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Newsletter 53
Welcome to the Wrestling Gamers United newsletter #53
In this issue
1) Back to work
2) Blame Bush
3) Three tiered exploding acid cage..of doom
4) Prepare to mod
5) New media
1) Back to work
***************
What a long and utterly brutal week. From Friday until, well,
just yesterday I spent sunrise until sundown getting my family moved
into our new home. Aside from no one actually being killed or injured
the whole adventure was a mess of comical proportions. First, when
you look at all the crap you have to move and you think you have
about two truck loads, you are wrong. And undiscovered law of
moving day physics clearly shows that you have at least five times
more stuff than you think you do. So after spending all day moving
I returned the truck to Budget at 2am which I later found out
would cost me over $130 for the day instead of the $55 I was
quoted when I picked it up. Gotta love those hidden fees.
The next day I went back to pick up the rest of the stuff I had
left in the basement workshop only to find out the house had been
broken into the night before and a bunch of things had been stolen
including some studio equipment and two antique radios my dad had left
me. To say I was upset would be an understatement. But on a
humorous note, the new owner of the house was there and he told me
he had just fired two workers he found drinking some of my wine I
had left behind. What's so funny about that? The wine they were
drinking was from a batch I made over three years ago and a few
bottles weren't cleaned properly and subsequently became contaminated.
If the guys drinking that wine would have shaken the bottle they
would have seen a slimy layer of bacteria on the bottom. Instead,
they got excited and drank the whole bottle. I'd be very suprised
if they're not in a coma right now.
So now we're on day three and I'm driving by the old house when
the new owner runs out waving his arms at me to stop. It turns out
he found some plastic bags hidden under some bushes in the back
and they were full of the stolen goods taken from me a few days
earlier. Good news right? Well, it would have been if it hadn't
been raining for the last three days and the bags hadn't been left
open. So I've got everything drying out and most of it looks like
it'll live but I'm not holding breath. I'm sure in the manual for
my studio monitors it said something about "avoid soaking in rain
water for more than 24 hours."
Day Four: Food poisoning. Lesson: If it looks like pasta salad
and smells like pasta salad that doesn't mean it's pasta salad.
Day Five: Still no phone or internet service at the new house.
Turns out I moved to the one city block in the whole city without
adsl service and I have to switch to cable. Which is fine except
that when the service guy comes to install everything he manages
to delete my old mail server info from my pc and along with it the
last year's worth of email to the WGU. All the fan ideas, surveys,
everything. But I didn't panic. I absolutely totally and
completely lost my mind. A few hours later I managed to recover
everything. It's true what they say. Your life really does flash
before your eyes.
So now it's Friday and everything is as back to normal as it
could be. My email is working properly again but if you sent me
anything in the last week I suggest you send it again.
What does all this have to do with Pro Wrestling X? Nothing,
I just needed to vent before getting down to business...
2) Blame Bush
*************
The big investor meeting planned for last weekend has been
postponed and rescheduled for approximately the weekend of the
29th due to the war in Iraq. Our investor had made an emergency
trip to the Middle East to pull one of his companies out of the
area before the shit hit the fan. We've been in contact with him
and he assures us our meeting is a top priority for him when he
returns.
3) Three tiered exploding acid cage..of doom
********************************************
Talk on the message board has heated up lately with regards to
the possible inclusion of certain gimmick matches and whether or
not PWX should bother with such features at the risk of sacrificing
the all-important gameplay. I addressed the issue to a certain
degree on the message board but I'd like to revisit the issue
here and expand on my position if I may.
First, allow me to state again for the record that no gimmick
match will be included at the expense of gameplay or edit
features. In fact, given the complexity of features such as movable
ladders and tables it's highly unlikely you'll see a TLC match
in the first PWX. A cage match, however, involves a lot less
headache than ladders or tables. The majority of the physics
involved in a normal cage match are already present in a normal
match with regular ring and crowd barrier interaction. Perhaps
the easiest example of a cage match we could implement is the
simple Fire Pro Death Match. Take a close look at that match and
what do you see? All they've done is basically removed all rope
and turnbuckle moves, added a cage graphic, and a few sparks.
Hell, our crew could whip up a cage match like that far quicker
and easier than a regular match.
We discussed the cage match at production meetings as the best
option for a gimmick match to include in the first PWX simply
because it was the easiest to program and would require the least
amount of resources to do properly. If you take into account the
match stipulations which you'll be able to apply to regular matches
as well as cage matches and add the ability edit and create cages
with custom properties and what do you have? A deep and enjoyable
"gimmick" match that truly adds replay value and not just a
novelty that gets old quick. I personally found cage matches in
other games boring. If I only had time for a quick exhibition
match I would never choose a cage match because it seemed to take
away more match possibilities than it added. That's something I
hope PWX will fix when our cage match feature debuts, be it in
the first release or later down the road.
While on the topic of brutal cage matches I'd like to quickly
address the blood issue again. Despite plans for a wide assortment
of weapons and other blood inducing material it should be made
clear that blood in PWX will not flow as easily as some may think.
Blood, like submissions and TKO's, will be a dramatic point in
any match. Blood will not fly with cartoonish levels of absurdity
but it will be possible to take it to a level sometimes seen
in real wrestling matches. "Crimson masks" will be possible but
it'll take one hell of a long beating to get there. Too much
blood too soon in the match and it looses it's dramatic effect
don't you think?
Unless of course you're me and you just beat your brother in
less than ten seconds with a ring post smash in a first blood
championship match :)
4) Prepare to mod
*******************
We know that gamers are going to want to customize and modify
PWX beyond what the in-game edit features will allow. That's
why we're making a conscious effort to encourage quality mods of
PWX and we'll be taking the extra step of producing tutorials so
gamers can use the same tools our crew will be using like Adobe
Photoshop and 3D Studio Max to easily and accurately mod elements
of PWX while keeping things running as smoothly and glitch-free
as possible. We feel that by taking the guess work out of the
modding process it will encourage the rapid growth of freely
downloadable add-ons as well as their accuracy. After all, who
better to design a particular arena or weapon than the fans
themselves? Hopefully, with a solid set of templates and tutorials
fans will be encouraged to contribute directly to the PWX
community.
5) New media
************
One positive effect of the delayed investor meeting is extra
time for new media to be completed by the crew. Check the WGU
site this weekend for some sneak peeks.
In the meantime and in-between time, that's it. Another edition of
Wrestling Gamers United.
Thank you all,
Dave Wishnowski
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