College Hockey

[Dave Hansen]

Been playing OOTP since v4. As this is the 9th iteration of this hockey sim and with the addition of NCAA I am seriously considering purchasing.

I am not at all interested in the NHL portion...only the college game.

So with that in mind...how is the college experience? For those with experience...what do you see are the pros and cons? How close is the sim to the management experience of OOTP? Buy now or wait for patches, etc? TXS.

[tomkmb]

Originally Posted by Dave Hansen

Been playing OOTP since v4. As this is the 9th iteration of this hockey sim and with the addition of NCAA I am seriously considering purchasing.

I am not at all interested in the NHL portion...only the college game.

So with that in mind...how is the college experience? For those with experience...what do you see are the pros and cons? How close is the sim to the management experience of OOTP? Buy now or wait for patches, etc? TXS.

I suppose that are a lot of factors to consider for this decision.

Discounting questions such as "How much time do you spend gaming?" and "How much is $35USD to you?"

I will say that I've been really enjoying the addition of the NCAA stuff this year. What other college games are you used to? I only ask as because quite often the allure of a college themed game is the 'mini game' within the game of recruiting, if you're used to a more hands on point distribution system like NCAA 14 or Draft Day Sports College Football or even a more player interaction based recruitment system like Draft Day Sports College Basketball then I would say that the recruiting in this game very different to those and could take some getting used to. As shown in a YT video by a content creator recently who had come from those games as a background, the recruiting can feel a little more 'out of your control'.

I will caveat all of this by saying that I am really enjoying the recruiting in the game, whilst it may be considered more 'passive' in comparison to those other more min-max style recruiting mechanics it provides sufficient challenge when building your roster as you can never totally be sure of who you are going to get 100%, so even if a guy is local to you and you've got a good academic system etc and he likes that, there may be another factor like he perceives too much competition at his desired position that leads him to sign with another school or numerous other factors (Jeff outlined some of these in a response to a thread I made entitled College FAQ's I think). So there is always that element that keeps you on your toes as a GM, which really helps make this feel different from the normal NHL mode as usually you can just pick a guy up in FA or trade whenever you like.

How does it compare to OOTP? Well, I've played a lot of OOTP too and when I first came to this franchise I keep thinking "Hey, why can't this be like OOTP for this bit or that bit" and I think it's best to not frame it up against OOTP if you're a newcomer to the game purely because it's a much smaller team and is a great deal younger in it's development lifecycle than OOTP but there are UI similarities and overall it feels like a game made under the OOTP developments umbrella. It just doesn't have the customisability and scope of some aspects of OOTP which is understandable at this stage.

If you're only in it for college hockey i'd say that the pros are:
Fun challenge with recruiting and team building
core gameplay is the same as any other league like tactics and games etc so that's good with me

cons which aren't really cons because there are mods etc:
no official logos or jerseys (logos already a mod and I'm sure jerseys is just a matter of time)

cons that are a work in progress:
some people have highlighted that some college schedules arent correct but Jeff has already addressed that saying that he had finalised the schedules before some irl changes so that will get looked at in the near future I assume.

Like all games at launch there have been things reported as bugs or stuff that needs looking at but Jeff and his team are always on top of it and get fixes done for the most important stuff, then they have a couple of bigger content updates too that are done twice in the games lifecycle so that's also a pro in my book.

So I'd boil it down to, "Hey, if you get a dollar per hour of enjoyment then I'd say it's worth it". Worst case scenario you buy it and play for a while and decide it's not for you and you can get a refund.

[Dave Hansen]

Thanks for all the insights...yes I like the hands on recruiting mini game you mentioned from Wolverine Studios games.

I have always played out each of my games in OOTP...to me that is where the immersion on a day-to-day basis comes in...I never sim.

The last question is...how is the in- game 2D play...in terms of hands on decision making...to me that's what OOTP makes great. Envolvement is the key...not just being a spectator to the action on the field.

[tomkmb]

Originally Posted by Dave Hansen

Thanks for all the insights...yes I like the hands on recruiting mini game you mentioned from Wolverine Studios games.

I have always played out each of my games in OOTP...to me that is where the immersion on a day-to-day basis comes in...I never sim.

The last question is...how is the in- game 2D play...in terms of hands on decision making...to me that's what OOTP makes great. Envolvement is the key...not just being a spectator to the action on the field.

I'm very much a sim style GM, so I am not the right person to be giving any in depth view into that. Perhaps someone who plays out all of their games like JumpSeat will weigh in with their take on that one!