EHM The Blue Line

Hey guys,
Posting to tell y'all about a fantastic NHL 2004 community over at Flyermania. The guys there have put so much hard work into keeping an old game alive and to be better than the new tripe that EA have released for the PC. NHL 2004 offers detailed stats, realistic gameplay, up to date rosters and an all round real life hockey experience. I am urging you all to buy NHL 2004 (only a few pounds/dollars/euros) and get over to NHL04 Rebuilt 2013 and join the wonderful community. They'll be happy to offer any kind of help.

More info and screen shots: Complete Modded Nhl 2004 Links/installation Info

Thanks
Will

So they're keeping NHL 2004 up to date?

I used to love playing NHL 2004. I have played that game far more time that any other of the EA NHL series.

Yup, there is a few people working on it! It is utterly fantastic to say the least

Very interesting. I had this game still installed and playing it up until sometime last year. The dynasty mode rocks.

Yup, should install it again and use the great updates they have to offer!

Hi there,

everything (besides the hardcoded stuff) is brand new. Arenas, jerseys, goalie equipment, play-by-play (ripped from NHL 09)... but most importantly... the game interface which has been completely rebuilt. It offers almost as detailed statistics as EHM 2007 with full boxscores, reports, etc. (Check Will's screen shots link).

It's really a good game, and it has the best-ever AI that EA ever made (imho). 2004 has a big community in Russia and Finland. Many people have moved from next-gen hockey back to PC because of this.

Welcome!

It sounds like the NHL 2004 community has a lot in common with the EHM community.

We have a vintage 1997 mod also coming. Pretty cool stuff.

http://img412.imageshack.us/g/nhl200420 ... 93496.jpg/

bruins72 wrote:It sounds like the NHL 2004 community has a lot in common with the EHM community.

The NHL 2004 community looks identical to the TBL community; a community of devoted hockey fans keeping their hockey game alive - and arguably making the game better than it has ever been. I have to say it is astounding the work that has gone into NHL 04 by that community

Now if TBL and NHL 2004 combined into one community and site. That would be cool

@ Archi: I was thinking that, but I was worried to mention it, it would take a lot of discussion, and may or may not effect both of the communities, but I will shush before I say anything controversial.

Some pics of the 'el classico (1996-1997 mod). It's out.

Sakic having words with Grant Fuhr


Eric Lacroix scores:


Bob Probert and Tony Twist just fought:


Hawks used to have a physical team:


Belfour and Daze celebrating:


The mod auto-extracts all box scores. Here's the STL-CHI game.

1st period
02:58 CHI GOAL (0:1) TONY AMONTE MURRAY CRAVEN, ERIC WEINRICH
04:40 STL GOAL (1:1) IGOR KRAVCHUK CRAIG CONROY
05:42 CHI GOAL (1:2) KEVIN MILLER BRENT SUTTER
09:21 CHI GOAL (1:3) ALEXEI ZHAMNOV ERIC DAZE
16:14 STL PEN CHRIS PRONGER Holding, minor
17:20 CHI PEN ETHAN MOREAU Hooking, minor
17:54 CHI GOAL (1:4) BRENT SUTTER Unassisted
18:43 STL PPG (2:4) SHAYNE CORSON CHRIS PRONGER

2nd period
00:41 STL GOAL (3:4) GEOFF COURTNALL Unassisted
01:43 CHI PEN JEFF SHANTZ Roughing, minor
01:57 STL PPG (4:4) BRETT HULL JOE MURPHY
13:12 STL PEN SCOTT PELLERIN Hooking, minor
16:16 STL PEN TONY TWIST Fighting, major
16:16 CHI PEN BOB PROBERT Fighting, major

3rd period
00:55 CHI GOAL (4:5) MURRAY CRAVEN JEFF SHANTZ
09:11 STL PEN PAVOL DEMITRA Obstruction hooking, minor
11:07 CHI PPG (4:6) JEFF SHANTZ ETHAN MOREAU, ERIC WEINRICH

It extracts the box scores?! That's a very neat mod. I remember about four or five years ago I ran a community NHL 2004 team simulation on the SI Forums. Basically I replaced a team with a custom team made up of community users and simulated the games. I used to have to type out the scorers by hand. Your mod would have saved a lot of time.

And what a great looking set of rosters. Are there rosters for any other seasons?

Reynaldo28 wrote:@ Archi: I was thinking that, but I was worried to mention it, it would take a lot of discussion, and may or may not effect both of the communities, but I will shush before I say anything controversial.

The reason I suggested it (and it was an off the cuff suggestion) is that both communities relate to an old game. The difficulty is that it's a niche and you rely on mainly die hard fans to keep that community going. If the fanbase declines then it will quickly spiral into the end for the community - which would be such a shame for TBL or NHL 04. Thus we're mulling over whether/how we can diversify to ensure the longevity of the site.

Theoretically, a merging of TBL and NHL 04 would be very beneficial to both communities because we all love hockey (ensuring plenty of activity in the hockey and general discussion forums) and there would be users from each community who would potentially be interest in the other community's game.

Bringing NHL 04 into TBL would not be that hard as I'm currently working on redesigning the entire site (see here). It would be pretty straightforward to integrate NHL 04 into TBL. Anyway, that's all theoretical and I wouldn't expect anything to come of it unless the owner/admin of NHL 04 ever contacted me. It just struck me how similar both sets of communities are - and there's a great deal of strength in numbers.

Good old memories.. I used to play NHL 2004 a couple years ago. Not so much because of the gameplay.. just because of the dynasty mode. When I discovered EHM there was no time left for other games.

The one problem with NHL2004 was that the dynasty mode lasted only 20 years, and trading for players was super easy. I remember every team tried to sign Tverdovsky in the first season. And there was one goalie UFA, think it was Salo.
And then there were guys like Shvidki and Nedorost with huge potential.

Communty fusion sounds great.

That looks really cool would love to give it a go on-line. Think I have NHL 2004 somewhere if I can find it hope my laptop can run should do since my laptop was new in 2006 though is just on-board graphics. I see on their forums it can work online I thought EA would stop folk doing that after a year but maybe there is ways round it. Maybe in the new year we could have a TBL NHL 2004 league. I would suggest a North American and European conferences so time delay is less of an issue.

European Conference - British Isles Division, Scandinavian Division, Central and Eastern Europe Division

North American Conference - West Division, Central Division and East Division

I think it could be a lot of fun. Like I said would be good if it is in the new year as well it is a busy time of year for many people at the moment. Maybe Febuary would be good as my exams will be long past by then . Also would give more time to properly arrange it. Fixtures could be quite flexible to suit when people are able to play. We could even have play offs at the end.

Perhaps as a warm up there could be an Olympics style tournament with International teams. This could test the waters. Perhaps each nation could have heats to see who will play for them. So say Canada all the Canadian players play against each other until 1 winner is found and that person would play as Canada in Olympic tournament and do like wise with other nations.

archibalduk wrote:It extracts the box scores?! That's a very neat mod.

Yes. We have made built-in boxscores to dynasty and season mode with basic scoring summary, scratch information, etc. You can view these stats from all dynasty/season games (also the simmed ones).



On top of that it extracts very detailed box score from your game \stats folder automatically. You can share the html table in the forums, in threads like this:

http://z6.invisionfree.com/flyermania/i ... topic=2529

Personally, I don't care for the dynasty mode in any hockey games. I want to play season with fully accurate lineups. That's where 2004 mod is unbeatable, imho. It's very challenging game.

Here's a gameplay video of the mod... lots of changes in AI/settings... like sloppy neutral zone play with low puck control, pretty authentic broadcast-like gamespeed, etc. It's also possible to score this kind of goals in our mod (that were completely non-existant before)... the mod is possible to run in 1600 x 1280 resolution w/ HDR mod... competes with the modern games easily in the graphics department too, imho.

WATCH


.

Apocalypse wrote:Hi there,

everything (besides the hardcoded stuff) is brand new. Arenas, jerseys, goalie equipment, play-by-play (ripped from NHL 09)... but most importantly... the game interface which has been completely rebuilt. It offers almost as detailed statistics as EHM 2007 with full boxscores, reports, etc. (Check Will's screen shots link).

It's really a good game, and it has the best-ever AI that EA ever made (imho). 2004 has a big community in Russia and Finland. Many people have moved from next-gen hockey back to PC because of this.

Welcome!

I didn't know that 2004 have best AI, i have always thinking it was 2003

Oh my god! What a coincidence, we were just discussing with my friend last night what game should we try out, because we are getting kinda bored of Age of Empires, and then we thought...hey let's play NHL! And we settled out for 2004, playing it 'til 5 in the morning! LOL! I gotta check the updates out.

Too bad I have only the finnish version so I can't use the interface mods.

axwel3221 wrote:Too bad I have only the finnish version so I can't use the interface mods.

I think you can easily change the language from the Display Options. And the interface should work fine with Finnish as well. The mod is extremely popular in Finland. See here. Lots of people have Finnish language set & new interface rebuild.

http://www.xfire.com/xf/modules.php?nam ... ic&t=79189

Get this game xfire compatible

Vancouver 2010 Olympic Hockey mod is soon ready.



LINK.

I'm surprised that so few people in the EHM community got interested as the gameplay and flow is very simulation-like... the stats are very, very realistic as well. This mod caused a big fuss almost everywhere else (where I posted about it).

I finally made a gameplay excerpt of the vintage Season 1996-1997 mod. We have also cracked the camera system... now it's possible to use much wider angle.

VIDEO OF 1996/1997 SEASON CONVERSION MOD.

I tried it a while back and I liked it a lot, I just don't have a lot of free time and I cannot afford to get hooked

NHL 2004 can also be taken online with no lag at all! There are many leagues out and about but I think it's all about the NEHL. A full 82 Game Season, with trades, salary caps, drafts and of course, the playoffs! Joining this league has made me take NHL 2004 to a new level. The people you meet are beyond your imagination, they are so kind and helping. Even when I was new, and asking what seems now, to the most obvious questions, they help, we learn and again, pass on new learnt knowledge to new members.

So get this game, get the mods, and get practicing and then hope you can get a slot in the NEHL. It really is worth it, and doesn't take up much time!

http://nehl.nhlpc.net/default.aspx (View it in IE)