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DanK's Edge of '94 Midwest - Modano Mo Problems Minneapolis Tourney Recap (as told by an utterly useless and untrustworthy narrator) Alright fellas so when @Edge of '94 Midwest initially asked me to share my thoughts and takeaways from the Modano Mo Problems live tournament in Minneapolis, my first reaction was, “Go play in traffic, you laryngitic-riddled shitstain!” BUTT…then I eventually sobered up and realized that I had actually written that down as a note to myself, so that I wouldn’t forget. Silly me. So here’s my review of the tourney: 1.) Sign-up/registration: Couldn’t have been easier. I mean, I (me, myself) of course found a way to make sure I fuct it up, but any non-smooth-brained ape could easily find their way through the 1 to 2 links to click on to sign up, pay AND book a f**king room at the host hotel (Moxy). I like that. Less thinky = MOAR drinky. Two thumbs and Two middle fingers UP! for that being so accommodating. 2.) Transportation: AJ touched on this but yeah man it was close to the airport. Luckily for me, my legal representation (@TecmoJon) was contractually obligated to scoop my dumbass once I touched ground. Unluckily, for Tecmo, [please refer to previous sentence]. 3.) Neighborhood: I forget what it was called but it was cool, very walkable and juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust the right amount of dingy for a “human” such as myself to get into a li’l bit of good old fashioned trouble. Found a couple dynamite restaurants not too far from the hotel that didn’t break the bank by any means, and also wandered around late on Saturday night, absolutely cocked out of my gourd, and I was able to make friends/they-didn’t-beat-my-ass with a few locals who showed me around to a few establishments that were serving the kind of poison I was after, without all the crowds that I was explicitly NOT looking for. Good schitt. 4.) Hotel: Nailed it. Rooms were priced to move and did exactly what they advertised. Namely, they provided me a place to piss, shower, talk to myself, eat an entire pizza whilst sitting in a chair AND to evacuate my bowels without making a whole scene about it. The hotel bar “closes” at 10:45pm, which is insanity, BUTT…I made nice with the overnight desk guy/bartender and he accepted cash to turn those beer machines back on. So that was nice. 5.) GAMES/Tournament setup: Clearly not their 1st rodeo. The playing stations were all set up in advance and open/available for pretty much whatever, whenever. Plenty of controllers on hand for us psychopaths that don’t waste perfectly good drug-mule’ing and/or toiletry space by packing our own f**king controllers on road trips. I was probably one of the last ones to finish my group games, but that was due to my own shortcomings rather than to any lack of available setups/stations. It was dynamite. 6.) Attendees: Where do I begin…..this was my first live tournament ever since I found the NHL’94 online community and it f**king delivered. I’ve been playing pretty much strictly SNES over the past 18-20 months or so, but I f**king leaped at the opportunity to participate in this tourney bc of how close it was to me (I’m in Chicago) and bc I wanted to put some faces with names. I know a lot of the big names on the gens side bc i like to hop into any community-wide livestreams and chirp with reckless abandon (I have issues), so I knew of guys like @Scribe99, @corbettkb and @DPS (who even humors me with severely-drunken exis from time to time), but I couldn’t pick any of them out of a lineup. Well let me just say that I can now, 100% guaranteed pick DPS out of a f**king lineup. Thank god I recently moved out of Chicago and fled to the burbs, that’s all I’m gonna say (just f**king with you buddy). But in addition to the gens headliners, it was f**king awesome to meet guys like Tony (rangers jersey), Darik (he kicked my stupid monkey ass), @segathon, @SammieSmith33(loudest human being I have ever met, in a good way!), RedArmy (I owe him some exis), @LeifErikson(he’s a f**king mensch!), @Nelson94 and Hank THEE Motherfuckin’ Tank. For me, the most enjoyable part about this beautiful game that is NHL’94 is sitting next to somebody that enjoys it as much as you do, playing like your life depends on it, but also talking as much stupid s**t and laughing as hard as you did when you were in your teens and playing against your friends in some musty shithole of a basement. I f**king LOVE this game, but I REALLY f**king love playing this game with cool motherfuckers who are just as dumb/stupid/funny/friendly/humble as I am. I talk a lot of s**t, sure, but it’s all in love. And from my experience, everyone in attendance was on that same level. Excellent group of people, and I’m damn glad I got to meet (and offend!) you all. Okay I feel as though this brain-dump/diarrhea-of-the-keyboard has gone on long enough. I would just like to say again a LARGE thank you to Troy and to Leif, as well as a large “I’m Sorry?” to Scribe and Corbett for them having been subjected to my color commentary, or whatever the hell that was I was doing on/around those damn microphones, while they were playing actual games that mattered, haha! Fill it up again, motherfuckers, fill it up again! DanK

this was my first NHL 94 live tournament experience and it was a great time. @Edge of '94 Midwestand @LeifEriksonran a great tournament, things flowed great, and the games were always running fast and furious with little downtime. like corbett mentioned above, having a room right upstairs for breaks was great and adds to the experience. what everyone else mentioned above is all true. it was nice to finally meet @DanK @angryjay93 @corbettkb and @Scribe99 in person instead of just over discord. DanK definitely added to the experience and will always be welcome to sit two feet away from all my competitors announcing the games

concur with what everyone said above. as well run of an event as there is by @Edge of '94 Midwest& @LeifErikson. +the friday night before is still always my favorite part of these events. so easy to get in and out of minneapolis. home and back in under 48 hours. a 2 hour flight, $20 uber ride, and i love an event where my hotel room is right up stairs to go back and chill whenever you need a few minutes. the neighborhood, hotel bar, atmosphere all super cool. was great to finally meet @Scribe99& @TecmoJonin person. fun to hang out and play @derikaho & @redarmy. @DanK& @segathonwere hilarious, im laughing too hard trying to play with danK 20 inches to my left attempting to announce. and it was nice to get a visit in with @angryjay93's hair.

Starting with playoffs in the leagues coming up (as of 2/14/22), I would like everyone to start using the RA 1.10 package. This can be downloaded from the nhl94online.com front page as of today. To update, download the package, then set your name in Settings-User, restart RA. Copy over your ROMs folder from 1.8.8 to the RA 1.10 folder, and choose "Replace" if asked. DO NOT copy over your retroarch.cfg file from 1.8.8! There are a lot of changes made between config files from 1.8.8 and 1.10. Improvements Controllers - 1.10 should have less fussing with controller binds. It should recognize more controllers out of the box, without the need to manually configure. There were bugs in 1.8.8 for some of the controller config stuff. Relay Server - The relay server is back, for those of you who can't host, or if there is framerate drops when you host. The relay server code is re-built from the ground up, and I believe (?) should be a smoother experience than it was in the past. Also, we have the ability to set up a custom relay server, which we can use for the 94 community only. This will be looked at in the future. Netplay Room List Cleanup - Rooms that are not joinable will be removed from the list, so it should be easier to find the person you are looking to connect to Netplay Code Revamped - I'm not guaranteeing that you will have a better experience, but a lot of things have been streamlined when it comes to netplay. For example, the host's latency settings will be used for the game (before you had to make sure the host and the person joining had the same settings). Some changes I made - RA will now open in fullscreen by default. I removed some of the menu categories to make it less confusing. Tons of bug fixes; it's been 2 years since we updated! Switched to the 64-bit version on Windows - We had been using the 32-bit version since we started 4 years ago using RA. Which limits the amount of RAM that can be used to 4GB. At this point, everyone should have a 64-bit CPU, if your PC was made in the last 10 years. New Features Host Settings There's a few new settings when it comes to hosting. "Max Simultaneous Connections" - limits how many people can connect to you. I have this default to 2 right now (2 people can connect, like a person playing and a streamer). Change this when you want more people to connect to you (like for 2v2, set it to 3). This only affects when you are hosting. "Ping Limiter" - Now when someone connects to your host, it will display their ping on connection. This value will limit that ping (it's in ms). So if it is set to 200, and someone tries connecting to you that has a ping of 240, it won't let them connect. I changed this value to 250 in the final config file. You can change this whenever you wish. It only affects when you are hosting. "Use Relay Server" - Turn this on when you have problems hosting a game. This will use the relay server to set up the host. Ping Display For those of you who are clients (you are connecting to a host), you will see your ping to the host in the bottom right corner of the RA window. This gives you a decent idea on how well the network connection is. The host will only see the ping during the moment the client connects to them, in a notification window. Chat RA has finally added an in-game chat. To chat with your opponent, or whoever is connected to you, hit the Tab key on your keyboard. This will open up the on-screen keyboard window (like when you enter a netplay password). You can type using your keyboard (or if you wish to click on the on-screen keyboard with a mouse), hit Enter, and the message will show in the bottom left of the screen. It will fade away after a little bit. This is more useful than you would think; instead of having to chat in Discord, you can use the in-game chat now.

Good Evening! V4 of this season ROM has been posted (see OP). What's new/updated? *Out with Tuukka Rask and in with Evander Kane and Jack Eichel (who debuts tomorrow night) *Tyler Toffoli traded to CGY *Some additional players added (not as notable as Kane or Eichel) *Winnipeg's arena finally has the correct/new name (oversight on my part). LA's was updated in V3. If you notice any mistakes, please let me know. Lines are not 100% accurate. Left guys like Mark Stone and Anthony Mantha in the active lineups despite being on LTIR. As we don't know if they will return for the season, or just for the playoffs, I left them active (for now). Feel free to change as you see fit. Next update will be the Trade Deadline edition. Cheers!

PROTIP: Your list of recent used ROMs is now under the History section in the Main Menu.

While it has been quite a while since we have had a live tournament, the art of running a successful one has clearly not been lost. I understand a lot of people, especially international travelers had various concerns with a live event but please put this event on your to do list for next year. Getting to the event is pretty easy as Minneapolis has a good size airport that serves both America and Canada relatively well. I got in on a Thursday night and was able to easily get an Uber to the Moxy Uptown, about a 10 mile drive that cost $25 each way. Bring a bud and that price gets whittled away even further as you split the costs. On top of that, the Moxy provides a deal for 94 players providing a room at a very reasonable rate. I believe my room ran $89 a night for a stay in a part of town that is easily walkable and has plenty of food/entertainment in the immediate vicinity. The rooms are fairly modern and comfortable as well, not exactly great for multi person meet ups within a single room but they certainly get the job done for a 2-3 night stay at a reasonable rate. As for the tournament itself, the setup was spot on with their being several setups of original hardware and CRTs. @LeifEriksonand his company AV For You brought in a lot of CRTs, lighting, audio, and other accoutrements early on Friday well before the majority of people rolled in for exhibitions. They made this process look so easy and it helped to provide a classic and hassle free experience to the tournament. @Edge of '94 Midwest during this time also was able to set up his streaming and announcing station along with all of the original Sega Genesis hardware. It was set up so that anyone, if they desired could walk up to the mic start and spitting hot fire live on stream. On top of this all, there was plenty of space to move around and a bar literally steps away from all of the game stations. Wait times to get a drink we're minimal as the Moxy staff were attentive and from what I heard, generous with their drinks from an alcohol content standpoint. Friday night consisted of a several exhibitions including a fully functional 2 on 2 setup on the big screen CRT. It allowed guys to spread out a bit consume their drinks, and take in the 2 on 2 experience that gets ratcheted up several notches with it being live. The tournament started on Saturday at 11 am which allowed plenty of time for people to make it to the venue and of course, the BAR WAS OPEN! The tournament itself, went along seamlessly from my perspective, Round Robin wrapped up within 3-4 hours which is a comfortable pace in which to get your games in, socialize a bit with everyone who arrived and get a good drink or two under your belt. For the lunch break, there are ample restaurants in which to choose from with varying types of food, it might have been the best food setup aside in terms of variety and only second to those with food on site for convenience. After the lunch break, there was a raffle that was flooded with prizes consisting of vintage hockey trading card sets, classic starting lineup figures from the 90's, classic video gaming accessories and a wide selection of autographed jerseys. Everyone received 3 complimentary tickets and additional tickets could be purchased as well. There must have been at least 30 different prizes available which meant that just about everyone went home with some sort of souvenir in which to remember the event by. Once the excitement of the raffle quieted down, we entered the bracket stage of the even which can be found below. There are a lot of great games included with commentary provided from a range of individuals like Trojan1979, TecmoJon and the completely off the grid Dan K. Again, this portion of the tournament went very smooth as there was little waiting around and we were able to wrap up the tournament with plenty of time afterwards to socialize some more while grabbing a few post game drinks. I thoroughly enjoyed my entire experience at this event and am looking forward to going to the next one in Minneapolis sometime next year. I know a lot of people were on the fence this year but I think you will be very happy if you jumped off that fence and joined us. This is an excellent event and it can be even better if we get more buds to come in from out of town as the grass roots scene materializes in Minneapolis.