Tag Archives: The Neighborhood

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 concerning complacency that afflicts many a basketball gamer, especially when it comes to NBA 2K’s practices.

There’s a well-travelled fable about a boiling frog. The story goes that if you place a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out. However, if you place it in tepid water and slowly bring it to boil, the frog will not react to the danger and be boiled alive. Experiments have proven the premise to be false, but the imagery is still used as a metaphor for an unwillingness to react to threats that arise gradually, compared to those that arise suddenly. While the metaphor is based on a disproven principle, its imagery aptly illustrates the process of creeping normality.

Complacency is a major factor here, and it’s certainly an issue in basketball gaming. The attitude of “well, that’s just the way it is” shrugs off valid criticism and concerns. It can be shocking to look back at some of the fantastic games from years ago, and compare them to recent releases that are riddled with recurrent revenue mechanics, gatekeeping, and other aspects that are lacking in goodwill. How did we get from there to here? As in the boiling frog metaphor, had these changes come suddenly, there’d have been a revolt. By shrewdly introducing these elements and then turning up the heat, 2K has taken advantage of the complacency of the basketball gamer.

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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 some advice on not falling victim to FOMO in NBA 2K.

Modern games prey on FOMO: the Fear Of Missing Out. From daily bonuses to content that is only available for a limited time, game modes are designed to get us jumping on as often as possible to boost engagement numbers, and in the best case scenario for the publisher, spend money on their recurrent revenue mechanics. It’s the same approach that mobile games have pioneered, and it’s become commonplace with Triple-A releases as well. From cosmetic items to content with a more tangible effect on gameplay, developers want us to dread missing out on acquiring goodies.

It’s effective, too. Every time they release a great Michael Jordan card in MyTEAM, I can’t help thinking “I want that”. However, the Auction House economy is broken due to MT resellers, and I refuse to pay real money to rip open pack after pack with lousy odds. Not everyone can resist the lure of appealing digital content though, and to that end, I can understand falling victim to FOMO. It’s harder to get games online – or at least be competitive – if you don’t have the best cards, quick MyPLAYER upgrades, or even the right clothing. As premium skins in Fortnite have proven, it can even lead to bullying! That’s why I’m offering up some tips to stand strong against FOMO.

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Patch 1.11 is now available for the Current Gen version of NBA 2K21. As always, it should come through automatically as long as your PC, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One is online. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console or Steam client, or check for updates manually.

The patch includes the same player likeness updates from the recently released Next Gen patch, as well as new WNBA uniforms. It also adds new Summer decorations to 2K Beach in MyCAREER, and prepares the mode for upcoming events. Although it isn’t mentioned in the notes, the PC version now supports crossplay between the Steam and Epic Games platforms.

There isn’t much more detail to the full patch notes, but you can check them out below, as well as a complete update history for NBA 2K21 Current Gen here in our Wiki. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments, as well as join in the discussion here in the NLSC Forum. Additionally, NBA 2K21 PC is currently free to claim on Epic Games until May 27th. Pick it up here if you don’t already have it in your collection.

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Episode #373 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this weekly podcast that’s all about basketball gaming.

Our first foray into playing NBA 2K17 head to head using Parsec and Steam Remote Play didn’t go as well as we hoped, but we’re not giving up just yet. Following up on the announcement that prompted our main discussion in Episode #368, the PlayStation 3 Store is remaining open, preserving NBA Jam: On Fire Edition a little longer. Although the preview season is still months away, we’ve been thinking about past innovations that changed basketball gaming, and what would excite us for NBA 2K22. Surprisingly, it’s still not shoelace physics! In this week’s mailbag, we’re taking a look back at NBA Live 09 on PlayStation 2, and discuss buying prior gen games after we’ve moved on to a new console.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:47:58 — 74.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Join in the conversation in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as mailbag questions and topic suggestions for future shows. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.

Episode #371 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this weekly podcast that’s all about basketball gaming.

We’ve both caught the modding bug, but one of us has been far more motivated and productive than the other. Of course, that doesn’t stop us from making lofty plans for roster projects! A recent Tweet by the EA Playtesting account offers a glimmer of hope for the future of NBA Live, though we’re wary about reading too much into it. Meanwhile, polls on Twitter and Reddit have made it clear how the community feels about the prospect of shot aiming in NBA 2K22…and invited toxic responses from the online elitists. In this week’s mailbag, we’re reminiscing about ESPN NBA 2K5 and NBA Live 2005, and discussing the idea of MyTEAM being released as a standalone game.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:46:34 — 73.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Join in the conversation in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as mailbag questions and topic suggestions for future shows. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.

Patch 1.10 is now available for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One versions of NBA 2K21. As always, the update should come through automatically as long as your PC or console is online. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console or Steam client, or checking for updates manually.

Similar to the recent patch for NBA 2K21 Next Gen, the latest Current Gen patch includes player likeness updates and fixes for various issues in MyTEAM. Although the specific players aren’t mentioned in the notes, it’s a safe bet that they’re the same ones that were updated on Next Gen. It also adds new decorations to 2K Beach in MyCAREER, and prepares the mode for some upcoming events.

The full notes for Patch 1.10 for NBA 2K21 Current Gen can be found below, and a full update history for the game has been documented here in our Wiki. Initially the patch caused some issues with corrupted saves (at least on PC), but it appears that a hotfix has since resolved the issue. If you’re still encountering difficulties, feel free to discuss them and any other impressions of the patch in the comments below, as well as here in the Forum. You may also want to contact 2K Support regarding any issues with corrupted files or missing VC.

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Patch 1.09 is now available for NBA 2K21 Current Gen! As of this post, it’s come through on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. If it hasn’t downloaded for you, try restarting your console, or checking for updates manually. The patch should be available on PC soon. When it does come through, you might need to restart your Steam client if it doesn’t download automatically.

The patch addresses a few issues in MyTEAM, including Dark Matter cards not displaying their Overall Ratings. New player likenesses have also been included, and the decorations for 2K Beach in MyCAREER have been updated as well.

See below for the full release notes for Patch 1.09, or find them here in our NBA 2K21 Current Gen update history. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion here in the Forum.

March 15th Update: The patch is now available for PC as well.

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Episode #365 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this weekly podcast that’s all about basketball gaming.

Deep Create-a-Player features are a must, and it’s tough not to get wistful when we see them in other sports titles. Some of the features in MLB The Show give us ideas for what we’d like to see in NBA Live and NBA 2K’s creation tools. The pain of losing functionality when servers are shut down leads us to discuss the possibility of a subscription model for basketball games. In the news this week, Ultimate Rivals: The Court has been announced. We’re intrigued, and looking forward to an NBA Jam-like game with Tim Kitzrow on the call. Time with The W also has us nostalgic for an era when microtransactions weren’t everything. In the mailbag this week, we answer a question about the necessary focus in order for NBA Live to make a triumphant return, and Frankenstein our ideal game, picking and choosing elements from a number of existing basketball titles.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:46:50 — 73.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Join in the conversation in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as mailbag questions and topic suggestions for future shows. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.

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 things that have been removed from the Next Gen version of NBA 2K21.

When it comes to the things that annoy us most in the annual basketball games, legacy issues and the removal of popular features rank high on the list. For that matter, seeing legacy issues remain while cool features disappear is a common gripe born of those two complaints. Generally speaking though, we understand that there’s only so much that can be done within one development cycle, and that certain changes won’t come about until a new engine is introduced. Likewise, we know that some features are dropped due to technological reasons, or a lack of popularity.

It’s the things that are removed due to design choices and philosophy that really make us grumble, however. NBA 2K21 Next Gen was advertised as being “built from the ground up”, but it does bring back many familiar features, modes, and mechanics. A few things have fallen by the wayside with the series’ jump to the next generation, though. There may be technical reasons for their absence, but it’s inconvenient at best, and lacking in goodwill at worst. There’s a chance that we’ll see some of these things reintroduced if the demand/backlash is strong enough, but until then, here are five things from the Current Gen version that you won’t find in NBA 2K21 Next Gen.

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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 rebuttal to the idea that the fact developing video games is a business is somehow an excuse for lousy practices.

Video game development is a business. There is a business side to the creation of video games that, to the companies developing and publishing them, is just as crucial as the artistic side. There, I admitted it. In fact, I never denied it. If a business doesn’t turn a profit, it doesn’t keep operating for very long. If a product isn’t profitable, it’s going to have a very short shelf life. This is basic economics, so even when we’re grumbling about questionable practices regarding design and recurrent revenue mechanics, we understand that video game developers need to make money. But…

But, there are good ways and bad ways to do business, even when it comes to the often downright predatory and exploitative practice of microtransactions. The goal of turning a profit does not excuse issues with the product itself. There is nothing wrong with expecting value for money and satisfaction with your purchase, and speaking out when you feel that a product has failed to deliver in that regard. When the pursuit of profits – especially through recurrent revenue mechanics – actively interferes with the quality of a product, it’s fair to criticise developers for compromising the experience. Saying “it’s business” is no excuse for design choices that are anti-consumer.

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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 some reflections on a Reddit post that tried to warn us about some looming issues with the direction of the NBA 2K series.

There’s a Reddit post that I’ve mentioned and linked to in quite a few articles since it was made in the official NBA 2K subreddit back in 2018. That post was titled “The ‘MMO-ification’ of NBA2K and the perils of ignoring player retention: Thoughts from a former MMO developer“, and it was very well-received. After all, this wasn’t just a random gamer speaking out in frustration, or even a prominent content creator or pundit. This was someone who worked in video game development, and saw first-hand how certain approaches affected both gamer enjoyment, and a game’s success.

The criticisms this former EVE Online developer made were astute, and they were on the money about it only being the beginning. Their post touched on matters that many reviewers, and even content creators and community leaders, tend to ignore. It spoke about design philosophies – matters beyond tech and specific game features – that were responsible for problems in the games, and painted a worrying picture for the future. Today, I’m revisiting that Reddit post, and picking out some relevant quotes that identify problems that were troubling in NBA 2K18, and have remained so in its successors. As you’ll see, the insights of that Reddit post were almost prophetic.

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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 my thoughts on how The City is perpetuating a troubling issue with MyCAREER and its connected modes.

Adding an open world environment to MyCAREER has, unsurprisingly, been a rather divisive decision since The Neighborhood debuted in NBA 2K18. Some gamers loved the idea, and were wowed from the very first reveal trailers. Others aren’t so keen on the concept, seeing it as a waste of time. Now that The City has taken its place in NBA 2K21 Next Gen, gamers who loved The Neighborhood have been delighted by an even larger hub world. Those who disliked The Neighborhood have no love for The City for many of the same reasons as before, only now on a much grander scale.

Of course, even if you love The City, the feeling isn’t mutual. There’s an aspect of The City that is, to quote a salient Reddit post, “downright contemptuous of players and hostile towards newer players”. Unlike The Neighborhood, The City isn’t welcoming to everyone; well, not immediately, anyway. This year, we have to prove that we’re worthy of taking part in the main hub world of MyCAREER, making use of all the familiar facilities that we’ve had at our disposal these past few years. To me, the title of Bobby Bland’s song – or for that matter, the Jay-Z song from the NBA 2K17 soundtrack, which sampled it – aptly describes The City’s cold, elitist heartlessness.

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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 is a list of five odd technical issues that have been present in various basketball games over the years.

Games (and software in general) having bugs are a fact of life. Among older gamers such as myself, there’s sometimes an erroneous belief that the games we grew up with didn’t have such technical issues. Before patches were viable, developers did have to ensure that games were as bug-free as possible before they shipped, but many of the all-time classics have glitches of some description. Of course, on top of the need to stamp out bugs before games were finalised on cartridge and disc, the simplicity of those older games avoided some of the pitfalls of their more complex descendants.

To put it another way, the bigger video games have grown, the more bugs and other technical issues they’re prone to having. When it comes to PC games, the need to support a variety of hardware also provides further challenges. To that end, while there are several valid criticisms we can and should make of basketball video games, the mere presence of technical issues doesn’t indicate laziness, incompetence, or a lack of care. If making games and software that were entirely bug-free were easy – or indeed, possible – we’d see it happen. With that being said, various hoops titles have had notably odd bugs and technical issues, and today, I’m looking at five of them.

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Patch 1.07 has come through for the Current Gen version of NBA 2K21. It’s currently available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and should be coming through on PC soon. As always, the patch should download automatically. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console or Steam client, or checking for updates manually.

Unfortunately there are no patch notes as of writing; if any are provided, I’ll be sure to add them. Users over on Reddit have identified several player likeness updates however, as well as new courts. The Neighborhood decorations in MyCAREER have also been updated for the New Year. Based on the notes from Patch 1.06, it’s unlikely that there were many other significant changes.

If you do notice any other changes following Patch 1.07 for NBA 2K21, let me know in the comments, or in the official discussion topic in our Forum. I’ve also updated the patch history for NBA 2K21 Current Gen in our Wiki, with what information we have so far. Credit goes out to ljfabs and others users on Reddit for the list of likeness and court updates, which you can find below.

January 11th Update: The patch is now available for PC as well.

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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 some thoughts on who’s to blame for The Rec being utter garbage in NBA 2K21, and how – or if – the problems can be fixed.

I have to blunt: The Rec is absolutely woeful this year. Walk-On play has always been a hit-and-miss alternative to team Pro-Am, owing to the all the issues that arise when you play with randoms. It’s been particularly toxic and unenjoyable in NBA 2K21, though. Admittedly, I can only speak to my experiences playing on the Australasian server, and I’ve yet to create a MyPLAYER on Next Gen and jump online. The scene may be a lot better on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, at least in North America. It’d be a low bar to clear, as the mode seems to have hit rock bottom.

While the issues are familiar, the continued decline of The Rec – and it’s felt like it’s grown even worse since NBA 2K21 Current Gen’s launch – raises a few questions. The two most pertinent are “who’s to blame”, and “how can it be fixed”. As you might imagine, the first issue has a significant impact on the second. The answer is quite complicated, and that naturally means the solution isn’t easy either. Still, I’ve been thinking about this a lot in recent weeks. While I am taking a moment to grumble here, I want to turn that into something constructive. If we as a community can identify these issues and suggest solutions, perhaps we can help improve the scene.

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