Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #440
1) Fast as a Shark 2) Condolences 3) Crowd Noise
1) Fast as a Shark *************** Goddam PWX needs an adrenaline shot. I know I styled the pacing after the AKI games but it just seems so slow especially when moving around the ring. The current build makes King of Colosseum look like Street Fighter. Boo-urns. But on the plus side everything we added to the game this week works.
One of my favorite new geek features added for development was a HUD that shows me exactly what state and condition the game is recognizing for every possible combination of states, conditions, and button commands happening between the two players at any frame. This really helps isolate gameplay problems because now I can easily point out when something isn't behaving as it should. For example, I was able to see that the lying face up condition wasn't triggering the different strike move slot in the attacker because the state wasn't updating. Nerd-gasm! This HUD is just for us to use internally and it won't clutter up the shipped version of Uprising, no worries.
2) Condolences ************ Deepest sympathy to crew member Eric on the loss of his father this past week. Our thoughts and prayers are with Eric and his family.
3) Crowd Noise ************* So I attended an indy wrestling show last weekend with some audio equipment to record some crowd noise. We do plan to ultimately have an animated crowd eventually. Funny thing, but I never stopped to consider how tricky it would be to get good clean crowd noise clips. Very rarely is a wrestling crowd making much noise without there also being a lot of loud mat slamming in the background. Whenever the crowd gives a good pop the wrestlers are almost certainly not just sitting there silently. I did manage to get a few decent clips although I did turn off the recording right before the crowd started a perfect "Bullshit!" chant. Damn. Also of note, don't put the mic anywhere near the smark who's one friend with him thinks he's funny:
"No Dragon Gate for you!"
"Huh huh" *high fives*
In the meantime and in between time, that's it, another edition of Wrestling Gamers United. Thank you for your support, Dave Wishnowski
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In terms of "upping the speed" of the game, it's worth noting that the Rumble Roses series has a "double-tap" feature to do some quick-steps in the given direction...and oddly enough SmackDown HCtP did NOT, even though they were the same iteration of Yuke's engine.
A double-tap feature for the pad/stick (which could also allow for either a Running move when done or a new move situation/assignment) would likely do wonders for those who quickly grow tired of holding the stick/pad down only to gnash their teeth at having to take 5 seconds to traverse the length of the ring via walking. Plus, it's not like RUNNING everywhere is a feasible or realistic-looking option (I know that I'D hate to see vidcaps of matches featuring mostly running when there should be walking, but the running only took place because the walking was so SLOWWWWW).
Also, by saying "slow walking", do you mean slow walking as in some MDickie game or as in Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium? If it is the later then I'd be completely okay with it, I love the pace of that great ole' game, however I have no problem with a smooth swift pace as in the AKI games, but I fucking despise the hectic stumbling-around of the SD! games.
Man, you made me want to go dig up Rumble Roses 2 again. I forgot all about that quick step feature. I agree that it would be ideal if a quick-step could become an entirely new state from which a new set of moves could be executed. This would be especially useful for those wishing to make MMA caws. Not that a wrestling game should really concern itself with catering to MMA by any stretch of the imagination.
@Jetlag: Yeah the base walking speed is fairly slow. It makes the ring feel twice as big as it really is.