Teamwork: Real Life Mod - ideas, opinions & suggestions

[Phil Parent]

What I mean is that, sometimes, people really overrate their favourites, or the workers from their local promotion. It's normal too.

 

You need someone to say, "No, Lightning Warrior from the Wyoming Wrestling Org is not a better high flyer than Yo****sune. No way." and change the data so that the game world stays consistent with real life.

 

About a name...let's see what we can do before naming it. I've got a name and it's well known (RaveX), but I don't think it's good for this. If anything, I'd stick that name on my personnal contributions, but not the whole project.

 

I've got some ideas more fitting.

 

TEW Data OPS? It's a play on words kinda. OPS can stand for "Open Source" and is also a short for "Operations", as in the job, the mission, see?

[MrCanada]

for something that has never been done effectivley, a lot of people seem to have the answers on how it should be done right.

[MetalGear_Yoshi]

I don't think people are claiming to have the "answers", simply making suggestions and offering opinions. Again I'll stress the point of my own inexperience with the modding scene, every suggestion I make is simply that, a suggestion, not an answer or a fact, sometimes not even an opinion as much as just putting an idea out there.

 

I'd say we decide the project name after finishing the whole team buildup, Community Assets sounds good. We're also a few steps away from making time goals and frames without having enough members, but we should keep that in mind for sure. Speaking of the database, modern day is that kind of update I thought we'd all be intested in the most.

 

I don't disagree per sē but I think we could get some more people to show interest in joining the project if there's a clearer picture of what we're planning to do, I do agree though with the point of time frames and detailed goals, I think I definitely jumped the gun there.

 

Alas, all this talk is no good with no community interest, please put your hand up anyone who wants to help, even if you don't think you've got the skills to contribute, I'm sure there would be pretty much something for anyone to do so speak up and join the effort.

[Nedew]

Two things i'll say to you guys, take it as you will. Or y'know, don't take it at all

 

Firstly, good luck!

 

Secondly, focus on the basics. Get the WWE done, test it, release it. Then maybe throw in some popular free agents/ex-WWE guys. Then do TNA, test it, release it. Don't straight away go for 20 promotions, go for the big ones. I'd imagine at least 50% of games played with real world mods are with the WWE, if not more than that. Another huge chunk will be TNA or ROH. Then you've got the Chikara's, the NJPW's, but that comes later.

[MetalGear_Yoshi]

Would you perhaps like to join in on the fun Nedew? Either way I'm sure we will take your advice. Thanks man.

[sabataged]

Two things i'll say to you guys, take it as you will. Or y'know, don't take it at all

 

Firstly, good luck!

 

Secondly, focus on the basics. Get the WWE done, test it, release it. Then maybe throw in some popular free agents/ex-WWE guys. Then do TNA, test it, release it. Don't straight away go for 20 promotions, go for the big ones. I'd imagine at least 50% of games played with real world mods are with the WWE, if not more than that. Another huge chunk will be TNA or ROH. Then you've got the Chikara's, the NJPW's, but that comes later.

 

Exactly...I would actually do WWE, ROH, and TNA then release it but i get what he is saying here. Don't worry about the million indy feds, get the "main 3" then move on to free agents and indy feds. Plus I would do no more then 10 feds in the US. Stick to the c-verse model for number of promotions. When the game starts with 50 promotions and 15 of them are using the exact same roster it kind of defeats the purpose.

[MrCanada]

Well my opinon (and for the record, I do have data out featuring the "main 3" + NOAH, FCW, & FIP.... really good start if people want to help) 2 things kill mods.

 

1) Lack of dedication/interest: This eventually happens to EVERYONE, as every data from RaveX to T-Zone to whatever dies eventually. Its bound to happen. Inevitable, but for most data this happens long before they become really playable or good mods.

 

2) Size: I'm a firm believer in most mods and mod makers allow their data to get to large and seem to resist deleting people and such. And the REALLY big downside to this is that when data gets really big (even some of the "top" data out now for 08) stuff is wrong. And stuff is hard to spot, and stuff is hard to update, and the data moves slow when playing or even just updating. I remeber HATING Lineage's because they took forever to do with load times. Doing mine from scratch without the clutter of some stupid lineage, it goes fast and is easy. Keeping data smaller is key to anything, removing things as appropriate. Tito Santana doesnt need to be in the data. If he makes some glourious comeback as an owner or something, okay add him.

 

I think data should fill two needs (two again! ha!)

 

A) please the mod maker. This always comes first. If the mod maker, whoever it is, doenst enjoy modding anymore because he's allowed people to push around his "vision" by adding stupid wrestlers from some stupid promtion that no one cares about, he eventually stops caring as the data is less and less his. A perfect example of this is back when all that ETWA stuff was added to T-Zone. All the workers were apparentley amongst the best indy workers in the game and I cant recall ever reading one instance of someone using him (be it in a diary, those "my tag team" or "my champion" threads.) so why are they in the data? Goes in to point 2 from above. If someone really wants them in the data they can add them himself. Not that hard to have a "ETWA data" file that you import every time a new data is released.

 

B) Appease to the masses (and enlist help)... I think anyone who makes mods and releases them, do it for a bit of "look what I did!" thats why I released mine... I did it mainly because I wanted it, but secondly to say "hey! look! Enjoy! feedback?". The masses help keep data when it gets a bit larger in check. I admit not knowing much of Japan, UK, and especially Mexico, having a wide release allows others to help (hopefully) and tell me stuff that has happened. (Although I always find it funny when people put "Eddie Guerrero died! RIP. Might want to remove him or set to deceased" as if the mod maker lives under a rock).

 

 

So yea. I'm willing to open my data up to be a "group effort" if peope want to help. Its a great base as people have said with the major promotions and guys in it. Right now I'm working on lineage and adding guys to flush it out. Only thing is anyone who wishes to help me, look at my data and understand it before making guys. The way I do it is typically copy a guy of a similar rating (in my opinion of course) and modify it to fit said person. That way I know when making Wrestler A that Wrestler B (the original) is this, and this guy is better/worse so this should change, ext.

 

http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57192

[Phil Parent]

Totally agree with Canada on this.

 

Data bloat is a monster that was created by the old school folks' (I plead guilty) eagerness to use the ressources given to them. Think of how limited Promotion Wars was compared to TEW 2008.

 

And I was guilty of it. Hell, I'm guilty of it right now!

 

In doing the WWE titles' histories...I ended up doing the belt histories for every belt they ever had dating back to the 50's!

 

Do I need to do that? Will anybody seriously ever use the WWWF United States Tag Team championship and need the belt's history, the answer is NO of course, but it's a reflex to dig for stuff and put it in. At worse I could have had all current belts plus the European, Hardcore and Cruiserweight belts, and that would have been cool with everyone.

 

So I lost time doing work on stuff nobody will ever use. There's a lot of that in modding. Always has been.

 

OT: You guys ever noticed how at the end of its history, the Hardcore title under the 24\7 rule was often won by the same guys in the same order night after night? If we would pull this crap in the game, we'd suffer from it. But WWE didn't care.

[MrCanada]

Totally agree with Canada on this.

 

I'm getting that framed.

[MetalGear_Yoshi]

I'm getting that framed.

- Lol.

 

Good advice Canada, and thanks for the offer of your data . I really like your system of tweaking similar workers stats to reflect their differences.

 

On the data bloat side of things, while I can see data overkill being an issue for mods and scenarios made by one or two individuals with time always needing to be managed appropriately or risk delaying release indefinitely, with a more community orientated project time might not be such an issue if there are enough people on board. In this case the main problem of bloat would be the time it takes to process all the data between days, however there's no reason why (I think) you couldn't just offer two or three options, for instance with your WWE/F title data dating all the way back to the 50's with all titles ever bought in you could give people that option to download the whole thing, one with just the current title history's plus the ones recently retired and also provide another with only the current title and 5 or 10 years of history. If this wouldn't be possible let me know.

 

Personally I'd love to see the entire history of the titles in the mod if for no other reason than for the project to have the secondary purpose as a historic database. I might not ever re-instate the light heavyweight tag team titles in the WWE but it would be cool to look back and see who held the titles.

 

In terms of load times has each reworking of the TEW franchise seen an improvement over it's predecessor in that regard?

[Nedew]

Would you perhaps like to join in on the fun Nedew? Either way I'm sure we will take your advice. Thanks man.

 

I have virtually zero knowledge of the wrestling scene post-2003 (or pre-1998 for that matter), so thanks for the offer but i wouldn't be of much use

 

But yeah, i hope i didn't come across too admonishingly, i've just seen far too many mods fall at the wayside because they want 10 promotions on their first release. Start small was the message i was trying to get across really. Hell, stay small, heh.

[MetalGear_Yoshi]

But yeah, i hope i didn't come across too admonishingly

- Not at all man, I appreciate the advise.

 

i've just seen far too many mods fall at the wayside because they want 10 promotions on their first release. Start small was the message i was trying to get across really. Hell, stay small, heh.

- I agree 100%, hell I live my life by the motto "aim low and never be disappointed"

[dvdWarrior]

I can't say I know anything about real world mods, but speaking from my own modding experience, I'd recommend you really take a good long look at the CornellVerse before you get started - there's a reason people say it's the mod the game plays the best with.

 

Also, be sure to read the Help Manual, and make good and sure you really know what each of the stats is supposed to be before you get started. Reputation for example should automatically be set at 100 for everyone - unless a worker has done something that should cause you not to trust him.

 

Seems it'd be very easy to let a simple misunderstanding spoil a dataset is all I'm saying.

 

Hope I contributed something to the thread, and good luck to any of you who set out to work on one of these mods.

 

[adam.TEW]

Good advice Canada, and thanks for the offer of your data

 

Dito!

 

I can't say I know anything about real world mods, but speaking from my own modding experience, I'd recommend you really take a good long look at the CornellVerse before you get started - there's a reason people say it's the mod the game plays the best with.

 

I believe that, I'll definitely take a look on it when TEW's out.

Reputation for example should automatically be set at 100 for everyone - unless a worker has done something that should cause you not to trust him.

 

Hope I contributed something to the thread

 

Yes you did. Advices like this one are exactly what we need in my opinion, at least I don't know much about the relation between all the values and I can't estimate the impact of them very well. Reputation was one of the values I could never really judge. So a guy like New Jack would likely get a bad reputation value? There're no other examples coming to my mind at the moment, but I guess he's a good one.

[Karl_Kitsch]

I would help, but all I watch is Superstars, 80's Memphis, and AAA. So, if you don't mind Primo Colon, Jerry Lawler, and Chessman having the highest stats in the World, sign me up.

[praguepride]

Just browsed but offering some advice. The "Plug & Play" concept works great for items that can't be argued.

 

Venues, injuries, title histories etc.

 

However, once you start statting workers, things will break down quickly without someone checking everyone's work. One person might rate their company very "harshly" while another player is far more liberal.

 

So someone rates TNA as mostly B's and C's in stats to be realistic while someone rates RoH as mostly A's and B's because they think they're talented workers.

 

Then you run the data together and RoH KILLS TNA across the board.

 

My advice is either: Find a similar sized company in the C-verse and dump all those stats together for their roster.

 

For example, TNA = USPW. You can switch things around a bit but you only get X #of A's, Y # of B's etc. etc.

 

Sure the workers are different but you wont' be able to over play your promotion as there's a limit to the amount of "good" and "bad" stat points.

 

Maybe this makes some workers slightly less realistic but I think realism needs to take a step to the side to clear the way for fun. I think it was RaveX where you could book a show with your ass and still pull out an overall grade of A* becaue half the roster had A or higher popularity and their stats were so blue it was like looking at an aerial shot of the smurf village (translation: the majority of their stats were A's and B's with no weaknesses).

 

 

edit: One thing you could do is create "blank" workers. So you create workers but don't stat them. You do the basics (size, style, bios, title histories, tag teams) but you don't stat anything.

 

SO a mod maker could just load up a "blank" view of the real world and all the tedious work is done, all the workers have pictures and title histories and injuries and tag teams and contracts. BUT the "subjective" parts (i.e. stats, momentum, things like that) are unset.

[adam.TEW]

Thanks for your advices

 

edit: One thing you could do is create "blank" workers. So you create workers but don't stat them. You do the basics (size, style, bios, title histories, tag teams) but you don't stat anything.

 

Sure there's no way (no matter how many people work on the update) of creating a whole RL mod with maybe 40-60 promotions, whose workers have perfect values overall. But blank values would be lame. I still think asking more than 3 people about the values and take the average of them is a good way for some bigger promotions like WWE. Very

time-consuming as I said though.

 

if you don't mind Primo Colon, Jerry Lawler, and Chessman having the highest stats in the World

 

HAHAHA Why the hell those three of all things?

[praguepride]

You're missing my point though. You can create a template that future modders can use.

 

That would be far more useful, imo then just another mod with questionable stats.

 

If everything is at 0% then once THAT is done and posted you can go back and stat them and release your version of the mod.

 

And then the next person can say "i just want to focus on TNA vs. WWE and delete the other promotions and go in and stat things his way.

 

Trust me, you'll get this framework done far faster then if you have to stop and ask 3 people's opinion about each and every of the 1,000+ workers in the database.

 

Start with a framework, the barebones. Nothing subjective and once that's done you can not only continue on and do what you were going to do anyway, but also provide a huge helping hand for other RW modders out there.

 

I'm NOT saying that you should release a blank mod as your final product, but get the barebones in FIRST, release that as a template for other people to use, THEN add in your subjective values for stats etc.

 

edit: Actually you could probably do that with an older version. Take the '08 stuff and update the core (non-subjective) values to '10. THEN when '10 is released you can convert it up and you'll have done a mere fraction of the work it would take to start from scratch.

 

So spend your time NOW updating bios, worker histories, adjusting rosters etc. Don't worry about stats as 2010 isn't release yet. Get the basics prepped for when 2010 comes.

[MetalGear_Yoshi]

praguepride, I agree with literally everything you said . I think blank stats are the way to go for initial release, thus we can provide an early framework not only for our project but any other peoples mods as well.

 

When it comes to actual stat allocation I can't really comment on the realistic vs Cornellverse conversion from mod making experience but rather from game playing experience. In terms of what's fun to play I would sway heavily towards the C-verse, the only question is is making a mod that's the most fun our goal? The way I see it the goal should be to provide the best raw data available for the community to then turn into fun and engaging scenarios. Want a C-verse conversion? Fine, take our initial blank stat release and modify it accordingly. In my opinion if our goals were to make a fun mod than we may as well stop now as the project would be the same as most every other mod ever undertaken. To reiterate the plan should be to create as large a database as possible(sans stats initially) for the use of the modding community, not to present the people with an "ultimate" mod, hell, by the end it might not be any fun what so ever for anyone to play but if that's not the goal than it wont matter. The fun will come from the scenarios made from data after release.

 

I really think pushing for a beta release as soon after 2010's release would spark alot of people to throw their hat in the ring to help out, with a clear view of all the promotions and workers in the database it would also be much easier to distribute promotions for people or teams to add stats to. How you go about governing what is accepted and needs to be re-worked is another issue. You can always appoint one person or team knowledgeable in say, ROH, work out the stats for the entire promotion then hand over the data to a panel of people who have not only knowledge in ROH but an understanding of the rest of the data already processed make a list of workers who need to be re-worked and also any general errors. It's still a lengthy process but quicker than having three people vote on every worker.

 

Anyway I'll leave my ramblings there and await new recruits . BTW praguepride, you wouldn't want to join the effort would you? Pretty please

[praguepride]

Anyway I'll leave my ramblings there and await new recruits . BTW praguepride, you wouldn't want to join the effort would you? Pretty please

 

Sorry, I know next to nothing about modern wrestling, or past wrestling really.

 

I watched the WWF (back when it was the WWF) for a couple years during the attitude era and that was that. If they weren't wrestling for the WCW/WWF I have no idea who they are.

 

The Miz

CM Punk

Even Cena and Orton I vaguely know of and from what I saw I didn't like 'em

 

I was a Hardy Boyz fan, 2 Cool fan, 'Taker fan (but who isn't, really ) and Foley fan and that pretty much sums it up.

[adam.TEW]

Ahhhhh, now I got it. But sorry, you can't join the effort because you don't know CM Punk. That's very sad. Just kiddin'

 

edit: Actually you could probably do that with an older version. Take the '08 stuff and update the core (non-subjective) values to '10. THEN when '10 is released you can convert it up and you'll have done a mere fraction of the work it would take to start from scratch.

 

So spend your time NOW updating bios, worker histories, adjusting rosters etc. Don't worry about stats as 2010 isn't release yet. Get the basics prepped for when 2010 comes.

 

That's a great idea. Unfortunately I don't own TEW 8 or 7, but I can edit everything in the database in spite of that, right?

[crayon]

This idea of blank stats is a great idea. Because no doubt, for me, bios is one of the biggest time sinks I find in creating a worker.

 

Actually, if I may suggest something, I believe it would be more worthwhile for the TEW community as a whole if this team project focused not on making a mod, but on creating/aquiring all these plug & play assets (which may or may not include blank workers), tweak and compartmentalize them, and get them to a stage where they can all be uploaded to a central repository so any RW mod can start out with an early lead.

 

If you've got all of this in place (which it sounds like you'd need anyway) then you can focus on making "the mod" and debating stats and all that sort of stuff till the cows come home.

[Karl_Kitsch]

Primo Colon is on Superstars like every freakin' week, so he's the only WWE youngster I really know, besides Punk and Bourne. Primo has kinda grown on me as a solid bump machine with enough charisma that the fans respond even though he is a jobber. Nothing wrong with that.

 

Jerry Lawler is the King of Memphis, TN for a reason. I used to think he was just a sub-par color commentator, doing a horny version of Bobby Heenan's schtick. After watching him wrestle Bill Dundee and Terry Funk, I understand him much better. Jerry was a crazy over babyface with the best punch in wrestling and great charisma. No, really.

 

Chessman is a harder argument to make. I am not a lucha libre expert. I mean, I know who Silver King and Fishman and Atlantis are and I watch modern AAA, but I understand zero Spanish. I watch lucha the way I watch some of the more obscure sports at the Olympics: I may not get all of the nuance, but I know what I like and I know what impresses me. If I am watching a six-man or whatever, and Chessman is in the ring, that is where my eyes are going to be. Cool things always happen when he is around.

[Hyde Hill]

Agreed the idea of a "blank" barebones mod being out there would be a major help. Only discussion then would be which workers and which companies are in and out.

 

Handy tip for that is look at the C-Verse! How many are there in total both workers and promotions. Look to cater to the different product styles. It is inevitable and logical that it will be more US focused then the C-Verse but the base amount is still a good guideline.

[adam.TEW]

Someone who played TEW 8 Real Life Mods should tell us which is the best for using it as the template for doing the first step (updating the core values)