Face Off Hockey by Wolverine Studios

Post by **archibalduk** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:08 pm

Is this a text-based game: http://www.wolverinestudios.com/news/foh090908.html

It looks like it is: http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/pc ... bd550.html

Could we be seeing a future alternative to EHM???

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:24 pm

I was a little confused. There was mention of FaceOff being a "brand". Somebody in the forum said they had been playing it for 30 years. I think they were talking about something that was a card game at some point. I also notice that some of the people involved with Wolverine (or at least the guy in the forum who was from Wolverine Studios) used to be involved with 400 Studios. They put out sport management sims. The ones here looked very similar.

I've got my fingers crossed hoping it turns out good and we see some results (ever screenshots) soon.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:34 pm

Faceoff Hockey 2008
http://www.wolverinestudios.com/news/foh090908.html

"(we will) update the prior version of the single season replay PC game (of faceoff hockey) for the 2008-09 season. Going forward we intend to introduce career play to the franchise as we do with our other sports titles.

What do you guys think? I for one don't know what to expect because i've never played any Faceoff hockey game or Wolverine Studios game. I tried FOF demo and hated the interface so i'm alittle nervous about this but still can't help being very excited.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:09 pm

*From dave1927p in separate thread:

What do you guys think? I for one don't know what to expect because i've never played any Faceoff hockey game or Wolverine Studios game. I tried FOF demo and hated the interface so i'm alittle nervous about this but still can't help being very excited.

As for me, I'm gonna remain skeptical as always. I've never heard of the game or the developer, so I'll take it for what it is, but keep an eye out.

Though, I do see college basketball in their line-up. It'd be cool if they went with a multi-league game like EHM, and used that college module to make college hockey playable. But it looks like they split between pro and college for their games, so I don't know...

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:35 pm

thanks Stinson and sorry for the dup. If wolverine's hockey sim catches on will you turn this into a EHM and Faceoff Hockey forum or perhaps have a section for it? I guess it may be too early to say. I hope they make the game fully customizable but i doubt they will.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:22 am

i was just reading the Faceoff Hockey 2004 review from IGN and i'm alittle confussed. It says:

"The developers may have designed a serious hockey simulation for the serious hockey fan, but the dated, almost DOS-like interface and absence of nifty accessories, like career play, make it an acquired taste."

Just to clarify 'career play' is like in EHM? So then what was Faceoff Hockey 2004? Does this mean a single season?

Post by **B. Stinson** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:28 am

I think that's what it means - just one year of play, like the early NHL console games were.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:05 am

B. Stinson wrote:I think that's what it means - just one year of play, like the early NHL console games were.

IC. Now why would people prefer to play that over a career sim? A huge part of the fun for me is the draft and FA

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:20 am

dave1927p wrote:Now why would people prefer to play that over a career sim? A huge part of the fun for me is the draft and FA

Perhaps it was too complex or time-consuming to code continuous seasons and all the events it involves (e.g. contract negotiations, drafts, etc). That's the only reason I can think of

dave1927p wrote:If wolverine's hockey sim catches on will you turn this into a EHM and Faceoff Hockey forum or perhaps have a section for it? I guess it may be too early to say. I hope they make the game fully customizable but i doubt they will.

Heh it's far too early to do something like that. Who knows how well their game will turn out. As far as I'm concerned, this will remain solely an EHM Forum for the foreseeable future. There's no reason why we can't discuss this game in this thread, etc.

Perhaps we should draw up a list of lessons learned from EHM? E.g. make the game as customisable as possible because you don't know how many versions of the game will be released.

Post by **Alessandro** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:03 pm

Have you guys seen Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball?
From the screens it looks great. If they are going to do the same for hockey, well, that would be interesting!

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:23 pm

yeah if only they did that for EHM07. There would be alot more people still playing for years because there isn't a hockey game like it out their, and it doesn't seem like there will be for a long time.

Post by **archibalduk** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:55 am

Dave, I see you've been posting over at the Wolverine Forums. I was thinking of doing the same to get them aware of EHM and how they could perhaps take inspiration from it. However, now I've seen this post I'm not sure it's going to be the sort of game we were hoping for:

RandV80 wrote: You're thinking of another EHM type sim, but Faceoff, as Wolverine Studios is inheriting it, is nothing of the sort. Faceoff is a pure 'recreation' sim, which takes stats from the past season and compiles them into a set of averages used as player ratings, providing the most realistic hockey simulation you can find. This is great for an online league played with other people, where Faceoff excels, and is highly customizable. The single player aspect on the other hand is pretty much nil. Not that the new guys can't add a single player aspect, I'd just think they need to focus on getting what is already there into a new more user friendly interface.

Here's the link: http://www.wolverinestudios.com/forum/s ... php?t=5884

Post by **Alessandro** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:54 am

But why?

Their basketball simulator seems something similar to a management game as we like!

mtsouth · Post by **mtsouth** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:15 pm

Wolverine Studios produces solid sim products. I purchased the Pro Basketball game a few years ago from Gary (the head of Wolverine) and it's one of the better basketball sims available. It sounds like that initially FOH will be single season, but in the future it could evolve into a career sim. In terms of quality, I think they will do a good job with the product.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:02 am

archibalduk wrote:Dave, I see you've been posting over at the Wolverine Forums. I was thinking of doing the same to get them aware of EHM and how they could perhaps take inspiration from it. However, now I've seen this post I'm not sure it's going to be the sort of game we were hoping for:

RandV80 wrote: You're thinking of another EHM type sim, but Faceoff, as Wolverine Studios is inheriting it, is nothing of the sort. Faceoff is a pure 'recreation' sim, which takes stats from the past season and compiles them into a set of averages used as player ratings, providing the most realistic hockey simulation you can find. This is great for an online league played with other people, where Faceoff excels, and is highly customizable. The single player aspect on the other hand is pretty much nil. Not that the new guys can't add a single player aspect, I'd just think they need to focus on getting what is already there into a new more user friendly interface.
Here's the link: http://www.wolverinestudios.com/forum/s ... php?t=5884

As it stands the Q4 '08 release date for FOH08 set by WS will be that exactly. I was told Wolverine wants to make it both a career sim and a single season sim which seems possible but will add more work and creativity to have it work.
They haven't even found a lead developer yet. (Risto Rimes anyone?) so i'm not getting my hopes up. (well im trying not too)

My guess is that they will abandon the idea of making it a career sim because they either won't find the right person with the same vision and skill, or they won't get enough buyers to progress the game to that point. I really hope i am wrong though.

If it ever is made it seems to me it will to be more like ootp then EHM.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:20 am

It sounded so promising when I saw the announcement on Operation Sports but now it really doesn't sound of much interest to us. I really don't see the point of a single season sim; it will mean you have to start a brand new game just as you're put your own mark on your team.

If you look in the message I quoted from their forums, the attributes will be based solely on the stats of players from the previous season. Now I know we've used this method for very young, unknown and hard to predict players in our 08/09 roster update but that is because it's the only information we have available about them and so it's the best we can do. However, using just this method for NHL players really is a bad idea. What if an otherwise good player was injured for half the season? His stats are going to be terrible. What if he just had a bad season for some reason (e.g. fell out with the coach, personal problems, etc)? Does that mean he's going to be poorly rated in the game? It just seems a lazy and inaccurate way of rating players that they could so easily scout and rate themselves.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 5:18 am

Perhaps that is something you should ask on the wolverine studios forum.

The only thing i can think of as a solution is what ootp9 did. Basically you are able to customize it to your liking.

Overall based on:
Ratings: 65%
Stats: 33%
Current Year: 1%
2 Years Ago: 1%

I hope that is what they do. It should make everyone happy.

Post by **archibalduk** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:27 pm

dave1927p wrote:I only wish he would be the lead developer on Faceoff but he isn't interested.

I believe Faceoff is based on a board game. I'm not very optimistic about the game in terms of quenching our desire for an alternative to EHM because it's not going to be an EHM-type game.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:42 pm

well all i know is that they are planning on making it a career sim and there really isn't any more info on it yet. I don't think there will be any Ehm but it at least should be better then this: http://lesims.net/Home.html If only they didn't ruin there game by going the kiddie, unrealistic way.

dave1927p · Post by **dave1927p** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:07 am

Alessandro wrote:Have you guys seen Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball?
From the screens it looks great. If they are going to do the same for hockey, well, that would be interesting!

what is the deal with "Agent Mode?" It sounds kinda interesting. Add agent mode with GM Mode and commisioner mode that would be cool!

gollum65 · Post by **gollum65** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:14 am

Keep your fingers crossed guys. It looks like Wolverine Studios is working on a hockey sim. They have a pretty decent reputation, so hopefully they'll put out a decent product.

http://www.wolverinestudios.com/index.html

bobmcgoo · Post by **bobmcgoo** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:23 am

All it would have taken was scrolling up the page to see that everyone is aware of that already.

gollum65 · Post by **gollum65** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 1:54 am

Why would I want to do that? This was more fun.

newsguyone · Post by **newsguyone** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 8:32 pm

Yep.
I think the big hope right now is Face Off Hockey. A new game is out this year, but it will not have a career mode.
A career mode is due in 2010.

So .... we've got about 15 months ....

I have to say, that I don't see much upside to producing a game like EHM every year. Especially with so many people who do online leagues that last two, three or more years.
If I had a software company, I would release a new version of the game every two or three years, with an updated roster disk released every year for like $15.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:21 am

newsguyone wrote:Yep.
I think the big hope right now is Face Off Hockey. A new game is out this year, but it will not have a career mode.
A career mode is due in 2010.

So .... we've got about 15 months ....

I have to say, that I don't see much upside to producing a game like EHM every year. Especially with so many people who do online leagues that last two, three or more years.
If I had a software company, I would release a new version of the game every two or three years, with an updated roster disk released every year for like $15.

I wonder if this will ever be the case, where games like this are released every other year or so. It seems to be a pretty popular concept in the FM community.

In fact, I've started doing it myself - after FM 2008, I decided to buy only every other version of FM. It's cheaper... improvements will seem a lot deeper... and the best part is that it allows more time to play each version. Usually, you have a year before the new version is out, and half that time is wasted waiting for patches.