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Newsletter 30
Hello and welcome to the WGU newsletter #30!
In this issue
*************
1) State of the Union
2) Meet the new crew members
3) The PW-X gameplay
4) Online capabilities
1) State of the Union
*********************
One thing I've learned about investors lately is that once one of
them feels he/she has found a hot young company like ours word
spreads and before you know it people are offering you money left
right and center. "So Dave", you ask. "Why the hell aren't you guys
in production yet?" Good question. Here's the deal. Any business
person will tell you it's easier to deal with one investor than
a dozen. It's in the WGU's best interest to seek the most amount
of financing from the least amount of people while sacrificing as
little of the company's shares as possible. The list of potential
investors is growing (Thank you, Superman!) but so is the level of
professionalism we must demonstrate or risk losing them all.
What I mean by that is that I've been working like a madman getting
the WGU organized to put our selves in a position to work with these
investors and offer them an intelligent and focused business plan. I've
been meeting with the crew over the last few weeks to determine the
budget
required to develop, publish, and ship PW-X. The art and animation was
easy
to budget for but the programming aspect of the project has presented us
with some interesting challenges and opportunities. For example, we are
in
the process of licensing a 3D engine that would cut at least six months
from the development schedule and save us at least six months of labor
costs. The catch? We could be looking at a $50,000 price tag for the
privilege. The crew agrees this is the way to go and that's why I'm
busting my ass to aquire this engine.
But don't be confused about the term "engine". I'm not looking to
aquire
a "game engine". It's not like I'm buying the rights to Fire Pro or
something
like that. A 3D engine is to game development what Photoshop is to
picture
editing. Coding PW-X from scratch without the benefit of a good 3D
engine would be the same as editing a picture pixel by pixel without
Photoshop. See what I mean? It could be done, but why? Well, there are
arguments for coding our own engine. For one, no 3D engine we've looked
at yet is totally optimized for a wrestling game. But the fact remains
that even with a moderately suitable 3D engine we would save a lot of
money
and cut down the development time by at least six months.
Speaking of development time. One of our new programmers, Ash,
suggested
we approach the investors to fund a one month development run which
would
result in a working demo of PW-X's key features as well as various promo
materials. At the end of this month we would have a solid understanding
of
the task before us as well as the amount of time it would take our
programming team to complete it. The programmers helped me to understand
that until they can all work together for a few weeks with whatever 3D
engine we choose they can't honestly estimate a timeline. A big thanks
to Ash for this idea. Before I even had a chance to run it by my most
serious investors another one approached me and asked to possibly fund
the
demo. See what I mean? People are starting to realize a good thing when
they
see it.
We shall see, my friends...
2) Meet the new crew members
****************************
Thanks to Mike and Ono the WGU has two new crew members eager and
willing
to tackle the unenviable task of coding PW-X.
Ash was referred to me by Mike who simply described him as a "really
smart
guy." Ash will be focusing his talents on the input and audio features
of
PW-X.
Marla joins the WGU crew as a hard working graphics oriented
programmer. She's
already been invaluable to the project working on her own time
researching
3D engines and constantly updating me on her findings.
Both Marla and Ash bring much appreciated talented and enthusiasm to
the
WGU crew and I welcome them open arms and cookies. Check out their pics
and learn
more about them on the crew page.
3) The PW-X gameplay
********************
Ahh the big question. Will PW-X play like the Aki engine or the Fire
Pro
engine. The answer is, both. But more than being No Mercy v2.0 we plan
to go beyond the scope of what the AKI and Fire Pro engines offered
gamers. Essentially what we're developing is a grapple based system like
both AKI and Fire Pro- first you grapple and then you execute a move.
PW-X
will not be "bump and grapple" like Fire Pro. Instead players will
initiate
a grapple by either tapping, holding, or pressing the dpad towards your
opponent and holding the grapple button. PW-X will not have weak and
strong
grapple moves like the AKI engine but will employ a three level system
not
unlike Fire Pro.
Pacing. We're after a game speed that's slightly faster than No Mercy
and
with luck will be adjustable allowing for slower old school type matches
or
lighting fast Lucha meltdowns. Not a promise but we're working on it.
Meters. Every game uses them whether you see them on screen or not.
How
do you think the program knows when you can be pinned? Fire Pro didn't
show
it's meters on screen but they manifested themselves in the form of
wrestler
fatigue reversal rate. PW-X plans to also visually represent wrestler
fatigue
via different ready move animations but will also offer a meter display
which
you can choose to switch on or off. The meter will represent overall
wrestler
"energy" for lack of a better term. A low meter means you're more likely
to
be pinned and less likely to pull of a reversal or strong move. The
higher
your meter the greater you chance of pulling off the big moves and
reversals.
"Finishing" moves can be attempted at any time but only stand a good
chance of
execution when the meters are nearly full. The details of the fighting
system
are still in the early planning stages so things may still change based
on
fan demand and technical limitations but so far it's looking to take the
shape
I described.
But I can't stress enough that we aren't looking to simply recreate
AKI or
Fire Pro. We know most of our fans can beat those engines on the hardest
setting
with one hand. But when you set out to create a great wrestling game you
learn
from the mistakes and accomplishments of those that went before you.
Figure out
what they did wrong and don't do it. Figure out what they did right and
do it
better. But most of all, when the vast majority of fans tell you what
they like,
you listen.
4) Online capabilities
**********************
One of the biggest issues faced by our programmers is how PW-X can
effectively
utilize the online power of the PC. First, the programmers all agreed
that
allowing players to create and trade their own creations over the net is
simple.
Well, maybe not simple, but far from impossible to say the least. Same
goes for
downloading new move files from our website. Many fans stated this was
their
biggest hope for PW-X and I'm happy to say the feature looks completely
viable.
As for online multiplayer it looks to be contingent on current
technology's
ability to keep up with what we demand for PW-X. The problem with an
online
wrestling game is the nature of the "twitch" gameplay. You throw a
strike and
your opponent on the other side of the globe hit's the block button.
That info
has to be processed pronto by the game engine and if it has to wait for
old
dial up modems and bogged down servers (because PW-X will have millions
and
millions of players, right?) that presents a big problem for smooth
gameplay.
Not only for casual gamers but imagine the frustration of serious
e-feders when
a championship match is botched because a player teleports across the
ring due
to a bad connection? It's because of our commitment to giving fans a
solid
game experience that we may go the route of Diablo 2 and offer direct
connection
via LAN to gamers. This means you could bypass a slow server and
directly
connect to your opponents PC. If you both had solid connections it's our
belief
the gameplay would suffer little to none.
An unforeseen side benefit to this option is because players who live
closer
to each other geographically would experience the best connections it's
quite
possible that e-feds would also generally be regional in nature. Just
like in
real life, e-feds would pop up and challenge each other for regional
superiority
until one or two remained as the most popular. Just like running a real
fed.
I'm personally looking forward to being the Pacific Northwest Undisputed
Champion :)
Of course, if this is just for the immediate future. As modem
technology
becomes faster PW-X plans to take full advantage of it. Who isn't
looking
forward to the day when the champions from each major e-fed around the
world
meet each other in a battle royal unification match?
In the meantime and in between time, that's it. Another edition of
Wrestling Gamers United.
Dave Wishnowski
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