January 1997: A year focused on War

[NWAvsWWF]

Can not wait for this! Always wanted to play a mod starting at the beginning of 97. Thank you for doing it.

 

When this comes out I'm not sure what to do. Do I run WWF and try to keep it alive and win back the day from WCW? Do i run WCW and not make the mistakes that drove it into the ground and try to kill off WWF? Do i lead the tribe of the eXtreme and turn ECW into a household name?

 

So many options! I can't wait.

 

Thanks guys glad your both looking forward to the mod.

 

Update: ECW finished! Big three from US all done now, moving on to indy promotions next

 

EDIT: Finished APW quickly as they pretty much kept the same roster, 96 was a pretty big year for them though, introducing titles and running many more shows.

[TakerNGN74]

I am strictly a C-Verse guy but this mod sounds intriguing so I will definately give this one a try. After just watching Barbed Wire City: The Unauthorized Story of Extreme Championship Wrestling I am probably going to start a save with ECW when it comes out. Or maybe a WWF save. Either way whether you are doing ECW, WCW, or WWF you can't go wrong and some of the smaller promotions might be fun as well.

[NWAvsWWF]

Update: American Indy promotions, NWA NJ, USWA & WWC and BCW (Canada) done.

 

Promotions still left to complete:

(Mexico)

AAA

CMLL

ASW (UK)

(Japan)

AJPW

FMW

LLPW

M-Pro

NJPW

 

When a promotion is done Tv shows, wrestlers, contracts, stables & other info is updated so following that all that will need to be done is Events and things like active tag teams & current injuries. Following that I will be giving the data to my friend who will test it for a week, looking for any major faults before then releasing it, where hopefully I can get some feedback from you guys for anything that needs improving.

[shawnbill5000]

man that sounds roughly like 2 weeks given everything goes smooth. longest possibly 2 weeks ever.

[soxfan93]

<p>God, I can't wait to get my hands on this! Please, take your time, don't rush, but I'm dying to play as WWF!</p><p> </p><p>

Bret Hart</p><p>

Shawn Michaels</p><p>

Steve Austin</p><p>

The Undertaker</p><p>

Sycho Sid</p><p>

Mankind</p><p>

Vader</p><p> </p><p>

Further down the card you have Helmsley and Maivia. Oh, the possibilities.</p>

[NWAvsWWF]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="soxfan93" data-cite="soxfan93" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="35920" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>God, I can't wait to get my hands on this! Please, take your time, don't rush, but I'm dying to play as WWF!<p> </p><p> Bret Hart</p><p> Shawn Michaels</p><p> Steve Austin</p><p> The Undertaker</p><p> Sycho Sid</p><p> Mankind</p><p> Vader</p><p> </p><p> Further down the card you have Helmsley and Maivia. Oh, the possibilities.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Yeah weird to think that WWF still had so many good wrestlers at what was probably their lowest point of popularity.</p>

[soxfan93]

Seriously. I even forgot about Owen Hart, who was teaming with Bulldog, but clearly should have been in the main event.

[CrookedRainJr]

Quite excited for this. Question though: Will the ECW guys have PPA or written contracts? I know some had nightly deals (Like The Eliminators, which is how Saturn left later), but others seemed pretty tied down. How's it in your mod?

 

Thanks.

[NWAvsWWF]

Seriously. I even forgot about Owen Hart, who was teaming with Bulldog, but clearly should have been in the main event.

 

I didn't mind him teaming with Bulldog thought it was really cool tag team, besides if he was in the main event Vince would have just used him to make big guys like Vader and Vicious look good.

 

man that sounds roughly like 2 weeks given everything goes smooth. longest possibly 2 weeks ever.

 

Not going to set an exact time but 2 weeks is a good rough guess, I do have my first exam in the middle of May, so hopefully I can get the mod out before then if not it will have to wait to later in May when I've finished them.

[NWAvsWWF]

Quite excited for this. Question though: Will the ECW guys have PPA or written contracts? I know some had nightly deals (Like The Eliminators, which is how Saturn left later), but others seemed pretty tied down. How's it in your mod?

 

Thanks.

 

Due to ECW being regional, a large regional promotion at that but still Regional and not cult they won't have any written contracts, just PPA and Exclusive PPA. As for being tied down some may have loyalty to ECW but I think in reality none of them were actually that loyal to the promotion besides maybe Tommy Dreamer. Raven, The Dudleys, Tazz, pretty much anyone they made into big stars jumped ship at some point or another to one of the big two and I think anyone on the ECW roster would do the same it's just whether WWF or WCW wants to sign them or not.

[shawnbill5000]

I know I've said it before but I can't wait for this. The more different members point things out the more I remember how this was one of my favorite times in wrestling.

 

I was 16 during this and even though I was a fan since childhood I was hooked by all the product I could get my hands on.

 

Everyone's roster was so stacked and the product was starting to get white hot.

 

Yep. If I haven't said it yet thank you for putting this Mod together.

[NWAvsWWF]

Update: Managed to get NJPW done this morning, due to their working agreement with WCW they had quite a few WCW workers over there like Bagwell, NWO Sting, Ultimo Dragon & Norton, they mostly brought over members of the nWo so they could be in NWO Japan. Not sure how many of you will be playing as NJPW but I've gave them the working agreement pact with WCW so you can do what they did for many of their tournaments and bring over the cruiserweights from WCW.

[NWAvsWWF]

Question: Just something for those who are looking to play as WCW, I've went back and forth on whether it should be included as you as the booker may choose to do it differently to how WCW did although I think they did it almost perfectly (maybe a little to long). I'm talking about the Sting character change and him not wrestling for well over a year up to Starrcade 1997, should I put an injury (called something like gimmick change) which allows him to be in angles but not wrestle? Or should I just leave him as an active wrestler? The only reason I say this is that I was just doing some early testing and saw that on the first Nitro of the game Sting was wrestling and to me it seemed unrealistic as even if they rushed his character change he wouldn't have been wrestling in the early parts of 1997, anyone let me know what you guys think.

[shawnbill5000]

I say leave him active. Those who want to recreate that length he was gone can send him on vacation. he won't lose heat and won't be pissed he's off TV. Plus they can then choose how long they want to wait.

[hammerglenn]

Question: Just something for those who are looking to play as WCW, I've went back and forth on whether it should be included as you as the booker may choose to do it differently to how WCW did although I think they did it almost perfectly (maybe a little to long). I'm talking about the Sting character change and him not wrestling for well over a year up to Starrcade 1997, should I put an injury (called something like gimmick change) which allows him to be in angles but not wrestle? Or should I just leave him as an active wrestler? The only reason I say this is that I was just doing some early testing and saw that on the first Nitro of the game Sting was wrestling and to me it seemed unrealistic as even if they rushed his character change he wouldn't have been wrestling in the early parts of 1997, anyone let me know what you guys think.

 

I would have him set to have an injury (gimmick change or whatever). You'll just need to test it out and see if he's available for angles or not.

 

I say leave him active. Those who want to recreate that length he was gone can send him on vacation. he won't lose heat and won't be pissed he's off TV. Plus they can then choose how long they want to wait.

 

I'll have to double check, but I think if you send someone on vacation, then he's unavailable to be used in angles.

[NWAvsWWF]

Thanks for both your feedback + if they are on vacation they can't appear on the show in any way or form.

 

If I was to set it as a gimmick change injury it wouldn't be for the whole year up to Starrcade as many may wish to have him wrestle earlier than that but rather till the summer or something so atleast they've had time to play out some of the 'Is Sting nWo or WCW' angle and expand his new character rather than him just wrestling on the first Nitro of the game

[NWAvsWWF]

I've decided to go with the Sting 'gimmick change' injury and set it up until like a month before Starrcade, he can still appear in angles during this injury, just like he did just about every week on Nitro chasing off the nWo. Obviously if you plan on playing as WCW you can remove the injury and choose how you want his gimmick change to go, all this means is that you plan on playing with another company WCW will use him like they did at this point and he'll just be in angles until near Starrcade.

[RayW]

I have a problem with this, for the same reason I have a problem with the "lost his smile" injuries that some mod makers give to Shawn Michael's.

 

You run into the problem where six months into your game you have a worker to injured, and when you check to see what injury he has, he is out with "gimmick change".

 

I personally would just add Sting to the game as an active worker with no injuries and let the player do with him as he wishes too. As far as the AI is concerned when they are in charge of WCW, well... Does it matter if the game doesn't follow reality exactly how it happened? Isn't that part of the fun, the alternate realities that we end up with?

[Henderson]

I've thought about the question and I tend to agree more with Ray.

 

I see the benefit of both sides, however, I side too much with the "alternate realities." If you wanted to set Sting out just like he was in real life, why not add that WCW goes out of business in 2001, just like in real life....Add Owen Hart to die in 1999, have Bret get his career ending injury in 1999, etc....It'd be like setting every future death and injury in the game to when it all actually happened.

 

I say leave him active and let the player decide. If we want to keep him out, we'll find a way to run the storyline. With the AI running the show, let them do as they see fit...I wouldn't like having another working in the game come up with a "gimmick change" injury either.

 

That's the fun of the game...You have real world mods so you can reflect things that happened in real life, but still run it your way and see what happens.

[soxfan93]

Just realized that one of my all-time favorites, Brian Pillman, is still alive. Now I'm even more excited for this.

 

And for what it's worth, I'm with Ray on the Sting "injury" situation.

[NWAvsWWF]

Glad to have got a range of feedback since I was just going to go with whatever the majority prefer, the injury hasn't been added, anyone who wants to make the gimmick change injury I'm sure knows how to do it. As for an update I'm still continuing work in the international countries.

[RayW]

Glad to have got a range of feedback since I was just going to go with whatever the majority prefer, the injury hasn't been added, anyone who wants to make the gimmick change injury I'm sure knows how to do it. As for an update I'm still continuing work in the international countries.

Always happy to give feedback Looking forward to this, 1997 was the year before I really got into wrestling, but I'd watch WCW Nitro every now and then at 7pm (or whatever time it was) on a Friday night after Cartoon Network became TNT. My first real memory of anything to do with wrestling was seeing Hulk Hogan play the WCW World Heavyweight Title like it was a guitar in his nWo attire.

[NWAvsWWF]

Update: Managed to get a good amount of of Japanese promotions done earlier, expecting to get the first release out before my exams so not too long now, hopefully like the previous mod there won't be too many things that need adjusting, just small things, that being said when the first release comes out it would be good for a few people just to have a quick check over the data before playing to see if any obvious mistakes have somehow gone unnoticed.

[CamillePunk]

Always happy to give feedback Looking forward to this, 1997 was the year before I really got into wrestling, but I'd watch WCW Nitro every now and then at 7pm (or whatever time it was) on a Friday night after Cartoon Network became TNT. My first real memory of anything to do with wrestling was seeing Hulk Hogan play the WCW World Heavyweight Title like it was a guitar in his nWo attire.

Ah, then you missed my personal favorite year of WWF. Bret Hart was simply too good that year.

[Mattywood]

Ah, then you missed my personal favorite year of WWF. Bret Hart was simply too good that year.

 

Bret Hart, hell that whole angle of faces being heels in Canada and vice versa, was awesome.