1974/75: Nino's Rosters - Mario Lemieux as an 8 year old

[XenHL]

Great to read about all the progress... can't wait to give it a whirl when it's finally ready!

Been ridiculously busy lately with RL stuff, but the photo-pack works are still continuing. Hopefully I'll be done in time for the release of the DB!

[nino33]

the photo-pack works are still continuing

That's great news!

[XenHL]

Another thought, since I'll be in the Gimp anyways, I can do the various sizes of logo as well. Plus many old WHA and minor league ones I've already made for use with a few fantasy DBs I've made in the past... so if this isn't something you've already covered, I'd be happy to do it as well.

[nino33]

I can do the various sizes of logo as well. Plus many old WHA and minor league ones I've already made for use with a few fantasy DBs I've made in the past... so if this isn't something you've already covered, I'd be happy to do it as well

I've got some logos for the "1974 db NHL" IIRC, a combination of logos from CatchUp, Stinson. and Archi that was pieced together last summer.....nothing put together as a whole, so by all means have at 'er if you like! Like photo/logo packs for modern rosters, they're always appreciated!

nino33 wrote:
I’ll need probably 6-8 weeks more time to edit all these Invalid players/staff that the game is including…
nino33 wrote:
Fortunately I was completely out to lunch earlier....should be done tonight/this weekend!

It's been over 20 hours of work so far! and still going!

I have discovered that once you enter/save a Forename or Surname in the database, it's basically there forever!
Even after I fixed all the "weird names" when I tested the game still used them when creating players!
Because there's no way in the Editor to delete a name, they stay on the Forename and Surname Lists even when not in use by a Player/Staff
So after fixing/overwriting every one in the Editor, now I'm using Archi's History Extractor to export-fix-import the Names Lists.....I've gone through the 9000+ Forenames, and currently I'm almost halfway through the 33000+ Surnames! Many HOURS of tedious work!

[Manimal]

Has anybody ever noticed any gameplay differences when changing database size?

Now that I haven't sat through a VERY long (4,5h) DMNHL B Draft I could answer that but I see Archi has said all I was going to!

I write so much because #1 I've found so little about actual editing posted (I know others who edit enjoy my posts) #2 I know some do enjoy just reading my posts.....if over the years others had posted more about editing experiences, I wouldn't be...

Yeah, Lidas and I did our talking by PMs. We should have done exactly what you are doing. This thread is awesome for anyone wanting to edit an EHM-database!

[nino33]

So after fixing/overwriting every one in the Editor, now I'm using Archi's History Extractor to export-fix-import the Names Lists

This didn't work! I've got the two CSV Files "corrected" but I'm unable to import them back into EHM.....I've PMed Arch and I'm really hoping he can help

[Manimal]

EDIT
Ii just occured to me that maybe I can make the changes a lot faster using the Forenames/Surnames tabs in the Editor....

I think you may run into problems with this. As mentioned above, each first name and surname is stored in two tables in the database. Each name has as an ID number. For each staff in the database, the first name and surname fields simply store the corresponding ID numbers for those names. For example, if 'Alexander' is ID# 1000, 'Ovechkin' is ID# 3000 and 'Edler' is ID# 3100 then the staff details/data in the database for Alexander Ovechkin will store the corresponding ID numbers (i.e. ID# 1000 for the first name and ID# 3000 for the surname) and for Alexander Edler it would be ID# 1000 and ID# 3100. I'm not sure how well I'm explaining this, but what I'm trying to say is that the staff details store the corresponding ID numbers for those names and not the text itself.

So if you remove names from the names tabs in the Editor then what will happen to those staff whose ID numbers correspond to the deleted names?

Have you tried doing it that way? Maybe the changed staff just comes with an empty name

Make a copy of the db and try inputting something in a Staff name(that is not used anywhere else). Save db. Open it again. Change the inputted name in the Forenames/Surnames and save. Then check it out

[nino33]

So if you remove names from the names tabs in the Editor then what will happen to those staff whose ID numbers correspond to the deleted names?

This is actually not a problem, as there are no players or staff using the "problem names" AND I'm not actually removing names



John TRAINERJohnson has been changed back to just John Johnson
Peter Stastny 12 has been changed back to Peter Stastny
HAKAN LOOB has been changed back to Hakan Loob
1974 1974 has been changed back to John Smith (or another common/regular name from a list I used)
HOUSTON MANAGER 125 has been changed back to James Miller (or another common/regular name from a list I used)

The problem is....even though they're not in use, names like "HAKAN" and "1974" and "HOUSTON" and "MANAGER 125" are being used by the game when it randomly generates names!!! So I get awful, stupid names like "John MANAGER 125" that pretty much ruins the mood immediately!

Change the inputted name in the Forenames/Surnames and save. Then check it out

Can you make edits on the Forenames/Surnames tabs? I can't in the PreGame Editor I'm using [2007.1.7 (Build132)] - This is where the problem is...EVERY NEW NAME ever entered stays on the Forename/Surname List forever (and this is used by the game to create names); even if at start-up no player or staff is using the name, the computer still does! And on the actual Forename/Surnames tabs in the Editor there's no way to change anything! So once a names in there once, it's kinda in there forever! You can't use the Editor to fix the problem, but...


As part of the process the History Extractor produces CSV lists of the First Names and Last Names.......so I edited these files to fix the name problems, but when I imported the unchanged "History" back in the Names lists did not update. I'm hoping/thinking Arch will be able to solve this for me, by getting the corrected lists imported back into EHM (if he can export them I'm figurin' he can import 'em back in!)

[archibalduk]

Unfortunately because of time zone differences, I couldn't respond to this sooner. Doh!

Nino please could you put on your SkyDrive a copy of your database and CSV files. I'll take a look this evening.

I will explain more this evening (I am using the tiny keyboard on my phone as I'm on my lunch break from work!!) but it should be recoverable. Those CSV files with the names are not reimported into the DB; they are just used so that player names appear in the History Editor.

Please feel free to continue editing your DB as normal in the mean time. It won't adversely affect our work on fixing this.

[nino33]

Unfortunately because of time zone differences, I couldn't respond to this sooner. Doh!

Totally understandable! I just woke up!

Nino please could you put on your SkyDrive a copy of your database and CSV files. I'll take a look this evening.

Aready done! I sent you a PM last night with the link

Please feel free to continue editing your DB as normal in the mean time. It won't adversely affect our work on fixing this

I returned to the work I'd started on "correcting" the Team/Individual Records

[archibalduk]

Okay, I've taken a look. There are two ways this can be fixed:

1) Pre Game Editor
In the Editor, click on Tools -> Allow Editing of Forenames/Surnames. This will then allow you to rename the forenames and surnames. However there is a bit of a pause each time you click on Confirm (presumably because the Editor has to update the list of players).

2) Excel / CSV
I might be able to make the corrections for you. The names don't seem to shift IDs and so it *should* be simple to import your edited CSV with relatively little work on top of what you have already done. However, I cannot promise when I can do this for you as I will first need to write a tool to do this (but it is very straightforward to write) and then go through the lists to check for mistakes. I'm happy to do this and it won't take to long. It might have to wait a week or two as I'm crazy busy at work until Wednesday next week (I'm covering for my manager who is on holiday and my assistant who has moved on to a new job) and I'm away this weekend. I might have time on Monday next week depending on what time I get home from my weekend.

This is probably the easiest and least labour intensive solution - so long as you're happy to wait a while until I can get things set up. As I said, in the mean time you can continue to edit your database as normal. Then once I'm ready with the tool, I'll need to borrow your current DB in order to apply the fix.

[nino33]

Thanks so much Arch! I'm going to for sure take you up on your offer of a "script solution"
Doing it in excel, and using the mouse to quickly scroll, it took well over 20 hours to go through and fix the 43,000 names! I think it would take forever having to do it in the Editor (and my three day weekend is pretty much over!).......so thank you so much (I'll send you the db when you ask for it)


To all those waiting to test.....I'm sorry, but I'm going to wait for this fix before releasing the db for testing.
I never imagined this would be an issue, and I really don't want to release it in the state it's in (even as a test version).

[XenHL]

For the logos: I have the NHL team names, and I found the list a few pages back of AHL teams. Do you have a list of the other minor pro league names and team names, and the junior team and league names? I'll note this won't all be work from scratch, as I made logos for myself for the 1979 DB for various teams in various leagues, so I've already got at least some that'll work for 1974/75.

[archibalduk]

For the logos: I have the NHL team names, and I found the list a few pages back of AHL teams. Do you have a list of the other minor pro league names and team names, and the junior team and league names? I'll note this won't all be work from scratch, as I made logos for myself for the 1979 DB for various teams in various leagues, so I've already got at least some that'll work for 1974/75.

Would it be helpful if I sent to you a copy of the logos that B.Stinson and I completed so that you don't duplicate work?

[XenHL]

A couple other questions/observations.

In the past, when I've tried to change the settings in the editor for home and away colours, I've noticed the only thing it changes is the colour you see outside of games - in the front office, for example, or roster views, etc., and in-game, the home team always has the dark colour regardless of what's been set in the editor. Is it safe to assume this is universal, and not just me missing something? If so, I'll do the logos with variants (North Stars, Leafs, Bruins etc) as appropriate, with light jersey for away.

Ottawa Senators: the Sens didn't exist then, but I understand the limitation. For my personal use for the 1979 DB I made a logo for them based on the Ottawa Nationals logo - I took the N part of the logo out and adjusted it to just be the 'O' with the maple leaf in the middle. If this meets with your approval I'll include this in my logo pack, otherwise let me know if you've already got something in mind!

Re: the existing ones you've got: definitely!

[nino33]

For the logos: I have the NHL team names, and I found the list a few pages back of AHL teams. Do you have a list of the other minor pro league names and team names, and the junior team and league names? I'll note this won't all be work from scratch, as I made logos for myself for the 1979 DB for various teams in various leagues, so I've already got at least some that'll work for 1974/75.

archibalduk wrote:
Would it be helpful if I sent to you a copy of the logos that B.Stinson and I completed so that you don't duplicate work?

XenHL - I just just emailed you the "logo package" that was put together for the NHL teams in the 1974 NHL

Ottawa Senators...I made a logo for them based on the Ottawa Nationals logo .....I'll include this in my logo pack

Sounds great!

I found the list a few pages back of AHL teams. Do you have a list of the other minor pro league names and team names, and the junior team and league names?

In terms of "minor pro" I haven't yet branched out beyond the AHL

In addition to the NHL and AHL, I've also done a lot of work on Major Junior; here are the current teams

WHL
Billings Bighorns
Brandon Wheat Kings
Calgary Wranglers
Edmonton Oil Kings
Flin Flon Bombers
Great Falls Americans
Kamloops Chiefs
Kelowna Wings
Lethbridge Hurricanes
Medicine Hat Tigers
Moose Jaw Warriors
Nanamio Islanders
New Westminster Bruins
Portland Winter Hawks
Red Deer Rustlers
Regina Pats
Saskatoon Blades
Seattle Breakers
Spokane Flyers
Victoria Cougars
Winnipeg Clubs

OHL
Barrie Colts
Belleville Bulls
Brantford Alexanders
Cornwall Royals
Detroit Compuware
Erie Otters
Hamilton Fincups
Kingston Canadians
Kitchener Rangers
London Knights
Niagara Falls Flyers
North Bay Centennials
Oshawa Generals
Ottawa 67s
Peterborough Petes
Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds
St. Catharines Black Hawks
Sudbury Wolves
Toronto Marlboros
Windsor Spitfires

QMJHL
Baie-Comeau Drakkar
Cape Breton Screaming Eagles
Chicoutimi Saguenéens
Drummondville Rangers
Halifax Mooseheads
Hull Festivals
Laval National
Longueuil Chevaliers
Moncton Wildcats
Montreal Red White & Blue
P.E.I. Rocket
Quebec Remparts
Saint John Sea Dogs
Shawinigan Dynamos
Sherbrooke Castors
Sorel Black Hawks
Val d'Or Foreurs
Victoriaville Tigres

In the past, when I've tried to change the settings in the editor for home and away colours, I've noticed the only thing it changes is the colour you see outside of games - in the front office, for example, or roster views, etc., and in-game, the home team always has the dark colour regardless of what's been set in the editor. Is it safe to assume this is universal, and not just me missing something? If so, I'll do the logos with variants (North Stars, Leafs, Bruins etc) as appropriate, with light jersey for away.

I am not at all knowledgeable in this area! Hopefully others can clarify.....



Regards

[XenHL]

A question re the AHL teams... some of them weren't established until years after 74/75 - Albany River Rats, Grand Rapids Griffins. Just wondering if it might not be more immersive to have some teams that existed in the IHL or whatever instead? I'm thinking specifically of two very notable teams: Fort Wayne Komets and Kalamazoo Wings.

Same goes for some of the junior teams, I'd have to do a bit of looking for the OHL teams, but I can tell some of the QMJHL teams at once.

Don't want to make more work for you, I know you have enough work already, but thought it worth a mention anyways.

EDIT: I know there are a couple others that were only established later, like the Sherbrooke Jets and Peoria Rivermen, but for those the logos are 70s-ish enough to look alright and not jar you out of a 1970s theme, but the others (including some of the Jr ones that were established later - in the 90s) are... well, distinctively 1990s. If it's not something you want to deal with I understand, though, and will just leave those without logos.

[nino33]

Just wondering if it might not be more immersive to have some teams that existed in the IHL or whatever instead?.....Don't want to make more work for you, I know you have enough work already, but thought it worth a mention anyways

I agree with you.
Things never go well for me when I edit teams....so it's not high on my to do list....
The teams that are there now are IIRC the ones I put in last September/October...and I haven't really looked at them since.
I likely won't be making any team changes before a first release (to many other things that need doing first)

Regards

[XenHL]

Okay, not a worry!

Then I'll just get the NHL ones done for now, as well as those AHL ones that were around in the 1970s or otherwise have a logo with a 70s feel (Sherbrooke Jets for example). That way at least there won't be too many logo-less teams (which probably doesn't bother others nearly as much as it bugs me, but. ).

Update on the player pictures: about 20% are finished (in a state ready for use by the game), and about 50% I have located pictures for but need to adjust so the game can use it. The rest, I still need to track down. This isn't at all difficult, just time consuming!

[nino33]

FYI I appreciate your enthusiasm for the project, and your desire to have as many teams be as historically accurate as reasonably possible.....me too!!!

I haven't looked at them in a while, but I do sort of have a plan.....I have the entire year of Hockey News newspapers from 1974! These Hockey News have been my primary "starting point" as I first picked those teams that were actually the affiliate of an applicable NHL/WHA team.....additionally I sometimes tryed to follow the evolution of a team back from a more modern incarnation to a 1970s incarnation, and sometimes I just kept a team (for now) that I liked the logo of.....I have notes on this! Plus I have Media Guides from the era for the AHL, IHL and NAHL. My main focus is still on populating the database/teams with players and staff
(I figure looking at team names further needs to happen, but it can come later)...I've actually already got 19 teams of minor pros ready to be created/entered (and they've been ready for a year! the picture below shows an example of one team).....they even have their CA already determined! (used shadsheet and IRL stats)

[Manimal]

Same goes for some of the junior teams, I'd have to do a bit of looking for the OHL teams, but I can tell some of the QMJHL teams at once.

Don't want to make more work for you, I know you have enough work already, but thought it worth a mention anyways.

I made lists of junior and minor teams which I sent to Nino a while back. The game has more teams than the leagues had in 74 so I filled them with the teams that joined the league in a chronological way. I also didn't add any re-located team names, only the new ones. For the OHL I had to go as far as into the 90s to fill it.

Things never go well for me when I edit teams....so it's not high on my to do list....
The teams that are there now are IIRC the ones I put in last September/October...and I haven't really looked at them since.
I likely won't be making any team changes before a first release (to many other things that need doing first)

I used to have problems editing teams, mostly due to some team names being hard-coded. Nowadays, I mostly keep the old team in the db and create a new team from scratch. The database gets bigger but it seems to work fine anyway

[Manimal]

In the past, when I've tried to change the settings in the editor for home and away colours, I've noticed the only thing it changes is the colour you see outside of games - in the front office, for example, or roster views, etc., and in-game, the home team always has the dark colour regardless of what's been set in the editor. Is it safe to assume this is universal, and not just me missing something? If so, I'll do the logos with variants (North Stars, Leafs, Bruins etc) as appropriate, with light jersey for away.

I am not at all knowledgeable in this area! Hopefully others can clarify.....

I just ran a test with the NHL, OHL and Swedish Elitserien.
Away teams will always have white jerseys and the home team coloured.
I would guess it is the same with all the leagues

[XenHL]

I made lists of junior and minor teams which I sent to Nino a while back. The game has more teams than the leagues had in 74 so I filled them with the teams that joined the league in a chronological way. I also didn't add any re-located team names, only the new ones. For the OHL I had to go as far as into the 90s to fill it.

When I was sketching out junior and minor teams to fix the 1979 db for myself I filled the missing spots with teams from other leagues, for example WHL needs 21 teams in the game, there was only 12 in 1979/80 so I'd fill the missing spots with teams from other leagues like the provincial Junior A leagues, which got me as far as having teams in the leagues that were all around in the given year, even if they weren't at the same level in the real world. I never did implement this, though, deciding instead to wait for this db to be done.

I just ran a test with the NHL, OHL and Swedish Elitserien.
Away teams will always have white jerseys and the home team coloured.
I would guess it is the same with all the leagues

Okay, then it's not just me.

[nino33]

for example WHL needs 21 teams in the game, there was only 12 in 1979/80 so I'd fill the missing spots with teams from other leagues like the provincial Junior A leagues

What teams did you use as replacements for the teams you took from the Junior A leagues?

[XenHL]

for example WHL needs 21 teams in the game, there was only 12 in 1979/80 so I'd fill the missing spots with teams from other leagues like the provincial Junior A leagues

What teams did you use as replacements for the teams you took from the Junior A leagues?

I didn't get that far before deciding to just wait for this to be done.

But, what I would do is fill the missing spots in the WHL (for example) with teams from Jr A leagues that are either not in the game at all (e.g. Manitoba Junior Hockey League), or teams that are in the default database but are blank/not used in game.

Rationale: Junior A (and lower) teams aren't something one regularly encounters during normal game play, so personally I'd feel alright about leaving the existing (modern) team names there; anyways there would be the problem of expansion to deal with anyways, most of them are much larger now than they were in 1974/75.

In this way there's no conflict between teams put into the Major Junior leagues that should be in the other junior leagues in 1974/75. It's a compromise, but sometimes there's no way around compromising. Again, this is just a personal opinion, but I'd be on the side of having greater accuracy in the visible/playable leagues, at the expense of non-playable, less-visible leagues.

So as an example, for the 1974/75 WHL I'd take the 12 teams that existed at that time (Brandon Wheat Kings, Calgary Centennials, Edmonton Oil Kings, Flin Flon Bombers, Kamloops Chiefs, Lethbridge Broncos, Medicine Hat Tigers, New Westminster Bruins, Regina Pats, Saskatoon Blades, Victoria Cougars, Winnipeg Clubs) and add nine more:

* Drumheller Falcons - from AJHL; team is blank in default db
* Spruce Grove Mets - from AJHL; blank in default db
* Bellingham Blazers - from BCJHL; blank in default db
* Vernon Vikings - from BCJHL; blank in default db
* Kenora Muskies - from MJHL; not in default db
* Selkirk Steelers - from MJHL; not in default db
* Dauphin Kings - from MJHL; not in default db
* Portage Terriers - from MJHL; not in default db
* Prince Albert Raiders - from SJHL; in WHL in default db

In the WHL's case there's a happy fluke in that the Prince Albert Raiders existed in 1974/75 but in a different league than in the default database, so it can be just left in place in the WHL.

Again, this is just my 2d, my take on how I'd do things. But I think it gets a satisfactory result in that all the teams in the playable leagues, at least, are teams that actually existed in 1974/75. Personally, since the teams in the playable leagues are the ones that are most often encountered in normal game play, that's where I'd put the most effort for accuracy, at the expense of teams from leagues we don't usually see.