Dabo Hockey Manager

by archibalduk @ Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:26 pm

Great news for all of you Apple Mac users! TealShark has found a way to run the Windows version of EHM 2007 on Apple Mac OS X.

All you need is a freeware copy of Wineskin Winery (click here) along with the EHM 2007 PC/Windows Try'n'Buy Demo and the v3.0.4 Patch. Optionally, you can also download the EHM 2007 Program Icon.

If you're a little unsure about purchasing a Windows EHM 2007 license for your Mac, you may wish to first try using the Try'n'Buy demo without a license. Then you can first test out the demo in order to make sure everything works okay.

Here are the full instructions on how to install PC/Windows EHM 2007 on Mac OS X: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7849&p=134174#p134174

A big thank you to TealShark for figuring this all out. =D>

by bruins72 @ Tue Jan 03, 2012 7:31 pm

I'm pleased to announce the start of Challenge 22! This time around we're using the Florida Panthers. They should be a decent challenge for us this time around.

Users can play the Challenge in one of two ways:

1) Use the CSD Patch with a start date of 2011.
2) Without the CSD Patch using the non-patched rosters which were uploaded on 30 December 2011. The non-patched rosters uploaded prior to 30 December should not be used.

Please check the links in the Challenge Center for our challenge rules. Even if you've participated in a challenge before, it's always good to give the rules another read through.

All Challenge 22 discussion goes HERE.

Any questions regarding challenge rules go HERE.

by archibalduk @ Mon Jan 02, 2012 12:51 pm

Sebastian and Malte have been hard at work on the upcoming OOTP hockey management sim and have been posting snippets of information and updates throughout OOTP Developments' official forum. I have collated and summarised their updates below to help everybody stay up to date.

Please keep in mind that the game is still in development and details are of course subject to change. The following is my summary of what Sebastian and Malte have said thus far (note that this is just my summary but I have done my best to accurately summarise what they have said).

You can discuss these features in our brand new OOTP Hockey Manager Forum: viewforum.php?f=113

Basic Details

The game's name has been decided but not yet publicly announced.
The game is scheduled for release in quarter four of 2012 (i.e. roughly October - December 2012).
It is to be released for the PC and Mac.
Windows XP is unlikely to be officially supported but the game may well run on XP regardless.
The game is a long term project. The number one priority is to get a rock solid first version as a basis for future games in the franchise.
The game will of course be influenced by other management games (such as EHM, FM and some old German hockey manager games) but it is ultimately an OOTP game. Don't expect EHM 2007 + 1. EHM is not being used as the template for this game.
It will have a similar look and feel to OOTP Baseball 13.
OOTP Devs will not stop support after release. Continued updates will be provided thoughout the year.
An iPad version will likely be developed for a future version.
Depending on the availability of volunteers to translate, the game will be available in different languages.

Game Features

Dynamic news and event system (based on XML files).
OOTP Baseball style news and storylines will feature in the game.
Online league gameplay and commish mode will be included.
Plenty of statistics - it is what OOTP Devs are know for after all!
FaceGen is technically very easy to implement into the game. However, whether or not it will be implemented depends on the cost of purchasing a license for the game.
The in-match mode will be similar to that of other text sims such as EHM and FM. The game will run with commentary for notable events. The clock can be stopped at any point in order to allow for changes of strategies or to look at player stats. This is a lot different to OOTP Baseball, but this is due to the nature of hockey.
A 2D engine will not make it into the first version of the game. It will be a text commentary only. A 2D engine could be included in a future version depending on time and available manpower.
The exact location of important in-match events will be displayed along with a short description of the event (e.g. shots, hits, etc).

Rosters and Leagues

NHL, AHL, ECHL, QMJHL, OHL and WHL are confirmed as being included as playable leagues.
Additional leagues (such as European leagues and lower North American leagues) will depend on the number of researchers OOTP Devs can acquire.
All important leagues will be added to the game. If the devs are unable to complete a league (i.e. missing player research or rules) then the league will not be playable. However you will still be able to interact with non-playable teams (e.g. scouting and trading).
Recently it was stated that the database has 40 leagues, 277 teams and over 11,000 players (no ratings had been generated yet - just the basic bio data and some career stats). Only North American leagues, teams and players had been added at that time.
Recently it was stated that the database has approximately 90,000 cities from around the world and every existing nation/state/province.
Unlike OOTP Baseball, it will not be possible to generate player attributes/ratings purely from stats (due to the differences between baseball and hockey). This will be down to the work of researchers instead.
The developers are optimistic that a system for historic databases is a string possibility. It might be possible to generate historical seasons from the data in a similar way to the Lahman Database for OOTP Baseball.
The game will feature some real player names. It will be a more or less identical system as OOTP Baseball.
Leagues such as the NCAA will feature real team and conference names but will faked players.
International and contentintal competitions (such as the World Championships, Olympics and Spengler Cup) might not make it into the first version of the game. It depends on time constraints and, if not possible, it will feature in either a game update or in version 2.

Customisation

At this stage, it is uncertain whether or not an in-built data editor will be included with the game.
The game will not have any hardcoded data at all. All league rules, leagues, player and teams are editable.
Some examples of editable data are: Names, ratings, team market, fan interest, arena quality, league structure, salary cap, salary floor, reputation of league, and point system for standings.
It will be easy to realign the NHL.
Leagues will have a reputation rating in addition to a few other settings.
Things such as OT, shootouts, all-star game format and roster limits (e.g. roster limits for regular season, OT and playoffs) will be editable rules.
The salary cap will be editable.
Leagues can feature automatic promotion and relgation.
It will be possible to create your own fictional leagues and teams.
Editable injury system (based on external file).
The game can already import schedules from individual text files and so real schedules for every league and year is possible.

Player Regens

The regen system will be very different to EHM. For each player that retires, the game will generate a new player. The only information that the game takes from the retired player is his position and his first nationality.
When generating a regen player, the game will assign a quality (i.e. level of skill / potential) based upon nationality and not based upon the retired player's skill. For example, a player is more likely to be of good quality from Sweden than from Great Britain. Each nation has its own quality rating.
Regen players will also be assigned a type based on their nationality and position (e.g. new players from Russia will more likely be technical types).
The regen player's ratings will then be generated based on the assigned quality, position and type.
Thus it is possible (albeit extremely rare) for a generational player ala Gretzky to be generated in a lesser known country.
Here is an example: On average Germany would produce some NHL talent, in some years more (like this days) in other years just a few player and from time to time it would produce an above average type NHL player who could be a Winger or a defense man, not necessarily a Goalie because of Kölzig.
As regens are based upon the nationality of retired players, the proportion of different nationalities in the game will remain constant.
The name of a regen depends upon regions and ethnicities - not just his first and second nationality. This applies not only to Canada, but many other countries such as Switzerland.

Miscellaneous

OOTP Devs haven't started much work on the scouting system yet.
No decision has been made as to whether the quality of scouts employed will have a bearing on the accuracy of attributes displayed in a player profile (this is how OOTP Baseball does it).
Player role / type will not be visible in game but some form of scout report should be available for players - e.g. "Player XY has a strong but inaccurate shot."
Training / development camps will only be added to the game if the devs can find a meaningful use for them. It must be reasonable integrated into the scouting / development system.
The devs are looking to make a game that is not biased in favour of offence. For example, average ratings will be based upon all actions that happen in the game and not just on goals and assists. Ice time is an important factor but a player with limited ice time on a checking line will have the chance to earn a good game rating if he gets his job done.
Similar to EHM, there will be a combination of visible and hidden player attibutes. Some attributes will likely be the same as EHM whereas others will be different.
Some hidden attributes may be grouped and displayed as a single visible attribute.
Before each match, the game will generate "Game_Ratings" which will form a part of the match simulation. The "Game_Ratings" change on the fly during the game based on situation (e.g. high pressure match, morale, possible injuries, etc).
Team marker, fan interest and arena quality will all be a big part of the game.
There will be a GM history and GM stats in game. Each GM will get a season/career score in order to evaluate his success. GM achievements might be implemented.
An Assistant GM will feature in the game in order to help new users. This feature can be turned disabled (presumably by not hiring an Assistant in game??).
The AI will act differently depending on whether the team is currently building for the future or is in contention for the championship.
All GMs have a national and international reputation. This reputation will affect things such as negotiations (i.e. how easy/hard it is to pull of a trade or negotiate a player's contract).
The game market will be variable. Player values will fluctuate depending on the market situation. A single totally overpriced contract wouldn't set a new benchmark but it would affect the market.

by archibalduk @ Mon Jan 02, 2012 11:17 am

Following on from the news late last year that OOTP Developments are creating an ice hockey manager sim, we have now created a forum to discuss all things related to the game. To keep the forum tidy, we now have a new Other Hockey Games section in the forum. This is the home to the new OOTP forum as well as the existing Dabo Hockey Manager Forum and the Hockey Games General Discussion Forum.

We have also created a Freeware EHM Forum for discussion of the old freeware version of the game. This discussion was previously held in the NHL:EHM forums but we have now split this off to help keep things simple.

All of the new forums can be found in the normal forum listings or alternatively by following this link: viewforum.php?f=111

Happy new year!

by archibalduk @ Sat Dec 31, 2011 12:08 pm

The first version of the League Patch by Alessandro has now been released! This updates the shoot-out and foreigner rules for a range of playable leagues in game as well as updating the number of teams playing in the Austrian EBEL League.

The patch is fully compatible with the Custom Start Date Patch. Please note that the patch is only compatible with the eLicense edition of the game.

The patch (along with instructions) can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=88&t=8755

Any questions can be asked here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8739

by dabo @ Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:50 pm

Hello everyone,

A couple of months have passed since the last update and it really feels like time flies by. I will start this update with some bad news; Dron who recently joined the project has left the team due to personal reasons and the fact that he didn't feel he had enough experience to be part of a big project like this. Hopefully he will be able to come back one day when he feels more ready for the task.

Initially I was planning on going into details about the player creator in this update but I realized that there is quite a lot to integrate of what I have been doing lately so if chances are required I better carry them out before explaining how it works in case things change. I hope to be able to include this in the next update instead.

Jatahati's main focus has been on creating a replacement for the online database editor which we no longer can use. The new solution is a standalone database editor/importer software which will make it possible to add data from csv-files and excel-files or enter data directly into the database. The reasearchers have done an amazing job so far but all data are yet to be imported to the database hence the need for this software. Jatahati let me try it the other week so I know it has come a long way and should be ready soon.

In the mean time I have been working on implementing a way for players to gain weight, as I mentioned I would in the previous update. This turned out to be more time consuming and challenging than dealing with player height growth; after all we do not want unrealistic height/weight combinations. The implementation I have come up with now takes height growth and strength changes into consideration; mostly the latter (players will be able to lose weight too). I have done lots and lots of tweaking, and I believe there will be more, at this point and generating millions after millions of players just to make sure no unrealistic output is generated. Given bad input unrealistic output is still possible though. In order to limit or hopefully prevent players with strange body proportions I have introduced modified BMI. Regular BMI would consider many hockey players of good size being overweight or even obese but by modifying the intervals of what is considered underweight or overweight etc. I have manage to get pretty good results and a good way to limit the risk of players becoming emaciated or obese. Players who are outside the normal interval are likely to stay in the interval they currently are or move towards the normal interval thanks to a compensation factor which is included in the calculation of a weight increment/decrement. I do want to point out that we will still end up with players like Dustin Byfuglien who is actually interpreted as obese by BMI but not by my modified version. I am going to conclude this part by showing some numbers. The starting values, which are based on data from the Swedish Tv-Pucken tournament, for each player below are 178 cm (constant height growth) and 76 kg. A total of one million players were created.

Height (cm)	Weight (kg)	Quantity	Percentage	BMI
187	84	36	0.0036	24.02128
187	85	265	0.0265	24.30724
187	86	1120	0.112	24.59321
187	87	3597	0.3597	24.87918
187	88	10893	1.0893	25.16515
187	89	26856	2.6856	25.45111
187	90	54427	5.4427	25.73708
187	91	91754	9.1754	26.02305
187	92	130339	13.0339	26.30902
187	93	165829	16.5829	26.59498
187	94	180877	18.0877	26.88095
187	95	148676	14.8676	27.16692
187	96	96028	9.6028	27.45289
187	97	52648	5.2648	27.73885
187	98	25401	2.5401	28.02482
187	99	9047	0.9047	28.31079
187	100	1876	0.1876	28.59676
187	101	321	0.0321	28.88272
187	102	10	0.001	29.16869

Finally I have some news regarding the research. We are happy to announce that YZG has been assigned the Head Researcher position where he will coordinate the research going forward with assistance from our newly appointed Assistant Head Researcher scout1982. YZG is preparing the research spreadsheets for phase two as we speak and will together with scout1982 start looking for researchers to help out. If you are interested keep an eye on the forum as YZG will make an announcement with more information when everything is ready.

Since this is the last update this year everyone involved in this project wants to take this opportunity and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

by archibalduk @ Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:35 pm

Regardless of whether or not you celebrate Christmas, on behalf of TBL, I wish you all a happy and safe holiday!

This sounds like a good excuse for a retro header image:

Minty fresh :cool:

by archibalduk @ Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:29 pm

I've now had the green light to get the player career history updating underway and have therefore released the History Editor. This allows lots of us to add player histories together, thereby saving lots of time.

If you would like to help update the histories then you can find more details on how to download and use the Editor here: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=8616&start=175#p132700

If anybody else is interested in helping out then feel free to download the Editor and then post in this thread to say which teams you would like to do. There is a list that is frequently posted in that thread to say which teams have already been taken.

Once the updating project has been completed, I will upload a full version of the History Editor so that it can be used with any database. I'm using this project as a final test of the Editor before I release it.

Welcome to The Blue Line

Challenge #22
Florida Panthers

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Challenge 22 : The Florida Panthers

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League Patch 2011-12 v1.0