Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #313

1) Oh, you again
2) Link of the Week
3) Question of the Week



1) Oh, you again
*************************

Online multiplayer. Yup. That old issue is back on the burner again. Now let
me preface this article by saying I'm no huge fan of online multiplayer in games
that require fast action and a lag free environment. Online chess? Sure, why not.
Online wrestling? Show me one case where an online fighting game has achieved
any type of success based primarily on it's online gameplay experience. I spent maybe
an hour trying to have a decent online match in Smackdown vs. Raw 2008. I'll likely
never go online with that game again. Seems like all anyone wants to do is spam
certain moves, disconnect when they are losing, etc. And does anyone go online
with anything less that a maxxed out CAW? These are things that are not the fault of the
developer or how good the game itself is. Go ahead and put Fire Pro Returns online and
you'll probably get roughly the same experiences.

We had decided for mainly these reasons that we would not pursue online multiplayer
with regard to PWX development until we were satisfied with the depth of the
single player experience and we're a loooong way from feeling that way. However,
I recently spent an entire day here at the studio with a few people who really want
to see PWX Uprising released as a free-to-play game. However, they believe the only
way that could work is if we could build a much larger community around PWX and to
do that they believe we must have online multiplayer capability available on
launch day. Another company wanting to help fund the free-to-play option has also
weighed in that they heavily want online multiplayer for launch day.

Now I'm not against online features per se. In fact, downloadable content is something
I've been a huge fan of since day one. But head-to-head multiplayer just isn't something
that I've ever had any fun with in a fighting game. However, I think a viable alternative
would be to spend more resources on AI and the AI edit interface. Bring it up to the
level of Fire Pro and instead of head-to-head multiplayer allow people to customize
and 'train' their wrestlers so that they can bring them online for simmed CPU vs. CPU
matches. That way lag doesn't play a role and neither does move spamming or disconnects.
We could host the simmed matches on our studio servers to ensure fairness as well.
Of course, that leads to the inevitable question, will anyone really be interested in
editing and simming as opposed to playing? I don't know the answer but I'd be much more
willing to place my bets on that scenario rather than risk yet another frustrating
online wrestling experience.


2) Link of the Week
********************

For reasons I stated above I'm still not convinced that online multiplayer is the
Holy Grail for a wrestling game. This humorous link kinda backs me up:

http://www.destructoid.com/ten-golden-rules-of-online-gaming-64474.phtml



3) Question of the Week
************************

So let me ask you guys directly. Would you be at all interested 'training' your CAW's
AI to fight in simmed matches online or am I totally out to lunch with this idea?

http://www.prowrestlingx.com/forums47/discussion/378/qow-march-708/

In the meantime and in-between time, that's it. Another edition of
Wrestling Gamers United.

Thank you for your support,
Dave Wishnowski

So let me ask you guys directly. Would you be at all interested 'training' your CAW's
AI to fight in simmed matches online or am I totally out to lunch with this idea?

I'll take it. I think if you can't really play online per se but can sim matches...then that's great. At least we get 1/2 of the cake instead of the whole thing first time around. It's better than nothing.

But only do it if it doesn't take alot of your time & resources. Otherwise i'm all for it.

Online Multiplayer will finaly make our dreams of making an effective E-Fed come true...
If you make that happen without lag, you win! The ultimate wrestling game has been created.