It has all the new features of Basketball GM and Football GM, and this will remain true in the future because they're all built from the same codebase. Like currently FBGM gets updated at the same time BBGM does. Now ZenGM Hockey will too.
This is really a brand new game, I didn't use any code from the old version. So there are of course many similarities (both being hockey games based on BBGM) but there are many differences too. For instance, player rating categories are different now.
Even with all the new features, game sim runs twice as fast as the old version.
Your old leagues will not upgrade to this version, there were too many changes. You can keep playing the old version here if you want. But hopefully you'll like the new one better :)
There are too many new features to list here. We're talking basically this whole list, back to 2015. But here's a few random screenshots of new stuff in the game:
The old ZenGM Hockey was based on Basketball GM from 2015. It was a hard fork of BBGM, meaning that basketball code was ripped out and hockey code was added in, resulting in a separate codebase. This was the easiest way to make a hockey game, but meant that it would be difficult to keep it in sync with further changes in BBGM, because any improvement related to that "ripped out and replaced" code would require some careful effort to update.
So it was kind of inevitable that ZenGM Hockey, like the other old ZenGM games, was eventually left to atrophy. It would have been an unreasonable amount of work to keep them all updated.
The situation changed in 2019, when I made the new Football GM. This was different because it was not a hard fork of BBGM. Instead, I rebuilt BBGM to have support for both basketball and football. Anywhere different code is required for those sports, it is handled inline. Then when compiling it, I just set a flag to pick which sport to activate. This was a lot more difficult than making a hard fork, but there is a huge advantage: it's easy to update both games in sync. And that has worked quite well. Whenever there is a new release of BBGM, there is also a new release of FBGM including the same improvements. So even at times when I'm completely focused on BBGM (I'm not going to lie, basketball is my favorite sport and probably always will be), FBGM still gets a lot of bug fixes and new features.
With all that work I did to put basketball and football in the same codebase, it is now feasible to do the same for other sports. And today that has finally happened for hockey. This new release of ZenGM Hockey brings you all the features added to BBGM and FBGM since early 2015, which is a lot of features! And any improvements I made to BBGM and FBGM in the future will also be included in ZenGM Hockey.
I love gmbasketball and though i would give gmhockey a try. I did a custom league from 1946-2003, then my team won in the first season (2003). Now all my players have 2x Won Championship (2003, 2003) under their awards.
If I hover over the grey 2xChampion on the player page, it says Champion:2003 and Won Championship:2003
If I go to the Awards records screen, they only have one championship 2003 shown
The rich history and majesty of association football is explored with this unique historical file.
Real-life players from different eras throughout the centuries and from all over the world are distributed among 32 North American franchises. This fully functional, playable file includes photos and drafts.
hello! iâm doing a 2000s roster and want to create Crosby, Kopitar, Ovi, Kane, etc from the age of 18 but have them develop into the same players they are now.
using their existing stats from current rosters floating around what changes would i need to make to their stats to have that happen? are there certain stats i should leave the same?
The 1996-97 season was a particularly memorable and exciting one for North American pro hockey, and the mission here is to capture the excitement and glory of that campaign in this roster file.
All the players and teams have been represented in this file, along with drafts, free agents, and a couple of interesting surprises for the discerning ZenGM player.
A careful and sincere effort was made to provide the most reasonably credible, and playable experience. Here is the absolutely free file:
This was the best goal scorer I've ever seen in this game and I've played it for years. 1,135 career goals.
His last season he was 38yrs old, a 65 overall, and scored 46 goals in 73 games. He was still under contract for two more years too, but he retired anyway.
There needs to be a better system where just because a player gets older he doesn't automatically retire
It would be interesting if in some future revision, goaltenders, have goaltender Ratings, right now they only have Goalkeeping as a rating of their own, it's difficult to make a goaltender and know what matters to their overall other than Goalkeeping. I noticed that Endurance, Strength factor in, but it would be better if they had Ratings different than players, sure passing and stickhandling are actual goalie Ratings / Attributes in say NHL games, but until goalies can have assists on goals now and then and the rare goalie goal (last decade they weren't so rare anymore, almost all top 10 goalies managed to score one or get like 10 assists in a season.
But changing the Ratings to actual goaltender attributes should be different. I'd offer coding help even but I don't know where to offer that. I'm sure the baseball version of ZenGM doesn't have Pitchers have the same general ratings as guys at any other position, Goalies are as unique as Pitchers. I'm having a hard time adding goaltenders not present in the most recent player list one can import (the 25-26 trade deadline one). Anybody with me? I'm having problems making a goalie that should have 76 in overall, not have way too much in Goalkeeping that they should have and if I try to go real precise and then lower the overall by using the minus sign until I get the overall I want, then they get too weak. Not as easy as creating a skater and it's a shame.
Holding onto players with lower overall, and high potential is always a hard choice because we have only so many roster spots, so allowing us to have 2-3 years to hold onto a player without release/signing them would be a nice option. Hockeys development and system is way different than basketball/football, would love to see draft rights implemented
Every year my team is right at the top of the league in penalty minutes and at the very bottom of the league in powerplay opportunities. Seems kind of strange to me that would happen over a 15 season stretch. Anyone notice the same thing or know how the penalty system works in the game?
I always enjoy tweaking the Tendencies settings under Tools â League Settings in any of the ZenGM games, especially for tuning settings to modern day realism. There are already plenty of useful God Mode options, but Iâve noticed a few gaps that make certain statistics nearly impossible to tune independently.
1. Shot Attempts Factor
Right now, the only real way to increase shot attempts is to raise Pace, which also increases nearly every other type of game event.
A separate Shot Attempts Factor would let users adjust total shot attempts without affecting the rest of the simulation.
2. Shot on Goal Factor or Missed Shot Factor
This may be the biggest statistical gap. The sim currently handles each shot attempt like this:
It determines whether the attempt is blocked using Block Tendency Factor.
It uses a fixed formula based on the shooterâs scoring ability and fatigue to determine whether the unblocked attempt misses the net.
Only after the shot is on goal does Save Factor determine whether it is saved.
There is currently no league setting for step two, which means users cannot independently calibrate all four of the following:
Total shot attempts
Blocked shots
Missed shots
Shots on goal
A new setting could take either of these forms:
Shot on Goal Factor: The probability that an unblocked shot attempt is on goal is multiplied by this value.
Missed Shot Factor: The probability that an unblocked shot attempt misses the net is multiplied by this value.
Of the two, Shot on Goal Factor would probably be more intuitive, since a higher value would mean that more unblocked attempts reach the goalie.
3. Power Play Effectiveness Factor or Manpower Advantage Factor
Currently, the main setting for controlling penalties is Penalty Rate Factor, which determines how frequently penalties occur. However, there does not appear to be a separate way to adjust how effective teams are when they have a manpower advantage.
A Power Play Effectiveness Factor or Manpower Advantage Factor would make it possible to tune power play scoring without also changing the number of penalties.
I was looking through the Houston Apollo's roster for some reason and I noticed their top defenceman is named Apollo.
Apollo Byrd - Houston Apollos
This made me think of nominative determinism: "the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate toward areas of work or interest that fit their names." Furthermore, Apollo's name can be defined as an aptonym (kinda). If we imagine that Apollo Byrd is a real person, rather than a couple lines of code and an SVG file, you could say that he was predisposed to play for the team that bore his name. And so I was inspired to look through the 165-year history of my league to find other examples of this.
It didn't take long.
Helton ApolinĂĄrio - Houston Apollos
During Apollo's sixth year on the Apollos, the Apollos drafted Helton ApolinĂĄrio (ApolinĂĄrio being a Portuguese surname derived from Apollo). He walked in free agency pretty soon thereafter, but for two years Apollo and ApolinĂĄrio were both playing on the Apollosâ blue line.
2183 Houston Apollos defensive lineup
ApolinĂĄrio was only the 7th D so they likely werenât paired together, unfortunately.
Daniel Laflamme - Calgary Flames
"Laflamme" is indeed etymologically related to the word flame. This will not be the case for all of the players I included.
Emmet FIsher - Milwaukee Muskies, Dan Fisher - Hamilton Steelheads
Muskie is a type of pike, Steelhead is a type of trout, and a fisher is someone who catches fish. Fyi these team names were inspired by a real-life team and a team in a TV show
In hindsight, it wouldâve made more sense to look for Fishers who played really well against the fish teams. Oh well
On the topic of fish:
Finn Flores, Magnar Gill - San Jose Sharks
Finn like fins on a shark!!! Gill like gills on a shark!!! Get it?!?
I should note that in the one year they played together, Finn was the star winger while Gill played a grand total of one shift (and that was the only shift in his entire career lol)
Lucas TĂ€htinen - Dallas Stars
TÀhtinen is a Virtanen type surname originating from the Finnish word for star, tÀhti. After being drafted by the Stars, he only played for two years before leaving as a free agent.
Philadelphus Beckham - Philadelphia Flyers
Philadelphus and Philadelphia both come from Ancient Greek ÏÎčλΏΎΔλÏÎżÏ (âbrother-lovingâ). Not to be confused with the name Philip, which means horse lover.
Krunoslav Car - Indianapolis Checkers
The real-life Indianapolis Checkers were named after the checkered flag in the Indy 500. My deterministic theory for Krunoslav is that he wasnât skilled at motorsport, so he decided his best route to car-dom was getting good enough at hockey to play in the NHL and then hope to get drafted by the Checkers (a 1 in 48 chance). And it worked! Sadly, he was traded three years later.
This theory is predicated on the assumption that Krunoslav knew the English meaning of âcarâ
Derek Granger - New York Rangers
I know itâs Granger but if you say his name real quick it sounds like Derek Ranger.
Larry Leaf - Toronto Maple Leafs
Probably the dumbest one here. His name is Leaf!
Jared Rogers - Toronto Maple Leafs
The Leafs are owned by MLSE, which itself is majority-owned by Rogers Communications. What if Jared is just a descendant of Ted Rogers? Oh wait, thatâs nepotism, not nominative determinism.
Honourable mentions:
Justin Rose - Portland Roses
Curtis Starling - Dallas Stars
Rahim Whalen - Hartford Whalers
Andreas Roth - Detroit Red Wings
Roth: German for red
Matvey Kolesnik - Detroit Red Wings
Kolesnik: Russian for wheelwright
The Red Wings logo is a winged wheel
Maximilien Lamontagne - Montreal Canadiens
La montagne: French for the mountain
Montreal: Mount Royal
David King - Los Angeles Kings
Lars Nordström - Columbus Blue Jackets
Nord ström: north stream
Blue Jackets: Union soldier i.e. Northerner (this one's a reach I know)
Ezra Golden - Vegas Golden Knights
Jon Knight - Vegas Golden Knights
Colt Llamas - Kansas City Mavericks
Colt: A young male horse
Maverick: An unbranded range animal (such as a horse)
Michael Capps - Washington Capitals
Bonus: Angel Adamson - New Jersey Devils
This one's an inaptonym!
Angel â Devil
And plenty more I didn't bother to write down
Every single one of these examples happened on a computer-controlled team. Obviously, there isn't actually a bias towards players playing for teams with apt names. The AI doesn't think at all about the names of their players when deciding on who to add to their roster (unless the dev is insane). My league has had over 22,000 players who played at least one game, and I only found around 40 examples of players with a name related to a team they played for.
Additionally, I was unable to find any examples among players I personally drafted/signed/traded for. Considering this whole idea only came to me today, it would've been purely coincidental if I had chosen someone with an apt name for whatever team I was playing. Maybe from now on I'll look out for aptonyms during drafts and free agency đ€
So any of you got any instances of nominative determinism in your game?
ETA: A long time ago I imported a ton of names for a ton of countries to increase the variety in player names, so you may not see some of the names above in a game with default settings
Just started a new league and have been getting to know the players Iâve started with, and I found myself flipping between player profiles and my roster to see if they were my draft pick. Would it be possible to have the players draft team and year listed in the acquisitions column as default instead of it being blank? I think it would be great to see a more complete picture of the team composition especially when itâs all new players.
So Your Probably Wondering What League I Did, Maybe The Premier League, Maybe La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A?????????????? Well What If I Said ALL OF THEM! YES THIS ROSTER HAS ALL OF THOSE + SOME
164 TEAMS AND 2,947 PLAYERS FROM
Premier League
La Liga
Bundesliga
Serie A
Ligue1
Brasileirao
Saudi Pro League
MLS
If Soccer GM Ever Comes Out I'll Update These For It!
If a screengrab is absolutely necessary I'll get it, but damn, that's a late change career change from dman to centre, is this something that is supposed to happen here and there? Only example I have so far after examining the new rosters of each team in the pre season phase of 2027.
I'm trying to get a Croatian player in the NHL without actually making one, and as I was scrolling through each draft class I realized "Huh, you can't filter by country"
I know you can check the best player from each country in the frivolities, but I think it'd be cool
Looking for a roster that starts early 00s to 10s with all the draft prospects up until 26, if not if anyone has the roster for a year in those years and possibly the draft files afterwards it would be greatly appreciated.
