Andrew wrote:Seems to have been the case. But to the original point, there are obviously reasons why retired players don't want to appear, so it's not 2K forgetting about them or snubbing them, as some gamers still seem to believe. We can and should criticise the games for their problems, but in cases like that, it's important that we know why certain issues exist, so that baseless accusations don't get mixed in with constructive feedback. As Dee said, it's probably highly unlikely that we'll ever get complete historical teams, and a few better choices probably should be made. It's still puzzling why they went with the 2000 Blazers and 2004 Pistons when they couldn't get Sheed, because his absence is definitely noticeable.
I guess it is what it is, and it's still bonus content at the end of the day. There are other problems that should take precedence.
Look if you make it a part of your game it's not bonus content. If you put something in the game it's in the game so it needs to be properly implemented and work right. We don't give any other genre or any other game series this easy excuse so why do we do that here? I don't ask for perfect historical rosters of every year and I never asked for every legend to be in the game. If I buy a game for 50 bucks and those legends are somewhere in there I want to be able to use them without grinding my brains out in an online game or pay for them. If you put historic rosters in there I can expect them to be accurate and to receive the same amount of work that the normal roster gets. The cyberfaces and bodies should be up to the standard of the rest of the game, the tendencies should be as accurate as you can make them and so should the ratings. You got enough advanced stats from even the 50s and enough pictures of players to make that happen.
If you do not own the rights to a player that is essential in a team? Guess what don't put the team in and instead dump the other players that you do have the rights to in a legends pool. End of story. And tbh it's not hard. They don't add thousands of new players every year and they haven't changed their rating system in a while now. Tendencies haven't changed how they work either a lot so if you have the basics right you got a solid base and all you need to do after that is adjust ratings or add new animations. Anything else you can pretty much stick with. The game has been out on new generation consoles for 3 years now so to still have players in there looking like it's 2000 is just absolutely lazy. If you can't be bothered updating them: guess what? Take them out of the game.
If it's in the game it is part of the game and not bonus anything. Otherwise we could make the argument that anything besides playing a basketball friendly so to speak is bonus content and doesn't need to be good because it's bonus. MyCareer is bonus, MyTeam is bonus, MyLeague is bonus, MyGM is bonus, ProAM is bonus, MyPark is bonus. Anything that isn't just two teams playing against each other on the court is bonus in that case. That's not how gaming works. If it's in the game it needs to be implemented well and be up to snuff.
If I said it once I said it a million times: Maybe it's time people stopped buying the game for 2 years to force them to finally stop releasing the game every year and actually working on a properly updated and patched iteration for 2-3-4 years. Besides money there is no reason that a game in this day and age and this sophisticated could not survive 3 years. Patch it and when the new season starts you release a Roster update for the new season with new commentary files for the new players etc. for 15 or 20 bucks. Then after 3 years you come out with a proper new version of the game. The only reason we will have this abominable business model is because people buy this garbage every year and because the publishers are greedy. Nobody would buy any other game from any other kind of genre that is basically the exact same game with a new roster and a new menu every year for 50 bucks. We are the only kind of gamers and community that still get conned into this rubbish whether it be FIFA, Madden, NBA 2k, MLB The Show or WWE 2k.