[BETA RELEASE] "It All Begins Again"... April 2004 Real World Mod

[Yoyoyojjoe]

Really looking forward to this!

[Idolized]

PUBLIC BETA RELEASE (BETA 1.0)

"It All Begins Again" (April 2004)
TEW 2020 Mod by iDOL

BETA Release 1.0
Date: February 18, 2020

Release Notes: 

Welcome to the first public BETA release of "It All Begins Again" (IABA 04), an April 2004 Real World Historical Mod for TEW 2020. This mod was originally based on the "2004 - A Data" mod by Anderz (TEW 2010), and was built using a conversion of the TEW 2016 version of my "Ruthless Aggression" January 2004 Database which has been thoroughly edited and expanded upon. It is not to be confused with the "Ruthless Aggression" mod converted and released by Mr. Villain for TEW 2020. It has been in development in some shape or form since 2020, and will likely always be being worked on and improved.

A few items to note for this BETA release:

• DDT and NOAH should playable in their current state but are not yet 100 % accurate and have not been finished. About half of DDT's roster has been gone through to the same extent that the rest of the workers in the game world have.
• Mexico is set as inactive (in addition to Australia and India which have no active promotions.) CMLL and AAA are not in any shape to be playable at this time but will hopefully be edited and fleshed out in a later update. None of the Mexican workers have really been touched yet, so for best results this game area should be left inactive.
• There are only about 100 US free agents that haven't been edited yet. They are the top priority in addition to finishing off NOAH, DDT and tackling Mexico.
• The future workers still need to be edited and balanced as well as expanded upon.
• While I am not finished yet with the data, I figure that most of the promotions that the majority of players will want to play as are done and I can get the data out to them so that error reports can start coming in and we can get some things fixed as I go.

Special thanks to the following:

• gazwefc83 for his awesome Trading Card/Sticker .Gif Pack that has been used and expanded upon for this version of the mod and for his continued help and support.
• Anyone who has contributed to the  Trading Card/Sticker .Gif Pack with their art.
• gazfewc83, TheWho87, Questlove, NoLegsGaming, Bigpapa42, Fleisch and Mammoth for allowing me to import and edit workers to my needs from their amazing databases.
• cagematch.net, wrestlingdata.com, prowrestling.fandom.com, profightdb.com and The Wayback Machine which have been invaluable resources for creating this mod.
• Some hard to find title images utilize Hellfire_Designs (u/HexHellfire) amazing title belt renders found online. 
• The following people who made the past versions of the (January 2004) Ruthless Aggression Mods possible by offering their data for imports, personally helping out with the editing process, or giving their insight on various topics: Genadi, Hive, Mr. Perfekt, LUKIE, XxFutureLegend112xX, Oyaji, Bigpapa42, cpt. charisma, Matt Shannon, Fleisch, OGPistolPete, OLLIE, TheWho87, sock puppet, Slim Jim, Mr. Canada, and anyone I’ve accidentally missed!

Additional Notes: 

• Those of you that played Extreme Warfare Revenge for hours on end will appreciate the EWR inspired easter eggs that have been added into this mod. For instance, the angle pack that is included makes use of more than 300 basic angles similar to those included in EWR 4.2 and organized the very same way that they were in the game. In addition, everyone's favorite booking duo of Adam Ryland and Sophie have been included as user avatars to choose at the start of each game - - and that's not all. Remember how if you were lucky enough, that iconic pair of albino rodents would pop up in game? Pinky's Narf! Poit! Wrestling? and The Brain's World Domination Wrestling have been included as future promotions in the mod. If you want to open up the possibility of either mouse showing up in the game, just leave them both in as active characters in the game world at the start of your game. (Due to the way that TEW's game engine works, Pinky and The Brain could potentially become the bookers of existing promotions and cause even more mayhem!) 
• In the interest of keeping "realism" and not wanting to see Sting immediately signed up by the WWE AI, a Simmering Tension relationship has been added between Sting and Vince McMahon. Since Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg left WWE on bad terms, a Simmering Tension relationship was added for each of them with Vince McMahon as well. This usually prevents the AI from signing them at the start of the game, and in a number of test plays both men eventually made it to NJPW or AJPW. Scott Steiner was also sitting out the remainder of his WWE contract at this point and has both a starting absence and a Simmering Tension relationship with Vince McMahon to simulate this. Simply delete these relationships in the editor if you disagree with these decisions.
• All deceased workers that appear in the database are there for cosmetic reasons only (HOF, HOI, Title Histories, Etc) as such, their skills, attributes, health and popularity have all been set to zero as I couldn't see the point in spending hours balancing the stats, pop and attributes for a bunch of workers who will never actually be active in the game.
• There are custom promotions in the game set to debut, or potentially debut at various points in the future. If this bothers you, or breaks your immersion for a ultra-realistic playing experience, you can delete them in the editor. They are: 3 Lions Wrestling, Canadian Wrestling Coalition, DOKU Puroresu, FOX Wrestling, HULKAMANIA Wrestling Federation, Narf! Poit! Wrestling? (Pinky's company), Paradise Pro Wrestling, Ric Flair Promotions, United States Pro Wrestling and World Domination Wrestling (The Brain's Company).
• A note about JCW: at this time, Juggalo Championshit Wrestling was only running shows around their yearly Gathering of the Juggalos festival and wouldn't actually run a full time promotion until a couple of years later when they started the Slam TV web series. Their starting roster is based on those that were used for the infamous JCW VHS tapes. In the interest of giving workers more places to work and develop their skills, I've given JCW a monthly event called "Oddball Wrestling" in homage to one of their recurring events that would debut in real life around 2009. If you want the scenario to strictly reflect the time period true to life, you can delete Oddball Wrestling, or delete JCW completely. I recommend leaving them in though, because their roster tends to be pretty fun and the results can get pretty entertaining.

 

DOWNLOAD LINKS

Data: BETA 1.0 (February 18, 2024)

Picture Pack: IABA 04 Pics and GFX (February 18, 2024)

 

BONUS CONTENT:

Website Screens: 2000s Website Mod

This pack of Graphics transforms your webpage into the look and feel of Pro Wrestling Torch, PW Insider, Rajah, Wrestling Nation and more. Simply backup your skin's Website_90s.jpeg file from the Backgrounds folder, rename the screen from this pack you wish to use to Website_90s.jpg and you are all set!

Preview:

Suggested Skin: Dark Arber

 

JOIN THE IABA 04 DISCORD FOR THE MOST DIRECT FEEDBACK, EARLY UPDATES AND EXTRA MOD ASSETS AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE:

 

[rocketman151]

Let's f'n go!!!!!!

[Tristagi314]

Amazing news. Like many, been tracking this release for a while. Crazy that 20 years later there is still so much love for this time period. 

 

Thank you Idolized for what looks an amazing MOD. 
 

Looks like I'm not sleeping for the next few days!

[raspymorten]

LET'S GOOOOOOO KING!

[Brighamjessen]

YESSSSSSIIIIIIIIRRRRRR!!!!!!!

[Idolized]

Updated the main post with the Graphics Resources Pack that includes the PSD Templates for the worker gifs, events, tv shows and belts.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/f21mx9zc2fdmqq5/IABA04_Mod_GFX_Resources.zip/file

[infinitehallway]

So glad to see this! Thank you for all the hard work! 

[KB24]

thank you 🙏

[The Outlaw Granta]

this looks amazing thank-you

[SCGRadio]

Playing now, this is so awesome.

Quick question - how do you choose the image that serves as the website skin?

[Idolized]

7 hours ago, SCGRadio said:

Playing now, this is so awesome.

Quick question - how do you choose the image that serves as the website skin?

You have to pick which one you want to use from the pack (my personal favorite is pwtorch). Rename the file to Website_90s.jpg. Then open up your skins folder, choose the skin you’re using > backgrounds > rename the current Website_90s.jpg that belongs to the skin to something else like “Website_90s(old).jpg” and then drop in the one from the pack.

[outb0undflight]

Very excited to see Hulkamania Wrestling Federation belts in the pack. I love doing insane Hulkamania saves and now I may start with that!

[bro4dway]

I'm so ready to dive into this. It looks great! Major kudos to you for all your hard work, Idol.

This is a VERY superfluous request, but is there any chance we could see Ed Leslie make his way into the data? 😅 I love the concept of a wacky Hulk Hogan vanity company, but I think we can all agree that no wacky Hulk Hogan vanity project is complete without Brother Bruti. He wasn't working overly regularly by this point, but Cagematch has him in five matches in 2004 and dozens more until 2015.

[gwblack]

Started a ROH game, and a couple of things stood out. One, the schedule isn't fixed, so the AI adds events to the calendar. It's able to do this because, two, setting events as special sets them to dormant to start the game (and also erases when they occur). You might want to switch the from special to annual that goes dormant the month after.

Still, having fun with this. Thank you.

[outb0undflight]

15 hours ago, bro4dway said:

I'm so ready to dive into this. It looks great! Major kudos to you for all your hard work, Idol.

This is a VERY superfluous request, but is there any chance we could see Ed Leslie make his way into the data? 😅 I love the concept of a wacky Hulk Hogan vanity company, but I think we can all agree that no wacky Hulk Hogan vanity project is complete without Brother Bruti. He wasn't working overly regularly by this point, but Cagematch has him in five matches in 2004 and dozens more until 2015.

Oh thank God I'm not the only one. I second this request! Totally minor, but you can't have Hulkamania! without the Booty Man. 

Unrelated very small note: Big Vito is listed as Other American. Unless I'm mistaken I think he's just a white guy. 

[etr05]

Started a NOAH save on this mod as a big puro fan, well aware that NOAH isn't finished but in 2004 Japan in general was in a dark ages of sorts with pro wrestling so feel either the pop needs to be scaled to account for this or the economy and wrestling industry at the start of the mod for japan needs to be much lower, the only company that was actually capable of standing on its own without needing help from outsiders at this point was NOAH as NJPW was stuck in Inokism and it created a lot of problems for them around this time with a huge drop in interest from native fans, and obviously AJPW was still struggling after the exodus and as much as they were safe by 2004 they are still too big in my opinion as they would be averaging similar attendences to the likes of a Dragon Gate or a Zero1 (who are also quite big) with just under 6,000 people attending the Champion Carnival final in April 2004. would be more than happy to help out with some of this if wanted

[Booker2021]

Oh wow, been waiting for this for a long time.. Decided to check the forum today on a whim, to see this!! 

 

Bloody lovely, will be having a play around and providing any relevant feedback.

[Bonafide_Bluffa]

oh my god. yes! thank you idol! its been a long journey and i know you've put YEARS of hard work into this mod. i think i speak for everyone when i say we really appreciate this release. 

[raspymorten]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:00 PM, Bonafide_Bluffa said:

oh my god. yes! thank you idol! its been a long journey and i know you've put YEARS of hard work into this mod. i think i speak for everyone when i say we really appreciate this release. 

100%

Incredible stuff, Seriously appreciate all the effort.

[RouxBTV]

For these who aren't on the Discord so far.

 

Little Fun fact: 

"the OVW Hardcore Championship was represented by a trash can."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OVW_Hardcore_Championship

Last Champion: Randy Orton
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=5&nr=898

 

Imagine Randy Orton comes out with an Trash Can, not for an Hardcore Match, but as his Hardcore Title!

Edited February 28 by RouxBTV

[infinitehallway]

Really digging this mod so far. Trying my hand a ROH diary from this era. Will report back!

[StanMiguel]

As a bit of context at this point were coming off the Feinstein incident, which had the ripple effect of TNA pulling AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels off their show. Zero-One also pulled Corino, Low Ki and Kendrick. TNA also pulled CM Punk, but rather than turn his back on the promotion, Punk quit TNA and sided with Ring of Honor.

ROHs events should be

Sat, Wk4 December ROH Final Battle 2004 
Sat, Wk1 December ROH All Star Extravaganza II 
Sat, Wk1 November ROH Weekend Of Thunder - Night 2  
Fri, Wk1 November ROH Weekend Of Thunder - Night 1  
Sat, Wk2 October ROH Joe Vs. Punk II 
Fri, Wk2 October ROH Gold 
Sat, Wk1 October ROH Afternoon Show (This was an afternoon show with Midnight Express Reunion happening later in the day)        
Sat, Wk1 October ROH Midnight Express Reunion
Sat, Wk2 September ROH Glory By Honor III  
Sat, Wk4 August ROH Scramble Cage Melee 
Sat, Wk1 August ROH Testing The Limit  
Sat, Wk4 July ROH Death Before Dishonor II - Night 2  
Fri, Wk4 July ROH Death Before Dishonor II - Night 1  
Sat, Wk2 July ROH Do Or Die III  (This was an afternoon show with Reborn: Completion happening later in the day)              
Sat, Wk2 July ROH Reborn: Completion  
Thu, Wk4 June ROH Survival Of The Fittest 2004 
Sat, Wk2 June ROH World Title Classic 
Sat, Wk3 May ROH Generation Next  
Sat, Wk2 May ROH Round Robin Challenge III 
Sat, Wk4 April ROH Reborn: Stage Two
Fri, Wk4 April ROH Reborn: Stage One  
Sat, Wk2 March ROH Do Or Die II (This was an afternoon show with At Our Best happening later in the day)
Sat, Wk2 March ROH At Our Best  
Sat, Wk2 Febuary ROH Second Anniversary Show
Thur, Wk4 January ROH The Last Stand
Sat, Wk1 January ROH: The Battle Lines Are Drawn
Fri, Wk1 January JAPW/ROH Collision Course

ROH Starting Storylines:

Joe vs. Homicide

Second City Saints vs. BJ & Steamboat

Sorry if this is a bit much, I hope it helps.

Edited March 3 by StanMiguel

[Blessed]

Managed to forget my password for the forum, hence my last response to this but I did respond to your thread on reddit. So happy to see this out and it is very clear the amount of effort that has gone into it. Thanks for all your hard work Idol! 

[Idolized]

I’ve incorporated a lot of the suggestions I’ve gotten so far across Discord and the forums, in addition to completely finishing Pro Wrestling NOAH. DDT is almost done as well. There is a change log listed on the Discord for those interested. Not sure just yet on when the next BETA release will be.