PING: Riz/Marc Vaughn

[DeToxRox]

The Frozen Four tournament has me as always amped for college puck. I doubt there will ever be the ability to control NCAA teams in future versions of EHM but is it something you're looking into at all on the slightest whim?

Not a big nitch but it'd be amazing.

[st.cronin]

The Frozen Four tournament has me as always amped for college puck. I doubt there will ever be the ability to control NCAA teams in future versions of EHM but is it something you're looking into at all on the slightest whim?

Not a big nitch but it'd be amazing.

This would be a huge addition. I've posted several times on the SI forums about this.

[RPI-Fan]

I don't know how recruiting would work, but even if it weren't totally subtle that would be Ok!

And as if it means anything: The current version of EHM I don't really like. The style of gameplay, ce n'est pas pour moi.

But, if NCAA was playable even in rudimentary form, without any other improvements to the game, I'd be a lifetime customer of EHM.

[riz]

I've seen the suggestions and I'm also personally interested in the aspect of college hockey. However, there are tons of obstacles that need to be cleared or bypassed before controlling college teams is doable. First of, I know little of the college recruiting etc. myself and would want to research this area in detail before jumping into any designing or coding. Secondly, there is no way of ever licensing the player names for colleges, so this naturally puts the whole aspect of making these leagues playable pretty low in the priorities if there are other possible licensed leagues to add or improve as well. Thirdly, from, the little I know about the college sims and their feature sets, adding these leagues as playable would require some very major new features coded specifically for the college leagues.

So yes, in long term plans I would love to take a look into this, but realistically I must say that it will not be in the next version and most likely not even the next next version. It will take a bit more time than that.

[st.cronin]

I've seen the suggestions and I'm also personally interested in the aspect of college hockey. However, there are tons of obstacles that need to be cleared or bypassed before controlling college teams is doable. First of, I know little of the college recruiting etc. myself and would want to research this area in detail before jumping into any designing or coding. Secondly, there is no way of ever licensing the player names for colleges, so this naturally puts the whole aspect of making these leagues playable pretty low in the priorities if there are other possible licensed leagues to add or improve as well. Thirdly, from, the little I know about the college sims and their feature sets, adding these leagues as playable would require some very major new features coded specifically for the college leagues.

So yes, in long term plans I would love to take a look into this, but realistically I must say that it will not be in the next version and most likely not even the next next version. It will take a bit more time than that.

The first point, having to research how recruiting works, is understanable. The second point, I think is moot. I think most people interested in playing the NCAAs don't particularly care about 'real names.' Look at the other college sims, TCY, BBCF, etc. The last point (adding these leagues as playable would require some very major new features coded specifically for the college leagues.) I don't understand. What new features would be required?

[Marc Vaughan]

) I don't understand. What new features would be required?

Not meaning to put words into Riz's mouth (as EHM is his game and not mine) - but if I was going to put a college section into FM then I'd look at the following:

* Study time/Practice time (ie. is your star player going to drop out because you're training him hard and he's not getting a chance to study (presuming you're not a school where players coast regardless of grades) or is he going to withdraw his services because he feels he needs his grades kept up (probably not so common in American sports, but one or two promising kids have withdrawn from soccer academies because of this - one notable player in the non-league in England was coded into CM (as FM was called in those days) with a special happiness to indicate he was studying for a law degree and wouldn't consider joining a pro club).
* Social situation (probably fairly important at the 'college' age imho) and various options for trying to guide this (ie. ways to communicate with players if they start slacking for whatever reason). By this I mean along the lines of the 'happiness' descriptions in FM (ie. not setting your quarter back up with a girlfriend, more along the lines of 'is feeling the pressure of being away from home' if he's a small town boy who's at college miles from home - then you'd have the options for a 'heart to heart', 'tell him to buck up' or to let him visit his folks or whatever - depending on his personality would depend on what worked best).
* Recruitment - this would be a huge module imho, scouting players, persuading them to join you etc. - done right with the right personality effects in place this would feel fantastic imho.
* Player motivation - it'd be important to know what motivates the players in your team, are they looking to turn into pro players, are they hoping to graduate from law school and specialise in that and for them Football is just a hobby ... etc. - this in turn should influence how you handle them as a coach.

(as you can tell I'm not amazingly knowledgable about the College sports scene in America and I'm sure some of these probably don't apply - just talking off the top of my head based upon my UK schooling)

[RPI-Fan]

See, for me at least, all I'd want is a "working" recruiting model, and then have it further developed from there. Basically, from my point view, I'd be happy (at first) with a 'tweaked' version of EHM -- not some totally new, radically different setup.

[st.cronin]

Not meaning to put words into Riz's mouth (as EHM is his game and not mine) - but if I was going to put a college section into FM then I'd look at the following:

* Study time/Practice time (ie. is your star player going to drop out because you're training him hard and he's not getting a chance to study (presuming you're not a school where players coast regardless of grades) or is he going to withdraw his services because he feels he needs his grades kept up (probably not so common in American sports, but one or two promising kids have withdrawn from soccer academies because of this - one notable player in the non-league in England was coded into CM (as FM was called in those days) with a special happiness to indicate he was studying for a law degree and wouldn't consider joining a pro club).
* Social situation (probably fairly important at the 'college' age imho) and various options for trying to guide this (ie. ways to communicate with players if they start slacking for whatever reason). By this I mean along the lines of the 'happiness' descriptions in FM (ie. not setting your quarter back up with a girlfriend, more along the lines of 'is feeling the pressure of being away from home' if he's a small town boy who's at college miles from home - then you'd have the options for a 'heart to heart', 'tell him to buck up' or to let him visit his folks or whatever - depending on his personality would depend on what worked best).
* Recruitment - this would be a huge module imho, scouting players, persuading them to join you etc. - done right with the right personality effects in place this would feel fantastic imho.
* Player motivation - it'd be important to know what motivates the players in your team, are they looking to turn into pro players, are they hoping to graduate from law school and specialise in that and for them Football is just a hobby ... etc. - this in turn should influence how you handle them as a coach.

(as you can tell I'm not amazingly knowledgable about the College sports scene in America and I'm sure some of these probably don't apply - just talking off the top of my head based upon my UK schooling)

Not to be too much of a pain in the ass, but I think all of those could be described as 'things which would be nice to have' rather than 'new features which NEED to be created in order to make a certain league playable.'

I guess what I was thinking of was things like scholarship limits, which, to my mind, would just be a sort of 'budget translation.' (ie, budget of x amount of dollars gets translated to budget of x amount of schollys)

[st.cronin]

I concur with the gentleman from RPI.

[Marc Vaughan]

See, for me at least, all I'd want is a "working" recruiting model, and then have it further developed from there. Basically, from my point view, I'd be happy (at first) with a 'tweaked' version of EHM -- not some totally new, radically different setup.

As I indicated that was just my 'take' on it - EHM is Riz's baby not mine so he might be more inclined to accept a slightly more 'limited' approach to the college game .... I just tend to draw up grand plans and aim towards them (even if initially I can't manage to implement 100% of them initially, heck in FM's case 8% of them initially ;) ).

[RPI-Fan]

As I indicated that was just my 'take' on it - EHM is Riz's baby not mine so he might be more inclined to accept a slightly more 'limited' approach to the college game .... I just tend to draw up grand plans and aim towards them (even if initially I can't manage to implement 100% of them initially, heck in FM's case 8% of them initially ;) ).

Yes, but your's and riz's posts in this thread are pretty much interchangeable.

Therefore my reply was really more to riz than to you. :)

Thanks much to both of you guys for at least offering a response! (even if it's one that will keep me from giving you my money for EHM)

[Cards4ever]

Recruiting might be tougher then you think, especially with quite a few players getting half scholarships.

[Blade6119]

Recruiting might be tougher then you think, especially with quite a few players getting half scholarships.
Exactly why Jim needs to go to SI...The FM guys instituted the draft for the MLS(and scouting combine) which was totally new to them...im not sure how that it much different from adding recruiting in college...different coding, but cant be too different in difficulty to implement. I know marc said he knew nothing of drafts and other researchers/developers helped his team. Im happy with everything SI has been doing, but i dont think it outside the realm of possibility after seeing them handle the MLS(first it was pretty screwy with the combine and stuff, but version by version it got better). Just talking, not knocking SI, who i think are the best company around.

[Pumpy Tudors]

To me, just making "basic" changes to EHM is half-assed. It's not what I would expect from SI. I can see where you guys are coming from when you really only want to be able to control a college team and recruit players, but with everything else that's in the game already (and with everything that's yet to come), a basic college module wouldn't seem "right" to me. Perhaps SI has been up too much of a reputation with me, mostly thanks to Football Manager, but it would just seem cheap to make the leagues playable and not add in many of the things that Marc mentioned.

Obviously, my opinion doesn't apply to everybody. :)

[JeffR]

Pumpy's got it about right. Last year, I put together a summary for Riz of what would be needed to get the college leagues functioning in a quick-and-dirty way, with a minimum of modifications to the current engine. Problem was, as I thought out the implications of everything I was suggesting, I kept realizing that most of it would have ramifications on other leagues in the game, which would need changes as well, and the quick-and-dirty model became a slow-and-still-kinda-dirty model.

For example, a "working" recruiting model: it can't be done the same way as in a basketball or football game, because in those sports the NCAA effectively has no competition for recruits (rare exceptions for players good enough to play pro out of HS aside.) But in hockey, the Canadian junior leagues compete on a more or less equal footing, and have decisive advantages with some categories of players. So you have to make sure the recruiting model integrates with the way junior recruitment currently works - or remodel the junior recruitment to use the new recruiting model as well.

Now add in the fact that, unlike in other games, the players being recruited are already in leagues that the game models in fairly high detail (not so much at the moment, but I think it's likely we'll see Canadian and US Junior A leagues playable in the game before the college leagues, if only because they're licensable and easier to deal with from a coding standpoint.) You can't have the colleges strip-mining all the 18-year-old talent out every summer, because that's not the way it happens in real life - it would grossly distort the talent distribution in those leagues. So you have to have some guys not leaving for college until they're 19 or 20 (and preferably, have a visible reason for doing that - weak grades, limited exposure to recruiters because they're coming out of a low-profile minor hockey system, whatever.)

Unless you do all of that, it would be tough to get the right mix of players flowing into several leagues and levels of hockey. The stuff Marc mentioned isn't just chrome; it's essential to getting the demographics of each league right. It might be possible to do it without taking that stuff into account, but it'd require a lot of man-hours devoted to testing and tweaking to maintain some level of realism - and you'd still probably wind up with an ugly patchwork of code. That'd be a horrible use of limited resources (and they are limited, EHM doesn't get to tap into a bottomless well of SI funds and personnel.) Much better to think things over from the ground up and carefully design a system that'll be both fun to use and fit in neatly with the rest of the game.

[astrosfan64]

Put me in the list of people who want college hockey leagues playable. Marc, most college atheletes know what they are getting into when the take a scholorship. The things you list above are minor concerns definately not major ones.

I think the key to getting it to work is recruitment/scholorships. Also determining what players want to go into the minor league teams vs going to college. Very similiar to baseballs dilemia.

[Klinglerware]

With that being said, I'm in the camp that thinks that you can't do an immersive college management game without at least some element of academics. You can leave micro-management out of it, but at least having a recruit's GPA and SAT score correlate with the percentage chance he stays eligible would be nice. Also, poor students should not be going to ECAC schools (and not all of these schools offer scholarships, but that's another issue), I'm not sure I could suspend disbelief if that were to happen...

[Galaril]

I am hoping and have a feeling the next Greydog Studios-the guys that made Bowlbound College Football and Total College Basketball -game will be a college hockey game. I think it would do well.

[ice4277]

I am hoping and have a feeling the next Greydog Studios-the guys that made Bowlbound College Football and Total College Basketball -game will be a college hockey game. I think it would do well.

I really can't see a group like that doing a college hockey game. I can't see there being enough of a market for one. It would have to be a part-time effort by a one-man band-type operation.

[st.cronin]

I really can't see a group like that doing a college hockey game. I can't see there being enough of a market for one. It would have to be a part-time effort by a one-man band-type operation.

Yep. Unless I decide to do it myself, I think riz is my best hope for this sort of game.

[DeToxRox]

One more question..

Likelyhood of being able to make the USHL playable ever?

That'd be as good as college for me.

[Blade6119]

I really can't see a group like that doing a college hockey game. I can't see there being enough of a market for one. It would have to be a part-time effort by a one-man band-type operation.
Or EA would have to do it, as they just made college baseball and i would think hockey has a bigger market then baseball in college(this would take 2k getting the hockey rights, which are still unowned)

[riz]

One more question..

Likelyhood of being able to make the USHL playable ever?

That'd be as good as college for me.

Depends on the details of the recruitment system mostly. I would say chances are better for USHL seeing as it's more of a junior league like the canadian major juniors.

[DeToxRox]

Riz - First off we need details on the new EHM game features. :)

Secondly -- I hope you announce rivalries in this one. I'd love for something like Detroit/Colorado had to be relevant in my dynasties. Seeing a good goalie get run and then a brawl ensue would bring joy to my eyes.

Just something to throw out there.

[ice4277]

My guess is they are going to wait a week or two. SI just released the FM07 details, I think they may wait till the buzz dies down from that to release info about another new game.

[Blade6119]

My guess is they are going to wait a week or two. SI just released the FM07 details, I think they may wait till the buzz dies down from that to release info about another new game.
Just ask fozzie why we dont have details, its all his fault :) Riz said so in the other thread

[duff88]

I have asked for it before, and I'd love to see NCAA in EHM one day, but I have to agree with Riz; it would be long and difficult to code. College hockey really has elements that are simply not seen in any other leagues:

-Recruiting
-Academics
-Interactions with mainly the CHL
-Career path of players in College (What age they enter, what leagues they come from, when they leave...)
-Unbalanced schedule and tournaments

It would definitely take quite some work and right now, there are probably a lot of things that need to be tweaked and it would not be very intelligent to add such a big feature without fixing everything first.

About the announcement, I hate how it keeps getting pushed back because of FM and OOTP. I know FM is SI's most important game, but they could still make a little place for those of us who prefer EHM... But then again, maybe it has nothing to do with other announcements. In that case, make it quick guys, I can't wait to see what's new!

[DeToxRox]

I have asked for it before, and I'd love to see NCAA in EHM one day, but I have to agree with Riz; it would be long and difficult to code. College hockey really has elements that are simply not seen in any other leagues:

-Recruiting
-Academics
-Interactions with mainly the CHL
-Career path of players in College (What age they enter, what leagues they come from, when they leave...)
-Unbalanced schedule and tournaments

It would definitely take quite some work and right now, there are probably a lot of things that need to be tweaked and it would not be very intelligent to add such a big feature without fixing everything first.

About the announcement, I hate how it keeps getting pushed back because of FM and OOTP. I know FM is SI's most important game, but they could still make a little place for those of us who prefer EHM... But then again, maybe it has nothing to do with other announcements. In that case, make it quick guys, I can't wait to see what's new!


Agreed, but the USHL could be doable. I'd love that.

[JeffR]

About the announcement, I hate how it keeps getting pushed back because of FM and OOTP.

That makes two of us. Looks like it'll now be after the Stanley Cup finals end, just in time for people's interest in hockey to drop off.

[King of New York]

I'm just delighted (thrilled!) to hear that Riz would entertain the possibility of adding College hockey leagues. If that cannot be done until EHM 2009 or EHM 2010 is coming out, so be it.

I think that adding college hockey leagues would expand the US market for EHM quite a bit. For a lot of guys who went to college in the northeast or northern plains, even guys whose interest in professional hockey is only lukewarm, college hockey is like a religion.

Just don't make us set the study time for individual players, please!

[DeToxRox]

Damnit Riz. We need info. Don't ho us. :)

[Honolulu_Blue]

Yes. Please, whatever you do, Riz, do NOT ho us. We refused to ho'd. We will NOT accept a hoing. This is not debatable. If I sense even a scintilla of hoage coming from you or yours there will be consequences and repercussions. I repeat, there WILL be consequences and repecussions.

Just say no to ho.

[DeToxRox]

Riz - Info or I'll cancel the Dudesons.

[duff88]

Best bump of all time!

It would be great if they'd at least tell us if the announcement looks near or not... I look at the SI boards everyday and it hurts every time to see that there's nothing new except mgsports' good old insane features ideas.

[DeToxRox]

Best bump of all time!

It would be great if they'd at least tell us if the announcement looks near or not... I look at the SI boards everyday and it hurts every time to see that there's nothing new except mgsports' good old insane features ideas.

lol. I pine for an update.

[ice4277]

lol. I pine for an update.

You should quit bitching at SI and start finishing one of your 37 dynasties you've started.

[DeToxRox]

You should quit bitching at SI and start finishing one of your 37 dynasties you've started.

Hey -- You should quit bitching about by dynasties and go get an interview for one of the 137 jobs you've applied for.

[ice4277]

Hey -- You should quit bitching about by dynasties and go get an interview for one of the 137 jobs you've applied for.

:(

[DeToxRox]

:(

It's k. FOFC DETROIT MEET UP TO CHEER UP THIS FAGG0T

[King of New York]

SI,

See what you've done? In the absence of an announcement, the EHM players are starting to devour one another. That won't be good for your sales.

There was something on the SI boards about "still negotiating licenses." If that means new leagues are getting added--and SI has said nothing about what these licenses might be, I'm just speculating--oh happy day! Multiple playable leagues in Norway! Junior A Hockey in Canada! Playable Khazakistan and Estonia!

[SirFozzie]

I won't be satisfied until it accurately models New Jersey Pee Wee hockey! :P

[DeToxRox]

I won't be satisfied until it accurately models New Jersey Pee Wee hockey! :P

You get nothing -- It's your fault we're in this mess.

[riz]

If you still believe Mr. Duffy, you might want to read here:
http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6461934525/m/6322025642

[SirFozzie]

You get nothing -- It's your fault we're in this mess.


You have no proof, copper!

[SackAttack]

Badges? We ain't got no badges.

[SirFozzie]

Funny, right now I'm so tired (getting ready for my flight)

I read that as "Badgers? We don't need no steenking Badgers!"

[Blade6119]

You have no proof, copper!
I have proof fozzie, dont make me use it!

[SirFozzie]

You do that, Binky, and it's war. War I say!

[mooreadamc]

If you still believe Mr. Duffy, you might want to read here:
http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6461934525/m/6322025642

That's at lunch time for me. Can't wait to get back to work and see the announcement :)

[Marc Duffy]

Let us not forget Ghana.

SI,

See what you've done? In the absence of an announcement, the EHM players are starting to devour one another. That won't be good for your sales.

There was something on the SI boards about "still negotiating licenses." If that means new leagues are getting added--and SI has said nothing about what these licenses might be, I'm just speculating--oh happy day! Multiple playable leagues in Norway! Junior A Hockey in Canada! Playable Khazakistan and Estonia!

[sabotai]

It's now 4:07 UK time. Duffy LIED!!!