EHM The Blue Line

How did I miss this? Looks really nice. I mean, it's still obviously in a rough state but it's definitely the most promising new project since EHM over 10 years ago. And I think most suggestions that I have have been mentioned aswell by others.

The only thing I'd like to suggest is that you implement the very helpful, yet confusingly rare, SIgames standard of having both ability and potential ratings and being able to leave them and ratings in general blank (or "zerod") and have those ratings be auto-generated at the start of the game. Greatly helps with adding depth to the database. Accurately entering all the values for players you like and know well might easy, but trying to figure out every single aspect of the second line right winger of a random LNAH team... Well, that's much less fun, it's more like bordering on obnoxious... So that would be useful.

I'll be following this closely. I'll have loads of more specific suggestions too but I'll hold those off for now. Personally I think your first priority should be just getting a mock league of maybe six teams to somewhat accurately simulate a season of hockey... Then we can burden you with various database quirks or whatnot.

Oh right, remembered one specific suggestion I'd like to add. Maybe it's just me, but I'd really like a "points per 60 minutes of ice time" stat. It's very rarely used but I always find it a useful and interesting stat.

Alessandro wrote:

dabo wrote:No I will not because I think it is not interesting in a game like this. Personally I would rather go with a single radar chart and not show any particular attributes at all but you people would probably riot

I agree. The "overall" rating sucks

Actually, an overall value could be useful if used right. Although an ability value could probably replace it if done well, should you choose to implement one. It should definitely be a hidden value, but it could be useful for the computer, especially in a first gen trade engine. Once you've refined the process you can remove it.

Jypfan92 wrote:Can you make possible, that player/coach can die? They could die cause of cancer or somthing else. In EHM you can't die. It could happen very, very rarely, maybe once in 4 seasons.

Personally I don't think this should be a priority... At all... I mean, the only in game effect it will have is the same as a surprise retirement, only difference is instead of the news messages saying that the player retired due to injury or whatever, he died. As far as the game goes, there's no difference. The same goes for going to jail, being abducted by aliens, becoming a vampire, whatever. The end effect in game is the same as being injured and/or retiring. Rather make it so that people can enter their own reasons for retirement and such and set the frequency of that message being shown. Then people can have as much fun as they want with the quirkiness.

Djungelurban wrote:How did I miss this? Looks really nice. I mean, it's still obviously in a rough state but it's definitely the most promising new project since EHM over 10 years ago. And I think most suggestions that I have have been mentioned aswell by others.

The only thing I'd like to suggest is that you implement the very helpful, yet confusingly rare, SIgames standard of having both ability and potential ratings and being able to leave them and ratings in general blank (or "zerod") and have those ratings be auto-generated at the start of the game. Greatly helps with adding depth to the database. Accurately entering all the values for players you like and know well might easy, but trying to figure out every single aspect of the second line right winger of a random LNAH team... Well, that's much less fun, it's more like bordering on obnoxious... So that would be useful.

I'll be following this closely. I'll have loads of more specific suggestions too but I'll hold those off for now. Personally I think your first priority should be just getting a mock league of maybe six teams to somewhat accurately simulate a season of hockey... Then we can burden you with various database quirks or whatnot.

Oh right, remembered one specific suggestion I'd like to add. Maybe it's just me, but I'd really like a "points per 60 minutes of ice time" stat. It's very rarely used but I always find it a useful and interesting stat.

Alessandro wrote:

dabo wrote:No I will not because I think it is not interesting in a game like this. Personally I would rather go with a single radar chart and not show any particular attributes at all but you people would probably riot

I agree. The "overall" rating sucks

Actually, an overall value could be useful if used right. Although an ability value could probably replace it if done well, should you choose to implement one. It should definitely be a hidden value, but it could be useful for the computer, especially in a first gen trade engine. Once you've refined the process you can remove it.

Jypfan92 wrote:Can you make possible, that player/coach can die? They could die cause of cancer or somthing else. In EHM you can't die. It could happen very, very rarely, maybe once in 4 seasons.

Personally I don't think this should be a priority... At all... I mean, the only in game effect it will have is the same as a surprise retirement, only difference is instead of the news messages saying that the player retired due to injury or whatever, he died. As far as the game goes, there's no difference. The same goes for going to jail, being abducted by aliens, becoming a vampire, whatever. The end effect in game is the same as being injured and/or retiring. Rather make it so that people can enter their own reasons for retirement and such and set the frequency of that message being shown. Then people can have as much fun as they want with the quirkiness.

Difference is, that when player dies during season, usually he's jersey number will be unuseful.

And i'm just proposing things not in EHM.

dabe, for coaches(both head and assistant) and GM bios can you track their history similar to this:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/coaches/quinnpa01c.html but perhaps with the added section saying "Head Coach" or "Assistant Coach" like hockeydatabase does.


Also are you planning on keeping track of all the history of the franchises and league similar to ootp? For example sort through most players with the most games with the franchise or most points and it show ALL the players. That's one thing i loved about ootp - their history sections as opposed to EHMs. Actually this "hockey reference" site does a pretty good job at organizing this info, perhaps making the interface/setup for history similar to this[web]http://www.hockey-reference.com/[/web][web]http://www.hockey-reference.com/[/web] http://www.hockey-reference.com/

hockeyreference is a great site but i hate how they split up non nhl stats (ahl, junior, khl etc) with the nhl stats.

dave1927p wrote:dabe, for coaches(both head and assistant) and GM bios can you track their history similar to this:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/coaches/quinnpa01c.html but perhaps with the added section saying "Head Coach" or "Assistant Coach" like hockeydatabase does.


Also are you planning on keeping track of all the history of the franchises and league similar to ootp? For example sort through most players with the most games with the franchise or most points and it show ALL the players. That's one thing i loved about ootp - their history sections as opposed to EHMs. Actually this "hockey reference" site does a pretty good job at organizing this info, perhaps making the interface/setup for history similar to this[web]http://www.hockey-reference.com/[/web][web]http://www.hockey-reference.com/[/web] http://www.hockey-reference.com/

hockeyreference is a great site but i hate how they split up non nhl stats (ahl, junior, khl etc) with the nhl stats.

Was thinking of something simpler but I will consider this.

Looks like excellent work so far. I just want to offer my services if necessary for information on players. I can give detailed scouting reports on every NHL player in the league (past players as well). Additionally, I can provide information on most prospects and 2010, 2011 and 2012 draft eligible prospects. When you get to that point in the process, I'd be a more-than-willing consultant to the process if needed. Good luck and thanks for your dedication to the continuation of the game!

I think it is time to show you some screenshots (click for full size), even though these are prototypes of the gui without any player data etc.



The circle is the radar chart, it just looks like that when there is no data. As you probably have figured, the player photo will be to the left of the radar chart.



I have big plans for the gui but right now this boring application-look will have to do. I expect to be able to work more on the game in June-July-August since I have a break from school over the summer. I hope the database will be ready in June which will allow me to fill the screenshots above with some player data.

Looks awesome to me so far, don't really mind the color, I imagine this will all the information I needed and it will do just right. Just maybe a logo of the team somewhere can do the job.


Sometimes in EHM teams colors are really annoying. Instead of putting automatic color with the team why not just let the user take a color he likes? An option with a couple of colors could make the job, I don't know if somebody have already said something about that but it look cool to me.

Yeah will probably display a small logo next to where it says "Team" on the first screenshot.

Wow. Excellent work so-far, dabo.

Couple of quick questions: In reference to the first screenshot, how do those radio buttons work? I'm assuming they will switch the displayed info to the info related to the radio button? Kind of like EHM's sidebar functionality?

Ans second, what about those four dropdowns above the attributes?

Just curious.

Again, your work is looking excellent so-far.

B. Stinson wrote:Wow. Excellent work so-far, dabo.

Couple of quick questions: In reference to the first screenshot, how do those radio buttons work? I'm assuming they will switch the displayed info to the info related to the radio button? Kind of like EHM's sidebar functionality?

Ans second, what about those four dropdowns above the attributes?

Just curious.

Again, your work is looking excellent so-far.

Yeah part of the window will change when you select another radio button, for example, the first screenshot shows what it will look like when the "Overview" button is selected and the second screenshot when the "Information" button is selected.

Using the combo boxes you will be able to interact with the player, extend contracts etc. kind of like in FM 2010. But I might create custom controls instead, I am not 100% happy with them.

Also, I forgot to mention, the tiny bar at the very bottom will contain some info too, dates etc.

Nice work!

Looks really good, dabo. And let me tell you that people won't mind the GUI as long as the game's good. After all, we're all playing management games for the numbers and statistics, not the graphics. Keep up the good work!

Very nice! Actually prefer the GUI looking kinda barebones like that rather than being all "flash bang". If it was up to me I'd keep it as is.

Haha, someone would disagree with that GUI thing. (who? )

But it looks really stunning, looking forward to playing the living hell out of this one.

WallyWallcakes wrote:I don't know the logistics behind it, or how hard it would be to code, but I always thought it'd be cool to see how much a player has made over the course of his career. Once he retires, you could see what he has made, and what he was worth.

there is a site that has the breakdown of every players contracts since 99 or something. Unfortuately i can't remember it

Yes I remember going on a website like that, pretty cool to know how much Jarg done over is career.

http://content.usatoday.com/sports/hock ... fault.aspx

USA Today has a database on NHL salaries, but it starts from '00-'01 season. Not sure about how accurate those are.

By the way, i like the screenshot, it's really visible how hard you have worked on your project. I'm guessing the radar screen will show a graphic on the players skills?

Great work!

I posted this screen earlier, you can see an example of the radar chart here (top left):



If anyone is bored, I would love if you could think about which attributes shown in the screenshot should influence the different categories in the radar chart, don't know if the current ones make any sense. Shooting and passing are kind of obvious, physical and mental are just mean-values of "Physical Attributes" and "Mental Attributes". Iirc skating is the mean-value of acceleration + agility + speed. But how about defence, offence and stick handling? let me know what you think. I have a goalie-version too which I can upload when I come home tonight.

dave1927p wrote:

WallyWallcakes wrote:I don't know the logistics behind it, or how hard it would be to code, but I always thought it'd be cool to see how much a player has made over the course of his career. Once he retires, you could see what he has made, and what he was worth.

there is a site that has the breakdown of every players contracts since 99 or something. Unfortuately i can't remember it

It's a great idea!

EDIT: wasn't that.

dabo wrote:I posted this screen earlier, you can see an example of the radar chart here (top left):



If anyone is bored, I would love if you could think about which attributes shown in the screenshot should influence the different categories in the radar chart, don't know if the current ones make any sense. Shooting and passing are kind of obvious, physical and mental are just mean-values of "Physical Attributes" and "Mental Attributes". Iirc skating is the mean-value of acceleration + agility + speed. But how about defence, offence and stick handling? let me know what you think. I have a goalie-version too which I can upload when I come home tonight.

Defense: Positioning, Poke Checking, Shot Blocking, Deflecting, Checking, Hitting?

Offense: Puck Control, combine of Slap shot, Wrist shot and Backhand, Composure, Decisions, and probably Passing?

Stick Handling: Faceoffs probably, Passing, Deking?

These are just my opinions. And great screenshot provided! Could you anyway easily do graphics that can be modified?

GREAT!!!!!!!!!
I just think that it's a bit heavy as it's too white. You should consider adding some contrast and maybe a background image

Well of course Skating should be influenced also by Balance, IMO

axwel3221 wrote:Defense: Positioning, Poke Checking, Shot Blocking, Deflecting, Checking, Hitting?

Offense: Puck Control, combine of Slap shot, Wrist shot and Backhand, Composure, Decisions, and probably Passing?

Stick Handling: Faceoffs probably, Passing, Deking?

These are just my opinions. And great screenshot provided! Could you anyway easily do graphics that can be modified?

Your opinion is exactly what I want if others share their opinions too I am sure we can come up with something great. When I come home I will post what I am currently using.

I see you have deflecting as a defensive attribute, always thought about that as an offensive attribute but you are right, defenders use it often to deflect shoots away from the net. This is why more than one person's opinion is very useful.

When it comes to modifying graphics, I could let you modify colors but I doubt I will, at least not from day one. I can easily let you change the theme of the ribbon control though, I could do that from day one

Alessandro wrote:GREAT!!!!!!!!!
I just think that it's a bit heavy as it's too white. You should consider adding some contrast and maybe a background image

You should have seen the earlier version, it was even more white I will add a background and let you know.

Alessandro wrote:Well of course Skating should be influenced also by Balance, IMO

Yeah why not, good idea.

I would include wrist shot in both stickhandling and offense.