NBA 2K20 Demo Coming August 21st (PS4, X1, & Switch)

[Andrew]

Starting on August 21st at 12:01 am PT, you can get an early start on your MyCAREER while testing out the new MyPLAYER builder and hitting the court two weeks ahead of the game’s launch by downloading the NBA 2K20 Demo. In the NBA 2K20 Demo, you can try out multiple MyPLAYER configurations to create the player that best fits your play-style, which will be carried over to NBA 2K20 at launch on September 6th. The NBA 2K20 Demo will be available exclusively on Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

As usual, no PC demo (but in case there's any concern, the full game itself has already been confirmed for PC).

I'm definitely burned out on MyCAREER at this point and don't see myself playing it in NBA 2K20, but that is a great move letting us try out a few different builds. If it's juiced up like The Prelude in recent years though, it's still not going to be a proper taste of the game. I miss the old school demos, limited as they were.

[bluejaybrandon]

Wow. Almost 10 days earlier than last year. This is conjunction with the screenshot shots we have gotten and lack of information leads me to believe 2k is not intending this product to be a significant step forward in any way. This may be the first year that we have a literal roster update for $60. I don’t mean to be negative it’s just concerning and I wish they’d be more forthcoming with that.

[Andrew]

It's interesting that they've gone back to calling it a demo and not The Prelude, so I wonder what that means (if anything) for the full version of MyCAREER. Maybe we're just getting to test out some builds and play the tutorial game in 2KU, rather than the early stages of the MyCAREER story. Not necessarily the worst thing in the world, if so.

As you said though, it does underscore the possibility that this is something of a throwaway year, the last release in a tapped out generation before the new consoles hit next year. As long as there's some polish and a few token bells and whistles along with that roster update, hopefully it'll at least be worthwhile.

[TGsoGood]

Prelude always showed the intro to Mycareer story. Forbes article states there will be no story in the Demo. This makes sense as people complained that the story is just a big ad. I assume the story will still be in Mycareer but this keeps people from complaining about the cutscenes until the game is out at least.

I have some ideas of what the demo will include and I think the clues are already out there in the community. The Forbes article also stated no NBA Gameplay with actual teams.

EDIT:
I threw a quick video together. I included links and such to the official announcement and the Forbes article

phpBB [video]

[Andrew]

So I guess the demo is going to be more like some kind of a combine, or pick-up games? Definitely not the worst way to handle it.

[ThePointForward]

Wow. Almost 10 days earlier than last year. This is conjunction with the screenshot shots we have gotten and lack of information leads me to believe 2k is not intending this product to be a significant step forward in any way. This may be the first year that we have a literal roster update for $60. I don’t mean to be negative it’s just concerning and I wish they’d be more forthcoming with that.

As you said though, it does underscore the possibility that this is something of a throwaway year, the last release in a tapped out generation before the new consoles hit next year. As long as there's some polish and a few token bells and whistles along with that roster update, hopefully it'll at least be worthwhile.

I'm gonna repost what I wrote on Reddit 3 weeks ago here. Keep in mind this is not confirmed, nor do I have sources inside or something... Just some educated guessing based on experience.
At the same time since we do have some people working for VC I do not expect any sort of confirmation or denial as they're undoubtedly under general NDA. (wink twice if it's real)

The preview season is starting with a short trailer with few cinematic angles and we got two things going: WNBA is gonna be included to some extent in 2K20 and Wade edition cover is LIT (unironical stamp like in that one trailer).

However keep in mind one big thing: Holiday 2020 is when new consoles release. (Well, at least new Xbox, but I'd expect PS5 to release around as well, even thought they did not confirm it yet).

What does it mean?

For starters, don't expect miraculous generational jump yet. This will be obvious for most, but there might be some hopefuls that 2K20 will be getting big upgrades. There's some people every year who think there should be huge step. On one year dev cycle that's pretty much impossible.
No, don't expect new graphics. Don't expect overhauled game. Expect 2K19 with some improvements here and there.

However it might also translate into another thing... The devs (in general, not only VC) reportedly already have preliminary devkits to play with for while.
And by play with I mean start working on next-gen games.
Yes, I do think that some devs already spend some time working on next-gen with the devkit. Trying to see what their current code is capable of with the new hardware, what kind of optimizations they can do to work with said hardware better and perhaps already working on new features that we know the new consoles will have.
For example the real time ray-tracing. Ray-tracing on the court floor would be major improvement of graphics for a game where you stare at it for majority of the time (of course unless you play in the Park exclusively).
So the devs might already have less work hours assigned to 2K20 compared to previous games.

Obviously take this is you will, I cannot prove or disprove whether or not they're working on next-gen already, but it's kind of an educated guess.

What to expect then?

Expect 2K19 with some improvements here and there and some new features.
If you do that, the worst case is you'll be right, the best case will be a pleasant surprise.

For example the WNBA - remember we don't know the extent of this.
Best case? Fully playable female characters with MyCareer in the WNBA.
Worst case? Remember Euroleague teams? Or the college teams? Yeah...
There is definitely some coding work behind it, especially should the WNBA be available for MyLeague. But most of the work would likely be for the art and animation teams on this.
So relatively cheap from programming point of view, but a big feature that can be sold to players.

Temper your expectations for 2K20. Otherwise I feel you'll be severely disappointed.



What I'd love to see is them cracking down on bugs.
I fired up 2K recently again and played some MyLeague. Pro sliders - the default, just with 12 minute quarters. Kept the sliders on Pro because that's 2K's baseline experience and I wanted to see how things evolved.

I have to say I saw the same stuff I saw on release. And in previous games.
Ball behaving like it was magnetized on rebounds and during some very questionable AI dribble moves.
Textbook charges not called. Weird foul animations played with no whistle.
Terrible defence from my team where players regularly sagged off from good long range shooters.
Suck-in screens.

I could go on with some more stuff, but these are some that bugged me the most in couple of games.
Of course I'd love to see more good will to community regarding monetization, but given the pre-order benefits I'm gonna say that's not gonna happen.

If they do crackdown on bugs I'd be willing to buy 2K20 to show support for that direction of development. Don't know how about you, but for me that would be big for the last game of this gen.

Just a note: This isn't a call to blindly buy the game. Wait for the demo. Wait for the reviews. But if you pre-order and everything don't expect the big boom... just yet anyway.

[ThePointForward]

Also to separate it from above:

Official announcement link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/nba-2k/n ... 275487267/

new MyPLAYER builder
They had my curiosity, now they have my attention.

[Andrew]

I think you've summed the situation up quite well there.

[ThePointForward]

Piece of info from LD2K (will post it in the twitter news too): Demo will allow you to not only test multiple builds, but apparently also at elevated ratings.

I'm personally gonna say that the story will start with you dreaming about being an NBA superstar therefore you get your build with some high rating as a teaser.

https://twitter.com/LD2K/status/1154454384236888065
mirror image

[Andrew]

Elevated ratings is interesting, but what does that mean for the full version? As I said, an issue with The Prelude is that gameplay was juiced up compared to the full game, so it wasn't really an accurate preview. It'll be a tease to play with higher ratings in the demo, then get throttled back to 60 Overall when the game comes out (or if you start over in the full version, you don't get the head start of the demo).

Again, I'm ready to move on from MyCAREER and the connected modes anyway, but that'd definitely be shady if that's how it is.

[ThePointForward]

Yeah not sure, but it could give you insight on what the build will be able to do and play with normal sliders.

Honestly I think they need to get rid of the 60s range completely. I'm looking at 2kMTcentral, selected 2019 Current NBA and sorted by OVR ascending.

The worst rated player in the NBA is Isaac Bonga of Lakers (now Wizards). Dude played most of the season in G League, played 22 games in the NBA as a rookie averaging 5.5 minutes, 0.9 points and 1.1 rebounds.
He's rated 63. Yeah, already better than MyPlayer.

Still, around 62 players are in the 60s range in NBA 2K19.
Usually guys who had bad luck with injuries and diseases that made them miss a lot of games, lower their performance and as a result get low rating.
Michael Carter-Williams, Omer Asik, Quincy Pondexter, ...

Oh and BTW Bonga, Melvin Frazier and Like Kornet are the only ones at 65 or lower. Remaining 59 players are 66 or higher.

[Andrew]

No question. The two biggest issues are the lack of competency in key skills and athletic ratings. There should be a bit more of a boost in those areas, since young players coming into the league are at their athletic peak, and if someone's known as a sharpshooter for example, they should at least be up around the league average with their shooting attributes. That still leaves plenty of room for growth, and it's not like the Road to 99 is in danger of being too short if the starting point is a little further along.

[[Q]]

I think with them calling it a demo that could be signaling a change. Like Andrew said it could strictly be a combine or standalone deal where you can test different builds. Perhaps it even resets at the end to encourage new builds, but not progress towards the regular game. Maybe with all the hype of the off-season they'll allow some Lakers vs Clippers gameplay.

[bluejaybrandon]

I think with them calling it a demo that could be signaling a change. Like Andrew said it could strictly be a combine or standalone deal where you can test different builds. Perhaps it even resets at the end to encourage new builds, but not progress towards the regular game. Maybe with all the hype of the off-season they'll allow some Lakers vs Clippers gameplay.

Apparently there is an article on Forbes that said no NBA gameplay with NBA teams. TGsoGood referenced it above.

[Andrew]

I think with them calling it a demo that could be signaling a change. Like Andrew said it could strictly be a combine or standalone deal where you can test different builds. Perhaps it even resets at the end to encourage new builds, but not progress towards the regular game.

That's the impression that I've been getting as well. It's not like The Prelude has offered that much of a head start either, so it wouldn't be a huge loss. Testing out the different builds would be far more useful, especially for those who want to play online.

[ThePointForward]

Well, apparently there will be some limit on number of characters or playthroughs in the demo. From some interview with Ronnie2K. Not unexpected, really now depends on how it will look like as whole.

He also mentioned that they had problems creating certain players with the Archetype system simply because some players defy it. So there might be some changes in that regard with more freedom overall?

Finally they were also talking about how to distinguish players who played 100 hours vs players who played 1000 hours. That's a quote BTW, I personally find spending 1000 hours on a game that is on yearly release schedule absurd. That's literally 41 days of time, more than a 1/10 of a year.
But sounds like they're not sure what to do with endgame content, because Road to 99 apparently was the endgame and attempt to make the grinders stand out, but community doesn't seem to be overly excited over it.

[Andrew]

I think people miss the early days of MyCAREER when there was more freedom, especially if you had no interest in the online side of things. Obviously one play is a huge part of the game now and it does make sense to have connected experiences, but that connection also holds back both parts of the mode due to a precarious balancing act.

The amount of hours it takes to get to 99 Overall (or even just somewhere in the early 90s) is ridiculous, especially when you consider you have to do it every year. Having done pretty much everything I want to do in MyCAREER (short of getting a threepeat) and not liking the direction of online gameplay, I'm definitely feeling a combination of accomplishment and burnout, and I'm ready to put it aside.