EHM The Blue Line

I'm a law student, I'm a huge hockey fan and I've been obsessed with EHM 2007 since it first came out

I've been drafting an EHM version of a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to play with one of my friends. My purpose is to make the game more interesting by closing off loopholes with the AI system and by establishing rules and procedures for playing the game. As you all know, there are certain things you can do to take advantage of the AI in the game currently. Trading for players on injured reserve, offering a lot of bad players in exchange for a great player, offering long term contracts to prospects for less money than they deserve, etc.

I'm not mentioning these problems to criticize the game, I LOVE EHM!

I just want to build extra layers onto the game. I figured I could use some of the lessons from law school to do that. Depending on the level of interest for this idea, I could develop an official contract between the human controlled players.

I would not take control of a team myself. Rather, I would be in charge of monitoring the league and enforcing the CBA. I would also like to create an official EHM League Newspaper to keep players up to date on the latest developments in the league. You would receive articles about scoring races, rivalries, matchups, etc. My role in this league would essentially be as "League Commissioner / NHLPA President / Sports Reporter".

I would be looking for 10-12 players for this league. If the league is succesful, we could expand and fill the league with all human players.

I'm hoping to get this league going by September 1st, 2008. Let me know if there is any interest in the idea. I'm also open to suggestions on how to make this idea function better.

Being a law graduate, I think you idea is a darn good one!

I strongly recommend you check out the Challenge Forum because, over the past three years, we have been developing the rules for people that compete in the Challenges. The main aims of the rules are to ensure a fun challenge but also prevent people from exploiting the AI. If you browse through the rules threads (you'll see links to them at the very top of the Challenge Forum) then you may get some inspiration for your CBA. The Roster and Trade Regulations might be of particular interest.

What university are you at? I studied Law and European Legal Systems at the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Groningen (Netherlands).

Thanks archibalduk! I'm in my last year at the University of Ottawa (Canada)...

Are you referring to a challenge style? Or an online game?

I've never had any interest in online play, but I have to say that your proposed level of involvement/detail sounds like a lot of fun. If you go ahead with it, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out.

One question: It sounds like this will be an online league, so will you be using EHM 2005 or 2007(I'm assuming 2007)? Because, EHM 2007 has really skimped on online play from what it was in 2005. Biggest issue being that 2005 supports a full 30 human GM's, while 2007 was cut-back to only 15.

I should have mentioned that I'm of a similar stance as Stinson; I'm not interested in online play (don't have enough time to commit to playing regularly) but I'm very interested in your CBA. Possibly a good place to start would be to summarise the Challenge rules into some sort of statute - then you could add/modify/remove parts as necessary for your online setup.

B. Stinson wrote:I've never had any interest in online play, but I have to say that your proposed level of involvement/detail sounds like a lot of fun. If you go ahead with it, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out.

One question: It sounds like this will be an online league, so will you be using EHM 2005 or 2007(I'm assuming 2007)? Because, EHM 2007 has really skimped on online play from what it was in 2005. Biggest issue being that 2005 supports a full 30 human GM's, while 2007 was cut-back to only 15.

And 2007 hangs/freezes much more frequently then 05.

2007 is also extremely glitchy online, making it nearly impossible to have an online league. Its been attempted many times to no avail.

Not enough time to play? COME ON There's times where I have five mins to check in and run again, as long as there are no injuries, you don't need to spend anymore then that with them really on a daily basis.

I'm a practicing lawyer and would be interested in such a league. However, I'm not a big fan of online games which have a ton of "house rules," which is essentially what you'd be implementing through your collective bargaining agreement. In my opinion, if everyone has the same freedom to exploit the ai, then how is this unfair?

Pax25 wrote:I'm a practicing lawyer and would be interested in such a league. However, I'm not a big fan of online games which have a ton of "house rules," which is essentially what you'd be implementing through your collective bargaining agreement. In my opinion, if everyone has the same freedom to exploit the ai, then how is this unfair?

Simple answer? You play online. If the league is a full human league it's a free for all.