How do you play historical mods?

[Mega Psyduck]

I'm interested to hear how you people play historical mods. They can be either real world or historical fantasy mods like Cornellverse 1997, etc. Do you keep things close to reality? If so, how close? Do you change things entirely? I sometimes find it hard to change things too much if the booking that happened in real life was the best, most logical way to go. But if I just do the same things, it quickly takes me out of the game. So it's a dilemma sometimes for sure. Especially since modern wrestling doesn't appeal to me very much, so I'm more at home playing historical mods.

[Chris]

I was actually thinking about this earlier.

 

I've not long started a new WWF 1997 game, only 1 month in but basically went the same direction as real life but changed the angles/matches involved and building upto Royal Rumble.

 

Mania card for me apart from Bret vs Austin which in my game will be for the belt is totally different, in terms of character development I think i'll keep that pretty much true to real life for a while but storyline wise I will be trying to go my own route. Thats not to say i'll not have similar storys to RL WWF as I plan on having a heel Hart Foundation getting back together but even though the guys they will fued with may be same as what actually happend the storylines and outcomes will be different.

 

If you feel the way WWF/or whoever booked something in real life was perfect then add it to your game and even just make a few slight changes/tweaks to make it your own without completey changing it.

 

I've got Nation of Domination same as real life i.e kicking out Crush but i'm not adding Ahmed like real life but I have added D'Lo, Kama (same as RL) but also added Nelson Knight and eventually will be adding Rocky Maivia - who in turn gets over enough to drop the Nation when time to move to next level.

 

I'm also currently re-watching Raw & Nitro from NWO forming on the network and currently on November 97 so i'm fresh with what was going on in real life at this time and as i'm watching i'm constantly thinking, i'll keep that spot, maybe move that turn earlier etc etc so I think its good to have a good mix, you dont want to stick so close to real life you dont feel like you're getting your on creative in but at the same time dont think you have to do everything differently.

 

Not sure if that helps I feel like I just rambled on there haha

[Vinsmoker]

The most important thing for me to keep interest in the save, is keeping the spirit of the promotion the same. In my Lucha Underground game, for example, lots of workers have new names, new gimmicks, some wear masks. Lots of Supernatural stuff happens.

 

In contrast my 2004 WWE save is still booked in a similar way WWE does/did. Lots of angles, McMahon overload on TV & in storylines, aswell as a brandsplit and a less diverse roster, with the majority being big & toned+ Americans/Canadians, with three Japanese and three Mexican wrestlers sprinkeled in. Even though I'm putting a focus on building proper Tag-Team and Women's divisions... I try to only hire people that would have fit within WWE around that time period, with other workers being put in dev companies at most.

 

The problems that you pointed out are also the issues that I have with many TEW series that people post on YouTube or reddit. Is it really TNA/Impact anymore if every single worker is a former WWE talent and using their WWE name? I've only seen a single series on YouTube that actually changes the names of former WWE people and it makes the series so much more immersive and interesting

 

TL;DR Book how you want to, but keep the original spirit alive

[Mega Psyduck]

Oh yea. Doing stuff like having The Undertaker be The Undertaker in WCW would absolutely kill my immersion. I couldn't play like that. I'm actually kind of shocked people do that.

[pat666]

I’m currently playing a 2004 RW wwe game. Im now in 2013. I kept some of the stuff real. I booked cena vs rock at wrestlemania 28 for example. But i didnt book it 2 years in a row. Brock Lesnar won’t be the one who ends the streak. Also for my yearly call ups to my roster, some of the big names i try to bring them when they first started, the others i wait to see how they develop. For example i released zack ryder as je never became anything in my child company. So in my game world zacl ryder never made it to my main roster. A bunch of my older talent, i give them a fictional brock lesnar contract (this part plays out in my head tho lol) where they only come on couple times a year (batista, triple h sting etc) i try to give space to guys that are young.

[Self]

C'Verse it's a lot easier because it leaves you with more room to play. I spent the first year of my CGC 1997 game following the canon title histories and hirings/firings, but there's so much room between those details to create new characters in the midcard. Even so, the game spiraled away from 'reality' when key figures left prematurely, and then I stopped checking the official histories. Apparently in 1998/1999 the DeColts traded the main titles around. I went a very different direction.

 

My goal is to re-tell the story of CGC from 1997 to 2017, but in broad-strokes. So the DeColts are going to be top babyfaces until the end. A stable called 'The Elite' will eventually form propelling Chandler, DaLay & Maverick to the top. The Specialists will become an unbeatable team soon (although in this data both debut in 2001, despite a canon 2000 tag title reign). The Soldiers of Fortune will evolve when Chance retires... but with his canon replacement Insane Heat already locked up with HGC, I'll need someone new. I also have a host of midcard talent, becoming stars but never winning titles, so never featuring in history books. The Flock (Black Sheep & Battering Lamb) have been almost as featured as the DeColt boys, but never quite win the big one... Forgotten to the sands of time.

[CQI13]

I keep ongoing storylines at the start, but often with a new result. No fun to book things as they happened.

[Turkeyninja]

Me, personally, I only play ECW or WWF as I had no interest in WCW. I push the wrestlers I liked back then. It's your game, push the guys you want. I had access to ECW back in the day and preferred them over WWF, so I usually bring in Raven and RVD much earlier then they did IRL, and build both up to eventually become champions. I also liked Kane so I will give him a few runs with the title. Other guys I liked would be Test, Hurricane Helms, and Road Dogg I will build them up and have them feuding over the IC title. For me, it's about what I would have wanted to see in wrestling back then.

 

Other things I like to do are use other gimmicks. I don't like Viscera. But I do like Mable. I usually put Mable into a tag team with Raven as The Flock while in the process of getting Raven over. I will also use the Papa Shango gimmick instead of the Godfather and have him team with Kanyon using his Mortis gimmick to form a tag team either aligned with The Ministry or with Kane depending on the storyline I'm running. Imagine trying to put those two together with the Godfather and Kanyon gimmicks...

 

Bring in random workers too to spice things up. I loved Hayabusa, and will find ways to work him into the roster. I'm pretty sure Hayabusa would've flopped with the crowd back then (probably now too, the way things are being ran in WWE), but this isn't real life so don't hold yourself back to thinking a worker wouldn't work out for you just because he wouldn't fit in back in the day.

[BigINMoldova]

The name thing is interesting to me because it depends on the wrestler in my eyes. Like I've signed The Undertaker to WCW before and called him The Undertaker because that's just who Mark Calloway but by the same token when I had a long-term TNA save with Dean Ambrose and Daniel Bryan, I turned them back to Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson because I use to be a big Indy guy and those were the names they had when I first started watching them wrestle.

 

 

As for how I book, I don't book like the real promotions did. Mostly because I usually don't play the WWE and so I'm not going to book like the real WCW did because the real WCW was a failure that went out of business. Why would I force myself to make the same disastrous mistakes they made?

 

Also, some of WCW's mistakes were the fact that they couldn't see the future, even if the future was right in front of them. If you look at the actual history of wrestling, a lot of people have ignored obvious signs that someone was going to be a star.

 

If you look at Bryan Danielson for an example, by the time the WWE pulled the trigger on him and gave him a shot as a main-eventer, he was already a highly-regarded wrestler and a e ROH World Champion.

 

 

Chris Jericho in WCW would be another example. Yeah, in reality, WCW wasted Jericho's talent but why would you make the same mistake knowing how it ends? Even if you want to ignore the future and look at it from the mind of a talent evaluator in 1997 itself. Jericho had already been something of a star in ECW and he was already pretty big in Japan. Hell, he had good to great matches in SMW in 1994.

 

If you were a non-Bischoff person who came into book WCW at the time, you're probably going to look at Jericho as one of your key guys for the future.

[Number Green]

I just started a save in 1985 on the Risky Business mod. Instead of running WWF, I started my own promotion - Brooklyn Wrestling Company, with Bruce Prichard (me) as owner. I’m starting from the bottom of the barrel with $0 and zero popularity.

 

I started out with 1 hour monthly shows and 8 of the cheapest wrestlers I could find. Now I’m turning a profit, my show is up to 2 hours and I have a good 20 or more wrestlers to work with. I held an 8-man tournament for the Brooklyn Heavyweight title on my May show and made Charlie Fulton the inaugural champ (a heel).

 

I’ve managed to pick up some familiar faces like Mick Foley, The Great Kokina (Yokozuna) and Al Snow - but my biggest draws are people I’ve never heard of like Michael Kirchner, Bugsy McGraw and Charlie Fulton.

 

Every month I check in on WWF. Hogan is still champ and Greg Valentine dropped the IC title to Tito Santana.

 

It’s been a lot of fun so far and I’m hopping to make BWC competitive with WWF by the 90s.

[ArcheoOutOfNowhere]

Usually, if playing a regular save rather than my self-inflicted tortur... challenges, I'd keep what I thought was amazing in real life and change everything I thought was only okay-ish or was bad.

 

So, if I'm booking WWF/WWE, I might keep the good ideas (say, I don't know, the "creation" of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Summer of Punk, etc) but unless it was a whole feud I enjoyed, I would probably change the participants or the filler storylines.

To keep the Nexus example, I would still have most of the original members but replace Tarver and Otunga by two other people. Or I might decide the Undertaker's streak would be more impressive if in 2006 he had faced a recently hired Sting.

 

Basically, in my opinion the best way to stay entertained with an historical mod is to keep what you enjoyed in the company you'll book, but change everything else and give yourself new objectives. Either chosen ones (push a wrestler you really liked and was in your opinion not used properly, create a new division, etc) or even if you want to make it original, have someone else pick them for you or choose them randomly. Also, if you're playing in an era/a scene you don't know very well, feel free to watch wrestling from there so you can immerse yourself in it and find stuff/people you like !

[jean-vic]

I tend to keep historically significant events within my save. For instance, I'm currently playing a 2004 mod. Once I've passed Wrestlemania, I will be editing the database to remove Lesnar and Goldberg from the business. Outside of that, I try to keep things organic. So, in my save, I got a note saying that Heyman is building a clique and the two members of it currently are Lesnar and Rhyno. So, on Smackdown, I have had Heyman approach Rhyno with an offer. Rhyno interferes to stop Angle taking the title from Lesnar, thus starting a feud with Angle going into Rumble and No Way Out. Also naturally includes Rhyno in any programs featuring Lesnar, Heyman, Big Show and their opponents. Additionally, Rhyno gets Heyman as a mouthpiece. That should give Rhyno a rub that I may be able to run with going forward.

 

I use my creative tab as well. So, my creative is telling me that Matt Hardy and Renee Dupree are hot prospects, so I'm featuring them more than they were in reality. I also change booking decisions which I don't agree with. Goldberg and Lesnar leaving the company after Mania? They're putting talent over. Lesnar will put Benoit over (as I felt shoe-horning him into the HBK-HHH feud in 2004 was detracted from their rivalry), and Goldberg will put Hardy over.

 

Drafts also help. The draft in game won't be identical to the draft in reality so that will naturally change how the following year gets booked.

 

I feel that historical mods are hard at first because there is an urge to just go with the tried and tested, or book the same feuds (1998 mods always culminate in Austin v Rock, for example) and just get to the end differently, but after a few months and by paying attention to what's going on in the game, I find that they open up and you can make the mod your own and take whatever company you're booking in your own direction.

[Zero]

It is about 50/50 for me. 50% is what happened in real life and 50% is what I find interesting. For example, I hate Hulkamania, so I break his reign up.

 

I switch rosters, etc.

[HighDefOverDose]

For me, I don't tend to huge saves over different eras, I usually get bored after 4/5 years. But I always do things differently then how it was in real life. For example, I'm playing the ruthless aggression mod and instead of Benoit winning the rumble, Eddie will win but there's a loophole in the contract which means that Eddie will challenge both Triple H and Brock Lesnar in a triple threat match for both titles, which will eventually lead to the end of the brand split. Booking stuff that already happened to me is a bit easy, I'd much rather do something different.

[siah463]

I like playing historical saves to play out "what if" scenarios such as I've been recently playing a 1992 All Japan save because I want to be able to properly book finishing out Jumbo's storyline with Misawa and his career as a whole.

[Peria]

I just book how I want... really? Like yeah I'll have Chono become Mr. August. He'll win the G1 a lot. But I'm not going to deny Hirooki Goto an IWGP Heavyweight reign. Maybe I'll grab Shawn Michaels and Triple H. Or I'll keep Vader a little longer (I didn't. Damn you WCW!) The fun of it is creating your own stories based on what you know. What would happen if Eddie and Benoit stayed in NJPW? Etc.

[Monday Night Chores]

The beauty of tew is you play how you want. I’ve played RL saves as wwe and had Bullet club there with Omega and the Bucks etc. I would say if someone shares their save as a diary/dynasty it has to make some sense. I don’t want to read a 1990 diary with Hogan doing leg drops off the top of a cage through a table or by 94 you’ve got NWO vs DX happening as a mania main event. Like when you see people have Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk as two teenagers headlining Mania etc. It has to feel at least possible.

[Zero]

The beauty of tew is you play how you want. I’ve played RL saves as wwe and had Bullet club there with Omega and the Bucks etc. I would say if someone shares their save as a diary/dynasty it has to make some sense. I don’t want to read a 1990 diary with Hogan doing leg drops off the top of a cage through a table or by 94 you’ve got NWO vs DX happening as a mania main event. Like when you see people have Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk as two teenagers headlining Mania etc. It has to feel at least possible.

 

 

While I agree, I would read a well-written diary that is bonkers like what you described hah

[CQI13]

I remember on the EWB boards there was a legendary game where The Mountie beat Bret Hart for the IC title and went on to be a huge success (without taking away from Bret's success either - it wasn't like they just swapped spots).

[Redennis]

<p>I start off with the starting fueds to a major PPV, then I try to fantasy book myself. </p><p>

Hogan vs Ric Flair on Summerslam in a Once in a lifetime match in '92. After that I will let Flair go. </p><p> </p><p>

But... I like to replicate the PPV schedule each year. Just the names, not the matches.</p>

[Monday Night Chores]

While I agree, I would read a well-written diary that is bonkers like what you described hah

 

To each their own I guess. I think you hit the important part, being well written. I guess anything that’s written well and makes sense then no matter how bonkers it still makes sense.

[Aura]

I'm still new to historical mods, but something that I like to do is try to make companies out of wrestlers who I've either never heard of or have only heard about in passing. I feel like this gives me more room to play around with gimmicks and storylines without my perceptions being colored by how real life played out. Also, I'll occasionally grab someone I know that didn't have a lot of success, and try to make them into a star. I've tried this with JTG and Erick Rowan, and it's pretty fun to try to book a rise for them.