I don't think that's a lame question. I don't know, either.

It's Bear-ee

I'm glad I asked. I would've figured it was the other way around.

Oh, jeez, I just looked at the upcoming eligible draftees, and there's a kid who's played in 55 games this year who has 210 points. He's going to be playing college hockey at Minnesota next season. I have no intention of drafting him, but those numbers are through the roof.

Is it Phil Kessel?

He's the American Sidney Crosby...

What's his name?

Who would that be, Pumpy?

I have Kessel in my Caps dynasty. He is excellent. Exxxxxcellent.... I play him at RW rather than center, because his faceoff skill is so low (under 10). Hasn't slowed him down a bit.

Haha, I should've known that everyone would be asking. It's Kyle Okposo. In my dynasty, Kessel is having a marginal season at Minnesota, although I expect him to improve a little bit.

Back to my Russian goalie Tryanichev, I'm looking for some defensive help going into the playoff run. I'm on the day of the trade deadline, so I'll probably spend all my time today trying to work out a deal or two. Tom Preissing is having a decent season for a bad Washington team, and all the Caps are asking for is the rights to defenseman Marek Chvatal (a 2002 draft pick who'll never make my team) and the rights to good ol' Tryanichev. Now, as I said in my last post, it doesn't look like Tryanichev will ever play for me, just because he's not getting enough experience. I don't know if I want to make this deal, though. It's just Tom Preissing. Decisions, decisions.

Yeah, I didn't think it'd be Kessel since he's slated to play at the college level in 2005.

Alas, Kyle Okposo. In my Everett Silvertips game, we have his CHL rights, but he "Wants to play US college hockey" so we can't sign him. He looks like he could be good at this level though with 70 goals and 56 assists in 60 games! (and an average rating of 8.73) He is #2 rated Top Prospect on our team behind Peter Mueller, who is also wanting to play US college hockey.

As an aside, IRL Peter Mueller has broken his commitment to the University of Minnesota and is going to play for the Silvertips this fall. With he and Zach Hamill centering the top two lines, they might actually score some goals this year!

do you guys recommend to use the unfake 1.2 that came out?

Started a new season tonight w/ the Kings. My top two lines are:

Straka / Lindros / Dustin Brown
Robitaille / Conroy / Belanger

Nothing special, but decent.

So far, I'm 4-4-2

Here are the results:

0-2 (Loss)
2-3 (Loss)
2-3 (Loss)
2-2 (Tie) (Lindros goes down w/ Injury)
2-5 (Loss)
3-1 (Win)
4-3 (Win)
4-1 (Win) (v. #1 Colorado)
2-2 (Tie)
4-1 (Win) (v. #1 Colorado)

I'm thinking the coaching changes (3 or 4 areas worked on instead of all 7 or 8) have a lot to do with this.

Anyone have any tips for getting Sidney Crosby to produce? I took the Coyotes and wound up with the first and second overall picks in the '05 draft. We've steadily improved every year since, but it's mid-season 2008 and although the media seems to think Crosby is the shiznit, and my scouts rate him off the charts, here are his career numbers thus far:

Season GP G A PTS +/- AvR
--------------------------------------------------
05-06 81 28 32 60 17 7.73
06-07 71 26 26 52 10 7.70
07-08 52 19 18 37 02 7.54

Obviously those numbers aren't awful, but he's not really improving. Here are my forward lines:

Saprykin Crosby Brule
Nagy Nedved Perry
Dawes W. Primeau Okposo
Doan Latendresse Keefe

(If you're wondering why Doan is on the 4th line, we had a contract dispute and he has just come back to the lineup in the last week, so he's not in game-shape yet. I'm also trying to trade him as his new contract has pushed me over budget, so I don't want to mess up my top couple lines for what is likely only 10 or so games of action for him).

I've tried lots of different things, but currently the tactics for Crosby's line are:
Attacking
Mixed
Behind the Net
Neutral Zone Trap
Zonal
Hard
Easy
Normal
Mixed

His personal tactics are all defaults.

Anyways, anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to improve Crosby's numbers?

Fidatelo

the key is your practice screen. Be sure that coaches are assign to 3 or 4 areas only instead of the default 7/8 areas.

That and remember....

Is your team good offensively? How do you rate on a year-by-year basis in total goals scored versus the rest of the league?

I've managed the Buffalo Sabres for a couple years. We don't have any superstars by any means, yet I've led the league in goal scoring both years. I use an Attacking philosophy but use 'Passing' instead of 'Mixed' and 'Crash the Net' instead of 'behind the net'. This goes against the idea that you need big centres to run the Crash the Net system, as my Sabres pivots are all undersized (Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, Tim Connolly).

However, I find that my team scores a LOT of rebound goals because of this system. You should give it a try for 10 games and see how it works.

Oh yeah, I'd also suggest playing a power forward with Crosby; Saprykin and Brule aren't the biggest guys in the world and Sidney would likely benefit from the open space a bigger guy could provide.

jb, how big of an impact do you really think that has? Yes, it has been mentioned that it's best to manually tweak this part of the game, but we're not talking about anything key. If it was key you can bet that riz would probably do something about it. We're only talking about maximizing a player's potential. Tactics have a *lot* more to with the production of a player.

Unless you are a big believer in the butterfly effect, it's not that big of a deal.

I have 3 assistants plus my head coach. Here are their practice settings:

T. Nolan -> Skating, Tactics, Off Skills
J. Barlow -> Conditioning, Def Skills
D. Lane -> Conditioning, Shooting
K. Owens -> Conditioning, Goalies

However, I did have "Let head coach take control of practice" set to yes... so what does it mean that he won't handle everything on the screen? Everything looks ok to me...

We are not good offensively at all. We tend to be in the bottom 1/3 of the league all the time. My leading scorer has only once has more than a point-per-game total (Nagy last year with 84), and most years is in the 60-65 point range. Doan has frustrated me as much as Crosby, with 33, 34, and 48 point campaigns since I started as GM. He should be getting 60+ consistently.

On your advice I have moved my lines around a bit, they now look like this:

Nagy Crosby Doan
Saprykin Brule Perry
Nedved Primeau Okposo
Dawes Latendresse Keefe

I have also moved to the "default offensive" tactic, and then switched my lines to all use "Passing + Crash the net". I'm going to leave it like this for the rest of the season (15 games left) and post back the results.

I drafted him in the first round and despite putting up big numbers in Minnesota, my scouts didn't consider more than a depth player. Being stacked at RW, I shipped him off.

Everyone's big on Kessel. Is anyone afraid of the low work rate? When I see prospects with 'red numbers' in areas like work rate, determination, positioning for defencemen, or anticipation, I just shy away.

His low work rate made me concerned as well, but he's been nothing short of spectacular for me. He won the Hart, the Con Smythe twice, and almost won the scoring title a few years. I even have had him kill penalties. He has consistently scored 40+ goals and around that in assists. He plays very well in "pressure" games (see the Con Smythe trophies). I've never had a problem with him personality wise either.

Sounds a lot like FM (or old CM) where you'd have young players whose ratings where crappy, yet played like world-beaters.

my reason why i say it, because on default the practice screen is not correctly set up right. there assigning 8 areas to a few coaches only. and it best to do 3 to 4 areas.

some new people playing the game assume if you have the head coach handle practice automatic, then they will handle everything on the practice screen. but its not true.

to get the best out of players the practice screen is important too.


yes tactics are important, but so is practice.

classic :)


just want to apologies for over saying the practice screen.

i was just trying to help and i think i went overboard on it.

Make no mustake, while Kessell has "crappy" ratings in certain mental skills, his physical, offensive, and defensive skills are off the charts. Well above 15 in most and 20's in some. He just appears to have a weak character is all. That and he sucks in face-offs.

A $56 million cash infusion for the Flames. We already have a $76 million player budget. WTF?

The 2006 draft is coming up in my career, and I have the 17th pick. I really want James Sheppard or Ben Maxwell. Atlanta has pick #1 while Minnesota has pick #2. I've tried to pry the first pick out of the Thrashers, but that hasn't worked (I offered the rights to goalie Aleksander Tryachinev and the 17th pick). I think I'm gonna offer that same deal along with Jamie Langenbrunner, but I doubt that'll help. If I can't drag the first pick out of Atlanta, I'm going to turn to Minnesota and try to get pick #2. I know I'm trying for a miracle here, but why not give it a shot, right?

I just started playing as the Penguins and would like to sign Malkin for the 2004-2005 season. It is mid September during training camp but it says the transfer won't happen until July 1, 2005. Am I out of luck in trying to sign him for this season?

Yup. European players have to be signed before August 15 (changing to July 15 next year, apparently.)

That's too bad since the game start date for me was September 2nd.

OK, I finished up the 2008 season using the ideas suggested above to try to get Crosby going. Unfortunately, he got injured for 2 weeks during the stretch drive and ended up only playing 6 games before the playoff on those settings. In those games, he had 6 points and was a -2. In the playoffs we lost in 6 games, during which Crosby 6 more points.

Encouraged by the increase in scoring, I have since moved to the next season and he as 35 points in 37 games, basically maintaining his point-per-game pace. Furthermore, as a team we are 11th in goals-per-game average, after finishing in the bottom 1/3rd every year previously.

I still want him to improve more (I'd like to see 100+ points out of him), but I do need to remember he's still only 21 (and the average age of my roster is only 23, so we aren't close to peaking yet). I've changed head coaches (Ted Nolan is out, Dave Lowry is in) and that will hopefully help his practices.

So thanks everyone, and if there are any more suggestions I'd love to hear them!

I've just started out a new game with the Canadiens.. I've tried to ship off most of the players I either don't like or don't need. I traded Brisebois, Dykhuis, Dagenais, a future 2nd round pick and 3 prospects I don't see helping us out to the Rangers for a 2005 1st and 5th and I traded Rivet and Sundstrom to Colorado for a 2005 1st.

It leaves a bunch of holes in my lineup, but I figure I have so many young prospects that I could pick up some guys in the Waiver Draft and see what happens.

My team looks something like this now

Theodore
Tarasov (outplayed Danis and Huet in scrimmages/exhibitions)

Souray-Nolan Pratt
Markov-Bouillon
Hainsey-Sauer

(Shasby)

Zednik-Koivu-Ryder
Bulis-Bonk-Riku Hahl
Begin-Ribeiro-Ward
Hossa-Plekanec-Perezhogin

(Higgins and Kostitsyn switch in and out)

The defense is weak but with Theodore I am still expecting to be close to the playoffs by seasons end, and with 3 1st rounders in 2005, I feel I could have the makings of a very young team (my team is currently one of the youngest in the league at 24.58 years).

I hope I don't end up getting Crosby in the draft because then I'd feel I cheated the Rangers... but I hope I do get some familiar names in the draft (part of the reason I chose to get 1st round picks in 2005 was to get to know some of the talent since the game more or less has the same ISS order as in real life).

Good to hear you're on the right track.

Now I'd suggest you slightly tweak the team orders and individual instructions. I always set shots under team orders to 'Barrage' and 'Aim Low', which both work hand in hand with the 'Crash the Net' Tactic. Low shots equal more rebounds which equals more scoring chances.

Make sure you have one offensive defenseman on each line and set him to 'join the rush'; make sure that his defensive partner is set to a 'Defensive' mentality to make up for this. You can also do things with your forward lines, like ensuring there's at least one of the three set to 'passing' and at least one guy who's set to 'shoot'.

Lastly, you can then experiment by slightly changing your tactics on a game-to-game basis. For instance, for home games against opponents with a slow, immobile defense corp, you might go to a high forechecking, high press system in the first period to put some pressure on them early. Or try a 'hard hitting' style to get the crowd into the game and hopefully help cause some turnovers.

So many different ways of playing...what a great game! :)

If you restart a game you can always choose to have one of the leagues (European Mostly) that start on the first possible date running and select that date as the start date. This will give you about 2-3 weeks to sign players from europe before the transfer deadline closes. I did this when I started my game with the Cane's and signed a european player so I know that it works.

I suck so badly at this game. I am a "broad-view" type of player who isn't much into details. I love drafting, free-agency, etc., but the daily pratice and tweaking of tecniques just isn't fun to me. Is there any way a person like me will ever be able to succeed at this game?

Also, one other question: I notice that my players change physically and technical , but never mentally (except teamwork). Is this always the case? I mean I have drafted guys that are supposed to be great, but never increase in important areas such as anticipation and workrate. I really hope that the mental attributes aren't static.

This is how I play. I won the Cup with the Oilers in 2008, so I'm sure you will be able to succeed as well.

That's the way I play. I don't manage tactics at all. I've managed 2 finals appearances, winning one, and back-to-back President's Trophies.


I have never seen mental attributes change other than teamwork. That's why I really try and stay away from guys with <10 in anticipation, bravery, determination and work rate.

Can anyone report on how the new "unfake" patch is holding up?

I am playing with Penguins and I can't seem to keep Lemiuex rested. His stamina rating is 18 and it doesn't say he is injured, but every couple of games his condition is down to 80%. I think he isn't playing well in these games. I have also tried to have him not practice, but it doesn't seem to help. Any thoughts or is this the product of a hidden rating because of his injury history?

I have had a number of players like that. There were a couple that I could never get to 100% condition no matter what I did. Annoying.

Then he is now unhappy because I don't treat him as an important player.

While I am sure it's obvious... Among the many changes coming with the Super Patch(tm), it will probably be necessary to have a section on the "Trade "Screen" showing the cap effect of the trade, similar to what you have in FOF. Most likely, not only the effect for the current year, but projected into the future as well.

question for Riz or Jeff or anyone who might know: is the "Super Patch" going to include these signings that are taking place right now in the pre-season or will it just have the (nearly empty) rosters with the rolled-back salaries. I'm not sure which I'd prefer, although I think I might like the rosters mostly empty, so that I have a chance to build the team in the way that I want it...

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/foru...&postcount=897

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/foru...&postcount=898

awww jb...you so nice. i shoulda known to ask you. thanks man. musta just missed it in this massive thread :)

Average salary over the length of the contract is what counts against the cap in the new CBA. So it doesn't matter how you structure a contract, the impact will be the same.

I'll see if we can get something on the trade screen to help with the cap as well. Cannot promise too much but we'll try as usual :)

I know that much, but it would be it would be helpful to have (on the trade screen) how the trade would effect your cap this year and current years bsaed on all of your current contracts. Granted, the value of the contracts you're acquiring/trading don't change from year to year (b/c they are averaged), but your cap level may (because of expiring contracts).

There's gonna be much more math involved in trading and it will be a pain in the ass to have to keep going back and forth between screens to see if a trade would be viable under your cap and your trading partern's cap.

I understand the issue though. Not a lot of time. And so much is so very, very different. So very... very... different. Pronger to Edmonton? Satan to the Islanders? Holik to Nashville? Foote to Columbus? All these free agent splashes and narry a word from the beloved Wings.

Given that we can expect a little more offense when the NHL comes back later this year, will you be tweaking NHL scoring in the NA patch?

Yeah, it'll be after all the moves...wouldn't make a lot of sense to code in a bunch of stuff like a special entry draft, free agent buyouts, etc., that'd only get used for one season.

Rosters will be updated as much as humanly possible - at all levels, not just the NHL. The researchers handling the update are going full-speed, getting 04-05 stats updated and players moved (the private research forum at SI's site has got hundreds of move requests in it right now, most of them with 'done' notes beside them.)

Anyone ever get the wrong record for their team displayed?

On the screen that shows the days games, it never shows the correct records for the teams.

Also, some teams on the NHL standings are named by city (Colorado, Nashville), others by Team name (Kings, Wild).

Any ideas?

I also though the records were wrong, but they are the records in the last 10 games.

I am wondering if the team names have to do with not getting license agreements for those nicknames since the team nicknames all have TM after them.

Right about the last 10 games; the team names thing is actually some weird quirk with the way the NHL has those names trademarked. I don't understand the details, but the effect is the short version of a few teams' names have to be referred to by the city and not the nickname. Which make writing news items that make grammatical sense an enormous pain in the ass.

Anyway to change that?

Not currently. Maybe we can make it display the whole season record in the next version ?

You mean, kind of like someone said you should do back during the alpha-testing, because it was confusing and would generate a lot of user questions? ;)

I think it would be awesome to have the option. If only one could be displayed, I'd go for overall records, personally.

Thanks for stopping by!

Not a problem :D

With all the buzz around NHL and hockey right now, we're loving it !

I agree. I'm not a fan of the last 10 games thing.

The game itself though is great and I'm having a blast. I'm really looking forward to the NA update.

Can someone tell me what the "scouted only" feature is? I thought it meant it would only show players that your scouts have reported on (which would be very useful), but all it seems to do is filter everyone out.

It only lists guys who you've specifically told your scouts to look at (i.e., used the "scout player" option from the player screen.) And yeah, it's not very useful like that.

No kidding. It would be great (especially in the draft) if it weeded out players you have no information on.

FWIW, I bought EHM2k5 a couple of hours ago, after spending 4-5 hours with the demo since last night.

The variety of possible challenges, such as NHL or ECHL, and a much better hockey "feel" (to me) than the original release, made this a relatively easy purchase overall.

Thanks. Hopefully we can keep the same direction in the future and bring the game forward in every respect :D

Thought I would give EHM a shot, so I fired up the demo and started a game as the Bruins. Set the North American leagues to be active which gives me a database of about 17,000 players. I opted to turn off the real player names, just so that I don’t have any preconceptions about who to go after, but…

The resultant player names in the universe are very limited. I’m not sure if it’s a bug with the how names get generated, or if there are not enough names in the database, but there are lots of players with the exact same name as someone else, and very large numbers of players with the same last name. I understand that there could be some occasional duplication, but here are some examples:

19 players have a last name of Adamek.

There are 5 Tom Adameks and 5 Ray Adameks currently playing hockey.

40 players have a last name of Adams. Of these, there are…

2 Tom Adams, 4 Matt Adams, 5 Bernard Adams, 6 Trevor Adams, and a whopping 15 hockey players have the name Ray Adams.

There are 10 Ray Whites, 4 Bernard Bennetts, 5 Ray Beckers, 6 Bernard McLeans…and it goes on and on. Every page on the player search screens (when listing players alphabetically) has three or more groups of players with the exact same name (there is one entire page for the Ray Adams!). One would expect an occasional player with the same name, but this takes things a bit far. Just for kicks, I compared a generated database of names from one game with the database of names from a game using real names, and in the real database there is a much wider range of last names and only rare players with the same name as someone else.

Needless to say it makes keeping track of things a bit challenging.

Regarding this, is there a way to go in and edit the name .dat files? I tried opening them up in Excel, but they don’t open up cleanly. I’d like to go in and add some names to the files to see if that helps things out. I imagine they are sorted by geographic region somehow as well?

*muted grumbling about spending hundreds of hours working to get the players rated realistically, only to have people turn the damn names off* ;)


Looks like there were a couple of reports of something like that a week or so ago on the SI forum, but no responses yet - the guys are a little tied up with working on the North American release/update. But Riz will, I'm sure, notice this and check it out.

I think you could use the unofficial pregame editor to add names, but I doubt that will do anything; this looks like a bug. There's no shortage of variety in the Canadian and American names in the db.

I'll take a look at the player names issue. It uses the same code that gets used to randomise the player names for the unlicensed leagues/regions, and I've never seen anybody complain about those ;). It could be an issue with the cut-down version of the database, that's causing some unwanted bias somewhere. When faking the unlicensed dudes, it's done in the database extractor and the full list of people are there. But when you start a new game, not everyone is included.

Also, there's no way to change the names in the dat files without messing things up really (they're binary so that's why they won't open in notepad).

Should have said it louder ;) - it only took me 2 minutes.

It's trickier to spot there because the sample size is much smaller, but I did notice some similarities of the generated names in the real player database and the generated names in the fictional database. I think you'd have to be looking for it to spot it in the beginning of a real names game, but I bet it would become more obvious as the league matures.

If the names database is rather large, I would venture a guess that there is a problem with the way the code is selecting names. Some observations:

In particular, Ray and Bernard are getting chosen for first names much too frequently. Others like Tom and Phillipe and Trevor also show up too often. The range of used first names is quite narrow.

The range of used last names is narrow as well, which results in the overabundance of similar last names.

Can you play with a team in the Central Hockey League in EHM? Also, when is the American version due out and will it have many changes?

You can sorta play with a team in the Central Hockey League - but in the game it won't be listed as the Central Hockey League. There are rosters out there that can "unfake" that for you though.

I think the only changes to the North American version are actual league changes (like items from the new CBA, expansion teams in the minors) and updated rosters.

"Only"? What, the Quebec databases not enough work for you? Want that orphaned French one, too? ;)

No date on the North American release yet, other than "Fall".

*joins the rush*

Only...only ??!!! :D

The new CBA and its effects are...well...interesting to say the least. Both in real life (so far) and in code.

Oh, seeing as this thread has evolved quite a bit outside its original scope about the release date and licenses, would it be possible to get the thread re-named ?

I've always coveted a "Alright boyz...." thread for EHM over here, could this be it then ? :D

Riz

just edit your first post and your able to change the title if you want.

D'oh....me dum-dum

*done*

Well done!

Considering the amount of views this thread has got so far, I had to do a good job :D

I'll take a pass on that. :eek:

And of course by only I meant not to expect any big new features - not to say that updating the league info and rosters is a small task by any means. :)

How do you view standings by Division (I.e. Pacific)

Can't in the NHL. That part of the game became broke in 2.02 and won't be fixed until the NA patch/release. The 8-10 dependable testers must have missed that one.

Yeah, that stinks.

BTW, my Thrasher's career:

First Year: Playoffs, beat in the first round in 7
Second Year: Stanley Cup Runners up (lost in 7)
Third Season: Stanley Cup Win (Won in 6) :D

Actually, I saw it and figured it had been done on purpose. Most leagues in the game only display the standings format needed to calculate the playoff race.

Sorry, if Riz or someone from SI has already given an idea but, anyone gota guess-estimate of when the North American patch will be released so we can get going on are Nhl leagues? Please no when it's ready answers?

I would guess that we won't see the NA patch until after preseason starts (Spetember 16th)

We certainly won't see it until all the UFA and RFA loose ends are tied up.

When it's not unready.

I'd be taking my life in my hands if I hinted about the release date, but I will say that, given the extremely tight deadlines, getting it ready has been relatively problem-free compared to previous releases and major patches. Of course, by saying that, I've just jinxed the whole thing and an hour from now we'll discover some disastrous bug that'll take days or weeks to eradicate. See what happens when you ask 'how soon'?

We are currently staying over at the office for the night to test the network game again. As the tradition goes, we are competing over the Eastside Cup. Live coverage here

It's a blast I can tell ya :D

North American release is closing in:

GameStop are now taking pre-orders for the NA version :D

http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?...ct%5Fid=646381

Will non USA guys be able to buy the downloadable version of it or will be any kind of country filter to avoid it?

The online versions will use the same territorial pricing as before I would guess (the different pricing for $US, £UK and euro). Anyhow, the people who already own the european release version will be catered with a free update to bring their game up-to-date with all the new rules and regulations that have been coded for the North American version.

ETA: 10/3/05:(
I was hoping this would be released in the next week or two. Five weeks would that be the case for the patch for the European version. I mean will patch come out sooner for the European version as opposed to the NA version?

According to whom?

http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?...ct%5Fid=646381

The update (it's not really a patch, but a free seasonal update) for euro versions will come out at the same time as the NA versions hits the streets. And I would like to take this opportunity to say that we have not yet announced the official released date for the NA version so all the dates on sites other than SIGames.com are guesswork.

Release date for the NA version now confirmed: 27th of September 2005 !

See link for a bit of more info:
http://community.sigames.com/groupee...5/m/4792021751

Screenshots of the North American release version, showing rule changes, updated rosters, etc.: http://www.sigames.com/softography.p...23#screenshots

so the latest rosters will be how it is by end of August?

will there be another updated roster patch for opening day?


also on the new screenshots. Pittsburg Roster dont show Sidney Crosby on there.

I thought the Leaves cut Owen Nolan?
Also, what happens if you go over the cap?

Due to NHLPA rules games can not include a player if he has not played in the NHL, so Crosby will probably be on his junior team, with his rights assigned to Pittsburgh. You will get a chance to sign him to a contract before training camp.