smozoma

I'm thinking of starting a league soon, probably with a puck drop of Sunday, December 3rd. Ten, twelve, or twenty teams, depending on interest, with a regular season schedule of around 30-45 games. It will be with a custom ROM of some sort, so that the teams will all be about equal. Read on, tell me if you're interested in joining, and make comments/suggestions about the league. ----- I made a statistics system last year, based on dmitry's previous league. I used the information in this thread to make it: http://nhl94.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=194 In short, at the end of the game, you save the game in the emulator, then upload the game file to the league website. The website extracts the stats from the file and stores them in a database. The website then uses the stats in the database to show player scoring stats, standings, etc. Here are pages showing some of the stats collected: Standings: http://mcapewell.servehttp.com/nhl94/standings.asp Player Stats: http://mcapewell.servehttp.com/nhl94/playerstats.asp Game Boxscore: http://mcapewell.servehttp.com/nhl94/boxscore.asp?gameid=113 I edited Gens 2.12 to allow saving during netplay using the Quicksave(F5) key, so that will be the league emulator. What I'm interested in finding out is what ideas people like and who's interested in joining. For one, I want the teams to all be approximately equal, so the league will have a custom ROM of some sort (more on that below). Mismatched teams have caused a lot of complaints before, so if everyone has relatively even teams, I think people will be much happier. There may also be some effort made to give the weaker coaches slightly better teams than the better coaches, in order to make the league more competitive. I have a few ideas for how the teams could be balanced out: 1) Create Your Own Players Each person creates their own players to suit their own style. The first line and goalie must have an average Overall rating of maybe 82 (so you can have a 95 centre if you want, but you have to balance him with70-something wingers or whatever). Second line, ~70; third line, ~60. I'm undecided about whether line changes will be ON or OFF in this league, but I'm leaning towards ON. Some limits will be placed on the goalies so we don't have 20 belfours. What I really like about this idea is that it gives everyone the chance to make a team that suits their own style of play. Player names would not be changed, just their attributes, so if you have LA, you can make Gretzky behave like Roenick if you want. Weight points may be traded for Overall points, so you can make your team suit your style, rough or skilled. 2) Original NHL 94 ROM with some player tweaks Weak goalies would be improved so that the average starting goalie would be rated around 75. Weak teams would have their players' attributes "scaled up" to make them competitive with the better teams. The teams wouldn't all be exactly the same, but they'd be closer than in the original ROM. I also want to invert the player weights in order to fix the checking bug that lets light players like Fleury check, while heavy players like Lemieux fall over easily. It's a very different game when the defencemen can actually check the forwards. Lemieux will actually be useful. I've played some games on a ROM modified this way and it's pretty fun. 3) Custom NHL '07 ROM A friend of mine is making an 07 ROM that should be good. We could use that. The player weights will be reversed to get the checking right, too, so Chara will be dominant, not a domino. Line Changes I think line changes will likely be ON. The statistics add some depth to the gameplay, seeing which players on which lines are dangerous, etc. For those who were in dmitry's original stats league, the difference will be that the ROM used in this new league will be faster and the goalies won't all be rated in the 90s, so the games will be more wide-open. Coaches will submit their lines before the season starts so they can be set up in the ROM so that the time coaches spend setting up their lines at the start of the game is reduced or eliminated. Penalties On, of course! Offsides Off. What they add to the game doesn't make up for all the wasted time.

Can you describe your audio recording process? I have a couple ideas on how the volume problem could be fixed. Do you watch the game live and record your commentary at the same time? I think you can do this (sorry if you know this or did this already ) : Open the Volume Control in Windows (Either using the icon in the system tray or by going to "Control Panel", "Sounds and Audio Devices" then clicking the upper Advanced button (might be different if you're not using XP). Reduce the Wave slider to about the 1st or 2nd lowest tick. This adjusts the game sound, but not the mic sound. Jack up the Microphone slider to the top, or until you get bad feedback or fuzziness or general MY EARS ARE BLEEDINGness. If you don't see the microphone slider, go to Options->Properties and put a checkmark next to microphone and click OK. Use "Wave Out Mix" as the recording source (I think you already set this up properly): Go to Options->Properties in the Volume Control window Click the "Recording" radio button (i don't know why they're called radio buttons..) Put a checkmark next to "Wave Out Mix" Click OK, and it'll load the Recording Control instead of the Volume Control. Put a checkmark next to "Select" by the Wave Out Mix slider.

Pretty neat. What are you using to record these? The audio is a problem, though -- the game sound really drowns out the commentary. Maybe you could record the commentary separately later (just into a .wav file) and then mix them in VirtualDub (an AVI editor).

Next season we're drafting teams in reverse standings order, aren't we? It'll balance out over a couple seasons, and you'll probably come out on top by being good with bad teams. Washington and SJ are hardly 'average' teams Maybe we can make the team picking order a little random, like the entry draft for the NHL, so people get some variety, season after season. Teams up from B get the best chances to get an early pick. The worse your regular season record, you earlier you pick. To discourage throwing games during the season, your playoff performance would also affect your team draft position. Pittsburgh isn't that tough if you check them a lot. I didn't make the playoffs and I had a 2-2 record against kgboy (total goals, 15-14 for kgboy), and when I won the two games, I was challenging for a playoff spot, so you can't say he wasn't trying. I wouldn't even say Pittsburgh is one of the top 5 teams. You can bully them, unlike teams like Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Montreal, Calgary, and even Quebec... The only team I would consider banning is Chicago, since they have the best player and the best goalie (arguably). But.. why not let someone who finished poorly the last season have a fun season : ). Just say that Chicago has to be picked in the top 5 or not at all.

people have been beating me with the keyboard?... I should retire

Actually pretty closely-played games, but the Rangers couldn't beat Moog, and the Bruins capitalized on their chances. 2 posts and a missed open net (shot it at the goalie off to the side) in the 2nd game for the Rangers, plus Gartner got knocked out for the game in the first minute of the 3rd period. A couple missed open nets for the Bruins, too.. These had been FF Ties earlier, but now they're just losses : (

Quebec whooped me 9-2 -- Neither of my goalies could stop anything, it was like they had no arms. Buf won 4-3 and 4-0. Mogilny had 6 or 7 goals.

I was just about to post something similar, after seeing that I almost beat out kgboy based on forfeit ties. Kgboy played all his games -- it would have been pretty unfair for me to have beaten him into the playoffs based on 5 extra points from games I didn't play.

20 team league 4 divisions 2 games vs everyone in the other divisions (2x15=30 games) 3 games vs everyone else in your division (3x4=12 games) total: 42 games I'm ok with 16 teams in the playoffs. I think it's good to get a lot of the guys in the playoffs, so people aren't eliminated really early (like I would have been) Just put some hard time limit on each round of the playoffs so they don't drag on

EDM broke out to a quick 2-0 lead, but then an avalanche of lame NYR goals poured in. 6 goals on 7 "shots" for the Rangers. Edmonton really dominated the early part of the game, being up 10-1 in shots at one point.

nevermind that.. Florida went 8-2 in their last 10, so the Rangers look pretty much out of the playoff picture

The first game was an intense defensive (but still fast) game, 5 shots for the pens and 4 shots for the rangers (if memory serves..) The 2nd game, the Rangers broke out to a 3-1 lead in the first period, then managed to hang on for a 5-2 victory. Some nice one-timers in this one. Shots were something like 11-8 Rangers. Another good fast-paced game. Attack zone in both games was pretty close. Maybe the Rangers have a shot at the playoffs afterall : /

I thought the season ended on the 7th for some reason : P

The first period ended 0-0, then St. Louis looked like they might take it after a second-period goal by the also hot Brett Hull, but the Rangers stormed back with 3 unanswered goals, all by Gartner, to break out of their 15-game losing streak.

10 minutes is just too long... And, actually, I like 5 minutes precisely because anyone can win with just a few good bounces. If the game goes on too long, you know who's going to win ahead of time. I think the oNHL94 stats league used 7 minute periods, and that was ok, but past that it's just too long. And there's more chance of a desynch the longer the game goes (not that it happens much, but...).

You don't seem to have won too many games against the teams in my division and conference, either 3 words: World of Warcraft

Me? No, I think you misunderstand.. I don't play, I coach.. my cat plays. Doesn't quite understand the different button names yet...

Gartner? More like gardener. He's out picking daisies at centre ice -- while we (for once) have the puck in their end. Tikkanen? More like tinkerbell. I clap like crazy behind the bench, but this fairy still won't come back to life. Messier? More like messier.. mess..i..er.. He's a total mess out there. Sloppy. I thought this guy was supposed to be able to pass? Patrick? More like hat-trick -- against his own team. Yes, he has scored three, count 'em one, two, three goals against his own team this year. Leetch? More like lichen. This guy's collecting moss out there. Vanbiesbrouk? More like... .... hmm.. .... ok i got something: More like can't-see-the-puck. 5 minutes, 5 shots, 5 goals, in the last game he appeared in. He was "hot" that game, too, so I thought I'd give him the start. Richter? More like trickler. .. At least he's not Vanbiesbrouk. 15 losses in a row for the Rangers, who started the season with a promising 6-1 record. The Rangers still hope to make the post-season, though. They'll have to steal a few games from some Western Conference teams in the second half of the season.

We can't do a full league -- no one wants to play as ottawa, san jose, anaheim, florida, or tampa bay. 8/20 is no fun because so few people make the playoffs. I'm doing terribly in the Gens A league, but I still have a shot at the playoffs, so I still have a reason to play each game. If I were eliminated already, I might not be too eager to play the rest of my games. The regular season is fun and decides the playoff rankings. What's wrong with that? Also, if you're in the B league, you want to do well in the regular season in order to move up to the A league. I need to keep working in order to stay in the A league. -- Next season will be half the teams? Are we having A,B,C,D leagues?

Wow, the 2nd half of September flew by.. I'm typically around after 7pm EST.

It's EEF2F7 (RGB) Steps to find a colour: Take a screen shot ("print screen" copies the screen to your clipboard) Open MSPaint Edit->Paste Use the "pick color" tool to select the color Go into the Colors->Edit Colors menu and click "Define Custom Colors" to see the values of the current colour. Then I use the windows calculator to convert from decimal to hexadecimal...

The Kings took this game easily, as the Rangers mounted little in the way of an offensive threat. Vanbiesbrouk played his best game of the season to hold the Kings to 3 goals in what could have been a total massacre. The Rangers were down 2-1 with 90 seconds to go and had hopes of tying it up, but James Patrick scored on himself for the 3rd time this season, giving the Kings their 3rd goal. Can you say "benched?"

After a torrid 6-1 start to the season, the Rangers quickly dropped below .500 in consecutive losses to Montreal (5-2), Detroit (9-1 - and he's supposedly rusty! 73 goals in 9 games!), Philadelphia (8-4, 4-1), and Washington (a pair of 6-2 games). As usual against tk11 (MTL), the game was fairly close, but Montreal pulled away for a win. As usual against backhand (DET), it was just total domination -- I can't get many good scoring chances on him. The Rangers were buried under a barrage of Ciccerelli slapshots. As usual against cr0ssbar (WSH), the Rangers felt they could win, but the scoreboard said otherwise. In the 2nd and 3rd life-time meetings between the coach smozoma and coach Tickenest, Tickenest showed why he was one of the best, taking two solid games. Game 2 looked like it might belong to the Rangers, as PHI was held to zero shots in the 1st period and the teams started the 3rd period tied 1-1, but then the floodgates opened and Philly scored 3 unanswered goals. Who knew Recchi was such a slapshot sniper? ggs guys

gg Dallas dominated the first minute and it looked like it would a looong night for the Rangers, but the Rangers bounced back into the game and managed to pull away near the end and take it 5-3. Very fast-paced game, and with the ferocious hits Dallas was doling out, the Rangers were definately seeing "Stars."

It looked like smooth sailing for the Rangers, who had a seemingly-insurmountable 7-2 lead at one point, but the Canucks never gave up, giving the Rangers a huge scare by getting to 8-5, then scoring 2 goals in the last 30 seconds to get within 1 with 10 seconds left. Vancouver won the next faceoff, and it looked like we may have been going to OT, but someone stripped the puck from Bure's stick as he crossed the blue-line, and the score stood, 8-7. Great game!