AdamCatalyst

No prob! I'm very glad to hear you are enjoying it. I have many improvements in the works, and I hope you'll be willing to try those out when I publish them. Now, I'll try to succinctly answer your questions… 1. First, please note that the ratings you see in-game are modified by a random fact each match, by the game itself. Actual underlying ratings have been assigned from a scales of 0–6 for each attribute. However, to achieve the gameplay I want, the actual range of assigned values is even smaller than this. 2. Take a look on this site for the NHL Roster Tool, which will allow you to export the ratings from any ROM. I've dumped the ratings from my v2.1 ROM here for you. 3. How I've rated each individual attribute is way too difficult to explain, but the end goal is for each player to play accurately, regardless of what the numbers say. 4. Overall ratings are not assigned, but are in fact calculated from the attribute values, using a custom proprietary formula. My formula was specifically made to give very similar results to EA's NHL 22. Don't take that number too seriously, it means very little. All the players you mention have great ratings. The goal is for them to play relatively accurately compared to the other players in the game, not to rank them in real life, or even in the game. FYI, I will be lowering the level of randomization in the next version of my ROM. Still play-testing through the next version.

There is a single 16 colour palette used for the in-game banners, arena, ice, audience, scoreboard, time clock, player starts, arena… you get the picture. A teal banner could absolutely be done, but it would require a ripple effect of other substantial and changes that I just don’t think anyone wants to take on.

It took me forever to wrap my head around this, but now that I have, I am very grateful for this. This sounds like exactly the “right” amount of variance. Looking forward to play-testing.

Thanks for pointing out your Three-Stars hack! I implemented it last night, and will play test it today. I do have a question for you… Is there documentation anywhere on how that hack works? I'd love to try my own formulas… Lastly, I wanted to share that on macOS 11.6.1 I could not get the script to work, getting errors that it could not find the "weightscale.txt" file. I put copies of this file *everywhere* it could conceivably be referenced, but no luck. In the end I edited the PY with a manual path, and that did the trick. HOWEVER, I did figure out a solution for those who don't want to edit the file manuually.. If you are on a Mac, and experience this problem, put a copy of the "weightscale.txt" file in the root of your home folder "~/" . That'll do it!

No prob! As for what is everyone's favourite version, I'd suggest taking some time to read through some more posts, get to know some of the personalities and vibe here. There are certainly some ROMs that are more popular than others, but I think you'll find lots of different people appreciating different ROMs for different reasons, and not much discussion, let alone consensus as to what's best. As for the default playing online, I've never played online, so I can't speak to that! I'm new here, but I've only been treated with respect, and I hope you have a similarly positive experience. Let's leave The Sauce's thread here for comments and questions about this ROM, and head over to the other forums to chat about this other stuff where I'm sure people who know more than me will help you out.

Hello @inthequantum, I know why it’s not working… the BIN *is* the ROM! Just drop it in OpenEMU, and it will work fine. I believe The Sauce’s ROM is uncompressed and ready to go. But even if it were zipped, no need to unzip it with OpenEMU, just drop it in. cheers, -Adam p.s. FYI, OpenEMU, is not an emulator, but a front end for various emulator cores, sort of like Retroarch. Last I checked, it uses GenesisPlus 1.7.4.14 to play Genesis/Mega Drive ROMs.

I can confirm, it is exactly as described in the post above. I do now have a potential fix that I'm beta testing.

This is nuts! SNK Forever!

I think I found the answer: I’m going to test this out, as well as a potential fix. Will report back if I come up with anything worthwhile.

I’ve been searching for this same answer. I’m not getting any errors, or crashes, and records are saved for me on GenPlus GX with memory and 68k errors simulated. Going to keep using it and see if I can figure it out…

I can verify that playoffs and related stats are completely unaffected by this. Really all it does is effect the first thing displayed on line #2 of the player cards on the menu screen. Any unintended effects should be limited to the menu. So The Sauce has tested it on Kega Fusion, and I've tested it on Gens and Gen-Plus GX, with simulated hardware errors enabled. I'm told the memory and 68k error reporting on the version Gen-Plus GX is very good, but I would still love it if someone could verify that they are getting the same behaviour on real hardware as well.

YES!!!! I was wondering where that original severed leg went… that was you! Thank-you for that! I would be very interested in the pixel art for the Rewind centre ice logos in particular. Honestly, I ran out of time on the work I was doing on those, and was thinking of re-doing it, with that wider sense of faux perspective. If you were able to get me that artwork at a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, that would be amazing, but even just seeing it any any form would be helpful.

LOL - ok let's try again. 1. If you have previously applied any fixes for the Washington freeze bug, revert to the original code. Do not do anything in this thread, other than the following… 2. Go to 0x00F8B2C 3. It should read: 4E 4. Change it to: 20 5. Save and test and please report back!

To be clear, don't make the full hex edit at the top of the post, or apply any other modifications to address this problem. Only change that one, single, bit. Can you confirm with only that one bit changed, you are still seeing the names repeated?

I found this post, and read what @seamor was quoting from @smozoma. I tried it, and it worked as described. Meanwhile, my fiancée was binge watching a television show that I really dislike, and wanted to ignore. So I started experimenting by modifying each bit to see what was doing what, with a hope of getting the doubled names to disappear. I was hoping that with strategic use of the space character (20), I could get the duplicate names to disappear. Of all the variants I tried, this seems like the best trade-off, with the absolute minimum changes to the code. I have no idea if there are unforeseen consequences from this approach, or if it is truly universal. I can only say that in my limited testing, it seems to do the trick.

Thank-you for the feedback! Yes, I plan on doing a trade deadline version. There is still more work to do, and I want to move away from depending on The Sauce's rosters and line combinations to make it more fully original. The only issues are that life is unpredictable, and I am crazy busy the next few months. But I will try my best to get it done.

OK, I might have a solution. Original @ 0x00F8B2C 4E Revised @ 0x00F8B2C 20 I have used this in my ROM I posted yesterday, and am awaiting feedback to hear if it works. I don't have any Genesis/Mega Drive hardware to test it on, but it passes muster on both of my emulators, with memory errors and 68k error crashes enabled. What will end up happening is that you will still get the cosmetic error pulling up junk stats, but it won't crash, no names will be doubled, and playoffs will work as expected.

Thank-you so much for your kind words! Seriously, that made my morning. As for the Pens, I can't speak for anyone else, but I can share my rationale. I started with exactly what you said, trying to accurately map the official colours onto the limitations of the system. Then testing and revisions were done focusing on how the players look in motion. I found that if shoulder patch was white on the road jerseys, the overall impression of the uniforms was way too black and white, without enough yellow presence. However, I found if the shoulder patch was yellow on the home jerseys, the overall impression the uniforms was too white and yellow to my eye. But that's just my personal opinion. I'd love to get yours. Here is a version with the ROM, where the Pens shoulders have been set to yellow, and black and white have been swapped for road and away. As a pens fan, does this play better for you?

p.s. Here is that aforementioned cover artwork. I did one very faithful to the layout of the original Genesis release, and one with the front slightly re-arranged in order to have an image frame better suited to the official EA photo for this year. If anyone wants my original 60 meg Photoshop file to edit their own way, just send me a note.

NHL 94: 2022 Edition by Adam Catalyst v6.0 updated 2022 06 12 Hello there friendly strangers, After seven months of work, here is the final major version of my NHL '94 ROM. I set out to try to make the most refined and realistic modern version of NHL '94 that I could muster, and I’m thrilled to be able to share this with you. Here are the top reasons you might want to give it a try… Gameplay Revisioned The gameplay has been adjusted for a more realistic modern hockey feel, with harder to score goals, easier to hit crossbars and posts, more realistic speed burst, fewer penalty calls, custom energy depletion and recovery rates balanced for more realistic line rolling and shift length, and player ratings that have been carefully calibrated for more realistic gameplay on the ice. Furthermore, two bonus patches have been included, so you can easily modify the more realistic ROM with a Rookie mode for easier to score goals, or an Arcade mode for those who want faster gameplay and less realism. Rosters, Ratings & Lines Up-to-date custom rosters, ratings, and lines, built on smozoma’s 16-point player rating system (the original game was limited to a 7-point system), all based on extensive 2021-2022 regular season player data. Graphical Refinements The most obvious change is the move to composite sticks, but there are hundreds of graphical refinements beyond this, including title screens, logos, banners, player photos, scoreboard, audience, face-offs, player sprites, scorekeepers, Zamboni driver, and more. The goal was to bring the most graphically refined version of NHL 94 ever made, while remaining faithful to the spirit of the original art direction. And so much more Of course there is the weight bug fix, but also a custom weight scale, less variance in Hot/Cold rating randomization, immediate goalie control by pressing the (Y) button with a six-button controller (clockwise), a custom 3-Stars of the Game rating formula, a Vegas / Washington / Winnipeg Menu & Player Cards crash fix *, and more. Every single feature & modification is documented below. I would love it if you would give it a try, and leave me any feedback! cheers, -Adam NHL 94 [h] 2022 AC v6.0 - 2022 06 12.zip p.s. If you are Clockwise, Kingraph, Naples, The Sauce, Slapshot76, Smozoma, or anyone else who has contributed to making ROMS for nhl94.com, I would be so flattered if you were interested in lifting any of my mods for your own. I would happily send you my source files, including Tile Molester bookmarks and palettes. Features & Modifications Title Screens Graphics: EA logo revised. Graphics: High Score Production revised. Graphics: Splash image replaced with EA NHL 22 Austin Matthews photo. Graphics: Masthead re-drawn to match EA NHL 2022 lettering. Title screen Logos removed. Credits re-coloured & edited. Above Top Row: The original face-off animations had a linesman that was looking in the wrong direction (Top Left & Centre), freakishly long & thin stick blades, seemingly random black pixels on some frames (Top Left, Calgary uniforms), disproportionally dark shadows that sometimes overlapped the image frame (Top Centre), stick shadows that would overlap incorrectly (Top Right), and a frisbee instead of a puck. Above Bottom Row: I’ve painstakingly gone through the 108 possible sprite combinations that can occur during a face-off, revised every issue I could find, re-drew the sticks to be more realistically shaped & taped, and perhaps most importantly, turned the Linesman’s head to face the right direction. We all need to do our part to improve the state of NHL officiating. Main Menu Settings: Default teams set for the 2022 Stanley Cup finals. Settings: Playoff brackets updated to 2022 seeding. Settings: Line Changes default set to on “On,” because that's how I roll. Graphics: Team Logos updated, with official colours relatively mapped to the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive colour space. Graphics: Team Banner colours adjusted to be uniformly consistent with the logos. Graphics: Player Photos all updated with the NHL’s 2022 images, cropped & colour graded. Hack: Bug that would causes crashes upon cycling through the Player Photos for Vegas, Washington, and Winnipeg has been eliminated. Please note, this comes at the cost of preventing saved stats from showing under player names. Typesetting: Player names centred vertically. Main Menu: Re-wording of a couple menu options for greater clarity. Above Right: All logos were revised or re-drawn by hand, and matched for visual weight. Official team colours were relatively mapped to the Sega MD/Genesis colour space, and banners were matched to key logo colours, with some minor re-wording in the menus. Pre-Game Graphics: Play-off Banner colours modified & dithered to look much closer to the authentic colours used in the menu screens. Graphics: The Pre-Game Announcer's picture frame has been altered to be more consistent with the design of similar elements throughout the game. Graphics: Ron Barr image slightly refined. Arena Names: All up-to-date as of January 2022. Pre-Game: Match-up position names have been simplified to “Forward,” “Defence,” & “Goaltender.” Above: The colour palette available for Playoff Banners in the original game (Left) is extremely limited, but with a little trickery (Right) the banners now look much closer to the authentic team colours within these restrictions. Arena Graphics: Audience colours throughout have been slightly adjusted to have more uniform tonal contrast. Sprites: Audience members throughout have had a myriad of minor errors fixed. Graphics: Ice Colour lightened slightly. The darker colour was giving me eye strain. Arena - Sideboards view Graphics: Scoreboard Banner colours modified & dithered to look closer to matching the Menu Banner colours.. Graphics: Sideboard Scoreboard has re-drawn NHL logo. Graphics: Side-boards Score-Keepers revised. Sprites: Zamboni driver revised to better match the perspective of the side-boards. Above Right: The Scoreboard Banners have been re-coloured using dithering to better approximate the official team colours. Furthermore, Banner lettering and Scores were made brighter, a modern NHL logo was drawn, the audience was tweaked, and the Zamboni driver and Scorekeepers were revised… Above: The original Zamboni driver (Left) looked like a small ruddy-faced hunchback. The driver (who is closer to our point of view and should therefore be larger) would seem conspicuously tiny when he would pass in front of the audience (or any players in the penalty box.) I loved slapshot67’s adaptation of the SNES scorekeepers graphic, so I simply gave it a minor revision (Right), and then matched the style and perspective of the Zamboni driver to fit the scorekeepers and the perspective of the scene better. Arena - Ice view Graphics: Centre ice logos updated, adapted from NHL Rewind designs to match the perspective of the ice. Graphics: Goalie crease outline modification. (Author unknown) Graphics: The Creases now have texturing like in the original NHL 94. No self-respecting goalie doesn't chew up their crease with their skates. Graphics: Bench coaches refined. Sprites: Bench players “chirping” animations refined to be less cartoonish. Graphics: Score-keepers added in. Graphics: Horizontal seam in the glass has been erased. Graphics: Bench area modifications. (slapshot67) Graphics: Bench backup goalie hack. (slapshot67) Graphics: Net re-design. (slapshot67) Graphics: Goal light modification. (slapshot67) Graphics: Face-off circles modification. (Author unknown) Graphics: Trapezoid line modification. (Author unknown) Above Right: It's 2022, far past time to move to composite sticks. This image shows an example of how all players were coloured to emphasize a consistent sense of depth, with more realistic shadows and highlights. In-Play Sprites: - Sprites: Uniforms have been coloured to have consistent official colour use, and a greater sense of depth with as realistic as possible colour shifts for shadows and highlights. Tests were done with demo play to try and give the most accurate impression of how team’s look in motion, and not necessarily what is the most accurate in still. Lighter shadows under the players complete the look. Sprites: Face-off animations revised. Sprites: Players given grey composite sticks. Graphics: On-Ice Player Numbers changed to white for better legibility against the ice. Graphics: On-Ice Player Star for Player 1 colour was change to have less contrast against the ice, and to be less distractingly conspicuous compared to other visual elements. Graphics: On-Ice Player Star for Player 2 was left the same colour, but because of the adjustments to the ice and player one star, the player two star now appears more distinctly. Sprites: Goaltenders masks tweaked to reveal their faces. Sprites: Puck and its shadow revised. Sprites: Player Helmet colour patch. (Clockwise) Sprites: Player Stick tape patch. (Clockwise) Sprites: Improved Checking animations patch. (Clockwise) Sprites: Player Eye colour patch. (Clockwise) Sprites: Player Boots & Gloves colour patch. (Clockwise) Above Right: The Scorekeepers in-play have been revised to consistently match the art style used for the Scorekeeper in the Sideboards view. Also, they have been modernized with touchscreens! Above: Note how in the original (Left) the player one indicator is distractingly very high contrast, while the player two indicator is much more difficult to see with low tonal contrast. Brightening the colour of the ice (Centre) helps, but then the already muddy looking player numbers become very difficult to see. I’ve re-balanced the colours (Right) so that the player one indicator is quieter while still being easy to see, the player two indicator is equally easy to see, and the the player numbers are much clearer to see against the ice. There's also a new puck, and revised puck shadow. The excellent Naples ROM is shown for relative comparison only, no criticism implied of his superlative work. Rosters Rosters & Lines: Updated based on aggregate 2022 regular season player usage data. Rosters & Lines: 800 total players have been included, 25 players per team (14F, 8D, & 3G). Above. 216 official NHL 2021–2022 headshots (only 192 included in-game), all individually cropped and colour graded for visual balance. Ratings Team Ratings: Team attribute & overall ratings updated as per end of 2022 season data. Player Ratings: Underlying system has been changed from the default 1-6 scale to a 0-15 scale for more accurate differentiation of players. (smozoma) Player Ratings: Custom player ratings based on the characteristics from EA’s NHL 2022, modified using a mix of real-world data and gameplay oriented parameters. The goal was to make gameplay more contemporary, and individual player performance more realistic. Player Ratings: Custom overall rating formula. Player Ratings: Much more parity between the best and the worst of the league, with all players having a minimum 52 rating, ranging to a maximum 94 for McDavid, before Hot/Cold variance. Player Ratings: Weight scale modification patch. (smozoma) Player Ratings: Edit lines bug fix patch. (smozoma) Above: Here are the top sixteen players rated a 90 or over. If you don’t see your favourite player here, I guarantee I rated them an 89! Gameplay Controls: Goalie control can now be accessed immediately by pressing the (Y) button with a six-button controller. (clockwise) Player Ratings: Attribute rating distributions have been careful set and thoroughly tested to produce a faster more contemporary feel to puck movement & gameplay, with better goaltending throughout. Gameplay: Body Checking and Aggressiveness have been balanced to reduce the penalty rate from the original, and approximate the real body checking and penalty rates of each team in the 2022 season. Gameplay: Hot & Cold range of variance has been reduced by ~25%, from a displayed maximum variance of -9/+8 to -7/+6. Gameplay: The “goal” area of the net has been reduced slightly, making it slightly more difficult to score, and slightly more likely that you will hit the post. Gameplay: Player Speed Burst set to 25% of the original, for a more realistic feel and higher difficulty. No more winning every loose puck race. Gameplay: Custom Stamina Depletion & Recovery rates. Gameplay: Weight / Checking bug fix patch. (smozoma) Gameplay: Second-Assist bug fix patch. (smozoma) Gameplay: Overtime set to 5 minutes. Stars of the Game: New custom formula. Above: The original (Left) benches had floors coloured like the ice, and the players chirped with unhinged jaws, with no supervision from a coach, let alone a backup goaltender. Over time (Centre), utterly fantastic changes were made by slapshot67, adding a more realistic floor, fitting in a coach, and a perfectly matched backup goaltender! I've built on this work (Right) by getting rid of the leftover teal coloured shadow behind players leaning forward, drawing more realistic shadows on the players arms and back as they move, setting consistent mouth colours with a more realistic “chirping”, and refining the coach to match the other sprites a bit better, with a more realistic shadow too. Above (Botton Left): I really liked The Sauce’s wide take on the EA logo (Centre), as well as the bevelled style of the original (Left). I’ve mixed the two styles together, and refined it to better fit the allocated vertical space. The Sauce’s excellent ROM is shown here for relative comparison only, no criticism implied of his inspiring work. In-Game Overlays Graphics: Referee pop-over refined. Graphics: Linesman pop-over revised. Graphics: In-Game Timer logo has been re-drawn to match the old EA Star logo in the style of the original graphic, but wider and smoother like The Sauce’s excellent version, and shorter to fit the allocated space better. Text: "Cross Check," "Face-Off," and "Fight Instigator" renamed to "Cross-check," "Face-off," and "Instigator" as per the official NHL rulebook. Graphics: Line Change Energy bars have been drawn to use an inverse quasi-logarithmic scale, more representative of ideal shift length and degrading player performance. Graphics: Instant Replay controls graphic revised. (author unknown) Graphics: Custom Stars of the Game icon and revised typesetting. Above: From Left to Right, various evolutions… 1. The Goalie’s mask has been revised to now show a bit of their face underneath (Right). 2. When the crease got modernized (Centre) it lost the texture of the original (Left). I’ve restored the original texture into the modern crease (Right). 3. There was originally no Stars of the Game icon, and a simplistic formula for choosing the stars. A couple of excellent patches later, and we have a stars icon (Centre) and a better formula! I've built on this (Right) with a new star icon, revised typesetting, and a new custom Stars of the Game formula. In-Game Menus Graphics: NHL & NHLPA Logos re-drawn for greater authenticity. Graphics: “Hockey Night” Banner slightly re-coloured to be more visual appealing to me personally. Hack: Bugs that would causes crashes upon cycling through Player Cards for Washington (and possible also Vegas & Winnipeg) has been eliminated. Typesetting: The “Change Goalie” option for “no goalie” is now in ALL-CAPS for greater visibility. Above: The Player Cards system (Left) developed bugs over time, as the ROM was expanded from 28–32 teams. Looking at a goalie for Vegas or Washington would immediately crash the game (Centre), until now (Right). * Extras Gameplay: An optional Arcade Mode patch has been included, for those who prefer faster action. Gameplay: An optional Rookie Mode patch has been included, for those who are still learning how to outsmart the CPU. Artwork: Matching box art was made! I did one very faithful to the layout of the original Genesis release, and one with the front slightly re-arranged in order to have an image frame better suited to the official EA photo for this year. Known Issues * Vegas / Washington / Winnipeg Player Cards may crash if User Records are turned on, and there are stored goaltending statistics for these teams. A potential fix was being investigated, but is not at a workable state. For this reason, User Records are recommended to be left off. * User Records may incorrectly store user data if playing with Vegas / Washington / Winnipeg. Future Wish-List I’ve run out of time to work on this project, but if I did find more time, here is what I would like to focus on next… Gameplay: Reduce the rebound rate of the puck to be way less bouncy. Gameplay: Enable energy Recovery for players sitting in the penalty box. Line-Changes: Enable line changes to be initiated without possession of the puck, preferably with a dedicated button. Gameplay: Improve logic for how icings and offsides are calculated to use puck position instead of player position. Gameplay: Prevent the goaltenders from skating into the trapezoid areas. Sprites: Redraw Sideboards Referee to better match the art style of everything else (requires “de-compressing” shared tiles.) Gameplay: Program the CPU to pull the goalie when trailing by 1–2 goals (currently only pulls with a two goal deficit). Gameplay: Reduce the energy depletion rate for Speed Bursts. Gameplay: Increase the amount of CPU Body-Checking without increasing the amount of penalties called. Sprites: Improve the comparatively low visual quality of the on-ice officials throughout (requires “de-compressing” shared tiles.) Penalties: Rename “Cross-check” to the proper “Cross-checking.” Penalties: Re-name “Roughing” period that causes an injury to “Illegal Hit.” Player Cards: Eliminate the crash that occurs on player cards for Washington when user records are turned on, and the goaltender has saved stats. User Records: Restore system to be as fully functional as possible. Player Sprites: Restore some player sprite shading details that have been lost from the original. If you were able to help me implement any of these changes, please let me know! Credits This project was built decades of work by the NHL94.com community, and never would have been possible without them. I’m sure there are more contributors than I could ever possibly know, let alone acknowledge, but I will do my best… Contributors This ROM contains contributions from the following individuals… Brodeur30 Rink & Net collision logic. chaos Hot/Cold variation logic. Clockwise Player sprites helmet colour patch. Player sprites hockey tape patch. Player sprites improved checking animations patch. Player sprites eye colour patch. Player sprites boots & gloves colour patch. Dervin10 Roster extractor & importer tool development. kingraph Scoreboard graphic hack. Stars of the Game graphic hack. slapshot67 30 to 32 team ROM re-structuring. Scorekeepers graphic hack and original design. Bench area graphic modifications. Bench coaches hack and original design. Bench backup goalie hack and original design. Net graphic re-design. Crease graphic revision. Goal light graphics revision. smozoma 0–15 Player Rating scale patch. Credits editing logic. Edit Line Ratings bug fix patch. Player Overall rating formula logic. Player weight scale modification patch. Second-Assist bug fix patch. Stars of the Game formula logic. Weight / Checking bug fix patch. EARE tool development. Tony H. Stopping & Crossover Rate logic. wboy 28 to 30 team ROM re-structuring. Player photo logic. Player energy depletion & recovery rates logic. Speed burst rate logic. NOSE tool development. Author unknown Face-off circles graphic modification. Trapezoid line graphic modification. Goalie crease graphic modification. Special Thanks to… kingraph - tips & resources. Sauce - resources for rosters, ratings, and lines. smozoma - utterly invaluable tips, resources, tools, & support. …and everyone at nhl94.com who tested Betas or provided feedback. Extra Special Thanks to… Ena - for nothing less than everything. The ZIP contains the ROM, release note, and optional patches. NHL 94 [h] 2022 AC v6.0 - 2022 06 12.zip

Hi there, I've been learning to mod by reverse engineering your ROM. Sometimes I even play it! Thank-you so much for sharing. I noticed something… Hex offset 00BB88 is set to 7024, which, if I understand correctly, should increase the speed boost to 112.5% of the original, rather than decrease it to 75%. Am I misunderstanding? And if so, would you be willing to point out where I might be going wrong? cheers, -AC

NHL94 2022 v2 LOL - man, you're not fooling around. By any chance, is your last name Lamoriello?

DELETED. I'm an idiot. My secret is out.

Thank-you *so* much!