OOTP goes HOCKEY!!!!

[GMO123]

Maybe there could be percentages used for nationalities when a player retires.

For example if a Russian player retires, there could be a 90% chance that the new replacement player will be Russian and 10% another nationality.
This 10% could be subdivided into other nationalities such as 5% Canadian, 2 % American, 1% Swedish etc.

[Smetana]

Originally Posted by fireholder

oh yeaaaah

actually, this may be odd but i've always wondered if i had accurate descriptions for the EHM crew in the awards we've named after them... does it seem right to you?

ISHL Season-End Awards

That's a seriously old-school list, there. Some names I haven't seen or thought of in a long time. Nicely done. And the EHM guys look accurately described, as far as I can tell.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

So am I. The problem here may be that I'm using OOTP terminology, where a "league" is the entire world -- major leagues, minor leagues, unsigned free agents, the whole magilla. If that's confusing, I apologize.


That's how I understand it too. It just appears that we have differing views on whether that's a good system or not.

So how many say Slovakians (for example) are starting in the database? Say Slovakia starts producing a large amount of NHLers, who would replace the slovaks in their home country league? Would russians, sweds etc have to fill those roles? There are only so many slovaks in the original 20,000 database (or whatever number it may be) This seems like if someone wanted to make Slovakia a powerhouse country it would be very difficult to do so and would be limited.

EDIT: Oh, i see that we can edit the database...so i suppose that would be the answer. Not really ideal but works. Would we have the ability to edit the database after playing a number of seasons or is it only before starting a new game?

[sprague]

The biggest thing missing in all computer management sim hockey games out there is REALISM
They just don't feel like hockey to play, nor do they take into account the variables that actually make a difference between winning and losing

nor do they give you as coach-manager the real options a coach has in game play

to me this is the key. to treat only the management side would be a mistake, one must take the simulation side, and the historical replay side very seriously

I sent an email to the company surrounding this

My hope is that, with this company making the best baseball management game on the market- it really is the best- i only hope they do the same for hockey
Because if they could create a game of realism, i think there would be a flood of people changing games...

Real-like action. When i play 2010 i want to feel like 2010
if i play 1974 i want to feel 1974. I want the california seals afraid to be coming to the Spectrum, Bobby Orr to dominate puck possession, and Steve Durbano to once a month run a goalie- punch a linseman- and throw his stick at a fan

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Granted, it won't be the same Russian goalie, but in your "one-goes-out-one-comes-in" world, I can be assured that there will be as many Russian goalies on day one of the league as there will be twenty years in the future.

I hope you realize the game cover almost every league in the world and not just the NHL... with EHM I've draft players from country where no player came near North America in real life, by exemple an Hungarian goalie I draft in the last last round gave me a couple of ok seasons in my East Coast League affiliate and was good when I loaned him to a lower league team (the United Hockey League I think...).

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

I hope you realize the game cover almost every league in the world and not just the NHL.

Which game? I'm talking about the WTHM game, not EHM 2.0.

[fireholder]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

I hope you realize the game cover almost every league in the world and not just the NHL... with EHM I've draft players from country where no player came near North America in real life, by exemple an Hungarian goalie I draft in the last last round gave me a couple of ok seasons in my East Coast League affiliate and was good when I loaned him to a lower league team (the United Hockey League I think...).

this is a good point.

i believe the game actually did generate some of its players without needing regens, as i would scour very unpopular countries for players, and sometimes i would find a chinese or african player with a PA of 150+ (a top line NHLer for those not privy) and even up to 185 israeli defender. these phenoms typically retired by 15 or 16 due to the fact that no one signed them and there weren't leagues in their regions (and if there were, they didn't play for some reason). obviously a 185 defender is like lidstrom quality, and so a 185 israeli wasn't regened....

[Sebastian Palkowski]

I'm pretty sure you guys read to much into the "always the same number of German Goalies": The size of the database is so big + add "ghost players" that fill up non-playable leagues and you will not even notice it.

On the topic of coaching (I know someone asked): yes sure, playing out your games is a big part in our game, just like in OOTP.

Historical Accuracy (another question/topic I saw): to be honest, I never thought we would find ways to incorporate it into the hockey game like it works in OOTP (with the Lahman DB). But after 2 weeks we have already a database with all players + teams + careerstats for the NHL + WHA + NHA + PCHA + WCHL. And we have a lot of cool ideas to generate historical seasons from the data so my feeling that we can get something cool done is much better as it was before we started this thread.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

I'm pretty sure you guys read to much into the "always the same number of German Goalies": The size of the database is so big + add "ghost players" that fill up non-playable leagues and you will not even notice it.

On the topic of coaching (I know someone asked): yes sure, playing out your games is a big part in our game, just like in OOTP.

Historical Accuracy (another question/topic I saw): to be honest, I never thought we would find ways to incorporate it into the hockey game like it works in OOTP (with the Lahman DB). But after 2 weeks we have already a database with all players + teams + careerstats for the NHL + WHA + NHA + PCHA + WCHL. And we have a lot of cool ideas to generate historical seasons from the data so my feeling that we can get something cool done is much better as it was before we started this thread.

1000 to you and your team.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

I'm pretty sure you guys read to much into the "always the same number of German Goalies": The size of the database is so big + add "ghost players" that fill up non-playable leagues and you will not even notice it.

lol you're probably right :P Sounds like you do have it worked out. It could be been something that would be better off for you not to share with us until after the game was released, but i'm glad that you did

I'm really hoping to have large lists of league and team records and alltime stats. I really love how OOTP has a list of 100 and you can sort through everyplayer with each team and league and also after they retire as well. I really would really enjoy those sort of things here too ...it's really one of the dreams of mine for a hockey sim. Wouldn't be against really long lists either (200 anyone?)

[fireholder]

to be honest, if the game is as customizable as it seems like OOTP is (not that i know), i don't see what such a heavy attention has been given to historical play. wouldn't the community be able to mod and release historical databases?

That asked, historical games will need to play like historical games. This has a lot of implications.

Equipment and playing styles have a huge impact on this. Players in the 30s through 70s were significantly less in-shape and less agile than players from the 80s onwards. This is due to both equipment and the evolution of the game itself. Player began to be treated more like specialized machines in the later 80s, and in the 70s players finally started receiving the ankle support needed for top-tier maneuverability. Take a stop by the Hockey Hall of Fame. You can look at the skates worn by players long-retired. These players wore the same pair for their entire careers, and they are not only flimsy, they wound up with actual holes in them from wear. So you can imagine why pivoting wasn't simple.

That isn't to say they didn't have agility at all, though. Some players were clearly still more agile than others. Explosive speed was rare if at all, and it was only on straightaways. I could babble on more about the different eras, but you all get my point.

Take the quintessential example -- Wayne Gretzky. He wasn't the fastest thing on ice, he didn't have the best shot and he wasn't even the most spectacular stickhandler. What Wayne Gretzky had was the awareness of the star players in the late 90s 20 years earlier. You take any of the elite modern players and put them in the early 80s and they will dominate as well. If you're looking at Gretz on a 1-99 scale, you're talking:

Anticipation: 99
Creativity: 95
Decision-making: 95
Courage: 50
Work/Hustle: 75

Passing: 95
Shooting: 75
Stickhandling: 75
Hitting: 30
Positioning: 80
Pokecheck: 70

Speed: 80
Agility: 75
Balance: 75
Stamina: 90

Etc, etc. Obviously I'm using the minimum to make a point. This looks like a good-to-great player by our current standards, but put him in a time when he had the smarts to intercept pass after pass and played everyone effortlessly like a fiddle due to his smarts, it would be easy to understand his dominance when the majority of the rest of the league has anticipation and decision-making in the 50s.

Gretz was never a speedster, so when he started to be less dominant as he aged was just because those around him were getting smarter.

When Gordie dominated it was strength, power, and skill. When Gretz did it, it was smarts and finesse.

[Bluenoser]

All good points fireholder, just want to point out if they can do historical as well as OOTP, then outside MOD's won't be required. It works quite well in OOTP, and not that I'm against MOD's by any means, they are essential and enjoyable, but the more I can do in the game, the more enjoyment I derive from it.

I'm not saying it's flawless in OOTP by any means, it certainly has room for improvement, but it does improve every version.

Most of the heavy attention is likely coming from OOTP Players who know and like the historical aspect of OOTP very much. I guess you could say us Historical Players are somewhat spoiled by the tremendous work Markus has put into that aspect of the game. It's hard to go backwards once you've advanced to that level of "spoiled"

[dave1927p]

i'd like to see ratings be generally low. a 90/100 should really be considered generational talent in that category. an 80-89 would be a star in that category. I know there won't be "overalls" like EAs games but their ratings are always way to high. I think that EHM are too -_- I'm sure EHM2.0 will be too. Fortuately this isn't EHM2.0

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Historical Play: both Malte and I studied History so the historical mode is something we want to tackle very carefully and with a lot of respect. It will be a hard task as we have to build a historical database from (almost) zero, we have to find ways to rate this players throughout time and we have to make sure that the experience people have while playing in e.g. 1960. As with everything it will be a process that will take a few versions to make it perfect (if it is even possible to make it perfect) but the most important point is to build a solid foundation with the first version.

Stats -> Ratings -> Stats (like in OOTP): the nature of the sport baseball makes it easy to generate ratings from stats as almost every stat (HR = Power, BB = Eye, ...) can directly translated to a rating. Additionally the fact that baseball is basically a batter/pitcher affair and after every battle (AB) the game is stopped and the next AB starts helps a lot. With hockey we have no AB's, we have a game flow with changing situations every few ms. It is not possible to generate ratings from stats, every player is always depending on the skills of his linesmen.

[Hoiles]

Thanks for your response about the ratings to stats question. I thought there might be a way to do so since there's a historical db to get ratings, you might be able to reverse the process to get the stats that correspond to the ratings. I do agree that you can't project the simulated stats from just ratings as they do also have to account for teammates, power play time, etc. Anyways just throwing out ideas that I liked from OOTP and EHM.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Originally Posted by Hoiles

Thanks for your response about the ratings to stats question. I thought there might be a way to do so since there's a historical db to get ratings, you might be able to reverse the process to get the stats that correspond to the ratings. I do agree that you can't project the simulated stats from just ratings as they do also have to account for teammates, power play time, etc. Anyways just throwing out ideas that I liked from OOTP and EHM.

Did I miss something?

[Hoiles]

I guess I should have used a "when" somewhere in that sentence, was jumping the gun about the historical db, carry on...

[fireholder]

too quiet!

[RBLwebguy]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

Historical Play: both Malte and I studied History so the historical mode is something we want to tackle very carefully and with a lot of respect. It will be a hard task as we have to build a historical database from (almost) zero, we have to find ways to rate this players throughout time and we have to make sure that the experience people have while playing in e.g. 1960. As with everything it will be a process that will take a few versions to make it perfect (if it is even possible to make it perfect) but the most important point is to build a solid foundation with the first version.

Stats -> Ratings -> Stats (like in OOTP): the nature of the sport baseball makes it easy to generate ratings from stats as almost every stat (HR = Power, BB = Eye, ...) can directly translated to a rating. Additionally the fact that baseball is basically a batter/pitcher affair and after every battle (AB) the game is stopped and the next AB starts helps a lot. With hockey we have no AB's, we have a game flow with changing situations every few ms. It is not possible to generate ratings from stats, every player is always depending on the skills of his linesmen.

Having something there from the first version I think will help sell the product. It doesn't have to be perfect if people can edit player to thier liking after an import takes place. One thing that attracts me to OOTP is importing a season in time (i.e. 1977) and having historical career replay mode where players take ratings bumps and hits and basically gives me a new history. Maybe a Mario Lemieux imports great but through his career development, he takes rating hits and becomes an average player?

Also it is good to be able to have the flipside, semi accurate historical output and replay as OOTP has slowly overtime perfected.

[dave1927p]

one more random request....family information in player profile if there sibling, father, or grandfather was a pro hockey player. Please put it on the "later version" list at least

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post3117402


RBLwebguy, there is no way lemeuix could just become an average player. He had so much skill. He did have a selfish attitude when he first came to the NHL and his coming out party was playing on team canada with Gretzky. I feel that he learned alot from playing with him but perhaps in an alternate universe if that never happened, and if he didn't find his way he would never of been the great player he was. So with that said i do like the idea to an extent. Some players get drafted to a team and shine but if they instead got drafted by someone else they might of never even made the nhl. I do agree that those situations would get me very interested in historical play.