Q. We’re about a month and a half from the game’s release (Sept. 15). As a development team, where are you in the process? Are you done with just some testing and tweaking left or are there still a lot of things to work on?

RAMJAGSINGH: From a disc perspective, our disc that will go to consumers is sitting with first party; so Sony and Microsoft do a final certification of the disc before it goes live. From a tuning perspective, the great thing about being connected to the Internet is we can always update the experience; so on this Thursday (today), we have the limited access EA Sports Hockey League beta going live. The purpose of that date is to get the game into the hands of our fans to experience the EA Sports Hockey League, the first time it’s back in the game on this generation console.

It’s also an opportunity for us to get feedback on the game, take that feedback, dial in the gameplay experience, tune the different player classes that we have as part of the EA Sports Hockey League experience and react to it.

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Q. With the return of the EASHL, what are the NHL team’s hopes for the mode in its first year on next-gen consoles?

The EA Sports Hockey League has been an interesting ride for us. When NHL 15 came out and the EA Sports Hockey League wasn’t there, our core fans especially weren’t happy about that; so it was important for us to really work with them during the early design phase of the project. We worked with them closer than we probably ever have in the past. [It was] really just understanding from the guys who play that mode, what they wanted to see from the mode.

When you move to a new generation of console, unfortunately it’s not just copy and paste of everything that you’ve done the previous seven years on the old generation. It was an opportunity to start fresh. Because it was an opportunity to start fresh, we wanted to make sure that we were delivering an experience that our fans wanted, so the feedback was really important.

Early on they told us three things: One was we talked about was do you want to play as Crosby or Ovechkin or is it important that’s your name is on the back of the jersey and they wanted created characters. The second thing they wanted was an even playing field. They wanted their ability and communicate and play as a team with their buddies, their teammates that they’re playing with within the EA Sports Hockey League to be the determing factor in more games than not. So really making it skill-based and even that playing field.

On Gen-3, we had a progression system on micro transactions and you could grind and level up your character. What we found was people would immediately go in and put in their $10 or $12 to level up their character, and the reason why they were doing was to level the playing field. That’s why leveling the playing field in this new version of the EA Sports Hockey League was so important from the outset.

So what you’ll see with the EA Sports Hockey League this year to even that playing field is first of all, a lot of work on gameplay to make it fun to play from every position on the ice, making sure whether you’re playing as a forward or d-man or goalie you feel like you have a fair chance in every situation. And also the introduction of the new player classes. We have a sniper player class, a power forward, a two-way forward, grinder. If you’re playing D, we have offensive and defensive defensemen. If you’re a goalie, we have a hybrid, a standup and more of a butterfly goalie.

The third piece that was really important that came out of the feedback was just the customization. Because the created characers are so important, allowing them to really customize their character, whether it’s how you tape your stick, the color of your tape, how you tape the shaft of your stick, the top of your stick, how you tape your socks, how glossy or matte the tape is that you tape your socks with, the coloring of your skates… so really just lots of customization so you can look unique out there on the ice or you can choose to look a little more formal and uniform as a team when you’re out there.

Q. Going back to NHL 15 and its release… a lot of fans were upset with the missing modes upon release. Some were put into the game during an update, but do you wish things had gone differently last year or was just how things needed to go as you debuted on next-gen?

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