Where's The Love for WMMA2?

[LoNdOn]

I don't know about you guys and gals but it saddens me to see the amount of traffic that there is on the WMMA2 side of the GDS forums. Everytime I look at the TEW forums there are always brand new topics with people dropping in their thoughts on a frequent basis. Now I know TEW is a great game (I purchased it on the day it came out) but for my money WMMA2 is just as good if not better. Maybe it is just me wanting to talk about the game more but I just wish that the WMMA2 general discussions forum had more activity. Anyway that is my rant over. Feel free to ignore it, I just felt as though I needed to vent a little.

 

Is it just a case of there being fewer people who are into WMMA2?

[openeye]

Yeah, I've been lurking these forums now and then and everyone seems to be shy to say anything...

 

I bought WMMA 2 last summer, and it is still one of my favorite games.

[Makhai]

I don't know about you guys and gals but it saddens me to see the amount of traffic that there is on the WMMA2 side of the GDS forums. Everytime I look at the TEW forums there are always brand new topics with people dropping in their thoughts on a frequent basis. Now I know TEW is a great game (I purchased it on the day it came out) but for my money WMMA2 is just as good if not better. Maybe it is just me wanting to talk about the game more but I just wish that the WMMA2 general discussions forum had more activity. Anyway that is my rant over. Feel free to ignore it, I just felt as though I needed to vent a little.

 

Is it just a case of there being fewer people who are into WMMA2?

 

WMMA 2 isn't anywhere near as deep, or full featured a title, because of it, it doesn't have the depth of topic or the fan base to manage that level of banter. And frankly it probably will always be the red-headed stepchild when compared to TEW. That's just the way it is.

 

Adam has stated on multiple occasions that he wants WMMA to stay a casual gameplay experience. TEW is catered fully to the hardcore, and the hardcore tend to be more active. Who would have thunk? While I'd love to see it as well, it's doubtful it'll ever get to that level without a major change in course from GDS. Sadly, I don't see that happening anytime in the short term.

[samuricex]

I really don't know what happened because WMMA1 used to have an active forum all the time.

[Nephrinn]

I still play WMMA2 almost every day, but yeah, not a whole lot to say about WMMA2 because it isn't as deep and I wish it was. Though WMMA2 improved in many areas, it lost a lot of the financial/management aspects that made WMMA1 more of a game rather than a match simulator.

[BrokenCycle]

I don't buy that the board isn't as active because the game doesn't have finance management. WMMA is just so much more straight forward than TEW is. Book two fighters. Move on. The real issue is that the TEW is just so much more inspiring, by the nature of professional wrestling. Most of TEW's discussion is "Hey I pushed such and such" and "Hey let me brag about my storyline".

[thamolas]

The game is fun, but it does feel like something is missing. I have no idea what, exactly.

 

The financial aspect is too easy. Being able to go from smallest level to High International in every region except Africa in 3 years is unrealistic. Being able to pull down 30+ million a month in less than four years is just too easy.

 

The match-making is fun, but not really engaging after you've spent a few weeks doing it.

 

I wish I had the golden idea to inject a little magic into this series, but I'm not sure what that would be. If I think of anything, I'll post it.

[BuddyGarner]

TEW's game world is better than WMMA2's. You also have a lot more control in TEW than WMMA2. If a fighter retires in TEW you can still have him/her fight.

 

And a database size needs to be a lot bigger for WMMA than it does for TEW. It doesn't matter how many losses a guy has in TEW, you can always turn him into a potential star but in WMMA some records are just unrecoverable.

[LoNdOn]

Well it is nice to see that others feel the same. I love this game and have played it damn near every day since I got it last Easter. To me the joy out of the game is the booking of fights. I like to see careers blossom and fighters enjoy good title reigns. I enjoy seeing/reading entertaining fights and I like the challenge that the booking can present. I do agree though that the database could do with a massive influx of fighters and that is why I will be eternally greatful to weidt who has done something to aid this cause. I remember when the render thread saw lots of new creations on a regular basis and now it is a ghost town. If I had the capabilities of creating renders I would be doing them as often as I could and posting them on the boards for everyone to use. I appreciate that real life comes first but it seemed strange that the render makers almost disappeard. Does anybody reading this have the software etc. to make some renders? If so would they be willing to start creating some renders so we, the fans of WMMA2 can start expanding this gaming universe? That should light a fire to start disucussion.

[Scottie]

It is a pretty criminally underappreciated game IMO. I'd love to see a few guys get together and do something like has been done in TEW and create a bit of history about the scenario. Surely it'd be even easier for WMMA than professional wrestling.

 

I'm talking fight histories, relationships, etc. Would be a great way to really add some more depth to the database.

[Adam Ryland]

I'd love to see a few guys get together and do something like has been done in TEW and create a bit of history about the scenario. Surely it'd be even easier for WMMA than professional wrestling.

 

Ironically given the different in sizes, it's actually considerably harder, at least in my opinion, to put together a proper history for MMA than it is for wrestling - the reason being that scheduling becomes an absolute nightmare when you have fighters who can only compete a set number of times within a certain time frame or you have situations where a fighter must have a few consecutive wins prior to event X in order to be realistically able to challenge for the title they won on that date, whereas with wrestling you can have guys fight twice in a single night if you need to "fudge" certain timelines.

 

A general history IMO is about all that you can do for an existing database in MMA, if you want a properly constructed event-by-event timeline you'd really need to write the timeline first and construct the database second.

[LoNdOn]

Ironically given the different in sizes, it's actually considerably harder, at least in my opinion, to put together a proper history for MMA than it is for wrestling - the reason being that scheduling becomes an absolute nightmare when you have fighters who can only compete a set number of times within a certain time frame or you have situations where a fighter must have a few consecutive wins prior to event X in order to be realistically able to challenge for the title they won on that date, whereas with wrestling you can have guys fight twice in a single night if you need to "fudge" certain timelines.

 

A general history IMO is about all that you can do for an existing database in MMA, if you want a properly constructed event-by-event timeline you'd really need to write the timeline first and construct the database second.

 

Oddly enough, the fact that there are no pre-fight history in the game is not an issue for me. I like booking fresh fights and so not knowing who the fighters have beaten before becoming president at the start of the game to me is good because every fight you book at the beginning is "new". I'm talking about adding new renders to the game that debut throughout. weidt has done a fantastic job of starting this with his mod but I think there is room for a great deal more fighters, especially in the lower weight classes. If somebody would be willing to do renders I would have no problem adding a bio and skillset for them and including them into a mod. Ideally I would like to add weidt's characters to the original database (which I have done for my dynasty) and build from there. Is there anybody who is interested in creating renders for such a project?

[Scottie]

Ironically given the different in sizes, it's actually considerably harder, at least in my opinion, to put together a proper history for MMA than it is for wrestling - the reason being that scheduling becomes an absolute nightmare when you have fighters who can only compete a set number of times within a certain time frame or you have situations where a fighter must have a few consecutive wins prior to event X in order to be realistically able to challenge for the title they won on that date, whereas with wrestling you can have guys fight twice in a single night if you need to "fudge" certain timelines.

 

A general history IMO is about all that you can do for an existing database in MMA, if you want a properly constructed event-by-event timeline you'd really need to write the timeline first and construct the database second.

 

Yeah, I tried it once before with GAMMA and it is a bit difficult. Perhaps the best way to start would be to do a list of GAMMA and ALPHA-1 events, and the odd big match elsewhere. Would take a bit of work from the community, though.

[Adam Ryland]

I'm not sure it ever could be a community project, simply because every fight you add would have to be carefully checked to make sure it doesn't contradict data already added - the only way it would work as a group would be if you specifically divided fighters up and said "this group only works for ALPHA-1, this group is exclusive to GAMMA, etc" and that would be unrealistic. I believe that it would have to be done by one person, or at the very least done with one person working as a project manager and having an iron grip over what everyone else is working on.

[curtains]

WMMA2 is the greatest video game I have ever played.

[Big Roguey]

I don't know about you guys and gals but it saddens me to see the amount of traffic that there is on the WMMA2 side of the GDS forums. Everytime I look at the TEW forums there are always brand new topics with people dropping in their thoughts on a frequent basis. Now I know TEW is a great game (I purchased it on the day it came out) but for my money WMMA2 is just as good if not better. Maybe it is just me wanting to talk about the game more but I just wish that the WMMA2 general discussions forum had more activity. Anyway that is my rant over. Feel free to ignore it, I just felt as though I needed to vent a little.

 

Is it just a case of there being fewer people who are into WMMA2?

 

The thing is with TEW, there are hundreds or thousands of possibilites. Want Christian Faith to turn heel on Steve Frehley. Done. Want Tommy Cornell to go crazy and become one with the force. Done.

 

Whereas with WMMA, all you do is book fights. No storylines to carry on interest in the savegame.

 

This isn't meant as a bash at WMMA but rather a very poor explanation as to why TEW might be more popular.

[LoNdOn]

The thing is with TEW, there are hundreds or thousands of possibilites. Want Christian Faith to turn heel on Steve Frehley. Done. Want Tommy Cornell to go crazy and become one with the force. Done.

 

Whereas with WMMA, all you do is book fights. No storylines to carry on interest in the savegame.

 

This isn't meant as a bash at WMMA but rather a very poor explanation as to why TEW might be more popular.

 

I completely understand why TEW is popular, I love it myself. I just think that we need more conversation on these forums for WMMA2. Talking about how certain fighters are doing, etc. and to a certain extent these discussions take place. But with regards to what Scottie said, I would love to help expand and improve the WMMA2 universe. We just need a couple of renderes who are willing to start up some fine work.

[DK2112]

I think judging by this topic reaching it's second page on the forum within a day shows that the interest is still there in WMMA2. And so it should be, this is a top notch game whichever way you look at it.

 

I personally have only had WMMA2 a matter of weeks (badly slept on it, although I have had TEW 2010 a while now). So really I have never experienced a proper thriving community for a WMMA game yet.

 

I think due to the nature of each game, there will always be more discussion generated by the wrestling title, particularly one with such unbelievable depth as TEW. The possibilities are pretty much endless with TEW, especially with the angle creator/editor, the storyline side of it is what causes so much activity.

 

But while WMMA2 lacks any real kind of storyline aspects, I'd love there to be more discussion on fighters for example, ones who have provided shocks, gone on to be company stars unexpectedly, had surprise title reigns etc, and this is very much a possibility because we're all still playing this great game.

 

I think we all need to make an effort to give this side of the GDS community a boost!

[Lt. Lucrativo]

 

But while WMMA2 lacks any real kind of storyline aspects, I'd love there to be more discussion on fighters for example, ones who have provided shocks, gone on to be company stars unexpectedly, had surprise title reigns etc, and this is very much a possibility because we're all still playing this great game.

 

I think we all need to make an effort to give this side of the GDS community a boost!

 

I definitely agree. I've always enjoyed reading people's descriptions of their games in the top 10 P4P thread and others. With a bit of imagination and intelligent fight booking it's not difficult to envision fighters' personalities and come up with rivalries and storylines behind fights that are well worth writing and reading about. The WMMA2 fight engine has, in my experience, worked well enough to allow the player to see fighters' strategies developing and changing over the course of individual fights and across entire careers. And the variable fighter "destiny stats" mean that no two games will turn out alike. I'm always interested to read about how other people are using my favorite characters and how those characters are developing and performing in other people's games. Several times I've had my eyes opened to the possibilities for a fighter that I've always considered to be a worthless can by reading on these boards about how other people have booked him to be a dominant world champion.

[curtains]

Note that I have an addon database with about 1000 new characters, all with unique biographies, debuting over a thirty+ year period. Maybe a qaurter of these characters were borrowed from the wedit database with some changes. There is at least one debut every month for at least the first 20 years I believe (and often much more), and then it's scattered a bit more.

[Remianen]

I really don't know what happened because WMMA1 used to have an active forum all the time.

 

WMMA1 was, for all intents and purposes, the first game of its kind. Once the second edition came out with improvements over the first, people either migrated over or the lull in activity became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Happens a lot in gaming. How many posts did you see on Daggerfall boards when Morrowind was out, for example?

 

I don't buy that the board isn't as active because the game doesn't have finance management. WMMA is just so much more straight forward than TEW is. Book two fighters. Move on. The real issue is that the TEW is just so much more inspiring, by the nature of professional wrestling. Most of TEW's discussion is "Hey I pushed such and such" and "Hey let me brag about my storyline".

 

Yeah, this. There are just so many directions you can conceivably go in with TEW. Like trying to make Dusty Bin or Stretch the Chicken Boy into a star. Those two workers would have zero chance in WMMA.

 

I remember when the render thread saw lots of new creations on a regular basis and now it is a ghost town. If I had the capabilities of creating renders I would be doing them as often as I could and posting them on the boards for everyone to use. I appreciate that real life comes first but it seemed strange that the render makers almost disappeard. Does anybody reading this have the software etc. to make some renders? If so would they be willing to start creating some renders so we, the fans of WMMA2 can start expanding this gaming universe? That should light a fire to start disucussion.

 

You have the capability, as do I and everyone else.

 

We just need a couple of renderes who are willing to start up some fine work.

 

This is somewhat of a sore point for me since, as everyone probably knows, I've requested, received, and used well over 100 renders, all made by community members. There is nothing stopping people (myself included) from doing renders themselves. The program many of the more renowned renderers use is FREE with a multitude of additional bits and pieces that are also free. This isn't news. It's been stated multiple times in the render threads for both TEW and WMMA. So the only thing stopping people from doing their own renders....is them.

 

Realize something: people who do renders (and other graphics) by request are humans. Humans who, by and large, aren't being paid to do that. Like many humans, the more you take shots at them because they're not producing free content fast enough for you, the less likely they are to continue producing any content for you. I've tried to do my own renders and failed miserably so I know this stuff isn't child's play. But it's very much a repetition based activity (i.e. the more you do it, the better you'll tend to get at it).

 

But that journey, much like many others, begins with the first step. So the answer to your prayers, so to speak, is to become a renderer yourself. That'll at least take some heat off the established people. You might produce utter crap at the beginning (I know I am and I'm not ashamed to say so) but you'll get better with every try. The only problem you might run into (I sure did) is the sheer amount of time it takes to create one render (especially if it's really intricate). Eight hours plus from hitting the 'Render' button, for example.

[LoNdOn]

 

 

 

This is somewhat of a sore point for me since, as everyone probably knows, I've requested, received, and used well over 100 renders, all made by community members. There is nothing stopping people (myself included) from doing renders themselves. The program many of the more renowned renderers use is FREE with a multitude of additional bits and pieces that are also free. This isn't news. It's been stated multiple times in the render threads for both TEW and WMMA. So the only thing stopping people from doing their own renders....is them.

 

Realize something: people who do renders (and other graphics) by request are humans. Humans who, by and large, aren't being paid to do that. Like many humans, the more you take shots at them because they're not producing free content fast enough for you, the less likely they are to continue producing any content for you. I've tried to do my own renders and failed miserably so I know this stuff isn't child's play. But it's very much a repetition based activity (i.e. the more you do it, the better you'll tend to get at it).

 

But that journey, much like many others, begins with the first step. So the answer to your prayers, so to speak, is to become a renderer yourself. That'll at least take some heat off the established people. You might produce utter crap at the beginning (I know I am and I'm not ashamed to say so) but you'll get better with every try. The only problem you might run into (I sure did) is the sheer amount of time it takes to create one render (especially if it's really intricate). Eight hours plus from hitting the 'Render' button, for example.

 

The software is free yes, but the stuff you need to make a render that is anywhere near passable as a human costs money as I have read on the render threads. Unfortunately I don't have $50 to lay down on this kind of stuff. I appreciate that the renderes have jobs etc and I respect that. My only request is that maybe they use the renders that they have provided for the TEW forums and also post them in a WMMA2 format for us to play around with as well.

[Remianen]

The software is free yes, but the stuff you need to make a render that is anywhere near passable as a human costs money as I have read on the render threads.

 

This is false, I know this because I've looked. I've also been told by several renderers (Clarity, Self, Trell) that it's possible to get free pieces and make them work. Just takes some imagination (which I, apparently lack). Yes, it's easy to say 'those pieces suck' but under the circumstances, you do with what you have available to you. My first render (the crappy one I linked in my previous post) was done with the base model and free stuff. The problem that arose for me was how easy it was for me to potentially drop $300 without even realizing I had done so ("Oooo, this looks cool. And that goes with this and I could do something with that other thing and....").

 

Again, I'm just saying, it's not a case of "can't", it's "don't want to". I know, I felt the same way (and spent way too much money on accessories and such). You don't want to pay for pieces, you don't have to. Basic pieces can make basic renders. It's only when you want MMA gloves and knee pads and body armor and a myriad of hairstyles and high quality custom textures that you start getting into the paid area. Heck, I'm willing to bet that if you saw something you liked in the TEW render thread and asked the creator if you could pinch it, you'd probably get lucky. But having them post in two areas might be asking a bit much.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. I've done 11 renders for myself thus far and while I don't like the quality of them too much, that may just be because I'm comparing them to more experienced folks. Try it, you might be surprised.

[LoNdOn]

This is false, I know this because I've looked. I've also been told by several renderers (Clarity, Self, Trell) that it's possible to get free pieces and make them work. Just takes some imagination (which I, apparently lack). Yes, it's easy to say 'those pieces suck' but under the circumstances, you do with what you have available to you. My first render (the crappy one I linked in my previous post) was done with the base model and free stuff. The problem that arose for me was how easy it was for me to potentially drop $300 without even realizing I had done so ("Oooo, this looks cool. And that goes with this and I could do something with that other thing and....").

 

Again, I'm just saying, it's not a case of "can't", it's "don't want to". I know, I felt the same way (and spent way too much money on accessories and such). You don't want to pay for pieces, you don't have to. Basic pieces can make basic renders. It's only when you want MMA gloves and knee pads and body armor and a myriad of hairstyles and high quality custom textures that you start getting into the paid area. Heck, I'm willing to bet that if you saw something you liked in the TEW render thread and asked the creator if you could pinch it, you'd probably get lucky. But having them post in two areas might be asking a bit much.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. I've done 11 renders for myself thus far and while I don't like the quality of them too much, that may just be because I'm comparing them to more experienced folks. Try it, you might be surprised.

 

I downloaded daz3d and the Michael 4 base and I was just wondering what stuff I would need to make something passable. All I need are hairstyles, facial expressions and items of this ilk. Could someone possibly direct me to the stuff that is worth getting? Thanks Remianen for your help. You have encouraged me to have a bit of a mess around to see what I can do.

[BHK1978]

I think I am one of the very few people who actually liked WMMA1 better than WMMA2. Now don't get me wrong I like WMMA2 but there was just something that drew me into the first game more.

 

I think one of the main reasons for the lack of traffic in this area of the site is the lack of mods. Off the top of my head I can think of four or five mods that have been made for this version of the game. I think that people are drawn to the wrestling because of what everyone else has said thus far (e.g. the lack of depth, lack of characters, etc.), but I also believe that people are also drawn to the game through the quality of mods.

 

The problem is WMMA2 is a very tough game to make mods for. I have tried like three or four times to make a fictional mod, but unlike TEW there is not really much you can do with these mods character wise.