Dave Interview #3

Shi-yu: First off what have you and the staff been doing?

Dave:I've been working hard securing the business end of things and properly oursuing financing for the project. I've begun the process of incorporating the WGU as a software development company and the amount of work involved in that has been overwhelming. I've also been heavily involved in the planning of PWX's career mode with the creative team in Los Angeles, Alek, Jess, and Mel. We've been throwing ideas back and forth for months and now it's finally taken on a form we're all happy with. Alek has been in almost daily contact with me and we've made a lot of progress on how things will likely work.
The artists I have with me in Vancouver have been modeling more wrestlers as well. Tirador is nearing completion as well as another member of the roster that hasn't been announced yet. Concept designs for arenas have also been completed and more are in the works. And possibly the most important bit of work is well under way and that's the actual menu options. Everything in the menus will pretty much tell you exactly what we have planned for PWX and many of it's ground breaking features. But I have to say that the main focus of my attention in the last month has been properly running this project as a business and going after investors with a passion. Luckily for me and the project I have some very qualified help in that area.

Shi-yu: wow, how far off is the next update to the site?

Dave: I'll have a new design of Jessica's for everyone on Friday Jan. 10th. It's a great new character and I'm dying to get a t-shirt for myself like the one Jess designed for this wrestler. Jess has been doing an outstanding job of bringing original ideas to PWX.

Shi-yu: Nice to hear. Will there be any new animations added to the site anytime soon?

Dave: Possibly, but I don't want the crew doing any unnecessary work until they know for sure what format the animations will have to be in for the game. You see, any animations they do before the programming starts will have to be redone in the proper format. The animators on the PWX crew worked really hard on the animations you've seen so far and they've done it all for zero pay. I hate to take advantage of them and demand more animations when they'll have to redo them all again later on. That being said, they have told me they would like to animate the new models just to show them off so it may still happen that we see new animations before full time production begins.

Shi-yu: Speaking of pay are you any closer to getting some?

Dave: Yes. A new investor has been approached and based on our initial conversation is willing to talk further about full financing of the project. I'm very positive about this person and I'm in the process of preparing a detailed business plan for his benefit.

Shi-yu: Have you been to our messageboard recently?

Dave: I try to visit every day to see what the fans are talking about.

Shi-yu:Ok, good to hear because there are a lot of good ideas on there and I would like to get your comments about them and if in anyway shape or form they're a possibility for one of the first 2 pwx games

Dave: Sure. What ideas in particular are you interested in knowing more about?

Shi-yu: I'll just start at the top of the board and pick out the most interesting. First off is there any plan for multiple outfits?

Dave: You mean multiple attires like how No Mercy had four per wrestler? Yes, absolutely. It seemed like an obvious feature to me.

Shi-yu: Just making sure, Did you see the post on tweaking moves? If so what do you think of the idea.

Dave: Personally I think the ability to tweak moves mid-animation is wonderful and would add a deeper level of variety to gameplay. My only concern is with how such a feature would be done technically. I found the similar approach used in Giant Gram 2000 and Legends of Wrestling to be a bit cumbersome and resulted in a somewhat jerky animation. However, I think a comprimise could be made if the move "tweak" was determined at the beginning of the animation instead. Thanks to this idea on the message board, I'm now reviewing the control scheme to determine the feasibility of move tweaking. Wonderful idea.

Shi-yu: Alex Lapin has a good idea IMO.
He wrote: When customizing belts, might it be possible to have a set of flags for belt requirements? For example, a weight restriction for Cruiser belts, a gender restriction for Women's belts, a number requirement for tag belts (maybe even including 3 and 4 man teams), or even Gimmick match restrictions for later on (for Hardcore or Deathmatch belts, or even belts like the European title, which I don't recall EVER seeing defended in any kind of gimmick match, making it a "clean cut" belt)
A heirarchy of belts might be nice too, making sure that some belts are bigger prizes than others.
And possibly belts that could be defended online to other users, to promote the e-fed potential that was mentioned for the game. As a matter of fact, Internet title could be another flag

Dave: If we can do anything to improve on No Mercy it would be insuring you can play the story mode without ever seeing a guy like Big Show in a thong bathing suit! Of course that would mean, among other things, that some belts in the game will be gender specific. By logical extension players will be allowed to attach certain stipulations to the belts they create as well so that certain belts can only be won by certain weight classes or match types. For instance, you may decide to create a belt that can only change hands by submission.

Shi-yu: Very very sweet.

Shi-yu: A while back you said there was a big suprise coming. Have you set a date for it and can you give us any hints to what it is?

Dave:I can't give a date because I have no idea how long it'll take unless we get working full-time. Basically, we've been working on some new media using Dre, Aztlan, and Tirador. Darrell has been the guy in charge of that project and we're at the mercy of his schedule. I've seen some of the work in progress and it's looking good.

Shi-yu: Cool. How is the crew doing? Are they still happy or are they getting discouraged?

Dave: Moral has leveled off to a state of cautious optimism. We were all really disappointed after losing our last investor but the crew knew I would pick myself back up and go after new investors. But lately we've been making some new headway and an angel investor is once again on the horizon. We've made our initial pitch to him and he liked what we had to say. I'm currently putting the final touches on a business plan for his benefit and I have a good feeling about this guy.

Shi-yu: From Steve85uk: What progam do you use to make the arena's?

Dave: Arenas are being done in Max and wrestler models and animations are being done in Maya.

Shi-yu: CannonFodder093 is wondering what improvement and type of collision detection will we see?

Dave: So far the plan is to allow interruption of moves in progress although to what extent will be determined by testing. But things like every wrestler falling down if they're near a suplex will not happen.

Shi-yu: LordChronos brings up a point about the aki engine having submission animations when people would tap, is that something you will be adding to PWX

Dave:Oh absolutely. And if they're hurt bad enough there will be more than just tapping.

Shi-yu:ok i have 3 questions of my own greedyness of wanting to know. On Revenge you had a score card at the end, is there any plan for anything like that. Also will there be a replay of match endings, and if so would there be a way to save them?

Dave: Yes, yes, and yes.

Shi-yu: sweet sweet sweet. Well that's all of your important time I will take up and thank you again for sitting down to do this with little old me, is there anything you wanna say to your fans and supporters?

Dave: My pleasure. Just tell all of our supporters that we're listening to them, we're acting on what they say, and we're committed to making it happen. This is going to be a breakthrough year for the WGU and Pro Wrestling X. And above all, thank you.