Jump to content
NHL'94 Forums

Looking for Advice from Veterans


Recommended Posts

I'm looking to create my own ROM, but before I do, I want to get some idea of what kind of time/effort commitment I'm looking at investing to do it.

I have an obsession with bad teams, so I want to build a ROM that puts the worst teams in the expansion era into one place so I can play lousy teams against one another.  I'm talking 72/73 Islanders, 74/75 Capitals, 83/84 Devils and Penguins, 85/86 Red Wings, 89/90 Nordiques, and all of the Barons, Seals, Scouts, Rockies, Whalers, and Jets you can shake a stick at.  

The player ratings won't be difficult to do, but I'm concerned about the logos, uniforms, etc.  I'm thinking if I use the 80-81 ROM as a starting point, it will have almost all of that stuff in it already, leaving me with just the defunct teams from the 70s to have to add, plus any of the 90's expansion or relocated teams.  

So, for the veteran editors, is this doable, and if so, how difficult does a project like this appear to be?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, The Captain said:

I'm looking to create my own ROM, but before I do, I want to get some idea of what kind of time/effort commitment I'm looking at investing to do it.

I have an obsession with bad teams, so I want to build a ROM that puts the worst teams in the expansion era into one place so I can play lousy teams against one another.  I'm talking 72/73 Islanders, 74/75 Capitals, 83/84 Devils and Penguins, 85/86 Red Wings, 89/90 Nordiques, and all of the Barons, Seals, Scouts, Rockies, Whalers, and Jets you can shake a stick at.  

The player ratings won't be difficult to do, but I'm concerned about the logos, uniforms, etc.  I'm thinking if I use the 80-81 ROM as a starting point, it will have almost all of that stuff in it already, leaving me with just the defunct teams from the 70s to have to add, plus any of the 90's expansion or relocated teams.  

So, for the veteran editors, is this doable, and if so, how difficult does a project like this appear to be?  

Of course it is doable.

Time depends on your attention to detail.
And what level of OCD you are afflicted with.:big_smile:

Are you going to do player cards for every player?
For all starters?
Are you going to fix the music?
Full or partial rosters?
How good are you with Tile Molestor?
Hex Editors?  NOSE? EARE?  SmozROM?
What are you going to do about Splash screens?
Timers Logo?  Sponsor Logos?
What Hacks will you include?
What physics will you use?

You could knock out this rom in a couple hours if you just wanted something basic.  (I could never do that)

If I made this rom it would take weeks.
And I actually think ratings are the hardest part, but I am OCD about maintaining Original gameplay and being Historically accurate.
Not easy and where I think many roms fail to be fun to play.

It is also difficult to ever truly finish as people continue to find new cool things to do to roms.
Just this year we have finally truly understand how to fix the music and to put in Scoreboard and 3-Stars Logos.

I would be happy to help you and you can find most of logos etc... in my roms.
Which I copied from Slapshot, Naples, Raph, etc....
Here are 2 helpful links.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Start with just the following for your first ROM:

  • Logos/uniforms (uniforms can be done with the NOSE editor, but logos require learning Tile Molester)
  • Full (~20 player) rosters with adequate player ratings (they're the worst teams, with players we've likely never heard of, anyway, so ratings don't need to be all in-depth researched). This can be done using NOSE.
  • Generic player cards (the face pictures.. there are a few reusable generic images you can use). I think EARE can set this up, I forget.. otherwise it takes some manual hex editing.
  • At most the basic hacks (smozROM editor can apply stuff like the weight bug fix, assist bug fix..)
  • Custom splash screens (the startup screens when you first start the game, requires learning Tile Molester)

Once you do that, you may find you want to do more and evolve into CoachMac-level editing :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to both of you for your help.  

I will probably take smozoma's advice and start small, but since I do have a high-level of OCD, I most-likely will expand upon whatever I do with the first one and build it out if everything goes well.  

I've downloaded all of the ROMs from the 70's and 80's, so I should have the logos according to CoachMac, and as for the player ratings, I've already extracted all of the .csv files and started monkeying with them to make sure the ratings are consistent (I put all 20 years worth of rosters into one master spreadsheet, sorted by player name then year, and took a look at where there were significant jumps/dips in each players' ratings so I could smooth them out, since it is highly unlikely a player has 2 Speed one season, 5 Speed the next, then 2 Speed in the third.  My plan is to eventually put all of the season rosters back together, then use those ratings as the template for each of my bad teams.  I have a background in both MIS and Supply Chain, and if there is anything I've learned from both coding and contracts, it's never start from scratch when there is someone else's work to scavenge from ;)

I'm probably going to start work on this project this weekend, and we'll see how it goes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are going to do a lot of little things to change your rom, I would suggest getting used to saving your rom with a new name everytime you make a major change. You at least have a backup of the last change made in case anything goes wrong - which can happen. 

Have fun.

Jer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You'll just keep tweaking and tweaking and tweaking, which is fine.

Starting from others' work will be a huge time saver, but again the question is how much you want to personalize. In my experience, editing rink graphics and tiles is the most difficult thing to do, so much that I barely touch it. Editing rosters/lines is the easiest to do, but on pure volume of stuff to be done it's the most time consuming.

So much depends on your project goals, which will change as you go.

I say just dive in and ask questions when they come up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Jer.  I'll make sure I save my work regularly and always have a backup in case of emergency.

As far as personalizing the game, I really couldn't care less about rink graphics, music, etc.  What I'm after is the ability to play oddball stuff, like the Kansas City Scouts against the Colorado Rockies or the California Golden Seals against the Cleveland Barons.  To that end, I'm going to focus mostly on editing rosters and lines, because once that is done, playing games with horrible teams with rosters full of has-beens and never-will-bes is where I am going to get the most enjoyment.  

I'm most looking forward to using the 83/84 Pens for the privilege of using guys like Gary Rissling, Tom O'Regan, Tim Hyrnewich, and Tom Thornbury, because I remember those guys from going to games in the 80s with my dad as well as playing Strat-O-Matic with my best friends for hours on end.  It's because of them that the Pens were able to draft Lemieux and turn around the fortunes of the franchise over the past 30 years after being anywhere from "meh" to "freaking god-awful" for the first 20 years of their existence.    

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, The Captain said:

It's because of them that the Pens were able to draft Lemieux and turn around the fortunes of the franchise

Haha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the advice, all.  I've picked the teams I'm going to include in my ROM, downloaded NOSE and Tile Molester and plan to get started on my project this week.  I'm traveling for work and will be stuck in a hotel room for three nights with precious little to do (although my Pens do play two of those nights, so I may find a bar somewhere and catch the games if I can). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...