NHL 2004: Dynasty Mode Revealed
EA makes some big changes and offers gamers one of the most ambitious Franchise Mode's to date.
July 09, 2003 - We saw EA's NHL 2004 just a few weeks ago and gave you the full skinny on the gameplay with our detailed hands-on impressions. The gameplay changes and presentation upgrades certainly wowed us, but EA refused to give up any details on the fully revamped Dynasty Mode. That changed at Camp EA, where beans were spilled. And what pretty beans they were. NHL 2004's Dynasty Mode is a unique, innovative, and impressive step towards the future of sports gaming. Look out Madden, this one just may give you a run for your money.
The first General Manager RPG
Where the new Madden allows gamers to play as the owner of a team, NHL's Dynasty Mode focuses on the life of a GM. Your goal in your 20-year single-team career is to be a good enough General Manager to be inducted into the GM Hall of Fame. To do this, you'll need to earn oodles of experience points by maintaining good attendance, maximizing your team's profit margin, and (of course) winning.
The experience you earn isn't just for achieving Hall of Fame status. Experience points are used to trick out your GM office with new wallpaper, furniture, posters, and numerous other accoutrements -- The best clearly being the large stuffed bear you can situate in the corner of the office. Ah, but if that's all EXP was good for, this wouldn't be any kind of "groundbreaking" franchise mode.
Upgrades
For every 100 experience points you earn, you can purchase one upgrade for your team. Upgrades range from scouting to medical to coaching and include facility upgrades for the locker room, team travel, and gym (among others). Each item has ten upgradeable levels and each upgrade has a specific effect on your team, which is noted on the Upgrade screen.
The choices you make in upgrades (which last throughout the life of your Dynasty) will sometimes greatly affect your team. Your Medical stat affects how quickly players come back from injury. After all, better medical facilities and staff make it easier to heal a player. A good Marketing stat will increase attendance and better Team Travel will benefit morale (which we'll explain in a moment). With no upgrades to your Scouting stat, you won't be able to view a single draftee ranking, meaning your yearly draft will be done blindly. The more levels you upgrade your scouts, the more ratings you'll see come draft day.
Each stat affects morale, attendance, or player attributes. This adds an interesting level of strategy to the Dynasty Mode, because, with 10 stats to choose from, which stats you upgrade first will have a major impact on the strengths and weaknesses of your franchise.
Not only must you worry about your own upgrades, but every team in the league will be earning and spending experience points throughout the year. You can check out any other team's upgrades whenever you want. You must not only contend with your biggest rivals on the ice, but you need to worry about matching their GM moves as well. This should add ample incentive to utilize every aspect of your franchise options and actually think like a GM.
Don't get me down
Okay, so you've got to sweat the details of being a GM, but what about player management? As GM, your decisions (including hiring and firing coaches) affect player and team morale. Low morale lowers a player's abilities during a game. Attributes are dynamic and change slightly from game to game. Health, fatigue, and morale all affect a player's attributes. How do you keep morale up? Winning (duh), getting a player sufficient time on the ice, signing good players, and maintaining high attendance.
The old practice of signing free agents and immediately trading them away for draft picks won't work anymore. That's because players take notice when other players are signed and immediately sent packing. It bums 'em out. A similar dilemma comes with star players. Big time players demand lots of ice time. If you load your team with nothing but top-notch players, some of them will start playing like wooden men on the ice, because the lack of play time will lower their morale and therefore lower their attributes. Time management suddenly becomes important even when you are playing shortened periods
Practice makes for perfection
It's not all about keeping players from being pouty. In fact, much of your Dynasty Mode daily duties (aside from playing the games) involve setting up practice time. You won't actually play the practices, but you can assign practice time for any off days. You can choose from: Day off, short, medium, or long practice. Each has a statistical affect on your player attributes for upcoming games. A long practice may increase stats for the next game by two or three points, but will also lower their endurance by eight or nine points. The upgrades you purchase and your practice time management directly affects a player's overall attribute improvement at the end of the season.
At the start of your Dynasty, your facilities are sub-standard and your players therefore will play below their abilities. Purchasing upgrades and managing your personnel leads players to play above their ability level. And you thought we were lying when we said this was one impressive franchise mode!
Make money, make money, make...
Let's not kid ourselves. While every team wants to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup, the NHL is a business. Your team needs to make money in order to survive, sign free agents, and improve facilities.
NHL 2004 gives gamers full control over ticket prices and even playoff prices. With real player salaries included this year (using dollar amounts and not some obscure point system), virtual GM's must manage their profit margins. Get people in the seats, paying premium prices while keeping your player salaries at a reasonable level? Sure... should be easy.
To assist in both attendance and income, any player with a 90 or greater overall rating is considered a Prestige Player. Prestige Player's are the Roy's and Gretzky's who get people into the seats, even when the team's not doing so great. Of course, all Prestige Players expect plenty of ice time, meaning you run the risk of ruining morale by stacking your Dynasty full of the absolute highest talent.
EA was even bright enough to include TV contracts into the financial equation. At the start of the second season in your Dynasty, you'll sign a TV contract based on your first year performance and attendance. This contract will change over the years depending on your Dynasty's success.
Games reflect your Dynasty experience
Lastly, let's talk about how all of these things affect your experience on the ice. In just about every other sports game ever made, the choices you make as a GM merely affect the players you have on your team. However, in NHL 2004 your work as a GM has a clear affect that can be seen and heard in the game.
If your team isn't drawing any people, the stands will be half-empty, the cheers barely audible. The announcers will even make team-specific comments. They'll drop hints, like suggesting that Federov looks like he wants more time on the ice or mention that, while Selanne is hurt, he should be back on the ice soon. The Dynasty mode (and the choices you make in the menus) are now, finally being brought onto the ice as well.
Outlook
NHL 2004's Dynasty Mode looks awesome. Though we really need a chance to hunker down and run NHL 2004 through the paces, if things come anywhere close to our expectations, it will raise the bar for sports franchise modes. Though the ideas may seem almost too big to be managed, the interface is very simple. This is really what sports gamer's have asked for all along -- A franchise mode that actually matters.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/427/427920p2.html
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Centurion 
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