Thread: Does Anyone Else Play NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007?

It's a terrific game, and dangerously addictive. I've been playing the Championship Manager series (which simulates Soccer leagues - EHM is essentially just a hockey adaption of the same game engine) for a decade, and love it.

I only recently got EHM however (not out of lack of interest, but more out of fear of what it would do to my work discipline ). Am now in year four with the Philadelphia Flyers and doing pretty well - two straight President Trophies and SC's. Through trades I managed to nab the 1st overall picks in the drafts those years too, so my future includes John Tavares and Steve Stamkos. Current lineup (2009-10):

F: Forsberg, Mike Richards, Lee Falardeau, Scott Walker, Gagne, Matt Cullen, Jochen Hecht, Janne Louhi, Corey Perry, Erik Cole, Nick Parrish, John Tavares

D: Pitkanen, Mike van Ryn, Brian Campbell, Ivan Baranka, Dmitri Tolkunov, Evgeny Shtayger

G: Nittymaki, Norrena

The gamemakers seem to have had somewhat different ideas of which players develop well than real life, but I find one aspect in which the game is very instructive is in how horribly difficult it is to keep a good team together under the cap system. To put it differently, it isn't possible - it's just a question of which good players you choose to lose that year. I found, somewhat to my suprise, that FA signings is generally not the best way to address the issue. I have signed only one notable UFA in 3 pre-seasons - Erik Cole. A better approach has seemed :

1) to make trade deadline deals moving upcoming FAs you've decided you can't keep, preferably for players who can help you but who are on longer - and cheaper - contracts. Inevitably that means shipping veterans for younger players who are less capable right now, in a situation where you are looking to challenge for the cup. But it is still worth it, to keep the team competetive.

2) Make full use of European UFAs. There are a lot of undrafted players in Europe who are good enough to come in and play in your third pairing or your fourth line. Some of them stick, most don't. But they are all essentially free assets. Sign a bunch every year, stock your farm with them, call them up occasionally and you will find they are eventually tradeable for worthwhile assets like even fairly high draft picks, or to fill out more important trades.

3) Don't be afraid to translate players or prospects you can do without into draft picks, and put serious work into drafting well. Once your prospects are coming intop the lineup, it's critical relief for your endemic cap problems.

cheers

Just won my first President's Trophy with the Kings. Hopefully on my way to my 2nd Stanley Cup lead by Jarome Iginla.

Originally Posted by Qvist

It's a terrific game, and dangerously addictive. I've been playing the Championship Manager series (which simulates Soccer leagues - EHM is essentially just a hockey adaption of the same game engine) for a decade, and love it.

It's an adaptation of an older game engine. Glad to hear you like Football Manager.

The gamemakers seem to have had somewhat different ideas of which players develop well than real life

The coders don't really have to do anything with that. The company uses scouts (="researchers") and from what I heard, the scouting was really problematic in last year. There were 5 Russian researchers and they all ran away. Only 3 researchers were doing whole Europe and Russia. And they were in constant fights with researchers from North America.

I'd like to comment some of the posts from the other thread, too.

Originally Posted by TotalRecarl

Yeah i heard people follow this game like a religion in the old country.

i wonder why these havent been made for american football and baseball with any success, with the popularity of fantasy leagues.

EA Football general manager, or whatever it was, sucked.

Yeah, it's really amazing, that Football Manager is the fastest selling game in United Kingdom, which means it beats every other game. I think that about 150 000 copies are sold in UK in first 2-3 days.

Regarding other sports, there are two things that I'm going to mention. The company (Sports Interactive) politics is, that they would like a game to already exist before they take it under their cover. The hockey game was being done by a really nice guy, Riz from Finland. Sports interactive thought the idea was nice and offered him a job.

The problems with American professional leagues is just too huge. They need to negotiate the rights and sometimes it's just not worth it. MLS currently IS in the game, but only as a consequence of tough negotiations (lasted several years). The Japanese league was cut from the game, because they couldn't reach an agreement. Some national teams are fake (german and dutch), but they can be unfaked. To get license for NFL is mission impossible, really.

Originally Posted by Die Radio Die

It officially died this year but there's still a slight chance that the project gets resurrected.

Not in the near future. The game ended in red numbers. Riz is currently working at financial coding of Football Manager, which means the hockey department (there were only 3-4 people coding the game anyway) is part of the football department now.

Fantastic game. I love Football Manager even better, but a real solid product. It was too bad to hear it was getting dropped.

Originally Posted by Iron Duke

Fantastic game. I love Football Manager even better, but a real solid product. It was too bad to hear it was getting dropped.

Where are you from, Football Manager is not that popular in USA?

Yeah, I was really surprised to hear EHM's end. I knew it received high scores on gaming sites and I knew the game was not selling well. Probably SEGA, Sports Interactive owners and publishers are responsible for that. Not long ago SEGA bought the company and all of their games. Of course Football Manager is like 99% of the company, SEGA works very hard for this game. For EHM they didn't do any marketing at all. EHM is available only as digital download. EHM researchers are payed 1/20th of the money FM researchers get... So with SEGA showing absolutely no interest or support for EHM, it's not that strange to see the game die.

Originally Posted by trdi

Where are you from, Football Manager is not that popular in USA?

Yeah, I was really surprised to hear EHM's end. I knew it received high scores on gaming sites and I knew the game was not selling well. Probably SEGA, Sports Interactive owners and publishers are responsible for that. Not long ago SEGA bought the company and all of their games. Of course Football Manager is like 99% of the company, SEGA works very hard for this game. For EHM they didn't do any marketing at all. EHM is available only as digital download. EHM researchers are payed 1/20th of the money FM researchers get... So with SEGA showing absolutely no interest or support for EHM, it's not that strange to see the game die.

I'm from here and SoCal. I honestly have no idea how popular Football Manager is here, but I absolutely love that game. I usually try to start out as a manager of one of those lowly Conference North/South teams and see how far I can push them up. Think I got Kettering promoted a division or two pretty much on the strength of my recruiting of some young Nigerian and Cameroon players. Classic.

It's an adaptation of an older game engine. Glad to hear you like Football Manager.

Yes, I know - it is similar to CM4 even to the point of verbatim identical event messages. I've been playing the CM series since the mid-nineties, but never Football Manager. It's a bit complicated, and I don't know if I have the full overview, but - Championship Manager was developed by Eidos under the aegis of Sports Interactive, up through CM 3 with various updates. Then Sega purchased SI, the Eidos people left and Sega/SI released CM4, which is the last game I bought. Since that time, Sega started using "Football Manager", while Eidos again started using "Championship Manager" (latest version here: http://www.championshipmanager.co.uk/ ). Without having the played the latest releases from either, I must say I think of Eidos as "the real thing".

The coders don't really have to do anything with that. The company uses scouts (="researchers") and from what I heard, the scouting was really problematic in last year. There were 5 Russian researchers and they all ran away. Only 3 researchers were doing whole Europe and Russia. And they were in constant fights with researchers from North America.

Yes, I'm aware that this is the general system, my point was just "don't expect players to develop like in RL". That really sounds like they had troubled water, pity.

But once you get past established players it's inevitably speculative anyway. I think they may generally have made a little too many players a little too good though.

I'm playing with the latest update, and assumed that at least some player attributes had been adjusted on the basis of the 06-07 season (at least, that used to be the main point with updates). Given that, I thought that many of the 1st round 06 drafted prospects looked very weak. But when I downloaded the editor and checked their potential ratings they looked quite realistic. Some of the NHLers on the other hand are, well, surprisingly good.

It's a pity if the game isn't continued, and that is is badly supported, but maybe not surprising. A game like this only appeals to people who are interested in Hockey on a more than superficial level, who can only be found in large numbers in markets where Hockey is a major sport. In Europe, we're effectively talking of Sweden, Finland and maybe Switzerland as the only markets with a more than very limited appeal - 20 million people. Commericially speaking, Russia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are , I should think, effectively non-factor markets for game software due to piracy and low purchasing power. That leaves North America, but there you have little tradition for this type of game. I hope at least enthusiasts will continue to update the player data.

In Europe you can get the game in the stores, not just on download. At least the 05-06 version.

cheers

Originally Posted by Qvist

Yes, I know - it is similar to CM4 even to the point of verbatim identical event messages. I've been playing the CM series since the mid-nineties, but never Football Manager. It's a bit complicated, and I don't know if I have the full overview, but - Championship Manager was developed by Eidos under the aegis of Sports Interactive, up through CM 3 with various updates. Then Sega purchased SI, the Eidos people left and Sega/SI released CM4, which is the last game I bought. Since that time, Sega started using "Football Manager", while Eidos again started using "Championship Manager" (latest version here: http://www.championshipmanager.co.uk/ ). Without having the played the latest releases from either, I must say I think of Eidos as "the real thing".

Hehe, don't say that. Here is what happened. Sports Interactive were the developers of the game for 10 years, it's their game, two brothers coded CM1 in their "bedroom" and they were owners of Sports Interactive company. They weren't happy with their publishers, Eidos, because they were not advertising the game all over the world and because they were forced to release worst games in the series, before they were finished. So they left them, but found out, they were screwed somewhere during these 10-15 years they were working with Eidos - Eidos stole the name of the game. Championship Manager was their trademark now. So they had to choose different name and chose a name of a legendary game Football Manager, which existed even before Championship Manager. However Sports interactive owns the code and the data. Championship Manager had to start from the scratch and their game is laughable. SI had many offers on the table, but chose SEGA as their publishers. The huge selling results were transfered to Football Manager, too, not CM. Around FM 2006, SEGA actually bought the company and are now owners of SI.

In Europe you can get the game in the stores, not just on download. At least the 05-06 version.

The last version is available only as a digital download and I think that's a mistake and only shows, how SEGA doesn't care about the game. They are a big publisher and could easily afford printing DVD's and some sort of advertising campaign. When Football Manager had problems with Chinese government, SEGA Korea was having (successful) direct negotiations with Chinese government to find a solution. They know the business, they could have saved the game.