OOTP goes HOCKEY!!!!

[Afino]

there is no way lemeuix could just become an average player.

Alex Ovechkin is an average player right now.....

[Afino]

there is no way lemeuix could just become an average player.

Alex Ovechkin is an average player right now.....

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Afino

Alex Ovechkin is an average player right now.....

65 points is above average and second on his team in points and second for goals. But for him, it's well below avg. He's still an effective player out there but yes, he is struggling - But who are you kiddin, he's still a very dangerous threat on the ice who's playing 1st line time and getting covered by the top defence on the opposing team. That hardly qualifies as an average player.

[Byrath]

It's going to be a looong 10-12 months waiting for this to come out!

Sorry to reference EHM yet again, but it's what I know so....

My first thought is that I hope you'll be careful with the amount of needless micromanaging in the game. Adjusting practice schedules every single day of the game in EHM was awful imo, and is the main reason I've not played it for some time now. Scouting was another area that felt like a lot more work than it needed to be.

Second, I encourage you to have the game give tangible feedback on player decisions as much as possible. Especially regarding coaching decisions... I often had no idea whether my coaching was good or bad, I have no idea how to rectify this in a free-flowing game like hockey, but maybe others have some.

Anyway, best of luck in developing this game, if its as good as my father says OOTP is (not really into baseball myself), you will make many hockey fans very happy.

[billman29]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

I love the talk about possible ways to introduce historical play. Some form of existing database would be a great starting point (and would help for modern play as well) and I will check out what was posted in this thread over the weekend. If you have more findings, let me know. I seem to remember a side much like Retrosheet that has hockey play by play data available but I can't find the link.

Hockey Summary Project i believe this is the site you were referring to

[GlennN]

Originally Posted by Byrath

It's going to be a looong 10-12 months waiting for this to come out!

Sorry to reference EHM yet again, but it's what I know so....

My first thought is that I hope you'll be careful with the amount of needless micromanaging in the game. Adjusting practice schedules every single day of the game in EHM was awful imo, and is the main reason I've not played it for some time now. Scouting was another area that felt like a lot more work than it needed to be.

Second, I encourage you to have the game give tangible feedback on player decisions as much as possible. Especially regarding coaching decisions... I often had no idea whether my coaching was good or bad, I have no idea how to rectify this in a free-flowing game like hockey, but maybe others have some.

Anyway, best of luck in developing this game, if its as good as my father says OOTP is (not really into baseball myself), you will make many hockey fans very happy.

Excellent points. I agree all around.

[Cole]

Very intrigued by this project. One thing that sounds especially good to me is a game database that recognizes the strong of hockey quality in different countries and makes players skills correlated to that. I could be wrong, but that's not a functionality that's even currently in OOTP, is it?

I know OOTP does rank the baseball quality of different nations, but it doesn't correlate directly to player creation, does it? For example, if I set up a world league with say 4 teams.. From USA, Japan, Dominican and Belize .... I'm just as likely to have the players created in Belize (the weak baseball nation) be all-stars or future hall of famers as I am the players from USA, Japan and Dominican? When I've tried to set up world leagues in OOTP before, to my chagrin that's always been the case... So I'm happy to hear that will be more accurately reflected in this hockey game (that is the case in OOTP, right?)

[CatKnight]

ripwalk: I believe you're mistaken. There was a Haitian dynasty on the boards awhile back, and the author noted that the handful of American 'immigrants' to his league tended to be higher caliber than the natives. It could be small sample size, but I took that to mean the player's birth country is taken into account.

I missed out on NHL EHM, so I can't wait for this. I'm hoping for the chance to resurrect my Hartford Whalers!

[Cole]

Originally Posted by CatKnight

ripwalk: I believe you're mistaken. There was a Haitian dynasty on the boards awhile back, and the author noted that the handful of American 'immigrants' to his league tended to be higher caliber than the natives. It could be small sample size, but I took that to mean the player's birth country is taken into account.

I missed out on NHL EHM, so I can't wait for this. I'm hoping for the chance to resurrect my Hartford Whalers!

It's entirely possible that Haitian dynasty (I haven't read it) had immigrants coming from another American league in the same world, which had a higher calibre.. Yes, I know that is the case that you can set up different world leagues, with varying skills in one universe.

But, I've played OOTP for years and any time I've tried international leagues if I have 1 team in each country, the game generates an equal number of players of high/medium/low calibre for each and every country. There are future Hall of Famers from Italy just the same as there are from America.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by ripwalk

It's entirely possible that Haitian dynasty (I haven't read it) had immigrants coming from another American league in the same world, which had a higher calibre.. Yes, I know that is the case that you can set up different world leagues, with varying skills in one universe.

But, I've played OOTP for years and any time I've tried international leagues if I have 1 team in each country, the game generates an equal number of players of high/medium/low calibre for each and every country. There are future Hall of Famers from Italy just the same as there are from America.

But you never really knew where countrys ranked officially what with no international play in ootp. In the sense of tendencies based on country, i have to agree i don't think it exists in any game, at least not from what i hear so it sounds very promising but a difficult task i imagine.


On an unrelated note, i hope that there is big financials in the game. A GMs has to impress shareholder/owners, and the shareholders want money. Sure winning it all would be nice, but make money. Of course there are some GMs that care not about money and only want to win and sometimes they stick their nose into operations too much and force trades.

Those scenarios are great to have in these sort of games, not only adding depth and realism, but extra scenarios for the users to play out. Can Phoenix be saved? Can Florida be made into a money making team? Those sort of things are a blast to play out. Ultimately your team has to win but in doing so and watching the butts fill the seats and the money pouring in versus out is always fun

Something like what forbes does with their rankings would be very cool to have one day. I suppose at the very least i'd be interested in how much the team is losing or gaining and what their attendence is. I love how ootp includes the revenue/losses in the history page. I enjoy not only making my team profitable in ootp, but the entire league while playing in commish mode - i hope that i will be able to do the same here.

This shouldn't be only a 'hockey' sim, it should represent the real world sport in being a business sim too

http://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/

[Alessandro]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

On an unrelated note, i hope that there is big financials in the game. A GMs has to impress shareholder/owners, and the shareholders want money. Sure winning it all would be nice, but make money. Of course there are some GMs that care not about money and only want to win and sometimes they stick their nose into operations too much and force trades.

Those scenarios are great to have in these sort of games, not only adding depth and realism, but extra scenarios for the users to play out. Can Phoenix be saved? Can Florida be made into a money making team? Those sort of things are a blast to play out. Ultimately your team has to win but in doing so and watching the butts fill the seats and the money pouring in versus out is always fun

Something like what forbes does with their rankings would be very cool to have one day. I suppose at the very least i'd be interested in how much the team is losing or gaining and what their attendence is. I love how ootp includes the revenue/losses in the history page. I enjoy not only making my team profitable in ootp, but the entire league while playing in commish mode - i hope that i will be able to do the same here.

This shouldn't be only a 'hockey' sim, it should represent the real world sport in being a business sim too

The Business Of Hockey

All this stuff is NA only though

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Hey guys and girls.

I was a little quit the last few weeks and the reason is simple: I'm working 24/7 on the game. Or to be more correct: I generate the database we use as base for our researchers. Thats not the most exciting stuff to do but it has to be done to give us a head start for editing. Just to give you an idea about the dimensions here are some numbers (as I'm about to be done with my work):

We have about 90.000 cities from around the world, every existing state/province + nation, 40 leagues, 277 teams and over 11.000 players (no ratings of course, "just" most bio data and career stats for the NHL + some old leagues like the WHA). Players + Leagues are NA only so far but down to the USHL and NAHL (will not be playable).

It is great that we found ways to import such a hugh number of info, we could not even think about historical play if we had to add all this by hand (the city/state/nation database is from OOTP but altered to reflect the needs we have for hockey).

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Alessandro

All this stuff is NA only though

I recall you and i having this talk once before

Making money is more so a mindset for the owners in north america, yes, but i'd still like to know how much my team is losing or gaining in europe too. I'm just saying all that information would be available to the GMs in europe too. And sure maybe the owners wouldn't care as much but the info is still there - the owners just have a different mindset. Hopefully owners will be a presence in the game :P

[Alessandro]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

I recall you and i having this talk once before

Making money is more so a mindset for the owners in north america, yes, but i'd still like to know how much my team is losing or gaining in europe too. I'm just saying all that information would be available to the GMs in europe too. And sure maybe the owners wouldn't care as much but the info is still there - the owners just have a different mindset. Hopefully owners will be a presence in the game :P

Finances are very complicated and well-managed in Europe as well, there is just a difference in the point of view. Here the sport is less money-centered

[Matt Arnold]

So looking forward to this. Definitely been looking for a new sim since I got tired of EHM.

I know it's been said, but it'll definitely be nice to see it's not just "OOTP on Ice" or "EHM v2" (or v3 or v4 or whatever). I'd even suggest going back to the old freeware EHM game and stealing ideas from that - there were a few things there that were great ideas that I wished they brought over to SI (although I don't remember off the top of my head).

Other things I'd love to see (speaking NHL-oriented), is a thorough way to see draft previews and reviews. So, for example, if there were basic screens that were even as simple as this: 1997 NHL Entry Draft Picks at hockeydb.com to look back on past drafts, that'd be great. And for looking forward, I'd love to see upcoming stories about both the next draft (like currently they release rankings about 3 times in the year leading up to the upcoming draft), and also stories about the next generation of big talents. So we would hear about Crosby or Tavares in news stories since they were like 14, I'd love this new game to have similar stories like that show up.

As long as it's as customizable as OOTP and simulates and feels like a hockey game, I know it'll be great!

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by UWHabs

Other things I'd love to see (speaking NHL-oriented), is a thorough way to see draft previews and reviews. So, for example, if there were basic screens that were even as simple as this: 1997 NHL Entry Draft Picks at hockeydb.com to look back on past drafts, that'd be great.

maybe adding a section on that screen for "Current Team" as well and if the player is retired i'd just say that in that section. And being able to filter that screen for each team would be a must too. Taking it a step further, having a legend of sorts that simply shows if the player was an allstar, HOF, stanley cup champion. That additional info is always great to know without having to click and open up a player profile to see. No better place for it then there too.

[Gazzw87]

Apologies if it's been mentioned, I skipped a few pages back but didn't see...

Will the game have any International management on it?

[Byrath]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

I'm working 24/7 on the game.

We're going to need a little more dedication from you sir.

[dave1927p]

OOTP seems to create player pools for each individual pro league to feed to the draft. So if you had more then one major league, there would be several seperate amateur draft classes created for each - that's instead of one big pool for all to draft. Having the possibility of drafting the same guys and fighting trying to sign them. Even the KHL today is drafting some North American kids who also drafted by the NHL. We saw this back in the 70s with the NHL and WHA too.

So i'm wondering how will this aspect work in the game? That's one thing i hope is not similar to ootp....

[Kobeck]

KHL drafting Canadians/Americans? Are they having any success signing them?

I just cant imagine a Canadian or American packing up and moving to Stalingrade to play hockey. I guess if the $$$s were in the bank it would all be good, but still.