The Ollie/Cverse Situation

[beatingstuff88]

So a comment by @ColdBloodedSausageMaker in the general thread got me actually thinking (i hope i'm not offending im really just using these for the discussion). These are the quotes: "Even relatively minor changes, like OLLIE being closed down, get a lot of pushback from the community." and "Most players seem to want the C-Verse to remain relatively the same throughout the release editions.". 

A short point on both:

I agree with the fact that OLLIE got a lot of pushback, but i disagree with that "most players want hte cverse to remain relatively the same"

I dont think its wrong for people to expect that the Cverse at least changes somewhat between editions, especially with this year being so stagnant

But i had some thoughts, especially on OLLIE, and i wanna use this post to explain why i feel closing OLLIE is thematically inconsistent with the Cverse lore compared to what the user experiences when playing AS them:

Its said in the bio of OLLIE in 2020 that "It doesnt get on national tv anymore and many feel their decline is terminal and don't expect them to reach their 75th anniversary."

 

Yet when you play as them, you can immediately get on very small national tv via canal tres, small internet via tv-mex or get medium sized internet coverage in mexico and small in the US via La Red De La Lucha, they are still the tenth biggest company in the world. 

To illustrate this i have run multiple games over the years in default Cverse in 2020 where i play for 10 years or more; in all of them Ollie survives and gets 400.000-600.000 per month and easily survive. While the companies that do die are always the same ones: Freedom Caribbean, Youth Energy and Comite International de Lucha Libre.

1 show, autobooked at the start of a save literally gets them around 50.000 in profit, their workers are good enough to get cards into the low - high 60's which is good for a company that has low 40's pop in centro and low 20's in the rest of Mexico.

I even immediately got a pop up that EILL wanted me to accept dev workers

OLLIE, compared to what the text says, doesnt FEEL like a company in decline even though the game says it SHOULD be. This is in comparison to, for example, SNP, a company where every month the owner is outed as a scumbag and every month money is lost and workers walk out. How is this company that fails in 90% of saves still around while OLLIE isnt? 

Why not have SNP be the company that closes; Mark Carnie's antics catch up to him, whereby all workers advice publicly not to work for him? leading to SNP dying and the workers in Scotland getting a new promotion that may be able to rise to rival 21CW? Thereby freshening up the UK scene and actually giving CWW for example a chance to thrive? My mind for example goes immediately to the "great british faceoff" alliance (by the ever amazing @lavelleuk) where UK companies band together against 21CW and SNP because they dont represent "real" wrestling

Why not have the story be that Ollie is getting a resurgence due to them adopting internet fast while EILL is stuck in its traditional ways? Maybe EILL is having actual tangible problems due to Lover retiring and Ibanez dying? for example their talent sees the storm coming and jump to Ollie or go abroad? maybe Ollie becomes EILL's dev fed which allows them to survive?

Or maybe  CILL dies and Ollie, in a last ditch effort, buys them and gains success from their acquisition due to the return of El Maestro and an influx of young, hungry talent? But now it just feels like EILL is an all looming parasite over Mexico with no competition

 

To round off this long winded rant, i agree with lots of others that the Cverse is stagnant right now, especially when looking at women's wrestling (thats another whole can of worms that can be found in another thread). But i feel that the closure of OLLIE is a mistake and the company closures should have happened for other companies in other parts of the game world, where there's a lot more potential for future growth and new stories/companies to emerge

 

To close i wanna thank all the modmakers, especially @willr0ck and @lavelleuk for their mods and all the work they put into livening up the Cverse (which i feel will be sorely needed this game). I know there are others out there, but there would be too many for me to list. Thank you all for providing us with mods that you put hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears into. You are all very appreciated

Edited August 2 by beatingstuff88
Clarifications and accidental copy of text

[Chikbot]

8 minutes ago, beatingstuff88 said:

OLLIE, compared to what the text says, doesnt FEEL like a company in decline even though the game says it SHOULD be. This is in comparison to, for example, SNP, a company where every month the owner is outed as a scumbag and every month money is lost and workers walk out. How is this company that fails in 90% of saves still around while OLLIE isnt? 

 

What you're talking about here is terminology called "Gameplay and Story Segregation" or "Ludonarrative Dissonance" where sometimes the story of the game does not reflect how things are in the aspect of gameplay. This is something Adam did not seem to address within the game itself, however, it's a possibility that in Adam's mind, the story he wanted to tell trumps the actual gameplay. Just because you personally had a good game with something does not mean that's the direction the developer wants to go unfortunately.
 

I'm not saying its a good or a bad thing, I'm just saying it's a thing.

[d12345]

To be fair to SNP being open they got that free money from the Scottish government and their owner is a complete scumbag, meaning he's not spending that money. He's taking shortcuts where ever he can.

My only issue with OLLIE closing is the lucha libre scene in canon C-Verse is now dead. There's just not enough lucha promotions. Mexico is the only country in the world that has a national holiday and complete support of their pro wrestling. You would think that would get them an extra a 2 or 3 regional indy promotions.

[beatingstuff88]

1 hour ago, Chikbot said:

What you're talking about here is terminology called "Gameplay and Story Segregation" or "Ludonarrative Dissonance" 

THANK YOU! i was wracking my brain to find the right term and i just couldn't remember what it was called

[JrSquared]

I really dont remember 2020 having this much pushback on the CVerse changes. I cant speak for 2013 or 2016 editions.  I think a methodology behind the Cverse is giving different play styles like SNP being open can create a ton of scenarios of how much a scumbag is Mark Carnie.  I am in favor of as many changes as possible as it creates a new avenue of scenarios for us to play in. I hope Adam isnt discouraged from making changes in future editions. I genuinely look forward to seeing these changes and trying to find new ways to play. The cannon never really follows the way the game played so I wouldnt account for that personally.  As @d12345 said not having any companies based off Lucha Libre is an oversight. That couldve been addressed with something like "Champagne Lovers MASSIVE popularity in a Soap Opera has resulted in the Mexico scene booming with people loving soap opera styles in mexico." 

 

I do agree the thought if we dont like something change it ourselves. 

[beatingstuff88]

1 hour ago, d12345 said:

To be fair to SNP being open they got that free money from the Scottish government and their owner is a complete scumbag, meaning he's not spending that money. He's taking shortcuts where ever he can.

My only issue with OLLIE closing is the lucha libre scene in canon C-Verse is now dead. There's just not enough lucha promotions. Mexico is the only country in the world that has a national holiday and complete support of their pro wrestling. You would think that would get them an extra a 2 or 3 regional indy promotions.

Exactly, Mexico has less promotions than australia and as much as the UK and Europe. 

[beatingstuff88]

1 minute ago, JrSquared said:

I really dont remember 2020 having this much pushback on the CVerse changes. I cant speak for 2013 or 2016 editions.  I think a methodology behind the Cverse is giving different play styles like SNP being open can create a ton of scenarios of how much a scumbag is Mark Carnie.  I am in favor of as many changes as possible as it creates a new avenue of scenarios for us to play in. I hope Adam isnt discouraged from making changes in future editions. I genuinely look forward to seeing these changes and trying to find new ways to play. The cannon never really follows the way the game played so I wouldnt account for that personally.  As @d12345 said not having any companies based off Lucha Libre is an oversight. That couldve been addressed with something like "Champagne Lovers MASSIVE popularity in a Soap Opera has resulted in the Mexico scene booming with people loving soap opera styles in mexico." 

 

I do agree the thought if we dont like something change it ourselves. 

The only big changes i remember from 2020 are that USPW is now undisputed nr1, CGC and NOTBPW becoming CWA, SOTBPW becoming EILL, japan having the biggest impact with the Tsunami (aka Golden Canvas and Warrior Engine kicking the bucket) and i dont even know if there was anything big in the other parts of the world, but in the end it just means that SWF and TCW are a bit smaller, canada gains 1 super company instead of 2 big ones, mexico stays the same and Japan gets a big shakeup. I'm not asking for natural disasters after every 4 years, don't get me wrong

[JrSquared]

1 minute ago, beatingstuff88 said:

The only big changes i remember from 2020 are that USPW is now undisputed nr1, CGC and NOTBPW becoming CWA, SOTBPW becoming EILL, japan having the biggest impact with the Tsunami (aka Golden Canvas and Warrior Engine kicking the bucket) and i dont even know if there was anything big in the other parts of the world, but in the end it just means that SWF and TCW are a bit smaller, canada gains 1 super company instead of 2 big ones, mexico stays the same and Japan gets a big shakeup. I'm not asking for natural disasters after every 4 years, don't get me wrong

In the Diary Adam said how people didnt like the 4 year changes as it was too drastic. Richard Eisen stepping down in SWF, Rocky Golden joining SWF, and Tommy Cornell going to 21CW. The big 3 had much of same roster from 2016 to 2020 for most part. 

I do agree with you how the C-Verse is stagnant. When looking at rosters USPW has the "newest" roster where much of roster has been there 5 years or less. TCW more than half the roster has been there about a decade, and in SWF 3/4 of roster seemed to be there 7 years plus. I just feel like it makes each game feel similar outside of the changes we do or cause. Im hoping next game in 3-5 years we see a bigger time skip and some major changes. Even on Indy scene there isnt many characters jumping ship. Im disappointed in the lack of influence wrestleworld had on the cannon. 

I do have faith that the game will play in way where each save can feel different. I had a watcher save where in Feb, SWF signed Aldous Blackfriar and put him in RIPW. And I do agree with the womens wrestling being largely ignored but I will point out that new workers generated within the save seem legit so hopefully that helps people. 

[JackNo]

I'll miss OLLIE but I kinda feel like it's perhaps intended to make it easier for someone to take a guy like Pablo Rodrguez or Atlantis Jr. And start a new more modern lucha fed (Grindhouse, Punk Rock, etc)

It was possible to do this before, but if you had to often spend a lot of time checking availability. Now I can pretty easily hire 30 solid luchadors or so and if I start a one that's not really small? I can probably at least get on Wrestleworld and the like. And if you go for Pablo? He can literally boost the early shows by showing up, playing the evil priest version of Dario Cuerto/Cesar Duran and pushing the newer guys by doing angles with them. 

Again, I get that's not everyone's taste. But I do think having one less bigger company to compete with makes that a bit easier to do. 

[Self]

I made CGC successful dozens of times in private games, but it was still time for them to die in 2020. Story is more important than gameplay, at least when trying to create new scenarios for players. I think change is good. Just because something doesn't last forever, doesn't mean it wasn't special or worthwhile. Companies should die, as long as new companies rise in their place.

The issue comes when there isn't a suitable alternative to fill the gaps. CGC died and I struggled to find something that felt similar in 2020. The other TV sports entertainment companies were too big. Their rosters too big. Too much money and power. RAW seemed like an option... but they're at the top of the food chain in Australia. I like being No.2 or 3 or 7. So I spent most of my time running low level indies or playing historical mods, and as my favourite characters get old and retire, I find myself more and more disconnected to the Cverse. The promotions don't interest me, and I won't feel anything for these youngsters until I play games with them. 

[TheDeep5ix]

I think the game can be a bit inconsistent in terms of gameplay-storyline segregation. For example, I can easily make RAW go into debt in TEW 2020 by sending exclusive deals to most of their roster and tricking the AI to pay too much for them when they don't make enough in revenue to sustain it. In this instance, I saw RAW go into $10 million in debt in a few years, even though the lore implies it's a very successful company.

 

By comparison, Ollie had low 70s for Popularity in all Mexican regions and was easily making money on its own when controlled by the AI.

Similarly, other companies like FCW seem to go out of business regularly without much human input.

Edited August 2 by TheDeep5ix

[Doctor Crunch]

I think it would have been more interesting to have a bankrupt OLLIE purchased by EILL as a chid company, but I am pretty happy with the state of 2022. It does suck that the big closure was one of the few companies that did woman's wrestling.

[Lier]

4 hours ago, d12345 said:

My only issue with OLLIE closing is the lucha libre scene in canon C-Verse is now dead. There's just not enough lucha promotions. Mexico is the only country in the world that has a national holiday and complete support of their pro wrestling. You would think that would get them an extra a 2 or 3 regional indy promotions.

This. Having only one company debut isnt bad enough, but completely ruining one of the areas depth by closing a community favorite is ridiculous. All there is now is a new tribute show. This is another reason why two years progression is dumb as it doesn't make practical sense that OLLIE closed in one year, and doesn't naturally allow for new companies to open to fill their gap. Now Mexico is just another Oceania, standard crap with ine uber dominant promotion, one weird one that's high concept. Filler.  Really hope that they bring in 2-3 new companies per region in TEW X, otherwise the Cverse is going to become more bland and milktose outside USA/Canada and Japan.

[Teasenitryn]

I know this is going to be a hot take and i am in no way minimising people’s points of view, killing off one of the big names in Mexico was a choice, closing down the biggest women’s fed outside Japan in 2020 and giving nothing back then or in the next data set was a choice and if i were only going to  play original data I’d be upset.

 But i also know that people are probably going to do expansions to import into the original data. I know that a crazy extended cverse alt mod has already been converted and is being polished and i know another is on the way. Maybe thunderverse will be converted, maybe it will be expanded on, maybe i have to do some work and convert my 2020 version for private use. NDverse is being hyped, Diablo with all that craziness is being converted, there’s real world stuff, and y’know i think Adam knows this too and he puts more into giving us a bigger sandbox than he puts into building sandcastles in it.

There is an argument for should we have to rely on modders or being able to do things ourselves, and there is an argument for why do we have to lose things and get little comparable back in return, but i think there is also an argument for we know the state going in and there is so much fun to be had in what Adam has poured his time into, the game itself even if we need to mod it to our liking first as i will need to with the women’s scene.

Edited August 2 by Teasenitryn

[StatboyVT]

3 hours ago, Self said:

I made CGC successful dozens of times in private games, but it was still time for them to die in 2020. Story is more important than gameplay, at least when trying to create new scenarios for players. I think change is good. Just because something doesn't last forever, doesn't mean it wasn't special or worthwhile. Companies should die, as long as new companies rise in their place.

The issue comes when there isn't a suitable alternative to fill the gaps. CGC died and I struggled to find something that felt similar in 2020. The other TV sports entertainment companies were too big. Their rosters too big. Too much money and power. RAW seemed like an option... but they're at the top of the food chain in Australia. I like being No.2 or 3 or 7. So I spent most of my time running low level indies or playing historical mods, and as my favourite characters get old and retire, I find myself more and more disconnected to the Cverse. The promotions don't interest me, and I won't feel anything for these youngsters until I play games with them. 

That's pretty much me. I spent most of my time with 2020 playing the '97 mod as CGC. I've been struggling since the beta release to find a save that I like. I started one with SWF, but it's just too big for me. A bunch of guys on a big roster I know nothing about since I always played the '97 mod.

Personally, I'd be down for a DLC at some point. Pay $10-15 and get a new database that goes back in time to some past era in Cverse that none of have ever played before. '97 would be a cool option there.

[ColdBloodedSausageMaker]

8 hours ago, beatingstuff88 said:

So a comment by @ColdBloodedSausageMaker in the general thread got me actually thinking (i hope i'm not offending im really just using these for the discussion). These are the quotes: "Even relatively minor changes, like OLLIE being closed down, get a lot of pushback from the community." and "Most players seem to want the C-Verse to remain relatively the same throughout the release editions.". 

A short point on both:

I agree with the fact that OLLIE got a lot of pushback, but i disagree with that "most players want hte cverse to remain relatively the same"

I dont think its wrong for people to expect that the Cverse at least changes somewhat between editions, especially with this year being so stagnant

But i had some thoughts, especially on OLLIE, and i wanna use this post to explain why i feel closing OLLIE is thematically inconsistent with the Cverse lore compared to what the user experiences when playing AS them:

Its said in the bio of OLLIE in 2020 that "It doesnt get on national tv anymore and many feel their decline is terminal and don't expect them to reach their 75th anniversary."

 

Yet when you play as them, you can immediately get on very small national tv via canal tres, small internet via tv-mex or get medium sized internet coverage in mexico and small in the US via La Red De La Lucha, they are still the tenth biggest company in the world. 

To illustrate this i have run multiple games over the years in default Cverse in 2020 where i play for 10 years or more; in all of them Ollie survives and gets 400.000-600.000 per month and easily survive. While the companies that do die are always the same ones: Freedom Caribbean, Youth Energy and Comite International de Lucha Libre.

1 show, autobooked at the start of a save literally gets them around 50.000 in profit, their workers are good enough to get cards into the low - high 60's which is good for a company that has low 40's pop in centro and low 20's in the rest of Mexico.

I even immediately got a pop up that EILL wanted me to accept dev workers

OLLIE, compared to what the text says, doesnt FEEL like a company in decline even though the game says it SHOULD be. This is in comparison to, for example, SNP, a company where every month the owner is outed as a scumbag and every month money is lost and workers walk out. How is this company that fails in 90% of saves still around while OLLIE isnt? 

Why not have SNP be the company that closes; Mark Carnie's antics catch up to him, whereby all workers advice publicly not to work for him? leading to SNP dying and the workers in Scotland getting a new promotion that may be able to rise to rival 21CW? Thereby freshening up the UK scene and actually giving CWW for example a chance to thrive? My mind for example goes immediately to the "great british faceoff" alliance (by the ever amazing @lavelleuk) where UK companies band together against 21CW and SNP because they dont represent "real" wrestling

Why not have the story be that Ollie is getting a resurgence due to them adopting internet fast while EILL is stuck in its traditional ways? Maybe EILL is having actual tangible problems due to Lover retiring and Ibanez dying? for example their talent sees the storm coming and jump to Ollie or go abroad? maybe Ollie becomes EILL's dev fed which allows them to survive?

Or maybe  CILL dies and Ollie, in a last ditch effort, buys them and gains success from their acquisition due to the return of El Maestro and an influx of young, hungry talent? But now it just feels like EILL is an all looming parasite over Mexico with no competition

 

To round off this long winded rant, i agree with lots of others that the Cverse is stagnant right now, especially when looking at women's wrestling (thats another whole can of worms that can be found in another thread). But i feel that the closure of OLLIE is a mistake and the company closures should have happened for other companies in other parts of the game world, where there's a lot more potential for future growth and new stories/companies to emerge

 

To close i wanna thank all the modmakers, especially @willr0ck and @lavelleuk for their mods and all the work they put into livening up the Cverse (which i feel will be sorely needed this game). I know there are others out there, but there would be too many for me to list. Thank you all for providing us with mods that you put hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears into. You are all very appreciated

I think Adam did a good job advancing the C-Verse, but I agree that there are points for improvement -- as there would be in any scenario. 

I do think it was the right decision for OLLIE to close down.

I think OLLIE felt redundant with CILL also around the same size and with the same product.  I also think a lot of the major stars -- like Extraordinario Jr., Gino Montero and Mr. Lucha III -- had outgrown OLLIE and other ones like Nicholas Lopez and Marcos Flores were due to retire. Whether or not OLLIE closed, they definitely would have taken a major hit around this time in the in-game world.

I think adding another Mexican company, particularly a Luchadora-focused company, would make EILL feel less dominant.

Partially agree with you on women's wrestling. I do think Adam could definitely add more women's workers to the game, and I think there is a lack of women's talent on the independent scene in particular. 

I think the core issue a lot of players have is that the big companies, particularly the big American companies which have the largest player base, don't heavily feature women's wrestling. ACPW, QAW and CZCW provide great opportunities for women's wrestlers, but without a weekly TV show and PPV, they won't draw as many players in.

SWF and TCW don't have any women's wrestlers. By many metrics, such as the number of active dynasties, TCW and SWF are the most popular companies in the CVerse. 

USPW does have a women's division, but it still feels very much in the background of USPW shows. There are probably only two active USPW women's stars who could really main event a women's PPV. Many USPW women's wrestler are close to retirement or not very established as wrestlers.

I think they would have to bring in a lot of new established talent to run a women's TV Show or PPV. That would further deplete the already thin women's talent on the independent scene and require USPW to add about 10-15 new roster members causing a fair amount of turnover. How would QAW be affected by a possible USPW's expansion? 

I do think there are a couple work-arounds. One would be to have QAW accept some of the younger USPW Women's talent as developmental workers while in return more USPW gets some more established QAW roster members. 

You could also add a broadcaster or streaming-service owned company, similar to GLOW, about small size which has weekly streaming content online. 

Edited August 3 by ColdBloodedSausageMaker

[alpha2117]

Honestly the simplest solution to Mexico would have been for OLLIE to have an unexpected resurgence and someone else open a new fed or two featuring something edgier like Mexican staples like Exoticos or Minis or a Lucha Underground style story based fed.  Mexico should have grown a bit and instead we got it contracting and feeling sort of lifeless.  So much of the C-Verse feels a bit like a fly stuck in amber.

As for SNP that shouldn't close - heck if anything I'd like to see it become an unexpected success with even more strippers and offensive gimmicks.  We saw this year that Britain actually shifted away from it's long running conservative government and there is a sense that the era of Brexit and Neo-Conservatism is at an end and it's swinging back towards the center - in that environment I can see an edgier product up north potentially growing.

[Matt_Black]

Yeah, I love the idea that SNP simply SHOULD NOT WORK, but Mark Carnie is just THAT talented a grifter. Someone who, despite his obvious and numerous moral failings, continues to fail upward.

[alpha2117]

15 minutes ago, Matt_Black said:

Yeah, I love the idea that SNP simply SHOULD NOT WORK, but Mark Carnie is just THAT talented a grifter. Someone who, despite his obvious and numerous moral failings, continues to fail upward.

Fail Upward sounds right.  He's like an eviler Paul Heyman and much like Heyman he is likely to succeed in spite of and perhaps because of his quirks.

[Hawk1665]

I guess I'm in the minority in that I want the Cverse to change and adapt to new situations. I think it's cool to see where things end up and who goes where.

But I think it's fair to question a lot of the Cverse decisions in 2020 and now in IX. For one, discussion should be welcomed along with (positive) criticism. But also, because a lot of the decisions were a little baffling. This time around we have OLLIE disappearing which is really questionable. If CMLL suddenly was on the verge of death, it's almost positive the Mexican government or some other investor would step in for CMLL's historical significance to Mexican culture. It (most likely) won't happen the way OLLIE apparently died, and OLLIE was founded only twenty years later then CMLL did in real life. You're talking about a nearly seventy-year promotion going Poof. 

Take Japan, where I play most of my games, nothing of value was gained when Ryland shut down GCG and Warrior Engine. Warrior Engine in particular is a *huge blow* to the Japanese game world because it strands so many characters that have nowhere else to go because of the lack of a hardcore promotion in Japan. GCG was a ton of history within the game world gone for Ryland (or whoever helps him with the Japanese data) to make some kind of point against the "modernization" or "Americanization" of Japanese pro-wrestling. That's another promotion from the very first TEW game with sixty+ years of in-game history poofed out of existence. And for what exactly? You could argue it's to make room for new promotions but why do we need *new* promotions when we already have established ones with tons of history?

I think it has less to do with "My favorite promotion is dead RAWGH" and more for how it *feels* in the game world and as a player and I don't think those three changes in particular are positive ones. 

[Matt_Black]

34 minutes ago, alpha2117 said:

Fail Upward sounds right.  He's like an eviler Paul Heyman and much like Heyman he is likely to succeed in spite of and perhaps because of his quirks.

Paul's too charming and charismatic. I'd say Carnie reminds me of another WWE Hall Of Famer, and that's all I'll say.

[White Dolphin]

I really feel an issue that bothers me in general about the Cornellverse that seems to crop up in this thread is the fact that the game just straight up lies to you about things. Its most egregious in workers profiles because you can play the game for yourself and find out things that aren't true, like when a worker's bio says x worker is excellent and a headline act for the company despite being two rungs lower on the talent level than some midcarder whos been "stuck in a rut".

I think the problem when it comes to OLLIE is that a product thing happened within the game's lore that wasn't conveyed or is easy to duplicate by the game. Perhaps people look at a Silver Tiger vs. Mr. Lucha III main event working the OLLIE style and see it as so old-fashioned and passe compared to the more modern and more glitzy Rock God Alvarez vs. Multimillionario main event worked under the EILL style, which led to fanbases declining whereas in CVerse your fictional fanbase for these matches would lap it up and say "Yes I am going to spread the word about this main event match I totally haven't seen six or seven times already and thus the popularity of this company will increase and continue to increase because all these wrestlers are good and fresh and interesting to me". Perhaps OLLIE was working under hidden penalties that just weren't present to us as gamers, like their product being unpopular as a mainstream thing in Mexico and attracting only the usual old diehards who have the same ringside seat for 40 years and throw food and beer at the rudos. Perhaps the economy tanked on a lot of the smaller Mexican feds in a more subtle way than like the Japanese tsunami, perhaps the company was a money laundering front for the cartels all along and they outlived their usefullness, and none of this was just put in the company bio because reasons.

I do think one important thing we need to keep in mind about the game too when we talk about "this didn't happen in my TEW2020 save, why did it happen in the 2022 CVerse" is this: Its not subjective when we play, its absolute, especially with certain preferences turned off.

In real life, 10 different wrestling fans can watch the same match and give you anywhere from 3 to 10 different and unique thoughts on the match quality. I hate on certain wrestling that I perceive to be lacking in psychology, other fans think that no-selling a guys finisher and getting right back up to kick him in the face before remembering to sell and collapsing to create a double knock down is excellent psychology. But in the game, we are absolute. We are God and see all and know all about the reality of a wrestling match and its quality. We have a road agent report that says this worker performed at a standard equivalent to 62 out of 100, while this worker performed at a 51, and overall the match was rated at a 59. We have the ability to look at a wrestlers profile and say okay, this worker has 80 in psychology, consistency, and selling so we know this worker can be elevated to main event status because they won't be arbitrarily penalized for their performance in a match for any reason so now all we need to do is get them over. This isn't the case in real life. So to us gamers, OLLIE's collapse makes zero sense because we know we could throw darts at a booking board and as long as you have a good match or two and a good angle with our best talkers the crowd will be like YES PLEASE I LOVE THIS POPULARITY UP because thats how the game world works. In the real world its probably more along the lines of "There was an OLLIE show last night?". I think not conveying that to us properly and using a history that can't possibly happen in the game is a failing that the game has sometimes, but for me it bothers me more on worker profiles than the companies, because you KNOW Alina America is not the saviour of the USPW womens division so why is the game treating her like a god, when Sara Marie is the true top tier worker that gets the actual match segment ratings?

 

 

...........Huh, just had a weird flashback to 2013-14 WWE there for a second

[Keyser2.0]

I don't like the Cverse state in 2022.  I´m modding it to fits me. End of the story

[Stennick]

I agree with everyone that is saying story and gameplay are separate.  I kind of like that aspect of it is that we get a switch up. I also like how we get "retconned" workers. Guys that have been around since the early 00's but we just learn of them in say 2016 it makes it fun. All of that being said OLLIE being gone is a huge bummer. 

[The Masked Orange]

For me OLLIE's death finishes up the C-Verse long term storytelling of Mexico's Big 3 eventually sucking all of the oxygen out of the room until only one was still breathing. I'm sure if these games keep on getting made EILL will get a TCW or USPW-style challenger, the only real surprise is that there wasn't a soon-after phoenix company like PSW for DAVE or BCG for GCG.

I agree that the game world is a little stagnant compared to previous updates. I've said something in a different thread about how we're guided towards promotions as play-styles now rather than stories as graduate generation and in-game dynamics are supposed to do more heavy lifting. I don't really agree or disagree with the change, it's kind of just how it is.

The one thing I personally don't agree with is the 'add x more workers and y more companies' approach. We all know this game has a load time problem, particularly as you get further in. It wouldn't surprise me if that was a reason for the lack of development in the women's scene and a lower number of new workers (it feels like) than usual. I mean, it could also just be the creative decisions made. I'm not sure how much the average game enjoyer is going to enjoy the hundreds of new workers and half dozen new promotions when they're in locations they don't normally play but they do slow the game down. Probably another reason why new game areas was in my mind never a realistic idea for TEW9.

Not the biggest dealbreaker for me personally, I don't mind some load times as TEW is a chill game for me normally, but from everything that's been said over the years you know load times is a big thought with how the game is designed. Again, it is what it is and there are mods for what it isn't.