Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #335
1) Fuzzy sweater 2) Link of the Week 3) Question of the Week
1) Fuzzy sweater ********************************
(Don't be a whiner, don't be a whiner, don't be a whiner...)
Things are GREAT!! Wonderful! Awesome! Spoon!
...awww I can't do it. I have to whine just a wee little bit. Our final financing payment for Uprising we were expecting this week? Yeah it's not going to be here this week. We're told we can expect it early next week though. Apparently it has cleared the accounting department and is on it's way across the banking wire transfer thingy. Explain this to me would ya? How is it I can download a gig of data from the Ukraine in a matter of a few hours but updating five digits in our bank account takes 3-5 days?
Anyway, whining over.
So now that Uprising is once again on the road to release what does the future have in store? Well I'd hate to get ahead of ourselves and jinx our recent bit of good fortune but we've been talking a lot about where to take the PWX engine next. Naturally there are all of the features we still think the ultimate wrestling game needs to have. Story mode, online multiplayer, etc. but there are also things we'd like to develop that have not been done before in the wrestling genre. We're taking a hard look at mod tools for instance. Not just swapping textures and basic things like that but actually letting people play with the guts of the game mechanics themselves because let's face it, it's almost impossible to get more than two wrestling gamers to agree on what the perfect wrestling game should play like. And there are a lot of gamers out there with awesome ideas for a wrestling game but have nowhere to start. What I'd like to see happen is for the PWX engine to become an almost open source platform in a way. Because so many people could make a wrestling game but they get hung up just getting the basic systems to work like collision, AI, rope physics, animation, etc. If we could supply all of that to you along with the tools and tutorials to make it more like Fire Pro, Backyard Wrestling, or whatever your heart desired wouldn't that be cool? I don't just mean visually, I mean let you get right into the guts of the AI, damage system, effects, everything to truly let you make your masterpiece.
Why not?
We'd still be making PWX the way we think a wrestling game should be but I don't think it would hurt us at all to let everyone tear it apart and remake it in their vision. Hell, with the right tools you could twist it into anything from a Street Fighter clone to a sweet MMA sim.
Food for thought. But I'd be totally fine with people ripping the game apart and building it back into something unrecognizable. The more indy games the better. Help end our dependency on foreign wrestling games.
2) Link of the Week ********************
I whine about my fat cheque being a few days late and then I came across this little link that smacked some perspective back into me:
http://scalzi.com/whatever/003704.html
How many of those can you relate to?
3) Question of the Week ************************
This week's link is to an article that lists the various ways you know you are poor. I certainly don't mean it as a joke if only because I can relate to so many of those observations. I'd like to add one to the list if I could:
Being poor is gift wrapping your old toys with your mom to give to your little brother for his birthday and hoping he's still too young to know the difference.
How about any of you? Care to add to the list if you can? And if you can't add anything to the list, count your blessings.
Please feel free to add to the list with everyone else here: http://www.prowrestlingx.com/forums47/discussion/471/question-of-the-week-august-8th-2008/
In the meantime and in-between time, that's it. Another edition of Wrestling Gamers United.
Well that newsletter got my spirits up with those ideas of customisable gameplay engines and whatnot, but then brought them back down with the link of the week.