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Custom EIHL (GB) ROM - plan of action (and call for help!)


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1 hour ago, LaTormenta said:

@MonkeyHead - Sorry, mate, I thought I had replied to this.  The plan is to include Murph in the game and essentially do a head swap with Ron Barr!  At this rate, it might be the only way to see the EIHL teams in action this season...  The rinks are still closed in Manchester, which is playing havoc with Storm's academy teams (and also teams like Altrincham Aces, who also play at our barn). 

Same situation here in Wales - no ice available for the immediate future for any of the teams that use IAW. Convinced there will be no EIHL this year, and even if there is its gonna be much reduced in terms of duration and quality (with players understandably moving to operating leagues). As such, news that you are having a push on this project has cheered me up. Alas, I have no help to offer with your transparency issue, but am still looking forward to the finished article. I've been playing Sauce's 2020 ROM a lot to get my fix recently, but I would much rather rip a Haddad one timer past Duba instead of an Ovechkin one past Rask.

Oh, one question: how will the playoffs work? 10 into 16 is an awkward fit. Are sone teams going to need to play themselves  to simulate a "bye"?

Edited by MonkeyHead
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12 minutes ago, MonkeyHead said:

Same situation here in Wales - no ice available for the immediate future for any of the teams that use IAW. Convinced there will be no EIHL this year, and even if there is its gonna be much reduced in terms of duration and quality (with players understandably moving to operating leagues). As such, news that you are having a push on this project has cheered me up. Alas, I have no help to offer with your transparency issue, but am still looking forward to the finished article. I've been playing Sauce's 2020 ROM a lot to get my fix recently, but I would much rather rip a Haddad one timer past Duba instead of an Ovechkin one past Rask.

Oh, one question: how will the playoffs work? 10 into 16 is an awkward fit. Are sone teams going to need to play themselves  to simulate a "bye"?

I am hoping that the NIHL goes ahead, at least.  I have season tickets (or normally have them) for both Storm and (Alty) Aces, as I live a few tram stops away from the rink.  Aces tend to average about, er, twenty(!) fans a game, so social distancing will be easy enough...  I would rather that than the EIHL scoop-up all of the "talent" from the lower leagues, as the average punter will baulk at the drop in standard and the increase in nasty fighting.  Honestly, Deeside Dragons, despite being a pretty decent team, might as well have an MMA side hustle.  Plus, what happens afterwards?  Do all of the players just get jettisoned in favour of some 35 year old North American (no offence, guys!) who has played two games in the NHL?  It'd knee-cap the lower leagues (if not managed very carefully).

As daft as this may sound, I am currently (with the better half) checking out the KHL and other leagues around Europe, as there might be some mileage in flying out for a few long weekends here and there to check out games in, say, Sweden.  It's a nice option to have, I guess.

In terms of the play-offs, thanks for flagging it and I will have a think about it.  I have a few ROMS where there are a similar number of teams, so will check those to see how it works (unless someone volunteers the answer here first). 

(Otherwise and FYI - the weight bug is staying in the game.  This is for one reason only - Tyson Fawcett (5'7" and just shy of 12 stone) will be an absolute beast!)

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54 minutes ago, LaTormenta said:

(Otherwise and FYI - the weight bug is staying in the game.  This is for one reason only - Tyson Fawcett (5'7" and just shy of 12 stone) will be an absolute beast!)

 

That may be highly entertaining. Is a second version without the bug too much to hope for?  If not, no worries, the weight bug fix is simple enough to apply myself.

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I just posted an outline of how I get my logos with Paint & GIMP. Not sure if that's useful to you or not. Very similar method for doing center ice but your colors will be limited even further. I can put something together on that too if you would find it useful (or others tell me I'm an idiot and there's a much easier way to do this...).

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14 hours ago, Jkline3 said:

I just posted an outline of how I get my logos with Paint & GIMP. Not sure if that's useful to you or not. Very similar method for doing center ice but your colors will be limited even further. I can put something together on that too if you would find it useful (or others tell me I'm an idiot and there's a much easier way to do this...).

I've just seen this (and the guide is awesome and looks idiot-proof!).  Thanks.  Any assistance on the ice logos would be appreciated, as I think I am over-complicating the process due to trying due to juggle too many programmes (Paint Shop Pro, Irfanview, GIMP, Paint etc.).

Edited by LaTormenta
Removed a stupid question!
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14 hours ago, MonkeyHead said:

That may be highly entertaining. Is a second version without the bug too much to hope for?  If not, no worries, the weight bug fix is simple enough to apply myself.

Sure, no worries.  I am a purist, so the main version will be warts and all, but a second version will be easy enough to sort.

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  • 5 months later...

I just wanna voice my support for this mod. Early progress and planning looks/sounds great :D

I'm not a big follower of the EIHL (I've never really had much interest higher than my local team – Invicta Dynamos – in NIHL South Div 1) but it'd be awesome to get some British hockey represented in NHL 94!

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Fwiw I am looking at making an EIHL rom for 95. Teams, rosters and logos etc are not too hard, but getting the full season to work is potentially a nightmare (3 conferences, odd number of teams...) , but also potentially do-able. Thanks to @UltraMagnus for most of his discoveries... :)

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@EagleXIII and @MonkeyHead - To be honest, I have been struggling with finding time to do the graphics, as they have been driving me nuts.  I keep trying, making an utter hash of it, deleting the working ROM and then trying afresh. 

My current version of the ROM has all the team details, player names / numbers, kits (subject to the graphics point below) and the lines sorted, using the 32 team ROM as a base for a number of reasons.

@MonkeyHead - The EIHL Twitter account used to publish them before games before last season was mothballed, which you might find useful.

I also have all of the simplified logos and splash screens ready to go but I am finding it inordinately difficult to get the damn things into the ROM, which is ridiculous especially given there are only 10 teams in the league!  The only thing I have left to do after getting over that sizeable (for me) hurdle is to sort player ratings but I have an idea how to quickly manage this, as well as tweak the play-off brackets.  I do intend on sorting the graphics but having been trying to resist the urge to throw a Hail Mary out there and ask for help, as I appreciate that people are (rightly) busy doing their own things.  If anyone has any ideas how to do it quickly and easily (without resulting in me drop-kicking one of my many pets into space), I'm all ears!

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@LaTormenta @MonkeyHead @EagleXIII Im going to toss my help into the ring. If you gents would like, I can create the EIHL rom for you on the NHL95 platform with the following:

  • 10 team season, but will have to expand with others to create (or just empty) to full rom. 5 in each conference, with "empty teams" filling the gap. They just wont have any games to be played. Or have a rival league on the other side (ie Scottish National League and Irish Hockey League.= 15 extra teams) 
  • Updated all the logos, ice, team select, player cards, banners and scoreboard.
  • Player ratings, jersey # and names you can help out with that.

Let me know if this tickles your fancy.

 

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1 hour ago, MonkeyHead said:

Fwiw I am looking at making an EIHL rom for 95. Teams, rosters and logos etc are not too hard, but getting the full season to work is potentially a nightmare (3 conferences, odd number of teams...) , but also potentially do-able. Thanks to @UltraMagnus for most of his discoveries... :)

Oh sweet, I'm definitely on board for that too if you ever get the season working! Be a good reason to check out 95 some more :) 

28 minutes ago, LaTormenta said:

@EagleXIII and @MonkeyHead - To be honest, I have been struggling with finding time to do the graphics, as they have been driving me nuts.  I keep trying, making an utter hash of it, deleting the working ROM and then trying afresh. 

My current version of the ROM has all the team details, player names / numbers, kits (subject to the graphics point below) and the lines sorted, using the 32 team ROM as a base for a number of reasons.

I figured there'd been snags when I saw the topic had gone silent for a while! I appreciate all the work that goes into these mods, I got no worries being patient. Sounds like you've made an amazing amount of progress despite the snags :)

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7 minutes ago, UltraMagnus said:

@LaTormenta @MonkeyHead @EagleXIII Im going to toss my help into the ring. If you gents would like, I can create the EIHL rom for you on the NHL95 platform with the following:

  • 10 team season, but will have to expand with others to create (or just empty) to full rom. 5 in each conference, with "empty teams" filling the gap. They just wont have any games to be played. Or have a rival league on the other side (ie Scottish National League and Irish Hockey League.= 15 extra teams) 
  • Updated all the logos, ice, team select, player cards, banners and scoreboard.
  • Player ratings, jersey # and names you can help out with that.

Let me know if this tickles your fancy.

 

@UltraMagnus - That's a really kind offer and I suspect that @MonkeyHead will bite your hand off on the NHL '95 version. 

I tend to stick to NHL '94, so I will try and muddle along with that for the time being (and try not to smash my PC into bits), but I will definitely play any EIHL / NHL '95 version of the game that gets finalised. 

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5 minutes ago, EagleXIII said:

Oh sweet, I'm definitely on board for that too if you ever get the season working! Be a good reason to check out 95 some more :) 

I figured there'd been snags when I saw the topic had gone silent for a while! I appreciate all the work that goes into these mods, I got no worries being patient. Sounds like you've made an amazing amount of progress despite the snags :)

Yeah, I'm struggling with the graphics.  I sorta knew that was going to be the case but was hoping to plough through it.  I have everything ready to go (save that I need to recolour the banners), it's just putting the stuff in the game, as I keep struggling with the kit colours vs. the logos and other annoying things.  The tools are ace, I just seem to keep making silly mistakes. 

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@UltraMagnus - I should have mentioned this before, but if you end up working on an NHL '95 ROM, I can send you me cleaned-up versions of the EIHL team logos if that would be helpful?  Some of them are a little "busy", so I have tried to rework them within reason for NHL '94 but they might also do the trick for NHL '95.

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18 minutes ago, UltraMagnus said:

@LaTormenta @MonkeyHead @EagleXIII Im going to toss my help into the ring. If you gents would like, I can create the EIHL rom for you on the NHL95 platform with the following:

  • 10 team season, but will have to expand with others to create (or just empty) to full rom. 5 in each conference, with "empty teams" filling the gap. They just wont have any games to be played. Or have a rival league on the other side (ie Scottish National League and Irish Hockey League.= 15 extra teams) 
  • Updated all the logos, ice, team select, player cards, banners and scoreboard.
  • Player ratings, jersey # and names you can help out with that.

Let me know if this tickles your fancy.

 

I get the feeling you would be able to do this way better than me, so by all means, go ahead. I would be willing to help with player\team ratings and little details (areans, broadcasters, kits, conference structures etc) as I am familiar with the league. 

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2 hours ago, MonkeyHead said:

I get the feeling you would be able to do this way better than me, so by all means, go ahead. I would be willing to help with player\team ratings and little details (areans, broadcasters, kits, conference structures etc) as I am familiar with the league. 

Yeah, I can get the logos, banners, ice, scoreboard and others in place pretty quickly. My hangup all the time is the rosters+ratings. The arenas, broadcasters, kits and conference structures as well.

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Might be easiest to post a copy of a ROM with placeholder rosters for me to fill in for you with names, arenas, and kits once you get graphics etc in place. Then I could post it "filled in" with rosters etc., along with the info you need for season structure\broadcasters. Shouldn't be too hard - 3 of them I have already after editing your CHL ROM to make the Devils, Giants and steelers more accurate.

Edited by MonkeyHead
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2 hours ago, UltraMagnus said:

@LaTormenta @MonkeyHead @EagleXIII Im going to toss my help into the ring. If you gents would like, I can create the EIHL rom for you on the NHL95 platform with the following:

  • 10 team season, but will have to expand with others to create (or just empty) to full rom. 5 in each conference, with "empty teams" filling the gap. They just wont have any games to be played. Or have a rival league on the other side (ie Scottish National League and Irish Hockey League.= 15 extra teams) 
  • Updated all the logos, ice, team select, player cards, banners and scoreboard.
  • Player ratings, jersey # and names you can help out with that.

Let me know if this tickles your fancy.

 

@UltraMagnus That would be amazing - consider me tickled! :lol:

I don’t have anywhere near the knowledge base that @MonkeyHead has - but if there’s anything else in the workload I can help with I’ll be glad to pitch in.

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So, to get this going right away. I've came up with a few requests from across the pond to you gents @LaTormenta@MonkeyHead@EagleXIII and any others.

  • 3 Main screens -- logo of each league? player? Historic?
  • Division Breakdown - EIHL for the western conference (since there is only 12 teams, can put 1 dummy team per division) and the Eastern conference I can put the Irish and Scottish leagues to balance it out. Than only have the EIHL play against themselves and the same for the other conference. Then the winner of the EIHL with play for the championship against the winner from Scott/Irish.
  • Banners - team names or logo?
  • Player cards - logo or player image?

This is the start. I already have the team logos and jersey colors.

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1 minute ago, EagleXIII said:

@UltraMagnus That would be amazing - consider me tickled! :lol:

I don’t have anywhere near the knowledge base that @MonkeyHead has - but if there’s anything else in the workload I can help with I’ll be glad to pitch in.

If you can pull together the Scottish and Irish leagues for the Eastern conference teams that would be great. 

- IIHL Irish Ice Hockey League Elite Prospects - Irish Ice Hockey League (IIHL)

- SHL Scottish Hockey League Elite Prospects - Scottish National League (SNL)

 

I think that it would help fill out the league or if it would be better to stick with only 10 teams. Maybe even bring in the Ligue Magnus (French) Elite Prospects - Synerglace Ligue Magnus (Ligue Magnus)

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3 main screens - one of the awful league logo, one of the Giants getting the most recent league trophy, one of a well known player (like Bowns, Ginn, Haddad, Owen, Martin, Herr, Connolly, Fournier- any stats leader).

Divisions - this was a bugbear for me. Used to have 3. Erhardt (Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Nottingham - easily strongest), Gardiner (Dundee, Fife, Glasgow - scots competition), and Patton (Coventry, Manchester and Guildford). This was dropped in 2019-2020 for a straight 10 team league. I was thinking of having 3 small conferences with blank placeholder teams. You could split this into a North\South geographically, or East\West if 2 works better). Could easily pad to a full four with lower division teams... Going for just the 10 EIHL teams makes most sense though as the quality gulf to lower divisions is vast. 6 games v each team gives a 54 game regular season.

Names would be better for banners as we have some awful logos.

Player photos would be nice - should be available somewhere!

Edited by MonkeyHead
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If you need an extra team, add Milton Keynes Lightning, as they are likely to join the EIHL in the near future.  Leeds Chiefs might also join in due course.  The other Scottish and Irish teams are awful by comparison (essentially part-timers) and it'd be a bit of a farce having any of them in a final against an EIHL team.  The last time I recall a friendly between an EIHL team and another UK team taking place, it was a bloodbath.   

I will continue working on the '94 version of the game but feel free to continue to use this thread for the '95 discussion, although I will not have much to add as I do not play '95 all that often.

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7 minutes ago, MonkeyHead said:

3 main screens - one of the awful league logo, one if the Giants getting the most recent league trophy, one of a well known player (Say, Bowns, Ginn, Haddad, Owen, Martin, Herr, Connolly, Fournier- any stats leader).

 

Divisions - this was a bugbear for me. Used to have 3. Erhardt (Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Nottingham - easiky strongest), Gardiner (Dundee, Fife, Glasgow - scots competition), and Patton (Coventry, Manchester and Guildford). This was dropped in 2019-2020 for a straight 10 team league. I was thinking of having 3 small conferences with blank placeholder teams. You could split this into a North\South geographically, or East\West if 2 works better). Could easily pad to a full four with lower division teams... Going for just the 10 EIHL teams makes most sense though as the quality gulf to lower divisions is vast. 6 games v each team gives a 54 game regular season.

 

Names would be better for banners as we have some awful logos.

Player photos would be nice - should be available somewhere!

Perfect. Makes it alot easier. Ill put blank place holders for the remaining teams. Ill put together the 2 conferences (Erhardt in one and the Gardiner/Patton in the other.

Create the 3 divisions, but 1 division will simply be a placeholder division. Layout below 

Western Conference 

  • Erhardt
    • Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Nottingham, EMPTY, EMPTY
  • EMPTY
    • EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY

Eastern Confrence

  • Gardiner
    • Dundee, Fife, Glasgow, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY
  • Patton
    • Coventry, Manchester and Guildford, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY
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3 minutes ago, LaTormenta said:

If you need an extra team, add Milton Keynes Lightning, as they are likely to join the EIHL in the near future.  Leeds Chiefs might also join in due course.  The other Scottish and Irish teams are awful by comparison (essentially part-timers) and it'd be a bit of a farce having any of them in a final against an EIHL team.  The last time I recall a friendly between an EIHL team and another UK team taking place, it was a bloodbath.   

I will continue working on the '94 version of the game but feel free to continue to use this thread for the '95 discussion, although I will not have much to add as I do not play '95 all that often.

If you want some help with the graphics for 94' I can help out as well. Since, Ive started my Fantasy Rom on the 94 version.

Mostly, in the 95 games.

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Just now, UltraMagnus said:

If you want some help with the graphics for 94' I can help out as well. Since, Ive started my Fantasy Rom on the 94 version.

Mostly, in the 95 games.

Mate, if you don't mind that'd be awesome.  It's causing me a massive headache.  Want me to DM you a .zip file of everything I have to date?

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If you had to include defunct teams, MK Lightning and Edinburgh Capitals would make sense (more recently defunct, with MK probably moving back up  soon, and Edinburgh Racers still an entity who wanted the EIHL slot), as I could come up with reasonable rosters without too many retired or duplicated players. 3 of those 4 would be a challenge to roster, and the stingrays were gutted by teams buying up the roster (most notably Coventry) so a fair few clones might be needed.

Swindon Wildcats might be worth including...

Or, a Team GB, as all but a handful of the roster play in the EIHL.

OR, even more random, 2 all star EIHL teams - one current, one "all time greats".

Edited by MonkeyHead
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