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

[XenHL]

Thanks for the clarifications!

I'm going to take this in chunks, and just do the 74/75 NHLers first. Though eventually I would like to get pictures for all the players in the starting database, including the "kids" for future drafts. But one thing at a time - NHL first.

[nino33]

one thing at a time

Amen!

[XenHL]

I'm making my list, and a question came up: for players with well-known nicknames - or perhaps better known BY their nicknames - how did you name them in the DB? E.g. "Garnet Bailey" or "Ace Bailey"?

[nino33]

I'm making my list, and a question came up: for players with well-known nicknames - or perhaps better known BY their nicknames - how did you name them in the DB? E.g. "Garnet Bailey" or "Ace Bailey"?

Send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you everything you need in an excel spreadsheet

[XenHL]

Going through the AHLers first, alphabetically, at "Jarvis" now, and so far only one player I haven't found a pic for - Lee Inglis.

Curious about Jarvis though: shouldn't he be with the Habs? Since the Leafs traded him to the Habs for Greg Hubick right on draft day IIRC...

[nino33]

Curious about Jarvis though: shouldn't he be with the Habs? Since the Leafs traded him to the Habs for Greg Hubick right on draft day IIRC...

The trade you're refering to occured in 1975. In the 1974 database the NHL team "prospects" will include players drafted in 1975 and 1976. There's two reasons for this #1 I was initially working on a 1976 database before deciding on a 1974 database (so when I did settle on 1974 as the start date I already had the 75/76 drafted players on the NHL teams that drafted them) AND #2 in 1974 the draft age was 20 (not 18 like it is today) so having the 75/76 drafts already "done" is more realistic and allows NHL teams to have young (unsigned) prospects

[XenHL]

Ah, got it!

At least in our fictional worlds the Leafs avoid one of their biggest-ever blunders, then.

Also, I should note: I hope it won't be an issue, but for some players the best I've been able to find are black-and-white photos. In my mind, though, that's better than no photo at all - I hope you agree, too?

[nino33]

I hope it won't be an issue, but for some players the best I've been able to find are black-and-white photos. In my mind, though, that's better than no photo at all - I hope you agree, too?

As batdad said...

So it does not matter what kind of photo...just photos would be outstanding.

[XenHL]

Was playing a bit with the 79/80 db and I had a thought, I can't recall if you'd addressed this in the thread earlier. But, I noticed that there are usually huge flurries of trading activity at the deadline, with non-playoff teams sometimes sending off their best players (this past one just now - Bobby Clarke and Gil Perrault among others). Are you contemplating some way of addressing this? For the better players on a team, can you perhaps adjust their contracts in pre-game editing to be of longer term with a no-trade clause?

Sorry if this has already been addressed!

[nino33]

Yes I have been attempting to address this issue (excessive player movement) in a number of different ways (such as adjusting Attributes to try to make management less likely to make deals, as well as making players more likely to resign, AND increasing contract length - for example, all the historical Russian players have the 11 year maximum contract length).

Because I'm not done the "prep work" I haven't yet got to any real play testing to see how well the above ideas work.....but I've kinda thought for ages now that I also want a number of players to have long term No Trade Contracts at start up (guy like Clarke and Perreault) - but there is no way to directly edit Contract Clauses in EHM! But apparently there's a way to give a player a No Trade Contract if the player is age 32+ and.....I can't recall the details offhand (I've got the details in my HUGE pile of notes) but it seemed very possible


How will I make players who are young at game start up (like Clarke and Perreault) age 32+ at start up?
I'll start them with an "incorrect" birth year to make them old enough to get the No Trade Contract, and then right after starting I'll Save/Exit and then "correct" the birth years using the Save Game Editor.

ALSO - There is no way to have any young European/Russian stay in their home country. All such players age 21 and under get the dreaded NHL Release Clause and immediately after the first season almost all come to North America. This is not desired as the default option. I want the NHL to play like the 1970s into the 1980s NHL as much as possible. So for these European/Russian young stars I'll have to do the same thing...incorrect age at start up, Save/Exit and correct age using the Saved Game Editor.


This is not my desired way of doing things at all, but I have to work with the limitations of editing in EHM


I'm hoping to release a Saved Game test version in late December/early January, and no one will have to deal with these issues in that (I'll have already done it, and saved the game on day 1)....you'll just load up the game, select you team to GM and you're playing!
I'm not 100% sure what the actual full database release will look like...maybe more than one version? Maybe a second version with no young Europeans/Russians and no added No Trade Contracts? All I know for sure is I don't need to make the decisions anytime soon!

Regards

P.S. Ultimately/ideally I'd like to recreate the 1974 hockey world not just in North America but also in Europe/Russia too. I'm hoping it will "work out" really well...after the first 10+ years of in-game play the intercontinental movement will increase until post 1989 IRL norms are met!...



PROGRESS REPORT

The majority of this work has already been done
- 634 NHL players DONE
- 252 AHL players DONE
- 42 Major Junior players DONE
- 101 Minor Hockey players (Atom-Novice-PeeWee) DONE
- 93 European/Russian players DONE
- 535 players on “Placeholder teams” In-Progress
I am currently about 25% done going through the 535 placeholder players (almost all will end up on Minor Hockey/Major Junior teams). This task needs to be completed before a public release will happen.

Now about 80% done

[XenHL]

Sounds good! Hopefully you'll be able to sort everything out fine.

I'm about half done with the AHLers. So lots to do yet, but progress is being made.

I had another thought regarding the Europeans, specifically the Soviets: Since you can't (as far as I know) edit countries themselves, are you going to do something for USSR players like, e.g. for a Latvian guy like Helmuts Balderis, give him Latvian/Russian dual-nat and setting "Russia" as the declared nationality?

That brings up another thought which if it hasn't been done, I may try to look into: is there a way to change what countries compete in the world championships etc? If so, then ex-USSR countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan etc) could be put into the lowest group, with a very low reputation (or whatever the nation equivalent of player rep is) to make sure they don't climb up the international competition ranks too quickly. The same could be done with Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, give all their players dual-nat with Serbia and declared for Serbia (i.e. Yugoslavia).

Something else that's long bugged me, but I don't see how it could be addressed, is the question of Quebecois players. Irritating when in my current game I see Denis Savard with fluent English and only basic French, and never any QC players with no English... and then when regen time comes around, you get all sorts of silly names like Joffrey Lafleur or Marc-Andre McKenzie. In this case I really wish SI had done like they did for Championship Manager and included "Basque" as a nationality for Basque players from Spain and France. Putting dual nat with France wouldn't solve this, though, as I don't think the regens would come out as dual-nats... I guess this is something that one just has to live with.

Also, you have to add this guy as a youngster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doru_Tureanu

[nino33]

are you going to do something for USSR players like, e.g. for a Latvian guy like Helmuts Balderis, give him Latvian/Russian dual-nat and setting "Russia" as the declared nationality?

Yes, ideally (IIRC some may say Russia with no specific Birth City)

is there a way to change what countries compete in the world championships etc?

I'm not sure

RE EUROPE/RUSSIA
I have DVDs and books/rosters for the various Canada Cups (focusing on 1976-1981-1984), plus things like the Soviet-WHA Series in 1974, the Soviet-NHL Superseries 76, Olympics 1976, Olympics 1980, and more - these (and my memories!) are the inspiration for the rosters right now....for Europe/Russia my initial focus is on providing historical players for Sweden, Finalnd, Russia (representing the USSR) and the Czech Republic (representing Czecoslovakia) so they'll have around 80-100 players each.....basically the initial idea is three generations - adult, late teen and young teen
I just wanted to see the historical international names in the News Items while I played as an NHL GM
THEN ideally at some point in the future the above coud be built upon (such as adding full Elite League rosters, detailed nuances regarding nationality, and more)

Something else that's long bugged me, but I don't see how it could be addressed, is the question of Quebecois players. Irritating when in my current game I see Denis Savard with fluent English and only basic French, and never any QC players with no English... and then when regen time comes around, you get all sorts of silly names like Joffrey Lafleur or Marc-Andre McKenzie.

Anybody have any wisdom on these issues? Or is there nothing that can be done?.....I wonder how many regens the 1974 db will have the first decade in-game (given all the very young high PA players that the 1974 db starts with)

Also, you have to add this guy as a youngster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doru_Tureanu

Great story

[XenHL]

RE EUROPE/RUSSIA
I have DVDs and books/rosters for the various Canada Cups (focusing on 1976-1981-1984), plus things like the Soviet-WHA Series in 1974, the Soviet-NHL Superseries 76, Olympics 1976, Olympics 1980, and more - these (and my memories!) are the inspiration for the rosters right now....for Europe/Russia my initial focus is on providing historical players for Sweden, Finalnd, Russia (representing the USSR) and the Czech Republic (representing Czecoslovakia) so they'll have around 80-100 players each.....basically the initial idea is three generations - adult, late teen and young teen
I just wanted to see the historical international names in the News Items while I played as an NHL GM
THEN ideally at some point in the future the above coud be built upon (such as adding full Elite League rosters, detailed nuances regarding nationality, and more)

At some future point when appropriate I should be able to supply you with information for Hungary and possibly Yugoslavia and Romania as well. Certainly not major countries, but still, when everything else is ready, why not?

Also, you have to add this guy as a youngster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doru_Tureanu

Great story

I read an interview with him not long ago. He left hockey completely not long after deciding to stay at home, having developped a strong regret over not taking Montreal up on the offer.

It's quite a large contract, for the time, that the Habs offered him, so they must've seen some good potential in him!

[XenHL]

Oh, by the way... since the players drafted in 1974 have their rights with their NHL teams... are you including Taro Tsujimoto? ;P

(BTW - did you hear they've finally released an official Tsujimoto hockey card?!)

[XenHL]

An update from me: the AHLers are done; there are 246 players with pictures. I couldn't find anything for Steve Langdon, Steve Richardson, Bob Sicinsk, Barry Smith and Mike Stevens.

I hope you'll like them! In many cases I didn't have much choice, as I found only one useful picture. In some cases there were multiple good pictures to choose from. In these cases, I used a scale of priorities:

1. Photo is of player with the team he starts with in the game;
2. Photo is close to 1974/75 season;
3. Photo looks good.

In a certain few cases, 3 trumped everything. Especially so in the case of Tiger Williams: I did find a few photos of him with the Leafs, but I found one from the 1982 Stanley Cup Final that I had to use: Tiger barrelling through two Islanders with a most intense facial expression. That picture just screamed "Tiger" to me, so I had to use it!

Anyways, moving on now to the NHLers, a team at a time.

[nino33]

PROGRESS REPORT

On November 12th I posted a progress report, and noted what still needed to be done before any sort of release – primarily completing the review of 500+ players on placeholder teams, including ensuring correct age and reasonable CA (this is now done!) AND the creating/placing of historical Staff on NHL teams – this has been the main focus of my recent/current efforts.

Thanks to Archi and his fantastic work on the History Editor I’m also looking at working on adding history to the historical players!

And as mentioned previously there's more in the works too (things like historical Referees, coaching Attributes/play styles, Arenas, team finances, and additional AHL players).

Progress continues!

[archibalduk]

Keep up the great work! I imagine having reviewed the 500+ players' DOBs and CAs must be a fairly big milestone in your progress.

Thanks to Archi and his fantastic work on the History Editor I’m also looking at working on adding history to the historical players!

This really is a win-win for everybody here. Firstly, Nino is able to get started on his history editing and, secondly, he's giving the Editor a major beta test before it is released. His invaluable feedback thus far has helped me pick up some loose ends that I may otherwise have missed. Now I must get back to work on the data importer so you can get those histories back into the game...

[MXD]

Wow... I COMPLETELY MISSED THAT!

I totally volunteer for... aaeeehhemmm.. Beta testing

Do you intend to play with the cap?

[nino33]

Do you intend to play with the cap?

I think so (though I can see lowering the floor), but I'm not really sure at this point.....I intend on editing the team finances, and editing contracts, and may try/test the database without the cap

PROGRESS REPORT
I've been working on adding player history (thanks to Arch!), currently working on the 3rd of 30 teams.
I've also got large charts on my wall listing the teams and their staff (and I've been working on adding to the list); after adding history I need to complete the NHL staff editing.

[nino33]

I've been working on adding player history (thanks to Arch!), currently working on the 3rd of 30 teams.

I've now completed 7 teams (adding only NHL/WHA stats at this time).

I have lists (of course), and in going through and adding player history I'm picking out the 1975/1976 Draft Picks (easy to notice as they have 0 NHL GP in 1974).....I really like the fact that the historical player stats can now be 100% correct, and it makes me want the same "correctness" for the draft data - I think I'm going to put the 1975/1976 Draft Picks back into Major Junior/College and have them be "undrafted"
This means the first (2007) Draft in-game will be spectacular, as the in-game 2007 Draft will include those players from the IRL Drafts from 1975, 1976, and 1977!

I've also been using Archi's History Editor to edit competition history (NHL, AHL, WHL, OHL, QMJHL completed)

[MXD]

Unless you can tweak the draft age, that's probably the way to go.

I never really noticed how the AI would react in regards to age. I mean... Would it opt for, let's say, Doug Jarvis (straight away good enough for 3rd line C role... and probably 2nd C on some teams) or Doug Wilson (future Norris winner, probably not NHL ready in 1975) .

[nino33]

Unless you can tweak the draft age,

Is there a known way to do this?

[MXD]

Is there a known way to do this?

I don't have one and I don't think so...

[archibalduk]

Is there a known way to do this?

I don't have one and I don't think so...

I think this will be hardcoded. It is certainly doesn't appear to be anywhere in the database.

[nino33]

PROGRESS REPORT

Using the recently released History Editor I have edited all (default) Competition History so that it is representative of 1974, meaning
- all competition history from 1974 to 2006 has been deleted
- all real life competition history has been “date shifted” (1974 is 2006, 1973 is 2005, etc)
The 1974 db will have a 2006 start date; this is the way things have to be done as at this point the CSD Patch does not work with a retro start date (when Archi tried the game failed to generate an NHL schedule after December 31st of the first year…the NHL stopped playing any games/ceased operations!)

I’ve been working mostly on adding individual NHL/WHA player history, and at this point I am working on the 13th of the 30 NHL teams. Like the competition history, the player history has been "date shifted"

I’ve also been working on “mapping out on paper” additional historical staff for all 30 NHL teams, and I’ve made significant progress! I expect it will only take a few days to do the actual editing of staff, which I will be doing once I‘ve finished adding the individual player history.

I now have a couple of weeks off, and I’m looking to spend a good chunk of time working on the 1974 db…

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all