von Ozbourne

Alright, Columbo has finally left the room, so it's time I put this one out before he comes back. As I was literally just informed that Vegas beat Florida four games to one yesterday, I am compelled to think back on some recent playoff games that I was much more interested in and the game that was released to commemorate it. Presenting: While not involved in any current-gen release of the popular franchise, Team 1920 is back at it with another 16-bit, '94-esc retro replay edition. In keeping with the IIHF trend of not highlighting one particular cover athlete, unlike the NHL counterparts, this time around we get this guy? Who appears to be some amalgamation of celebratory player that was used in the promotional art for the World Championships prior to any country naming any player on their roster [which makes sense when you put it that way]. Extending the motif to the opening splash screens, I am curious what EA thinks of the Finnish-blue-to-Latvian-maroon gradient. Team 1920 continues the tradition of adapting their logo to the tournament artwork, this time with the motto to promote the first post-lockdown tournament. Using this year's retro NHL menu screen as a base, the artwork is updated with the country flags and long time main sponsor Skoda's logo at center ice. The jersey logos and banners get a new look as well. If you are slow to pick your team, the main menu logos will make way for the roster names and photos, scrolling through the entire team to remind you who made the team and help you choose what country you'd like to play as. TSN studio presenter Laura Daikin lends her likeness to this one with some fun pre-game commentary. It should be noted that Daikin was TSN's main studio presenter for both the Men's and Women's World Championships. [foreshadowing?] The pre-game menu reminds you that Skoda is the main sponsor and gets in there again, along with EA this time, as you get ready to start playing. TSN gets their name out there too as the presentation continues to add up as we finally get to the first drop of the puck. And we catch our first glimpse of Skoda's giant green center ice logo from Tampere and Riga. Eagle eyed players might notice that the ref got a couple updates to his a puck dropping animation when compared to the original Genesis classic. The nets seemed to get a bit of a tweaking as well. The IIHF logos get carried through to new player cards screens where all something-hundred-and-something players get their own individual player photos and no Skoda logos. I've heard of issues with crashing when using this feature, but I've not seen any problem with this in this game. From the game menu, you can also see scores from other games around the federation, presented by TSN's Sportscentre. While the players are organized in numerical order and divided by traditional forward and defence roles, it should be noted that all players are available to be assigned any position. Use this feature for your 4-1 powerplay, or clog up the ice with four d-men to try to keep the score respectable for your outmatched Kazakhs or Hungarians. Just showing off some more team logos to balance the images out, but this is also a good example of the updated logo on the watermark. The main draw on this game is the Tournament Playoff mode. Every team "should" be able to face off against every other team in the Top Division, although I've noticed some laziness with the RNG that determines the first round match-ups. Regardless of who you play as/against, winners are rewarded with hoisting the World Championship trophy and likely a star of the game or three. Not much else to say about this one. The game play is pretty recognizable if you've played '94 before. You may notice that some of the lower ranked teams are a bit tougher to win with due to the lesser speed and skill to work with, but there is a notable gradient between the higher and lower rated players. 8-bits out of 10. Give it a try IIHF 2023 V1.1.bin Oh yeah. Just one more thing... Should mention the special edition feature. While this may look like the home and away logos show up differently, it's actually a matter of this game really being two in one.

Yeah I have them on my list of ideas. Been thinking for a while now that the 2002 Olympics would be the next one I'll try. Not sure how long it'll be until I get to it however.

There is. Slapshot67 did the mod of wboy's 30 team ROM for 2015, but I don't know where to find it anymore. So I guess I can just drop it here. 93 - NHL HOCKEY 2015 w banners.bin

Thanks man. Let us know if the Philadelphia uniforms look alright eh?

So we decided to make a final edition which is fittingly named the Finals Edition. Not a lot to change in this version obviously. A couple new players, some switches in starting goaltenders and lines. Probably the most obvious change is that the default teams have been switched from last year's Finals teams to reflect this year's Game 1 match up. Also, the jumbotron NHL logo has been changed to the new Stanley Cup Finals logo. [Yes, if this were really the Finals, Minnesota and Buffalo would not also be playing a game, I just didn't feel like taking another screen cap when I realized this] And of course, new title screens to set them apart. NHL 2023 RR94 SC Finals Ed [v4].bin NHL 2023 94 Edition SCF [v4].bin Not going to promise a pre-season edition for next year or anything, but any feedback would of course be appreciated. Added to the original post as well

For the record, in this instance I only had to remove a "NHL'4.com credit blurb" that I normally keep at the bottom of the hex code of my ROMs. Never noticed an issue with this before, but this was also the first time I also had a @Drezz background. So I'm wondering if it was simply a matter of the free space being encroached upon too much for the hack tool's liking. Thanks @AdamCatalyst for figuring it out.

Just sent you a PM. You get a bit of a preview of my next "secret" project, but if you can figure it out, I would be immensely grateful.

Okay, so I was a bit worried that I messed something up as this tool was crashing when I tried to save something. Had the problem with two different games with different edits applied but then I tried a third and it worked, so I thought I tracked down the issue. The first two games just happened to ones when I manually messed around with the weight scale. Unfortunately pasting in the original version of the weight scale data didn't resolve the problem, so it has to be something else. Problem is, this is late in the game and I've modded so... so many things. Long story short, I guess my question is that I would really like to know if there is a way that I can just manually change the rating scale from 0-6 to 0-15?

Picturing this exchange makes me happy.

Of course had the correct number of teams. I'm not an idiot. Although I did notice that I was using the hex letter instead of the number for the player weights [never said I was smart either] Sadly this moment of inspiration wasn't the droid I was looking for. I did test on an original 26-team ROM and it seemed to work. I even got it to work on a 32-team team ROM, exporting 26 teams [so it skipped the last six] and then re-importing the resulting .csv data to a new 32-team ROM. This saved as a new .bin file just fine. So I obviously tried to take this one step further and exported a default 26-team ROM and then edited all of the player attributes to a rating of one. Saved the .csv. Tried to import it back to the original ROM and it worked fine. Keep ruling out variables. Export a 32-team ROM, re-import to that same ROM, saved as a new .bin file. Hmm, it's working this time... Okay, next step open the .csv in notepad. Edit the top player to a bunch of 1s. Rinse and repeat. This works too. Okay, open in notepad again. Edit the first team to be a bunch of random numbers from 1-15. [This particular ROM is still using 0-6] Import still works and new file saved. Okay, open in OpenOffice [because I never paid for Excel and it's a long story] type in some 1s for that first skater again and save. Go back to import and.... WHAT!! ARE YOU BLOODY KIDDING ME!! <many muttered expletives deleted> So yeah... apparently OpenOffice is taking that .csv file, and even though it saves as a .csv file that opens just fine in notepad and whatever, it's doing something to it that .csv file the Import tool simply does not like. Why this even happens is well beyond my pay grade and completely stupid and arbitrary and stupid. Just a minute... The story was about to end there in a huff when I decided to try one last thing before hitting submit. I opened an original clean exported .csv file side by side with an edited .csv file and that's when I finally noticed it. The unedited export, when opened in notepad has tab delimiters represented by the common comma. OpenOffice saves it's tab delimiters as commas holding periods over their heads like they're John bloody Cusack or something. So I opened the spreadsheet as a text doc and gave it a semi-colonoscopy and pasted that into a new text file, saved as a new .csv file, and what do you know. Commas man. Probably would have been less grumpy about this whole situation if I didn't miss lunch trying to figure it out...

Sadly, beyond some kind of gaming keyboard macro deal, I don't know how to automatically import all of the player photos. Luckily I'm just taking all of the player images from IIHF.com and they all but two late add players on there, so it's not a lot of effort to seek them out. Haven't gotten around to doing anything with them yet, because I'm working out a plan for the remaining 16 teams, but the only annoying thing I found is that the website doesn't name or number the players in order. Does mean that I'll have to rename the photos to the player numbers when I'm ready to resize them, but at least after that, some photoshop actions will take care of 90% of the middle steps for me.

This is something I wondered about. I was hoping to use 0-15 in this case, although I had the same problem with 0-6. Didn't think about the number of teams being an issue. Although I think[?] I was encountering errors with the 30-team too. I will try to test. Worse comes to worse, I guess if it works on the OG ROM, I could always copy/paste it in batches. Still quicker than doing everyone by hand. I can't say I'm that good at translating Windows to English either, but I can do that if you're willing to look at it. I did kind of move on for now so I'm not quite prepared to do that right away though.

Have to thank @AdamCatalyst for following this one since the activity notification brought it to my attention. And despite being too busy to be carrying out experiments, I started carrying out experiments. Looking at NHL'94, I went to that offset and noticed that the preceding hex code "looks like that marks something", so I copied a few bits "6700 0032 0478 0AAA" and tried a search in NHL Hockey, EA Hockey and NHLPA '93. Turns out there is only one instance of this sequence in the other games and it also controls the game clock. So for anyone interested, the offsets to edit the clock speed are as follows. NHL Hockey: C3E4 EA Hockey: C008 NHLPA'93: 011858 [Note that the default ROM didn't seem to start when editing this, but the 30 and 32-team versions were fair game. Didn't find that sequence in NHL'95, which made sense with the vastly different game engine, but I figured rather than throw it in so quickly, I'd try a wider search for just the "0478 0AAA" part. That came up with two sequences near each other and the first one was similar but for the "0032" part being a "0034". Changed this first one and it turns out that it changed the clock speed as well. Emboldened by this knowledge, I tried searching NHL96-98 and they followed the same pattern of two close sequences and the first one being "6700 00XX 0478 0AAA" [In their case the "XX" was a "68". 34x2 eh?] So the final for games for those interested. NHL 95: 07A384 NHL 96: 02022E NHL 97: 0253DA NHL 98: 02580A I should note that I tried messing with the second "0478 0AAA" sequence in '95, but didn't notice any differences. Didn't try 96-98. I should also note that by changing icing to a 5-min penalty, it was easy to check the penalty clock and they indeed follow the beat of their own drum. I'm willing to guess that checking the offsets in '94 as established with the fine collaborative work above, would possibly yield a hex sequence that might be similar to the other games, but, I'll have to hand off on this one for now. Hmm... Now if only there was some way to edit the code to have the clock read 20 minutes every time, but speed up the passage of time for it to equal 2, 5, 10 or 20 actual minutes depending on what option you select.

Figure it's about time I ask about this. I can export just fine, but any time I try to import, even if it's just re-importing the unchanged file I literally just exported mere seconds ago, I get this. Full details: See the end of this message for details on invoking just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box. ************** Exception Text ************** System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array. at NHL_Hockey_Roster_Tool.MainForm.ImportToolStripMenuItem_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam) ************** Loaded Assemblies ************** mscorlib Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.8762 (QFE.050727-8700) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll ---------------------------------------- NHL Hockey Roster Tool Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0 CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Me/Desktop/STUFF/games/NHL%20MODS/EA%20NHL94/tools/NHL%20Hockey%20Roster%20Tool.exe ---------------------------------------- Microsoft.VisualBasic Assembly Version: 8.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 8.0.50727.5483 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.VisualBasic/8.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll ---------------------------------------- System Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.8770 (QFE.050727-8700) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Windows.Forms Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5491 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Drawing Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5495 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Runtime.Remoting Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.8771 (QFE.050727-8700) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Runtime.Remoting/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Runtime.Remoting.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Xml Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5494 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400) CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll ---------------------------------------- ************** JIT Debugging ************** To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this application or computer (machine.config) must have the jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section. The application must also be compiled with debugging enabled. For example: <configuration> <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" /> </configuration> When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer rather than be handled by this dialog box. Anyone with any idea what's going on here? And more importantly, how I can stop it from doing this and start working as intended instead?

Oh, sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I actually went ahead and grabbed all of the player data as of about three games into the tournament. If I recall, today is the final day to add players, so I may only need to get data on a couple more players. [I noticed that Denmark added a fourth goalie. Probably due to injury, not sure, I haven't watched that game yet] Anyway, I've spent some time reworking my player data formulas to spit out an array of ratings that seem fair based on the snapshot of this particular tournament. Added some weighting for other statistics from this year and I think I'm happy with the results. Just waiting for all of the games to be played now so I can grab the full tournament stats for the final player ratings. Actually as you noted, for pretty much any player on the other side of the pond, eliteprospects is usually the most complete. I'll cross reference with IIHF's site, but as far as European leagues and players go, I like that one. Photos on the other hand is always the single most time consuming part. Luckily The IIHF site has all but the most recent additions and have very consistent photos as far as colour balance, so it's just a matter of making sure the scaling and cropping is done right. Then comes the importing. Usually break that up into a couple sections because I've got shortcuts for basically everything except the monotonous importing of up to 832 individual player photos. Haven't started on that yet, but I'll have to soon.

Thanks for the offer eh. Although.... I might be working on some new goalie ratings right now. Due to the tournament's nature of adding players right up until the semi-finals, I might be looking at a week or so after the tournament is over to get something finished.

Having been ingrained with the mentality that "Oh they probably don't want to me to bother them." I keep forgetting that some of these classic game composers actually take it as a compliment that their music is appreciated even all these years later. Especially when stories like in the Digging in the Carts series [by Red Bull of all things] where Gimmick! composer Masashi Kageyama had no idea that anyone even liked his music until well after he quit the games industry. Sadly his story is not unique, but it's also nice to know that neither is your story with Dieter Ruehle taking the time to talk to a random fan about something he did three decades ago. Also have to send appreciation and thanks that Tony Ouradnik would take the time to fill in the blanks on a list of silly old chip tunes.

One quick[ish] way to do it would be that after you've changed the hex values for the rotation, is to just go to your logos in TM, isolate each one with a 6w x 4h window, use Select All to "load" the sprites, then change the size of the window to 4w x 6h [making sure that the offset didn't change, I find it does that sometimes at random] use the rotate button to rotate your logo 90°, then click off in the empty space to "unload" the logo sprite and you're done. Well, one anyway. You'll need to repeat that a few more times.

Had to make a quick update to this one. Despite not having any complaints, there were a few glaring issues plus a few nagging things that I wanted to improve. Changes found in this one include, but not limited to, editing the main menu banner to match the pause menu fonts. Fixed the face off official. [Apparently when I switched to @Jkline3's No-Helmet sprites, I accidentally undid some of my ref edits. Took the opportunity to adjust that middle animation sprite to have him look down before dropping the puck. Subdued the colours in the crowd to something more fitting of post-war Europe. Striped the goal of its paint. Speaking of the puck, took the opportunity to switch the sprites to a more 3D effect and aligned the shadow properly. Greyed up this crowd angle too. Shovelling kid shocking them with his colourful hat. Under the hood stuff includes: Turning on line changes, as I figured it added to the realism that these guys are effectively playing ironman hockey, but using the fatigue hack, the player's will tire very slowly and recharge very quickly. Given that there are very few subs, this can obviously be turned off as some players may not get a whole lot of opportunities to rest up. Puck collision is tightened up slightly to add some challenge to scoring and bring the puck closer to the boards. [but not the plexi as there is none] Updated the original post as well. Olympic Hockey - 1920 Antwerp [1.3].bin

While initially figured this idea was not for me, I did have a moment of inspiration. Although I'm not sure what kind of game I would use this in, figured I'd share crude mock up of a possibility for the quick transition.

There's an edit for that on in a couple of threads I believe. Pardon me if it's easier to drop this here than to relocate it. 92 - EA Hockey (E)+Teams.bin

I guess that depends on what you are looking for. I've made this one, but it was a bit tricky to make all of the new art fit in. And unless someone knows how to expand the ROM, you are limited in the number of teams you can have just due to the logistics of space. If you're looking for an NHL roster update, your better bet would be to attack NHL'98 due to it allowing you to use 31 teams. With the fact that there are two hidden teams in there in theory pushing your total to 33. The only problem being that you can only access those two by using a cheat and overwriting the two All-Star teams. So I suppose if someone were able to figure out how to hack the game to allow all of the teams to be selectable simultaneously, that would cover all the current teams, plus one extra, but, while I'm not saying that it can't be done, I'm saying that it will likely not be straight forward and I'm not the guy who is going to be able to do it.

Without looking, I would guess statistically speaking, Montreal would have the best odds, other than that it would depend on how well the Edmonton Oil Kings or Toronto St. Mike's or Marlboroughs were able to play back when the Oilers/Leafs were actually winning stuff.

Curious, in accepting that there is [at least currently] no way to expand the ROM beyond the original 26 teams, what the appetite would be for just going with "Playoff Editions". What I mean by that would be to wait until the playoffs and make a game without the bottom three teams in each conference. [They're usually so bad it would suck to play as them anyway] There would still be a couple other hurdles to clear in order to make it work, but I figure that might be the best compromise at this stage. Although I guess that wouldn't help this year with your Blue Jackets...

If that compressed animated mess can be pulled out and given a cream sweater or orange pullover or parka and a bell, that would be pretty amazing.