von Ozbourne

Oh. Sorry. I just meant that with most current season ROMs, shortly after they are posted, the league will trade some players and immediately make some rosters outdated. In this case, I took a look at it yesterday and noticed that just that morning, the news came out that Kunlun was traded to Shanghai.

Congrats on completing your first ROM. Although I couldn't help but notice that it didn't take long for the age old question to pop up. Update?

Took a bit longer than we were hoping, but it's nice to have this one complete now. NHL '26 - '94 Edition In recognition of the tradition of adapting EA's well deserved cover athletes to the the 16-bit stage, we're honouring that tradition in the best way possible. New this year, a @Drezz background that does recognise the team got their name on the cup. And giving Dave Reid a break, Bruce is lending his charisma as pre-game analyst. Points leader match up proves that the freeze bug fix is applied. Keeping many of the previous graphics changes including the modernized fonts and watermarks. Did decide to update the Cup this year though. Updated several center ice logos for a lot of coinciding anniversaries or just because teams felt like rebranding, including the new Utah Mammoth. V.1 in narrow view. V.2 in wide view. Colour photos for every player. Obligatory under the hood and minor graphical stuff and acknowledgements: New original custom player attribute stats. All 832 players have colour photos. Thanks @slapshot67 Original JKline player sprite mod based on helmet patch for more accurate and varied uniforms. Pucks that also feature original customized sprites. Puck sprites that change with team colours. Thanks @AdamCatalyst The nets that those pucks can go in have also had their sprites redrawn. New Weight bug fix is applied. Thanks @chaos New Checking formula thanks to that new weight bug fix. New Hot/Cold calculations. SmozROM Ratings consistency fix - player ratings will match hot/cold overall. Thanks @smozoma Freeze Bug applied so no player stats and player name on second line. User Records set to "ON" can still cause crashes with Vegas, Washington and Winnipeg so caution is advised. Expanded goalie roaming area. Go out to the edge of the trapezoid or out to the face off dots to cut down the angle. Thanks @smozoma Goalie can also carry the puck out to the blue line before the automatic whistle. [if play isn't blown for holding the puck too long] Yes we know that the goalie can technically go to the red line, but that would mean having to figure out how to assess delay of game penalties and that's not likely to happen. Goalie Y-button control hack applied. Thanks @clockwise CPU will pull goalie if down by 1 or 2 goals with 1 minute remaining. Thanks @McMarkis Edit Lines hack for any player to play at any position applied. Allows for 4-1 Power play lines. Thanks @TheTome Note that Edit Lines hack does interfere with Saving and Loading Team Lines. Also note that this edit line hack was omitted from the V.2 Edition. Benches have been edited with a new animated coach. EA Sports watermarks have been updated to modern logo. Thanks @Drezz Main menu background hack in use for full custom background image. Also thanks @Drezz New Utah Mammoth name and logo August is a bit early to be thinking about hockey ain't it? Well, yeah, but we're testing some new stats and stuff so why wait. So in a loose reference to the recently completed World Junior Summer Showcase, we figured we'll call this one: Just to keep the old versions in here rather than making a new post or revising history. The NHL '26 - Summer Showcase Edition Obviously this is way too early for the upcoming season so we're still in beta-like mode. Some of the new players have been given new numbers on a "historical precedence or best guess" criteria when conflicts arose. Beyond that, we're trying a few things and wouldn't mind getting some feedback. Some notes, due to how early this is and that there are some depth chart guys that haven't really secured a permanent spot yet, and in the interest of saving some effort later, there are some placeholder players in the game. Please just ignore them as they will be filled in as the actual season gets closer. New for version 4.0.33 Just roster updates. And new photos for new players. New for version 3.0.26 Uniform updates. Updated center ice logos. Still didn't include the hack to play any play at any position in this one. Still only in wide screen game play. Now with 100% more fighting. New for version 2.0.20 Roster Updates with trades up to winter holiday roster freeze. New updated player ratings. Updated more center ice logos. Didn't include the hack to play any play at any position in this one. Wide screen game play. New for version 1.0.13 Roster Updates as of the first week of the season. Changed the menu screen to celebrate the NHL's new goal scoring record holder. New for version 0.9.13 Roster Updates. Still a few spots left open, but most are ready for camp. Changed the menu screen to get ready for the new season. Still hyping that cover athlete reveal. No leaks as of yet. New for version 0.9.10 Updated center ice logos for all of the anniversaries happening this year and a couple new [mostly old] looks. A few minor roster updates as summer signings start to wind up. Cover athlete still to be revealed. Much hype to ensue. Newest Version [as of 2026-04-29] Wide Screen version NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v5.1W.bin Original resolution NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v5.0S.bin Older versions NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v4.1W.bin NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v4.0S.bin NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v3.0W.bin NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v3.0S.bin NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v2.22.bin NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v1.13.bin Beta Testing Summer Showcase Versions NHL 2026 - Summer Showcase 0.913.bin NHL 2026 - Summer Showcase 0.91.bin NHL 2026 - Summer Showcase 0.9.bin

Okay, first, this is all very interesting and I look forward to the day we might be fisticuffing and one-timering in the same game. Second, you bring up something that I am curious about now. You mention the ratings scales in '93 [0-F] and '94 [0-6] have their own math, but also that you are making some adjustments to how those maths get mathed. Hypothetically speaking, would this make it possible to copy the ratings equations for all stats from '93 into '94 so the two would be transferable?

Curious what others use. I've used a different weighted system to smoz depending on the context, but usually I have full line changes on so the Team Overall rating is simply just an straight up average of the Overall rating of every player on that team.

If I might add to this. I've already made a spreadsheet template [OpenOffice format but should be importable your program of choice] You don't actually need to stick to the original calendar, [This file has the 1917-18 season in it as an example] but you do need to make sure that the days are all accounted for. This one was based on NHL98, but the calendars for 96-98 all start on a different day, so you would need to add or delete some days at the beginning to make sure that the dates line up. And note that every day is represented with the format of [Number of games on that day], [Game 1 Home Team], [Game 1 Away Team], [Game 2 Home Team], [Game 2 Away Team], etc... So in the example of 1917-18, the first games are on 19 December, so after a bunch of 00s representing every day from 04 October to 18 December, and teams numbers are zero indexed, so the first official day would look like: 02 02 00 01 03 02 = Number of games played on that day. 02 = First Game, Home Team, 3rd Team [Ottawa Senators] 00 = First Game, Away Team, 1st Team [Montreal Canadiens] 01 = Second Game, Home Team, 2nd Team [Montreal Wanderers] 03 = Second Game, Away Team, 4th Team [Toronto Arenas] The day after there are no games so that is followed by another 00, but the 21st has two games as well so the format is carried on. The other thing to note is that every day must be accounted for, [even 29 Feburary] so the full range in the addresses in each game need to be 00'd out [I think NHL'95's season mode used FF's to nullify the extra space, but '96-'98 uses 00's] I also might recommend going in small chunks of dates. I did a few seasons and had a few typos I'd missed and would end up with dates not lining up or some days with 27 games on them or something and it was a pain to track some of those mistakes down. Last bit. The divisional alignments are listed in another post here [somewhere] so you can set which teams play in which conference, and you don't actually need to include every team in the standings if you don't want, but unfortunately the extra All-Star teams seem to cause some glitches if you try to include them in the season standings in '97 or '98 ['96 had no All-Star teams]. This did open things up for some fun possibilities despite the risks though. 96-98 Season Template.ods

I guess you would be into this silly math stuff then huh. Is it thread hijacking when I started the thread?

Hey @AdamCatalyst, regarding @Jlsegafan2001's question, this is reminding me of a thing and I am curious if the knowledge is transferable. For the '96-'98 editions, there is a byte order that you can actually edit to move an entire team in the selection screens without having to modify any player data or logos. This was actually done in '98 with Carolina occupying the "H for Hartford" slot and was almost the case with Phoenix having a second label where a "W" team might have existed previously. The only issue is that the team ratings and simmed season behaviours are separate and will remain with the team that is in slot #N regardless of what team is moved into that spot. I think[?] '95 might have a similar thing in there [don't quote me]. No idea if this is an invitation for sloppy code or just a "in case of ___, break glass" type thing in a this-is-a-one-off-so-I'm-being-lazy type situation, but I wonder if a similar thing could be done in '94. [even if I would recommend against doing this for all of the caveats mentioned above]

Oh, speaking as @Ziggy Stardust just did, of NHL Hockey vs NHLPA '93, I just remembered a thing. This idea is to keep the Fighting and Fighting* penalties intact eh? I was reminded when attempting to make a game with "Blade of Steel" style fighting penalties, [Two minutes for LOSING!] that the rule didn't exist yet in '92. Curious if the game logic is going to support the separation or if that might be a casualty of the conversion. @Drezz You say what we were all thinking.

Alright. How about whatever logic defines the sixth skater and the goaltender, and put them both on the ice at the same time? There is a 1920 Olympics mod already out there that could use some accurate rules. Plus a potential for an old Pacific Coast Hockey Association mod with this addition.

Okay yeah the Sonic 2 reference was kind of funny. I don't know that it is low-hanging, but now that you mention it, one of the things I was curious about, especially in regards to IIHF mods, is the idea of changing the "Charging" [with injury] penalty into something that has the properties of a "Fighting" [with Instigator] penalty. The idea being that those penalties in the IIHF typically come with a misconduct, so it would be a case of the infraction earning 10 minutes in the box, while the actual shorthanded portion is only a minor/double minor, served by a teammate. Not sure how this will play out with the advancements in putting fighting back into '94, but this has always interested me.

I see that our future AI overlords find amusement in human suffering.

That I lost a friend over this?... I mean... just hypothetically speaking.... That's a good question. Trio of questions I suppose. One might think it is just a matter of flipping whatever bit in the menu code that says it should skip over that row, but it's never as easy as that right.

Yeah, unfortunately that's just an oversight that was coded into the original game. Even when using the unmodified version of NHL'94, your options are to only play one or two player in the playoffs [even with 4 Way Play hooked up] and the continue option will default to Single Player or Two-Player VS mode depending on what you start out with. And while it makes sense for the menu to skip over the teams on the Continue Playoffs option, it's a little odd that it also skips over the number of players because sometimes your friend has to go home for dinner, and now you're stuck waiting until the next day after school to play again, but then you can't because he has band practice, so you try to play the next day, but you still can't because he has to go straight home after school because his mom is taking him to the mall to buy new shoes and since you can't finish the playoffs without him you start getting impatient and want to start a new single player playoffs and your friend finds out and gets mad at you and you have a big fight and he doesn't want to be your friend anymore and stops talking to you even though you remember that he never returned your copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but he'd probably just break it if he finds out you wanted it back anyway, and he moves away that summer so forget it, but then your cousins come to visit and you decide to play a team-mates playoff series, but find out after the first game that you can only play two-Player Versus mode after the first game for some inexplicable reason and it dawns on you that you got into a big fight over nothing, but it doesn't haunt you to this day.

Funny thing is that I completely forgot I commented on this. And coincidentally have been doing a lot of stuff recently with changing fonts. Although to keep within the existing offsets, I've just been going through and changing which quarter of a letter is getting repurposed by a different letter. It feels that given the limitations, it's just easier to make that shift than have to go in and create a whole new section for the font just to have it take up more space.

I look forward to seeing how well this works out when fully implemented and inevitably trying to...

Surprised I hadn't mentioned this before, but I was curious. I tend to play my mods with a straight upscaled emulation so I like to keep my visuals clearly geared towards that, but you have things like checker dithering on some of your team banners like for Colorado or Seattle. Question: Did you have an intended screen filter like scan lines or NTSC emulation to blur the colours together? Or is the intention just to rely on what blending occurs in the eye and additional filter preferences are left to the user, but not geared towards.

You know what? I hadn't thought of that, but you are absolutely right.

Actually if it's okay with you Adam, I think I'm going to edit your game to make the default match up Winnipeg vs Washington. I know that it's supposed to be the teams that made the Finals, but aside from normally using the Jets anyway, I'll just justify it as going with the top Regular Season teams, rather than have to look at those dumb Panthers for another year.

Sounds like you're getting something like this, except instead of colour shifted Pro-Set logos, you might be getting floor/board/glass tiles. The thing with these patches is that they basically are just meant to change some digits in the code to different digits, which then translates visually to different uniform colours, ice markings, logos, etc.., but the stipulation is that the ROM you applying the patch to needs to be starting from the same point that the patch was designed for in order for everything to work as intended. Otherwise you get something like this example where the code is referencing a specific tile, but that tile no longer looks the same and the patch wasn't designed to address that. Depending on what ROM you started with and what you are looking to get for a final design, it might simply be a matter of changing the face off dots to use a different tile, or changing those grey tiles back to face off dots. Without seeing it I wouldn't be able to say for certain what needs to be done there, but a good tutorial on how to look at it yourself is this part here. There is a nice big sprite map near the bottom of that comment too.

I'm only drawing a reference to stuff that I've tried in the Mega Drive/Genesis version, but without knowing how you changed the player name, did the new player name have the same number of characters as the one it replaced? I ask because I know that if you change a line of text but not the offset reference for that line of information, it's going to come back with some weird stuff. Without knowing more, that's just the thing I think of when you see "address" come up in your error messages. Something at that address is not not adding up to what the game code is expecting.

Hey all. Had a couple issues that I didn't necessarily want to keep in the final version for the season, so we agreed to make one more update. Changes in this one: A handful of teams have added some new players now that they don't need to worry about that pesky salary cap Glass collision has been returned to normal so the crowd should get less souvenirs New weight bug fix calculation has been included so those big guys should be better able to make those big hits. Updated in the original post, but here it is too. NHL 2025 - Retro 94 Edition v4.0.bin

Grumble grumble. Yeah I thought I'd looked at that but evidently forgot. I couldn't directly copy the playoff draws from '97 due to the Winnipeg/Phoenix thing happening and messing up the team order, but I was able to just swap over any instance of Colorado from the East to the West. The Islanders were just using their default colours, which was oddly more red than orange. It was an unfortunate choice by the original dev team to not only pick that, but to make the new sprites use a much less detailed colour scheme. I did go through and give them the two blue tone and orange look. Update is in the original post.

I've always been curious about trying modding the PC version. One option if you didn't necessarily borrow someone else's ratings is to just borrow EA's. In the past when I needed some quick ratings I'd just copied the player stats from nhlratings.net and I had a spreadsheet with formulas to convert the percentages into the Base-6 numbers that NHL94 uses. That spreadsheet was on an old computer so I don't know if I still have it, but I can always redo the numbers if you want to try that.

Sorry. Just realized that I do have something to add. Congrats on the nice review man. That was pretty awesome.