Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #371
1) Problem Solver 2) Calling Dr. Death, free Belt 3) Scotty Mac video
1) Problem Solver ****************** Man do I ever feel sympathy for our crew this week. The amount of crap they had to go through during the course of development was laid out in black and white in the form of a tax credit application we just completed. In order to qualify for a technical research and development tax credit we had to submit a document that detailed every single problem we needed to solve in order to end up with a working wrestling game. Looking back over the history of development I came to a sobering conclusion: at no point were we not in the middle of a problem that needed solving.
Seriously, you would not believe the amount of things you take for granted at the beginning of production that turn out to be massive and almost insurmountable headaches. We didn't make things easy on ourselves by ultimately deciding to use a game engine that had never produced a fighting game before. Of course, we didn't really have much say in that decision thanks to getting f'n C*burned. And then we went on to NOT use 3D Studio Max. Instead we stuck with what we were already using which had next to zero documentation or support when used in conjunction with our engine of 'choice'. I can hear other developers out there cringing as they read this.
Long story short, everything that should have been relatively easy to produce was instead new ground and we had no help. At one point we even consulted a lead member of the Def Jam Fight for New York team to look at PWX in progress and even he said he couldn't help us. That our team already knew more than anyone at EA or AKI about producing a wrestling game with this combination of technology. It was nice for the team to know that they had broken new ground and got results where previously others predicted failure but it was also damn scary knowing that we were totally on our own and that there was nowhere to turn to for help. Frustrating? Oh yeah. More than once the pressure to produce results nearly resulted in fist fights in the studio. More than one piece of office equipment met an untimely death. But those are stories for another day. Can you imagine what it felt like for an artist to have all the animations suddenly refuse to work unless he renamed them with a swear word in the file name?! Or another artist to realize the animations would slow to 10% full speed unless he had Google open in a web browser on the exporting machine? Or how would you like to be the poor programmer who carried the burden of, "if you don't have this working in seven days none of us will get paid. Merry Christmas."
So yeah, while the results may not always reflect the work that went into obtaining them there is no question in my mind that our crew rose to a challenge and met it head on. In hindsight the odds were overwhelmingly against them all. If I knew back then what I know now I'm not sure I would have given our little studio a chance in hell.
The guys should be proud of themselves. They deserve it. I placed incredibly unreasonable demands on them and they never buckled, at least not for long. They always found a solution even if they had to use the technological equivalent of duct tape and personal lubricant. The latter of which one artist had in great supply.
Thanks guys. Now lets just hope we get this damn tax credit so I can start buying you Slurpees again.
2) Calling Dr. Death, free Belt ******************************* Wrestling legend, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, needs our help. Mr. Williams had his voice box removed due to cancer and the wrestling community is coming together to raise funds to provide him with a "hands free" voice box. Former ECW/WWE star, Dawn Marie, is leading the effort via her Wrestlers Rescue effort and the WWE itself has kicked in a very special item to auction off on Mr. Williams behalf. I'm actually excited about this and wish I could bid on it myself. It's an official World Title Championship belt signed by Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and John Cena.
Pics of the belt and more info can be seen here at ProWrestlingDigest.com:
3) Scotty Mac video ********************* This guy could take Shawn Michaels' place when he retires. He works that hard and he's that good. Here is a short 5 minute documentary about Scotty featuring barbed wire, goofy bastards, hot chics, dwarf tossing, and a dumpster:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3EBdRus9Mo
I want two ringside tickets to Wrestlemania when you main event it, Scotty.
In the meantime and in between time, that's it, another edition of Wrestling Gamers United.
"Can you imagine what it felt like for an artist to have all the animations suddenly refuse to work unless he renamed them with a swear word in the file name?!"
Hah! As a fellow programmer, I can feel his pain. That's when every single piece of info leads you down the wrong path until you FINALLY hit on that piece of info that lights the light bulb and everything makes sense in retrospect. It's very frustrating to go through.
I've decided that Uprising has gon from "mere wrestling game" to a testament to the human spirit. If I had to deal with half the crap you guys have, I would have called it quits along time ago.
[quote][cite] Sacrilegium:[/cite]Hah! As a fellow programmer, I can feel his pain. [/quote]
Crazy, eh?! I had no idea what game programmers went through before and I feel so stupid for all the nasty things I would say about "lazy developers" back in the day. I took so much for granted before I started this project. I had the attitude of "well if they can do it on N64 how hard could it be? We have Xbox's now..."
[quote][cite] lastofthedaves:[/cite]I've decided that Uprising has gon from "mere wrestling game" to a testament to the human spirit. [/quote]
Thank you! Although sometimes it feels more like a testament to being a stubborn-dumbass than human spirit.