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This will be the final major update for FHM7 - if we discover any new serious problems after this release, we'll deal with them in a hotfix as usual, but this will be the last update that adds a significant amount of new content to the game. (If you find any problems with this update, particularly fixes that aren't working or unexpected issues arising out of the changes made, please report them the usual channels - preferably the tech support forum on our boards, the Steam board, or /r/franchisehockey on Reddit, those get checked daily.) We'll now be moving on to full-time development of FHM8, which will hopefully release at something closer to our usual October release this time around; we've already started on that and are making good progress at adding some new and exciting things to the game.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

New Features:

-added injury frequency options to File-Setup/Options, with options for fewer/very few/almost no/no injuries; can be adjusted in mid-game
-new functions added to multiplayer leagues on the Setup/Options-Online League screen: Creating and uploading the league files (with two options, the "complete" version includes graphics, "basic" doesn't) and Downloading and updating the league files
-added 10 new Historical Challenges (with accompanying achievements)
-added a "SIM" button beside the VIEW button on the league schedule screen, that sims the game without needing to open the pregame screen to use the SIM GAME button there
-added new set of advanced stats, viewable in the Advanced (2) option of the stats dropdown for roster-type screens: zone starts, shootout stats, and 3-star selections
-the autoplay standings (and the league-standings screen) now shows preseason player stats leaders during the preseason, then switches to regular season leaders once that begins
-added a ratings filter to the staff filter
-Tournament games now appear on team schedules with a light green background, overriding the usual blue home/red away
-added the ability to select the template on the "Create Player" option (using the template names on the player edit screen)
-addition to the new scounting reports: in standard and custom games (i.e. not historical) if the team is in a league that has any drafts with a minimum age >17, a section is added that lists the top 5 players (ranked by their potential as viewed by the team) eligible for each of those drafts in the next 3 seasons after the current one, e.g. while playing in the NHL in 20-21 it'll show the top 5 players for the 2022, 2023, and 2024 NHL Entry Drafts, listed as "Projected Top Picks for (Season) (Draft Name):"
-"Last Day for Contract Renewals/Qualifying Offers" added to the league events list on June 30 for all leagues
-user can now edit the uniform numbers of players on any team when commissioner mode is on
-the injury list counter is now editable in commissioner mode
-suspension length is now editable in the Status section of the player edit screen
-on the development reports, after the player's age the current league-relative (to the team owning the development report) talent and potential have been added, e.g. "C John Smith (27, 3.0/4.0), Chicago Blackhawks (NHL)"
-added a ROW column to the standings screens between DIFF and HOME (Regulation and Overtime Wins, used as a standings tiebreaker)
-added a dropdown to the team transaction log that filters the list by each specific transaction type
-AI-run European teams will now give a foreign player it wants to send to its farm team the option of mutually terminating the contract instead
-when starting a new historical game in the seasons 1972-1978, if a player on a WHA team has any NHL teams in his career history, his NHL rights are now set to the NHL team he played for last
-added an additional Historical editing checkbox to Manager Options: "Schedule Lengths: Leagues" will change their season lengths when they did historically if this is checked (i.e. the league schedule length will be updated from the database on July 1 (if there's no entry for the league for that season, e.g. if the user let the WHA continue after 1979, it won't change)
-the awards ceremony screen now lists the award nominees in they grey square before revealing the winner
-added text to Tactical Settings descriptions to describe specifing positioning of players where it deviates from a normal positioning setup (e.g. which forwards is the deep forechecker in a 1-1-3)
-current database updated to post-NHL trading deadline status (it's a little later than we've done in previous years, about a week after the deadline, which in particular gets a few more of the late NHL signings in)

Other Fixes and Changes:

-fixed crash when using the "Clear A" button on the team scouting watch list under some circumstances
-in multiplayer games, the AI will no longer override human-selected protected lists for waiver/intraleague drafts
-made another modification to scouting priority mechanics for junior leagues to place players outside the team's region but in the same nation at the bottom of the queue
-the new section of the scouting report that's supposed to show the top free agents/available players at the team's weakness appears no longer shows them for the team's strengths instead
-shifted weighting of stat-adjusted talent for F/D to emphasize scoring more at the expense of game rating
-fixed a few issues in the world database, mainly in non-hockey countries, that were resulting in some cities being listed as part of the wrong country
-the back button should now work normally when navigating within international tournament histories, i.e. clicking back won't return you to a blank page in some places
-the World Menu's Tournaments section now defaults to the Olympic tournament unless the user has previously selected another tournament (previously, there was no default, so if you wentto standings at the start of the game it would point to the NHL playoffs)
-if the user creates a custom league with an initial draft and then expands the league before the draft, the expansion teams will now take part in the draft and won't sign players on July 1 before they can be drafted
-while viewing the Info tab of a club team's team page, if you then use the World menu to switch to a national team and then click on one of the other sub-tabs on that screen (e.g. Team Data) tab, you no longer get a mixture of national team and club data
-autoplay standings screen no longer shows the previous's seasons GAA and Save % leaders from July 1 to the preseason
-if a player has a minor (orange) injury, he will now be sorted properly along with the other players when clicking on the fitness column of the roster screen
-removed redundant "player returned from the injury list" popup
-adjusted mock draft criteria again to weight current ability and overall potential more highly
-the scouting update message no longer uses the language of the user's Windows setup to show the month, instead of the English month name
-added minimum language acquisition speed for all players, should prevent players from never learning a language despite remaining in a country for a long time
-teams on the Team-Transactions-Transaction Summary screen are now sorted alphabetically
-AI should now handle goalies better during the preseason, calling up any goalies it has on the farm that are better than the ones on the current roster (and thereby not exposing them to season-start waivers)
-fixed the ES AT, PP AT, and SH AT amounts on the player screen-season stats tab-third "Split" section
-at 1600x900 (fullscreen), the "Next International" line on the team home page no longer gets partially cut off at the bottom
-on the postgame screen, in the Injuries section at the bottom, if there are a lot of injuries the list will they now wrap around instead of continuing past the right edge of the box
-in boxscore_period_penalties_summary.csv and boxscore_period_scoring_summary.csv, OT period numbers are now specified
-the "Players playing against their former team" and "Players visiting their hometown" fields in the game preview screen's pregame notes section should now display proper results instead of always being "None"
-on the League-League Home screen, the Transactions tab now lists trades and waiver claims in addition to signings
-fixed issue with 2021 draft picks being tradeable after the draft in some circumstances
-with historical editing turned on and the team activation option selected, expansion drafts will now occur as they did historically instead of requiring that you re-add them manually
-added icons for the following awards after the player's name on his profile screen: Sportsmanship Award, Player's MVP Award, Leadership Award, Dedication Award
-in leagues where ties are possible, the standings screen now shows the OTL column as T
-in team-scouting, with the "Hire Scouts" screen open, clicking on an individual scout to see their profile and then pressing the back button to return to the map will no longer change the map to show 0.3 (red) in all regions
-changed the default sort order on World-National Data-Nation Profile to Population (descending)
-if a player is restricted from signing by the Iron Curtain rule, he will not be shown in the list of eligible players to be selected during the draft
-lowered the effect games played has on Goalie Stat-Adjusted Talent
-in the player screen history tab, mock draft results are no longer off by 1, e.g. #1 was shown as #0
-the CHL import draft order should now be calculated correctly, and rotate picks between leagues (requires new game)
-on the contract negotiation screen, one of the salary amounts is no longer shown in $US even if the currency symbol has been changed
-on the depth chart screen, right-clicking one of the Right Wings will no longer shift all the players to the left, cutting off the first letter of the goalies' names
-clicking on a player's name in the training screen now opens his profile
-adjusted goalie development to significantly reduce the chances of them exceeding their potential, which was happening much too often
-removed the 2021 Memorial Cup from the real 20-21 start now that it has been officially cancelled
-corrected a small data interpretation problem in historical that was resulting in some players starting as free agents instead of with their correct team
-the team-roster-contracts tab will now have a default sort the same as the active roster unless the user has changed it
-if a player's contract is edited to be an ELC, the contract created no longer ends in UFA status for the player
-with the draft off in historical mode, players who are added to their historical team on July 1 of their first season should now have their league rights assigned properly instead of being set to None
-in the postgame notes section of the postgame screen, all unused players will be listed, not just the visiting goalie
-in historical games, players who begin the game retired no longer have an entry in their highlights that they retired on January 1, 1900
-the Hall of Fame should now work properly again in historical mode
-in the pregame notes section of the game preview screen in leagues where games can end in a tie, the coach's record is no longer shown with the ties missing
-the "Auto-Play to Event..." options for the Awards Ceremony and Intra-League draft are now no longer shown until the league's season ends, since the dates of those are dependent on the date the season ends and the date shown at the start of the season will be inaccurate
-the "Set to Inactive" option in the league structure editor is now disabled in historical (had been left on unintentionally, but turning a league off like that will lead to extreme instability in historical mode)
-AI should now skip picks more often during waiver and intraleague drafts
-when generating/regenerating a league schedule, if trading/transfer deadlines are are later than 30 days before the final date of the regenerated schedule, they'll be moved to 30 days before the end date
-hitting the space bar now continues the game properly while on the free agent centre screen
-adjusted AI's behaviour when choosing goalies for protected lists (expansion/waiver/intraleague drafts) so it chooses low-ability, high- (or even middle-) potential goalies over established ones
-special characters (e.g. umlaut) should now appear properly in the text of the contract negotiation screen
-Regina Historical Challenge is now successful after a WCHL playoff championship, as originally intdended
-decreased AI's tendency to pick up marginal players on waivers
-fixed issue with team editing that would make it impossible for user control of farm lines to work on newly-created teams
-fixed crash that could result when a team is deactivated before removing its farm team affiliations; this will auto-fix games with the existing problems
-fixed numerous players showing up as free agents in a 2004-05 historical start when they should have been on a team
-the Hall of Fame announcement screen no longer ignores post-game-start championship wins
-"Replace With" now works properly on a farm team when the user is managing its parent has the control lines option on
-adjusted role scores for enforcer, goon, and agitator roles so players who fight frequently will score higher in the first two and lower in the third
-fixed a crash when right-clicking on a player's name under some circumstances
-the talent/potential numbers that were added to the development reports now appear for players who have attribute decreases as well as the ones who improved
-the AI will no longer refuse to trade players they acquired recently, but have put on the trading block
-added a 3-star points total to Stats: Advanced (awarded on a 5-3-1 basis for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd stars, respectively)
-3-star selections in Stats: Advanced (2) are now recorded properly for goalies
-added tooltips for the new Advanced (2) stat columns
-fixed potential lineup data updating issue in multiplayer games that could cause a crash during game simulation
-changing a team name and abbreviation on July 1 no longer changes the name in all previous years in the draft log
-the InD (injury days lost) column on Leagues-Stats-Team Stats now properly counts days lost to injuries that were added by editing a player
-the Memorial Cup in custom games will now no longer function if any of the 3 CHL leagues have been deactivated (rather than crashing when it attempts to schedule the tournament)

2D Mode Changes:

-added multiple view zoom options to 2D, including one that shows the whole ice surface ("Fit to screen")
-added support for a separate goalie icon with a "goalie" (rather than "player") prefix , e.g. if goalie_chicago_blackhawks_home.png exists, it will be used for the goalie instead of player_chicago_blackhawks_home.png
-sped up player movement towards the bench on a line change
-offensive non-puckhandlers' movement should now be a little more forward-directed during breakouts and in the neutral zone (it had a tendency to to a little too side-to-side, which was creating problems when the puckhandler was usually getting well ahead of his wingers/rushing D)
-defencemen on the puckhandling team no longer worry about covering opponents who are lingering so far behind the play as to be a non-factor in a potential turnover situation
-players should now move correctly during shot attempts, instead of the odd pause they were taking while the shot moved
-made some rebalancing moves to get stats back into their proper ranges after the previous changes to gameplay distorted them, particularly shooting percentage, shot attempts, hits, and fights

For the upcoming update, we're once again going to run a public beta for a week or so prior to the official release, giving you access to test builds of the new update before we finalize things. Last time wasn't a perfect success, as some things still slipped through and forced a hotfix, but we did manage to get several useful changes in. In particular, we'd like multiplayer leagues to do some testing of the new in-game file-handling functions (but please do so with backups of your existing leagues, lest something go horribly wrong.)

Please bear in mind, if you opt-in to the beta, that these are test builds and may do unexpected things; the whole point of the public beta is to find these problems. We offer no promises that something unpleasant won't happen to any save you use with the beta version, so, if you want to take part with one of your current saved games, it's best to use the "Save Game As" option on the game's File menu to make a new version of the save and use that, so you don't ruin the "good" copy of your save.

Right now we're aiming for a full release of the update sometime next week, but that plan could change depending on how long it takes to resolve any issues found in the beta and any new ones that come up.

The public beta is only available for the Steam version of the game - Steam makes it ridiculously easy to set one up (under an hour for Sebastian and I the first time we do it, minutes afterward), where a Fastspring beta would require a full-scale release process from us (most of a day for Malte and Sebastian every time we update the beta), which isn't practical to do.

To join the beta:

1. Right-click on FHM7 in your Steam Library and select Properties
2. Click on "Betas"
3. Under "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter the access code, which is "updatepublicbeta" (no quotes)
4. That should populate the "Select the beta..." box above with the option "public_beta - Public Beta", select that
5. Steam should then automatically update your game. If it doesn't do that, check your update queue; if it's not in there, exit and restart the Steam client and it should appear.

Should you wish to leave the beta, just go back to the Betas page and on the dropdown menu select None. Steam will then revert you to the current public version of the game. When the final version of the update is ready, the public beta branch will be updated to that one as well, so there'll be no need to change back to get it.

If you're already one of our internal beta testers, don't join the public beta! You'll lose access to the beta versions we don't release to the public.

If you find any problems with the beta, particularly fixes that aren't working or unexpected issues arising out of the changes made, continue to report them the usual channels - preferably the tech support forum on our boards, the Steam board, or /r/franchisehockey on Reddit, those get checked daily. But, when reporting, please mention that you found the problem while using the public beta.

New Features:

-added injury frequency options to File-Setup/Options, with options for fewer/very few/almost no/no injuries; can be adjusted in mid-game
-new functions added to multiplayer leagues on the Setup/Options-Online League screen: Creating and uploading the league files (with two options, the "complete" version includes graphics, "basic" doesn't) and Downloading and updating the league files
-added 10 new Historical Challenges (with accompanying achievements)
-added a "SIM" button beside the VIEW button on the league schedule screen, that sims the game without needing to open the pregame screen to use the SIM GAME button there
-added new set of advanced stats, viewable in the Advanced (2) option of the stats dropdown for roster-type screens: zone starts, shootout stats, and 3-star selections
-the autoplay standings (and the league-standings screen) now shows preseason player stats leaders during the preseason, then switches to regular season leaders once that begins
-added a ratings filter to the staff filter
-Tournament games now appear on team schedules with a light green background, overriding the usual blue home/red away
-added the ability to select the template on the "Create Player" option (using the template names on the player edit screen)
-addition to the new scounting reports: in standard and custom games (i.e. not historical) if the team is in a league that has any drafts with a minimum age >17, a section is added that lists the top 5 players (ranked by their potential as viewed by the team) eligible for each of those drafts in the next 3 seasons after the current one, e.g. while playing in the NHL in 20-21 it'll show the top 5 players for the 2022, 2023, and 2024 NHL Entry Drafts, listed as "Projected Top Picks for (Season) (Draft Name):"
-"Last Day for Contract Renewals/Qualifying Offers" added to the league events list on June 30 for all leagues
-user can now edit the uniform numbers of players on any team when commissioner mode is on
-the injury list counter is now editable in commissioner mode
-suspension length is now editable in the Status section of the player edit screen
-on the development reports, after the player's age the current league-relative (to the team owning the development report) talent and potential have been added, e.g. "C John Smith (27, 3.0/4.0), Chicago Blackhawks (NHL)"
-added a ROW column to the standings screens between DIFF and HOME (Regulation and Overtime Wins, used as a standings tiebreaker)
-added a dropdown to the team transaction log that filters the list by each specific transaction type
-AI-run European teams will now give a foreign player it wants to send to its farm team the option of mutually terminating the contract instead
-when starting a new historical game in the seasons 1972-1978, if a player on a WHA team has any NHL teams in his career history, his NHL rights are now set to the NHL team he played for last
-added an additional Historical editing checkbox to Manager Options: "Schedule Lengths: Leagues" will change their season lengths when they did historically if this is checked (i.e. the league schedule length will be updated from the database on July 1 (if there's no entry for the league for that season, e.g. if the user let the WHA continue after 1979, it won't change)
-the awards ceremony screen now lists the award nominees in they grey square before revealing the winner
-added text to Tactical Settings descriptions to describe specifing positioning of players where it deviates from a normal positioning setup (e.g. which forwards is the deep forechecker in a 1-1-3)
-current database updated to post-NHL trading deadline status (it's a little later than we've done in previous years, about a week after the deadline, which in particular gets a few more of the late NHL signings in)

Other Fixes and Changes:

-fixed crash when using the "Clear A" button on the team scouting watch list under some circumstances
-in multiplayer games, the AI will no longer override human-selected protected lists for waiver/intraleague drafts
-made another modification to scouting priority mechanics for junior leagues to place players outside the team's region but in the same nation at the bottom of the queue
-the new section of the scouting report that's supposed to show the top free agents/available players at the team's weakness appears no longer shows them for the team's strengths instead
-shifted weighting of stat-adjusted talent for F/D to emphasize scoring more at the expense of game rating
-fixed a few issues in the world database, mainly in non-hockey countries, that were resulting in some cities being listed as part of the wrong country
-the back button should now work normally when navigating within international tournament histories, i.e. clicking back won't return you to a blank page in some places
-the World Menu's Tournaments section now defaults to the Olympic tournament unless the user has previously selected another tournament (previously, there was no default, so if you wentto standings at the start of the game it would point to the NHL playoffs)
-if the user creates a custom league with an initial draft and then expands the league before the draft, the expansion teams will now take part in the draft and won't sign players on July 1 before they can be drafted
-while viewing the Info tab of a club team's team page, if you then use the World menu to switch to a national team and then click on one of the other sub-tabs on that screen (e.g. Team Data) tab, you no longer get a mixture of national team and club data
-autoplay standings screen no longer shows the previous's seasons GAA and Save % leaders from July 1 to the preseason
-if a player has a minor (orange) injury, he will now be sorted properly along with the other players when clicking on the fitness column of the roster screen
-removed redundant "player returned from the injury list" popup
-adjusted mock draft criteria again to weight current ability and overall potential more highly
-the scouting update message no longer uses the language of the user's Windows setup to show the month, instead of the English month name
-added minimum language acquisition speed for all players, should prevent players from never learning a language despite remaining in a country for a long time
-teams on the Team-Transactions-Transaction Summary screen are now sorted alphabetically
-AI should now handle goalies better during the preseason, calling up any goalies it has on the farm that are better than the ones on the current roster (and thereby not exposing them to season-start waivers)
-fixed the ES AT, PP AT, and SH AT amounts on the player screen-season stats tab-third "Split" section
-at 1600x900 (fullscreen), the "Next International" line on the team home page no longer gets partially cut off at the bottom
-on the postgame screen, in the Injuries section at the bottom, if there are a lot of injuries the list will they now wrap around instead of continuing past the right edge of the box
-in boxscore_period_penalties_summary.csv and boxscore_period_scoring_summary.csv, OT period numbers are now specified
-the "Players playing against their former team" and "Players visiting their hometown" fields in the game preview screen's pregame notes section should now display proper results instead of always being "None"
-on the League-League Home screen, the Transactions tab now lists trades and waiver claims in addition to signings
-fixed issue with 2021 draft picks being tradeable after the draft in some circumstances
-with historical editing turned on and the team activation option selected, expansion drafts will now occur as they did historically instead of requiring that you re-add them manually
-added icons for the following awards after the player's name on his profile screen: Sportsmanship Award, Player's MVP Award, Leadership Award, Dedication Award
-in leagues where ties are possible, the standings screen now shows the OTL column as T
-in team-scouting, with the "Hire Scouts" screen open, clicking on an individual scout to see their profile and then pressing the back button to return to the map will no longer change the map to show 0.3 (red) in all regions
-changed the default sort order on World-National Data-Nation Profile to Population (descending)
-if a player is restricted from signing by the Iron Curtain rule, he will not be shown in the list of eligible players to be selected during the draft
-lowered the effect games played has on Goalie Stat-Adjusted Talent
-in the player screen history tab, mock draft results are no longer off by 1, e.g. #1 was shown as #0
-the CHL import draft order should now be calculated correctly, and rotate picks between leagues (requires new game)
-on the contract negotiation screen, one of the salary amounts is no longer shown in $US even if the currency symbol has been changed
-on the depth chart screen, right-clicking one of the Right Wings will no longer shift all the players to the left, cutting off the first letter of the goalies' names
-clicking on a player's name in the training screen now opens his profile
-adjusted goalie development to significantly reduce the chances of them exceeding their potential, which was happening much too often
-removed the 2021 Memorial Cup from the real 20-21 start now that it has been officially cancelled
-corrected a small data interpretation problem in historical that was resulting in some players starting as free agents instead of with their correct team
-the team-roster-contracts tab will now have a default sort the same as the active roster unless the user has changed it
-if a player's contract is edited to be an ELC, the contract created no longer ends in UFA status for the player
-with the draft off in historical mode, players who are added to their historical team on July 1 of their first season should now have their league rights assigned properly instead of being set to None
-in the postgame notes section of the postgame screen, all unused players will be listed, not just the visiting goalie
-in historical games, players who begin the game retired no longer have an entry in their highlights that they retired on January 1, 1900
-the Hall of Fame should now work properly again in historical mode
-in the pregame notes section of the game preview screen in leagues where games can end in a tie, the coach's record is no longer shown with the ties missing
-the "Auto-Play to Event..." options for the Awards Ceremony and Intra-League draft are now no longer shown until the league's season ends, since the dates of those are dependent on the date the season ends and the date shown at the start of the season will be inaccurate
-the "Set to Inactive" option in the league structure editor is now disabled in historical (had been left on unintentionally, but turning a league off like that will lead to extreme instability in historical mode)
-AI should now skip picks more often during waiver and intraleague drafts
-when generating/regenerating a league schedule, if trading/transfer deadlines are are later than 30 days before the final date of the regenerated schedule, they'll be moved to 30 days before the end date
-hitting the space bar now continues the game properly while on the free agent centre screen
-adjusted AI's behaviour when choosing goalies for protected lists (expansion/waiver/intraleague drafts) so it chooses low-ability, high- (or even middle-) potential goalies over established ones
-special characters (e.g. umlaut) should now appear properly in the text of the contract negotiation screen
-Regina Historical Challenge is now successful after a WCHL playoff championship, as originally intdended
-decreased AI's tendency to pick up marginal players on waivers
-fixed issue with team editing that would make it impossible for user control of farm lines to work on newly-created teams
-fixed crash that could result when a team is deactivated before removing its farm team affiliations; this will auto-fix games with the existing problems
-fixed numerous players showing up as free agents in a 2004-05 historical start when they should have been on a team
-the Hall of Fame announcement screen no longer ignores post-game-start championship wins
-"Replace With" now works properly on a farm team when the user is managing its parent has the control lines option on
-adjusted role scores for enforcer, goon, and agitator roles so players who fight frequently will score higher in the first two and lower in the third

2D Mode Changes:

-added multiple view zoom options to 2D, including one that shows the whole ice surface ("Fit to screen")
-added support for a separate goalie icon with a "goalie" (rather than "player") prefix , e.g. if goalie_chicago_blackhawks_home.png exists, it will be used for the goalie instead of player_chicago_blackhawks_home.png
-sped up player movement towards the bench on a line change
-offensive non-puckhandlers' movement should now be a little more forward-directed during breakouts and in the neutral zone (it had a tendency to to a little too side-to-side, which was creating problems when the puckhandler was usually getting well ahead of his wingers/rushing D)
-defencemen on the puckhandling team no longer worry about covering opponents who are lingering so far behind the play as to be a non-factor in a potential turnover situation
-players should now move correctly during shot attempts, instead of the odd pause they were taking while the shot moved
-made some rebalancing moves to get stats back into their proper ranges after the previous changes to gameplay distorted them, particularly shooting percentage, shot attempts, hits, and fights

Unfortunately, a nasty crash bug evaded even the public beta test of the update, so a hotfix is necessary. But we'd already begun making changes for the next update, some of which were too far along to remove just for a simple hotfix, so there are a few other changes, including one significant one: optional full control of your farm teams' lines.

Changes:
-fixed crash when using the reset button on the filter
-"Control Farm Teams - Lines" now gives the user full control of the lines of all playable farm teams. It also disables all AI intervention for all farm team lineup/line (not roster) decisons and forces the user to always have a valid lineup for each minor league game - i.e. if you don't have the right number of players dressed, have somebody ineligible in the lineup, have incomplete lines, etc., you get the same error messages he would with with your main team and get sent to the farm team's lines screen to rectify whatever the problem is. Note that it is not possible to control a farm team's lines if you have assistant control turned on for your own lines.
-auto-qualify will no longer fail occasionally for some players who are assigned to farm teams
-GSAA is now calculated properly in goalies' career stats
-some of the RFA's selected by Seattle in the 20-21 entry draft will no longer give the "match offer" notification when the user attempts to sign them
-lowered maximum potential of generated players with checking/defensive-type templates
-added a mechanic to limit development of players of approximately NHL third-line potential in their 20's playing in leagues far below their level (will hopefully prevent some of the bloat in 2-2.5 star players in later years of the game)
-Seattle expansion draft changed to 3 goalies + 27 skaters instead of separate F and D numbers (was preventing the team from making enough picks if the final team(s) didn't have players available of the position they needed)
-restored broken function of "Unpredictable" player development status that can increase/decrease potentials of younger players, and made it much more likely to occur to goalies

A new update for FHM7, version 7.4.132, has just been released.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the open beta for this update, we found a number of things that might otherwise have made it past testing and forced a hotfix. The next update is tentatively targeted for shortly after the NHL trading deadline (April 12), but we may need longer than that to finish some of the additions we're planning.

New features:

-the "Current" database start option is now available with playable league rosters updated as of the end of February
-on July 1 in the league structure editor, you can now use the Import Historical Team option to import any playable team from the historical database and Import Team to do the same from the modern database; the rosters will be the same as in Exhibition mode (the import functions uses the same mechanics.) For historical teams, select the team name (usually the latest one for that team, i.e. if you want the 1984 Winnipeg Jets, choose Arizona, or if you want the 2001 Atlanta Thrashers, choose (non-WHA) Winnipeg
-the 3 World Cup of Hockey tournaments (96, 04, 16) have been added to historical mode
-added new options to the Scouting-Watch List screen: "Clear" (removes all players on the list) and "Clear A" (removes all players currently scouted to the A-level)
-added a checkbox option to the staff filter: "Unemployed"; turning it on filters out all staff who currently have a contract
-changed criteria for some of the December "Player Poll Results Released" news item categories, and added a few new ones: Most Controversial, Most Overrated, Most Underrated, Smartest
-added another section to the scouting report in all modes: for every position on the team that the AI evaluates as a weakness, it will show the top free agents/available players at that position (i.e. all players who are either free agents, contracted to a team in this league and on the trading block, or contracted to a team in a league from which they can be signed directly with no compensation)
-added a Leave Game option to the exhibition game start screen
-if the user is in control of their farm team's staff, they now get an email announcing when their contracts are expiring like they would for the main team's staff
-added Auto-Play option for end of playoffs
-added "Rescale" option (in File-Setup Options) to Hall of Fame section that adjusts the HOF standards to something more appropriate to the length of the top league's schedule; this is intended mainly for custom/historical leagues with very short schedules, whose players would normally have trouble reaching the regular benchmarks
-on the Waiver Draft submission deadline, there is now an option on the league dropdown to return to the submission screen, so it's easier to get back to after navigating away from it while working on your list
-added a new checkbox option to the Filter screen's Misc section, below "Signable": "Realistic Signing Targets", which will filter the list down to players whose league rights are owned by the team, or who are likely (by a very conservative estimate) to be willing to sign with the team. Note that players who this filter excludes may still be willing to sign, particularly for higher-level leagues.
-if a player has the autoqualify option available on his contract negotiation screen (i.e. in the last year of a contract ending in RFA status), he now also has a right-click option "Autoqualify On" (or Off, as appropriate), that toggles the autoqualify option on/off for him (removing the need to open up the negotiation screen)
-added a checkbox option to Manager Options - Profile: "Reject all international job offers"; this off by default, but if selected, will prevent any international team GM jobs from being offered to the user
-signing players from your junior farm teams will now always be an instant signing once an agreement is reached
-the "Buyout Rights" option for players in junior leagues now costs nothing
-when creating a custom league, the Contract Maximum minimum value is now 35 (was 50) to match the amount League Edit allows; and conversely, league edit allows increasing teams up to 90 teams, to match the initial setup allowing up to 90
-on the contract offer screen, the arrow buttons will now decrease the contract offer in $100 increments once it's at $1000 (had been impossible to go below $1000 before)
-added a position dropdown for the roster, stats, and search screens to filter what's listed by main player position, options are C,LW,RW,LD,RD,G,F,D (as in our editor)

Changes:

-when changing the selected item in the upper area of the world/tem/league menu (national team/tournament, club team, league, etc.) the most frequently-used screen in that category is now opened, e.g. switching teams opens the roster screen for that team (unless the user is already in that area and changes the selection, then it won't change)
-fixed issue that could select the wrong pick order in 2022 and leave Seattle with no picks
-the 17-24 picks in the NHL Draft will no longer reverse there order under some circumstances
-the first round list on the Entry Draft Order email sent the day before the draft and the Draft Lottery screen now show traded picks correctly
-the July 1 start option is now disabled when choosing the Real 20-21 Start option
-clicking an entry in the Draft section of the player screen no longer opens the draft from the previous year the player was actually drafted in
-the name of the scout sending the NHL pre-draft evaluation email on June 1 is now the team's current head scout
-the "End Negotiations" option (renamed from "Remove Offer") now appears in the action menu on the player screen in addition to the right-click menu
-when controlling an NHL team, the user no longer gets a message on July 7 announcing the LNAH Futures List for the upcoming season, when they should get the NHL one
-the DIFF column in the leagues standing screen is now calculated correctly
-trade offers now get an instant response during the WHL US Prospects Draft, like they do during other drafts
-no longer possible to name the same person as both head and advance scout
-editing a player's disliked club now immediately removes any happiness penalty that the player has for being on a disliked club
-when adding a fictional league to a custom game, after the first league is added, the remaining leagues have the start year and use historical finances options removed from their Add a League screen, since they can't be set separately from the first league
-the DRE column on the roster screen is now sortable
-Vegas is now exempt from the Seattle expansion draft in July 2021
-stats where the calculation involves dividing by 0 now show .000 instead of "..00nan"
-in an expansion draft in leagues with an overage player limit, teams no longer ignore the limit
-in historic mode, the League-League Data screen now shows the era-adjusted values for Typical Salary (Bad/Average/Good/Top) instead of the unadjusted amounts
-fixed potential crash after editing league structure in historical game
-adjusted AI for waiver claims, teams will now be a little more reluctant to make waiver claims (or waiver/intraleague draft picks) for marginal players
-fixed issue that could prevent skipping of some expansion drafts in historical leagues
-fixed waiver claim order prior to November 1 (will use previous season's standings)
-in historical mode, players are no longer being generated to fill the international rosters in years when they're not needed, e.g. South Koreans on July 1, 1918 in a 1917 start; also reduced overall quality of those playewrs
-fixed error that could result in the nonplayable stats system giving players in the leagues that can be playable (but are set to non-playable in the save) far too many games played in 21-22
-fixed problem with custom games that could lead to some leagues ignoring age limits
-right-clicking on a goalie and selecting "Change Supplementary Role" now shows the goalie supplementary roles, not the skater ones
-changed the maximum schedule length in League-Edit-Rules and custom league setup to 84 (it's currently 82)
-fixed display error for 20-21 playoffs in league-history for the NHL once the 21-22 season is reached
-on the History-Awards screen, the Awards 2 view no longer shows a separate line for each season of each award
-changed the scouting system for junior teams, so the #1 spot in the Priorities-Regions list and the Watch List will now get 100% coverage
-fixed issue in custom games where a higher-level league that drafts from a junior league was not able to sign drafted players until their junior contracts expired
-removed "AHL can't be edited" popup on the structure editor for the AHL in custom games
-the Continue button no longer skips past July 1 at times
-reversed the spots of the Ask for Response and Meet Demand Buttons on the contract negotiation screen so the click process flows left to right instead of right-left-right
-if a contract offer is being considered by a player and a deadline for signing him passes during that period, he'll now respond to the offer before the deadline passes
-fixed error that could lead to language mismatches with nationalities in some circumstances when creating a multinational custom league
-on the development reports, the full team name (not just the nickname) is now shown for each player, and players are sorted by team name first, then their last names
-removed the "-" in front of the word Strength on the development reports
-when starting a 20-21 standard game with the Real 20-21 option off and a July 1 start, there are no longer missing schedules for two of the Mestis teams
-in a standard game with the real 20-21 option on, the League-History-Seasons-20-21-Standings screen for the NHL no longer has missing or duplicated division names after 20-21 is completed
-fixed missing uniform numbers and roles for players added in Exhibition mode to fill out rosters
-fixed issue with human-run teams occasionally claiming other players on waivers when the user waives his own players
-custom games with historical finances turned on seem no longer ignore the historical financial settings for starting staff salaries
-fixed occasional crash when autoplaying in historical mode for the first time in a new game
-staff budget limits now recalculated properly after a team's Season Budget is edited
-expansion team Season Budgets corrected to use the proper amount based on the league settings (they were getting a much larger number)
-in historical mode with the draft off, when newly-generated players are assigned to their real teams on July 1, their contracts now have ELC status if the league has the ELC rule enabled
-adjusted levels for the "Unhappy" status icon and happiness level to match the amount used for the "Unhappy" mark on the training screen, so they're consistent with each other
-added more specific error message when a team doesn't have enough players of a particular type dressed
-historical games started in 1994-95 no longer crash in mid-January due to a waiver draft problem
-fixed issue with players who need an ELC occasionally asking for more than the ELC salary limit
-non-NHL teams are no longer able to make transfer offers for players on NHL-Europe loans
-fixed issue with star players accepting preseason tryouts (and subsequently signing very cheap contracts) while they're UFA's
-fixed the nonplayable player movement system moving players to college teams after they've been playing professionally
-fixed error calculating overage status in junior leagues
-attempting to view the Team Finances screen of a team in a nonplayable league no longer crashes the game
-job offers now require a response again, so they won't be missed while autoplaying
-"Save as quickstart" disabled for non-commissioners in multiplayer leagues (so the individual GM's can't cheat by using that to create a new league and look at potentials, etc.)
-in a custom game, when a farm league is created after one other farm league has already been created, , it now list any existing major leagues as an option for a parent as well, allowing e.g. the new farm league to be a farm league of an existing farm league
-goaltenders will no longer occasionally appear in the "Hardest Shot competition" portion of the All-Star game skills competition email
-removed the all-star game comment from the Hall of Fame induction screen for now, since we don't have data for the real all-star game history available yet so every real retired player was getting the comment that he hadn't played in any all-star games
-fixed issue that was resulting in ELC-eligible players who receive offers from both a human player and AI teams potentially reporting that they'd received an offer higher than ELC limits allow
-when staff contracts expire, if the staff member has a reputation too high to sign with his team, he will no longer send a message offering to re-sign, but when the user attempts to do so, refuse the offer. Instead, there should be a separate message for those guys, explaining that they want to leave and won't re-sign
-exhibition mode no longer shows the current ages for all historical players as of 2020, they're shown as of the season they're imported from
-fixed several errors in the world database that were leading to the wrong nationality for players born in Singapore and most of Pakistan
-adjusted AI free agent-signing process slightly so it won't ignore a good player at one forward position when it's strong at that specific position and weak at others
-when a player is acquired via waivers it will now appear on the Career Highlights view of their history tab, in addition to the Transactions view
-if you change a player's primary position using the left-click menu, it no longer sometimes causes him to disappear from his team's depth charts entirely and not reappear until his position rating at the new position increases
-Champions League 21-22 start date moved back to August
-multiplayer commissioners can now see the draft lottery properly
-when a trade is being negotiated during an in-season international tournament, teams in a league that uses a cap floor will no longer refuse trades because the trade would "put them below the cap floor", even when they're far above it (the AI hadn't been counting the players on INT status against the floor)
-player popups now work on the team transactions log
-fixed issue when editing league caps on July 1 that could cause player cap hits to decline when the cap hit is raised, if the team was over the cap when that happened
-a 4-division setup with 8 teams in 3 divisons and 9 in the other no longer causes the bottom-right division on the standings screen to lose the alternating colours on the lines
-adjusted NHL-Europe loan system to better handle situations when which European team the player should go to is ambiguous
-re-worked scouting priority system for scouting to look a little more broadly into the individual zones of the highest priority and second-highest priority map areas, rather than focusing too strictly on the top zone of the top map and not moving on until it was thoroughly scouted
-fixed schedule/season length issues with the Tipsport Extraliga in 21-22 and later seasons in a standard game
-increased minimum number of players that can be scouted per week, and increased maximum number of scouts that will improve scouting reach from 20 to 24
-adjusted roster AI free agent-signing behaviour to be a little more adaptable to the overall level of talent in the league, so it'll continue to attempt to improve the roster even if the low end of the league's talent pool improves noticeably
-the achievements "The All-Swedish Champions" (Win the Swedish second division championship) and Going Up (your team is promoted to a higher league) should work properly now
-adjusted player retirement checks to avoid early retirements for free agents and (particularly) players with a single season left on their contracts
-in a standard game started with the real start option, the NHL all-star game should now work properly after 20-21
-adjusted owner AI to prevent head coaches from being fired extremely early in the season
-adjusted goalie MVP/all-star criteria to take Wins into greater account and make their weighting flexible according to the league's schedule length, so they're not unimportant in short-season leagues
-back button now works properly on the league history screeen for a specific season, so if you click on one of the playoffs/relegation/pre-playoffs/promotion tabs, then on one of the teams on that screen to open the team screen, if you then click the back button it returns you properly to the previous screen instead of going to the team history screen's Season tab, but with no seasons displayed
-if Multiplayer/Online league is checked on the first custom game setup popup, it's now selected on the screen shown next if the player selects "Add Fictional League" (previously it wasn't)
-fixed the Draft Page's Draft Order tab showing the wrong order in some custom game league/playoff format combinations
-teams added to a custom or historical game via Import Hist. Team and Import Team should now get the correct colours
-staff hiring options (right-click and action menu from the staff screen) are now available to the commissioner in multiplayer games again
-when clicking on the current year in the league-history screen, the standings are no longer shown with all the team names underlined
-right now, in a multiplayer game the trade interface doesn't provide any feedback (i.e., saying if the other team is likely/unlikely to accept the trade, etc.) when the other team is human-controlled. We should probably enable that for human-human trades as well, it's useful for the user to know if the trade is even or favours one team or the other.
-very low-potential players will now never request contracts longer than 1 season
-fixed potential June 30 crash
-editing the number of entry draft rounds (via league-edit-info on July 1) is no longer limited to increasing the number only; if it's decreased, any existing picks (including traded) ones for upcoming drafts will immediately disappear; increasing the number back, even immediately, will not restore the traded picks to the team they were traded to
-sorting by GR on the dressed list on the lines screen no longer sorts by name instead
-fixed error in some historical seasons that caused a draft order announcement to be sent on June 30 that doesn't show the correct draft order
-fixed issue in some custom games where, in the League History some of the Best Goalie Award winners wiould lose their stats (on that screen only) after they retire
-corrected error in the scouting report where the weight is displayed in pounds even if the user's preference is set to metric
-Top Prospects report no longer includes any players whose current age is more than one year under the league minimum age
-lowered the cutoff BMI for stopping weight gain, should result in fewer "stocky" low height/high weight players
-after reducing the number of draft rounds, the number of draft rounds is now displayed properly on the the trade screen and depth chart
-the recent player history at the bottom of the player profile screen no longer shows some player ages incorrectly
-in imported FHM6 saves, the team home page "Shortlist" link no longer the team home page instead of the shortlist
-the player ratings (OFF, DEF, etc.) shown on the reports screens (prospect rankings, positional rankings, etc.) should now correctly match the ones shown on the player popups
-in historical games, the Ottawa Senators will no longer lose their farm team when they go inactive for 1931-32 and return in 1932-33
-when playing as a WHL/OHL/QMJHL team, in 20-21 the Import Draft section of the scouting report will no longer show projected picks for the 2020 CHL import draft (which has already happened by that point), instead of the 2021 one like it should
-the German second division transfer deadline (January 31) should now reset correctly after the first season
-fixed crash on Macs when importing historical players
-players in leagues with foreign player restrictions who go on INT status will now continue to count against the team's foreign player limit, so teams can't add extra foreigners while they're away
-when adding foreign player restrictions in a historical league, they're now applied to the Canadian teams in the NHL/WHA as well as the American ones
-game no longer crashes when attempting to create leagues with some of the former-USSR regions
-players no longer retain their tactical tendencies settings when they move from one team to another
-adjusted mock drafts to weigh potential more heavily
-some goalies' total career minutes are no longer shown as negative numbers on the Hall of Fame Goalie screen
-added winners of the 2019-20 junior championships (individual player stats coming later, probably next update)
-fixed issue with player creation that could leave the player ineligible for drafts he should be available for
-when creating a new expansion draft, the "Experience-Based Exemption" and "Age-Based Exemption" checkboxes are now mutually exclusive
-when a custom league is created with e.g. Canada & US as the region but has teams in other nations and ini-draft off, if a foreigner limit is set there some players will no longer have a name of the wrong type for their nationality (had fixed similar issue with languages earlier, but the name was still a problem)
-when players are inducted to the Hall of Fame, it's now dated correctly instead in their player screen's history instead of "0th, 0"
-the awards announcement screen is no longer showing "winners" in the Minor Awards section for awards not being used by the league
-the "Potential" section of the report on the player screen's scouting tab no longger compares Potential incorrectly to Potential, when the text is comparing it to Ability
-when creating a custom fictional league with 2 conferences, the division names in the second conference are no longer blank instead of having default names
-rebalanced Hall of Fame selections by position to avoid excessive number of goalies in early years of historical games and virtually none in later years of modern games
-player draft entries (i.e. who picked them and when) now appear on the Transactions view of the player history, in addition to the Career Highlights one
-numerous text and tooltip fixes
-when importing a player into a custom game, his birthplace should now import correctly
-fixed crashed during some Olympics in historical games (for saves that already have this problem, the current year's Olympics will be skipped)
-adjusted the highest end of contract demands to prevent excessive totals for players who just had a good season
-the "Name" column in the team history screen is now a little wider, so some longer names don't get cut off
-if the number of shifts (SHF) in the player summary section of a boxscore is >99, the boxscore no longer displays "..." instead of the number
-play to event isn't working properly with some drafts - in a modern game, when an expansion draft is added, it'll sim past the draft when Auto-Play to Expansion Draft is used (but not 100% of the time), and in historical games with an Intrleague Draft at the end of the season, the draft date will get moved when the playoffs end and the Autoplay will sim to the original draft date listed in events instead
-adjusted AI's goalie start logic to tend towards using a single goalie in the eras where that was more common
-various player and team data changes
-with a standard start and Real 20-21 option, a draft order announcement will no longer appear on July 1 in addition to the regular announcement after the lottery on July 6

2D New Features:

-shootouts and penalty shots are now fully animated
-2D player icons are now moddable. The files need to be added on a team-by-team basis, and go in \graphics\rink_pics and use the usual naming format, i.e. the game will look for files in this format: player_chicago_blackhawks_home.png, then player_chicago_blackhawks_home_1989-2012.png, then player_chicago_blackhawks_home_2014.png (i.e., as the logos work; same thing for away teams.) The file should be a 60x60 png - however, you should only use the innermost 36x36 (i.e., everything except the outside 12 rows on all sides) for your design and leave the remaining outside squares transparent, otherwise the icons will look overly-large and may overlap the player's uniform number.
-added option (in Start-Settings) to change positioning of player numbers relative to the player icons - they can now be above, above and to the right, or centered on the icon. If they're not on the icon, the numbers are in black, otherwise they use the previous colouring system
-added hit posts/crossbars

2D Changes:

-adjusted player behaviour during breakaways, particularly for shootouts and penalty shots
-fixed potential crash during breakaways
-rebalanced base goal chances slightly to get overall scoring back to the correct level
-players leaving the ice on a change are no longer ignored when checking for offsides
-decreased 5-on-3 frequency, increased frequency of penalties called on power play teams
-significantly increased tendency of players to shoot at an empty net, particularly when closer to it, also changed method for increasing shooting chance when defending net is empty
-reduced frequency of late-game dump-ins by team that is losing a close game
-made players more likely to try for an immediate change after leaving the penalty box when the open position is one they can't play
-fixed tendency of all defenders to chase puckhandler while his teammates go to the bench on a change
-more work on redistributing hit numbers in a more realistic way (fewer D hitting, more F)
-reduced shot block chances when multiple players are in the shooting lane (still increases the overall chance of a block, but not as much)
-increased scoring chance at extremely short shooting ranges
-several penalty adjustments to decrease number of penalty calls while a power play is underway, during overtime, and in playoff games
-increased fight frequency in preseason games and decresed it during playoffs
-fixed a couple of potential crashes
-sped up player movement to bench during on-the-fly substitutions
-changed icing logic to prevent icing when defenders are clearly in position to reach the puck before it crosses the goal line
-made dump-ins more frequent during line changes
-puckhandler will tend to go to the corner/boards when he's alone in the offensive zone while multiple teammates are changing
-increased chances of altercation turning into a fight
-increased altercation frequency in preseason games and decreased it during playoffs
-decreased tendency of players to pass to the teammate with the highest chemistry with them
-slightly lowered shot-blocking chances
-removed reduction of pass/shoot rating when several playmaker-type players are on the ice together
-further adjustment to hitting frequencies between positions, and made hits more likely nearer to the boards
-made players more likely to choose the best pass target option when under pressure
-changed number of defenders chasing an iced puck from 2 to 1
-increased tendency of defending players to maintain separation from their teammates
-adjusted AI of defencemen on puckhandling team to avoid leaving/staying out of the offensive zone while their team is controlling the puck deep in the zone, particularly during power plays
-player icon will no longer remain in penalty box when penalty ends due to a power play goal being scored
-if a goalie is pulled for an extra skater and the opposite team scores enough goals that they're now leading by 3, the goalie will return to the net
-players on bench now overlap slightly so they're not spread out so widely and the benches don't extend so far down the ice
-re-weighted selection of player blocking a shot when multiple players are in position to do so, so it's not slanted so heavily towards defencemen
-added (small) minimum chance of a fight ensuing when two low-aggression players are in an altercation
-slightly reduced shot accuracy
-slightly increased goal chances for accurate shots
-increased pass target priority for defencemen during power plays
-slightly decreased overall shot frequency
-lowered hit frequency
-corrected error with puckhandler occasionally moving into crease
-fixed potential loop when the game tries to call a penalty on a player heading to the bench on a substitution
-fixed potential loop after dump-ins
-fixed incorrect location on some rebounds

We are thrilled to announce that the brand new trailer for Out of the Park Baseball 22 is here!

With it comes the announcement of several BRAND NEW features - and some other cool details too!

Out of the Park Baseball 22 will be available worldwide on March 26, 2021! You can wishlist it today to make sure that you don't miss an inning.

Be sure to join us on the Road to Release this March as we lead up to the release of our most anticipated game ever!

March 12 - MLB Network's Scott Braun hosts The Big Reveal of OOTP 22 on our YouTube channel

March 16 - We unveil everything new in Perfect Team 22 on our Twitch channel

March 19 - We host a Community Q&A session on our YouTube channel

We are so excited to bring Out of the Park Baseball 22 to you. Stay tuned for ALL the details.

The upcoming update is going to be a very large one, both in terms of new content as well as fixes, so we've decided to run a public beta prior to its release, giving you access to test builds of the new update before the official release. We're hoping this will let us find the type of issues that have been forcing us to issue post-update hotfixes, allowing us to address those before the final release rather than after.

Please bear in mind, if you opt-in to the beta, that these are test builds and may do unexpected things; the whole point of the public beta is to find these problems. We offer no promises that something unpleasant won't happen to any save you use with the beta version, so, if you want to take part with one of your current saved games, it's best to use the "Save Game As" option on the game's File menu to make a new version of the save and use that, so you don't ruin the "good" copy of your save.

Right now we're aiming for a full release of the update sometime the week after next, but that plan could change depending on how long it takes to resolve any issues found in the beta and any new ones that come up. There will likely be at least one additional public beta version prior to that.

The public beta is only available for the Steam version of the game - Steam makes it ridiculously easy to set one up (under an hour for Sebastian and I the first time we do it, minutes afterward), where a Fastspring beta would require us a full-scale release process from us (most of a day for Malte and Sebastian every time we update the beta), which isn't practical to do.

To join the beta:

1. Right-click on FHM7 in your Steam Library and select Properties
2. Click on "Betas"
3. Under "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter the access code, which is "updatepublicbeta" (no quotes)
4. That should populate the "Select the beta..." box above with the option "public_beta - Public Beta", select that
5. Steam should then automatically update your game. If it doesn't do that, check your update queue; if it's not in there, exit and restart the Steam client and it should appear.
Should you wish to leave the beta, just go back to the Betas page and on the dropdown menu select None. Steam will then revert you to the current public version of the game. When the final version of the update is ready, the public beta branch will be updated to that one as well, so there'll be no need to change back to get it.

If you're already one of our internal beta testers, don't join the public beta! You'll lose access to the beta versions we don't release to the public.

If you find any problems with the beta, particularly fixes that aren't working or unexpected issues arising out of the changes made, continue to report them the usual channels - preferably the tech support forum on our boards, the Steam board, or /r/franchisehockey on Reddit, those get checked daily. But, when reporting, please mention that you found the problem while using the public beta.

Contents of beta version 7.3.122:

Notes:

-one significant new addition that isn't in yet is the "Current Rosters" start option that'll update player movements since the NHL's opening night; that'll be added sometime next week
-we're still working on the bug list and some other things, so if something's not on the change list yet it doesn't necessarily mean it won't be addressed in the final version
-there may be some issues with the leaderboards and records screens, as those don't get rebuilt until just before release. If you see anything odd there, no need to report it, it'll be fixed in time for the release.

New features:

-on July 1 in the league structure editor, you can now use the Import Historical Team option to import any playable team from the historical database and Import Team to do the same from the modern database; the rosters will be the same as in Exhibition mode (the import functions uses the same mechanics.) For historical teams, select the team name (usually the latest one for that team, i.e. if you want the 1984 Winnipeg Jets, choose Arizona, or if you want the 2001 Atlanta Thrashers, choose (non-WHA) Winnipeg
-the 3 World Cup of Hockey tournaments (96, 04, 16) have been added to historical mode
-added new options to the Scouting-Watch List screen: "Clear" (removes all players on the list) and "Clear A" (removes all players currently scouted to the A-level)
-added a checkbox option to the staff filter: "Unemployed"; turning it on filters out all staff who currently have a contract
-changed criteria for some of the December "Player Poll Results Released" news item categories, and added a few new ones: Most Controversial, Most Overrated, Most Underrated, Smartest
-added another section to the scouting report in all modes: for every position on the team that the AI evaluates as a weakness, it will show the top free agents/available players at that position (i.e. all players who are either free agents, contracted to a team in this league and on the trading block, or contracted to a team in a league from which they can be signed directly with no compensation)
-added a Leave Game option to the exhibition game start screen
-if the user is in control of their farm team's staff, they now get an email announcing when their contracts are expiring like they would for the main team's staff
-added Auto-Play option for end of playoffs

Changes:

-when changing the selected item in the upper area of the world/tem/league menu (national team/tournament, club team, league, etc.) the most frequently-used screen in that category is now opened, e.g. switching teams opens the roster screen for that team (unless the user is already in that area and changes the selection, then it won't change)
-fixed issue that could select the wrong pick order in 2022 and leave Seattle with no picks
-the 17-24 picks in the NHL Draft will no longer reverse there order under some circumstances
-the first round list on the Entry Draft Order email sent the day before the draft and the Draft Lottery screen now show traded picks correctly
-the July 1 start option is now disabled when choosing the Real 20-21 Start option
-clicking an entry in the Draft section of the player screen no longer opens the draft from the previous year the player was actually drafted in
-the name of the scout sending the NHL pre-draft evaluation email on June 1 is now the team's current head scout
-the "End Negotiations" option (renamed from "Remove Offer") now appears in the action menu on the player screen in addition to the right-click menu
-when controlling an NHL team, the user no longer gets a message on July 7 announcing the LNAH Futures List for the upcoming season, when they should get the NHL one
-the DIFF column in the leagues standing screen is now calculated correctly
-trade offers now get an instant response during the WHL US Prospects Draft, like they do during other drafts
-no longer possible to name the same person as both head and advance scout
-editing a player's disliked club now immediately removes any happiness penalty that the player has for being on a disliked club
-when adding a fictional league to a custom game, after the first league is added, the remaining leagues have the start year and use historical finances options removed from their Add a League screen, since they can't be set separately from the first league
-the DRE column on the roster screen is now sortable
-Vegas is now exempt from the Seattle expansion draft in July 2021
-stats where the calculation involves dividing by 0 now show .000 instead of "..00nan"
-in an expansion draft in leagues with an overage player limit, teams no longer ignore the limit
-in historic mode, the League-League Data screen now shows the era-adjusted values for Typical Salary (Bad/Average/Good/Top) instead of the unadjusted amounts
-fixed potential crash after editing league structure in historical game
-adjusted AI for waiver claims, teams will now be a little more reluctant to make waiver claims (or waiver/intraleague draft picks) for marginal players
-fixed issue that could prevent skipping of some expansion drafts in historical leagues
-fixed waiver claim order prior to November 1 (will use previous season's standings)
-in historical mode, players are no longer being generated to fill the international rosters in years when they're not needed, e.g. South Koreans on July 1, 1918 in a 1917 start; also reduced overall quality of those playewrs
-fixed error that could result in the nonplayable stats system giving players in the leagues that can be playable (but are set to non-playable in the save) far too many games played in 21-22
-fixed problem with custom games that could lead to some leagues ignoring age limits
-right-clicking on a goalie and selecting "Change Supplementary Role" now shows the goalie supplementary roles, not the skater ones
-changed the maximum schedule length in League-Edit-Rules and custom league setup to 84 (it's currently 82)
-fixed display error for 20-21 playoffs in league-history for the NHL once the 21-22 season is reached
-on the History-Awards screen, the Awards 2 view no longer shows a separate line for each season of each award
-changed the scouting system for junior teams, so the #1 spot in the Priorities-Regions list and the Watch List will now get 100% coverage
-fixed issue in custom games where a higher-level league that drafts from a junior league was not able to sign drafted players until their junior contracts expired
-removed "AHL can't be edited" popup on the structure editor for the AHL in custom games
-the Continue button no longer skips past July 1 at times
-reversed the spots of the Ask for Response and Meet Demand Buttons on the contract negotiation screen so the click process flows left to right instead of right-left-right
-if a contract offer is being considered by a player and a deadline for signing him passes during that period, he'll now respond to the offer before the deadline passes
-fixed error that could lead to language mismatches with nationalities in some circumstances when creating a multinational custom league
-on the development reports, the full team name (not just the nickname) is now shown for each player, and players are sorted by team name first, then their last names
-removed the "-" in front of the word Strength on the development reports
-when starting a 20-21 standard game with the Real 20-21 option off and a July 1 start, there are no longer missing schedules for two of the Mestis teams
-in a standard game with the real 20-21 option on, the League-History-Seasons-20-21-Standings screen for the NHL no longer has missing or duplicated division names after 20-21 is completed
-fixed missing uniform numbers and roles for players added in Exhibition mode to fill out rosters
-fixed issue with human-run teams occasionally claiming other players on waivers when the user waives his own players
-custom games with historical finances turned on seem no longer ignore the historical financial settings for starting staff salaries
-fixed occasional crash when autoplaying in historical mode for the first time in a new game
-staff budget limits now recalculated properly after a team's Season Budget is edited
-expansion team Season Budgets corrected to use the proper amount based on the league settings (they were getting a much larger number)
-in historical mode with the draft off, when newly-generated players are assigned to their real teams on July 1, their contracts now have ELC status if the league has the ELC rule enabled
-adjusted levels for the "Unhappy" status icon and happiness level to match the amount used for the "Unhappy" mark on the training screen, so they're consistent with each other
-added more specific error message when a team doesn't have enough players of a particular type dressed
-historical games started in 1994-95 no longer crash in mid-January due to a waiver draft problem
-fixed issue with players who need an ELC occasionally asking for more than the ELC salary limit
-non-NHL teams are no longer able to make transfer offers for players on NHL-Europe loans
-fixed issue with star players accepting preseason tryouts (and subsequently signing very cheap contracts) while they're UFA's
-fixed the nonplayable player movement system moving players to college teams after they've been playing professionally
-fixed error calculating overage status in junior leagues
-attempting to view the Team Finances screen of a team in a nonplayable league no longer crashes the game
-job offers now require a response again, so they won't be missed while autoplaying
-"Save as quickstart" disabled for non-commissioners in multiplayer leagues (so the individual GM's can't cheat by using that to create a new league and look at potentials, etc.)
-in a custom game, when a farm league is created after one other farm league has already been created, , it now list any existing major leagues as an option for a parent as well, allowing e.g. the new farm league to be a farm league of an existing farm league
-goaltenders will no longer occasionally appear in the "Hardest Shot competition" portion of the All-Star game skills competition email
-removed the all-star game comment from the Hall of Fame induction screen for now, since we don't have data for the real all-star game history available yet so every real retired player was getting the comment that he hadn't played in any all-star games
-fixed issue that was resulting in ELC-eligible players who receive offers from both a human player and AI teams potentially reporting that they'd received an offer higher than ELC limits allow
-when staff contracts expire, if the staff member has a reputation too high to sign with his team, he will no longer send a message offering to re-sign, but when the user attempts to do so, refuse the offer. Instead, there should be a separate message for those guys, explaining that they want to leave and won't re-sign
-exhibition mode no longer shows the current ages for all historical players as of 2020, they're shown as of the season they're imported from
-fixed several errors in the world database that were leading to the wrong nationality for players born in Singapore and most of Pakistan
-adjusted AI free agent-signing process slightly so it won't ignore a good player at one forward position when it's strong at that specific position and weak at others
-when a player is acquired via waivers it will now appear on the Career Highlights view of their history tab, in addition to the Transactions view
-if you change a player's primary position using the left-click menu, it no longer sometimes causes him to disappear from his team's depth charts entirely and not reappear until his position rating at the new position increases
-Champions League 21-22 start date moved back to August
-multiplayer commissioners can now see the draft lottery properly
-when a trade is being negotiated during an in-season international tournament, teams in a league that uses a cap floor will no longer refuse trades because the trade would "put them below the cap floor", even when they're far above it (the AI hadn't been counting the players on INT status against the floor)
-player popups now work on the team transactions log
-fixed issue when editing league caps on July 1 that could cause player cap hits to decline when the cap hit is raised, if the team was over the cap when that happened
-a 4-division setup with 8 teams in 3 divisons and 9 in the other no longer causes the bottom-right division on the standings screen to lose the alternating colours on the lines
-adjusted NHL-Europe loan system to better handle situations when which European team the player should go to is ambiguous
-re-worked scouting priority system for scouting to look a little more broadly into the individual zones of the highest priority and second-highest priority map areas, rather than focusing too strictly on the top zone of the top map and not moving on until it was thoroughly scouted
-fixed schedule/season length issues with the Tipsport Extraliga in 21-22 and later seasons in a standard game
-increased minimum number of players that can be scouted per week, and increased maximum number of scouts that will improve scouting reach from 20 to 24
-adjusted roster AI free agent-signing behaviour to be a little more adaptable to the overall level of talent in the league, so it'll continue to attempt to improve the roster even if the low end of the league's talent pool improves noticeably
-the achievements "The All-Swedish Champions" (Win the Swedish second division championship) and Going Up (your team is promoted to a higher league) should work properly now
-adjusted player retirement checks to avoid early retirements for free agents and (particularly) players with a single season left on their contracts
-in a standard game started with the real start option, the NHL all-star game should now work properly after 20-21
-adjusted owner AI to prevent head coaches from being fired extremely early in the season
-adjusted goalie MVP/all-star criteria to take Wins into greater account and make their weighting flexible according to the league's schedule length, so they're not unimportant in short-season leagues
-back button now works properly on the league history screeen for a specific season, so if you click on one of the playoffs/relegation/pre-playoffs/promotion tabs, then on one of the teams on that screen to open the team screen, if you then click the back button it returns you properly to the previous screen instead of going to the team history screen's Season tab, but with no seasons displayed
-if Multiplayer/Online league is checked on the first custom game setup popup, it's now selected on the screen shown next if the player selects "Add Fictional League" (previously it wasn't)
-fixed the Draft Page's Draft Order tab showing the wrong order in some custom game league/playoff format combinations
-teams added to a custom or historical game via Import Hist. Team and Import Team should now get the correct colours
-staff hiring options (right-click and action menu from the staff screen) are now available to the commissioner in multiplayer games again
-when clicking on the current year in the league-history screen, the standings are no longer shown with all the team names underlined
-right now, in a multiplayer game the trade interface doesn't provide any feedback (i.e., saying if the other team is likely/unlikely to accept the trade, etc.) when the other team is human-controlled. We should probably enable that for human-human trades as well, it's useful for the user to know if the trade is even or favours one team or the other.
-very low-potential players will now never request contracts longer than 1 season
-fixed potential June 30 crash
-editing the number of entry draft rounds (via league-edit-info on July 1) is no longer limited to increasing the number only; if it's decreased, any existing picks (including traded) ones for upcoming drafts will immediately disappear; increasing the number back, even immediately, will not restore the traded picks to the team they were traded to
-sorting by GR on the dressed list on the lines screen no longer sorts by name instead
-fixed error in some historical seasons that caused a draft order announcement to be sent on June 30 that doesn't show the correct draft order
-fixed issue in some custom games where, in the League History some of the Best Goalie Award winners wiould lose their stats (on that screen only) after they retire
-corrected error in the scouting report where the weight is displayed in pounds even if the user's preference is set to metric
-various minor text/typo fixes
-various player and team data changes

2D New Features:

-2D player icons are now moddable. The files need to be added on a team-by-team basis, and go in \graphics\rink_pics and use the usual naming format, i.e. the game will look for files in this format: player_chicago_blackhawks_home.png, then player_chicago_blackhawks_home_1989-2012.png, then player_chicago_blackhawks_home_2014.png (i.e., as the logos work; same thing for away teams.) The file should be a 60x60 png - however, you should only use the innermost 36x36 (i.e., everything except the outside 12 rows on all sides) for your design and leave the remaining outside squares transparent, otherwise the icons will look overly-large and may overlap the player's uniform number.
-added option (in Start-Settings) to change positioning of player numbers relative to the player icons - they can now be above, above and to the right, or centered on the icon. If they're not on the icon, the numbers are in black, otherwise they use the previous colouring system
-added hit posts/crossbars

2D Changes:

-players leaving the ice on a change are no longer ignored when checking for offsides
-decreased 5-on-3 frequency, increased frequency of penalties called on power play teams
-significantly increased tendency of players to shoot at an empty net, particularly when closer to it, also changed method for increasing shooting chance when defending net is empty
-reduced frequency of late-game dump-ins by team that is losing a close game
-made players more likely to try for an immediate change after leaving the penalty box when the open position is one they can't play
-fixed tendency of all defenders to chase puckhandler while his teammates go to the bench on a change
-more work on redistributing hit numbers in a more realistic way (fewer D hitting, more F)
-reduced shot block chances when multiple players are in the shooting lane (still increases the overall chance of a block, but not as much)
-increased scoring chance at extremely short shooting ranges
-several penalty adjustments to decrease number of penalty calls while a power play is underway, during overtime, and in playoff games
-increased fight frequency in preseason games and decresed it during playoffs
-fixed a couple of potential crashes
-sped up player movement to bench during on-the-fly substitutions
-changed icing logic to prevent icing when defenders are clearly in position to reach the puck before it crosses the goal line
-made dump-ins more frequent during line changes
-puckhandler will tend to go to the corner/boards when he's alone in the offensive zone while multiple teammates are changing
-increased chances of altercation turning into a fight
-increased altercation frequency in preseason games and decreased it during playoffs
-decreased tendency of players to pass to the teammate with the highest chemistry with them
-slightly lowered shot-blocking chances
-removed reduction of pass/shoot rating when several playmaker-type players are on the ice together
-further adjustment to hitting frequencies between positions, and made hits more likely nearer to the boards
-made players more likely to choose the best pass target option when under pressure
-changed number of defenders chasing an iced puck from 2 to 1
-increased tendency of defending players to maintain separation from their teammates
-adjusted AI of defencemen on puckhandling team to avoid leaving/staying out of the offensive zone while their team is controlling the puck deep in the zone, particularly during power plays
-player icon will no longer remain in penalty box when penalty ends due to a power play goal being scored
-if a goalie is pulled for an extra skater and the opposite team scores enough goals that they're now leading by 3, the goalie will return to the net
-players on bench now overlap slightly so they're not spread out so widely and the benches don't extend so far down the ice
-re-weighted selection of player blocking a shot when multiple players are in position to do so, so it's not slanted so heavily towards defencemen
-added (small) minimum chance of a fight ensuing when two low-aggression players are in an altercation
-slightly reduced shot accuracy
-slightly increased goal chances for accurate shots
-increased pass target priority for defencemen during power plays
-slightly decreased overall shot frequency
-lowered hit frequency
-corrected error with puckhandler occasionally moving into crease
-fixed potential loop when the game tries to call a penalty on a player heading to the bench on a substitution
-fixed potential loop after dump-ins
-fixed incorrect location on some rebounds

We are thrilled to announce that Out of the Park Baseball 22 will be available worldwide on March 26, 2021! You can wishlist it today to make sure that you don't miss an inning.

Be sure to join us on the Road to Release this March as we lead up to the release of our most anticipated game ever!

March 5 - We unveil the new trailer for OOTP 22 on our YouTube channel

March 12 - MLB Network's Scott Braun hosts The Big Reveal of OOTP 22 on our YouTube channel

March 16 - We unveil everything new in Perfect Team 22 on our Twitch channel

March 19 - We host a Community Q&A session on our YouTube channel

We are so excited to bring Out of the Park Baseball 22 to you. Stay tuned for ALL the details.

The NHL season is in full swing and it's the Lunar New Year - so it's a great time for a discount! For a limited time, you can save 10% on Franchise Hockey Manger 7, our best-selling and best-reviewed game ever in series history.

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