Historical Minor Leagues?

[Orioles1966]

I wonder if this will be available with version 2? I would be interested if it goes back to 1960.


Leagues interested in playing:


American Hockey League
Western Hockey League
International Hockey League
Eastern Hockey League
Central Pro Hockey League


The AHL and WHL had inter-locking schedules for 2 seasons back in the late 1960s.

[Airchallenged]

Originally Posted by Orioles1966

I wonder if this will be available with version 2? I would be interested if it goes back to 1960.


Leagues interested in playing:


American Hockey League
Western Hockey League
International Hockey League
Eastern Hockey League
Central Pro Hockey League


The AHL and WHL had inter-locking schedules for 2 seasons back in the late 1960s.

I'm also hoping for at least the AHL at some point. This would help with those of us who want to start a more recent historical game. In particular I want to take over the Hurricanes the moment they move from Hartford but having to stick everyone on the reserve list ruins the feel for me.

[BostonStrong]

Originally Posted by Airchallenged

I'm also hoping for at least the AHL at some point. This would help with those of us who want to start a more recent historical game. In particular I want to take over the Hurricanes the moment they move from Hartford but having to stick everyone on the reserve list ruins the feel for me.

I agree even if they don't want to make all minor leagues playable atleast have a farm team so your "reserve" players can play I've made a thread about atleast having the AHL in history mode and the answer I got was they have no plans on adding it anytime soon and he said reserve list works fine I was and still am a little upset I haven't played history mode because of this :/

[jhart05]

Count me in as one who is also waiting for this to be an option.

My suggestion would be to start with current day players and work your way back.

Or I believe many from EHM are helping with the FHM player database. Should be able to start with an EHM database and tweak it to fit the FHM style DB.

If I could start in the 2006-07 season with full access to all leagues, then be able to set up my AHL and ECHL like it is today, I'd be all in for this game.

Untill then, FHM isn't really of any interest to me and I'll continue to play EHM. Yes, I know the "pay to support the project" claim. Sorry, but my $40 can be better spent in other areas of my budget, rather than on a game I'll never play.

[BostonStrong]

Originally Posted by jhart05

Count me in as one who is also waiting for this to be an option.

My suggestion would be to start with current day players and work your way back.

Or I believe many from EHM are helping with the FHM player database. Should be able to start with an EHM database and tweak it to fit the FHM style DB.

If I could start in the 2006-07 season with full access to all leagues, then be able to set up my AHL and ECHL like it is today, I'd be all in for this game.

Untill then, FHM isn't really of any interest to me and I'll continue to play EHM. Yes, I know the "pay to support the project" claim. Sorry, but my $40 can be better spent in other areas of my budget, rather than on a game I'll never play.

I agree and understand what your saying though the more people who buy the game the better it will be in the long run look at ehm they closed down due to poor sales and people stealing the game... With that said I'm not a dev so I don't know how it they could do it but adding the ahl to history mode doesn't seem like it would be to hard they already have the league set up.... But who knows maybe some day

[Orioles1966]

Originally Posted by BostonStrong

I agree and understand what your saying though the more people who buy the game the better it will be in the long run look at ehm they closed down due to poor sales and people stealing the game... With that said I'm not a dev so I don't know how it they could do it but adding the ahl to history mode doesn't seem like it would be to hard they already have the league set up.... But who knows maybe some day

There is no reason why they can't start the minor leagues as custom leagues until they have the real teams.

[StrikeFour]

Originally Posted by Airchallenged

I'm also hoping for at least the AHL at some point. This would help with those of us who want to start a more recent historical game. In particular I want to take over the Hurricanes the moment they move from Hartford but having to stick everyone on the reserve list ruins the feel for me.

I have already begun work on the historic schedules. The rosters will follow, but these take a bit more time.

Now, when they decide to use these is anyone's guess.

[G-Nuke]

In large part this could be resolved by allowing us to import historical rosters into custom leagues and if we could also run expansions in said custom leagues. Basically give us some of the functionality and flexibility of OOTP.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

I know that people think it is really easy to add stuff like historical leagues but guess what: it took us months to "just" add the NHL back to 1947. It is not easy and it takes a lot of time.

[BostonStrong]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

I know that people think it is really easy to add stuff like historical leagues but guess what: it took us months to "just" add the NHL back to 1947. It is not easy and it takes a lot of time.

I understand that but couldn't you add the ahl just for reserve list players for a starter or would that be a lot of work?

[jhart05]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

I know that people think it is really easy to add stuff like historical leagues but guess what: it took us months to "just" add the NHL back to 1947. It is not easy and it takes a lot of time.

Wow, by your response, seem to have touched a nerve here.

I don't believe many think it is easy.

I've worked on a few seasons and databases myself for other sports games. I know first hand it's not easy, and takes time.

[batdad]

Originally Posted by jhart05

Wow, by your response, seem to have touched a nerve here.

I don't believe many think it is easy.

I've worked on a few seasons and databases myself for other sports games. I know first hand it's not easy, and takes time.

I do not think you touched a nerve with Sebastien. I think he has answered these questions by saying they are focusing for the time being on getting the things in the game that make it a hockey game working well, and properly. That means things like Jeff researching historical rosters, and doing data entry for minor league historical rosters are not a top priority at this point.

I think he is saying for the one millionth time in the last few weeks...that they know where the focus needs to be. Making this a GOOD HOCKEY SIM, and worrying about the finer details of AHL history, ECHL history, Central league history and fantasy play a whole lot later than right now.

It is not a negative comment, it is a comment that says....we are going to get this to be a hockey game, not a random number generator.

Sure...in OOTP historical play is huge, and it came as time went on in development of the game. Not at the beginning for all teams in the history of baseball. The same will eventually occur with FHM....just not yet.

Thank you development team for realizing that the game needs to have a hockey feel to it, and not worrying so much about the history and fantasy players at this point.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Originally Posted by jhart05

Wow, by your response, seem to have touched a nerve here.

I don't believe many think it is easy.

I've worked on a few seasons and databases myself for other sports games. I know first hand it's not easy, and takes time.

Sorry, I didn't want to sound harsh (English is not my natural language). I think it is natural that people ask for the features they want the most and I just try to explain that we have limited resources (2 coders, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) and need to decide what to add/fix/tweak first.

[AlpineSK]

How about the option to not have to release half of my team at the start of the season because I can't send them down.. That'd be nice.

[BostonStrong]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

How about the option to not have to release half of my team at the start of the season because I can't send them down.. That'd be nice.

That's what I'm saying at first just have the ahl as a league so you can send players down instead of a "reserve" list then work on the history I think from 2000 up would be nice if that can't be done then just make the ahl rostors out of reserve list

[Telos]

The first thing I thought when entering this thread was that that sounds like an immense amount of work for a feature that will probably be utilized very little. That sounds like a version 3 feature or something. It would be nice, but is a luxury at this point.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Telos

The first thing I thought when entering this thread was that that sounds like an immense amount of work for a feature that will probably be utilized very little. That sounds like a version 3 feature or something. It would be nice, but is a luxury at this point.

Yeah, that's about the right timeframe. Getting the remaining NHL years done will happen first. I've written about this before, but in short, adding minor leagues presents a variety of problems. It's not a case of "just add the AHL"; years in which the AHL was the only top-level farm league are actually a minority of NHL history. So the old IHL, CHL, and WHL, at a minimum, would need to be in there, too, for there to be enough minor league teams to cover the NHL completely in every season. That brings added complications, because the level of play in those leagues and their exact relationship with the NHL varied quite a bit over the years in some cases. Then there's the complication of shifting affiliations over the years - that's going to require some changes to allow the game to automatically change those year-by-year.

Finally, another problem: the changing nature of the way the NHL has handled its non-roster players. The reserve lists doesn't just represent the minor leagues, they also cover situations where the players on them would be playing in junior, college, or other amateur leagues, Europe, senior hockey, or elsewhere. They're a one-size-fits-all solution for all the different methods the NHL has had of warehousing those extra players, rather than having to have all of those situations modeled and changing year-by-year. So just dumping all of those players into a generic "minor league" doesn't make sense, either, since they'd actually be spread across several leagues in real life.

The bottom line: getting the minor leagues in will take a fair amount of time, thought, and resources (and I haven't even mentioned the research and database work needed.) Appending some kind of pseudo-AHL onto the later historical years isn't a realistic option at all; it would likely require a similar amount of time as coding the WHA took, would create problems in games that have to transition from one system to the other in whatever the cutoff year was, and it would all get thrown out when the minor leagues were done properly. It doesn't make much sense to spend time on that when there are much higher priorities to deal with.

[mgom27]

Another problem is with contracted with team if you change it to 999 is doesn't stay and missing are unsigned Prospects when you load a League. Also for years past 2013/14 their no can put team up for sale and get moved by the computer or Minor League E.