Sean

Came back to this after a HHOF trip made me quazi-nostalgic for the "old days". Had to say... just so, so, so good.

Just wanted to give a peek at the next level to this project, my NHL: LE mod. Lots of possibilities, but here’s a draft of what BU looks like (pending white glove tweak). edit: modding new games is at times a lot more meticulous than fun... this may be put on hold to focus on the cool s**t we do here

Hi. I made a promise I won’t be able to keep. So I wanted to let everyone know now - I am slightly shifting my focus away from this specific project, which might cause some delays. This is because I am working with the folks from the NHL Legacy Revamped mod to create a College Hockey fork. NHL 14/15/LE are *my* generation’s NHL 94 in a sense, so this is very exciting to me! This is a very ambitious project as the NHL LE modding community is rather new, so it will take a good amount of time/effort to create new templates/guides/explore the possibilities in the game. I can provide more info to anyone interested I hope no one is TOO disappointed, and I will do my best to get something out for this project here during the season.

He signed today so he is ineligible for NCAA action. So he at least would be playing AHL next year.

Happy he didn’t get stuck in Disney Land with the league’s mascot, Trevor Zegras.

I know UW is in the “dynasty” mode thing that went up here, along with a few other PAC-12* (pending whatever happens next with realignment) schools. These ROMs are not on the same “base” as the new ones, so the custom in game music isn’t there, along with some other noticeable but not major differences.

So I actually found a way to not only prevent teams like Minot State from being in the tourney (which is easy via EARE), but ALSO make it so only the “conference” teams can host games. I want it to be as realistic as possible, so I think it’ll be a nice touch (for example: NESN wouldn’t carry the game if BU played @ Michigan, but they’d get the inverse).

Maybe because it’s one of my worst hacks, that’s why I don’t play it.

Probably not. The "pod" set up was a lot of work and hindered the amount of customization/depth I could add. BUT there will likely be a End of 1st Semester "Top 32" ROM, and a Pre-Tourney "Top 32" ROM. So this will mean: - authentic playoffs - better league focused presentation - more focus on individual ROMs being polished Part of the reason for this change is that I am finishing school this winter, so I won't have the time to to mass updates like the pods require, and the other is that there are more than 64 teams I would like to include this year (and there will be more than 64 teams in the NCAA as soon as next year depending on how expansion goes). So the pods would need a rework at some point anyways. TLDR: this set up allows me to make better work with less wasted time

The Road to Tampa 1.0 is the latest version. Rosters will be as of after Conference Playoffs.

As someone living near Agganis Arena… I am so so so ready for the Celebrini & Hutson show. Excited to get a sneak peek with this!

I 100% plan on including ACHA schools as guests on ROMs. The question is just scope right now. Right now I have mapped out: - U. of Arizona, who will be playing an exhibition game against ASU this year - UNLV, who *nearly beat* UAA last year - Liberty, who regularly plays D1 teams and has a few wins - Minot State, who plays Colorado Col. and Denver this year - Robert Morris, but they seem to be playing in AH next year, so don't count that if they do - The NE10 conference (the only D2 hockey conference in the country), as a majority of AH is a member of this conference for other sports and they have expressed interest in going D1. I have thought about: - Some of the ACHA D1/2 expansion candidates with conference ties, like Penn (ECAC via Ivies), Navy (AH via military academies), Ohio (CCHA via MAC), Alabama-Huntsville (Independent in previous life as a NCAA D1 team) - I'm a sucker for college football... so maybe a small lil ROM featuring SEC/B12/ACC schools with ACHA teams. There is growing interest via events like UNC vs NC State Outdoor game and UGA building an arena on campus.

I've been a bit homesick for college hockey (mostly because Team USA is steamrolling through the IIHF World's with the help of so many Boston guys...) and started doing work on next year's ROMs. I also saw AndrewB and UltraMagnus chatting about a 2023-24 set, so wanted to update what I was doing in case people want to borrow or whatever. So, here's my attempt at a VonOzbourne-type immersive post in the style of a press release to fill you in on changes. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ NCAA Hockey: Road To The Frozen Four series gets shake-up for 2023-24 season. BOSTON, MA - NCAA Hockey: Road To Tampa developer Sean will be returning for the 2023-24 season, but fans should expect the project to receive some small structural changes to optimize the player experience. The "pod" system will be abandoned, in favor of individual projects that optimize the fan experience. Conferences will get their own ROMs with unique presentation packages and authentic playoffs, with additional ROMs for the NCAA Tournament, Conference Playoffs, and Beanpot. Within these ROMs, every conference team will be represented along with notable "guest schools" (for example: Cornell and Quinnipiac will appear as guests in the Hockey East ROM and Denver and North Dakota will appear as guests in the B1G ROM) and some surprises that have been worked on with conference members will appear in select ROMs as well. Without saying too much, fans can expect to get a unique look into some of the great teams and players in college hockey history.

If you want to add a center line and dot, I have some files for a .PSD template as well.

Seconded. I am very excited for Cellebrini VS The U18 Team in the Green Line Rivalry Weekend and Beanpot next year. The only question I have right now is WHEN it comes back. Not sure if I will wait until October, or maybe try and get something out before then. It's difficult to "project" lines with college because the turnover is much higher than the NHL.

Haven’t really gotten a chance to fully appreciate this. Argentinian Roller Hockey? Awesome.

This has been looked into before on Discord with this ROM and my NHL ROM from a few months ago, and I can't really find any reason why this does that and other ROMs don't. The code in that spot is the same as other ROMs here, and this has only happened to me on an EverDrive and never on RetroArch. It's probably one of the dozens of things I changed on a whim without fully understanding the whole architecture of the game.

I am on a long break to focus on - beating Metroid Prime - some career stuff - MLB But this project will return next year! (I think)

I will be returning to Trader Joe’s for groceries some time this week.

Mhm! All new stats and much more accurate lines now that line charts are available on the CHN phone app. In my opinion, the ratings are much much better for gameplay now. As the #1 supporter of this project, any notes?

FWIW I think this (and more types of behind the curtain threads) could be a really cool way for us all to learn and also maybe get some new people into this wonderful hobby.

I think you might be misunderstanding when I said bingo yesterday - I meant bingo as in “correct, Excel files can’t change the ROMs”.

Ha, yeah sorry about that!

Oh hell yes.

If this was a one-time release… yes, I would do that in a heartbeat. But there’s a good reason and I’ll share it. The main reason I don’t do that is because this project began in October, so keeping heavily structured pods (regions based heavily on conference and geography, alphabetized) as opposed to rankings saved me hours and hours of boring meticulous work reordering and repodding and made the navigation a little easier while playing, and saved guesswork as to who would have a good year and who wouldn’t. While the big symptom is that you can’t play the real tournament without Challonge and have to switch ROMs for certain match-ups, for now I’m okay with that because I’m burnt out on hacking and 5 minutes of work to set up a bracket when I log on for a weekend beats hours and hours of making a new ROM (but I completely understand why as a player who didn’t make the game that it would be an inconvenience). TLDR: next year I’ll maybe do a Top 32 commemorating the tournament, but for now I just can’t