EHM The Blue Line

Quote taken from the SI Games forum:

A first class sports management game from the brains behind Football Manager 2005â„¢

LONDON, UK – February 18th, 2005 – SEGA Europe and SEGA of America Inc, today announced they would be publishing NHL™: Eastside Hockey Manager 2005. Acclaimed management game masters Sports Interactive – developers of PC Blockbuster Football Manager 2005™, are developing the game, set to appear on both PC and Mac formats across Europe and North America in Summer 2005.

“SEGA are looking forward to another successful release from the Sports Interactive team who continuously prove, that when it comes to sports simulation games, they are top of the leagueâ€

I hope they make that 2D view like in CM03/04! *drooooool!*

Sadly I´ve heard that EHM2005 won´t feature a 2D-engine.

It says up there, on the quote that it has a "2D snapshot view, which reveals player positioning second-by-second", so it's not as smooth as in CM or FM, but it's more than in current EHM, where you can only see one snapshot.

The addition of the Team Report screen - where you will see your organization's 'depth chart' as well as a Top Ten Prospect list is something that I am really looking forward to.

That'll be alot of info on one page. Should definitely cut down on time spent flipping between your minor league team rosters.

One of the SI team said on the SI boards that there aren't enough programmers to write code for an accurate 2D view.

Not having a 2D view doesn't really bother me.

I'm happy that the UI is getting a facelift - I never really liked the one in the current EHM.

well if there's no 2D, then I'd like to see more leagues. DEL and Swiss are a big bite missing from the European Hockey Scene (hope they get the licences for em).

And also they're going to double the database, so it's not just something they could've put in a patch.

Just like Tasku says, I think more leagues just improves the game. Also the new UI is better, and I'm looking forward skinning it and adding new titlebars .

Like we know SI, it will surely be an other great game. I hope they will manage to have a full 2D engine in the next version.

Still it's great work SI!

Those features are nice but I just wish they change the database completly with a new one. Simming is to slow. If you're a player rater and you want to fine tune you roster pack... well you need a good dose of patience. Even for general audience. Simming just a week is time consuming.

I can't wait for the new one =)

The screenshots just make me really impatient, it'll be a long wait

There's five more playable leagues in EHM 2005. They haven't announced which ones yet.

i really hope they can get the european champiosn cup and continental cup.

As for the leagues I would liek to see more divisions so that promotion and relegation are more of an issue.

New leagues i want to see - germany, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia and some eastern european leagues and asina hockey league
Also in North America would liek to see AHL , ECHL , Central Hockey League and United Hockey league

Yeah i'd like the continental cup (give me a wider set of things to aim for after the EIHL gets a bit easy)

It says on SI Forums, it will have a 2D engine, but it won't be as smooth as in FM. That's how I understood it from here --> http://community.sigames.com/eve/ubb.x/ ... 7502085601 It will have similar features (show key events / highlits / none) as in FM, but it will be like a slide show updating every second. So the epilepsy warning in the manual should be taken seriously on EHM 2005.

Can't wait!

The scouting and the training camps just seem to be such an amazing improvement, the scouting seems better than FM in any of its incarnations

Lukeozade100 wrote:The scouting and the training camps just seem to be such an amazing improvement, the scouting seems better than FM in any of its incarnations

Well...if you believe how JeffR compares it to FM, than yes

*drools*

Can't wait...I want it now

Regarding new leagues. There will be new ones in this game but unfortunately we have not had the time to include all the leagues we wanted and some of which we had time to code, had to be left out because of the licenses. But I'm sure the new leagues we have will put a little smile on your face. On a sadder note, some of the leagues will have a hard time finding their way into the game, because of the lack of researchers in those areas and even keeping the current leagues in the game will be hard if we have no new volunteers for research in certain areas.

On a positive note though, head over to Eastside UK website to see a couple of new screenshots we did exclusively for them and the fans of the UK leagues:
http://www.eastside-uk.co.uk/

There will be new ones in this game but unfortunately we have not had the time to include all the leagues we wanted and some of which we had time to code, had to be left out because of the licenses

Any chance you might tell us which leagues will be included?

DEL? Swiss?

And will there be more divisions for the Finnish leagues?

Just out of curiosity, what would this researching require? Is it scrambling thru statistics and the internet, or does it require some sort of real life scouting - actually being at the spot?

I'm guessing you have plenty of researchers here in Finland... just wondering what they do.

Sorry, cannot go into details about the leagues included this year. We will be announcing them all at once when the licenses have been cleared.

As for more divisions to different leagues, it's all down to research and the time we have for coding things. As for the finnish research, please check out the finnish research forums at http://koti.mbnet.fi/mzt_t/ehmforum/ for more information. We are a bit short on finnish research at the moment I'm afraid, so all voluntary help is welcome. It's not just about writing historical statistics and basic information such as birth places etc, but also you'd need to evaluate player abilities, potentials and attributes. I know it's not an easy task but we simply cannot do all the research on our own in-house, since we need to still code the game as well.

On another topic, Eurogamer has posted their preview of the upcoming NHL EHM 2005. Read it here (and don't mind the occasional "british" terminology used in the text, lol):

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58309

It's not just about writing historical statistics and basic information such as birth places etc, but also you'd need to evaluate player abilities, potentials and attributes.

I'm afraid, my evaluation skills are limited to what I can read from other sources, so I have no ability to help you, even if it is an interesting idea...

I'll just have to remain a customer.

How many copies of EHM got sold? Difficult question, but I think it's interesting to know...

Riz can you tell us in what leagues you are short of researchers. I f you let me know I'll se what I can do maybe try and spread the word about it in a few forums and see if I can find some people. If you need research on some league seg player names and scoring rates etc mayeb I can look around teh net and see wot stats I can get. Unfortunatly i don't get to many game sso i don't get to see actual players but using the net I should hopefully get some useful info. Can't make any promises but I'll try my best.