http://www.2ksports.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188310
Here are a few highlights:
Removal of Ranked Lobbies
This year in thinking about how to handle ranked games and our Leaderboards we decided to make all Ranked games blind. Ranked games are meant to be highly competitive games in a tournament type setting. The point is to win to get to the top of the Leaderboard, period. If users can pick out there opponents that tournament setting is compromised. With blind Ranked matches people cant find users who are less experienced and play them over and over again to move up the Leaderboard.
We anticipated the want for the community to be able to scout opponents and we encourage that, which is why we have a match list where you can view the player card of your opponent before joining a game with them. While these arent ranked games this is a setting for the hard core crowd that is looking for a particular experience. If you want a player who plays a certain way or is at a certain level of experience you can find that in the Player Match list. We provide more slider and gameplay options than we ever have before in creating matches so you can tailor your game exactly the way you want it.
The camera questions
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We took a hard look at all camera angles and only provided the angles we found to produce the best performance online. We have heard the concerns from the community in not having that angle as an option and are looking into a way to bring that back in the future.
Playing a friend
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While we dont have the play a friend option this year it is still very easy to play against your friends. To do this on 360 select Player Match from the main online menu. From here you can select to Create a match. From there you can select to make your game private and after creation you will have the opportunity to pick any of the friends off of your friends list to invite to your game.
You should also know that when ever you create a match in this way, even if its not private you can invite your friends whenever you like after creation. On top of that if a friend selects your name off of their friends list and you have created a match they can simply select join match in progress through the Xbox 360 Guide and join the match you created. This works for head to head matches and Team-Up matches.
Server issues
We are proud to announce this is the biggest launch we have seen online EVER. Which is very exciting for us but as you can tell it has exposed some growing pains on the server.
We have gone with a completely revamped server to better support 5on5. On launch day, the massive number of people online uncovered unexpected issues that we have been working around the clock to fix. We expect ongoing server performance improvements daily and by the end of the week to provide a high level online experience our 2K fans expect and deserver.
Leagues
VCSister - IN regards to League games, is there a lobby in which to play people that are available. As you know last year we would go to the league lobby to see if people were there waiting on a game. If this is not the case then how will that work.
VCsis: Yes. When you enter your league you'll see your next 5 opponents at the top of the league home page, press to the right and you'll continue to see your future opponents. Anyone who is online will be marked with their team logo, and you can challege any of them to a custom match if you'd like. You can also press down on the D pad and get a view of just the league members that are online and able to recieve challenges right now
