Weekly Q&As with Marcus Stephenson

[Andrew]

In the near future we will be bringing you weekly Q&A with NBA Live producer Marcus Stephenson. Marcus has graciously offered to answer up to fifteen questions per week and to that end, we'll be inviting questions from the community which I'll be sending along and posting the answers to when I receive them.

If you'd like to suggest a question for me to ask, please post them here in this thread or shoot me an email. So long as your question is civil (and related to NBA Live '10) it will be considered for inclusion. If your question doesn't make the cut, please don't take it personally; feel free to suggest it again and I'll consider it for the next week's list. Note that Marcus will not be able to answer certain questions until later in the production cycle.

[JaoSming]

I'd like to ask a few.

Has the name been finalized yet? Are we looking at NBA Live '10, 2010 or NBA Live X (Roman Numerals)?

Are there any plans on adding an NBDL farm system to dynasty?

Can we import NCAA draft classes again?

Are you guys planning on bringing back Free Style air, aka making layup/dunk adjustments in air / passing out of dunks and layups?

Will the NBA Academy be improved & streamlined more? The load times for drills were a bit long IMO.

And on average, how much hands-on time do you get with the game each week?


That's enough for this week from me.

[Patr1ck]

Are you the nba live community manager, or is it sk88z? If I recall he stated he was the new community manager during the "play OTP against the developers" contest.

What's your least favourite part of NBA Live 09, and what do you think would make it better in future versions?

Not counting fighting/technical fouls, what is the one thing(feature or otherwise) you would love to see in the game that the NBA doesn't allow?

How did you come to work for EA?

What's the most fun moment you've had in the office that didn't involve NBA Live?

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[Andrew]

sk88z is the new community manager, Marcus is on the production team now.

Keep 'em coming.

[Andrew]

I've submitted a round of questions, check back soon for the answers. Once I post a Q&A, feel free to keep the questions coming, however if you have any you'd like to suggest for the next one right now feel free to post them straight away.

[Patr1ck]

How will the new Procedural awareness(or procedural attitude) affect NBA Live 2010?

What will the next NBA Live version be called? NBA Live 2010, NBA Live '10, NBA Live X?

Are their plans to make the next 360/PS3 version of NBA Live available as a port to PC gamers?

What is one element that didn't make it into NBA Live 09 that you would have hoped made it?

Will the NBA Live development team continue with the development blogs up until the release of the next version?

What is your official position currently on the NBA Live development team?

What players/people have done or will do the mo-cap for the next version of NBA Live?

What are a couple of the main focus points for the next version of NBA Live?

What were a few of the requirements on becoming a part of the development team for NBA Live?

[Andrew]

Ah yes, I made sure to ask about the PC version in the first one. I included more than 15 questions in case there are some things that can't be revealed just yet but if we can't get an answer this time it'll definitely be a repeat question.

[JaoSming]

Is user created content being shared online going to be bigger than just rosters in oh10?

Can we shoot around with friends in the Academy online?

What steps have been taken to further a TV presentation of a real NBA game?

Will there be any more ESPN presentation elements?

Can we look forward to jersey/court/logo updates via 365 updates in next years game?

How big is the dev team for this game?

How much tech is shared between Madden, NHL and the FIFA games?

Are you guys planning to go with a more personal, less full-on press release, update structure with the Live communities like the Madden team seems to be doing?

How much play testing does the game go through and how early do the testers get their hands on the game?

[Patr1ck]

Andrew, does anyone else know about this topic? We seem to be the only ones asking questions.

[Andrew]

I posted an announcement on the main page a few days ago, I thought we'd get some more interest than just us. Perhaps after I get the first lot of questions back.

[Arcane]

I got a couple of questions just off the top of my head.

1) Is there plans for when NBA Live returns to PC that it will be patcher friendly like the game was up until Live 06.

2) What 'culture' aspects are you looking forward to implementing for Live 10

3) How is the development team going in achieving this years goal for NBA Live

4) With player accessories and hair/facial hair styles and things along that line will you be doing things different from previous years to cater for players who regularly change shoes hair/facial hair styles or get new tattoo's

5) When will be the first major preview of Live 10

Just some quick questions off the top of my head i'll try and have some better more in depth questions soon

[Andrew]

Thanks. We're still waiting on clearance to get the first through, it's still a bit early yet but we are definitely still looking forward to doing these as soon as we can.

[Arcane]

still no reply from EA Producers I gather

[Andrew]

No, still a bit too early unfortunately but hopefully once the preview "season" kicks off Marcus should have clearance to do the Q&As.

[617KiD]

- Will there be Signature Dribbling animations now that the dribbling animations from last year are gone?

[LBizzle]

Do the guys at EA play 2k to compare and see what they need to work on

[Andrew]

- Will there be Signature Dribbling animations now that the dribbling animations from last year are gone?

I've heard that there will be, though presumably not every single player in the league will have their own unique dribbling animation in the game.

[Fozzrat]

1) Will u be able to put headbands on players because in edit mode in nba live 09 you couldn't.
2) Will there be more fiba teams added. Will the fiba teams which were in live 09 players faces all there e.g. it had not a proper face for patty mills. Also can we edit fiba players accessories.
3) Will there be all 60 drafted players there and if they are not signed by the cut off date put them in free agents.

[Andrew]

1) Will u be able to put headbands on players because in edit mode in nba live 09 you couldn't.

I'm pretty sure one of the official updates added access to headband accessories though I could be mistaken.

3) Will there be all 60 drafted players there and if they are not signed by the cut off date put them in free agents.

This is one I can answer on the producer's behalf; they cannot include anyone that is not signed to an NBA contract unless they reach a seperate deal with them. As such, it is unlikely they'll be able to include all 60 draftees in the default roster. This isn't because they're lazy or don't care, they legally cannot do it. They're doing the NBA Live 365 updates again though, so missing players will be added by the official roster updates.

[biggD]

oh boy! i love this time of year....so much speculation LMAO

[Arcane]

Do the guys at EA play 2k to compare and see what they need to work on

2 of the producers are from 2k but weren't part of the development as much for Live 09 as they were learning Ea's technologies the'r focus was Live 10 & 11 so far.

Mike Wang the Game Play AI Producer is one of those guys who approached EA after the 2008 season game releases. The producers have also stated they have played competitors games before so its not like they are living under a rock or in a veil of ignorance. Also note most of the producers who started on Live 09 through to the development of Live 10 weren't in the development of previous NBA Live games but have been part of other games like NBA Street and NCAA series.

[Patr1ck]

If I recall correctly, developers have said that they are constantly playing the other basketball games on the market to get a good comparison and see what NBA Live could do better.

[Arcane]

If I recall correctly, developers have said that they are constantly playing the other basketball games on the market to get a good comparison and see what NBA Live could do better.

Thats true.

I am really keen to see the direction the NBA Live team are taking the game over the next 2 yrs I know Live 10 won't have verything the developers are wanting in it so Live 11 will be a more complete picture of their direction.

I'll be aiming to get more info I can hopefully share with you guys over the next few weeks the producers are getting ready to present us with information about the game very shortly.

[Andrew]

Same here, Marcus has informed me it'll be a little longer before we can go ahead with this and other things but we'll continue to make preparations in the meantime so feel free to post questions.

[Fozzrat]

So will there be more fiba teams added.