Tell me about FHM

[StealthB2X]

I actually just found out about FHM recently, and I am extremely intrigued, is there a place where I can get a features list, or can someone tell me about it? I know it's in beta stage, but I'd like to know about it greatly! Thanks!

[B. Stinson]

Have you played Eastside Hockey Manager before? Or Out of the Park Baseball, or even Football Manager? If so, it's just like those games. In fact, Franchise Hockey Manager is coming from OOTP Developments, the same company that makes OOTP Baseball.

If not, FHM is what's known as a "management sim". In this type of game, you play as the manager and/or head coach of a sports team. But, unlike typical sports games you see on PS3 and Xbox, you don't actually get to "play" your games, nor are there any flashy 3D graphics. FHM, and management sims in general, focus purely on team and roster management. It's light on graphics, and heavy on stats, text, and strategy.

If you need to try this type of game for yourself, there a few options out there. For starters, the original freeware EHM can be found here. Second, if you're into soccer/football, there are demos available for Football Manager. And lastly, if you're into baseball, Out of the Park Baseball 8 is free, here.

[StealthB2X]

Ah yes, I've played OOTP Baseball, and just started playing EHM recently again, I just happened to come across this! It sounds great! Thanks:3

[shinderhizzle84]

I just bought the game and downloaded the beta. Sorry to hijack the thread, but I have a quick question: I remember earlier on in development a lot of people were requesting a player career mode. I can't seem to find a list of features for the game anywhere, but I'm wondering, is there a player career mode of some kind in the full game? Or is it just restricted to staff members/general managers?

[archibalduk]

Yeah it's purely playing as a GM/Head Coach. I don't imagine OOTP will have plans to add a player career mode.

[bozo]

If I love EHM 2007, I will love this game?

Transactions are realistics?

[lueiGi]

Yeah it's purely playing as a GM/Head Coach. I don't imagine OOTP will have plans to add a player career mode.

Not to take anything away from it, but that's too bad. A player career mode addition could be lots of fun (like inside the park baseball or destinée hockey).

[Hybrid_Theory_79]

I thought EHM 2005 was great, 2007 was incredible, I can't wait for FHM.

[Alessandro]

If I love EHM 2007, I will love this game?

Transactions are realistics?

Frankly speaking, I don't really think that FHM will be on par with EHM at the first version. EHM is more dynamic, deep and interesting. Transactions aren't much realistic for now.

[Kernwaffe]

How is the fighting showing in this game? and Pims/Fighting majors?

[Alessandro]

There are no fights in the game so far

[Kernwaffe]

There are no fights in the game so far

Ouch! Big thing for me is the physichal side of the game, but it is coming right?

[archibalduk]

Yes it will be eventually. I don't know when, but it'll be there in some form eventually.

[dejaqwho]

I bought the beta version and it has a TON of work before its playable....trading/drafting/playerdev(most important parts of a sports management sim) doesn't work atm.

EHM had an amazing player development system. You could actually feel your players improving if you progress them properly. If you left a young prospect too long in the AHL or on the 4th line they would actually regress, I don't think even latest FM has the player development like EHM 2007. I don't have much hope for FHM player development because its based of the baseball game OOTPB which has a bad player development system, which is a shame.

FHM is going to have a better trading AI eventually (just like its cousin baseball game) EHM trading was bad, you could get 1st overall picks for nothing and trade old aging superstars for the moon.

I don't know what to expect out of the entry draft from FHM yet, its too early to say, but if they copy the baseballs game system it wont be good. EHM had a good draft scouting system, and scouting reports on those rookies. But the big flaw in EHM was they reused players every ~20 years (diffrent name gen), and if you played the game long enough like I did you will have a built in hindsight as to what rookies will make it big...right now if I do a EHM 2007 nhl entry draft I could get at least 4 NHLers out of 7 rounds which is ridiculous, even RedWings don't draft that well lol.

Free agency: EHM had a bad system, the CPU wouldn't resign good players even if they had cap. EHM AI wouldn't trade away their upcoming UFAs if they were out of the playoffs. In this regard FHM is going to win out on this if they base their AI like their baseball game.

Financial System: FHM is going to have big advantage over EHM on this one, just based of OOTPB games.

I hope that helps you with my FHM vs EHM comparison.

[archibalduk]

I don't have much hope for FHM player development because its based of the baseball game OOTPB which has a bad player development system, which is a shame.

It's worth noting that FHM isn't in any way a port of OOTPB. They're entirely separate games. The only similarities they share is the user interface / menu system. Other than that, FHM was coded from scratch.

[dejaqwho]

I don't have much hope for FHM player development because its based of the baseball game OOTPB which has a bad player development system, which is a shame.

It's worth noting that FHM isn't in any way a port of OOTPB. They're entirely separate games. The only similarities they share is the user interface / menu system. Other than that, FHM was coded from scratch.

Sorry if I gave the impression that its just a port. What I meant to say, they are going to use a lot from OOTPB. Look at OOTPBs FA system and FHMs FA system they are identical, wouldn't surprise me if they copied the code form the baseball game to FHM and just tweaked it a bit later.

[archibalduk]

What I meant to say, they are going to use a lot from OOTPB.

I don't think OOTP have said they planned to do that. Where did you get that information?

Look at OOTPBs FA system and FHMs FA system they are identical, wouldn't surprise me if they copied the code form the baseball game to FHM and just tweaked it a bit later.

In what way are they identical? I'm 99% certain they're not just copying/porting the code from OOTPB. The devs have written the whole thing from scratch. I and many other testers have been contributing to the development for over a year now and have seen the game develop from very little to what it is now. It's not a case that one day, a UFA system just appeared (which would have been the case if you just copied over a chunk of OOTPB code); it has instead developed over the last 12+ months (and is continuing to do so).

I do agree many aspects of the game are really basic right now, but I can't agree that this is just a copy to any extent of OOTPB. That's entirely not the case.

[B. Stinson]

I'm pretty sure Archi is right. I seem to remember Sebastian doing a brief introduction in the very beginning, and he mentioned that this game actually started as a personal project of Malte's. And even after it got picked up by OOTP, it was still primarily Malte's project for a while as Sebastian was busy with iOOTP.

[dejaqwho]

What I meant to say, they are going to use a lot from OOTPB.

I don't think OOTP have said they planned to do that. Where did you get that information?

Look at OOTPBs FA system and FHMs FA system they are identical, wouldn't surprise me if they copied the code form the baseball game to FHM and just tweaked it a bit later.

In what way are they identical? I'm 99% certain they're not just copying/porting the code from OOTPB. The devs have written the whole thing from scratch. I and many other testers have been contributing to the development for over a year now and have seen the game develop from very little to what it is now. It's not a case that one day, a UFA system just appeared (which would have been the case if you just copied over a chunk of OOTPB code); it has instead developed over the last 12+ months (and is continuing to do so).

I do agree many aspects of the game are really basic right now, but I can't agree that this is just a copy to any extent of OOTPB. That's entirely not the case.

Here is whats identical in FA in both OOTPB and FHM. Once the first day of FA starts you can contact any player and submit an offer to them, the players will respond to identical responses(that part obviously copied from OOTPB). Once they respond, (paraphrasing) "Your offer is good, blah blah, I will sign if no other team comes up". In case another AI team offers more to the FA, the same PM will be sent to you as in OOTPB; "your offer was good but NY outbid you, I will need at least (they redo their demands). I could go on, we know for sure they reuse all the AI responses, they use the same code to analyze offers from CPU/Human bidding. I am going to say I can't atm find any of the developers stating this is the case, give me some time I will do some research. But going on logic I can say the FA in each game uses the same core code, if they did write it from scratch, well they must have looked at OOTPB source for "inspiration"....can we say that?

If you could get me direct quotes from developers that say we didn't copy any of OOTPB code, we didn't even look at the OOTPB code, we didn't even talk to the developer of OOTPB for advice/inspiration for our own project, then I will believe you. Until then I am going to go on logic.

[archibalduk]

I think some of the language files came from OOTPB as placeholders until the researcher responsible for all of the text writes some more. There may well be inspiration taken from OOTP, but AFAIK only the GUI/menu system code was directly lifted from OOTP.

The guys who are working on FHM are OOTP employees and have previously worked on OOTP games AFAIK (e.g. Sebastian works on the iOOTP game).

I'm not going to take the time to provide quotes from OOTP, and of course I'm not going to provide quotes from the private beta forum (which is where most of the discussion around development of the game can be found). Your best way of getting a quote would presumably be by suggesting your logic in the FHM Forum on the OOTP website. However, I expect most people, developers included, will disagree with your logic.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

I know it is a late answer but it caught my eye today and I want to clarify some stuff:

Both, Malte and I, are no employees from OOTP Dev, we are both freelancer. It is right that I work on iOOTP and it is also right that FHM (different name back then) was a hobby project from Malte and me before I quit it to do fulltime work on the OOTP mobile version. After 2 years we talked about my old hockey manager project and decided that it would be cool to finish it. That was the moment Malte and I started to work on it again, this time with OOTP Developments as kind of "Publisher" (or friends with lots of experience helping us out). The game is written from ground up and uses a completely different framework then OOTP. The "only" thing we took from OOTP is stuff like News-Engine (that includes all randomly generated test, e.g. the contract negotiation answers), the way we store stats, the event system and a few more technical systems. All Hockey-relevant code (that includes Game Engine, all AI, transaction system, etc.) was written from ground up and has not a single line off code from OOTP. Of course I saw the code (since I do iOOTP which is based on OOTP) but Baseball and Hockey are so different that it would take much more time to change it then writing it new. In addition, even if the game looks like OOTP (that was our goal, to get the Look & Feel of OOTP), not a single screen was copied from OOTP, everything is written individually.

Hope I cleared that up now.

@ dejaqwho:
I saw you criticized FHM pretty badly in different places here (I don't want to hijack the other thread) and of course that is your good right. More helpful for us would be if you could write what exactly is bad in your opinion so we can work on it. So if you have the time, that would be great!

[dave1927p]

late answers are always better than none glad to see you're still checking TBL, Sebastian.