LaTormenta

@kingraph @smozoma @Jkline3 @clockwise @The Sauce - Thanks for all of your comments / suggestions. Apologies for the tardy response - work has been getting in the way of play, as always... It is just under a month until the beginning of the EIHL season, so (now that most rosters are pretty much complete in time for pre-season friendlies etc.), I am going to start cracking on with the donkey work over this week. Christ knows how long it is going to take but at least it sounds as if I am starting from a pretty decent starting point thanks to all of the resources on this forum. Watch this space... And apologies in advance for any stupid questions!

Hi all Off the bat, I should mention that I am a newbie to editing NHL94. I have waded through the forum and have collated a lot of (really useful) information in relation to editing the BIN for the Megadrive / Genesis version of the game but could do with some advice before cracking on. As a starting point, I plan on create a version of NHL94 that is tailored to the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) in Great Britain. Whilst a pretty modest league compared to other European leagues (both in fan base and quality), the league has its fanatics (including myself) and I figure that it is worth taking some time to get a working BIN in order that can be updated each season. Who knows, it might even lead to the odd local tournament, given how close knit the supporters tend to be. (My username comes from my local team – Manchester Storm.) The EIHL features 10 teams, each with a roster of around 20 players. The 2019/20 season starts in September and the final kits and rosters for many of the teams are still to be finalised but, up to now, I have undertaken the following preparatory work: Rosters I have collated the roster details that are currently available for each team in Excel (ranging from 70% to 100% complete, depending on the team) (i.e. name, position, jersey number, dominant hand and weight). I am planning on using NOSE to input these into the BIN. Weight brackets I have prepared a basic formula in Excel that converts the kg weights I have to lbs and then places them into the NHL94 brackets (rounding down or up to the closest weight bracket as appropriate). I am planning on using NOSE to input these into the BIN. Player attributes I have prepared a (basic) formula in Excel for randomising attributes for each player based on the league position of their team during the 2018/19 season and by reference to the range of attributes for the Cardiff Devils team in NHL19 (as the sole EIHL team in the game). This is because rosters in the EIHL routinely change completely in the off-season and the players can be unknown quantities, so this seems a pretty good / fair way of ensuring that the top teams are of a higher standard than the lower ones within certain pre-defined ranges. I am planning on exporting the attributes from the BIN using the NHL Hockey Roster Tool, replacing them wholesale with the new ones and then importing them back into the BIN. Logos and player cards I have collecting PNG versions of the 10 team logos ready for conversion to useable 16 bit images. I will collate images for certain players (to replace the NHL player cards) as things progress. In terms of what I would like to do to the game (in an ideal world), the plan would be to (in order of processing): reduce the selectable teams to 10 (using EARE); change the name of the ROM (using EARE); update the rosters for the teams, deleting any unused players in each roster (or adding new ones as required) (using NOSE); update the attributes for the (new) players (using the NHL Hockey Roster Tool); change the kit colours for each team; change the ice logos for each team (or use a generic EIHL logo for the time being, as long as it does not interfere with the kit colours) (using a combination of Genesis Image Ditherer and Tile Molester, if I can figure it out!); update the kit colours to reflect the 2019/20 kits (using NOSE?); update the team banners to reflect the update kits and team names (using Tile Molester); update the Ron Barr text so that Aaron Murphy is referred to as the commentator (a Freesports commentator that covers EIHL games in GB) (in Hex Workshop); replace Barr’s photo with one of Murphy (using Genesis Image Ditherer and Tile Molester); update the game text generally so that references to the NHL and Stanley Cup are replaced with EIHL and EIHL Play-Off Trophy (instead of referring to the PredictorBet Play-Off Trophy) (in Hex Workshop); and replace the opening splash screen with an EIHL image and some EIHL-related text under the NHL text (i.e. “NHL 94 (EIHL Edition)”) (using Genesis Image Ditherer and Tile Molester). My knowledge of hexadecimal is pretty much zero, so I suspect that a lot of this is going to be very much trial-and-error, although there is a wealth of information on these forums that I can work with as a starting point (thanks!). I suppose that my main questions at this (early) stage, which are probably pretty basic compared to many questions that get asked here, are: is the order above sensible or is it going to cause me any issues when editing (e.g. will changing the rosters first cause problems when updating the player cards); and does anyone have any practical recommendations about how to go about updating the BIN (e.g. in terms of preparation and workflow order). Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Si