A few days late on this one, but better than never right? And with the fairly predicable trend in the current playoffs, I guess this means one can virtually correct reality.

Presenting:

The reason why this one is getting its own entry is because it is by a new team comprised of @AdamCatalyst, @Jkline3 and myself, and combines hopefully the best contributions of both of our previous games, under the banner of the X-Factor Edition.

 

Also switching it up with some retro art style adapted to the modern logo.

And Ron Barr gets called back to call the games.

 

And if the duo-tone Oilers uniform and logo isn't enough of a clue, this edition puts its emphasis on the alternate uniforms when available.

Retro and modern styling combinations stretch into the Player Cards. Not in black and white though, but that's kind of just channelling the SNES version.

 

Player benches are imported from Adam's release, with some new animated Coach sprites.

Players can play any position.
Long names contracted to original 9_10 format.
Player sprites adapted with the composite sticks
New 3-Star calculator
And more...
 

Hope you folks enjoy this one.

NHL 2024 - X-Factor 94.bin

Great Work guys!!! Love seeing all you collab and i’ll be trying this tomorrow. This really was the perfect time for me to start getting into 94. Any chance on getting some artwork that would fit on steam? Love playing this on my steam deck. 

I *LOVE* that Ron Barr has an arena in his background. 

all this beautiful graphic editing and no ones made an eye and stick patch for 93-30 team rom... sooooo sad

Great work, all of you, and thank you for another fun cooperative ROM. The one thing that has always "bothered" me about EA NHL is the center ice logo. Nothing to do with anyone's incredible mod work here, but is there a way to make it look more true-to-form (I know rotating the logo has been done, but not rotating 90 degrees with the red/white center line going all the way through, etc. as it looks on TV)? Just going on this latest release, I added a picture (not the best angle) to clarify...

Maybe the coding doesn't allow it? Either way, great and fun ROM!

 

Yikes. Sorry the attachment is so big.

Technically the center ice logo can be both rotated and have the line go through it, but the drawback there is that the logo ends up sharing space with the center line, which only uses half a tile, which will then lock in your colours to the same ones used by the rink as opposed to using the team colours. This was an example I made of this.

Or the other options would mean having about a four pixel gap between the logo and the center line, or I think one of the original games used the face tone to fill in the middle part of the center line, but the shift in colour is very conspicuous and you're kind of better off without it.

9 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

Technically the center ice logo can be both rotated and have the line go through it, but the drawback there is that the logo ends up sharing space with the center line, which only uses half a tile, which will then lock in your colours to the same ones used by the rink as opposed to using the team colours. This was an example I made of this.

Or the other options would mean having about a four pixel gap between the logo and the center line, or I think one of the original games used the face tone to fill in the middle part of the center line, but the shift in colour is very conspicuous and you're kind of better off without it.

I completely understand now, thanks for the explaination. I can see sharing colors would throw off team colors/logos and that's not good.

Thanks again. I wish the coloring worked, though, because you're example is 30 years coming and  looks great!

Edited June 22, 20242 yr by AndrewB
Added comment

I had luck doing this by using the skin tone and the shadow color to make the line and dot so I could still use the team palettes, but I also did not put the lines *over* the logo just for aesthetic reasons. 
 

So in my template it would be

- center dot

- logo

- line underneath

Edited June 22, 20242 yr by Sean

14 hours ago, Sean said:

I had luck doing this by using the skin tone and the shadow color to make the line and dot so I could still use the team palettes, but I also did not put the lines *over* the logo just for aesthetic reasons. 
 

So in my template it would be

- center dot

- logo

- line underneath

You're right, you did, and I missed it or forgot it from (apologies to anyone working hard) my favorite NHL94 ROM. @Sean did it. I take back my previous posts.

Just noting, I'm consistently getting Address Error freezes with this ROM specifically vs CPU when scoring empty nets. I'm not certain if it's always during a specific period or whatnot - I'll keep note from now on, but it's happened 4 times recently. Unsure if something like this could be fixed, just thought I'd share. Playing on a MiSTer with up-to-date Genesis core.

Oh? I never noticed any errors in my testing, but thoroughness aside, I only did this in emulation mode. Are you able to replicate and find what situation the error comes up in?

Been busy the last few days, though it's been reproducible with 100% success for me every time I score empty net goals vs CPU. 

On 7/30/2024 at 10:40 AM, Vlad said:

specifically vs CPU when scoring empty nets.

 

Ah, yes. You did say that didn't you.

Regarding specific times in the game: Behind the scenes, the pulling-the-goalie parameters are modified that the CPU will empty their net at the 60 seconds remaining mark, if the deficit is one or two goals. I did a test where I was up by one and the CPU pulled their goalie and I scored to go up by two. Their goalie still pulled, I scored again. Up by three and their goalie back in, I let them score. Up by only two again, I scored once more and it was actually this third empty netter that I noticed an odd glitch in the top left corner of the crowd. It was only for a fraction of a second before going away when the "Goal! Scored by..." window came up though, but that was actually the only issue I encountered and at no time did it freeze or display an error for me.

I am curious if this has something to do with the modified parameters for pulling the goalie. [Usually the CPU will only pull the goalie if down by exactly two goals] but since I'm using Gens on a Windows machine, I'm also thinking that this may also be an emulator specific issue as well. Got any ideas @AdamCatalyst?

@Vlad If you were willing, would you check my latest ROM (linked in my signature), and see if it has the same issue for you? I ask because a version of my ROM was used as a basis, and it would help us isolate where & when the problem originated. A few more questions to consider:

- does it happen when you are the home team, visiting team, or both?

- does it happen on the top net, bottom net, or both? (essentially the same question)

- Any particular teams that you are scoring with?

- Any particularly players that you are scoring with?

I have no way of testing on a MiSTer unfortunately, but when I tried to recreate this error with GenesisPlus 1.7.5.1, my game ended like this when Draisaitl scored a Hat Trick, with ~2 minutes left in the 3rd. Is that the kind of error you are seeing?

@AdamCatalyst Same address error, yep - not certain about the error code however. I'll do a bit of fiddling around tonight and get back to your questions, keeping notes as I go along. I can answer these however;

1 hour ago, AdamCatalyst said:

- does it happen when you are the home team, visiting team, or both?

Have only tested with Home as of yet. I'll switch this around.

1 hour ago, AdamCatalyst said:

- Any particular teams that you are scoring with?

Only played with EDM so far on both of your ROMs. I'll change that around too tonight.

Edited August 2, 20242 yr by Vlad

@AdamCatalystCan't replicate it on your ROM, no matter what I try.
@von OzbourneStill happening regardless of teams selected, other settings always as follows;

• Regular Season
• One - Home
• 5 Minutes
• Manual Control
• User Records Off
• Penalties On, Except Off-sides
• Line Changes Off

I've tried different teams, scoring all with one player or many, home/away and both top/bottom nets - so far, only happening when playing as home on the top net. As far as I've narrowed it down to so far.

@Vlad Thank-you so much for taking the time to report all this! I will take a look later today and see if I can figure anything out. This is a big help.

If you have time later, check if those empty net goals could be hat tricks, or if this issue happens as the visiting team. No worries if you are too busy.

@AdamCatalystI'll give it a go either today or tomorrow. Don't mind providing info, really enjoy these two ROMs so it's no issue.