[Hype] 2001 WCW - Here Comes The Money

[MrCanada]

3 hours ago, Juce said:

I just hope as many of the future wrestlers to debut are included. I loved playing the 2000-2001 mod for 2016 but after a few years missing guys were sometimes a downer.

Many future guys will be included. At one point I wasnt set on it, but with some playtests, the talent pool as it were can drain pretty fast. At first I'm just going to add people I feel are important or notable. I dont really have a criteria for what that means. A stronger focus on guys debuting closer to 2001 will likely be a big early focus so dont expect it full of guys with 2005+ debuts at first release/beta.

However I must warn as always, lots of "great now" wrestlers will not be great in the mod. Many guys take years to get to where they are and when they debut their skills will and should be lower. Nearly all historical mods get this wrong. So you will end up with some games where "greats" turn out not great, and maybe some nobodies turn into greats. The mod isnt designed for people to sign Samoa Joe, American Dragon, CM Punk & The Briscoes and have them carrying WCW (or any company) by 2002.

There are a handful of "to debut" people I've added, I did a few years of tough enough for fun a while back, but a few others have snuck in there:

Chris Mordetzky (Chris Masters), Christopher Nowinski, Dan Tanaka (a random referee), Jackie Gayda, Johnny Onyx (John Morrison), Jon Moxley, Josh Mathews, Kenny Layne (Kenny King), Linda Miles, Matt Cappotelli, Matt Morgan, Maven, Mike Mizanin, & Nidia

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by MrCanada

[MrCanada]

Final Ramblings For This Thread, Sorry Long Long Post

Japan finished a week or more ago. Again, as always, nothing is ever done. Some active wrestlers are missing, some will never be added, but some will, but he meat of what should be in the game for Japan/USA/Canada (to a lesser extent) is there. Obviously stat changes / corrections / ect will all be made in time as I play test and when an eventual Beta/Release happens.

So what work remains before a release (beta)? Besides adjusting things:

Broadcasters - Are really difficult to wrap my head around. I find it pointless to add hundreds (if not thousands) of broadcasters that never aired wrestling and likely never will or would have. So I've basically just added broadcasters that have (or will) in 2001 terms. Adding networks to debut and stuff is something that I haven't been able to really tackle. Also, handling foreign (to North America) broadcasters are really difficult as I just don't know what they are. Internet research is useful, but only gets me so far. Its likely going to ship VERY incomplete and I'll be leaning on the community as it were to correct/help me.

Venues - I don't know why I care, but I do. I like venues. I especially like the challenge of running a company only using real venues and not the "generic" venue. The issue with that being is TEW is not really designed in a way with venues that reflects real life. The truth is there is only a finite number of venues that will host wrestling. There simply aren't many 3,000-10,000 seat arenas with TV / large event capabilities in real life. Its why wrestling & concerts in real life do run big venues and chop them in half and stuff. A 20,000 venue can be set to run less than that quite easily. Also, there aren't many 25,000-50,000 seat venues able to run events either. So there's big massive "Black holes" in the real world of venues between say 5,000-10,000 and 20,000+. What I've decided to do is add venues with their capacity set as either an assumed maximum for wrestling (often something like a basketball capacity, a number often on a wiki page, -700 for a stage) or, if available, to set the max capacity as the maximum recorded capacity of a wrestling show in that venue if available. I just like playing games with real venues, so its something important to me to add. I rather run a 10,000 arena with only 6000 fans then use the cheaty generic option personally. Venues (for America/Japan/Canada) are already at an acceptable level (not complete) for me, but sometimes I just get the urge to poke at it lately.

Future Workers / Agers - There's a handful there. 118 agers at the time of posting and a whopping 16 to-debut workers. Besides venues this is the last thing I intend to really add to before a release. Agers taking a priority right now (in addition to the next point) and adding a lot of "soon to debut" people of note (like 2001-2003 debuts) is the next step. Once I tackle this, a beta will drop

Pictures/Logos/Belts - I've really got a mishmash of stuff here and this is the part I'm most willing to accept help on. Not sure how many people care. I've been using nGo's pic pack as a base but adding my own pics as I go. Logos/events/tv/broadcasters are all being done by myself, or you have seen me put a few requests in other threads. That said, if anyone wants to maybe lend a hand, feel free to message me but be patient for a reply.

The data is all but ready for a beta release. I started doing playtests myself. From playing 3+ months at a time to simple sims (I've done those all along). And as I do that I discover a few things I feel like sharing:

Playing WCW is hard. Depending how "realistic" you try to be it can actually even be kind of boring (realistic meaning actually book & hire realistically). The truth is, there just isn't a lot of talent available. That's kind of the point as a large part of my interest in this time period is that all the fantasy bookers who try to "rebook the invasion" or something gloss over the fact WWF / a new WCW, simply wouldn't have all these big stars. They were too expensive and had creative control in their contracts and all but a few names (Booker, Buff, DDP) accepted buyouts to rid the world of the terrible WCW deals.

Though ECW had just closed, most of the useful guys had already gone to WWF by this point, and 2001 ECW was kind of shitty if you actually go back and look at the cards (same with WCW for that matter). While there is some "talent" not much of that talent is over (30+ pop). For ECW, the only "over" guys available were really: Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman & Steve Corino. There's a handful of guys like Balls Mahoney, Nova, Super Crazy, Tajiri, Danny Doring & Roadkill (and a few more) who have some name value or at least are worth investing in, but they are still far from valuable as names.

Outside WCW, the +30 overness talent is still lacking. There's guys like Jim Duggan/Greg Valentine, but who is really going to use them and their skills are not that great anymore. Actual useful people, debatable, are : Scott Hall, Curt Hennig, Glenn GiIlberti (Disqo), Konnan, Jesse James (Road Dogg), Juvtentud Guerrera, LA Par-K (La Parka), Nelson Knight (Viscera), Nicho el Millonario (Psychosis), Road Warrior Animal, Road Warrior Hawk, Vader, Vampiro. And a good deal of them are getting older or have backstage issues. So you end up basically praying for WWF not resigning people to help bolster your ranks, but that can take months in game.

Playing WCW really becomes difficult as you really do just lack star power. Its an intended part of the data and, to me, shows its made well, but it is frustrating at times. 

This is compounded as a lot of "hot prospects" are not really ready for the big time. Most historical mods really fail at this, so maybe I've gone too far the other way, but CM Punk isnt that good yet. He's not terrible, but he's not 2005 or 2009 CM Punk yet. Same with Styles/Joe/Whoever/whoever. They arnt BAD, but you cant just sign a bunch of guys no name guys with 80+ stats and turn WCW around in 6-months on their backs.

Because of the issues above I've reconsidered an idea I originally swept away, and that's to possibly (eventually) release several versions of the data. The three off the top of my head are:

1) The Realism Version: Shane gets WCW as a separate entity from WWF with his fathers blessing and tries to build his own legacy. It uses what WWF acquired as WCW's base since its the closest we'll ever have to what Shane would have valued since its what Vince/WWF valued. Its the world as we know it until the day after WMx7 when, in kayfabe, Shane defeated Vince at WM and leaves to build his own legacy. In reality, The McMahon family see WCW as Shane's ability to step out of the nest and all agree its for the best with Shane wanting to create his own legacy.

2) The Realism With Realistic Twists Version: Shane gets WCW as a separate entity from WWF with his fathers blessing and tries to build his own legacy. However, with changes that seem as realistic as possible in the fantasy scenario of WWF/Vince deciding to let Shane run it as an independent company. Logical/realistic changes: Rey Mysterio Jr. for example accepts the buyout and stays with WCW (Rey only didn't accept the buyout IRL as JR convinced him not too, google it). A few other WCW talents on smaller deals are retained in the buy out: Disqo, Konnan, Big Vito, Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay & Notably Steve Corino who had signed with WCW towards the end of its run but never debut. This version (if made) may also see some unused WWF talent contracts "sold" to WCW. Most notable D'Lo Brown, but maybe Chaz, Gangrel & Scott Vick. This version may also see the "MCW Fast forward" done that many mods do in this time, where MCW is shut down and HWA is made a developmental territory a couple months early (also guys like Bryan Danielson & Brian Kendrick are released from MCW/WWF)

3) Kayfabe is Real Version: Shane actually hates Vince and actually bought WCW and leaves WWF wanting to destroy his father and his company. A family feud relationship between Shane & Vince/Stephanie. Like above, a few talents that weren't retained in the buyout of WCW are (Rey, Disqo, ect) but also notably, Jeff Jarrett, who would have accepted the buyout (or claims he would have) but Vince didnt want him because past heat. Maybe even Trish Stratus leaves WWF because kayfabe is real? Who knows. This would be the most "fantasy" I'd be willing to go.

1 & 2 are all but likely to be made at this point. 3 is a bit more out there, but an idea I felt like sharing anyway.

THAT ALL SAID, I can gladly say the mod really isn't that far from a release of some sort. Maybe a month a couple at most depending how real life goes on (I'm an old man now and dont have endless days to TEW). The absolute worst case scenario at this point is I burn out again or life gets crazy, but even if that happens, I'm going to dump whatever I have done on the forums so someone can improve/finish it. The next update will be a new thread (this one kind of got ruined in the transition) with a BETA release or a data dump. But again, it is worth saying even the data now in its incomplete state is playable for at least 5 years in-game I'd say.

Edited September 29, 2022 by MrCanada