NCAA 06 Next: New uniforms and more for NCAA Football 2006 (PC only)

[MikeWest502]

If you guys take requests, I'd like to see the ACC championship update for the dynasty mod and some Sun Belt love. It would be cool if each broadcast had it's own theme intro music. Thanks for the mod.

Also, can you look at the dynasty mod's schedule. I'm playing as NC State, but got a MAC conference schedule. There are no ACC teams on the Wolfpack's schedule.

[minotauri]

If you guys take requests, I'd like to see the ACC championship update for the dynasty mod and some Sun Belt love. It would be cool if each broadcast had it's own theme intro music. Thanks for the mod.

Also, can you look at the dynasty mod's schedule. I'm playing as NC State, but got a MAC conference schedule. There are no ACC teams on the Wolfpack's schedule.

The NC State jersey fix will be in the next update from your previous feedback. It's noted, anyway.

The ACC Championship game logos should already be updated in the V6 or V7 updates. I fixed that myself.

Sun Belt is probably last on the list. We're doing CUSA right now.

As far as music, ya not sure how we inject new music or videos into this game at this point. The videos are encoded in an EA Proprietary file format (at least the header anyway). They are standard MPG2 videos, and I can play them fine, but the encoder is unique (MPCh file format), so putting it back into the DAT files doesnt get me anywhere.

As far as the NC State schedule -- oh no... let me see what happened here. First off, did you install the Dynasty mod (Template.dat)?


Update: I just checked the default Dynasty Starter save and it shows NC State's schedule with ACC teams. And I checked my current dynasty which is in 2024, and NC State has the correct ACC schedule as well.

[MikeWest502]

If you guys take requests, I'd like to see the ACC championship update for the dynasty mod and some Sun Belt love. It would be cool if each broadcast had it's own theme intro music. Thanks for the mod.

Also, can you look at the dynasty mod's schedule. I'm playing as NC State, but got a MAC conference schedule. There are no ACC teams on the Wolfpack's schedule.

The NC State jersey fix will be in the next update from your previous feedback. It's noted, anyway.

The ACC Championship game logos should already be updated in the V6 or V7 updates. I fixed that myself.

Sun Belt is probably last on the list. We're doing CUSA right now.

As far as music, ya not sure how we inject new music or videos into this game at this point. The videos are encoded in an EA Proprietary file format (at least the header anyway). They are standard MPG2 videos, and I can play them fine, but the encoder is unique (MPCh file format), so putting it back into the DAT files doesnt get me anywhere.

As far as the NC State schedule -- oh no... let me see what happened here. First off, did you install the Dynasty mod (Template.dat)?


Update: I just checked the default Dynasty Starter save and it shows NC State's schedule with ACC teams. And I checked my current dynasty which is in 2024, and NC State has the correct ACC schedule as well.

For the jersey issue, I'm able to use all of the alternate jersey/pant/helmet combos, for home and away. And for the NC State schedule thing, I did burn the template.dat to iso per the wiki instructions for the dynasty mod iso. Then followed the instruction to load the dyn2021 from the memcard replacing the coach from UMass to my NC State team. Maybe I'm playing the UMass schedule idk.

Any idea how to fix/reduce the sim stat numbers from cpu controlled teams? I'm in week 6 of the dynasty and the top heisman candidate already has 2987 pass yard and 39 TD passes.

Thanks for the reply, the mod is great.

[minotauri]

If you guys take requests, I'd like to see the ACC championship update for the dynasty mod and some Sun Belt love. It would be cool if each broadcast had it's own theme intro music. Thanks for the mod.

Also, can you look at the dynasty mod's schedule. I'm playing as NC State, but got a MAC conference schedule. There are no ACC teams on the Wolfpack's schedule.

The NC State jersey fix will be in the next update from your previous feedback. It's noted, anyway.

The ACC Championship game logos should already be updated in the V6 or V7 updates. I fixed that myself.

Sun Belt is probably last on the list. We're doing CUSA right now.

As far as music, ya not sure how we inject new music or videos into this game at this point. The videos are encoded in an EA Proprietary file format (at least the header anyway). They are standard MPG2 videos, and I can play them fine, but the encoder is unique (MPCh file format), so putting it back into the DAT files doesnt get me anywhere.

As far as the NC State schedule -- oh no... let me see what happened here. First off, did you install the Dynasty mod (Template.dat)?


Update: I just checked the default Dynasty Starter save and it shows NC State's schedule with ACC teams. And I checked my current dynasty which is in 2024, and NC State has the correct ACC schedule as well.

For the jersey issue, I'm able to use all of the alternate jersey/pant/helmet combos, for home and away. And for the NC State schedule thing, I did burn the template.dat to iso per the wiki instructions for the dynasty mod iso. Then followed the instruction to load the dyn2021 from the memcard replacing the coach from UMass to my NC State team. Maybe I'm playing the UMass schedule idk.

Any idea how to fix/reduce the sim stat numbers from cpu controlled teams? I'm in week 6 of the dynasty and the top heisman candidate already has 2987 pass yard and 39 TD passes.

Thanks for the reply, the mod is great.

Strange, i just did the same thing and I got NC State schedule still. Did you delete the UMass coach in the coaching menu after creating the NC State coach too?

I'll go ahead and attach the save file with NC State here for you.

[MikeWest502]

The NC State jersey fix will be in the next update from your previous feedback. It's noted, anyway.

The ACC Championship game logos should already be updated in the V6 or V7 updates. I fixed that myself.

Sun Belt is probably last on the list. We're doing CUSA right now.

As far as music, ya not sure how we inject new music or videos into this game at this point. The videos are encoded in an EA Proprietary file format (at least the header anyway). They are standard MPG2 videos, and I can play them fine, but the encoder is unique (MPCh file format), so putting it back into the DAT files doesnt get me anywhere.

As far as the NC State schedule -- oh no... let me see what happened here. First off, did you install the Dynasty mod (Template.dat)?


Update: I just checked the default Dynasty Starter save and it shows NC State's schedule with ACC teams. And I checked my current dynasty which is in 2024, and NC State has the correct ACC schedule as well.

For the jersey issue, I'm able to use all of the alternate jersey/pant/helmet combos, for home and away. And for the NC State schedule thing, I did burn the template.dat to iso per the wiki instructions for the dynasty mod iso. Then followed the instruction to load the dyn2021 from the memcard replacing the coach from UMass to my NC State team. Maybe I'm playing the UMass schedule idk.

Any idea how to fix/reduce the sim stat numbers from cpu controlled teams? I'm in week 6 of the dynasty and the top heisman candidate already has 2987 pass yard and 39 TD passes.

Thanks for the reply, the mod is great.

Strange, i just did the same thing and I got NC State schedule still. Did you delete the UMass coach in the coaching menu after creating the NC State coach too?

I'll go ahead and attach the save file with NC State here for you.

Yes, I deleted the UMass coach. I can't call it either as to why I got a MAC schedule. Anyhow, thanks so much for the save file. That's what I call above and beyond great support Minotauri. I have an idea for the mod...

[minotauri]

https://www.ncaanext.com


NCAA NEXT V8 - AVAILABLE NOW!

As usual, we recommend starting FRESH with this V8 Update by deleting your old TEXTURE file and starting new. The ISO Game Patches have also been updated, so it's recommended to create new ISO images with the all-new patches to have the best experience.

Release Notes:

UNIFORM & TEXTURE REPLACEMENTS
American Athletic Conference Uniforms by BUBeavers92 & 4Star
Referee Clothing by Antdroid
NEW Uniforms HD Remasters by BUBeavers92
Stadium Updates by Antdroid & BUBeavers92
New Light and Dark Menu Themes by Antdroid
Hi-Res in-game buttons & indicators by Antdroid & h4wduk3n
New Alternative Textures by BUBeavers92, h4wduk3n, RobotDebris, Antdroid
Community Textures by Cookybot, Rob, and CDub-30
CHIN STRAPS ARE BACK!!

GAME PATCHES
Dynasty Mod v8 featuring PAC12 Championship by Antdroid
Dynasty Scheduler Patch v1.1 by Antdroid
New TEXT Patch v2 by Antdroid
Uniform Patch v8 by Antdroid

GENERAL UPDATES
XBOX SUPPORT! (tutorials coming soon!)
NEW NCAA NEXT THEME!

[minotauri]

This is a major release and milestone for the NCAA 06 Next project. Today we will be releasing a completed set of uniforms for all in-game FBS teams along with a sneak preview of FCS uniforms from a selection of SWAC teams. All logos have also been updated, and various new gears and accessories and other things have been put into the game to make the experience better for everyone.

Finally, we have also been working on a special project to see how much of the game we can unleash and bring up to modern day standards. The first beta test of the NCAA 06 Next Modernization project is available as part of this release package. It is a complete stand-alone ISO that adds new features and updates to the original game. (Original game disc/iso is required!)

For more info check out the wiki for details and instructions.



UNIFORM & TEXTURE REPLACEMENTS
Conference USA Uniforms by BUBeavers92 & 4Star
Sun Belt Uniforms by 4Star and BUBeavers92
Various Uniform HD upgrades by xflamesxofxhopex, BUBeavers92, and Ok and !?
FBS & FCS Team Logos by Antdroid
Gear replacements by xflamesxofxhopex
Dynasty Menu Texture Updates by Antdroid & RobotDebris
Athlon Sports update by Antdroid
Various Bug Fixes by Antdroid, RobotDebris, BUBeavers92, and xflamesxofxhopex
Alternate Community Add-ons by Cookybots and Baltimore Ravens
FCS SNEAK PREVIEW with limited teams from SWAC by 4Star & BUBeavers92

GAME PATCHES
Dynasty Scheduler Patch v1.2 by Antdroid
Uniform Patch v9 by Antdroid

GENERAL UPDATES
XBOX SERIES CONSOLES SUPPORT TUTORIAL by RobotDebris

FULL ISO MODIFICATION!!! (BETA TEST)
NEW 2021 NCAA 06 NEXT GAME DATA by JDHalfrack & Antdroid
This creates an entirely new game experience with full modifications to the game disc files. Start a new dynasty with an already modernized conference structure and teams rosters! Updated team names! Updated rosters! New scheduling logic! Much more!

Please delete old NCAA 06 texture folders prior to installing this version to prevent any conflicting files

[Harry97]

FULL ISO MODIFICATION!!! (BETA TEST)
NEW 2021 NCAA 06 NEXT GAME DATA by JDHalfrack & Antdroid
This creates an entirely new game experience with full modifications to the game disc files. Start a new dynasty with an already modernized conference structure and teams rosters! Updated team names! Updated rosters! New scheduling logic! Much more!

This is very exciting work that you and JDHalfrack are doing updating the disc. From what it looks like, you've edited LEAGUE.DAT, STRMDATA.DB, and TEMPLATE.DAT with custom files so that your converted (2021) rosters are automatically loaded when you start the disc without needing to do any roster loading from the memory card. So that when you start a new Dynasty the Dynasty is set up with not only those rosters, but also has updated 2021/2022 coaches, custom conferences, and it sounds like new schedules based on your new conferences. (or at least a new schedule generation) Very interesting that you apparently figured all that out. It seems that you guys have put in a lot of work on this, and I very much appreciate your hard work. This makes me want to contribute as well, which is why I shared that code with you guys. That's my way to give back and reward you for what you've done. (and I have a lot more to share with you guys where that came from!!) It would be interesting if your disc mod would come all set up with the actual 2021/2022 schedule, I know that's a lot of work though to fine tune the schedule especially within the limits of what you can do with the conferences and having to decide which teams to delete.

The updated coaches / coach strategies at the start of a New Dynasty is very useful. Thanks for putting that out there. I do have a question about that though. Through your edits to LEAGUE.DAT, STRMDATA.DB, and TEMPLATE.DAT, do you have it so that the updated Coaches and coach strategies appear outside of Dynasty, like in PLAY NOW games? Or do your updated coaches and updated coach strategies only show up inside Dynasty Mode? That's something I was wondering about.

Since you said you can't add more than the default # of teams in a Dynasty without it causing problems with Bowl game generation, you have the difficult task of choosing which teams to delete and replace with the 4 FCS teams in NCAA 06 (WKU, App State, UMass, Texas State) that are in the NCAA 14 FBS OS-created rosters that you use for your conversions. Let me help you with this. It seems like a tough choice deciding who to delete, but I have a suggestion for you that will make it easier rather than deleting the service academies since IMHO Air Force, Army, Navy should remain in there.

Yes you should delete Idaho not only because they are no longer an FBS team but also because they are not one of the teams named in the OS-created NCAA 14 rosters. Rather than delete the 3 service academies, since those teams are in fact named in the annual created NCAA 14 rosters and convert directly to the PGIDs in NCAA 06 as most but not all teams do, I suggest deleting New Mexico State and UConn as well rather than the service academies because as you may be aware, both NM St and UConn (as well as Idaho) are not named in the NCAA 14 created rosters that you use for your conversions. In fact, if you look closely, when you convert your rosters to NCAA 06 from the OS-created NCAA 14 roster, the player names for App State, Coastal Carolina and Charlotte are actually on the teams Idaho, NM St and UConn. (App State in NCAA 14 has the PGIDs of Idaho in NCAA 06, Coastal has the PGIDs of NM St, and Charlotte has the PGIDs of UConn) In the past i deleted all the players from those teams when I convert rosters using your tool and I put those Coastal Carolina and Charlotte players (that get assigned to NM St and UConn through the conversion) on a Create-A-School save file replacing the generated CAS players for those teams. And then like I explained a while back, I take the App State players that were on Idaho (and the other WKU, UMass, and Texas State players that are unused PGIDs in the 1A NCAA 06 roster after the conversion) and put them on the NCAA 06 roster replacing the PGIDs on those teams in the 1AA roster which you surely used my guide on how I did that to do that yourself.

So given the fact that you don't have named rosters for Idaho, NM St or UConn coming out of the NCAA 14 roster. Of course, if the OS-roster creators named NM State or UConn, or if we named those teams ourself for NCAA 06 it would be a different story, but as it stands, we don't have those teams named, so given that, there's no point in having those wrongly named teams on there in a Dynasty instead of the service academies imho who are named correctly. So I would suggest keeping Air Force, Army and Navy since those teams are already named when you convert your rosters, and I suggest deleting not only Idaho, but also NM St and UConn since those teams are not named anymore in NCAA 14 created rosters when you convert. Then you can replace 3 out of the 4 teams that are named (WKU, App State, UMass, Texas State) with the teams that aren't named in NCAA 14 when you convert those rosters to NCAA 06 (Idaho, NM St and UConn).

As it stands, in your converted rosters, know that even after you delete Idaho, the players named on NM St and UConn that remain in your roster file / dynasty have the players from Coastal Carolina and Charlotte on those teams (from the NCAA 14 roster) teams which of course don't exist in NCAA 06. You'd have to Create a School and create Coastal Carolina and Charlotte then put those players on the roster in the CAS save file to make those teams with the current rosters that were named in the NCAA 14 roster. But of course that wouldn't help you with your "out of the box" disc modifications because as far as I know, you can only Create teams from the Create-A-School feature which get saved to the memory card.

I know that deciding which schools to delete is a tough decision, since you are unable to add more teams, but it's made easier when we know that Idaho, NM St, and UConn do not have their players named when you convert your rosters from the PS3-created NCAA 14 rosters. So until we get NM St and UConn named, those 3 teams (including Idaho) imho should be deleted rather than Air Force, Army or Navy.

I have some other questions for you which hopefully you can answer. In your mod, it says :

"Realigned Conferences Built-In - Real Power 5 x 14 team/12 team conferences with "close to real" group of "6" (Based on 2022-2025 realignment plans)"

This suggests that some of your conferences have 14 teams in it, the SEC I'm guessing. Does this mean that you figured out how to get it working with larger than 12-team conferences? Or does the SEC still only have 12 teams because that's still the max number of teams that you can get a conference?

Another question for you, can you explain why you had to delete FE.QKL , GAME.QKL, PL.QKL? What do these files do? It sounds like deleting those files on the disc is what allows the game to work properly with the custom files in LEAGUE.DAT, STRMDATA.DB, and TEMPLATE.DAT. Is that how you got this to work? That sounds like a pretty big discovery, if you found out that you had to delete these QKL files to get this to work. Impressive I must say.

Also one other question, what did you edit in the file SLUS_212.14? Were edits to that file (hex edits??) also needed to get this this custom disc mod to work?

This is fascinating work that you guys did to get all these disc mods working "out of the box". Also it's good to know that we can delete the MMNCDEMO folder and delete the content from MOVIE.DAT save file size on the rebuilt disc (and to speed up loading times). Fabulous discoveries there. Question about MOVIE.DAT. I know you said that contains the fan videos when you start the disc. Does MOVIE.DAT also contain the highlight clips that run in the Main Menu? Are we potentially able to replace those highlight clips that appear in the Main Menu with custom highlight videos?

I would like to assist you guys in any way I can when it comes to editing the disc to update the game that way. I have a lot of general roster knowledge, and as I pointed out, I found out that it's better to load rosters directly from the disc, rather than from the memory card because of the pre-game sequence name errors that occur when you load a converted roster off the memory card that I informed you about. In my estimation those pre-game sequence name errors is because the default PGIDs are different when do your converted rosters. What I discovered about the pre-game sequence name errors may seem like a small inconsequential issue, but there could be larger issues related to that that we are not aware of when loading a converted roster from the memory card. And if I am able to hack the pre-game sequence (might be a longshot) maybe those name errors that occur when you load a converted roster would become more noticeable. It will be interesting to see what else we may be able to edit on the disc as time goes on, but what you have already figured out is very encouraging. You have a great prototype for your disc mods that hopefully you can build on and refine moving forward. I definitely want to help you guys with that because there's still some roster conversion issues that we need to tackle. But you have made some major progress here. So congratulations on all your accomplishments.

[Harry97]

I just read your latest post on OS where you explained everything. That's a major breakthrough!

So those QKL files were impeding our development growth all along. I never even thought to try deleting those. I had no idea what those were. But wow JD leaving no stone unturned, deleted them, rebuilt the disc and probably thought that not having those QKL files in there might crash the game. The fact that it works without those files and frees up the .DAT file size restrictions would be the key to unlocking the modding potential of the disc all along.

Lets review the steps you outlined in the OS post. So, first, un-compressing file 1 from LEAGUE.DAT, then editing that file, then hex-editing it back into the DAT because DFR wasn't doing it properly through the slot. Then realizing Oh right, then the file size of the slot in the DAT is too big so it won't work. Then on a whim deleting the QKL files, then rebuilding the disc, to see what happens. And with that decompressed file 1 in the slot through hex editing (copy and pasting) the DAT, without the QKL files, to find out that Wow that did it, that allowed the game to accept a bigger file size in the slot and that those QKL files were just .DAT file size slot limiters all along. Fabulous.

It sounds like through JD's determination, he may have unlocked the NCAA 06 disc's modding potential. By just deleting the QKL files, seems so obvious now, hindsight 20/20 but no one thought to do it until now. We all must have assumed that if you deleted any of the files on the disc, then tried rebuilding the disc, that not having some of the files or folders would cause the game to crash or not load. The lesson here with modding is you can't assume anything, you have to test everything and if you're stuck, sometimes you gotta expand your focus area and look elsewhere to find the problem. But it took all the steps of getting so close with the decompressed File 1 in LEAGUE.DAT, to not accept the limits that appeared to exist, and really think outside the box like that. Sometimes it's the simplest things that make the difference, that maybe are there in plain sight, that maybe you wouldn't think could be the problem. We would be rockin and rollin with the ability to edit any DAT through this method without those pesky QKL files getting in the way.

From the OS post:

Beyond all of this, we are just seeing what we can do now.... things like:

unlimited uniform slots.
playbook expansion
league expansion
league restructuring.
new teams (i.e. add every missing FCS team?)
possibilities are eye opening. But of course, there's still several challenges along the way that we need to crack first.

What additional challenges would those be? Please let me know if I can be any assistance. Great job!! Playbook expansion through modding the disc would be glorious. Modding stock playbooks, creating our own unique plays, modding any playbook's formation, the possibilities are endless. Definitely want to get into editing that master playbook file if we can finally do that now and get the changes to work without the QKL files in there. Fun to think about what we may be on the verge of.

[minotauri]

Hi Harry --

Lots of stuff to unpack here.

First off, we hope you'd like to join us in breaking the game more. JD, H4wduk3n, myself and others are all on discord nowadays working through this game. https://discord.ncaanext.com is the shortcut link to the server. If you join, I can add you to our team section immediately to see what we're working on in. JD's making new tools and I've been working on scheduling and other stuff. We need help right now unlocking the Bowl Ranking math to make it work with more than just 120 teams. We'd like to push the game to 132 teams or more to cover all the new teams coming soon.

We're also doing a lot more things as I mentioned on the OS post but even more than that.

As far as teams, I actually didnt realize that UConn and NM State were actually Charlotte and Coastal. I knew Idaho was App State, but I ended up just transferring their roster over to the real App state in the game. I could very easily just rename UConn and NM State to their appropriate teams in the future, or we can just add those two teams to our database now!

This whole new realignment news is blowing my mind lately, and now I'm thinking how the the heck I want to restructure the game again!

It's quite an interesting time right now both in our modding world and in real life.