WMMA Developer's Journal

[Adam Ryland]

This is the developer's journal for the upcoming [I]World of Mixed Martial Arts[/I] game; for those of you who weren't here for the release of TEW07, the concept is simply that I will be doing posts most weekdays giving information on the features that will be in the game, updates on the progress being made, etc. The game is currently scheduled for a late August \ early September release, however as the game is still deep in development that is merely an estimate and could change.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 1st: Fighter Stats[/B] The stats for each fighter are as follows. Please note that this only includes fields editable via the database, it does not include "in game" data such as fatigue, focus, etc. [I]Cosmetic[/I] Name (including Nickname), Pictures, Weight, Height, Birth Date, Debut Date, Hometown, Nationality, Currently Based [I]General[/I] Fighting Style (Ground And Pound, Greco-Roman, BJJ, etc), Status, Current Momentum, Fighting Approach (Methodical, Hyper Aggressive, etc), Conditioning, Strength, Mobility, Reflexes, Chin Strength, Stun Recovery, Cut Resilience, Injury Resilience, Dedication, Excitement, Reach (Arms and Legs) [I]Standing Game[/I] Footwork, Punching Power, Punching Technique, Hand Speed, Kick Power, Kick Technique, Kick Speed, Knee Power, Knee Technique, Wrestling, Takedowns, Takedown Speed, Takedown Set Up, Slams, Clinch, Takedown Defence, Striking Guard [I]Clinching Game[/I] Grappling, Takedowns, Takedown Defence, Elbow Power, Elbow Technique, Knee Power, Knee Technique, Dirty Boxing [I]Ground Game[/I] Striking, Sweeping, Submissions, Submission Defence, Attacking Positioning, Defensive Positioning, Control, Escape, Flexibility [I]Mental Game[/I] Experience, Fighting Instincts, Killer Instincts, Patience, Courage [I]Physical Health[/I] Head, Body, Arms and Legs [I]Marketability[/I] Reputation, Popularity (by region), Charisma [I]Personality[/I] Still under development [I]External Skills[/I] Play-By-Play Skill, Colour Commentary Skill

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 2nd: Game World[/B] The game world consists of 90 regions, divided by nine areas. They are: [I]USA[/I]: The 50 States [I]Japan[/I]: Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu, Hokkaido [I]Canada[/I]: The Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, The Prairies, British Columbia [I]Mexico[/I]: Norther, South Eastern, West Central [I]South America[/I]: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia [I]UK[/I]: London, Midlands, North, Scotland, Ireland, Wales [I]Europe[/I]: Northern, Western, South Western, Central, South East, Eastern [I]Australia[/I]: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western, Southern, New Zealand [I]Asia[/I]: Eastern, South Eastern, Southern In tomorrow's entry I will be continuing this topic, by giving details on the new system that has been developed for allowing regions to have differing importance, a system that allows a greater degree of strategy.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 3rd: Game Regions[/B] Continuing from yesterday's entry, today looks at the individual game regions. The most key element of each region is its [I]Prestige[/I] value. This is a measure of how valuable it is within the game world. This is where a new level of strategy comes in. In my previous games, a promotion always had its size calculated by how popular it was in each region. This continues in WMMA, but with the popularity is weighted by the Prestige. To explain this better, I will use an example. [QUOTE="Example"]Let's say that Nevada has Prestige of 90%, New Jersey has 60%, and Alaska has 10%. Let's also say that Promotion #1 has a Popularity of 50 in Nevada, 10 in New Jersey and 10 in Alaska. Promotion #2 has a Popularity of 10 in Nevada, 50 in New Jersey and 50 in Alaska. In previous games, Promotion #2 would be considered a much bigger promotion, as its total popularity is 110 compared to 70 for Promotion #1. However, that is not the case in WMMA. Promotion #1 would actually end up with a score of 45 (90% of 50) + 6 (60% of 10) + 1 (10% of 10) = 52. Promotion #2 would end up with a score of 9 (90% of 10) + 30 (60% of 50) + 5 (10% of 50) = 44. So, in conclusion, because Promotion #1 "holds" the key location of Nevada, it ends up being the bigger promotion. This means there is a strategic element to building a promotion; whether to target a few key regions (which are more desirable and therefore will attract more competition) or to build up a foundation is the less glamorous regions (which are less difficult to conquer).[/QUOTE] There are other statistics attached to each region: [I]Size[/I]: This is how many potential fans there are, and affects potential attendances levels, etc. [I]Public Perception[/I]: This is how MMA is considered by the average fan; a negative value means that the sport has a stigma attached to it, and may put off fans. This value can change over the course of a game. [I]Cultural History[/I]: This is whether the region has a history of MMA or its related sports. If a region has a history of martial arts, it may be more likely to embrace MMA. [I]Regulation[/I]: Each region can be Illegal, Unregulated or Regulated By An Athletic Association; this effects whether shows can be held, and what rules can be used. These can change over the course of a game. [I]Media[/I]: This is divided into Media Stance and Current Media Feeling, and is how the regional media look at MMA. A negative stance may mean they are actively putting off fans by writing scathing articles, for example. This can change over the course of a game. [I]Authority[/I]: This is divided into Stance and Current Feeling, and is how the Powers That Be see MMA. This can effect decisions such as whether they will allow MMA in their region, or whether they want to ban it, regulate it, etc.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 4th: Previous Fights[/B] As well as the game keeping track of fights that happen after you begin a new game, you can also use the editor to input fights from the past. These will appear in a fighter's profile, and are also used in the game when calculating the interest in a potential fight. It is worth noting that the fighters involved do not have to be included in the database as well, they can just have their names referenced instead. The same goes for the promotion that held the match. The fields are: Fighters Result Method (KO, Submission, etc) Round \ Time Event Name Event Date

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 5th: Teams[/B] Teams \ Camps are able to be added via the editor, and have the following stats: [I]Name[/I] [I]Reputation[/I] [I]Membership[/I] (Male \ Female \ Mixed) [I]Based[/I] [I]Training Strengths[/I] (Jiu Jitsu, Boxing, Muai Thai, Physical, General Stand Up, etc, etc) Members, both permanent and non-permanent, can also be assigned via the editor. The membership can change once the game is in progress, with fighters moving to and from camps. When a fighter is with a camp, his training is heavily influenced by that team's strengths, and as an additional effect, some fighters will also refuse to compete against team-mates.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 6th: Templates[/B] One common problem is the time it takes to create databases for my games, due to the amount of stats. To counter this, WMMA comes with a Template utility. Essentially, this consists of three parts. 1 - You pick a pre-loaded template. Each template has a name and description. These range from generic ones like "Submission Fighter: This fighter has excellent submission skills on the ground, and decent takedowns with which to get his opponent there. His weakness is his striking game, which is weak." to more speciality-based ones like "Beach Boy Gone Bad: This fighter has an exceptionally vicious and successful ground and pound game, and is noted for being very dangerous once he has taken his opponent down. If he has a weakness, it is his standing game, and even that is pretty good." 2 - You pick a quality level, ranging from Terrible to World Class. 3 - You (optionally) fill in several "modifiers", which are things like "Punching Power", "Takedowns", etc. These allow you to override the settings made by the template in a specific area. Once you have filled those three parts in you simply select "Done", and the AI will generate the fighter for you in a matter of seconds. You should be able to create an accurate representation of any fighter using this method. You can of course then use the editor to tweak any stats that you think require changes. [I]NB: Please remember that the journal is only updated on week days, so the next entry will not be until the 9th.[/I]

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 9th: Weight Classes[/B] Each promotion has definable weight classes. There are four elements to each class; its name, its upper and lower weight limits, and its gender assignment (Mixed, Male Only or Female Only). A player-controlled promotion can change its weight classes around whenever it wants, while an AI promotion will always remain with what it is originally given. It is worth noting that the gender assignment category "Mixed" does not mean the promotion will book intergender matches; it means that that weight class is essentially divided into two, one for men and one for women, and the promotion will maintain both. There is a limit of eight weight divisions per promotion, although it should be noted that there are no limits on how big the difference can be between the upper and lower limits (so you could, for example, have a weight division that spans 200lbs!) and that there is the option to book "open-weight" matches that don't take place in a specific division.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 10th: Promotion Rankings[/B] Just a small feature today, but one that will probably also crop up in any future TEW games too; promotion ranking numbers. In a nutshell, promotions are ranked against each other by size at the end of every day, and their placing is stored. Whenever you view a promotion, you will instantly be able to see what their ranking is. This means that you don't have to mess about with any lists or filters, you know immediately where each promotion places. As it is done on a world scale, it also stops any confusion over whether X is doing better than Y because of any differences in the size of their respective game areas, as it's automatically taken into account. Tomorrow I will be commenting on the rankings for fighters.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 12th: Fighter Rankings[/B] Again, a small feature today, but one I think will be popular. Via the Media section of the game the player has access to a screen that gives rankings for the fighters in the game, divided by weight categories (with an additional option of "pound for pound" that rates everybody at once). The rankings are done on a number of statistics, taking into account everything from their skill levels to their win\loss record. This allows players to get a quick overview of who the stars of the game world are, whenever they want.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 13th: Weigh-Ins[/B] One of the key goals of WMMA is to recreate the atmosphere and events of real MMA. To this end, one of the in-built features is pre-show weigh-ins. These are brought to you in the form of a web site story, changing depending on what happened. People can fail to make weight, matches can be altered as a result, etc, etc. These are presented in traditional fashion, so that as well as the story itself, you get a list of fighters together with the weight they officially came in at.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 16th: Fighter Status[/B] Accessible via a fighter's profile is his or her Status screen. This is essentially a review of what the fighter is up to at that specific moment in time, and is designed to give you as much information as you could possibly need. Amongst the things that are tracked by this screen are his weight (how he is doing in terms of making weight if preparing for a fight, how many pounds he is piling back on after a fight, etc), his training (how he's doing if at a camp, or what sort of self-made routine he has come up with if he's training independently), and his physical and mental fatigue (for example, he may be taking a few weeks off after a big fight to recover from how focused he was beforehand, even if he didn't expend much actual energy in the bout).

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 17th: Owners[/B] Unlike TEW, each company in WMMA can have up to three owners. They are always ranked by importance, so owner #1 is considered more influential than owner #3 (this becomes important in case of disputes). Generally an owner who is working solo will continue to do so, unless he has a good reason to bring in a new person - whether because they are a blood relative, a friend, or because somebody very rich wants to get involved. Owners can also be removed from the board (either being forced out or voluntarily) and take part in sneaky takeovers (i.e. owner #2 and #3 banding together to get rid of owner #1).

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 18th: Medical Suspensions[/B] In order to model reality as closely as possible, WMMA includes enforced medical suspensions. This means that fighters can be barred from competing until a set time has expired. Generally, these occur after fights, with the primary one being an automatic 28 day suspension for being knocked out.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 20th: Viewing Stats[/B] One of the biggest differences between WMMA and my other games is the way that character's statistics are viewed. While characters are still made up of exact percentages, and are created in the editor using that method, once you are in the game you cannot see the exact results. Instead, you receive a "translation" in the form of a scouting reports. For example, let's take a fighter who has 80.2% for his punching power and just 42.9% for his punching technique. In the old days of EWR, you would have seen those exact scores. If you fast-forward to TEW07, you would see that in the form of two grades, perhaps a B+ and a D-. In WMMA, when viewing that fighter you will see that part of his scouting report will say something along the lines of "This fighter has fairly heavy hands, certainly enough to get a knock out, but his technique is ragged and inaccurate." There are several reasons for this. One is realism; it's simply the most realistic way to get an opinion of a fighter, to see a report on him. Another is cosmetic, in that a scouting report written in English is a lot nicer (and less daunting to people not familiar with simulators) to look at. Finally, there is simply the case that unlike my previous games, where you needed detailed information as it would effect your hiring patterns, there is no real need in MMA to know a person's exact skills - you'll be far more concerned with their pro record, their reputation, and their popularity. While knowing their style, level, and damage their capable of is nice, a scouting report giving that information in broad terms is more than sufficient.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 24th: Future Fighters[/B] Future Fighters are, as the name suggests, fighters who aren't available at the start of the game, but who join the game world at some pre-defined point in the future. It is based upon the TEW feature of the same name, with a slight difference. One of the problems with TEW was the "Starting" and "Future" workers were in separate files. While this was good for organisation purposes, it did mean that the "Future" workers were not properly connected to the database until their debut, which meant they could not be pre-loaded with relationships, etc. WMMA gets past this by combining all fighters into one file. This is achieved very simply by giving everyone a "debut date" (as mentioned in the [I]Fighter Stats[/I] post earlier) - this is not literally the date on which they made their pro debut, it's the date upon which they debut into the game world. As all the fighters are in the same file, they can all be linked into the database the same way. So, for example, you could have a fighter and his great-great-great grandson in the database - which the latter may not debut until decades after his ancestor has died, their relationship will still be recorded. The other advantage of this method is that it makes it easier to create databases in different time periods, as you can simply switch the date of the database and the game will handle who is active and who isn't, leaving only minor admin work for the user. Of course, there is an automatic checker for problems - the game won't, for example, allow you to start a game where somebody who isn't going to be born for another hundred years has a contract with a promotion. This is handled by the game, and so does not need to concern the player.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 25th: Media Outlets[/B] The media outlets in WMMA are identical in format to the ones you'd find in TEW; that is, your product can either be televised by a [I]pay-per-view carrier[/I] if you are under contract with one, or by a [I]television network[/I] if you have an active TV show with a timeslot. The actual mechanics of getting and losing contracts for PPV or TV are handled differently than in TEW, as of course the two industries (wrestling and MMA) come with different expectations, histories, etc. Again, like TEW, everything can be set up via the editor, as you'd expect.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 27th: Marketing[/B] Part of the Corporate subsection of the game, the Marketing controls allows you to choose how your company is promoted. You can choose to delegate all of this department to the Head Of Marketing; this means the AI takes total control until you decide you want manual control back (AI control is default). This means that people who are not interested in the business side can effectively turn it off and concentrate on the areas they do enjoy. There are two parts to marketing, when manual control is on. One part is the promotion of your shows, and you can choose how heavily to hype your pay-per-view, TV, and non-televised events. It is up to you to decide the balance between expense and exposure. The second is called targeted marketing, and allows you to choose your strategy for each region in the game. Amongst the choices are Maintain Strength (specifically designed to maintain the current level of popularity you have achieved without attempting to actively grow it) and All-Out Assault (your marketing team will actively try and raise your popularity as high as they can, although for obvious reasons this can be a hugely expensive enterprise and requires observation and careful financial planning).

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 30th: Fighter Refusals[/B] In reality, fighters can sometimes refuse certain fights. This is also a feature that is present in WMMA. Amongst the possible reasons are not wanting to fight a friend or family member, not wanting to fight a team-mate, and not wanting to drop\gain a weight class to take a fight.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]July 31st: Pay Parity[/B] Unlike the TEW series, WMMA's contract negotiations with fighters do not happen in isolation. What this means is that a fighter can be aware of what other people are earning, and can take that into consideration. For example, let's say you try to sign Fighter A who would normally expect $5000 per fight. He may be aware that Fighter B, who is less popular and successful than him, has somehow gotten himself a contract for $15,000 a fight. In this case, Fighter A may - on principal - want a deal for no less than $15,000 too. This adds a new level of strategy to negotiations, and also prevents people from blindly throwing money around to buy success; if you grossly overpay one fighter, you then set a benchmark for everyone else and can find yourself very quickly painted into a corner in which you are having to overpay everyone. Therefore, you have to carefully weigh up the pros and cons of every major signing, and what effect it can have on your future plans.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]August 2nd: Avatars[/B] I can confirm that, like TEW07, WMMA will allow you to have an avatar \ character within the game world, so you will not just be a faceless player. This character will be referenced a lot, in Internet stories and so forth. You will not be able to play as a fighter. While you could play as a wrestler in TEW, I feel that is more acceptable due to the history of people being both an on-screen character and a backstage power in wrestling. It doesn't seem appropriate in an MMA game.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]August 6th: Event Naming[/B] Via the editor, AI promotions can be set to follow certain criteria when naming their events. There are currently four options: [I]Numbered[/I]: In this case, each event the promotion runs is simply named "WFC 35", "WFC 36", etc, etc, with the number increasing each time. [I]Numbered, With Subtitle[/I]: This selection follows the same pattern as the standard Numbered version, except that a subtitle is added to the end of the event. So events may end up looking like "WFC 35: Final Conflict", "WFC 36: Revenge", etc. [I]Named[/I]: With this option the event is given a specific title. This would lead to events looking like "WFC Taking Over" and "WFC Battle Lines". [I]Main Event Named[/I]: If this is selected, the event is not named until the main event has been decided. Once that takes place, the event will end up looking something like "WFC: Phillips vs. Dean II".

[Adam Ryland]

[B]August 7th: Internet[/B] I can confirm that the popular Internet feature from TEW07 will also feature in WMMA. A key difference, however, is that in WMMA it is actually the primary source of information, not just a bonus feature. It is the default first screen that you see every day, and is therefore your main place to get information. I chose this route both for realism, and because I think it is more enjoyable to get your game world information from the Internet than from a News Ticker (although the Ticker remains in the game, as part of the user's screen). This is also much better for an MMA game, as there are generally less stories each day (as there are far fewer MMA promotions than wrestling promotions, and events are spaced out a lot more) and so there is not so much to wade through.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]August 13th: Default Database[/B] Rather than focus on a feature, I thought I'd talk a little about the default database that will come with the game. The default data is named "[I]Before The Storm[/I]", and takes place in the same fictional game world as TEW and WreSpi (i.e. The CornellVerse). It is a historical scenario in that it takes place in July 1996. The name is a reference to the fact that it begins in a recovery period for MMA as a sport; it is just starting to be seen as a proper sport rather than a barbaric sideshow, and is finally emerging into mainstream arenas and media. The player can therefore have a big hand in shaping the entire sport's future, which I thought would be a pretty exciting time to be part of. There are four playable promotions in the game. At the top of the tree are the two giants of MMA, Japan's [I]ALPHA-1[/I] and America's [I]GAMMA[/I] promotion. These are the two most popular promotions, both having strong rosters packed with stars, and are probably the best place to start for new players. Canada boasts the only promotion that deals exclusively with women's MMA, [I]WEFF[/I]. This promotion has a talented, albeit small, roster of fighters, but has been marketed well and has a solid foundation for growth. This is a promotion that will probably appeal to stronger players. Finally there are [I]BCF[/I] in the UK; the smallest and youngest promotion, who are still emerging. They are the toughest of the promotions to run. All 200 fighters in the game currently have a full body render, and hopefully that number will increase slightly before release. The first screen shots will likely showcase some of these renders, as the artists have done a staggering job with the characters. As the game is set in the CornellVerse, some notable names from that universe appear; young versions of future BHOTWG stars Mike Watson and Raul Hughes are both present, as is PGHW's submission king Buddy Garner. The aim is that the database will continue to grow and evolve over time once the game has been released, just as the original CornellVerse did. Incidentally, just to remind people, WMMA won't come with a "real world" database due to the obvious legal reasons. However, there are already a couple of fan-made mods being planned in the Mods forum, so if you're interested in helping out I'm sure your input would be welcome by the creators. (NB: Please note that the journal will only be updated sporadically for the next few weeks - this is because we're in a very intensive period of development, and I just don't have a lot of spare time to be online.)

[Adam Ryland]

[B]August 21st: Fighter Regeneration[/B] With WMMA being a graphics-heavy game, one of the initial problems was on how to maintain a strong database of fighters with pictures. With fighters' careers being a lot shorter than, for example, wrestlers, it seemed a shame to have some great pictures disappear from use once that fighter's career was over. These issues are addressed with [I]regeneration[/I]. When a fighter retires, he undergoes regeneration. The original fighter remains in the database, as he was when he retired, so that he can be referenced for historical data. However, a new fighter is also created. This new fighter uses the same pictures as his "parent" (NB: parent is not used literally; there is no familial relationship between them), and shares the same nationality, hometown and fighting weight (thus making sure that the database never becomes biased towards a certain weight or natioinality of fighter). However, he enters the database at a young age, with a fresh 0-0 record, and has his statistics regenerated to create a completely new character. This not only allows the game to continue indefinitely with a strong cast of pictured characters, but also means that the great work the artists have put into the fighters does not go to waste. As an added note, for realism's sake, the name generator from TEW has been updated and expanded for WMMA. Whereas the TEW version was really limited to creating realistic names for Westerners, Japanese or Latino characters, the WMMA version can handle every nationality in the game. Therefore, if a Croatian character is regenerated, you will not find yourself with a Croatian "John Roberts", instead you will get an authentic name. The amount of names possible is now well over ten million. Regeneration also happens for non-fighters too, so announcers, colour commentators, etc, will all undergo the same process.