The first content update for FHM11 is here! In addition to updated rosters (as of December 11, so no Cam Fowler trade), we've added some new things to the game: in historical mode, the Central Hockey League (1963-1984) joins the American Hockey League as a playable minor league; the recent US college rule change allowing players from the Canadian major junior leagues to be recruited has been implemented; multiplayer games can now be created from quickstart files; your contract renewal is now optional again; and we've enabled editing on a bunch of fields at the team and league level that were previously locked. In addition to those, we've made the usual fixes and adjustments in other areas.
Barring the need for a hotfix to repair any game-breaking issues that are discovered in this update, the next update will be the second content update, to be released in early February.
Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game. Some fixes, however, are data-dependent and may require starting a new game before you see them.
New additions:
-The NCAA's decision to allow former major junior players to be recruited has been implemented. Obviously, no one's quite sure at this point how this will play out, so this is just a best guess on our part, and we can adapt it if needed. The first in-game change is a new check on 19- and 20-year-old major junior players near the start of the season (i.e., prior to the verbal commitments) that can change their junior preference to the college option. Players with a higher intelligence rating will be more likely to make this choice, but only if their potential isn't too high - it seems unlikely to us that good NHL-caliber prospects will take this option (although others seem to disagree, so we'll see.) Then, those players will be eligible for the verbal commitments and national signing day "drafts", just like any other player with the college preference. If they join a team on national signing day, their college "contract" will take effect the next July 1 - which, for players going into their 20-year-old season, may mean that the player foregoes their overage year in junior, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to anticipate that we'll see some players do that rather than spend another year riding buses to Moose Jaw. Additionally, the changes made in the last update will tend to pull more Canadian and US players towards playing major junior first, but we did go fairly conservative with those changes until we see what really happens. In general, there'll be a noticeable number of guys moving from the CHL to NCAA each year, often guys who can immediately be college-level stars, but it won't be an overwhelming flood of players.
-the Central Hockey League is now playable in historical mode. This is the 1963-84 Central League (formerly the Central Professional Hockey League in its first seasons in the sixties), not the later low-minors league of the same name that ended in 2014.) It will work pretty much exactly as the playable AHL does, with NHL affiliations switching at the appropriate times. As with the AHL, anyone who played at least one CHL game is now in the database (if they weren't there already), and the playoff seasons and schedules have been simplified a bit in some years (although the CHL's format was never particularly complex, so it's not as noticeable as with the AHL) The process of adding the CHL went smoothly enough that we're optimistic that we can add the remaining two leagues that had a large number of primary NHL affiliations, the old 1940s-1970s Western League and the post-1984 portion of International League, in the remaining FHM11 content updates. One note, though: it'll save a bunch of time if I can wait until later to add the arena histories for all leagues at once, so I'm going to hold off until we're adding the last one instead of doing the AHL's arenas earlier.
-It's now possible to create multiplayer games from quickstart files (there's now a Multiplayer checkbox on the "Load a Quickstart" popup, selecting it makes the gmae multiplayer)
-Added back the option (on the manager option screen) for the users to disable automatic renewal of their GM contract - you'll still get the contract offer if the team wants to renew it, but you can now turn it down and become unemployed
-Added a number of new editing options, specifically:
- enabled editing of team cap hit penalty and team Local TV Deal value
- enabled assists per goal editing on July 1 (League Info tab, just below Fights/Game - this controls the frequency with which the league awards assists; very low values will restrict, but not totally eliminate, first as well as second assists in 2D mode, but the classic engine will only reduce the frequency of second assists, it can't reduce the number of first assists)
- enabled editing of Number of Overaged Players on July 1 (Rules tab, just blow Max Foreign) (only for use in leagues with an upper age limit, this will limit the number of players allowed per team of the league's maximum age)
- enabled editing of Maximum Veterans, Veteran GP Limit, and Veteran League Rep on July 1 (these can be used to enforce limits on the number of veteran players in the league, with veterans being defined as players with > career games played above the specified limit in leagues above the specified reputation limit.)
- enabled editing of league National TV Deal value on July 1
The database is updated as of December 11 for the playable leagues (although there have been some moves in other leagues as well.) The issue we had with a small number of players being assigned to generic Under-20/-18/etc. teams should be completely fixed now.
Other changes and fixes:
-relocated goalie selection on the pregame lineup screen to the 5-on-5 tab
-added reminder popup near the end of the month when a captain's invervention is available on the team morale screen (and a morale problem exists)
-in the csv exports, we've added to player_master.csv a "Rookie" column, that's set to 1 if the player meets the "rookie" qualifications for the league he's currently in (as defined in the rookie option for the search filter) or 0 otherwise (or if he doesn't have a league)
-On the Team-Upcoming Free Agents screen, the "Est. demand" amount will no longer occasionally be shown as "Leading offer" rather than the estimated demand
-owners will no longer give the "better goalie" goal when the team has a contracted goalie with potential >3.5 stars
-reduced frequency of "hire a local scout" owner goal
-prospect playing time owner goal will now complete in midyear if conditions are met
-"do not re-sign" owner goal will no longer target first-line(ish) level players, and if the targeted player is traded or released the goal will auto-complete
-right-clicking on the postgame screen no longer generates a page history error
-lowered frequency of blockbuster-type trades
-at lower resolutions, the parent and farm teams sections of the team data screen are no longer so short that they can't display any data
-added link to boxscore in all-star game news stories
-agreeing with the media is now much more likely to improve the GM-media relationship
-owner changes will no longer drop GM's job security number to a dangerously low level (although it may still decrease)
-lowered frequency of offseason GM firings
-players will no longer request the "fringe player" supplementary role in a contract (and then proceed to refuse it)
-head scout draft evaluations will now ignore Iron Curtain players in years where the Iron Curtain rule is active
-reworked creation of generic owners for teams that were missing them
-Colorado/Columbus 23-24 thing fixed for good now, hopefully