except offline with V1.00)
-Small adjustment to goalie hug post to reduce vulnerability to far side goals coming around the net
-Small adjustment to guard the near post on shots [oh no, my go-to move when human controlled defenders flop around like fish in the slot anticipating a one-timer pass!]
-Increase skating friction while doing protect puck (pretty small amount)
-Reduce stick lift penalties (hitting the hands is not a penalty now) [reduce penalties? that's the wrong direction! how about adding an automatic penalty when having your stick slapped out of your hand?]


OTP Specific Changes:
-Disable hip checks (only in OTP/EASHL for now, but want input on this before we change it for Versus as well) The change makes hip check ineffective, but a proper fix will come in our 2nd patch [probably a good idea

-Call interference on medium hits more strictly (0.4 to 1.0 – NOTE: not necessarily 100% because other factors are involved)
-Make poke check radius bigger (scale from 1.0 to 1.1) [maybe it be will be easier to strip people as they attempt to stickhandle 3 defenders straight into the slot]


Please play a few games and get a feel for the changes. The most noticeable being the poke check and the disabled hip checks in OTP.