Total Extreme Wrestling 07: Developer's Journal

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 25th [/B] Today's feature involves contract negotiations. An addition to the process of negotiating with a worker is that ability to [I]promise title wins[/I]. You can promise a worker a title win with a low, midcard, or main event level title, as a way to sweeten their deal. The advantage is that it makes them more likely to sign with you, the downside is that if you then fail to deliver on your promise then they are unlikely to want to re-sign with you as you are a liar. You do not specify how long they will hold the belt for, only that they will win it at some point. You can of course "cheat" your way around this by creating a belt specifically to give them a title run and then retiring it, but if you're the sort of player who is going to do that then that's your business, and there's no point in me trying to block that. [B]---[/B] Please note that this week will be the final one in which the journal is done in this format. The reason is that I have now "caught up" with my current development status, and almost everything that has been added\changed to the game so far has now been reported on. [I]There are still plenty of new features planned[/I]. However, most features take more than a day to write, and so it's just basic logic that I cannot keep doing a "daily new feature" journal when I'm not producing daily completed features to report on! The new format [U]will still be daily[/U], however it will turn into more of a blog, where I talk about my current progress.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 25th [/B] Today's feature involves contract negotiations. An addition to the process of negotiating with a worker is that ability to [I]promise title wins[/I]. You can promise a worker a title win with a low, midcard, or main event level title, as a way to sweeten their deal. The advantage is that it makes them more likely to sign with you, the downside is that if you then fail to deliver on your promise then they are unlikely to want to re-sign with you as you are a liar. You do not specify how long they will hold the belt for, only that they will win it at some point. You can of course "cheat" your way around this by creating a belt specifically to give them a title run and then retiring it, but if you're the sort of player who is going to do that then that's your business, and there's no point in me trying to block that. [B]---[/B] Please note that this week will be the final one in which the journal is done in this format. The reason is that I have now "caught up" with my current development status, and almost everything that has been added\changed to the game so far has now been reported on. [I]There are still plenty of new features planned[/I]. However, most features take more than a day to write, and so it's just basic logic that I cannot keep doing a "daily new feature" journal when I'm not producing daily completed features to report on! The new format [U]will still be daily[/U], however it will turn into more of a blog, where I talk about my current progress.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 26th[/B] Today's feature is [I]Variable Promotion Prestige[/I]. In previous games, a promotion's prestige level would only change during a change in size. In TEW07, there are many more factors that can have an effect, ranging from the quality of shows being put on to gaining or losing TV shows. The advantage of this is that it allows for a more dynamic game world, especially for promotion's of a similar size, as it means with careful planning and a bit of luck, one promotion can get ahead in prestige and use that to get the best talent.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 26th[/B] Today's feature is [I]Variable Promotion Prestige[/I]. In previous games, a promotion's prestige level would only change during a change in size. In TEW07, there are many more factors that can have an effect, ranging from the quality of shows being put on to gaining or losing TV shows. The advantage of this is that it allows for a more dynamic game world, especially for promotion's of a similar size, as it means with careful planning and a bit of luck, one promotion can get ahead in prestige and use that to get the best talent.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 27th[/B] The feature we will be looking at today is [I]Tournament Titles[/I]. Simply put, a Tournament Title is a special version of a regular Title Belt. The difference is that instead of being constantly active, the title is set to be fought for annually in a tournament. To help you understand, here is a CornellVerse example. You might create a BHOTWG title called "Best Of The Super Juniors". You create it the same way as you would a normal super junior title, except that you set it to be a Tournament Title, and you set its defence month to be July. The result will be that at their event in July, BHOTWG will hold an 8 man singles tournament for that title. A difference from a normal title is that whoever wins the tournament title does not "hold" the title; there is no such thing as the current champion, so they won't be expected to go around defending it. Instead, if you view the title, you will see them added to the roll call of previous winners, and it will also appear in the worker's title history section. The title would then not be defended until the same time next year. There are three types of Tournament Title; singles, tag and six man. The first two are always defended in an eight person\team tournament format (i.e. quarter finals - semis - final), the six man belts are done in a four person\team format (i.e. semis - final). You can give them the same restrictions as a normal title (i.e. weight, gender, etc). If the restrictions prevent the AI from running the tournament (i.e. if you set it to be a lightweight title but had only two or three lightweights on your roster) then the tournament is not held that year. When the belt is in an AI-controlled promotion it will stick to the approach given above; an annual tournament for the title. If you are controlling the promotion which holds the belt then you are not forced to follow that example, but you will be reminded in the Extreme Eye during the month in question that a tournament is due. The point of this feature is to better simulate reality. For example, this would allow you to simulate the real King Of The Ring tournament, or the old Jim Crockett cup.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 27th[/B] The feature we will be looking at today is [I]Tournament Titles[/I]. Simply put, a Tournament Title is a special version of a regular Title Belt. The difference is that instead of being constantly active, the title is set to be fought for annually in a tournament. To help you understand, here is a CornellVerse example. You might create a BHOTWG title called "Best Of The Super Juniors". You create it the same way as you would a normal super junior title, except that you set it to be a Tournament Title, and you set its defence month to be July. The result will be that at their event in July, BHOTWG will hold an 8 man singles tournament for that title. A difference from a normal title is that whoever wins the tournament title does not "hold" the title; there is no such thing as the current champion, so they won't be expected to go around defending it. Instead, if you view the title, you will see them added to the roll call of previous winners, and it will also appear in the worker's title history section. The title would then not be defended until the same time next year. There are three types of Tournament Title; singles, tag and six man. The first two are always defended in an eight person\team tournament format (i.e. quarter finals - semis - final), the six man belts are done in a four person\team format (i.e. semis - final). You can give them the same restrictions as a normal title (i.e. weight, gender, etc). If the restrictions prevent the AI from running the tournament (i.e. if you set it to be a lightweight title but had only two or three lightweights on your roster) then the tournament is not held that year. When the belt is in an AI-controlled promotion it will stick to the approach given above; an annual tournament for the title. If you are controlling the promotion which holds the belt then you are not forced to follow that example, but you will be reminded in the Extreme Eye during the month in question that a tournament is due. The point of this feature is to better simulate reality. For example, this would allow you to simulate the real King Of The Ring tournament, or the old Jim Crockett cup.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 28th[/B] Today's feature is the often-requested [I]Auto Tag Team Creation[/I]. Very simply, when an AI promotion hires a new worker, it will then go through the database looking to see if any of his\her tag team partners are already on the roster. If it finds a tag team that is non-promotion-specific (*) and has an experience above a certain level, it will create that tag team in the promotion as an active duo. The advantage of this is that big name tag teams are more likely to work together in lots of different promotions. (*) For those of you who haven't played the previous two games, a non-promotion-specific tag team is one who is set to as "Promotion = None". This is done for big name teams to show that they exist independently of a certain promotion.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 28th[/B] Today's feature is the often-requested [I]Auto Tag Team Creation[/I]. Very simply, when an AI promotion hires a new worker, it will then go through the database looking to see if any of his\her tag team partners are already on the roster. If it finds a tag team that is non-promotion-specific (*) and has an experience above a certain level, it will create that tag team in the promotion as an active duo. The advantage of this is that big name tag teams are more likely to work together in lots of different promotions. (*) For those of you who haven't played the previous two games, a non-promotion-specific tag team is one who is set to as "Promotion = None". This is done for big name teams to show that they exist independently of a certain promotion.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 29th[/B] Today's feature is the addition of extra options to allow for definable [I]Death Matches[/I]. These appear in the Match Set Up section of the Match Type Editor. They are as follows: Light Tubes Bed Of Nails Thumbtacks Barbed Wire Cage Barbed Wire Boards Weapons Glass Explosives The reason behind them is to make for better simulation of death matches for ultra-violent promotions.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]September 29th[/B] Today's feature is the addition of extra options to allow for definable [I]Death Matches[/I]. These appear in the Match Set Up section of the Match Type Editor. They are as follows: Light Tubes Bed Of Nails Thumbtacks Barbed Wire Cage Barbed Wire Boards Weapons Glass Explosives The reason behind them is to make for better simulation of death matches for ultra-violent promotions.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 2nd[/B] As mentioned earlier, we will now be switching to a more informal blog-type of journal. The game continues to be on track for a December release, with testing due to start soon. Some more work was done on the Future Promotions section recently. After a debate on the Suggestions forum, I have included the optional ability to set a creation date for new promotions to appear. I personally will not be using it in the CornellVerse, but it has been added primarily to stop arguments. The game world imbalancer has also has a few tweaks, to improve a feature that was not revealed before, which is that the AI will open new promotions to fill gaps. For example, if there is a surplus of female wrestlers in an area, but not female-oriented promotion, the AI will check if there are any suitable women's promotions in the Future Promotion file and open one if any are found. Further work has also been done to the CornellVerse title histories, which will appear on the (real) CornellVerse web site when the game is launched, as well as in the game. Adding to the US, Canada and Japan (which have title histories for all major belts, and quite a lot of secondary and defunct ones too), there is now also histories for the three major Mexican titles. With a great number of new CornellVerse worker pictures ready to debut in TEW07, I have also decided that for the first time since TEW04 there will be a tidy up of the existing pictures. Basically this will mean I will go through and update a lot of the file names to better reflect the wrestler's current character, as a lot of them have become out-of-date and difficult to find. The only effect this will have on users is that people who are sticking with previous games in the series will have to do some work in the editor to get the picture pack downloads to work with their games.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 2nd[/B] As mentioned earlier, we will now be switching to a more informal blog-type of journal. The game continues to be on track for a December release, with testing due to start soon. Some more work was done on the Future Promotions section recently. After a debate on the Suggestions forum, I have included the optional ability to set a creation date for new promotions to appear. I personally will not be using it in the CornellVerse, but it has been added primarily to stop arguments. The game world imbalancer has also has a few tweaks, to improve a feature that was not revealed before, which is that the AI will open new promotions to fill gaps. For example, if there is a surplus of female wrestlers in an area, but not female-oriented promotion, the AI will check if there are any suitable women's promotions in the Future Promotion file and open one if any are found. Further work has also been done to the CornellVerse title histories, which will appear on the (real) CornellVerse web site when the game is launched, as well as in the game. Adding to the US, Canada and Japan (which have title histories for all major belts, and quite a lot of secondary and defunct ones too), there is now also histories for the three major Mexican titles. With a great number of new CornellVerse worker pictures ready to debut in TEW07, I have also decided that for the first time since TEW04 there will be a tidy up of the existing pictures. Basically this will mean I will go through and update a lot of the file names to better reflect the wrestler's current character, as a lot of them have become out-of-date and difficult to find. The only effect this will have on users is that people who are sticking with previous games in the series will have to do some work in the editor to get the picture pack downloads to work with their games.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 3rd[/B] Yesterday was spent doing several smaller modifications. The first is that when signing a wrestler to a new contract, you can fill in his initial push level and disposition from the same negotiation screen, saving you having to go to the booking screen afterward. This is simply designed to make the player's life easier. It has been added that wrestlers who reach high popularity in a certain game area can choose to expand their horizons and get access to other game areas, for example a Japanese superstar deciding he might like to work in the US too. Wrestlers doing the same thing if they can't find work in their home area remains from TEW05. The recommended offer section of contract negotiations has been tweaked to be more accurate. A random event where wrestlers can have transport problems and be unable to get to a show has been added to occasionally throw the player a curveball. The rating of angles has been altered slightly to prevent players from getting high rated segments just by sticking a hot woman in a meaningless "looks-based" angle. While these are still usable, the rating will not be as super high as it could be in TEW05. This design change is to force the player to put a little more thought into booking, and not to rely on a "cheap" tactic like that.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 3rd[/B] Yesterday was spent doing several smaller modifications. The first is that when signing a wrestler to a new contract, you can fill in his initial push level and disposition from the same negotiation screen, saving you having to go to the booking screen afterward. This is simply designed to make the player's life easier. It has been added that wrestlers who reach high popularity in a certain game area can choose to expand their horizons and get access to other game areas, for example a Japanese superstar deciding he might like to work in the US too. Wrestlers doing the same thing if they can't find work in their home area remains from TEW05. The recommended offer section of contract negotiations has been tweaked to be more accurate. A random event where wrestlers can have transport problems and be unable to get to a show has been added to occasionally throw the player a curveball. The rating of angles has been altered slightly to prevent players from getting high rated segments just by sticking a hot woman in a meaningless "looks-based" angle. While these are still usable, the rating will not be as super high as it could be in TEW05. This design change is to force the player to put a little more thought into booking, and not to rely on a "cheap" tactic like that.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 4th[/B] Only a small update today as I was away from home for most of yesterday. The main work was done on the CornellVerse history; British and European promotions now have title histories for their world titles, meaning that every primary singles title in the game now has a record. This is on top of records for most of the secondary titles for the big promotions in America, Canada and Japan, as well as a few tag team and lower-level titles too. These will all be in the game upon release, as well as appearing on the Cornellverse web site.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 4th[/B] Only a small update today as I was away from home for most of yesterday. The main work was done on the CornellVerse history; British and European promotions now have title histories for their world titles, meaning that every primary singles title in the game now has a record. This is on top of records for most of the secondary titles for the big promotions in America, Canada and Japan, as well as a few tag team and lower-level titles too. These will all be in the game upon release, as well as appearing on the Cornellverse web site.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 5th[/B] Two changes were made yesterday. The first is in the locker room; a worker who finds himself in a "negative environment" will lose morale over time, and this will effect his performance in the ring. A "negative environment" would be a locker room where the amount of negative relationships that he has outweigh the positive ones. This is designed to make for greater strategy and realism in regards to putting together your roster, as disruptive influences can become a problem - i.e. if a worker is constantly getting into fights and annoying other workers, his effect is not limited to his own performance, he could bring down other people's performance too. This has the side effect of also making good road agents and locker room leaders a key part of the game, as they reduce the amount of trouble. The second change is that several of the biography areas, including workers and promotions, have been extended from 250 characters to 500. This allows for more information to be added. If a long biography is used, the text size on the screen will automatically reduce so that everything fits on.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 5th[/B] Two changes were made yesterday. The first is in the locker room; a worker who finds himself in a "negative environment" will lose morale over time, and this will effect his performance in the ring. A "negative environment" would be a locker room where the amount of negative relationships that he has outweigh the positive ones. This is designed to make for greater strategy and realism in regards to putting together your roster, as disruptive influences can become a problem - i.e. if a worker is constantly getting into fights and annoying other workers, his effect is not limited to his own performance, he could bring down other people's performance too. This has the side effect of also making good road agents and locker room leaders a key part of the game, as they reduce the amount of trouble. The second change is that several of the biography areas, including workers and promotions, have been extended from 250 characters to 500. This allows for more information to be added. If a long biography is used, the text size on the screen will automatically reduce so that everything fits on.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 6th[/B] Yesterday's changes are as follows: Firstly, the option to [I]Add Data[/I] has been added alongside Edit Data and Import Data in the in-game Options menu. This allows the user to manually manipulate the one type of data that cannot be edited or imported, relationships. The user can either add an entirely fresh relationship or overwrite an existing one. The second change is an upgrade to the reactions of the crowd during matches, which I call [I]Perfect Show Theory[/I]. Essentially this is based on the well known theory that a wrestling show should be a series of peaks and valleys; you bring the crowd up to begin with, then give them a "lesser" matches to cool them down a bit, then bring them up even higher, then let them cool....etc, etc, with the end goal being that you bring them to the highest peak with the main event (*). The point of this addition is to make the player think a little harder about the layout of his show, and how the crowd will react, just as a real booker has to make those considerations. * For those of you who aren't familiar with this theory, it's something that several of the best minds in wrestling have talked about in various interviews over the years, and the point is that you want to manipulate the crowd so that they don't get burned out too early, and are at their best for the final match. If you go back through old WWE cards for example, you'll notice that they rarely put on a killer match right before the main event, as you don't want to bring the crowd to a peak too early and overshadow the main match.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 6th[/B] Yesterday's changes are as follows: Firstly, the option to [I]Add Data[/I] has been added alongside Edit Data and Import Data in the in-game Options menu. This allows the user to manually manipulate the one type of data that cannot be edited or imported, relationships. The user can either add an entirely fresh relationship or overwrite an existing one. The second change is an upgrade to the reactions of the crowd during matches, which I call [I]Perfect Show Theory[/I]. Essentially this is based on the well known theory that a wrestling show should be a series of peaks and valleys; you bring the crowd up to begin with, then give them a "lesser" matches to cool them down a bit, then bring them up even higher, then let them cool....etc, etc, with the end goal being that you bring them to the highest peak with the main event (*). The point of this addition is to make the player think a little harder about the layout of his show, and how the crowd will react, just as a real booker has to make those considerations. * For those of you who aren't familiar with this theory, it's something that several of the best minds in wrestling have talked about in various interviews over the years, and the point is that you want to manipulate the crowd so that they don't get burned out too early, and are at their best for the final match. If you go back through old WWE cards for example, you'll notice that they rarely put on a killer match right before the main event, as you don't want to bring the crowd to a peak too early and overshadow the main match.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 9th[/B] Here are the additions and modifications from the past three days. To compliment the previously announced change to Advance Booking, where every match type is now available to be advance booked, [I]Storylines[/I] plot points can now be set to include any of the match types in the game, with the exception of the battle royals. On a similar note, [I]Angles[/I] used to only be able to automatically set up five match types (single, tag, triangle, four corner, handicap) - this has now been extended to include every match that has eight or less competitors (i.e. the only matches missing are 5 vs. 5 and battle royals). There has been a minor change to the way the wrestler's statistics are arranged in their [I]Skills[/I] screen. Two stats have been removed from the Rumble category (Power has been moved to the Physical category, MMA to the Others category), and the Looks and Superstar Quality stats have been removed from the Physical category to form their own sub-category. Primarily this is so that when the user is viewing wrestlers, the Rumble and Physical ratings are more accurate and useful. In addition to the changes to [I]Storylines[/I] and [I]Angles[/I] mentioned above, there has also been a change to the definitions used. It was decided that the four definitions being used (Catalyst, Subject, Target, Support) were too broad and were confusing people, and so they have been changed into several more useful types (including clearer versions like Attacker and Victim). This is to make storylines easier to make and use. The new types are not being announced at the moment as they are likely to change during testing.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 9th[/B] Here are the additions and modifications from the past three days. To compliment the previously announced change to Advance Booking, where every match type is now available to be advance booked, [I]Storylines[/I] plot points can now be set to include any of the match types in the game, with the exception of the battle royals. On a similar note, [I]Angles[/I] used to only be able to automatically set up five match types (single, tag, triangle, four corner, handicap) - this has now been extended to include every match that has eight or less competitors (i.e. the only matches missing are 5 vs. 5 and battle royals). There has been a minor change to the way the wrestler's statistics are arranged in their [I]Skills[/I] screen. Two stats have been removed from the Rumble category (Power has been moved to the Physical category, MMA to the Others category), and the Looks and Superstar Quality stats have been removed from the Physical category to form their own sub-category. Primarily this is so that when the user is viewing wrestlers, the Rumble and Physical ratings are more accurate and useful. In addition to the changes to [I]Storylines[/I] and [I]Angles[/I] mentioned above, there has also been a change to the definitions used. It was decided that the four definitions being used (Catalyst, Subject, Target, Support) were too broad and were confusing people, and so they have been changed into several more useful types (including clearer versions like Attacker and Victim). This is to make storylines easier to make and use. The new types are not being announced at the moment as they are likely to change during testing.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 10th[/B] Yesterday's addition was [I]Alter Egos[/I]. Normally when a promotion signs a wrestler, his contract will be filled in using his default character; he will use his default name, his profile will be a copy of his default profile, etc, etc. Alter Egos are pre-defined in the editor, and allow wrestlers to take on specific characters when they join a certain promotion. For example, in the CornellVerse, "PRIDE Koiso" is his default name, so even if he leaves Pride Glory Honour Wrestling and works elsewhere, he'll still use that name. Using the editor, you can set it so that if he joined Burning Hammer Of The Wrestling Gods he will use the name "BURNING Koiso" instead, complete with different picture, profile, etc. Each wrestler can have one Alter Ego per promotion in the game.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 10th[/B] Yesterday's addition was [I]Alter Egos[/I]. Normally when a promotion signs a wrestler, his contract will be filled in using his default character; he will use his default name, his profile will be a copy of his default profile, etc, etc. Alter Egos are pre-defined in the editor, and allow wrestlers to take on specific characters when they join a certain promotion. For example, in the CornellVerse, "PRIDE Koiso" is his default name, so even if he leaves Pride Glory Honour Wrestling and works elsewhere, he'll still use that name. Using the editor, you can set it so that if he joined Burning Hammer Of The Wrestling Gods he will use the name "BURNING Koiso" instead, complete with different picture, profile, etc. Each wrestler can have one Alter Ego per promotion in the game.

[Adam Ryland]

[B]October 11th[/B] This is only a minor update, as I had other business to attend to yesterday. The modification made was in regard to [I]Road Agents[/I]. I felt that too many people were getting confused by the two sets of road agents (the five that you picked in the Staff section who you could talk to vs. the wrestlers you assigned the Road Agent push too). To fix that, the five "staff" road agents have been removed entirely, and instead you will automatically be talking to whoever has the Road Agent push when you enter the Talk To section.