esdor

Hey NHLGamers, Earlier this week EA SPORTS hosted a NHL 19 pre-launch event in Stockholm where invited guests got the opportunity to play the game before the upcoming release. This time it was me being lucky to attend at the event during the NHL 19 Producers Tour. Other NHLGamers attending were @The_Alpha_Furyan, @Darkic01 and @PillenUpp. I got the chance to interview the lead producer of the NHL Franchise, Sean Ramjagsingh. First off, I took the time to tell him that me and many others enjoyed the NHL 19 Beta a lot. I gave them credit for the skating in the game and for making the bots less overpowered. "Yeah, I agree. The bot stuff is mostly based on feedback from our fans. We started to change the behaviour of the bots when people played super conservative letting the bots do all the work. So we knew we had to make them more balanced", Ramjagsingh responded to NHLGamer.com at the NHL 19 event in Stockholm. Continue reading for the entire interview! Esdor: "How are EA going to promote NHL as an esport in the future?" Ramjagsingh: "We are still relatively new in the world of competitive gaming. We are pushing forward with Madden and FIFA right now but we took our first step this year with the World Gaming Championship. The NHL was in charge of that. This first tournament was mainly about testing and learning for us about how to host a big event. We got great feedback from the players participating. We got a feeling for the appetite of competitive gaming within the NHL Community. We were able to launch it in multiple different territories in North America and Europe as well. We got loads of feedback from the fans about what they want to see, what modes we should be using. Versus, Hockey Ultimate Team or EA SPORTS Hockey League. Now we will put our heads together with the NHL to figure out what is next." Esdor: "Is there an option to have one tournament in Versus and one in EASHL for example?" Ramjagsingh: "It's a great question. Tbd (to be determined) is probably the answer right now. We are still trying to figure out what our plan is moving forward. I think we saw great success with the individual versus experience, but when you look at what our community wants right now we see a lot of our core players asking for 6v6. When there are no bots involved, it's truly skill versus skill in that mode. We take all that into consideration as we build up our plans for the future." Esdor: "Have you considered hosting a tournament at an event like Dreamhack?" Ramjagsingh: "Tournaments is something that we look at when we decide about our competitive gaming strategy. All kind of tournaments kind of fall under competitive gaming - not only the World Gaming Championship -, but also smaller community tournaments, and tournaments for casual players as well." Esdor: "Will there be a challenge team option for playing 3v3 games in EASHL?" Ramjagsingh: "We are working on that right now. It's not there when the game is released, but it's on our roadmap for the upcoming months." Esdor: "Will the division packs be better this year in HUT?" Ramjagsingh: "We actually started fresh this year with a lot of our economy redesigned, and pack contents are a part of that. This year we are starting our players much much lower so there is more room to grow. We have reworked the content that is in all of our packs. So you can essentially get any of our best players from any pack available." Esdor: "Will you make it easier to apply many contracts at the same time in HUT?" Ramjagsingh: "We made some improvements there as well, to the contracts and the healing cards." Esdor: "Am I able to do giveaways as a streamer?" Ramjagsingh: "Giveaways are tbd. I don't have the latest information on that to let you know. I'm not sure where we stand at the moment when it comes to giveaways. The piece that we got to be careful is about the trades. Because people will exploit stuff if they can. It's not necessarily the streamers doing giveaways we want to find, it's more about the guys that abuse the system that we need to be careful with." Esdor: "Are wager matches possibly coming back again in the future?" Ramjagsingh: "No. We still stand by that - it's the gambling part of it that we want to stay away from." Esdor: "Have you thought about adding a logic that kicks idle players from HUT and Versus games?" Ramjagsingh: "We get that question a lot. Definitely something that we are looking at. We have been talking about players going idle in all different game modes, not just for Hockey Ultimate Team." Esdor: "Will you be able to see your opponents username before starting a match?" Ramjagsingh: "Yes you will. It's a challenge for us to make it work when people are dodging so much. People want to pick and choose their spots in some kind of try to maximize their time playing the game without taking losses. What we have done though is improving the matchmaking system. So hopefully you will get matched with someone that is at a similar skill level." Esdor: "What about cross-play between consoles when it comes to NHL?" Ramjagsingh: "That is up to Sony and Microsoft to decide. We are starting to see games like Fortnite making cross-platform possible, but that is a bigger conversation with our first party partners and not something that we can change on our own." Esdor: "Why is NHL not using the Frostbite engine like FIFA and Madden?" Ramjagsingh: "We will get there eventually. Moving over to Frostbite is almost like a console transition. It's a massive technology change. We are able to learn from FIFA and their transition to Frostbite, so we can have a smoother journey when we move over to Frostbite too. From a company perspective it's our one engine strategy, so it's just a matter of time. Now we are laying the ground work so we can hopefully get there in the near future." Esdor: "Why is there no feature that allows you to play a league together with your online friends?" Ramjagsingh: "It's something that we have heard from a lot of our fans actually, asking for tournaments or a feature where you can set up a league that track stats and things like that. This is something that we have on our to do list but there is no ETA (estimated time of arrival) yet. It is definitely something that we are looking into in the future." Esdor: "How come you can't take a timeout without going into the menus?" Ramjagsingh: "We are out of buttons, that is the main reason. There is not a faster way for us to do that. It's not ideal but we are just out of buttons." BarreBoza, @Darkic01, @esdor, Sean "Rammer" Ramjagsingh, Evan Dexter and @PillenUpp in Stockholm That's it from Stockholm, but stay tuned for our coverage from Helsinki, which should be dropping in the next few days! For NHLGamer.com @esdor

Hello NHLGamers, The ECL 5 Pro season was an exciting battle from the very start, until the overtime winner in game 7 of the finals. Let's start with the group stage: Group 1 In this group all of the top 3 teams from The_Alpha_Furyan'ss ECL Pro Preview made it to the playoffs. Gotham Knights and SIKA ended up in the top 2 during the regular season and White Trash finished 6th in the group. Group 1 was tighter than group 2, with only 13 points between Gotham Knights - that won the group - and Murohoki and Black Panther Party, who finished in 9th and 10th place and just barely missed the playoffs. When you look at the bottom of the table you find Squirt Hockey, Nemesis and Bare Knuckles Hockey. All of these 3 teams had to play Relegation games to try their best to stay in the Pro division. If you go through the personal stats in this group, we have the Inter Iceland duo @Stefan_397 (88p) and @Playmaker1010 (83p) at the top. Both of them had big roles for their team that finished the regular season in 3rd place. My teammates and I in Lavetten got a painful reminder of how good that duo can be when Inter Iceland slaughtered us 10-0 and Stefan racked up 4+6 and Playmaker 3+4 in that game. After that devastating loss, Lavetten managed to play so much better in the second half of the season without me. I was really impressed by the guys on my team when they ended the season with 12 wins and 2 OT losses being the hottest team in the second half of the season in Group 1. Best goalie stats-wise in group 1 was - the star goalie from SIKA - @SpiderRoyal with a 15-5-1 record and an 83.01 save percentage. Group 2 In group 2 the two favorites Unlucky Boys HC and Shameful Knights did not disappoint their expectations finishing first and second. These two teams and Nordic Stars - who finished third - managed to score more than 100 goals each in the regular season. In group 1 there was only one team that scored over 100 goals (107 Inter Iceland). Looking at the bottom of the table you will find Banterfield Battalion, GHETTO FIREBIRDS and Bellizzi. Baltic Sea Eagles started out the season very well, being undefeated for the first 10 games, before losing two straight games against Nordic Stars. Unlucky Boys HC started the season very well as well, by winning their first 8 games only letting in 9 goals in those games. The top scorer in group 2 was @sweatyfathoe99 from Unlucky Boys HC with an impressive 54 goals and 30 assists in 28 games. Hullued from Shameful Knights was the best goalie in group 2 with a 25-4-0 record and an 81.81 save percentage. Playoffs Round 1 I must say I was surprised when Shameful Knights lost in the first round against Falun Coal Miners as well as when SIKA lost in the first round against The United Knights. Apart from those series the other ones were very even; Pata Hellalla managed to turn around the series completely after being down 2-0. Sadly, after losing to Pata Hellalla in the playoffs, Lavetten decided to disband. Gotham Knights beat LITE up-and-comers J P T J, Inter Iceland won against En Hund, Evolution beat Baltic Sea Eagles in an intense series that went go game 7, Unlucky Boys HC beat Alliance HT and in the last series Nordic Stars beat White Trash. Quarter Finals In the second round, Falun Coal Miners kept on impressing by beating another top team, as Nordic Stars lost in game . Unlucky Boys showed how good they are by sweeping The United Knights comfortably 4-0. Pata Hellalla beat Gotham Knights 4-3 and Evolution won against Inter Iceland 4-2 Semifinals In the semifinals it was Evolutions turn to show what a good team they are by beating Pata Hellalla 4-0. In the other series Falun Coal Miners did not manage to beat a third top ranked team and Unlucky Boys HC won the series 4-2. Finals The finals in the ECL 5 Pro playoffs was something special. Evolution got the best start being up 2-1 in games. However, Unlucky Boys managed to turn around the series with two wins in a row and Evolution had a lot of pressure going into the last day of the final series being down 3-2 in games. After a 2-0 win in game 6, Evolution managed to win game 7 after a OT goal from their new super signing I_EKI_I. Congratulations to Evolution for winning ECL Pro! After the very exiting finals in ECL Pro where Evolution managed to win this thrilling series that went to game 7, I asked Evolution Captain @Crisu_rottis about their impressive season: Playoff stats I_EKI_I (@Erkki) showed what a good signing he was from the Elite team MUKIMIEHET, leading his new Evolution team to the title in ECL Pro. I_EKI_I had the most points in the entire playoffs with 46 points (20+26), Stefan_397 from Inter Iceland was second with 42 points (22+20) and Sweatyfathoe99 was third with 40 points (25+15). Looking at the goalie stats we find two goalies from the teams in the finals, @SepiDN from Evolution, first with a 80.09 save percentage and @eissi83 from Unlucky Boys HC, with a 81.44 save percentage. Summary: Synergy Hockey was relegated from ECL Elite together with Nordic Lightning. After losing many players to other teams Synergy are merging together with Dead End Kings. Lavetten disbanded after only two seasons in ECL. Relegated teams from Elite to Pro Synergy Hockey Nordic Lightning New teams from Lite to Pro Nordic Nosebleed Almost Famous Raging Monkeys Red Machine

Hi fellow NHLGamers. Like many of you guys know the IS Cup was played about a week ago in Helsinki. I want to say thanks to everyone involved and to all the Finnish guys in the community that made me feel very welcome. Now to the more important stuff, the actual gaming. On the first day of the tournament, players that did not make it to the main tournament through the online qualifiers had a chance to qualify. 64 players got divided into two different knockout brackets. The winner of the first bracket was hardly surprising, as on top came @Dominointi after beating @Rimpe in the final. In the other bracket a more (to me) unknown player made it all the way to the group stage of the IS Cup Finals. @MUFASAN-VALITTU won the second bracket after beating Kaneyh (@Kane) in the final. The final 16 competed in the IS Cup Finals on Saturday and the first phase was for the TOP 8 to make it through the group stage. The 16 players were split into four groups and below is how things went down: Group stage Group 1: In my opinion this group was the group of death. I_Eki_I (@Erkki) had a lot of pressure going into the tournament after finishing second in the eSM (Finnish Championships) and after beating @willekunq in the final of the online qualifier. I_Eki_I got a very good start in the first game against Dominointi with an early 4-0 lead that Dominointi never managed to recover from. I_Eki_I won the game 6-3. Dominointi got his revenge on @xDoumi after losing to him in the online qualifiers but that game was not the most important in their careers since both of them were out already after losing to @SadaPoika and I_Eki_I. Sadapoika impressed me by beating Dominointi as well and won the group after beating I_Eki_I in the last game with a score of 4-3. Group 2: In this group I expected @Hansulinho to win comfortably, but I was so wrong. Hansulinho lost his first game 6-4 to @Dreamickie and @Leksa94 lost his first game to @Nikeez98 3-2. SJK eSports teammates Hansulinho and Leksa94 were now up against each other in a game that would mean that one of them were out of the tournament. Leksa had the lead until there was only 2,3 seconds left of the game. It was unreal how Hansulinho was only 2,3 seconds away from being eliminated. It´s even more impressive the way he scored in that crucial moment. Hansu scored a spectacular goal after a difficult saucer pass when he tied the game 2-2. Hansu managed to win the game in overtime. Dreamickie impressed and won the group after a perfect 3 wins. Hansulinho joined Dreammickie into the top 8 knockouts after beating Nikeez98 5-0 in their last game of the group stage. Group 3: The Finnish Champion @eskoeinari managed to win this group after an impressive 3 straight wins. Buranaburana (@[email protected]) followed him into the playoffs after beating both @Kim_20_00_ and @JaKurrii. It was great to see the skill of the players participating in live-tournaments and to see that there are so many good players, for example JaKurri made it to the semifinals in eSM but now in IS Cup he did not manage to win any of the three group stage games. Group 4: This group was the one that I had the least knowledge about upfront. I must say that I am impressed by MUFASAN-VALITTU winning this group after he secured his spot the day before. MUFASAN-VALITTU did participate in the eSM but he did not make it to the top 8 in that tournament. @Kemppane_ took the other top 8 spot from group 4 after beating @kojowaa 4-1. Quarterfinals In the first quarterfinal Hansulinho beat Sadapoika 2-0 in games after winning the second game 4-3 in OT. The most entertaining quarterfinal was between Dreamickie and I_Eki_I. Dreamickie managed to win the first game 5-3. The second game in the series was the craziest game in this tournament I would say. Dreammickie managed to come back into the game after being down 3-1. With around 4 minutes left Dreammickie scored 6-5 that was so close of being the game series winning goal, but somehow I_Eki_I managed to equalize with only 13 seconds left. I_Eki_I won the game in OT after being very close to be out of the tournament. In the third game I_Eki_I won the game 4-2 to secure his spot in the semifinals. In the third quarterfinal the Finnish champion eskoeinari beat Kemppane 2-0 in games after two close games (3-2, 4-2). Last quarterfinal was played between MUFASAN-VALITTU and buranaburana. The first game of the series was very close. buranaburana had the 3-1 lead, but MUFASAN-VALITTU made it back into the game and took the game into OT. In the OT buranaburana scored to make the series 1-0 in his favor. buranaburana won the second game with the same result 4-3 in regulation time. 2-0 in the series for buranaburana took him to the semifinals. Semifinals First out in the semfinals was the series between buranaburana and eskoeinari. The question was if buranaburana was going to get revenge against eskoeinari after losing to him in the semfinal of the eSM. The answer was no. Exactly like in eSM, the series went to a third game where eskoeinari was able to win and go through to the final. eskoeinari won 2-1 in game 3. The second semifinal between the 5x Finnish champion Hansulinho and I_Eki_I was going to be something special. In Hansulinho's latest live apperance he lost the semifinal against Pleemaker in the IS Cup last year. I_Eki_I has become very experienced at events like this after being in the final of both the eSM and the IS Cup last year. I_Eki_I managed to win game 1 with 5-4 in OT. After that Hansu won two straight games with 3-1 that took him to the final. Final The reigning Finnish champion Eskoeinari against the five-time former Finnish champion Hansulinho. I was hoping for a series that would go to game 3 but Hansulinho wanted something else. Hansulinho won both finals with the score of 4-2. In the second game Hansulinho found Crosby in the perfect spot to make it 3-2 in the game, that goal was the game winning goal that made Hansulinho the Champion of IS Cup this year. Enjoy the short after movie that was made by Ilta-Sanomat of this event. Below you can find the final results of the IS Cup 2 Final tournament: Place Player Prize 1. Hannes "Hansulinho" Kettunen 2000 € 2. Juho "eskoeinari" Sillantaus 1000 € 3.-4. Erik "I_EKI_I" Tammenpää 500 € 3.-4. Sami "buranaburana" Piiparinen 500 € 5.-8. Jim "Sadapoika" Leskinen 250 € 5.-8. Vesa "Dreamickie" Rajamäki 250 € 5.-8. Jesse "MUFASAN_VALITTU" Ruuskanen 250 € 5.-8. Juuso "Kemppane_" Kemppainen 250 € 9.-12. Juho "kojowaa" Törmälä 125 € 9.-12. Kim "Kim_20_00" Suokas 125 € 9.-12. Nikolas "Nikeez98" Hämäläinen 125 € 9.-12. Risto "Dominointi" Järvi 125 € 13.-16. Aaro "xDoumi" Ruuhinen 125 € 13.-16. Leo "Leksa94" Torri 125 € 13.-16. Jussi "JaKurrii" Koivuniemi 125 € 13.-16. Antero "xSelanne8x" Enbuske 125 € We want to thank the players and everyone who showed up to enjoy themselves and show their support. Together we are strong, so let this only be the beginning! Text by: @esdor Edited by: @Kenu Video: Ilta-Sanomat (Sorry for the poor quality of the group photo, we don't know why a potato was used to take this photo. Also, next time, let's get everyone in there!)

Hey NHL Gamers! On Monday, the 28th of August, EA SPORTS hosted a press event in Stockholm ahead of the release of NHL 18. NHLGamer was invited to this event and this time I got the opportunity to keep you guys updated on everything that happened. Regular staff member @The_Alpha_Furyan also attended the event, however this time in his role as eSports ambassador for the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). Among the guests we also saw other NHLGamer members, such as "Synergy Hockey" defenseman @Supremski, "Unknown" defensemen @Pontus T (aka "Terasniska") and "Lavetten" forward and captain @Zalaz as well as many other top players from the Swedish community and plenty of journalists. The day started off with an introduction to new game features by EA SPORTS NHL producers Clement Kwong and Evan Dexter, before it was time to get some hands-on experience ourselves. What we got to see was an impressive gaming lounge setup with a total of 12 PlayStation 4 consoles, six on each side, all running a final build of NHL 18. Imagine playing the 6 vs. 6 ECL Elite finals in here? That honestly sounds like a dream come true. One of my personal highlights of the day was playing the new THREES game mode, when Clement and Evan also decided to jump in on the action - it was so much fun! We also used the opportunity to talk to Clement Kwong and Evan Dexter for a short interview, addressing some of the questions and feedback that were submitted to NHLGamer via the website and social media channels. We will also release a second interview from the event which took place in Helsinki the day after shortly, so make sure you stay tuned for that as well! Here's what we have been talking about: Q: You have lowered the overall player ratings in Versus for NHL18. What about Hockey Ultimate Team? Towards the end of a game's life cycle, we usually got a lot of players with a 99 rating. Will we see a similar result at the end of NHL 18, or will the best players be rated lower there as well? A: We haven't released all of the HUT ratings yet, only a few ones. In terms of player items and ratings it will work pretty much similar to last year's game from launch onwards, e.g. when it comes to valuable card types like Movember and Team Of The Year. Though we do understand that people think there are too many 99 rated player items in the game, the reality is there aren't that many. They are meant for the elite tier of players that can either buy them from the auction house or obtain them from playing plenty of games, so not a lot of players can actually get their hands on a card like that. When you take a step back and look at the impact of lowering some of the overall ratings, you will find greater separation between low-tier and mid-tier players. Compared to this, higher tier players do not make as much of a difference. Q: A controversial topic for us NHLGamers lately has been spamming the L1 button instead of using poke checks or hits to create takeaways. Are you aware of this technique and are you planning to do anything about it? A: That is where the defensive skillstick is a big gamechanger, because you can start angling people off and extend your stick or sweep it to cover passing and shooting lanes. Hopefully what that will do is add another toolset to properly defend instead of spamming shotblock (L1). One of the biggest reasons that you see this spam is the limited defensive toolset in previous games: You could poke check, shotblock or dive shotblock. The goal with the defensive skillstick is to be able to have independent control of your stick from your lower and upper body separation, so if you have stronger fidelity in terms of being able to guide an attacker in one direction while also not leaving an open lane because now you can actually control your stick, then I think you probably will see less of the shotblock spam just because the toolset now is wider. That is the goal at least. Q: Did you consider adding additional counter-measures to this technique, such as a one second cooldown for the L1 animation? A: We have not considered it at this time but we will see if there is any community-based feedback in this matter when we launch the game. I think it will be too heavy-handed to make all shot block attempts having a one second cooldown. Point being, we will take a look at all gameplay feedback we can get. (Don't worry, we still talked to them about the L1-spam in Helsinki the day after.) Q: Personally, I have been affected quite a bit by players "de-syncing", also known as "looping" Hockey Ultimate Team games, so they are quit without showing up on any leaderboards. Are you aware of this issue and how does the team deal with these cheaters? A: One of the things we even have done this year is really ramp up the security effort. Obviously having game live service is very important for us, and as a part of that we have been monitoring Competitive Seasons cheating. We actually have a team that has been enforcing measures like sending reminders and handing out temporary bans, just to name a few examples. I think it has provided a healthier Competitive Seasons experience for all our players, and in NHL 18 that will continue to be our focus. Q: You added a couple new leagues to NHL 18. How does the process of adding European leagues generally work? Does the dev team usually take the first steps, or is it the league's representatives that are looking for ways to be part of the game? A: Every year we are looking into new partners and new leagues to add to the game. A big part of it is obviously the authenticity of the sport, as there are many hockey leagues in the world, not only the ones in North America. Staying authentic to the sport is a very important consideration for us. We are also listening to what content our core fans want and what leagues they want to see in the game. It's more of a partnership with us and the league than them coming to us or we coming to them. Good example of that is Champions Hockey League this year. We are very exited to have all the licenses for all these team ready, in order for us to support a new tournament that people are watching across Europe. Having CHL in the game is a big opportunity for us. There are a lot of community requests that we have to evaluate in terms of what our fans want the most and in terms of which opportunities for new partnerships we have. We try to add new experiences and new leagues to play with every year. Luckily this time we got HockeyAllsvenskan and Champions Hockey League. Q: How did you come up with the idea of adding a 3 vs. 3 arcade mode with NHL THREES? A: One of the things we looked at early on was research of what our players want. Not only what they think about our game, but also what they think about hockey as a sport in general. When we asked our players about their most memorable video game experiences, they talked about things like NHL 94, NFL Street or NBA Jam. Those types of games were easy to pick up and to play with your friends. Those are the kind of experiences that people still talk about. Some of the guys in our development team still play games like the ones I just mentioned. Combining our goal of bringing new experiences as well as understanding how our players approach sports video games is the way we came up with adding NHL THREES. Q: Can you talk about the new HUT Challenges feature in Hockey Ultimate Team? Will they be an integral part of the game mode's experience? A: I believe the challenges will be a big thing in HUT this year. In NHL 17, we started to introduce post launch features, and combining that with sets everything is now themed from a week to week basis. HUT challenges just adds another layer and dimension to that so a lot of the rewards you will see coming out of the challenges will help you to complete sets. HUT as it is right now is very geared towards online competition, so having challenges come in gives fans that like to play HUT but don't necessarily want to play in an online competitive arena more ways to engange with that mode and allows them to be able to enjoy the dynamic content throughout the year outside of a competitive environment. Q: A lot of fans playing the game want to see the return of GM Connected. What is the reason it did not make its way into NHL 18? A: We get that question a lot. It's funny, because when we had that mode in the game it was not a very commonly played mode. Since it got removed from the game we have had lots of requests of bringing it back into the game so it's something we talk about pretty heavily every year. It has never been off our table completely. We still look at it, but we always want to prioritize what we think is best for the development of the game. We will take it sort of year by year to continue looking at it. For NHL 18, our focus was on 3 vs. 3 and to bring more of the new NHL into the game. Talking to different fans, obviously one part is managing a virtual league with your teams. But another big part is actually the social piece like we have in EASHL. So this year we were adding to that with all the 3 vs. 3 modes across the game. In terms of taking the best pieces of GM Connected and what people appreciate, that's where we need to spend more time with research. Q: What is the EA SPORTS NHL team doing in terms of trying to make the game more attractive as an eSport? A: FIFA has sort of gone first in terms of what EA wants to achieve in competitive gaming. I think they are trying out really interesting things that our fans are into, like FUT Champions for example. It has been really successful and the fans are really enjoying it, so I think from our perspective we are trying to learn from FIFA as in how to apply it to NHL in a way that fits the product. There are different directions that we could take. We could look into it as an EASHL team based experience or 1 vs. 1 HUT based experience, and I think we need to figure out which direction is right for this franchise. We need to evaluate how FIFA and other franchises are doing before we pick a direction. Q: After FIFA, Madden NFL has been adopting the Frostbite engine this year. Why has NHL not made the switch yet? A: The answer to that question is very similar to the eSport question. Frostbite is something that we will look at in FIFA and Madden to learn from, also keeping community feedback in mind. We will continue to evaluate the engine and when it makes sense we will figure out what it actually would mean to the NHL franchise. Is it just better graphics? Or is it enabling us to make brand new experiences in both offline and online modes? We need to figure out where we want to take it. Q: What is the reason you allow players to lock their position in 1 vs. 1 modes such as Hockey Ultimate Team? A: We want players to be able to play the game the way they want, and a lot of people do enjoy the player locked experience. In terms of the way it affects the overall balance of competitive gaming: For more casual games it's OK to position lock, but not for Competitive Season games - that is where we have seen feedback indicating it's not the best solution. It's something the team and I have started to talk about and we will look at it this year. That's it, we hope you enjoyed it! Stay tuned for the second interview which will be released on our YouTube channel. @esdor for NHLGamer.com Follow us on social media! Facebook (NHLGamer) Twitter (NHLGamerCOM) YouTube (NHLGamer Official) Instagram (NHLGamerOfficial) Twitch (NHLGamerTwitch)