FHM8 Update 8.5.81 is Now Available

[JeffR]

The fourth update for FHM8, version 8.5.81, has just been released.

To apply the update:

-If you are playing the FastSpring version, just download the setup file and install it over your current installation. There is no need to uninstall or unlicense your current copy! However, you should quit the game before installing it, of course.
-If you are playing the Steam version, the game will auto-update if you have that option active. If you don't see the update in your Steam update queue, you may need to exit and restart your Steam client.

Download link for PC (FastSpring):
Main server: PC Installer Fastspring

Download link for Mac (FastSpring):
Main Server: Mac Installer Fastspring


This is our second "content" update for FHM8, adding new features in addition to fixing problems. We've added the first new playable league in a couple of years, the Australian Ice Hockey League; we've been a little hesitant to add new ones, mainly out of concern for slowing the standard game down, but the AIHL is a small league with a very straightforward format amd won't slow things down noticeably. Australians have also long been the largest segment of the FHM player base whose local league wasn't playable, so they were past due for getting their own teams. We've also made the new player cards completely moddable, so if you want to create a separate card for each historical season (or even future seasons), that's now possible. Unfortunately, the system to add line changes to the 2D in-game decisions ran into some more problems, particularly with game stability, and we're going to need more time to get it implemented properly and safely, so that'll have to be left to the next update. But in its place, we added full shootout coverage to the highlights modes and did some work on the goal/penalty popups, adding the long-requested season totals after the goal and assist announcements as well as adding referee icons to penalties which had none. And we've done a larger database update this time, rosters are now up-to-date as of December 14. We're planning two more large updates at this point; the last one will be after the NHL trading deadline in February, but we don't have a definite date for the one prior to that yet - we've been a little pressed for time on the first couple of content updates, so we'd like to take some extra time with the next one so we can finally get that line change feature in, as well as some other things that will require longer-term testing.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.


2D Changes:

-the in-game "Goal" popup now shows the preseason/season/playoff (whichever applies) totals after the names of players getting the goal and assists (we're going to be doing additional work on the popups to get them showing all penalties in multi-penalty situations, but that's going to require some recoding of their basic mechanics, so it wasn't ready in time for this update)
-shootouts are now shown in highlights and all-goals modes
-fixed potential crash when a highlight occurred in the first few seconds of the game
-national anthem .wavs will now work if placed in \sounds\anthems - there's no time limit, so it'll play the entire file; file must be a .wav named in the format country name_anthem.wav, e.g. canada_anthem.wav or the united states_anthem.wav (note the use of spacing/underscores in the latter)
-added missing referee icons to the in-game Penalty popup for the penalties that didn't have one
-on-ice player names now get left-justified if they're too long to fit, rather than getting centered so both ends get cut off
-fixed issue causing the goal popup to occasionally not show all the assists on a goal
-"Backchecking" in-game feedback popup should no longer be triggered in situations where the user's team is not outshooting their opponent by a significant amount
-the clock now runs when a highlight is being played instead of freezing
-highlights will now play at the selected view speed instead of always being at normal speed
-modded player icons now have the year in the filename (e.g. "player_new_york_islanders_away_1972-1998.png") will now work properly

Other Changes:

-Australian Ice Hockey League is now playable (schedule and league events are all offset by about seven months backwards so the season won't overlap July 1 and the league is in sync with the rest of the world; the league itself has a simple format, 28 games with the four teams making a two-round playoff with single-game series. The AIHL hasn't played non-exhibition games since late 2019, so the rosters are a best guess at this point, basically the 2019 rosters minus players who've moved to other leagues or retired. Salaries and budgets are very low, and it'll be difficult to sign any significant foreign players (and the better Australian players may not be interested, either.) Note that there is a foreigner player limit, but it does not apply to New Zealanders, who are counted as local players.
-hockey card customization enabled (I'll be posting instructions for this in the mod forum); also added about 20 new fonts that can be used to make modded cards
-database updated, rosters are as of December 14
-added a new function to AI roster management of draft picks to fix the cases where teams weren't signing prospects at appropriate times, e.g. leaving high picks unsigned until their junior careers ended; between this change and the fix to signing deadlines mentioned below, teams in leagues with drafts are now much more efficient at signing their young prospects
-in a custom game, if you use commissioner mode to take over a team between the end of the season and June 30, when you reach June 30 the end-of-season popup will no longer fail to show a season score and then crash
-fixed potential crash if you stop on June 30 of the first season of a a historical game and then attempt to continue
-adjusted annual team budget mechanics so the cheapest options always allow a budgeted amount over the cap floor in leagues with caps
-lowered the budget increases provided by the top options in the annual finances budget setting
-increased team regional bias when signing free agents (e.g. non-Russian KHL teams will no longer load up on North American free agents in preference to local players)
-lowered starting ability of newly-generated (July 1) players in custom games
-made the AI a little more reluctant to make waiver claims
-the QMJHL schedule will no longer fail to generate if the user has changed the league structure by moving teams between divisions
-lowered trade value of players in the period between the end of the playoffs and June 30 in the last season of their contract
-adjusted trade AI in junior leagues to make more use of draft picks
-when a player is released from junior (WHL/QMJHL/OHL) teams, his league rights will only become Free in all 3 leagues if he is over age 18, otherwise they'll remain on None for his non-local leagues (there were too many cases of young players changing leagues after being released, when this normally happens only with older players)
-the bonus shown on the training screen (the number in parentheses) now includes its adjustment (if any) by the Player Development selection in Annual Finances
-in multiplayer leagues, human GM's are no longer able to edit the suspension and injury data
-the monthly finances scouting support bonus is now applied correctly on the team scouting screen (it'll be impossible to raise a team's scouting above 15 in a region without a bonus)
-the "16 Teams, 8 Per Conf (NHL 1999-2013)" playoff system now works correctly in leagues that don't use the same divisional setup as the NHL had at that point
-updated presets file to make Ben Bishop's injury permanent)
-increased trade frequency in OHL
-adjusted starting fan happiness levels for several NHL teams
-adjusted NHL starting budgets
-WHL US Import Draft should now work properly
-adjusted junior preference so more US and Canadian players prefer college (college rosters still tend to be a little too thin after several seasons, going to need to do some more work in this area)
-fixed issue with some NHL signing deadlines being calculated incorrectly
-reworked movement of young players in nonplayable leagues in Russia, South Korea, China, Israel, and Australia to prevent dead-ending of careers of players who should continue playing into adulthood
-Hall of Fame nominees will eventually stop being nominated after repeated failed nominations so there aren't e.g. 110-year-old nominees
-the cost of the 2-week buyout option used by some leagues is now calculated correctly (had been charging the teams the full buyout amount, rather than two weeks' salary)
-the NHL awards ceremony in a standard game will now occur no later than June 29, to prevent a conflict with the manager end-of-season points screen
-international teams now get their lines cleared after a tournament, to prevent potential crashes from user-run teams using outdated line sets that include players no longer on the roster
-teams should no longer be mentioned as having both one of the best and the worst drafts in the draft review news story
-boxscores will no longer miscount power play totals by adding 1 to each team for every minor penalty, including coincidentals (the actual team stats were always counting it correctly, it was just appearing wrong in the boxscore)

[JeffR]

I'll also be posting some card modding guidelines in the mods forum in a few minutes.

And for those on Steam, Steam trading cards have just been enabled, they'll drop at a rate of 1 per 2 hours played.

[Scottababc]

Were junior players potentials updated? I recall in the last update you said only minor changes were made.

[Swedishgamefreak]

I noticed that the scouting number will not go higher that 17.0 in all scouting areas.

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by Swedishgamefreak

I noticed that the scouting number will not go higher that 17.0 in all scouting areas.

-the monthly finances scouting support bonus is now applied correctly on the team scouting screen (it'll be impossible to raise a team's scouting above 15 in a region without a bonus)

[Risk2014]

Hey Jeff looks like so many changes. Love it. Can we make game decisions now In AHL or ECHL like we do for our NHL team?

Or will this be included in the next update?

[seven]

Thanks for the 2D fixes. Great progress...

[wiggleman83]

Thank you for the custom league playoffs fix, it was driving me insane looking at the playoffs in some of my leagues

[jumpSeat]

Wow, so much good stuff here.

Happy the player cards are now moddable...
Great to see the multi-penalty popups are fixed (as seeing a single penalty called only to discover we're now playing 4-on-4 was driving me crazy).

Also, fixing the highlight crash in the first few seconds is a good step forward. And cheers for the anthem fix as I was just setting that up in my game.

Tiny bit sad the line changes aren't here yet, but at least I know they're coming. All-in-all, great job. Thank you!

[skirmish]

Originally Posted by JeffR

-lowered starting ability of newly-generated (July 1) players in custom games

Woohoo! Legend! Been holding off playing waiting for this.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Risk2014

Hey Jeff looks like so many changes. Love it. Can we make game decisions now In AHL or ECHL like we do for our NHL team?

Or will this be included in the next update?

Maybe not the next one, but it's still on our list.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Scottababc

Were junior players potentials updated? I recall in the last update you said only minor changes were made.

I did the likely 1st/2nd-rounders for 2022, will be doing more before the next one.

[thim1960]

after having tested FHM 8 new version here are my observations.


-format of the best of 3 playoffs always gives me total-goals series.


-overtime at 0 point, is a loss (L) and not a loss in overtime (OT) the correction seems to be made on the standings of the teams but not on the stats of the goalies and the staff

[Bigdummie]

Thank You for the update, its nice that this game is getting better all the time.

[thim1960]

Indeed FHM is constantly improving but the basis of the game must prevail.

[Stormsky]

-added a new function to AI roster management of draft picks to fix the cases where teams weren't signing prospects at appropriate times, e.g. leaving high picks unsigned until their junior careers ended; between this change and the fix to signing deadlines mentioned below, teams in leagues with drafts are now much more efficient at signing their young prospects

This is great news! I was having a serious issue with it in my last game.

Also something I just noticed: the capacity for the Seattle arena is listed as the old number, before the renovation. It should now be 17,490 or something like that.

[MXD]

Hummmm more College preference? Junior drafts tend to already be super thin (in my current Q game at least) and these leagues are playable.

[MXD]

Oh, it is technically a former version game, but I didn't see a thing about this in the update :

In my current season, every team has a better record Away than at Home.

[crusadertsar]

Thanks for the updates! Really stoked to pick it up hopefully this week (counting on that Winter Steam sale )

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Stormsky

This is great news! I was having a serious issue with it in my last game.

Also something I just noticed: the capacity for the Seattle arena is listed as the old number, before the renovation. It should now be 17,490 or something like that.

Looks like it's 17,151 now, I'll get that updated in the next one.