Jump to content
NHL'94 Forums

What do you want to ask Mark Lesser?


Recommended Posts

I believe Mikey is going to interview him this weekend.

This is your opportunity to submit some questions here for Mikey to ask Mark.

Post as many as you'd like!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At some point during game testing, I'm sure a replay had to come available of Madman Ray Bourque crashing behind the opposing teams goalie and wreaking all kinds of non-hockey havoc.

Was it a conscience, this is cool, we need more cowbell type thing?? Or one of those things you tried to correct it but once the crazy was in there, it took on it's own entity & just couldn't be taken out??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you aware of the weight bug?

How were individual player ratings ultimately determined?

Why NHL'95???

I've got a friend named Benjamin Franklin who would love to have the source code. Can I arrange a meeting?

Am I the only one that likes '95?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Key questions:

1. Weight-bug, known issue? Was it an inadvertent mistake made in final production?

2. Why are there fight rating for players but no fighting? When was it decided to remove fighting/blood?

3. Is the fighting code still in the GA?

4. Is he aware of the community of hackers that have fixed many of the issues with the game? That they've cracked the code to add Y-button goalie control?

5. Any great programming or gameplay-testing stories?

6. Any hidden easter eggs in the game or coding?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. The SNES version came out later, were you consulted/have any connection with that programming team?

2. When can we have a tournament at your place?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. How do we add fighting?

2. Seriously, how do we add fighting?

3. Can we add fighting?

4. Is there a way to add buttons to control your defensemen like in SNES?

5. Since you probably don't know/remember anything about my previous four questions, does the source code still exist somewhere?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

95 is a tragedy really because they really should have done one more year using the early engine so it could be the complete game with stats, seasons and better UI. i guess they felt they went far enough with 94 and deicided to start basically from scratch. i understand why they did it, unlike the nhl games of today they actually cared about their product then and didnt want to poop out the same turd every year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man, what do you say when you meet your God? Even harder to think here because this one actually exists!

First off i'd like to thank him for producing something that had a huge impact on my late childhood & accounted for many hours of fond memories with some of my best friends. It even became the motivation for them to visit me when I lived in New Jersey (I'm English) as an adult. They took a long weekend & transatlantic flights & we played a marathon 94 tourney with a couple of trips to NYC squeezed in around it. lol

For me the most fascinating questions are: 1) Did they know about the weight bug before the games shipped on Genesis (Obviously all 4 of the series)? Was it just that they couldn't work out why Mario sucked & due to time constrictions they just shipped it? They must've realised that something was wrong when Pittsburgh & St. Louis were struggling?

That aside, of course, does he still play it? Has it been a staple of his life for the past 20+ years the way it has for so many who bought it back in the day?

Really looking forward to this documentary

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oooohh Ooohhh Oooohhh!!!!

In the UK release on Mega CD there was a cheat code that got you to a secret menu where you could select to activate blood on injuries. Was definitely in there. Fore sure. 100%

........................Does he know the code? lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

95 is a tragedy really because they really should have done one more year using the early engine so it could be the complete game with stats, seasons and better UI. i guess they felt they went far enough with 94 and deicided to start basically from scratch. i understand why they did it, unlike the nhl games of today they actually cared about their product then and didnt want to poop out the same turd every year.

If I had to guess, they just didn't have space left on the cartridge, so redid a lot of code and graphics to make it smaller and ended up with totally different gameplay :(. I'm assuming they just didn't have permission to use a larger cartridge size due to sales expectations. I could be entirely wrong though!

Plus with NHL 94 on snes being completely different from Sega, they probably wanted to synchronize the games. Maybe the genesis version simply couldn't be ported nicely to super Nintendo hardware (see: nhlpa 93 on super Nintendo)

Anyway, I too would really love to hear his take on the rewrite from 94 to 95! I loved the season mode of 95, but the gameplay was meh. I spent more time simming seasons and seeing how my custom players did than playing the gameplay!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's awesome he's getting an interview. That Mikey gots the networking down.

1. What does he think about the cult following still?

2. Who were some other programmers on the game that had good input

3. When Designing the game How much thought was put into high level play? IE two nhl94 guys going at it.

Also NHL 95 rules. We just had a tourney last weekend and the game is still so great playing against another person. Hope to keep doing them until my thumbs falls off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You probably can't release the source code, for legal reasons.

But can you, possibly, help the great hackers here, to learn how to modify things like:

modify music, so custom tunes can be added?

and fix things, like the offside one-timer bug (where the offside skater can score on a one timer)?

Is there an easy or any way, to convert a modified .bin for the cartridge version, into an .iso for Sega CD version?

Can you possibly provide us with an Editor program?

The game is a masterpiece. I can only imagine all the time and preparation it took to create.

THANK YOU!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You probably can't release the source code, for legal reasons.

But can you, possibly, help the great hackers here, to learn how to modify things like:

modify music, so custom tunes can be added?

and fix things, like the offside one-timer bug (where the offside skater can score on a one timer)?

Is there an easy or any way, to convert a modified .bin for the cartridge version, into an .iso for Sega CD version?

Can you possibly provide us with an Editor program?

The game is a masterpiece. I can only imagine all the time and preparation it took to create.

THANK YOU!

Tips on the music format would be amazing, good idea, although I think the interview will not really be about technical things! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Who had the final say on ratings? For example who decided Hull would have a 3 Shot Accuracy when his NHL stats proved he was more accurate than that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Who had the final say on ratings? For example who decided Hull would have a 3 Shot Accuracy when his NHL stats proved he was more accurate than that?

Accuracy was based very closely on shooting percentage.

Ranked by shooting% that season:

	
	Rk 	Player 	         Season 	G 	S 	S% 	NHL94 Acc.
	1	Craig Simpson 	1992-93 	24	91	26.4	5
	2	Petr Nedved 	1992-93 	38	149	25.5	6
	3	Dmitri Khristic	1992-93 	31	127	24.4	6
	4	Brad Dalgarno 	1992-93 	15	62	24.2	4
	5	Mario Lemieux* 	1992-93 	69	286	24.1	6
	6	Luc Robitaille 	1992-93 	63	265	23.8	6
	7	Corey Millen 	1992-93 	23	100	23	4
	8	Gary Roberts 	1992-93 	38	166	22.9	5
	9	Eric Lindros 	1992-93 	41	180	22.8	6
	10	Benoit Hogue 	1992-93 	33	147	22.4	5
	11	Terry Yake 	1992-93 	22	98	22.4	4
	12	Brendan Shanaha	1992-93 	51	232	22	5
	13	Mats Sundin* 	1992-93 	47	215	21.9	5
	14	Alex Mogilny 	1992-93 	76	360	21.1	5
	15	Nick Kypreos 	1992-93 	17	81	21	4
	16	Stephan Lebeau 	1992-93 	31	150	20.7	5
	17	Brian Bradley 	1992-93 	42	205	20.5	5
	18	Dino Ciccarelli	1992-93 	41	200	20.5	5
	19	Shjon Podein 	1992-93 	13	64	20.3	4
	20	Greg Adams 	1992-93 	25	124	20.2	5
	21	Dallas Drake 	1992-93 	18	89	20.2	3
	22	Keith Primeau 	1992-93 	15	75	20	4
	23	Rick Tocchet 	1992-93 	48	240	20	5
	24	Chris Kontos 	1992-93 	27	136	19.9	5
	25	Dixon Ward 	1992-93 	22	111	19.8	5

So you can see that getting a lot of shots and maintaining a high shooting %age gave you high accuracy in the game.

Ranked by number of shots that season, sorted by lower shooting%

Rk 	Player  	Season  	G 	S 	S% 	NHL94 Acc.
16	Chris Chelios* 	1992-93 	15	290	5.2	1
5	Raymond Bourque	1992-93 	19	330	5.8	5 -- won the all star shooting accuracy
17	Al Iafrate 	1992-93 	25	289	8.7	2
9	Claude Lemieux 	1992-93 	30	311	9.6	2
6	Kevin Hatcher 	1992-93 	34	329	10.3	2
11	Mike Modano* 	1992-93 	33	307	10.7	3
15	Russ Courtnall 	1992-93 	36	294	12.2	3
24	Tony Amonte 	1992-93 	33	270	12.2	3
21	Adam Graves 	1992-93 	36	275	13.1	3
20	Stephane Richer	1992-93 	38	286	13.3	3
18	Vincent Damphou	1992-93 	39	287	13.6	3
2	Brett Hull* 	1992-93 	54	390	13.8	3 ---- average for the time
8	Mike Gartner* 	1992-93 	45	323	13.9	3

http://www.hockey-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&year_min=1993&year_max=1993&season_start=1&season_end=-1&age_min=0&age_max=99&birth_country=&franch_id=&is_active=&is_hof=&pos=S&handed=&c1stat=shot_pct&c1comp=gt&c1val=0&c2stat=shots&c2comp=gt&c2val=50&c3stat=&c3comp=gt&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=shot_pct

Plus, I think Hull has said he rarely aimed for a spot, he just shot it (ultimate one-timer guy)

He did shoot around 18%+ the previous 3 years, though, but they just looked at that one year for the game...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know does he remember anymore or was he working on these things, but I would like to know if he could clarify the awarenesses for us. What do they really mean, because there are so many theories and even some tests done to give contrary feelings. Few of the guys had tested it to be the speed for player reacting is your team or without the puck. Some say it's about positioning and there are some guys with contrary awarenesses that like to go to the net for example. If awarenesses are not about positioning according to those tests, what affects player positioning?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh man, yes! If he can really remember ANY programming tidbits about the game like

* the effect of off/def awareness

* what the passing rating actually does

* aggression? Is that left over from '93? Does it have any influence?

* does home ice advantage / road ice advantage do anything? Powerplay, etc.

* what causes a game to be skewed in favor of one team? Random?

* Any insights into AI behavior

* the hot/cold information that is displayed is NOT what is actually in the game

...that'd be great to know. Totally selfish for the community, and likely not applicable to the documentary, haha. I doubt he'll remember, but maybe he has a magic notebook or old reference files and he's in a mood to chat/reminisce?

Please also tell him the entire NHL94.com community says, "Hi!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Who's Online   0 Members, 0 Anonymous, 58 Guests (See full list)

    • There are no registered users currently online
×
×
  • Create New...