Booking Team's Importance

[Eisen-verse]

I am sure this has been talked about a lot on this board, however, after reading over a post in the 2007 forum I thought I'd throw this out there anyways. If I add anything to the argument then great. If not, then I'm sure others have brought up great points already! [B]Booking Team Importance[/B] Right now it seems like the booking team is pretty much useless. Sure, they will tell you some things but all of their insight seems to be pretty obvious (ie: so and so is a superstar and should be treated like one). It would be great to see whoever you put into your booking team actually impact how your "product" is run. Granted, this may be more for those who are looking for entertainment based companies (either cult or mainstream), however, as of right now they seem like it's just a glorified position that really does nothing. Maybe the level of talent you have on your booking team could influence the grades your matches can pull and maybe even angles? I'm not saying they will 100% outright influence it but maybe even a few percentage points. That way if you're putting people in your booking team who really aren't all that good at their job... It will negatively influence your product. Same goes for if you land someone on your roster who has a great deal of booking knowledge. This would make it so that those with good booking abilities become more important than they are now. Right now, It's just a nice little thing showing that they can book pretty well... however, if that actual rating would affect your outcomes slightly then you may see companies scramble for people like Phil Vilbert (if DAVE were to fall apart), Nemesis, etc. This would bring their important to massive levels. If you have a company that isn't that large... You may not be able to afford the big time bookers but there may be some average ones available as well as some newcomers with a lot of talent. Then as you grow larger you may be able to afford the "big players" and they could ultimately help you develop your product better. I don't know.. Just a thought.

[Irish Wolf]

Although I like the idea the two issues with it are: 1) At least in the C-Verse there aren't a lot of guys with good booking skill who are available even if you are a large promotion. 2) Booking skill doesn't seem to rise so you couldn't build a better booking team by putting a youngster on it to learn the ropes. As a side note since we're talking about booking a lot of the best bookers are wrestlers but once they're on the booking team the whole team won't give you any information about any workers on the booking team. SO even if you say have Joel Bryant (C+) and Tommy Cornell (C) on the booking team Tommy won't give you any info on Bryant and vice versa. I remember in the 2004 booking team a worker would just tell you I'm sorry I can't give any commentary on myself but the others could still tell you something.

[lazorbeak]

[QUOTE=Eisen-verse;413236]I am sure this has been talked about a lot on this board, however, after reading over a post in the 2007 forum I thought I'd throw this out there anyways. If I add anything to the argument then great. If not, then I'm sure others have brought up great points already! [B]Booking Team Importance[/B] Right now it seems like the booking team is pretty much useless. Sure, they will tell you some things but all of their insight seems to be pretty obvious (ie: so and so is a superstar and should be treated like one). It would be great to see whoever you put into your booking team actually impact how your "product" is run. Granted, this may be more for those who are looking for entertainment based companies (either cult or mainstream), however, as of right now they seem like it's just a glorified position that really does nothing. Maybe the level of talent you have on your booking team could influence the grades your matches can pull and maybe even angles? I'm not saying they will 100% outright influence it but maybe even a few percentage points. That way if you're putting people in your booking team who really aren't all that good at their job... It will negatively influence your product. Same goes for if you land someone on your roster who has a great deal of booking knowledge. This would make it so that those with good booking abilities become more important than they are now. Right now, It's just a nice little thing showing that they can book pretty well... however, if that actual rating would affect your outcomes slightly then you may see companies scramble for people like Phil Vilbert (if DAVE were to fall apart), Nemesis, etc. This would bring their important to massive levels. If you have a company that isn't that large... You may not be able to afford the big time bookers but there may be some average ones available as well as some newcomers with a lot of talent. Then as you grow larger you may be able to afford the "big players" and they could ultimately help you develop your product better. I don't know.. Just a thought.[/QUOTE] I can't find my idea that I posted awhile back, but I think the booking team ought to be treated more like the braintrust of the promotion: they shouldn't control how well you do for matches or angles (that's not the booking team's job), but they should have an influence on how the promotion is booked. Right now, the head booker exclusively decides who gets pushed, how long title reigns are, who to fire, etc., without any input from anyone else. It's extremely rare for a wrestling promotion to be that unified in its purpose: the average promotion isn't a monarchy, it's an oligarchy: rule by the elite. What I'd like to see is that a guy with a lot of clout backstage wielding some political influence: members of the booking team could have lists based on stuff like who they would push within the promotion or what prospects should be hired, which would always include a workers friends and family, if possible, and workers matching their booking tendencies after that: so a guy like Hogan would favor his friends, and beyond that he would probably favor look over ability. Giving in to their demands would cause the backstage atmosphere to improve, while ignoring them or replacing the booking committee could have a negative effect on morale. The new personality feature could also effect how a booking team member reacts to being ignored: a company man might just ignore the issue out of loyalty to the owner, while a guy with an ego might try to get out of his contract, ruin morale, and otherwise be a hassle to deal with. I think it'd be fun to have a booking committee that functioned as this kind of external limit on player behavior to prevent you from immediately talent raiding a dream roster while cutting all the dead weight the first month, and for the AI, it would have some influence on stuff like title reign lengths and who was hired. To look at it from a real world perspective, Hogan was never a head booker in WCW, but it was pretty clear that he had a lot of influence in the booking committee, based on the number of talentless friends and family he brought into WCW. This kind of backstage politicking would also allow for stuff like the Exodus promotion in the C-verse, or roster turnover like the Radicalz leaving WCW when Kevin Sullivan took over as booker.

[Gypsumstack]

I really like the idea of making the booking team more important to the game. If you have 5 people on your booking team, you should be able to get imput from 5 different people...not just as a group. Maybe one booker thinks one guy is ready to be given the ball to run with, another thinks he's not quite there, and one thinks he is trash. Your job as head booker is to figure out who is right. Booking preferences could be based on any number of variables: booking skill, business settings, relationships, etc. If nothing else, it would lead to more varied booker comments. Factor in what it could add to backstage atmosphere, it could become its own game within the game.