EHM:FE Questions

[RPI-Fan]

Exactly or approximately how many junior leagues will there be? Just Major Juniors? Junior A? Junior B? Junior C?

My most important one: Will there be the NCAA?

And, of course, has there been any word on when it's coming out? I don't keep up on the SI boards - I would have missed any updates that have been officially given.

Thanks!
~kyle

[bbor]

Word is (from the nhl thread) that it is coming out sometime in the summer.

[Marc Vaughan]

This is simply a dump of the leagues present in the game:

LIST OF LEAGUES

United States National Hockey League
United States American Hockey League
Finland SM-league
Sweden Elitserien
Canada WHL
Canada OHL
Canada QMJHL
Germany All leagues
Finland Mestis
Sweden Allsvenskan
Great Britain All leagues
Finland Suomi-sarja & lower
Czech Republic All leagues
Switzerland All leagues
Denmark All leagues
United States East Coast Hockey League
France All leagues
United States United Hockey League
United States Central Hockey League
Italy All leagues
Austria All leagues
Slovakia All leagues
Russia All leagues
Slovenia All leagues

This is simply the list of 'active' (ie. manageable) leagues, there will be data and teams present for many more leagues in the game - however these won't be manageable in the first version of EHM:FE.

[ice4277]

Nice. I like the large number of leagues, truthfully I can only imagine ever coaching the North American leagues, but I think it should be very interesting, especially when it comes to drafting foreign talent into the NHL. The only thing I would like to see would be NCAA teams controllable. But I'm looking forward to taking control of the Plymouth Whalers :)

[riz]

Just to jump in with the voice of Miles (sorry Marc, lol):

"All leagues are subject to license."

The list above is just the leagues which we are doing research on, and we cannot guarantee that all of these will be in the final game before licenses have been sorted out. The "all leagues" mentioned regarding a few nations there means that the Head Researcher for that area handles all leagues in the region as opposed to some of the bigger nations where different HRs are heading the research for different levels of league or different leagues all together.

But one could say that this is the kind of list we are aiming for :D

[Chief Rum]

I would freely expect, of course, that you can't divulge the information I am about to ask you for, Riz, and if that's the case, oh well, but do you see any major snags coming up in the licensing process? Is Sega involved/working on it?

Knowing as we do the MLS issues with CM, I think I can vouch for the hockey crowd here that we are very interested in any good licensing news for any of the American-Canadian leagues (and especially the NHL, of course).

And, BTW, long as I have here, I wanted to second the idea of doing the NCAA. I think it would more than justify the effort in having to design a league like that (although you might have to use fictional players), as I can imagine that sales from everywhere from North Dakota to Maine, and as far south as Kentucky and Marlyand would go up substantially with a good NCAA hockey portion.

That said, I will also note as an aside the immense differences between the NCAA and professional hockey leagues. They quite simply run nothing alike, and if we remember the problem implementing the MLS's strange rules, well, designing the NCAA into this might make the MLS in CM thing look easy by comparison.

But despiute all that, I wanted to give a big thumbs up from someone else who would enjoy seeing that int he game some day. Now imagine if you had HS hockey...wow! That's the American juniors basically, you know. ;)

CR

[Karim]

Obviously the NHL has to be in it or this game dies before it begins. That's like CM without the Premiership. So hopefully this is a no-brainer and any licensing snags can be subverted by a good league, team and/or player editor.

The three CHL leagues are something I'm looking forward to seeing. Trying to start off in Major Junior and work your way to the AHL and then the NHL should make for an interesting LLaMa career.

[RPI-Fan]

Damn - was hoping there would be Junior A league in there (BCHL, OHA, AJHL), but alas no luck.

Also wish the NCAA were manage-able, but again, that'd be basically an entirely separate model.

Thanks for the responses!

[Maple Leafs]

What a great list. Sounds like the game is going to be very comprehensive. Can't wait.

However... in the fine message board tradition of picking one small thing to complain about...
United States National Hockey League
That is jut so wrong...

[samifan24]

I'm psyched about the possibility of controlling one NHL team's entire pipeline. This is the dream game I've been waiting for; I only hope that the licensing doesn't hit too many snags.

[Karim]

I know Maple Leafs but they warned us from the beginning that's how they were going to organize it.

I just hope the team displays won't be like in CM: Calgary - United States

[riz]

What a great list. Sounds like the game is going to be very comprehensive. Can't wait.

However... in the fine message board tradition of picking one small thing to complain about...
That is jut so wrong...

Heh...this must be the most common nag that we'll get from canadian fans :)
The problem is that we must place each league under a nation and since the majority of teams are from USA, it was only natural to place it under USA in the game. Don't worry, teams that participate in leagues can be from other nations than the "league's nation" so all teams have their proper home nations.

Licensing is looking ok. Moving slowly but moving along nevertheless. Sega have done a good job on that.

[sovereignstar]

United States United Hockey League
Is that actually suppose to be the USHL or is there actually a UHL?

[sachmo71]

United Hockey League. In the United States. :)