NBA LIVE 09 - NBA LIVE 365

Hi Everyone,

My name is Nate McDonald and I am one of the producers working on NBA LIVE 09 this year. Today I am here to present to you a feature that we are all extremely excited about being able to bring to you; NBA LIVE 365! We have teamed up with Synergy Sports Technology to integrate tracking data used by NBA teams into NBA LIVE 09. NBA LIVE 365 uses data from Synergy to drive the gameplay, meaning that the players in NBA LIVE 09 will play just like they do in real life. NBA LIVE 365 is not only going to provide an unprecedented level of realism to the game, it's also going to bring that realism to the game fresh every single day. NBA LIVE 09 truly is the first sports video game that will be made fresh daily. Let me get into a little bit more detail about all the features that NBA LIVE 365 will have to offer.

PLAYER DNA

The first thing I want to talk about is Player DNA. Every player in the game has a DNA strand that breaks down what each of them do on offense for their team. Using players from the Boston Celtics as examples; Paul Pierce mostly runs the Pick & Roll with the ball, Spots Up, or runs Isolation plays. For someone like Ray Allen, he also likes to run Pick & Roll, Spots Up, but runs off a lot more screens so that he can catch and shoot compared to Paul Pierce who likes to run a little more isolation. Kevin Garnett posts up a high percentage of the time now in Boston 's offense with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce on the floor the majority of the time whereas when he was with Minnesota he may have had his different plays spread out a little bit more. All of this ties into Team DNA which I'm going to get into a little more in a bit.

PLAYER DNA PROGRESSION

Now every time I decide to get a download so that I can play with the most up to date data, I can see the difference between what NBA LIVE 09 shipped with and what the latest data is. The graphic that shows what NBA LIVE 09 shipped with will be data captured from the end of last season and is the real data. As an example of how the user can see a lot of change after they get their first download once the season starts, you can simply look back to last year when the Celtics made their big deals during the off-season. With the additions of Garnett and Allen by the Celtics, we would ship the game based on their playing styles from when they were on Minnesota and Seattle, but after a week of playing in Boston with Paul Pierce, all three of these players playing styles will have significantly changed because they are now playing in a new system with different players that they have to adjust to.

DNA TENDENCIES

The next thing I want to talk about is DNA Tendencies. Again, every player in the game has a tendency chart that breaks down what that player is most likely to do when they receive the ball in that particular position on the court. Using Paul Pierce as an example, when he catches the ball on the left perimeter, he is more likely to drive to his left than he is to shoot or go to his right based on what he actually does in real life when he catches the ball from this spot. It doesn't necessarily mean that he will have more success if he drives to his left, it just means that when he gets the ball here, he feels most comfortable going that way. In real life, he may have just as much success when he goes to his right or if he shoots, but depending on how the defense plays him in this spot, it may push him to go left instead of shooting or going right. So this can be used as a tool on offense to find out how a player prefers to play in certain positions on the court, or it can be used as a tool on defense to determine which choice a player is least comfortable with making based on where they catch the ball.

DNA TENDENCIES PROGRESSION

Again, when I decide to download so that I can play with the most up to date data, I can see the difference between what NBA LIVE 09 shipped with and what the latest data is. And again, some players' tendencies may end up changing quite a bit after the first download due to the type of offense their team runs and/or the new player personnel that they have to adjust to playing with now. And again, you will see this change quite a bit depending on whether a key player is injured and a role player has to step up more, or if players get traded, or if the coach decides that a particular player needs to become a more integral part of the offense.

SHOT STREAKS

On to Streaks. We now track and show the last 5 weeks of data for each player and within this 5 weeks, when they are trending hot and when they are trending cold and how much on each side of the scale they are trending. Each point within these 5 weeks takes what a player has done for the past 10 games and compares it to how well they normally play. So for example, if Paul Pierce goes on a run of 5 straight 40 point games after having scored 20 point games for the previous 5 games, you can expect to see his streak line go up into the hot zone in a big way. If he scores 20-25 on average for a few games, the streak line will stay around the middle in the neutral zone, but if someone like Rajon Rondo scores 25 on average for a few games after having averaged 10 per game for a few games, the streak line will go up into the hot zone in a big way because he is on a hot streak compared to what you would expect to see from him on regular occasion. That is specifically related to Shot Streaks.

IMPACT STREAKS

There is also something called an impact streak where if we use Kendrick Perkins as an example, the expectation would be for him to average close to 10 rebounds a game in order to be effective. If he dips over a 10 game period so that he is only averaging 3 rebounds per game, you would see his Impact Streak go down into the cold because for a player like him, his rebounding is more important than his scoring, so his overall impact is subpar. Same for Rondo if you want to see how much of an impact he's making with Assists and Steals as an example.

TOP 10 HOT/COLD STREAKS

Again, after each download we track the players who are on the biggest streaks, hot or cold, over the last 10 days prior to the latest download, and surface that information for you to look at. So as an example, Paul Pierce could be the hottest player in the league over the course of the last 10 games. And Lamar Odom could be the coldest. So it gives you a quick snapshot of which players you may want to lean on or avoid if you are playing games with a particular team that has a player that is showing up in the Top 10 hot/cold list.

DNA RATINGS

Another feature that gets updated every time you get a new download are some of the player ratings. We do our best to get these as close to real life as possible but as soon as the season starts some of our predictions can go out the window, so as things are changing in real life, we are now able to update them to keep them as accurate as possible in-game. As an example, if Kevin Durant comes out real strong on top of what he did last year, and his scoring and rebounding numbers improve, we will be able to update the appropriate ratings for each download. When you are in the DNA Ratings screen, it will default you to the overall rating column for each player, and next to the rating will be a +/- and a number in green or red text that shows the user how much a rating went up or down between this download and the last download. So you can immediately see how much a player has changed over the course of a few days, or on a day to day basis.

TEAM DNA

Now what's really cool about all this is that you can play games using all this data. When entering a Play Now game, in the Team Select screen, you can see that we take all of the Player DNA for each individual player and use that to calculate the Team DNA for each team, so you can tell right away how particular teams like to play and run plays. So as an example, if you really like to run the Pick & Roll with the ball-carrier, you would be much more likely to choose the Celtics who run it 21% of the time, than you would the Lakers who only run it 10% of the time.

ROSTER UPDATES

Also from the Select Teams screen in Play Now, you will be able to load up any of your previously saved rosters, so for example, if I'm playing with my latest LIVE 365 roster and my favorite player is injured at that time, I can load up the default roster for what shipped for NBA LIVE 09 so that I can play a game against my friend with favorite player still active. Or if I want to play with a custom roster that I created myself I can load up that roster and play a game with that as well. This way I can easily switch back and forth between default, custom, and NBA LIVE Dynamic DNA rosters without having to leave the Play Now flow. Now if you download the latest NBA LIVE Dynamic DNA data, then you will be playing based on what is currently going on in the league, which is already very cool, but what I'm about to talk about next is extremely cool too.

NBA LIVE REWIND

This is a feature we're calling NBA LIVE Rewind. By pressing the NBA LIVE Rewind button from this screen, I can go back into time and play a game based on the DNA, Tendency, and streak data for each player and each team that was relevant for that particular game. So as an example, I can go back and play a game between the Boston Celtics and LA Lakers from November of last year, before Pau was traded to the Lakers, and the way the Lakers and Celtics players played that game is the data that the game will be played with. It will also be played with the rosters that were played with during that game as well. And you will be able to access the Box Score for each NBA LIVE Rewind game to see how each player performed and what the score for the game was to determine whether or not you want to go and play that game again.

PLAYER DNA COMPARISON

From the Select Lineups screen prior to entering a Play Now game, I can do a direct position by position comparison between each team that shows me the difference in playing styles between each positional player. So by looking at this I can see that if I'm Boston, I'm going to have to be ready to guard Pau in the Post the majority of the game, and if I'm the Lakers, I'm going to have to be ready to watch Kendrick Perkins on Cuts to the basket for the majority of the game. So this gives a little bit of insight as to how each player is going to play and how they will need to be guarded before going into each game.

STREAK INDICATORS

Also on the Select Lineups screen, I can see that Garnett has been shooting subpar and that Rondo has been shooting better than he usually does over the last 10 games. There are 5 different streak levels that a player can show here: arrow straight up and red means HOT, arrow angled and red means WARM, no arrow means NEUTRAL, arrow angled and blue means COOL, arrow straight down and blue means COLD. This streak data carries over into gameplay.

STARTING LINEUP & PLAYER OF THE GAME DNA/TENDENCIES

Before the game we show the starting lineup for each team and what their most frequently used play is and what their most frequent tendency on a specific spot on the floor is. We also show the Player DNA and Tendency DNA at the end of the game for whoever the Player Of The Game was.

TEAM DNA COMPARISON

We also show a final Team DNA comparison chart as a last reminder as to the playing styles for each team before they tip-off. We also track what the Team DNA play is doing throughout the course of the game that is being played, so at Halftime and at the end of the game, there is a comparison chart similar to the one shown before tip-off that shows the data based on the currently played game.

TENDENCY/HOT SPOT INDICATORS

So as I talked about in the Front End with tendencies, if I use Paul Pierce as an example, and if I press down on the L-Stick, I can see what his tendencies are from anywhere on the court at the same time that I can see where all of his Hot Spots are. This can be used as information for both the player that is on offense as well as the player that is on defense. As an offensive player, I can look and see where I am on the court or where I need to get to in order to be in a good shooting area for Pierce, and at the same time, I can see which of my tendencies are most like what Pierce would use in real life to get him to that good shooting area. So if Pierce is at the top of the key, I can see that if the defense is giving me space then I might want to shoot because I'm in one of his good shooting areas, but if the defense is crowding me then I would prefer to drive to my left instead of driving to right, so that is what I should try to do. As a defensive player, I can see where Pierce's good shooting areas and what his tendencies are from where he currently is and try to play defense accordingly. So if Pierce is at the top of the key, I can see that he's in a good shooting area so I'm probably going to want to guard him tight, and since I can see that he prefers driving to his left over his right from here, I'm probably going to want to guard him more to his left so that I force him to go right, which he appears to be less comfortable doing from this position on the court.

DNA/SIGNATURE PLAY CALLING

Play calling is another place where we are using real life data to figure out what plays should be called and who they should be called for. Depending on which players are on the court, each team runs a specific play for a specific player a certain percentage of the time. These plays and players will dynamically change as players are being subbed in and out of the game. Using the Boston Celtics as an example, if there are 2 plays for Paul Pierce, a play for Ray Allen, and a play for Kevin Garnett by default, and Pierce comes out of the game for James Posey, now there may be 2 plays for Allen and 2 plays for Garnett. You will always be able to see what percentage of the time each particular play is run, so it should help as a guide to see what plays teams run more than others. On top of that, every time a play is run you will see it show up in the ticker to give the user additional visibility into the fact that a play is being run right now. And also, after every made or missed basket, the tendency that was used and the percentage of time that tendency is actually used in real life will show up in the ticker, which gives you another visual cue as to whether or not that may have been the right move. So for example, if you decide to Post Up Ray Allen on the right block and he goes to his right and misses a layup, and he only goes to his right when posted up from the right block 10% of the time, then that should be a cue to you that this is not one of Ray Allen's tendencies, so it might be better and more successful to go to one of his more comfortable tendencies.

EDIT PLAYER DNA/TENDENCIES

The last thing I want to talk about is the ability that you have to edit any player's DNA and tendencies to be whatever you desire. So if you download LIVE 365 data and you decide that you want Paul Pierce to be an Isolation player 100% of the time, or you want Ray Allen to be a Spot Up shooter 100% of the time, you can make that happen. You can also do the same for tendencies, so if you want to see that Paul Pierce always tends to shoot from the top of the key when he has the ball, you can make that change. When you save these changes it will create a separate custom roster for you so that it doesn't overwrite your most recent LIVE 365 download. So this helps make it easier to go back and forth between your default, your custom, and your LIVE 365 rosters without getting confused as to which one is which.

I hope you all have benefited from getting a more in-depth perspective into the NBA LIVE 365 feature set and all that it has to offer. I will definitely be browsing the site every so often so please feel free to leave comments or questions because I am very interested in what you all have to say.

Thanks,

Nate.

Keep an eye out for more from Nate and the rest of the NBA LIVE 09 team in the coming weeks as they share what it's like behind the scenes making the game at EA Canada.