Brutus

To be clear, I am not the end all of knowledge on this, and it's been a few years since I researched it. Icecow is attempting to use a Gens USB adapter that enables you to play with original style Genesis joystick, not a Gens USB direct joystick. This adapter usually works for 90% of folks in the form of plug & play. About 10% of us (and I was one of the unlucky ones), end up where all the buttons work just fine, but you can't skate in diagonal directions on the joystick, basically rendering the joystick worthless. The only fix I found was using Gens+. Icecow struggled with Gens+ (obviously), so if ANYONE knows of a different fix for the guy, don't let my previous post discourage you from trying to help out with this issue.

My understanding from our conversations on Discord where that Gens+ was working for your Gens controllers with that adapter but the Gens+ (or GensPlus) menus were foreign to you and not displaying properly. I know ICESTORM was very familiar with GensPlus menus, as we used that emulator when we played lived and he knew all the hotkeys. I've NEVER had an issue connecting to Gens with Gens+, or vice-a-versa. They are different versions of the same emulator but both use Kalierra still to connect, so it doesn't matter. Maybe in your updates, switching in/switching out, you have an old version of Kalierra or something in one of the wrong spots, but you should have zero issues connecting to anyone using Gens+, regardless of what joystick you use. Given you are trying multiple versions of Gens as an emulator and trying multiple joystick configurations, I would imagine you are going to have some possible "mix ups". ANYHOW, TO MY KNOWLEDGE, I was not able to get Gens Controllers with the USB adapter link to work in regular Gens. I had to use Gens+ to get the diagonal directions to work. Even more oddly, the joysticks that worked in Gens, on the same computer, gave me issues in Gens+! So, when Icestorm did come to play live, we had to both use Gens joysticks through Gens+, or both use my USB joysticks through Gens.

So, after messaging with several coaches, I guess Pearate's connection is total crap for most. Skip tried but was not able to get a respectable connection vs him. As a result, I am forfeiting Pearate for that series, and declaring Skip the Et Tu Brute B finals champ. I thought of subbing in, etc, but the league is over, the season is over, the playoffs have dragged on long enough. Skip would be the heavy favorite in any other scenario I could lay out. Congrats on a solid season Skip. Sorry it didn't end with an epic Game 7.

For those new to the community forum, and you are reading this, let me give you this to chew on. IF Tom Brady spoke/acted like Terrell Owens, then you would understand Plabax better. This kid won almost all the championships, but has some strange personality defects for online play/banter/posting, etc. TomKabs93 came on to the scene, and flashed that Michael Jordan type talent, but suffered a career ending injury after he won the slam dunk contest! He beloved by all, and one of the few who befriended Plabax. He's created a video compilation of deke moves to practice that is probably the best thing I can point anyone too in order to upgrade your offense. The participation level of this site used to be really high. About 2 years ago, it dropped down for a while, and then picked back up. It's not a normal game/site. It's from 1994 and the participation goes up and down. I wouldn't be surprised to find 50 plus guys playing on this site 2 years from now, and then again, wouldn't be surprised to also see it down to 10 at some time. Best thing I can say is if you are interested, follow the yellow brick road to Discord, where guys are on live most nights to help get you setup and get some exis in.

Blowback against you TK is not intentional & I do feel there is a hyper sensative forum going on at times. But that would fit in with the world in general right now

I'm careful to word it like this, It's slow right now, dead in action. Which is why I've joined in of late in trying to help some new buds come in. i joined in against your statement of focusing on vets because there aren't enough to form a league. How you going to retain guys if you don't even have enough to keep a league running. Just seems illogical to be defensive about vets when there aren't enough to even run back Plabax 2.0, much less even Plabax cause he quit too. The rest is just garbage. Plabax points about strict rules are not invalid but as usual, he displays a clear flaw/gap in his logic, and takes it to some extreme. Most of us read his post & its glaringly obvious, but not all. Spending time arguing with someone who is only posting to argue is a waste of my time. I just put up an initial disclaimer so newer people to this forum know we aren't all dumb a-holes/pricks.

But, as long as you need to plug into a modem to play the game, and it also requires that no one else in your house using Netflix, etc, it's TOUGH to schedule games. Hell, Plabax used to have to wait till like 2 am to play me while waiting for his Dad to goto bed. I mean, he didn't mind, and I didn't mind, but I'm sure it made it tough for the kid to just pop on and play some exi's. The harder it is to pop on, and play say 2-3 games and then get out, the harder it is to make the whole "online" thing work.

Um, there are no soldiers left. Sorry but you aren't playing right now, or you'd know this. You can't get to 16 solid vets to do a league right now. I'm the guy with 95% of the guys who have been active on the site in the past 2 years cell phone numbers. I'm the ONLY GUY that anyone seemed comfortable giving this to. There exist a reason for it, and you two wouldn't know it if it smacked you upside the head

I also firmly believe the site is set up terribly for a newcomer. I mentioned this when I first came across this site a little over 4 years ago. If any of the admins are interested in changing it, feel free to reach out to me. It would require a lot of mental work on my part to lay out how things should be, but it is utter chaos to anyone who stumbles across this site to try to catch on to what they need, what is new, what is old, what is a league, what is active, what isn't. I never said much but if those in charge were hoping to catch on to Kingof94II for more action, a better setup would be one of the top things I'd list. There is just too much information coming at you in an order that barely makes sense to me as a vet, much less as someone new. I remember being like half way through an hour read into some league's forum pages when I first got on the site only to realize the dates are from WAY back and the league was now dead. I know we've updated some of the forum/league info, but I'd take a large wager on a poll to the last 15 guys who've joined the site being STILL confused somewhat

So, there is a lot of talk about what needs to be, does not need to be, what ruined, what didn't ruin, etc, but clearly, it is in a real down state. I KNOW for a fact that at least 3-4 guys dropped because of Plabax (going back a few years to get above 1, being AJ). I disagree with it being a valid reason, but it was the reason given to me more than once, so AT TIMES, player interaction can drive someone away. To me, I find it weird to have 1/3 of the site naming guys like Plabax for the decrease in player volume and then on the flip side, Plabax talking about it like ONLY strict rules are to be blamed. It is a little ironic to have the kid state the ONLY reason for drop off is due to lack of tight rules while being one of the "other" reasons listed if you were to track down all the guys who left and took a poll on "Why did you leave?" I've run more leagues than most of late, and I feel my opinion weighs more for knowing the reasons for dropouts, and they aren't based on the players or the rules of the leagues. #1 Modern gaming for online play/competition in other forums is too easily accessible. If you disagree, you haven't been gaming anywhere else lately. You can play 6 vs 6 with HD quality graphics in hockey, walk by a TV when someone has Madden or the Show on, and you'd swear they are watching a real life game. And to play these games onine, you just turn them on and play. #2 Having to PLUG into your modem and not play wireless greatly reduces the times dudes are able to be available to game. Most of us have to wait until the wife/kids are in bed/out of the way before we can plug in & play. On top of having to be plugged into the modem, the wife/kids/roommates can't be streaming Netflix while we try to play our NHL94. #3 A large chunk of the crowd got older, and real life knocked them out of the habit. I used to play D&D games online back in college but I've never went back. I used to play Madden with my brother. I used to play the latest baseball game with him as well. Once I stopped doing them, going back to them requires too much mental re-affirmation for my mind to handle it. I think once someone gets out of the habit of doing anything, there exist a strong chance they don't come back. I'm not trying to poo-poo any efforts to grow the community, help new guys come in and join the fun, create cool leagues, etc. And, I'm not trying to place blame anywhere. I've had some great experiences playing NHL94 online and in person. There are times in my life where things got too hectic and I stopped playing for a while. If say NBA2k was more entertaining for me online, or the MLB the Show's server wasn't crap, etc, I probably would not have come back last year, and I run some of the leagues!

Whenever you play someone head to head, whomever is hosting might have a FIREWALL setup. Even basic computer setups usually have the Windows Firewall up. You need to enable the Gens program to be allowed through the firewall. It's the most common reason I find someone can't host. Usually, a new player is able to connect to a veteran's game via Hamachi, but struggle to host it the first week. 2 new guys is almost a guaranteed struggle. Follow the steps to be on Discord so you can be talked through it while you are actually trying to host with your friend. Have both of you on, and you both can be chatting inside the NHL94 Discord forum and one of us will usually be around to help.

The Finals for both A & B are set. (2) Depch vs (3) FPB & (1) Skip vs (2) Pearate I know FPB & Depch have been in contact, so hopefully, they get their series in shortly. I'll privately message Skip & Pearate. I would like to see both A & B done by end of this week.

Ok. SUMMER is approaching, and some of us will enter the Summer League I'm making up, but NOT ALL. The Summer League will also be a Classic Rom. For those wanting to still play with this excellent work created by Raph & Coach, but are getting fatigued with your roster, here is an alternative: Goto the Draft: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1agkB8JJX74P_umcYpvWYAVzgAunG0cQIWQDv__3ood8/pubhtml DROP any player on your roster and pick someone up that is drafted LATER. For example, Mario is drafted 1.1. I can drop him and pick up Ray Bourque, at 1.3 . I now need to make an additional move to even out my defense/forward ratio. You can make up to 3 total moves or less. The key here is we might end up with some teams having the SAME players. This is Ok. There will be no duplicate teams, and it is ONLY an EXI ROM for FUN, but you cannot trade with other coaches. Only drop down and pick someone else up that you could have just drafted in that slot. There will be no official site, no official schedule. Once everyone has posted their changes, I will post an update EXI ROM, named ETB_SUMMER.

Congrats to both FPB & Depch on making the finals for A. B side is lagging behind JUST a hair, as Pearate seems to be holding things up!! Come on Frenchy! Skip waits in the B finals.

Right now, we've got: Ice, Aqua, J&J, Tex, Habs, Raph, Jer, Brutus, Zep, Skip on the vet side. Bearhops & Tunowash are newcomers looking to get into the action. That's a 12 pack for now. I'll message out some other guys and see where we end up, and make a final determination.

Find a coach and get him to vouch you are able to play online. ANYONE from the site. We use Discord, NHL94 to chew the fat and setup games.

Also, I truly believe this: Best player is based on how you play the game. There is no vacuum where you can say, all 6's are better than all 5's. Each of the players have something the other doesn't, and are missing something the other's aren't. JR is extra light but nails all the check mars after that. Bure has 5/6 skating, not 6/6, and is light w/ a 4 shot. Mogs has 6/6 skating, is heavier and has the 4 shot. Yzer has 6/5 skating, is light but has 4 shot. Gartner has accuracy issues, but hits all the other variables, including not being too light, so for the right guy, his player is highly coveted. Klima has the 4 shot, but has all the numbers with it, perfect weight/balance and the wonderfully goofy awareness ratings. Light can be good or bad, but if you are talking about being dominant, being TOO light in the C/B era can be a detriment. But, depends on how you play. So, given that each coach plays a different way, I reject the notion that there exist one universal truth that this player has to be the best player because Plabax or FPB had the best results with them. I personally find Bure/Mogs to be AWESOME because they are SO fast, the goalie drops down earlier, making manual GC harder to stop them. As I use a lot of deke's, and would struggle at times vs elite GC, I found I scored with Bure or Mogs vs those coaches much easier than with a speed 5 guy.

To me, ALL of the GDL stats are padded by the fact that you had 24 coaches playing an even amount of games against each other, while the vast majority of the stats are versus a completely inferior opponent, as GDL was nowhere near 24 competitive coaches for a long time. So, if you decide to run 8 plus goals in a game vs lower opponent(s), you can decide who scores those goals much easier than if you do it vs similar talent, so Plabax's points about Shots On Goal are very relevant. This easily explains how the top scorer for all the strong scoring coaches have a guy towards the top of scoring each season even if they don't have an elite player on their squad. The stats come regardless because of abuse on B level players. Anyhow, pointing to the GDL records as proof a player is better/worse to me is then flawed logic because the data is corrupted. BUT, that said: I believe FPB can run up the score just using JR/one type of guy even vs A guys. Maybe not at the SAME clip, but the way he plays works vs A, A-, B players, and it is heavily dependent on ONE STUD. The better the stud, the better his results. I do agree Plabax could put up the same type of scoring by using just one player when he played the lower level players, but would fail to run up the scores when he played A level players, imo. In Classic, many years ago, I was Chicago and beat Plabax, who had his Rangers, and had touted them as the best team to use. HE was goal chasing for records, and needed to maintain an average for his season predictions to come true. He not only failed to run up the score on me, but he LOST more than once to me, which sent him into an epic meltdown where he quit the season after quitting mid-game. BUT, the point was he knew he needed to abuse me, a B level player, in order to reach those goals, because he couldn't make up the ground vs an A opponent. It made quitting easier for him because he did the math and knew it was over, even with half a season left. If it were all A, I think Raph could possibly still maitain some scoring average, but would lose a lot of games. I think FPB would do it and still win (as he always does), and I think Plabax could not. However, I still would put money on Plabax to win most leagues he joins. Kids true game (lag switch or not), is still SICK!

No. But last post by Halifax seemed like SOMETHING was locked. I was thinking of the reduced penalty to one minute like in ETB, EVEN if we use Classic ROM. I liked it a lot, and it seemed to be a good compromise from guys who HATE penalties.

2 reasons I'm NOT doing ETB right now, as previously mentioned on #2. #1 Skip is currently running a league that is WBF and is tying up half of the B guys who would make up the ETB B side and a few of the A guys. #2 I PERSONALLY do NOT want to be playing WBF and then spending money to goto Vegas to get my butt kicked because I spent the summer playing under a ROM with completely different physics. Since I'm the guy who is going to be running it, my one big NO is a lock

I definitely want to get a take on what guys want, just like this, so we can figure out the supply/demand here and put together whatever we can.

The poll is the best way to start: WHO IS AVAILABLE??? LOCKED SETUP: Classic Rom. The back drop: I'd planned on possibly using Google Docs to run some form of a Survivor style Classic league this summer, where we would log scores, not stats. So, you would not have a Draft, but would pick which team to use vs which opponent. Given some like to play more than others, I also figured I'd come up with a ranking system to enable some reward for heavy action, and some reward for higher win percentages, and do like a tourney based on your ranking at the end of summer. Figure, June, July, August is finals. Would be a great lead into Vegas. ANYHOW, COMPLETELY open to running some form of a Plablegs style league or what not if interest is high enough. Not running ETB back till Winter, as Vegas does NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT use Weight Bug fixed rom, and so, I won't be using that ROM till after Vegas.

Not to try to be argumentative, but I don't find that momentum affects it at all. I also don't think the player you are using affects it at all. If the player's ratings had an effect on it, then momentum might have an effect. To me, and I've been watching it for a while, it is one of those things you can easily fill in something that is not real, because odds are, 50% of the time, whatever you do is going to be "proven right". If I toss the coin from this angle, it tends to land heads. The next 4 out of 5 come up heads. PROOF! It's not a stat that is counted in season mode, but in the past during a forum post like this, guys have taken time to count face off percentages for a decent amount of games and found that almost everyone sits around 50% over a long enough time line/large enough data sample.

I agree that against the wall, I always feel I lose it if I push to the right! One game at 73% doesn't mean much & I know you are generally higher like me, but I thought it was more like a total of 52% instead of say 65%, for your total face offs . 2% is an obvious bonus but not enough to declare it true, especially when hitting no buttons can get you a winning faceoff close to 50%.

Also, I used to feel a righty could push to right easier & lefty to left easier, and pulling back angle left or angle right was easier as well with the correct handed center, BUT... as ive studied to the results more over the past year, the stats aren't backing my feelings. Does seem to have some rock, paper , scissors effect while I'm in the game & playing, but when it's over & I look back at like 10 plus games of data, I'm way too close to 50% for this to be true. Only thing is true is you can direct where the faceoff goes to if you win.