Alright boyz, here we go!!! The NHL EHM 2005 Discussion
 

Full story here:

http://www.sigames.com/news.php?type...rticle_id=1121

Key points:

Release date: May 27th 2005

New licensed leagues include: AHL, ECHL, DEL

http://community.sigames.com/eve/ubb...5/m/1742018721

Oh, and while I'm at it, please check the latest issue of The Hockey News if you can as well :D
http://www.sigames.com/news.php?type...rticle_id=1122

Someone want to buy this for my birthday (which is 2 days after release)?

From your thread listed above, from Marc Duffy...

tell me, does "licensed league" means "playable league"? I mean, could I manage a QMJHL team, say the Quebec Remparts?

FM

Licensed means playable :D

Playable on the other hand does not necessarily mean licensed though. We have a few leagues in that had to go in with some varying degree of fake names because we could not get full licenses for them.

And yes, QMJHL is playable and has been playable already in the first game we did last year. Full entry draft and import draft as well.

Congrats, Riz.

That is my birthday, so you guys know what to get me.

oh, it was? I was under the impression it wasn't, my bad. Sadly, I'm still too addicted to that other game from your parent company to even think about investing some time in a new game :p

You're getting there, some day, you'll be the one responsible for getting me back into caring about hockey, don't give up :D

FM

You call yourself a canadian ? Preferring soccer over hockey ?? :eek: I thought people had been lynched for less than that over there in the hockey country :D

Don't worry, the appropriate people have been notified...

riz will get you EHM 2k5 and you can give him TCY 2. :D

I will be getting this one riz, thanks! In fact, this will become my FM. :)



Todd

I confess that I'm unaware of any other movement in the league, so I apologize for the narrowmindedness of this question, but will the AHL still feature the St. John's Maple Leafs, or did you have time to get the Marlies in the game?

All the leagues are based on the 2004/05 season, so any league changes for 05/06 and onwards will not feature in the game in most cases. There are some 3rd party editors in the works though, which will give you the chance of changing stuff in the future.

You must not know how hard it is to see your team leave town and win the Stanley Cup the very following season in their new town (in this case, Colorado). My heart still aches... :(

I had been a Nords fan since I was about five, when they were in the WHA. I remember going to see them play the New England Whalers, with which the great Gordie Howe used to play. Me and my sister used to call him "papa Howe" :) Then there were the Habs/Nords confrontations, so many friendships and even families fought because of those games, you wouldn't believe. Since the Nords have moved out of town, hockey has never been the same to me. Went to see a couple Remparts games this Winter, had fun, but it's not the same anymore...

They are talking about possibly putting together a group, build a new arena, a bit like Winnipeg did, and try to bring back real professional hockey to Quebec City. One can dream, maybe then I'll rediscover hockey, unless your game has succeeded before that ;)

Thanks for listeing to my whining...

FM

Excellent news!!!! Getting the licensing for the AHL will be an AMAZING improvement. Be able to have a little more control over your up and coming prospects development is great. I can't wait.

Wait until you actually play just as an AHL GM. I've made through a season and a half almost, with Hartford and it has been a blast. Trying to win while the Rangers keep calling guys up every once in a while to fill in for injuries and such can piss you off but then again, they can also sign some young guys and send them down to give you a boost :D

Now that sounds fun. I really wasn't interested in this game until reading this statement (I had thought the game was just a NHL game with a couple European leagues thown in). Not a big hockey fan, but this is the type of management challenge I think I would really enjoy. You just sold another copy riz! :D

Plus, you've got the added challenge of trying to claim enough glory and reputation to someday capture a job in the NHL :D

You can basically start out in the game by managing in the Major Juniors (WHL, OHL, QMJHL) honing the future NHLers and then try and capture a job in the AHL or ECHL and later on in the NHL.

What I found fun with my AHL career was the decision making in the first offseason. Should I try and sign a few veterans of my own to bolster my AHL team or just wait and see if the Rangers sign some good kids that they possibly send down ? Because if I sign my own guys and then get tons of good ones sent to me, I'll have to either release my guys or try and fit them to ECHL below (which might already be full, since they have their own plans to run) or try and loan the guys out for some time. My secondary mission with my AHL career is to try and sign a few of the prospects Rangers do not sign and try and develope them good enough for the Rags (or some other NHL team) to sign.

No Spanish league? i think we have 2 or 3 teams that play betwen them a few times per year :D

It's weird that we don't play ice hockey here when we have been the European and World champions of Roller Hockey, also bronze in the olimpic games etc. It's said because we have high temperatures but so does Tampa etc in the USA.

About the game, looking forward to buy it, just a question, are farm teams related to the NHL ones in the game or can you manage them separately?

EDITED: i see you just answered above to my question.

I'm ready for the game NOW! :)

We had an ECHL team here in New Orleans for five years, so I used to follow the league fairly closely. Does the game model the "veteran rule" in the ECHL? I know back when we had the New Orleans Brass, teams were limited to four "veterans" on the roster. A player's veteran status was based on the number of years and number of professional games he'd played. I'm not going to hurt if the veteran rule isn't in the game. I'm just curious.

Riz

the game sounds great.

beside the real teams, can you create a fictional league too? if so will it be random and different each time you create a new league?

thanks

You cannot create fully customizable leagues, as in league structures and rules etc. However, you can start the game with fictional players, which randomizes all players and staff in the universe but the leagues are still the same.

I just wanted to say that's a great release date. Everyone should release games on Friday IMO. :D

Veteran and developmental player rules are in the game for AHL and ECHL and any other leagues where they use such things (DEL in Germany has a rule where the teams must have atleast 3 native 23 years old or younger players on roster...).

However, some little things like the injured reserves for the lower leagues are modelled in a simplified way (just a 7-day IR) this year and also the waivers for ECHL are not modelled. I'm hoping to add these in the future though :)

How do affiliations work in hockey? Are the lower league teams owned by the NHL teams or are they contracted like baseball? If they are contracted, can lower league teams change affiliations? Are there teams without affiliations to NHL teams? I guess I'll need to do some research on hockey before May 27th...hehe.

Riz

how is the game manual?

i am new to Hockey, so i dont know all the rules per league, etc.


will the Manual be detail in how to play even if you never play last year version?

thanks

Sorry to hear that. But hey, we have a huge LNAH (yeah, that Quebec semi-pro league) fan with us in the dev team currently so don't rule out the possibility of that league being added in some day to provide some playable mens teams in the Quebec region :)

The affiliations in NHL EHM 2005 are fixed, so they won't expire/change during the gameplay. Possibly something to look at some time long in the future.

The game manual should be pretty comprehensive on the basic things around the gameplay and we've included a new screen into the game called "League Info" that will display the general rules of the league in question, so you won't be totally lost when you pick a new league to manage in.

EDIT: Here's a link to a screenshot of one of the "League Info" screens:
http://www.sigames.com/graphics/images/1034.jpg

Riz, is this the release date for North America as well?

ECHL? I can take over Atlantic City? Dam, I was going to try to keep from picking up any new games for a little while to save some money. I think I'll have to make this one little exception.

according to SI web page it says

" This year’s iteration is vastly improved, and set to release for both PC and Mac on Friday May 27th across Europe"

Doesnt sound like it.

We haven't confirmed the North American release date yet. However, we will definately be offering a try&buy digital download option like last year (system to be used for the digital distribution has not been confirmed yet) at the same time as the European release date.

North American retail markets are a bit hard to crack with a text-sims but we are hoping to improve from last year's release which did not quite go to plan.

i really hope so. it was so hard to find last year version in the States

popular stores here in the states did not have the game. Best Buy, CompUsa, Circuit City, Fry's. etc

i hope this year version are in the store shelves in the states.

if text-sim games hit the shelves in the States. believe me, once they buy it there going to get hook on it.

thanks

HAHAHAHAHA :D :D :D That is hugely cool! Would be very funny to manager the Quebec Radio X :)

Not asking for his name, but is that guy from the Quebec City area or elsewhere in the province? As you must know if you've spoken with him a bit, there are quite a few fights in that league. That would need to be coded accordingly, but since you've included the ECHL, I'd have to assume it's already covered ;)

FM

I'm not sure if you can really speculate on this... but if one was nailed down what's the earliest we could expect it on store shelves? A week later? A month later?

Because if it's going to be anything more than a month I might just order the CD from Europe.

He is actually from Finland and is working on the dev team doing his job experience course for uni studies. He is a big fan of hockey fights and has done the research for our database of the LNAH teams and players with some people he knows from the Quebec area :)

And yes, it is well and truly possibly to code certain leagues to sign more goons ;)

I found it rather easily at EB Games here in St. John's... I think they only got two copies and I preordered one of them

This internet thing really does make the planet smaller every day :D

Pretty cool stuff though. I told you, keep working, you'll have me back on the dark side someday ;)

FM

dola, speaking of the LNAH, our local team, the RadioX is currently playing the final series for the Futura Cup. They got tied 2-2 in the best of seven series yesterday night...

fwiw, the RadioX plays in the Colisée, former home of the Nords, and in the playoff, they've been getting crowds of upward of 8000 people. For a semipro league, I'd say it's not too shabby...

FM

Congrats. See you at E3!

:eek: nooooo....too....manyyyyy....gamessss!!!!so should i just sign my life over to SI now in the hopes that Jim will be onboard soon and they can control all of my computer gaming??

Quite a dilemma I have. I really want to take the Blues to their first Stanley Cup win, but then again maybe I need to prove myself in the minors first.. maybe the Icecats?


Todd

Good thing the El Paso Buzzards folded a few years back or else I would be forced to buy this game... ;)

He's not Canadian.....He's from Quebec:D

So he is actually CanadiEn ;)

Sounds like something they serve at Olive Garden:D

I was really hoping the NCAA's would be playable. I'll likely buy anyway since Riz's products have been unbefuckingbelivamazingbly good in the past. Plus I love hockey with all my heart... hockey hangs the moon in my eyes.

I'm hoping to take a look at some college hockey stuff sometime in the distant future. But then again, since the player names cannot be licensed and the NCAA league/team licenses are prolly quite costly, I would not have your hopes too high on this issue. But you can always wish for it :D

I don't care about player names. It seems plausible that somebody would/could come up with a roster set, but even without that, it wouldn't be a big deal. TCY and FBCB are loads of fun, and don't use real names.

Yeah, that is not a big issue really, the names. It's more of an issue with me allocating my time to different areas of the game to develope. It probably won't sell well with Miles and the rest of the decision makers if I decide to put a lot of time and effort into an area of the game (which would require a lot of new code and ways to handle the team management) we cannot be sure we can even put in (due to the licensing issues).

Lucky for you that they're modeling this season, considering that the Boardwalk Bullies will be in Stockton, California, next year. :D

Sounds great. I'll be pimping again on other forums. The addition of real AHL and ECHL is HUGE.

Unfortunately, I simply haven't been able to get into FM. I've been playing EHM solidly until this past month and now am looking forward to starting a new career.

Will be a downloadable version released the same day? if so, please, tell me elicense will handle it, not the other company you used past year :)

We've got Grant at the office looking into various systems to see which one we think offers the best service to the customer and makes financial sense for us.

EDIT: and yes, it should be out around the same day.

Some elaboration on the North American release/download option situation, from SI's Miles Davidson over on their forums: (I'm assuming Riz has fallen asleep, or he'd have posted it already. ;) )

Yeah, AC just doesn't have the fan base to support an off-season sport.

I'll say this again. The demo has been like hockey crack. I'm still getting used to the interface and just basically messing around and learning things, but I'm really impressed on how much fun this demo has been for me.

Hopefully by May 27th, I will have learned some of the deeper workings of hockey so I can start a dynasty thread with the Blues. I'm determined to get a Stanley Cup here in St. Louis. :) I love the 2d portion of the program.. very exciting to watch my players skate around.

I'm really looking forward to this game.. I'm hoping this will really get my dynasty juices flowing once again. Ohhh Baby!


Todd

Can't wait to get my Moose Jaw dynasty up and running again (from scratch). It's not May6th where I am....21 days to go.

That's excellent news about the AHL and ECHL. Being able to take the Toledo Storm to the ECHL title is probably going to be enough to make this a must-buy for me.

Ok, now that the Gold demo is out.

Can we start a serious career? Meaning, if I start a career now, when the game is released, can we contimue on? ..and what's the difference from starting a demo quick start and starting from scratch when the full version is released?

..and what is the difference is the fast starts? is NHL much different than NHL&AHL&ECHL? I just want the full NHL boat with minors and foreign teams, all of it. I guess I'm kind of lost already.. hahaha!!

Thanks,

Todd

A fast start, or quickstart, is a game that was created with only some specific leagues. At least that's what I remeber them to be with CM/FM. If you want the NHL with its minor leagues, and you want to start with the demo and continue afterward, then you're better off with the NHL&AHL&ECHL fast start. But this means you won't be allowed to manage teams in Europe if you wanted to at some point.

I also don't know what database size was used to create these fast starts. This could have an impact on your game when you get many seasons in the future...

FM

Thanks FM, that's what I did. If I have to restart, no biggie I guess. I just find my players in this game VERY attachable. I really need to take a break though. :)


Todd

You can continue your Gold Demo career in the final game, however as has been indicated elsewhere you don't have the benefit of the 'full' database with the demo .... your call entirely ...

That's what I thought.. although I think with the NHL and minor leagues.. most if not all of what I want is right there.

May 27th can't get here soon enough. ;)


Todd

Just for kicks I took over the Avs. Resigned Forsberg. Second exhibition game he tears his ACL. Out for four months.

Good to see it has some realism. :)

Two Questions:

1. In the full version, what will be the lowest league level you can control in the US?

2. Is there a guide around someplace (similar to Marc's for CM)? If not, will there be one?
Edit: My interest in the guide would be based around becoming familiar with different desired skills for different positions. Which skills are really key for different styles of play for example.

Marc Vaughan and Riz

there some people who think you going to charge the customers for roster updates? is this true? is this same for FM 2006? and ootp 7?

here the discussion
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...59#post1194259

If it isn't true they really need to re-word this part of the PR:

No people won't be charged for 'roster updates' (if you mean downloading a data update or a patch) and won't be considering doing this for our other games either.

The America release of EHM will contain updated rules and other code changes as well as a roster update, its being released considerably after the release of the European game so is really an EHM2.25 or something silly (basically if we've done improvements it doesn't make sense not to include them if we're doing a new game release in America) - hence that version will be charged for (at a lesser amount) if people who have the digital version of EHM2 want to upgrade.

This has basically come about because of the delay in the American release, hopefully for the year after we can sync all releases to the same timeline (as we do with our football game) and avoid this problem.

Hope this helps,

Marc

There is a set of walkthrough's here: http://www.sortitoutsi.net/forums/in...p?showforum=45

Which is now up to part 3. Some very good info in these posts!!

In fact, if you look around.. there are some nice logos, ice rinks with logos, facepacks, etc.. for the demo.


Todd

I'm really slow, cause I'm still a bit confused about this... What exactly will the Europeans and Downloaders be paying for, since I'm assuming they'll be able to download the regular patches for free?

That's what you are paying for, not the roster updates.

PS> If you haven't got it already then amazon.co.uk (and can get delivery to you) is charging a whopping £8.96 for the original version of EHM now that the new ones about to come out ...

(I'm afraid amazon.com don't have it discounted in the same manner, sorry)

why would anyone want the old version, when the new one is around the corner and its much better. :)

Marc

thanks

i am also confused.

for us americans living in the states

if i download the new EHM2 when it comes out in may release day, will i get the free updates, patch, roster update for free in the future? if it a reduced price for future upgrade if you got the download EHM 2, then i guess it wont make sense to get it. why be charge for a reduced price?

but why european can download the new release when it comes out and get free upgrades, patches, roster updates in the future?

If so i will wait for the american release to come out in the united states and buy EHM2 here. i just hope it comes to the stores. it was so hard to find it at best Buy, circuit city, fry's, etc last year.

thanks

I'm sorry Marc but still don't underestand it, so if me being Spanish, buy the downloadable version (lt's say 2.0), when later you will release (let's say 2.25) for the USA, do i need to pay again for the upgrade? it hasn't ever be the case and i think it would be a big mistake from SI to charge for that update. Also what about after (let's say 2.25) if we find bugs and you fix them, who will pay for that update as wont' be the same for usa and euro... i think you shouldn't charge again us europeans for the game update when it's released in USA but to let us upgrade for free for every 2.xxx patch as you have always done it. I
'm sorry as maybe it's me who doesn't underestand this.

Just to clarify that a bit so people don't think that means SI would charge for shuffling a few players around and fixing some bugs:

"Updated rules" doesn't just mean a couple of leagues switching to no-touch icing - it'd encompass something like a new NHL CBA, if one is reached during the summer. That'll obviously require some significant code changes, particularly if it involves, as looks likely, some sort of tortured compromise with a luxury tax and a salary floor/ceiling tied to league revenues. Other leagues - the British ones come to mind - will also be undergoing some significant changes for next year that would have to be reflected.

"Roster update" wouldn't be just moving players from one team to another. It'd include, among other things, new teams, affiliation changes, updated statistics, additional players, rerating of existing players, and updating of the start dates to the 2005-06 season. The research team wouldn't be doing that for free, either, so that's going to cost SI some money to do.

I've also suggested some other things to Riz and Marc Duffy that could be included so people get plenty of value for their upgrade money.

Disclaimer: I don't speak for SI, can't promise anything officially, none of this is final yet, etc., etc. But if I thought the guys were trying to pull something shady, I wouldn't be helping them with it.

I guess the logical question is whether this EHM 2.25 including all these "Updated Rules" and "Roster Updates" and the like will be available to European customers who bought the initial downloadable or box version (and US customers who bought the initial download version) via downloadable patches? Or will the only way to get these "updates" be by buying the US EHM 2.25 game?

I think that's the real question.

The idea, as Miles set it out, would be to have the big update available to European and download customers for a nominal price.

And there'll be bug-fixing patches between the release version of the game and that "2.25" update. No one is going to have to pay for a critical bug, if there are any, to be fixed.

if you download it, and there going to charge for a reduce price for updates rule and roster update. then i am not sure if i will purchase the game by downloading it.

i just wait for it to hit the US stores. and i hope after i purchase the game in the US store, that any future patches, update roster and update rules, we dont get charge for a reduced price to download it.

it makes no sense for them to charge customers for a reduced price for updates rule, patches, roster updates, etc.

My guess (just a guess) would be that you would be paying a small price to have a hard copy (a CD) of the game in its most recent form (A CD that has version 2.25 (or whatever) on it).

Thanks, Jeff. Sounds reasonable enough.

so if you want to save money, best to wait and get the US version that hits the store later on.

compare to paying and getting the download version and then pay again at a reduce price to get the 2.25 update.

I reckon you'd save a little bit of money, but you'd have to wait until September or so to play the game. I guess, like all games really, you just have to figure out whether you feel like paying extra to play now or waiting a while for the "price to go down" as it were.

I've got no say at all in it, but if it was me making the pricing decision I'd set the upgrade price to be comparable to the difference between whatever the download version costs and the suggested retail price of the North American release.

It's definitely not as if they're going to charge another thirty bucks for the upgrade - the phrase Miles used was "very cheap", which to me implies a small fraction of the price of the complete game.

I'd really like to know what this "nominal price" will be so that I can make a better judgement about what to do. If it's going to be like $10-$20 then fine I'll get the downloadable version and pay for the update... but if it's going to be more than that I'll probably wait.

Okay, its a bit late here and I'm tired so I won't go into a too long of a post, plus I'm just a humble developer and know not too much about the fine details of the publishing plans and business models... But to keep it simple:

You won't be paying anything for normal patches as they appear after the release. Everything is like before and we continue to support the game post-release as per usual free of charge. So I'm not sure where this idea came from ?

What Miles is talking about is that in case we don't get the boxed version of NHL EHM 2005 (the version based on 2004/05 season and released in Europe this month) into retail in NA at the same time as Europe, then it will still be available as a digital download version. Then, we'd continue supporting the current version over the summer as usual with above mentioned free patches made available as deemed necessary. But also, aside from just supporting the 2004/05 version, we'd work with our research team over the summer months to update the game and the database based on the upcoming 2005/06 season rules/structures and rosters as well as naturally making the new game start from the new season and maybe chipping in with a few new features as well. So in a way it would be a "season update" in relation to the current NHL EHM 2005 we have just completed. For North American retail, it would be the next full boxed version of NHL EHM since the first one, hence a normal price tag. For digital download customers, it would just be a cheap season update and the same for owners of the european boxed version. Now as Miles said, these are only plans and nothing has been set in stone about when the NA release will happen yet. I believe there will be some meetings about this during E3 next week so we'll know more about this after that.

And again, after this release the game would enjoy the usual post-release support with patches/updates free of charge as per norm.

As for this bit:


Patches are always free as per usual. Roster updates are a possibility during the season featured in the game, but I cannot make any promises on those. But updating league rules for free ? As nice and exciting as it sounds to a text-sim player to have a game where you'd just buy it once and get league rules and rosters updated every new season for free, it just ain't going to happen with a commercial game. The development is not just about coding new features into the game but also maintaining and updating all the league rules. It may be different when a game features just one league like the NHL and the rules stay 99% the same for most of the time from season to season. But just look at even leagues like the AHL or ECHL not to mention a host of European leagues. The league formats and rules change almost yearly and changing them is in most cases not just a one-line change but might require new code and as usual some extensive testing as well. And it all takes time to do and time costs money as they say. So updating all the leagues in the game to the new season as well as doing the additional research to update the database means spending time and money on development. Which in turn means that providing an update like that would have to have a small price tag on it to cover the costs. Just because a game goes out of sync with real life league rules after a certain time when the next real life season starts, does not mean it then somehow becomes a bug that the game has different rules. And it certainly does not mean that the developers then need to fix this "bug" by updating the game with the new league rules and basically giving out a free new version of the game.

Hope this clears it up a bit as well :D

Riz

the gold demo is great.is there a manaul to download. i very new to EHM and SI games, so i been mainly lost, just clicking on a lot of things.

i hope when final release is out, there a very detailed manual out. it will be very helpful for us newbies.

thanks

There will be a very good (imho) manual distributed with the game - but we haven't distributed one with the demo I'm afraid.

Hmm.. wouldn't the most reasonable thing (to loyal customers) be to release the 2.25 as a downloadable patch in case you've already bought the game, while the version in the stores in the US will be 2.25 "on disc"..

It feels a bit weird to buy version 2.0 in may, and then have to pay for the upgrade (no matter how small a fee) in September/October.

Edit: read through Riz post more thoroughly.. well I would probably consider not buying version 2.0 and wait for 2.25 rather than pay lets say, €40 for 2.0 then $19.95 (or whatever) for the upgrade, instead of "just" €40 for a game a few months later.

Riz

viewing the game part is great. i have it on very slow for commentary and clock. and it seems the text is a little too fast still

any way you guys can make it more slower when you have it set very low when final release comes.

thanks

Our policy has always been to support our games to the best of our abilities and to release any patches etc. free of charge.

Any seasonal updates (ie. changes in start season) have always been a new version and thus charged for.

The American release will update the start year and incorporate any rule changes which have happened, contain a data update and other improvements - as such we will be charging a reduced amount for people who've already purchased the European release version via. digital download.

The reason for this happening as a 'once off' is that the American and European version releases are 'out of sync' and we don't simply want to release an 'out of date' game when its released in America.

This sync problem is something we'll be rectifying for future years releases.

The reason that a price hasn't been released for the 'upgrade' is simply that the bods in business suits haven't thrashed that side of things out - I'd expect it to be a fairly low price and obviously when it is finalised we'll let everyone know.

Just received the following e-mail from Gameplay:

Dear Honolulu_Blue,

We are pleased to inform you that your order for has been dispatched by our team in Leeds.

Thank you very much for ordering from us here at gameplay, you should receive your package in None. The release date for Eastside Hockey Manager 2005 is 27/05/2005.

This dispatch contains the following:

Eastside Hockey Manager 2005


Good times!

i want a dynasty! at least until the download is ready

wont be picking it up....the whole pay twice thing, rubbed me the wrong way...havent even tried the demo.......just not really impressed with what ive read i guess

That's a shame :(

Especially since there has never been anything coming from us indicating that someone would have to pay twice for the same game. As a fairly normal PC/Mac game, NHL EHM 2005 is priced in european retail pretty much like any other title, usually even a bit cheaper. Digital download is in the plans and we are aiming to get the system finished within a week or two of the european retail release so we can have the game available for purchase online. As for the NA retail release, it will be later in the year with prices etc. most likely in line with the european style, ie. a bit cheaper than your average PC game. So I'm not sure where this big issue of somehow having to pay twice actually comes from.

And I'd encourage you to try the demo to give it a whirl rather than listening to rumors and rantings on messageboards about issues that are not even connected to the actual gameplay and content of the game ;)

Then on to some brighter news, the official ECHL website has also run a story of the new game with some nice comments from the bigshots over at ECHL and PHPA:

http://www.echl.com/cgi-bin/mpublic....&cat=1&id=4765

Enjoy :D

That's why I'm ordering it from gameplay. Get it early and get a CD!

So far from what I've seen of the demo, this game is an improvement over EHM.

I also might have agreed with your stand on "charging twice", but only if you think of the 2.25 version as a patch. In reality, it's an expansion, which I would expect to pay for.

Will I wait? Probably, but not because of the expansion. It's because I like having a CD in case my computer goes kaput.

Come on, riz. You know what he's talking about.

EDIT: And I'm anxiously awaiting the download option for the game.

I'm with HB. Just got my shipping confirmation. I want it on CD and I want it so I can play over the summer.

I would try the demo, but i really have no interest in trying it.....Right now, I dont really care if it is an improvement.....I dont own that many games though, and for the most part, if i buy a game one year, i probably wont buy the next version of it......I also felt I made a mistake buying last years version....It was ok, but it got too easy, to quickly...what I mean buy that is playing with the leafs, i could pretty much get any player via free agency i wanted, and eventually, had too much damn talent....when that happens, its not fun for me.......im also not in the mood to pay 50 bucks canadian for any computer game(probably why i dont have many)....expansion or not.....(I would not pay for an expansion of any game)

At one point, ya, i may decided i want to take a look at it.....I know im a hockey guy, and im exactly the type of customer SI needs and wants to buy the game in north america, but nothing makes me want to even try it at this point......

To be honest, the original EHM still is more fun then last years version

Well, I'll be buying the download version if it's available on Friday. I'm not a hockey fan like Johnny93g is, but I actually did try the demo and found it to be loads of fun. Of course, I probably have spent more money on games in the last 2 weeks than Johnny did in the last 2 years from the sounds of it. :D

riz,

Great job and I hope you become a rich man from the release (but not too rich so we get a version next year! ;))

B

Sorry guys. I will have to wait until September and a new computer to buy your game.