Franchise Hockey Manager Beta

[archibalduk]

Sounds very unpolished still, but I will of course buy it on release day. To support and to help with bug reporting, very excited for Monday!

One thing I can't believe though is how they used to have an "End of 2012" release date. We're months past that and from the sounds of it lots of the basics still haven't been fully fleshed out yet.

Of course it's unpolished...the full release is not until September. And of 'End of 2012' was never an official release date..it's called a over ambitious target date.

With everyone's crazy demand and some of the expectations I really hope they don't end up shooting themselves in the foot with this public beta. I hope YZG is right and that some of the craziness will die down. Unfortunately I feel that the craziness will ramp up with the public beta release on Monday.

Remember when the first screenshots started coming out late last year and the OOTP Forum suddenly became very busy indeed? That's what I expect it to be like from Monday. Except it's not going to be just a temporary peak like it was in late December / early January - I think instead it'll be a virtually non-stop barrage from Monday until the September release date. So long as the game is in beta stage then I think we'll see these outlandinsh requests.

I very much sympathise with the exasperation expressed by Drewst on the OOTP Forums. As a hockey and EHM fan, I really want to see a game that reflects the hockey world as accurately as possible. But I totally accept that this is the first version and whatever will be will be. I personally have zero interest in the fantasy aspect of the game, but I appreciate this is something some people want and that it is a perfectly legitimate request. But it really is tiring and frustrating to see request after request from the same user for insane things like "Can the game set schedules according to the phases of the moon" or "Will the game be able to ensure that home games are only on Tuesdays at 2.37pm for all teams with a vowel in their name" or "Will Henry VIII be in the WHA"... I guess it's just misplaced excitement, but it is generating a bit of an unpleasant atmosphere on those forums and hence I tend to ignore posts on there. My only real interest in those forums is going to be to complete the logo pack and see people's views on the UK research.

[/Rant over]

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing the first public beta come out. Finally we'll have a new hockey game to play with (although bearing in mind it's really just going to be an initial 6 months of testing)!

[YZG]

Remember when the first screenshots started coming out late last year and the OOTP Forum suddenly became very busy indeed? That's what I expect it to be like from Monday. Except it's not going to be just a temporary peak like it was in late December / early January - I think instead it'll be a virtually non-stop barrage from Monday until the September release date. So long as the game is in beta stage then I think we'll see these outlandinsh requests.

Perhaps the folks over there should consider opening a thread or a specially dedicated forum where people will be able to suggest and debate on what they would like the game to feature. That could help the main's climate. Good ideas will be there, bad ones too... but they'll just (well, mostly, we know how it is) be there and it'll be possible to discuss the game elsewhere without a request popping up every couple of posts.

"Will Henry VIII be in the WHA"

He was actually confirmed, along with Daffy Duck, the banana from Rejected and the 0,01% chance that when you click on a player profile, you get rick roll'd. Good thing, since my buying of the demo solely depended on his presence with the Michigan Stags and his ability to change wife every full moon

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing the first public beta come out. Finally we'll have a new hockey game to play with (although bearing in mind it's really just going to be an initial 6 months of testing)!

Likewise. I'm also curious to see if the names DB will be built similarly to OOTP's. There's every chance in the world I'll be working on a pack to expand it at some point.

[batdad]

"Will Henry VIII be in the WHA"

Not a chance...nowhere near good enough. He is from England. And even if he was, he would come over play 3 games and go home crying.

Even if they do open a thread....you think that is going to stop the morons from opening new ones each time they have an "episode"? Come on dude....no chance of that.

And as for Drewst.....

He beat me to it....


This is going to be....what is the word? INSANE. Hopefully won't destroy my membrane.

[archibalduk]

Here's the latest beta news:

Playable Leagues:

No major changes to what I posted earlier, all those leagues will be playable. The situation with the Canadian junior leagues isn't great; we lost our QMJHL researcher midweek so that league is in very rough shape and the OHL, while a little better, also has a lot of holes in the data. They're going to stay playable, though, because it would cause too many problems at this point to pull them out. But I strongly recommend not trying to start a game in the QMJHL or OHL until they've had at least two or three more weeks of work done on them.


The Database:

Nothing significantly different than I said earlier. I spent a lot of time on Friday and Saturday getting the NHL prospects into acceptable condition and building up the prospect pools for the 2013 and 2014 draft enough that each should be good for 2-3 rounds of realism.

We ran into some problems getting the new name generation system set up, specifically with the feature that will let us specify ethnic name groups at the state/provincial (rather than national, as in OOTP) level. Since the whole system has to be implemented at the same time, we're just leaving the default OOTP names in place for now - so that's going to lead to some weirdness like too many hispanic names for US players, Canadian names lacking variety, and European names just being downright strange in places. The situation is very temporary, we plan on having the real system in place within a week or so.


The AI:

A little progress, but not much; it's still making most of the same mistakes, maybe to a slightly lesser degree.


Stats:

The low-scoring problem is mostly fixed. Still some issues with defencemen not getting enough points, but it's a vast improvement over where we were a couple of days ago.


Performance:

Stability is better; the crashes we're finding now are associated with an obvious cause (i.e., click on a certain thing and the game dies) as opposed to crashes that would occur mid-simulation with no apparent cause.

Speed still has a lot of room for improvement, things really start to crawl during certain parts of the offseason like the opening week of free agency.


Historical mode:

Progress, but still some problems. The roster handling and strange contracts remain as issues, albeit less severe ones now. Drafts work...once. Something's causing them to stop after the first year; we're looking into it. Expansion drafts seem to be OK now. There are issues with games that start before 1978-79 once they get to that season, because the demise of the Cleveland Barons isn't being handled correctly.

WHA will not be in, at least for now. The player database is completed through 1979-80; I was hoping to get a little more than that done but there were too many other things to do this weekend. But I'll get going again once things have settled down this week, and the 80s should go fairly quickly.


Customization:

Game Options:

Enable Injuries -> ok
Injury frequency -> ok
Development Options -> ok (aging speed and peak ages)
Hall of Fame Criteria -> ok
Autosave frequency -> ok

League Setup - Settings:

Game Engine Settings -> ok (regulates goals per game, penalties per game, etc.)
Number of Defense Pairing Used -> ok

League Details:

Name -> ok
Abbreviation -> ok
Cup Name -> ok
Nation -> disabled
Region -> disabled
Draft 1 + 2 -> disabled
Junior Type -> disabled
League Value -> disabled
Money Value -> disabled
Trade Frequency -> ok
Average budget -> disabled
Schedule Details -> all disabled
Allocate random contracts -> ok
Reset all injuries -> ok
Reset player contentment -> ok
Run computer manager on all teams- > ok
Generate Schedule -> disabled
League Expansion -> disabled
Draft Details -> ok

Playoffs:
Everything editable but creation of new playoffs disabled
Pre-PO/Relegation/Interleague-Tournament -> disabled

Roster Rules:
all disabled (roster sizes, number of foreigners, etc.)

League Rules
all disabled (salary cap, trading deadlines, etc.)

Contract Rules
all disabled (minimum and maximum ages, free agency, etc.)

Game Rules
all ok (points for W/L/T/OTL/SOL, OT/shootout rules, etc.)

Playoff Game Rules
all ok (as above except for playoffs)

Awards
all ok (which awards to use and their names)

League Names/Structure
All name edits on, all buttons/dropdowns disabled (so names can be edited, but teams can't be moved out of their division/conference)

Edit Team
all ok (basic team details - name, abbreviation, city, market size, attendance, arena)

[archibalduk]

According to the OOTP Forums, the download link will be ready in about 2 - 3 hours.

The guy that runs Twitter inadvertently posted the purchase link but this was quickly removed - so some users have been able to purchase the license (but not download the game yet).

P.s. Twitter is probably the best place to grab the download link once it goes live. The OOTP Forums are grinding to a halt (presumably because there are a lot of people hitting F5 on their browsers!). Here's the Twitter link: https://twitter.com/FranchiseHockey

[benspit]

Game is now purchasable (they don't seemed to have removed that ability) and I can confirm that I've received a confirmation email, with what looks to be a license. My day just got beta.............get it?

[archibalduk]

Benspit

Here's the purchase link: https://store2.esellerate.net/store/che ... atalog.htm

This will get you your license number, but you'll need to wait until the download link goes live before you can download the beta.

[MWE]

Just purchased now awaiting the download link

[Saapas]

Same here Although I had some problems because it said earlier that my VISA Electron is not a valid card and I don't have any others but now I got it

[MWE]

I just used PayPal

[Loosie]

Payday (with bonus) is Thursday. I will have to wait until then.

[Peanut]

Come on give us the link now! Can't believe the D-day is finally here!

[benspit]

Also worth noting, JeffR has set up the Beta specific forums. It may have been around for a few days but I've just noticed it now. There's some good breakdown there and plenty of instructions on how to post your problems/issues/changes etc. Worth a look.

[archibalduk]

Also worth noting, JeffR has set up the Beta specific forums. It may have been around for a few days but I've just noticed it now. There's some good breakdown there and plenty of instructions on how to post your problems/issues/changes etc. Worth a look.

They must have been made public this evening. They were setup last weekend so researchers could get some introductions, etc posted in advance. I think it'll be tough to ensure those topics are kept on track.

Btw, how about all the spamming that's going on in the OOTP Forums at the moment?! So many "are we there yet posts" - I'm sure glad it's them rather than us! I feel bad for Malte, Sebastian and Jeff...

[benspit]

Oh yeah, plenty of that. People just aren't bothering to read the other posts! I must admit though - I'm sitting here with tbl and ootp forums open, refreshing every now and then to see if the download link has been put up!

[MWE]

Oh yeah, plenty of that. People just aren't bothering to read the other posts! I must admit though - I'm sitting here with tbl and ootp forums open, refreshing every now and then to see if the download link has been put up!

Me too I have work in the morning I want to get some game time in lol

[MWE]

I just asked the PR guy to spend less time tweeting and spend more time making wet dreams come true

He replied with this "I'm the PR/marketing guy, so I have no control over the coding. My programming experience is limited to BASIC on a TI/99-4a."

[YZG]

Btw, how about all the spamming that's going on in the OOTP Forums at the moment?! So many "are we there yet posts" - I'm sure glad it's them rather than us! I feel bad for Malte, Sebastian and Jeff...

Heck yes... hope it doesn't turn into a "well, how come it's not there already?? You said on the 4th! blah blah blah fed up to wait, blah blah blah I gave you all my money and that's what I get, blah blah blah my Ken Klee is gone and I gotta go to bed" and other such mature reactions.

Can't say I don't have a certain dose of excitement myself, though.

[batdad]

Oh...it will....accompanied by some person randomly posting in the thread that His Buffalo Billionares have signed Garry Doak, and Pawtucket Pinheads have signed Barry Melrose, but decided to trade him to the SPringfield Homers for Jerry Korab.

[MWE]

Not the Springfield Atoms then?

[Peanut]

Time for bed, can't think of a better way to wake up then to a download link to FHM (I hope).

Good night!