EHM The Blue Line

Danny wrote:Yeah it's all true, point was, if you wanna draft a physical player you just draft him, whether his birthplace is Vancouver or Montreal doesn't really matter, it has no effect on the game itself, which is why I was thinking that's rather something to implement later on and focus on gameplay-related things now

yeah, i don't know about birthplace in canada being a factor of a player being a power forward, sniper etc etc.

However, league style would perhaps play a role in developing players. I mean, the QMJHL players overall just aren't focused on defence like the Ohl or Whl so seeing a defensive forward from the 'Q' is much more rare then the other two leagues (maybe that's one reason why so many great goalies come from out there lol) but as far as more physical player coming out of the whl versus the ohl i don't see that as true and i don't think there is enough evidence to prove any of those numbers.



But having those percentages country wide would be neat. Russia develops more playmakers/snipers and not so many style x goalies. Canada would be even in all categories for forwards and defence etc.

dave1927p wrote:

Danny wrote:Yeah it's all true, point was, if you wanna draft a physical player you just draft him, whether his birthplace is Vancouver or Montreal doesn't really matter, it has no effect on the game itself, which is why I was thinking that's rather something to implement later on and focus on gameplay-related things now

yeah, i don't know about birthplace in canada being a factor of a player being a power forward, sniper etc etc.

However, league style would perhaps play a role in developing players. I mean, the QMJHL players overall just aren't focused on defence like the Ohl or Whl so seeing a defensive forward from the 'Q' is much more rare then the other two leagues (maybe that's one reason why so many great goalies come from out there lol) but as far as more physical player coming out of the whl versus the ohl i don't see that as true and i don't think there is enough evidence to prove any of those numbers.



But having those percentages country wide would be neat. Russia develops more playmakers/snipers and not so many style x goalies. Canada would be even in all categories for forwards and defence etc.

I agree with this. I would focus on the league shaping what kind of players are produced. Seems like it'd probably be harder to do, but it makes a lot more sense than birth location.

Due to illness in the family I haven't done much the last couple of weeks, that explains the lack of updates lately.

What I have managed to do however is design the player creator and staff member creator (they are one and the same really). I will start implementing tomorrow or on Thursday and if everything goes according to plans I will post a new blog entry with some additional information by the end of the week or early next week.

The first version will be fairly simple, just enough to be useful for my testing purposes.

Sorry to hear about the illness in the family.

dabo wrote:Due to illness in the family I haven't done much the last couple of weeks, that explains the lack of updates lately.

What I have managed to do however is design the player creator and staff member creator (they are one and the same really). I will start implementing tomorrow or on Thursday and if everything goes according to plans I will post a new blog entry with some additional information by the end of the week or early next week.

The first version will be fairly simple, just enough to be useful for my testing purposes.

Sad to hear this. I had the same problems while working at the DB for EHM 2007 (good ol' times) and working at EHM made a lot to easy things up. Hopefully working on this will be the same for you

Hey all, I was brought to this place via a link on SI's forums and am very excited by this project!! First, thank you Dabo for undertaking this project. Whatever the result is, you can be proud of yourself for giving it a try and giving us hockey management junkies some hope to see a new game appear to fill the void I sincerely hope your family member is recovering well.

I have been wanting to learn programming languages for years in order to create my own hockey management game. Skillwise, the result was at best abysmal But it gave me over time many ideas over what would make a great game (in my opinion). Here is what I had in mind for the player creation part, in case it can inspire you.

One of the things I feel is essential with it is to allow a fair amount of plasticity in the process, otherwise things remain annoyingly static. The hockey world is dynamic and in continuous evolution, so shall the game be. I think the template idea is excellent and the regional variations too. But they shall be subject to decade-long evolutive processes the game triggers by itself through the outcome of its simulations. Players shall not be recycled, except a percentage for coaching purpose. I think they shall be continuously created from scratch according to parameters decided by some variables on three levels:

National: one variable determines the average number of player created every year for any given country, ± a certain random (or not...) percentage. Another determines the average strenght of a player hailing from this nation. It'd think of a multiplier ranging from 0.05 to 1, with 1 being for the elite nations and 0.05 for those nations where there is no hockey. Those variables are influenced by in-game events (good performances at international competitions, availability of top level formation facilities within the country, etc) and can increase or decrease over time, allowing for a concept that is very dear to me to be possible: the possibility to develop new nations from ground up into hockey powerhouses over decades, and on the other hand, the possibility to have bigger nations to decline over time. That sure spices up the game!

Regional: let's say 450 players are created. Each are assigned a birth place proportionally to the population of these cities; however, to increase realism, for some countries, some regions would benefit from a multiplier to ensure more players hail from there because that's where hockey is the most popular, e.g. in Italy for instance, you'd need mostly players from South Tyrol; in Germany, mostly from Bavaria and so on, as that's where the game is the most popular.

Personnal: some further tweakings ensure each player is unique despite the common templates.

Also, one of the things that's always annoyed me/totally turned me off is the generally poor quality of name databases that refuse to consider regional name variations and either totally ignore some linguistic groups, either mix them all together in unrealistic results. Also, if it would be possible for the game to recognise and correctly display letters with diacritics, it'd be wonderful. I don't know how much coding power you have over that, though.

I reckon I just wrote a book and that many of those ideas may not be priorities. I hope they're interesting, though.

Oh - if you want help creating lists of cities, coordinates, people names by language group, etc., I'll very very gladly help you. Somehow I like those things

- YZG


EDIT: Forgot to complete a sentence. That's all me

Thanks a lot for your input. Although I am looking to create a simpler player creator in the first version what you wrote is definitely something to aim for in the future.

I am sure I will be needing help with cities and names, I will contact you when the time comes.

Just a quick update:

Due to the way I designed the player creator it takes a little longer to implement than I first expected, however I believe it will be worth it in the long run.

YZG wrote:mind for the player creation part, in case it can inspire you.

One of the things I feel is essential with it is to allow a fair amount of plasticity in the process, otherwise things remain annoyingly static. The hockey world is dynamic and in continuous evolution, so shall the game be. I think the template idea is excellent and the regional variations too. But they shall be subject to decade-long evolutive processes the game triggers by itself through the outcome of its simulations. Players shall not be recycled, except a percentage for coaching purpose. I think they shall be continuously created from scratch according to parameters decided by some variables on three levels:

yeah, that's a big one for all stat-based sims in my books. It's actually often a dealbreaker when it comes to non hockey related sport sims for me. YZG, you have some great ideas..

Yes I am still alive, the reason the blog entry is delayed is because I decided I want to create a player with the player creator and capture a new screenshot or two first. In order to create a player I need to add names, places and nations to the database and this is taking some time even though I only add a limited amount at this point.

dabo wrote:Yes I am still alive, the reason the blog entry is delayed is because I decided I want to create a player with the player creator and capture a new screenshot or two first. In order to create a player I need to add names, places and nations to the database and this is taking some time even though I only add a limited amount at this point.

I'd be glad to help you with filling the database. Just contact me if you want help.

Many users have offered to help with various things since I made this project official, here is a new opportunity. I have come to the point where I can almost store players created using the player creator in the database. What I need now is lists of player (and staff) descriptions, personalities, media handling styles etc. What I want you to do is post lists you think are relevant to hockey. Below I will post the different lists I need along with example entries in each one to give you an idea of what I need. As usual other ideas are welcome.

Players

Description
* This one was added a long time ago, not sure if it is needed. Feel free to come with ideas.

General Happiness
- Happy to be on the team
- Optimistic about his future on the team
- Wants to be traded
- Sad to be transfer listed
...

Practice Happiness
- Thinks the practice schedule is too hard
- Not enough time to rest
- Happy about the current practice schedule
...

Media Handling Style
- Levelheaded
- Outspoken
...

Personality Type
* Again, not sure how important this is and how it would be incorporated. What do you think? After all this is not a dating service .

Reputation
- Regional
- National
- Continental
- Around the World
...

Plan (both short- and long term)
- Looking to move to a better team
- Looking to move to a better league
- Looking to make the first team
...

Promise
* Is this common in hockey?
- More ice time in the coming games
- More ice time if practicing well
...

Staff members

Description
* See above

General Happiness
* See above

Media Handling Style
* See above

Personality Type
* See above

Reputation
* See above

GM Philosophy
- Building from the goalie and out
...

Coaching Philosophy
- Offensive
- Defensive
- Balanced
...

Drafting Philosophy
- Best available
- Need
...

If you think some lists are missing please let me know.

Here is what I brainstormed, tell me what you think:

dabo wrote: General Happiness
- Happy to be on the team
- Optimistic about his future on the team
- Wants to be traded
- Sad to be transfer listed
...

- Delighted to be [player name]'s teammate ---> for those who are happy to play with superstars they admire or with players they just get along with very well

- Disgruntled to have to play with [player name]

- Delighted to play for [coach name] / [GM name]

- Disgruntled to play for [coach name] / [GM name]

- Concerned by [player/coach/GM/whoever else's name]'s attitude ----> may be for very professional players who get annoyed by much less professional people on the team for instance, or for any player who doesn't grasp the plans (or lack thereof) a GM has for the team

- Dissatisfied with his ice time

- Wants better linemates -----> might happen if you match a star with a pair of AHL-caliber players for too long

- Concerned by the locker room atmosphere

- Feels like the weakest link on the team ----> For rookies who are not ready and are overwhelmed by the skill gap they have to fill in order to be competitive (might indicate a lack of determination), players playing at a too high caliber for their skills or older players whose skills are far from what they used to be, in which case he'll soon start to consider retirement.

- Considers retiring at the end of the season ---> he might well change his mind if anything he feels good happens in the game

- Retires at the end of the season

- Has personnal issues off the ice ----> this one might come up when a player is in a slump if the player has a professionalism rating below a certain threshold. Same message occuring for a player whose play is on-par with his personnal average or even above would hint at a high professionalism

- Upset that [player name] was traded / [coach name] was fired / etc.

dabo wrote: Practice Happiness
- Thinks the practice schedule is too hard
- Not enough time to rest
- Happy about the current practice schedule
...

- Concerned that [coach name] might not have the competence to help him raise his game ---> for players playing on teams where the coaching staff is indeed not competent enough, or for players who have a too high opinion of themselves

- Thinks his practice schedule is too light

- Enjoys helping the rookies during training sessions ----> might indicate the player has what it takes to turn to coaching when he hangs his skates

dabo wrote: Personality types
* Again, not sure how important this is and how it would be incorporated. What do you think? After all this is not a dating service .

Yeah, it's better if you picture yourself what kind of individual a player is via the hidden attributes hints provided by in-games messages.

dabo wrote: Reputation

- Virtually unknown
- Local
- Regional
- National
- Continental (I feel it may not be the best, but I can't see any better for now)
- Around the World

I guess every player starts as a 14 (or whatever else) years old virtually unknown kid. A handful who tear up their minor leagues will get noticed some more and could reach the juniors with as high as a regional reputation, national in the case of a generational player. Most would remain a skating bunch of merry unknowns, though.

dabo wrote: GM Philosophy
- Building from the goalie and out
...

- Building from within ----> prefers to draft a lot and develop a winning team out of all those youngsters. Will prefer trading for young players and perhaps trade for / sign a couple of proven veterans to balance the team a little, add leadership and make up for the kids' eventual mistakes.

- Building from the outside -----> opposite of the other, doesn't give a hoot about the Entry Draft or the team's youth system and prefers to sign FAs and trade for players who have blossomed and shown their worth.

- Building around player X ------> GM acquires / has a franchise player, or what he feels is a franchise player in the making, and crafts a team centered around that player.

Those are extremes, most GMs should range inbetween these and others. Could be attributes for staff?


-YZG

Thanks for your input, sounds good to me.

Reputation



- Virtually unknown
- Local
- Regional
- National
- Continental (I feel it may not be the best, but I can't see any better for now)
- Around the World

I think that is more "Popularity" then reputation. It would be cool to have a popularity/respect rating for both Fans and a seperate one for Teammates/Coaches.

As for GM Philosophy, things like building a puck moving team (detroit and buffalo) versus a tough heavy hitter team (Toronto)...or Tendency to Draft College Kids (New Jerseys GM) OOTP has a ton of sliders for GM and coaching tendencies. Looking at those might give you some further ideas or get you thinkin'.
Sliders for favour youth or favour Vets (as said by YZG) is one of them.

Whoever thought of the idea that a former player (or even coach) can have a child that makes it into the NHL is genious. It is one thing to have a player regenerated like in EHM, but to have that player have a son that is a great idea!

drewst18 wrote:Whoever thought of the idea that a former player (or even coach) can have a child that makes it into the NHL is genious. It is one thing to have a player regenerated like in EHM, but to have that player have a son that is a great idea!

This has been on FM or at least I think so... If you decide to be from a small country and put a very rare name (not even real) there might come a player with the same surname as yours and you will probably be in the favoured personnels

I am amazed at how this thing is coming along - good job

I don't know if this has come up, I have read through a lot of the threads but may have missed some things.

One thing that always bothered me in EHM, was the gigantic difference between the NHL and Europe, and between NHL players and European based players.

For example, exhibition matches between NHL teams and teams from the top European leagues would almost always end with scores like 8-1, 10-2 etc. for the NHL team. This is not realistic as we have seen in the real-life exhibitions the last couple of years. Teams from top European leagues should most often not lose by more than maybe 4 goals, and should even be capable of winning a few games.

The same goes for the international games. National teams with NHL players in EHM would just kick the rubbish out of national teams made up of mostly European based players. This is also not very true to real life. Teams like Sweden, Russia, Finland etc. are still pretty decent teams, even if they are made up of 80% European based players. Hell, Denmark beat team USA last year, with only a couple of NHL/AHL players, opposed to almost an entirely NHL based USA squad. In real life we have even seen European based players become "player of the tournament" at the Olympics, despite the NHL players all participating in the tournament. Some players also just do not wish to play in North America or have a playing style more suited to the European leagues.

This all comes down to EHM rating players in Europe to low - probably because the NHL would bring over all the players if they were rated better, due to game mechanics. It would be cool, if it was possible for players in Europe to actually be as good as non-superstar NHL players. The best players in Sweden, Russia etc. are at least as good as 2nd/3rd line NHL players - a select few even better - but this was not the case in EHM. In EHM you rarely saw players with an ability rating over 120/130 playing in Europe. Any player with an ability over 110 would likely be signed by an NHL team in EHM.

ElQuapo wrote:I am amazed at how this thing is coming along - good job

I don't know if this has come up, I have read through a lot of the threads but may have missed some things.

One thing that always bothered me in EHM, was the gigantic difference between the NHL and Europe, and between NHL players and European based players.

For example, exhibition matches between NHL teams and teams from the top European leagues would almost always end with scores like 8-1, 10-2 etc. for the NHL team. This is not realistic as we have seen in the real-life exhibitions the last couple of years. Teams from top European leagues should most often not lose by more than maybe 4 goals, and should even be capable of winning a few games.

The same goes for the international games. National teams with NHL players in EHM would just kick the rubbish out of national teams made up of mostly European based players. This is also not very true to real life. Teams like Sweden, Russia, Finland etc. are still pretty decent teams, even if they are made up of 80% European based players. Hell, Denmark beat team USA last year, with only a couple of NHL/AHL players, opposed to almost an entirely NHL based USA squad. In real life we have even seen European based players become "player of the tournament" at the Olympics, despite the NHL players all participating in the tournament. Some players also just do not wish to play in North America or have a playing style more suited to the European leagues.

This all comes down to EHM rating players in Europe to low - probably because the NHL would bring over all the players if they were rated better, due to game mechanics. It would be cool, if it was possible for players in Europe to actually be as good as non-superstar NHL players. The best players in Sweden, Russia etc. are at least as good as 2nd/3rd line NHL players - a select few even better - but this was not the case in EHM. In EHM you rarely saw players with an ability rating over 120/130 playing in Europe. Any player with an ability over 110 would likely be signed by an NHL team in EHM.

Bravo! I 100% agree with this

- YZG

Here is a site that has many interesting sections for NHL Stats & Analysis that may be useful for the development of the DHM:

http://www.quanthockey.com/index.php

The Analysis section has info that I have not seen anywhere else.

behindthenet.ca also has a lot of info/analysis for the NHL.

"Projecting Junior Hockey Players and Translating Performance to the NHL" may be of some use.

http://behindthenet.ca/projecting_to_nhl.html

Thanks, will save those links.

Wow! Interesting links. I'm not a big math and statistics guys, so my eyes kind of rolled back in my head when I started really getting into it. The information does seem like something we should be able to use though. Could it be used when researching players for the DB and grading them?

Fantastic links! I think some of that could potentially be very helpful. I particularly like the table that tries to show how difficult each league is - could be helpful when trying to determine an average CA rating for players in different leagues

hockeyanalysis.com has a interesting look at "An All Encompassing Player Rating Model"

Sept 13 2010
http://hockeyanalysis.com/2010/09/13/an ... ing-model/

Sept 16 2010
http://hockeyanalysis.com/2010/09/16/pl ... #more-1103


I'm not sure if this could be useful for the development of the game, but it is an interesting read.