EHM The Blue Line

All of this talk regarding language has got me thinking. Wouldn't it make sense that if a player plays in a country/region where another language is predominant, that the player might learn the native language after a period of time? For example, a player from Massachusetts gets drafted and plays for the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL. French is the main language spoken in that area and most of his teammates will be French speakers. I would think that if this kid didn't already speak French before joining the team, he would learn to speak French after a season or two of playing there. Maybe this could be dependent on the player's "Adaptability" attribute? If he didn't learn to speak French, his play could suffer some because he's unable to communicate well with his team and the staff (some sort of small hidden penalty to his attributes to make him not quite effective as he could be). I could also see this same thing working for Canadian players joining teams in Europe. Or maybe European players joining the NHL.

I really do like the idea of different areas having different types of names come up at different frequencies. For example, states on the east coast of the US might have a lot of Italian and Irish names. You might actually see some Hispanic names show up in players that come from California or Texas. Maybe some German names in the Mid-West? There's lots of potential there!

Yeah, this makes sense.

I definitely agree with that idea. I think you could also figure-in Work Rate and Determination when calculating his pick-up of a language. I would imagine someone high in both would be hitting the books often to learn the language, while someone low in both wouldn't worry too much.

EDIT: And the presence of fellow countrymen is usually a huge factor, as well. I often heard about this when Joni Pitkanen was still here in Philadelphia, he relied pretty heavily on his Finnish teammates.

But I thought Work Rate and Determination were on-ice attributes?

In FM (probably in EHM too) there is a hidden skill "adability" which determines how the player learns a new position ect. So I think that will also affect learning languages too.

dabo wrote:There are nations, states (= provinces etc.), cities (towns etc.), languages... for example it is reasonable to think that someone who knows swedish fluently understands basic norwegian and danish.

I have big plans for the linguistic and geopolitical aspects of the db if I get to stick my nose in it

Something else you want other than what has been mentioned in the past?

At this time I think all the real needs are being correctly addressed/taken into account: regional name variations, language learning/penalties (great idea bruins72! ), large enough namesets, etc. I'd say it's important that, unlike in FM and EHM, the names of players added to the database do not automatically end up in the name database. All it does is creating unrealistic names in the long run.

For the rest, it depends on how the player generation tool is built. The most important aspect I think for balance is that the game generates new players proportionally to real-life percentages (see the IIHF's survey of players for a good exemple, that is not exhaustive, but close enough). The percentage could simply be the number of registered players in a given country/region divided by the total number of registered players worldwide/nationally multiplicated by 100 (or 1000, or 10,000...).

That basic percentage could be influenced by a randomly picked number between maybe -5 and 5, which would determine the exact number of players generated for a given year by the game, -5 corresponding to a 5% decrease from the basic percentage, 0 corresponding to the exact number predicted by the basic percentage and 5 being a 5% increase, so that draft classes are not identical countrywise (and skillwise, but that's another thing).

The basic percentages should be treated as database entries that can evolve (maybe in ulterior versions of the game, there's too much to build at this point) or at least be automatically modified to accomodate customization. A player who creates a team in, say, Zimbabwe, would thus have the game generate Zimbabwean kids whereas there wouldn't be otherwise, with the average number of extra players generated (it must not decrease the other nations' player creation) being dictated by the number of custom teams added and the quality of said extra kids being proportional to the average level of the custom team(s) (enter team/league reputations).

Likewise, if a player creates a team in a province/state/whatever where hockey is not typically played, kids would be generated accordingly. So, for instance, basing a team in Iqaluit, Nunavut, would lead to the creation of more Inuit kids, whereas very few, if any at all, would be created under normal circumstances.

Oh, I also think player profiles should come with a little flag of the country of the player in the nationality area. But that's purely cosmetic

- YZG

YZG wrote:Oh, I also think player profiles should come with a little flag of the country of the player in the nationality area. But that's purely cosmetic

Agree, but I was too lazy when I created the first version of the player profile state.

I was reading an article recently...

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_d ... nhl-268856

... and I thought this might be something interesting to add to the game. Would these social "cliques" be something that could affect team chemistry?

Thoughts?

Make every Player good with a 100 Rating so all Teams have a chance to win the Stanley Cup and so on. You would then also then have lots of Prospects that can't sign with you because you can't afford them and lots of people sitting on the Free-Agent Market to.

mcgsports wrote:Make every Player good with a 100 Rating so all Teams have a chance to win the Stanley Cup and so on. You would then also then have lots of Prospects that can't sign with you because you can't afford them and lots of people sitting on the Free-Agent Market to.

Why should every player have 100 in rating?

Isn't that unrealistic?

Just so every team has a chance to win the Stanley Cup and so on.

But we're trying to help Dabo and his crew create an accurate simulation of the NHL and the rest of the hockey world. This is not about building your fantasy. Please, stay on topic.

If I remember correctly mcgsports is kind of a troll at the SI forums - he posts these fantasy scenario options all over the place there to. Would be best to ignore it IMHO.

I stole the goalie attribute "Shot recovery" from Ea's NHL games but now I am not sure what it really means; could anyone explain it to me? Is it a goalie's ability to be ready (in position etc.) for a rebound shot? after a desperation save for example.

Yep. You pretty much have it bang on dabo. You could make it better with 2 attributes...shot recovery and scramble ability. But it could get too complex. Positioning, Rebound control, and recovery should be enough to make a goalie work.

Shouldn't you want as many attributes as possible to allow for as much variation between players as possible?

Will it be clear to someone? I mean all the dependecies to their play. It'd be really hard to create player correctly and as real as possible, I guess.
You have to group or simplify them at some level certainly.

23qwerty wrote:Shouldn't you want as many attributes as possible to allow for as much variation between players as possible?

While I'm all for a lot of attributes, I guess that it's better to make him work and release the first version. Should it be good (I have no doubts), more versions will come and we will possibly have more attributes

batdad wrote:Yep. You pretty much have it bang on dabo. You could make it better with 2 attributes...shot recovery and scramble ability. But it could get too complex. Positioning, Rebound control, and recovery should be enough to make a goalie work.

and that would tie in with the goalies style? It would be nice to see the odd goalie like Tim Thomas' style...not too many though. unorthodox goalies would have a much harder time getting the to the NHL even if their numbers are good. Thomas for example looks awful anytime he lets in a goal...that's just the style he is. Because of that it must look like he isn't doing a good job when his team loses and it can be misleading. I think that's why unorthodox goalies have a harder time getting and staying in the majors. (that and when they finally make it the goalie coaches unsuccessfully try to change their style) . Would be nice if you got this game to portray this to some extent....it's all part of that up and down life of a goalie

I promised you a new screenshot for Christmas in the latest blog entry and here it is. I know you have requested to have the team logo next to the team name and that will be added later on; the same thing goes for various other things such as game date and time.

It's looking great Dabo Merry Christmas to you, your team and all the forum friends and visitors

Looking good, indeed!

That's looking really, really good, dabo! Keep up the good work!

Will those cartoon like pictures be used on all profiles? Or just regens/players without real life photos?
Just curious!

That is just something I found on the internet, it is just a placeholder. If no player photo is found for a player id some default picture like the one above will be loaded instead.