Franchise Hockey Manager 8
FHM8 Hotfix 8.7.104 Now Available
Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game.
This hotfix addresses a few issues with the 8.7.102 update, primarily one that was breaking the automatic upload/download process for multiplayer leagues. In addition to that, it fixes a couple of other small problems that had simple fixes: a bug with playoff stats in the Austrian league not displaying properly, and one with trade negotiations that could break the user's ability to request that the other team retain salary in a trade.
FHM8 Update 8.7.102 is Now Available
This is our fourth and final "content" update for FHM8, adding new features in addition to fixing problems. It adds new historical challenges, more options for modding the player cards, a better way to import multiple historical players into a game, an updated database, and a number of other things. Additionally, we've made some changes to reflect the effects of sanctions on Russian and Belarus following the invasion of Ukraine. If there are any major problems with this update, we'll release a hotfix, but barring that we'll now be moving on to development of FHM9. Thanks again for your support of FHM8 this season and the FHM games over the years.
Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes that involve database changes may require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.
Changes/Additions:
-updated database to final post-deadline version, also updated the world database with a few fixes. This updates the rosters to approximately the evening of the NHL trade deadline on March 21, although a few slightly later new NHL contracts were also added.
-a new set of 6 historical challenges have been added; the theme is the effect of having a young superstar player; one per position (Orr, Potvin, Ovechkin, Lemieux, Iginla, Dryden)
-the Importing Historical Player interface now allows the the importation of multiple players at once, getting around the long load time for adding individual players
-added a few additional card modding options in the info.txt file: FULLNAME (uses the combined First Name + Last Name of the player, e.g. "John Smith", rather than having to use separate NAME and SURNAME, which makes it very difficult to put names horizontally on the same line), TEAMNAME (full team name, Name + Nickname, e.g. "Boston Bruins"), TEAM (just the team Name, e.g. "Boston"), TEAMNICK (just the team Nickname, e.g. "Bruins")
-made arena construction a little easier by having the owner set aside some of his profit-taking amounts for future arena construction: there's a new number, "Funding From Owner" displayed on the line between Arena Name and Total Cost on the Annual Finances Screen. When calculating Total Cost for a new arena, the Funding From Owner amount is subtracted (to a minimum of 0 points.) If the owner takes any profits at the start of a new year, after the owner's profit-taking amount is calculated, there's a chance he'll add a portion of them to the "Funding from Owner" amount. If the owner dies/sells the team, the Funding From Owner amount may increase or decrease.
-added a few new goal celebrations to 2D mode
-when the user shops a player, any existing offers for that player (including from previous shopping attempts) are now automatically rejected. No more shopping guys a dozen times in 4 days and cherry-picking the best results - you shop him again, you lose the open offers
-the draft lottery now functions in historical games from 1995 onwards - it uses an approximation of the 1995-2012 lottery system in all years
Russia/Belarus-related Changes
This is just a best-guess at the ongoing impact the various sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine will have on the hockey world. Generally, there's a temporary removal of Russia and Belarus from most international play, followed by a return in three years. The domestic effects will be longer-term: the Russian and Belarusian leagues have had their financial situations degraded significantly (although probably not as badly as is going to happen in the KHL in the short-term - if we actually devalued their budgets to match the real drop in value of the ruble, it would make managing the teams next to impossible.) The post-21-22 destinations for Jokerit and Dinamo Riga
-Jokerit and Dinamo Riga leave the KHL after thge 21-22 season. Jokerit moves to Liiga ; Liiga format remains the same, just with an extra teams. Dinamo moves to the Latvian league and becomes unplayable. Jokerit's financial situation was degraded a bit to match the rest of the Liiga teams, and the game's financial system should gradually pull them into line with the rest of the league (although they'll likely remain one of the wealthier teams in the league)
-the VHL format and playoff system have been updated to the actual 21-22 format (removed the divisions, top 16 teams make the playoffs)
-Russia and Belarus will not participate in the 21-22, 22-23 and 23-24 World Championship, World Junior Championship, and Div-IA Under 20 Championship. The tournaments will temporarily play with a smaller number of teams. They'll return to normal in 2024-25, with Russia and Belarus resuming play at the levels they were formerly in.
-replaced Russia in the Carlson Hockey Games, with Latvia in the the Karjala Tournament, and with Austria and with Switzerland in the Beijer Hockey Games (except in the first year for tournaments that were played pre-invasion)
-Channel One Cup is deactivated after the first season (it was played before the invasion this season)
-replaced Russia U18 with Germany U18 in Hlinka-Gretzky Cup in 22-23 and 23-24; reverts to Russia U18 in 24-25
-removed Russia U18 and Belarus U18 from U18 World Championship in 22-23 and 23-24 (tournament will have 2 groups of 4 instead of 5); they return in 24-25
-remove pre-set international tournament hosting for Russia and Belarus
-made some database changes to the financial situation of the Russian and Belarusian teams, lowered the KHL/VHL/BXL league qualities slightly, and and gave them much stronger preferences for local players
-made minor downward adjustments to the lower end of NHL salary standards to reflect the loss of the KHL as a viable destination for fringe players
Fixes:
-reworked some of the mechanics of storing scouting information in multiplayer leagues to prevent massive file sizes when a large number of human-controlled teams play for several years, which would eventually break the save
-fixed issue that was overwriting multiplayer league ftp data when a multiplayer game was loaded after already having another save loaded in the game (i.e., without restarting game first)
-in historical games, the AI will no longer ignore the Iron Curtain rule restriction on drafting players from some of the non-Russian/Czech/Slovak countries
-the Iron Curtain rule is no longer being incorrectly applied in historical games started in years after it ends
-if the user is controlling a European team and signs a junior-aged player whose CHL rights are owned by a WHL/OHL/QMJHL team, they no longer lose the option to send him to their own farm team and only have the option of sending him to the CHL team (which option should only exist for NHL teams, not any other league)
-adjusted the Goalie stat-adjusted talent slightly, it was lowering the star ratings a little too much on average
-in a custom game, if you're playing as an WHL/OHL/QMJHL team and send an overage player to the reserve list, you'll no longer be prevented from recalling him because the game tells you that you already have 3 overage players
-if the AI accepts a trade and you use the "discuss" option to change the salary retained amount, the "Finalize Trade" option no longer remains active
-fixed bug with the Goalie Start System in non-historical games, and increased weighting for the best goalie during playoffs and other big games
-fixed issue resulting in excessive fitness reductions for goalies playing partial games
-fixed issue preventing degradation of scouting levels beyond a certain point; the increased re-scouting of players will be visible in-game as more frequent shifts in the potential of players who still have a lot of development remaining
-fixed potential issue with relegation from international tournaments whose size was temporarily reduced due to Russia/Belarus ban
-the submit button no longer stops working when attempting to add several years to a player's contract demand
-fixed issue when adding new leagues to a custom game that could leave the league's teams unable to sign free agents (this will also retroactively fix the problem in existing saves)
-made some adjustments to the 2D match engine to lower the production of the top players in the league, particularly when more than one of them is on the same team
-when starting a game from a quickstart, the GM and coach templates are no longer missing from the "Set Up Your Manager" screen
-fixed issue with the in-game feedback system reporting that players are confused about their role when they shouldn't be
-the AI will no longer occasionally switch goalies after a goal extremely late in the game
-Belarusian Extraleague transfers should now work properly again
-adjusted pre-season calculation of season goals (Win Championship, etc.) to prevent selection of very modest goals if team has been strong recently but has a weakened roster in the current year
-adjusted trading restrictions on acquiring draft picks to also accept rights of players in return for the picks instead of just contracted players
-the warning popup that appears when you try to dress another player while already at the limit now shows the correct number of players if the dressed limit isn't 20, instead of just saying "20"
-the "Free Agency Preview" message will no longer include in its list of UFA's some RFA's who have already been qualified by their team
-adjusted primary nationality-changing mechanics to make it more likely for players who have second nationalities in low-ranked nations (i.e., out of the top 20) to switch to that nationality for international play (as happened with the Chinese Olympic team this year)
-raised the maximum length of contract that players in their early-mid 20's more willing to sign
-fixed issue that was likely causing some captains to be replaced near the start of the season when they should have stayed captains
-fixed potential crash during the June 30-July 1 changeover
-exempted college teams from age range adjustments during quickstart creation (i.e., real college players with ages >22 will no longer get adjusted to the 18-22 range at the start of a new standard game)
-corrected problem with the LNAH schedule that led to a team having to play two games in one day after the first season
-fixed missing franchise start dates in historical mode
-updated presets file, primarily for changed captains, but also adjusted a few of the long-term injuries
-fixed some minor text issues
FHM8 Hotfix.8.6.92 is Now Available
Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game.
This hotfix addresses a few issues with 8.6.88; there was nothing game-breaking, aside from a very rare crash bug, but there were enough things that we didn't want to leave until next month's update.
Changes:
-shootouts should now be visible again in 2D mode, instead of the game getting stuck once you reached the end of OT in a tied game, forcing you to sim the rest
-player create was doing some odd things with certain talent combinations, they should all work properly now (note that the player you get won't always show ability and potential that are a perfect match for the one you describe, since those numbers will be the "scouted" ones and will discount, for example, potential the player will never reach because he's too old)
-players added to a game via Import Historical Player no longer import with the wrong birthplace
-the team edit screen no longer shows incorrect cities in the arena data
-fixed small typo on the Championship popup
-fixed some small text issues with news stories
-fixed potential crash in custom games when moving from July 1 to July 2
Untitled
This is our third "content" update for FHM8, adding new features in addition to fixing problems. Most notably, the user-controlled line-changing option has been added to 2D mode after we worked out the issues that were holding it up. Other new features include the addition of a new Championship screen that announces the winner of your league once the playoffs are complete, some improvements to the Create Player feature, the addition of the new Division IV to the World Championships (along with a few new national teams), and a database update as of early February.
2D Changes:
-added line change controls to 2D mode:
- activated via the "Use Manual Line Changes" button on the Options popup; note that Game Stoppages and the "Full" Watch Mode must be enabled for it to work
- when the option is on, whenever a faceoff occurs (except the opening faceoff at the start of a game/period and after your own team ices the puck), you'll get the the option to choose which line and pair to send onto the ice; it uses the classic engine's fatigue display (green for game fatigue remaining, blue for shift fatigue, the larger the bar the better; the ##/##/## numbers are the overall/offensive/defensive game ratings). Click the box beside the line to choose that line/pair or use the keyboard shortcut (1-9), then click play (or hit the space bar) to resume.
- choosing a line or pair will select it as the line/pair to be sent onto the ice for the faceoff. Once the choices are made, this replaces the normal AI substitution logic. Exception: if players are unavailable due to penalty/injury, the game will make a logical substitution (based on fatigue, position, etc.) for the missing player(s)
-also fixed some minor AI line selection issues (in both 2D and classic)
-2D mode should now produce realistic home/away winning percentages
-increased the number of events leading to a faceoff (faceoffs are still a bit too infrequent, but it's considerably better now)
-various rebalancing done in order to get the stats back in line after the faceoff and home/away adjustments
-improved goalie movement in response to cross-ice passes
-fixed issue with shift fatigue not recovering properly at the end of a period
-fixed rare potential crash while simming/viewing games in 2D mode
Other Changes:
-database updated (to approximately February 9 for the playable leagues; for the NHL that's everything up to but not including the Tippett firing. Which I blame on Adam, because after I mentioned I was done with the database work on Wednesday night, he said "and now someone will get fired tomorrow.")
-added a Championship Screen that appears when a team becomes the champions of the user's league (or NHL if he's unemployed)
-made a number of improvements to the Create Player option:
- replaced age selection with specific birthdate
- height, weight, junior preference, preferred number, hand (shoots/catches), second and third nationalities, ethnicity, and secondary position can now be specified
- split Quality into Current Ability and Potential (both on the same 5-star scale as Quality was, but also allow 0.5 steps, so it's 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, etc.)
-added Division IV to the World Championships (6 teams, winner is promoted to the III-B level; Philippines, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Kuwait now have national teams)
-special abilities can now be edited on the player edit screen
-real captains and assistant captains are now included in the presets file (for playable teams.) This is based on Eliteprospects data, which has some gaps; we'll be working on improving the data manually
-added additional safety checks during importation of multiplayer data to prevent corruption in the main league files
-fixed crash on July 8, 2022 of NHL+AHL+CHL custom games
-fixed broken QMJHL schedule at the start of 22-23 in NHL+AHL+CHL custom games
-limited number of waiver claims by an AI team to 2 per day, so the AI can't evade its normal restriction on waiver claims by claiming a bunch of guys in a single day
-the ratings shown for goalies on the player profile's ratings tab are now adjusted properly for scouting errors
-the two-week buyout option (fixed in the last patch) in the EIHL and some other leagues no longer tells the user that he has to pay the full value of the contract (i.e. salary*years) when he buys a player out, instead of salary/52*2
-fixed issue with the monthly budget reminders disappearing in historical games after a few months
-the IceHL (Austrian) league no longer takes a full month off between the regular season and its playoffs
-adjusted trading AI when dealing with a human player to make it much more difficult to acquire high-value/potential players (approximately 4+ stars) with large packages of players and picks; the AI will now demand that the user include first-round picks and/or at least one high-value player in return
-added Birthdate to the Biography tab of the team roster screen
-if the trade deadline is changed from a date after January 1 to one before it, then changed back to a post-January 1 date, it no longer disappears from the league event menu, preventing teams from trading
-the KHL awards from 2019-20 and earlier are no longer duplicated in the icons on the player screen
-in the league-stats-team stats screen with the Off/Def Ratings dropdown active, the Stickchecking (STC) column now sorts correctly
-when adding a team to a league via the structure editor, the team is no longer selected from the league's country if the league has a region set, and instead chooses from the region (so e.g. a league based in Canada with the "Canadian Province: Alberta" region will no longer get teams from cities in Canada outside Alberta.)
-custom tournaments will no longer fail to record ties in the round-robin stage standings
-one group in some custom tournament formats will no longer play an extra game
-custom tournaments should no longer start too late to avoid a playoff overlap with the regular season schedules
-custom tournaments will no longer produce odd statistical results during games (massive turnover totals, very low player game ratings, etc.)
-the check that makes a player reluctant to sign on another continent made much easier if the player speaks the local language of the team he is moving to (primarily to make Canada/US players more likely to move to UK/Australia/France)
-North American junior-age players are now much less likely to sign with a playable European team
-in the Draft Review email, the best/worst drafts list no longer includes teams with only one pick
-fixed issue where, when adding a new league to a custom game, if a non-hockey country is selected, the teams would fail to sign any players
-in custom games with the NHL included, all the NHL league rights of NHL players are no longer set to free instead of the team the player is contracted to (didn't affect anything, since they were already contracted, but was technically wrong)
-fixed problem with entry-level contracts in custom leagues with no minor league attached, where the player would demand more for their minor league salary than the team could offer
-fixed data issue with the Add Hist Team option on the structure menu in standard games that was resulting in teams importing with the wrong city (which in turn could lead to their generated staff being from the wrong country)
-drag-and-drop should now work correctly in the Epic Games Store version
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FHM 8 is 25% off for the Winter Sale!
Grab our best hockey game ever at a great discount and delight every fan on your holiday gift list! Jump into the 2021-22 NHL season, or any historical in the history of the league! Or! Take the reins of one of hundreds of clubs from international leagues or represent your country in international competitions.
FHM 8 is our best-selling and best-reviewed game in franchise history. Find out what everyone is talking about today!
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FHM8 Update 8.5.81 Now Available
This is our second "content" update for FHM8, adding new features in addition to fixing problems. We've added the first new playable league in a couple of years, the Australian Ice Hockey League; we've been a little hesitant to add new ones, mainly out of concern for slowing the standard game down, but the AIHL is a small league with a very straightforward format amd won't slow things down noticeably. Australians have also long been the largest segment of the FHM player base whose local league wasn't playable, so they were past due for getting their own teams. We've also made the new player cards completely moddable, so if you want to create a separate card for each historical season (or even future seasons), that's now possible. Unfortunately, the system to add line changes to the 2D in-game decisions ran into some more problems, particularly with game stability, and we're going to need more time to get it implemented properly and safely, so that'll have to be left to the next update. But in its place, we added full shootout coverage to the highlights modes and did some work on the goal/penalty popups, adding the long-requested season totals after the goal and assist announcements as well as adding referee icons to penalties which had none. And we've done a larger database update this time, rosters are now up-to-date as of December 15. We're planning two more large updates at this point; the last one will be after the NHL trading deadline in February, but we don't have a definite date for the one prior to that yet - we've been a little pressed for time on the first couple of content updates, so we'd like to take some extra time with the next one so we can finally get that line change feature in, as well as some other things that will require longer-term testing.
Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.
2D Changes:
-the in-game "Goal" popup now shows the preseason/season/playoff (whichever applies) totals after the names of players getting the goal and assists (we're going to be doing additional work on the popups to get them showing all penalties in multi-penalty situations, but that's going to require some recoding of their basic mechanics, so it wasn't ready in time for this update)
-shootouts are now shown in highlights and all-goals modes
-fixed potential crash when a highlight occurred in the first few seconds of the game
-national anthem .wavs will now work if placed in \sounds\anthems - there's no time limit, so it'll play the entire file; file must be a .wav named in the format country name_anthem.wav, e.g. canada_anthem.wav or the united states_anthem.wav (note the use of spacing/underscores in the latter)
-added missing referee icons to the in-game Penalty popup for the penalties that didn't have one
-on-ice player names now get left-justified if they're too long to fit, rather than getting centered so both ends get cut off
-fixed issue causing the goal popup to occasionally not show all the assists on a goal
-"Backchecking" in-game feedback popup should no longer be triggered in situations where the user's team is not outshooting their opponent by a significant amount
-the clock now runs when a highlight is being played instead of freezing
-highlights will now play at the selected view speed instead of always being at normal speed
-modded player icons now have the year in the filename (e.g. "player_new_york_islanders_away_1972-1998.png") will now work properly
Other Changes:
-Australian Ice Hockey League is now playable (schedule and league events are all offset by about seven months backwards so the season won't overlap July 1 and the league is in sync with the rest of the world; the league itself has a simple format, 28 games with the four teams making a two-round playoff with single-game series. The AIHL hasn't played non-exhibition games since late 2019, so the rosters are a best guess at this point, basically the 2019 rosters minus players who've moved to other leagues or retired. Salaries and budgets are very low, and it'll be difficult to sign any significant foreign players (and the better Australian players may not be interested, either.) Note that there is a foreigner player limit, but it does not apply to New Zealanders, who are counted as local players.
-hockey card customization enabled (I'll be posting instructions for this in the mod forum); also added about 20 new fonts that can be used to make modded cards
-database updated as of December 15
-added a new function to AI roster management of draft picks to fix the cases where teams weren't signing prospects at appropriate times, e.g. leaving high picks unsigned until their junior careers ended; between this change and the fix to signing deadlines mentioned below, teams in leagues with drafts are now much more efficient at signing their young prospects
-in a custom game, if you use commissioner mode to take over a team between the end of the season and June 30, when you reach June 30 the end-of-season popup will no longer fail to show a season score and then crash
-fixed potential crash if you stop on June 30 of the first season of a a historical game and then attempt to continue
-adjusted annual team budget mechanics so the cheapest options always allow a budgeted amount over the cap floor in leagues with caps
-lowered the budget increases provided by the top options in the annual finances budget setting
-increased team regional bias when signing free agents (e.g. non-Russian KHL teams will no longer load up on North American free agents in preference to local players)
-lowered starting ability of newly-generated (July 1) players in custom games
-made the AI a little more reluctant to make waiver claims
-the QMJHL schedule will no longer fail to generate if the user has changed the league structure by moving teams between divisions
-lowered trade value of players in the period between the end of the playoffs and June 30 in the last season of their contract
-adjusted trade AI in junior leagues to make more use of draft picks
-when a player is released from junior (WHL/QMJHL/OHL) teams, his league rights will only become Free in all 3 leagues if he is over age 18, otherwise they'll remain on None for his non-local leagues (there were too many cases of young players changing leagues after being released, when this normally happens only with older players)
-the bonus shown on the training screen (the number in parentheses) now includes its adjustment (if any) by the Player Development selection in Annual Finances
-in multiplayer leagues, human GM's are no longer able to edit the suspension and injury data
-the annual finances scouting support bonus is now applied correctly on the team scouting screen (it'll be impossible to raise a team's scouting above 15 in a region without a bonus)
-the "16 Teams, 8 Per Conf (NHL 1999-2013)" playoff system now works correctly in leagues that don't use the same divisional setup as the NHL had at that point
-updated presets file to make Ben Bishop's injury permanent)
-increased trade frequency in OHL
-adjusted starting fan happiness levels for several NHL teams
-WHL US Import Draft should now work properly
-adjusted junior preference so more US and Canadian players prefer college (college rosters still tend to be a little too thin after several seasons, going to need to do some more work in this area)
-fixed issue with some NHL signing deadlines being calculated incorrectly
-reworked movement of young players in nonplayable leagues in Russia, South Korea, China, Israel, and Australia to prevent dead-ending of careers of players who should continue playing into adulthood
-Hall of Fame nominees will eventually stop being nominated after repeated failed nominations so there aren't e.g. 110-year-old nominees
-the cost of the 2-week buyout option used by some leagues is now calculated correctly (had been charging the teams the full buyout amount, rather than two weeks' salary)
-the NHL awards ceremony in a standard game will now occur no later than June 29, to prevent a conflict with the manager end-of-season points screen
-international teams now get their lines cleared after a tournament, to prevent potential crashes from user-run teams using outdated line sets that include players no longer on the roster
-teams should no longer be mentioned as having both one of the best and the worst drafts in the draft review news story
-boxscores will no longer miscount power play totals by adding 1 to each team for every minor penalty, including coincidentals (the actual team stats were always counting it correctly, it was just appearing wrong in the boxscore)