Mods, The NLSC, and you.

[Dee4Three]

Hi all,

I have been seeing a lot less activity in the modding sections lately, and I am aware of some of the reasons why.

Just a reminder that the NLSC is not just advertising space, and that free, open source mods is what this community was built on and once thrived on. Not patreon exclusives, not links cluttered with ads, not groups or secret societies within groups, or "privileged" groups that mods/info is exclusively filtered to.

The goal of modding is to make other peoples experiences with the games more enjoyable/memorable, as well as your own experiences with said titles. It is also a way for us to tap into our artistic side, and our creative side.

This site also has hosting costs associated with it, it is not free to run this site. Traffic through the site (whether it be people going straight to the downloads section, or into the specific threads) helps keep this great site up and running. The NLSC is where you discoverd most of your favorite mods and modders, a place where you have been downloading/sharing work, and communicating for years.

The NLSC has been around since the 90s, and has been the home of the greatest mods ever created for basketball video games. People have been plucked from this community to go work for EA and 2K.

Just figured I would throw this out there, and I am placing it in the 2K21 section because this is the most recent 2K, and I have seen the activity in this section (and 2K20) decline quite a bit over the last few months.

[sticky-fingers]

I think NLSC is THE place for bball modding, BUT IMO there are several reasons of this slow down :
- Andrew makes a solid job and great contributions with his articles, but him appart, where's the rest of the NLSC crew ; IMO they're supposed to keep the forums alive and they arent around anymore.
- 2K21 PC is a problem by itself and explains for a part the low activity in modding section.
- younger gamers are more on social networks or discord than on a "old forum". Btw what i can see here or on socials, hundreds of downloads, few feedbacks, consumers everywhere...
- about downloads section, the website has too many timeout issues - at least from my geoip range. I couldnt stand to try to post a download here, thats why i opened a free wordpress blog for my releases.

[Issy]

Personally I no longer have the motivation to make mods, it depresses me to make them when i see the game regress in every aspect since 4 years.

What i liked about 2k was the "simulation mind" and is totally gone, and worse... their way of doing things is disrespectful for the consumers (lie, VC's, laziness, etc).

The game is totally broken and unjoyable for me :
- gameplay is bad and not balanced (contested shots, rebounds ia, ice skating)
- tendencies are inaccurate
- retro teams are incomplete
- they have removed cinematics/interviews in current gen mycareer while they are in the next gen version while it's the same story
- mycareer its a grind mod for park anyway
- you can't play online because of cheaters and there is no matchmaking
- jerseys are inaccurate and the colors are way off
- floor wood texture are the same since 2k13
- players have the same colors teams shoes when in real life they wear different colors every 2-3 matches
- etc etc

I would have understood if the next version was "build from the ground" but it is not the case. Its the same game, with some (bad) lightings.

But to come back to the subject i still come time to times to see what modders did and if they were no longer there, I would have uninstalled 2k a long time ago.

[[Q]]

I feel like places like reddit and discord have made us a bit outdated but we are definitely a better place to go if you want to talk about modding the game

If people are doing exclusive pages or starting an Only Fans page for their mods, I think they are in the wrong business

It is kinda sad though because I know people who were once very active here actually still play 2k a lot and are still really into it but just stopped coming here for one reason or another

[Lamrock]

Truth. I don't post here because nobody else. It's too bad though. While I use reddit a lot, I don't think it's a good replacement for message boards as it's anonymous and most communities are too large to get to know anybody. Discord is good but you need to be invited.

I've never been a PC 2K player so I'm not into the modding scene but I appreciate the work you guys put in to keep the place going and will be sad if it goes away.

[big-shot-ROB]

It just feels that people that used to be around way back just have more important things to do now, and the younger generation are more into reddit and their cheat-builds than anything related to modding.

We also need to understand that, while the game should be better on a lot of aspects, they are still really really great games. Go play 2K13 on PC and you'll soon see how shallow those games were in terms of content and art.

When I got bored from 2K12, 2K13, 2K14 I just used mods to make the game feel a little different or new, or play with a team I hadn't used because I found cool cyberfaces for their players.

I've been getting into soccer lately (I live an hour away from Barcelona, just stopped following Barça for a while after Guardiola left) and you'd be surprised how bad their franchises modes are. They are utterly garbage depth-wise.

2k might have a very VC-driven approach, but FIFA and PES just live and die for their versions of "MyTeam" and the rest is bad, really bad.

Overall I feel they are countless of factors that have contributed to NLSC feeling less crowded, but I still feel it's THE page for modding. I don't know how it is over discord, but I highly doubt any conversation in reddit is meaningful or related to modding.

PD: I used to be into the NBA&Basketball board, but I transitioned into RealGM, which for those of you interested in very deep NBA conversational forums, it's a really GREAT place.

[Dee4Three]

While I agree with many of your points, when it comes to gameplay itself, 2K13 is better and more enjoyable than any of 2Ks recent titles. And gameplay will forever be more important than art, or even amount of content (because if the gameplay isnt great, the content is not as enjoyable)

I agree that the NLSC is still THE PLACE for modding.

As far as 2K13 on PC, I have all the 2Ks on PC (2K9 though 2K21). Mods do keep the games fresh, and obviously give us far more content than we can get in the default game. Would I still be playing 2K13 or 2K14 if I didn't have them on PC with all the mods? Probably not. Mostly for the reason that after 6 or 7 years, it wouldn't be as exciting to turn on anymore.

I've said it on the podcast many times... the new 2Ks do some excellent things content wise, not limited to but including a deep MyLeague experience, amazing customization options. Etc. And at the same time, a lot of the content is empty or rushed (refer back to me ratings/tendencies/signatures thread which showed copy and paste and rush jobs throughout the roster)

And the gameplay has more frustration than enjoyment for a lot of people, and for those people the game is indeed not great, just like it isnt for me. I can't play 2K21 for any length of time without getting super frustrated with the player movement, canned animations, etc.

I feel we should be in the golden age of basketball gaming, but we are not. And the reasons from what I can see revolve around four things

1. Gameplay flaws (player movement which including tons of skating, being sucked into other players, canned animations, legacy issues. Etc etc)
2. Microtransactions (not fair to the gamer)
3. No competition in the basketball gaming space
4. Rushed content and priorities in the wrong order

User reviews on Steam, Metacritic, and in other areas are rock bottom for 2K since 2K18. And that is for a lot of reasons. Other games in the sports gaming space often get very positive or overwhelming positive, as do thousands of other games on Steam. People WILL give positive feedback if they are enjoying the game overall more often than not, it has been proven time and time again and I can give a ton of examples of this. But a good amount of people are frustrated with the gameplay, Microtransaction BS, and the legacy issues that have existed for so many years. Amount of content or art doesnt make a game great... but great gameplay does, and the content and art are the icing on the cake.

I do agree that other platforms (like discord) offer a quicker way to communicate. I use discord to communicate with the 2K19 roster team where we are all working on the retro single seasons.

When it comes to the NLSC, we need more discussion here that relates to things like gameplay, and modes, etc. I would say probably 95% of the posts on here are related to modding. And that is fine and all, but it would be nice to talk more about other aspects of these games

[hersch47]

Is anyone doing a retro roster for NBA 2K21?

Hi all,

I have been seeing a lot less activity in the modding sections lately, and I am aware of some of the reasons why.

Just a reminder that the NLSC is not just advertising space, and that free, open source mods is what this community was built on and once thrived on. Not patreon exclusives, not links cluttered with ads, not groups or secret societies within groups, or "privileged" groups that mods/info is exclusively filtered to.

The goal of modding is to make other peoples experiences with the games more enjoyable/memorable, as well as your own experiences with said titles. It is also a way for us to tap into our artistic side, and our creative side.

This site also has hosting costs associated with it, it is not free to run this site. Traffic through the site (whether it be people going straight to the downloads section, or into the specific threads) helps keep this great site up and running. The NLSC is where you discoverd most of your favorite mods and modders, a place where you have been downloading/sharing work, and communicating for years.

The NLSC has been around since the 90s, and has been the home of the greatest mods ever created for basketball video games. People have been plucked from this community to go work for EA and 2K.

Just figured I would throw this out there, and I am placing it in the 2K21 section because this is the most recent 2K, and I have seen the activity in this section (and 2K20) decline quite a bit over the last few months.