For me, fictional leagues are
the make-or-break feature for jumping on the FHM bandwagon. I'm afraid that "same as OOTP" is probably the best description that can be given for what people are seeking here - OOTP handles fictional league about as well as you could hope - but I'll try to offer a little extra detail.
Fictional league functionality involves allowing users to wipe out all preexisting real-world leagues and start in a "clean universe" which they then fill with new leagues of their own design. They set up all the details of these leagues, including (but not limited to):
- Structure (e.g. league name and country or countries of operation, team names and locations, number of teams/divisions/conferences)
- Associations (e.g. independent, minor league attached to a parent league, college league feeding a professional league, etc.)
- Players (e.g. generation of names, stats, and ratings for new players, option for inaugural draft upon league creation)
- On-ice rules (e.g. length/number of periods, handling of icing, legality of two-line passes, etc.)
- Contract rules (e.g. length and terms of entry level contracts, years until arbitration eligibility and free agency, maximum length of contracts, maximum permissible year-to-year variability of salaries)
- Financials (e.g. typical salary ranges for different player quality tiers, typical size of revenue streams like gate and media contracts)
- Rinks (e.g. seating capacity, per-team ticket prices)
- Hometown details (e.g. market size, short-term fan interest, long-term fan loyalty)
- Artwork (e.g. player pictures, custom uniforms, league and team logos)
By no means must every last item listed above appear in version 1. I think we're all reasonable enough to understand that FHM is an evolving product and that fictional league support will grow and develop in time, like everything else. Yet I would argue that support on some level is extremely important.
Why? Because many users will not be content to play in pre-packaged leagues; they will want to put their stamp on their own personal hockey universe. That's where you get the "pride of ownership" that leads to users who are so enthusiastic over your product that they will purchase version after version just so they can keep sharing
dynasty reports from their unique creation with other members of the community.
Without a doubt, modern-day and historical league support are vital to the success of FHM, just as support for those kinds of league are important to OOTP. Yet it is undeniable that OOTP's robust fictional league support is one of the primary reasons that the game has achieved its current level of popularity. Many of OOTP's most popular online leagues are wholly fictional in nature. Strip fictional league support from OOTP and you would have a vastly diminished product with a vastly diminished reach. I would hate to see that happen to such a promising product like FHM. There are many features that can wait until later versions; this is one that is really called for out of the box in version 1.