Online Hockey Sim - MetroHO

[BillyNYC]

Originally Posted by dbd1963

I asked around to see if that bothered anyone else, and the consensus seems to be, not at all. Players of the game like it the way it is, even if it isn't realistic.

There's a lot of truth to that. I think of it as a "numbers game with hockey as a base" rather than as a "hockey sim". It's not realistic and doesn't really try all that hard to be realistic. Every few seasons, an addition is made that adds *slightly* to the realism (ie. goalie fatigue, such that you can't play a goalie every single game).

I don't think Adam has the goal of it being the most realistic sim out there....nor the goal of making $$ off of it. Pretty sure it's not actively advertised and as long as he's not losing $$, he's fine keeping it running (and playing it himself).

I think the manageable size of the userbase is in some ways intentional. It lets Adam be as responsive to individual users (and the community) as any game developer I've ever seen. It's refreshing.

It's fun for what it is. Full seasons in a month is nice. Haven't checked out Hockey Arena. Thinking if it IS realistic, would involve more time to get into it than I want to devote right now...but would be curious to hear reviews from anyone here.

[dbd1963]

I have played Hockey Arena for about a week and a half or so. Here's what I know so far:

Next to nothin'!

It does take more work, at least to get into it, than MetroHo does. It also suffers from a bad message board format. It is in English, but it's hard to figure out where what you need to know is. Not to say that I've tried real hard, but if your threshold on that sort of thing is as low as mine or lower, you may not want to play Hockey Arena.

It does look like it has a lot of depth. It has a transfer system much like FM does, which is cool. The bidding for talent is done live, like an eBay auction, except that a bid within the last minute or so extends the bidding time for another small bit of time, say 90 secs or so (I don't know exactly). Getting into a bidding war for a guy I wanted was the most fun I've had so far. I lost, but I guess the guy who won was not happy to have paid $10mil more for the guy than he would have had I not wanted him too.

Scores seem a tad unrealistic -- but my team is not very talented and I joined the league a couple of weeks after it had already started so maybe they are what they should be. At any rate, I won a game fairly close, but have lost the last two in blowouts 9-1 each time. Ouch.

I like the multiple ratings for each player and the way they advance in skill ratings according to a quality rating.

But I'm still really very "meh" about the game because it seems pretty complicated, while also being hard to learn because of the odd forum and "English as a second language" writing that is sometimes confusing.

MetroHo is very easy in comparison. My team is doing very well in a 2nd level league, so I am mostly happy just chugging along. I do wish it were a little more challenging and a little more complicated. It still bugs me that it's set up so that we build great players, only to kick them off the team when they want too much money.

Seems like a strange economy, as if the owners had all the power and the fans would put up with whatever you put on the ice..