NHL EHM Beta Demo available

[bbor]

What about a Canadian release?

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Ragone

So you think ordering from a euro distributer would get the game to us before a american release in retail?

Fairly likely - although I can't confirm actual release dates at this time for America.

[3ric]

How about putting keyboard shortcuts in the gold master? To advance the game with the space key really helps, as do the enter key for selecting default choices.

[Ragone]

Well let us know as soon as its plausible Marc, so i can get a order into proper place

[Joe Canadian]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Fairly likely - although I can't confirm actual release dates at this time for America.

Not sure if anything has been mentioned about this yet, but has any pricing details been released for the North American released game?

[Marc Vaughan]

Not sure if anything has been mentioned about this yet, but has any pricing details been released for the North American released game?

I'm afraid I only deal with the development side of things and I have no idea of the expected pricing, I'd expect it to be similar to any new PC game ... its £29.99 in the UK (although you can shop around (especially online) and find it for much less than this).

[Maple Leafs]

I'm up to the trade deadline now. Some thoughts on the trade AI (I'd be interested to hear other opinions on this):

- I'm having a really tough time making any sort of major deal. This is actually a good thing -- I'm playing as the Leafs, and with their current older, highly paid roster they should have a tough time landing another big name through trade. So that's fine.

- But... I have to say I'm a little concerned as I flip through the league looking at other teams and their trade preferences. I've been checking the "Team Needs" screen and I've yet to see anything to indicate that the concept of "rebuilding" is in the game. Even the last place teams, well out of the playoff hunt, are still looking for "veteran presence" and guys who can "contribute immediately". Has anyone ever seen a team say they wanted to add youth or prospects?

- Similarly, I like the way that teams have certain players who are untouchable, but shouldn't this change based on the team's situation? In my game the Blue are out of the playoff hunt, yet still list $10M Chris Pronger and 40-year-old Al MacInnis as untouchable.

- So far, on the eve of the deadline, only two trades have been made in March league-wide. I'm hoping that a lot will happen when I click to go to the next day. The NHL trade deadline is a bigger deal than even the draft, so a hockey sim can't really claim to be complete if nothing special happens on deadline day.

[Maple Leafs]

Dola...

Just hit the button to advance past the deadline. No trades, other than the one I made, went through on deadline day. As best I can tell, there wasn't a single significant trade made in the NHL all season.

I also got messages about trade talks I had with other teams being cancelled due to the deadline, even though I didn't rememeber talking to those teams. The only conclusion is that these were trade talks from earlier in the year that teams had been "thinking about" for so long that I forgot about them.

I also had a message telling me the deadline had passed, then another a day later telling me about trade rumors involving other players.

Conclusion: You win some, you lose some. Sadly, the trade deadline in EHM is just not up to standards.

[Karim]

ML,

I took the liberty of posting your thoughts on the SI boards because I thought it was important that they are at least aware of this issue. Hopefully there's been some work on the trade AI since this demo.

[Schedule Junkie]

No one's mentioned this part of it yet, but how are the schedules? Do they look like real hockey schedules for the leagues included in the demo? Or do they have things that are unrealistic like a team playing 3 days in a row or playing the same team several times in a row or anything like that?

A proper schedule is an item often overlooked or little considered in games like this, so I'm wondering how this aspect holds up. I'm just curious if I'll have to branch out from my current baseball schedule knowledge expertise into adding hockey schedules to my repetoire...

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Schedule Junkie

No one's mentioned this part of it yet, but how are the schedules? Do they look like real hockey schedules for the leagues included in the demo? Or do they have things that are unrealistic like a team playing 3 days in a row or playing the same team several times in a row or anything like that?

A proper schedule is an item often overlooked or little considered in games like this, so I'm wondering how this aspect holds up. I'm just curious if I'll have to branch out from my current baseball schedule knowledge expertise into adding hockey schedules to my repetoire...

I've only looked at the NHL, and we only have one year to go by, but so far the schedules look realistic.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Karim

I took the liberty of posting your thoughts on the SI boards because I thought it was important that they are at least aware of this issue. Hopefully there's been some work on the trade AI since this demo.

Hopefully. To be honest, I don't think this is the sort of thing that can be done quickly in time for launch or even in a patch. I was disappointed to see that the deadline wasn't even as well done as OOTP's (where at least the teams seem to make a flurry of moves). Hoping for the deadline to be treated as an "event" (like the waiver or entry drafts) was probably overly optimistic, but then again EHM usually seems to get this stuff right.

In the end, it's one of those things that makes it feel like the game was made by hockey fans, but not NHL fans. A disappointment, although not a deal-breaker for most I suspect.

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by Schedule Junkie

No one's mentioned this part of it yet, but how are the schedules? Do they look like real hockey schedules for the leagues included in the demo? Or do they have things that are unrealistic like a team playing 3 days in a row or playing the same team several times in a row or anything like that

It looks OK to me.

Teams will occasionally play back to back nights, but usually there are two, three or four days between games. As for consecutive games against the same team, in the one season have played, there were five occasions where we played a team for two consecutive games. In all five cases they were home and home series.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Karim

ML,

I took the liberty of posting your thoughts on the SI boards because I thought it was important that they are at least aware of this issue. Hopefully there's been some work on the trade AI since this demo.

There's been work all over the place - please bear in mind that the beta demo is around 6-7 weeks old now (and the data is from Dec 2003 as it predates our research deadline).

Riz has been tweaking and tuning the engine a lot since the beta and has also redesigned the trade screen with the help of feedback from the beta demo.

A GM demo will be released in the next couple of weeks which will allow you to judge the final retail version accurately.

Hope this helps,

Marc

[riz]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

Hopefully. To be honest, I don't think this is the sort of thing that can be done quickly in time for launch or even in a patch. I was disappointed to see that the deadline wasn't even as well done as OOTP's (where at least the teams seem to make a flurry of moves). Hoping for the deadline to be treated as an "event" (like the waiver or entry drafts) was probably overly optimistic, but then again EHM usually seems to get this stuff right.

In the end, it's one of those things that makes it feel like the game was made by hockey fans, but not NHL fans. A disappointment, although not a deal-breaker for most I suspect.

Yes, trade deadline activity was missing from the beta since it was on my to-do list just about after we submitted the beta demo code. There should be more activity at the trade deadline with the release version.

[Johnny93g]

Originally Posted by riz

Yes, trade deadline activity was missing from the beta since it was on my to-do list just about after we submitted the beta demo code. There should be more activity at the trade deadline with the release version.

Very happy to hear this....hopefully it will be at least as good as the original ehm.....Im still on the fence as to if im gonna buy it.....theres some things that i love about the new version, and some things i think are terrible.....Im still enjoying my game on the original, and for some reason right now, it feels more like hockey to me....

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by riz

Yes, trade deadline activity was missing from the beta since it was on my to-do list just about after we submitted the beta demo code. There should be more activity at the trade deadline with the release version.

Good to hear! What about the overall trade AI, any chance of last-place teams loosening up on the "untouchables" and going into rebuilding mode?

[Maple Leafs]

Big concern... I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, but there are way too many young FAs available. Guys like Ed Jovanoski and Dany Heatley are becoming UFAs. The only way that could happen in the real NHL is if the teams didn't even make qualifying offers. That's technically possible (see Paul Kariya) but very rare and certainly not something that happens to this extent. Is this being looked at?

Also, it would have been nice to go through the FA period in the demo, I was surprised to see it end on July 1 instead of, say July 31.

[Karim]

Yes, RFAs have very few options if they're qualified but refuse to sign - salary arbitration (if they're eligible) or holding out. It's highly unlikely Heatley or Jovanovski would not be qualified and if they did holdout and a contract couldn't be negotiated, they'd be traded. Not qualifying them means losing highly valueable assets for nothing.

Again, I'm crossing my fingers that this is a beta demo issue.

[Cards4ever]

Originally Posted by Karim

Yes, RFAs have very few options if they're qualified but refuse to sign - salary arbitration (if they're eligible) or holding out. It's highly unlikely Heatley or Jovanovski would not be qualified and if they did holdout and a contract couldn't be negotiated, they'd be traded. Not qualifying them means losing highly valueable assets for nothing.

Again, I'm crossing my fingers that this is a beta demo issue.

Heatley would never be allowed to leave without high compensation, there should be some kind of tag for this player, maybe "Sign at all costs", similar to the "Untouchable" tag.

[Karim]

Right. I forgot about the draft pick compensation. Was Stevens/Shanahan the last time someone took a serious bid at a RFA?

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Karim

Right. I forgot about the draft pick compensation. Was Stevens/Shanahan the last time someone took a serious bid at a RFA?

That was the last one where the team didn't match. Federov and Sakic, I believe, also signed offer sheets but were matched immediately. Nobody really offers for RFAs any more because it's generally known that the team will match, and all you're accomplishing is drving up salaries.