As everyone who visits CAWS.ws, Gamingring and other haunts will know, THQ have confirmed and demonstrated create-an-arena for this year's outing.
Screenshots, courtesy of the Wrestling Legends Forum: http://tinyurl.com/caa-confirmed
This, coupled with other creation modes, could herald a renaissance for the Smackdown series. No longer will players have to immerse themselves in the contemporary WWE scene during gameplay; they can instead recreate the iconic ring designs from more illustrious eras.
(I can only lament that the number of submission holds is unlikely to have improved since last year's title.)
It's cool and all but I'd like to politely and proudly point out that Dave Horn had the same feature on his Xbox game Action Arcade Wrestling. From what I can tell the team at Yukes isn't really offering anything that Dave hasn't already done. And if memory serves, Mat Dickie supported even greater arena editing. Not to take anything away from what a cool and anticipated feature it is. I just think my indie developer friends deserve at least a little pat on the back for giving fans what they wanted far before THQ ever took notice.
I'm HFD, I'm an admin on the MDickie forum known as the Mpire Mall and I felt I had to give your point a response Dave.
"It's cool and all but I'd like to politely and proudly point out that Dave Horn had the same feature on his Xbox game Action Arcade Wrestling."
This is truth, however, I have played that game and in fairness this is not on the same level as what THQ are implementing. AAW is 2d, WWE 12 is 3d, that extra dimension makes a huge difference. In addition, the mainstream audience of the WWE games will clearly reach a bigger crowd than that of an indy title of any quality.
"If memory serves, Mat Dickie supported even greater arena editing."
Yes and no.
1. Arena editing requires extensive 3d modelling, not everybody is a 3d modeller, especially not me. (I just make the coffees and tea ;) ) 2. There is no in game facility for modifying arena's.
It is all well and good pointing out that "the indy crowd innovated it", but the simple fact is that most of the time indy games don't get the recognition they deserve. Your comment to the op was basically copied and pasted around your various outlets (such as your newsletter) and it stinks of jealousy to be quite honest.
Dave, focus on PWX, not on whatever THQ are doing, we at the Mpire Mall have been waiting over ten years for something cohesive to come out of PWX and nothing has been delivered. Hence why we are always so sceptical about any posts being made on our boards about the project, especially so since we have begun our own game based on Mat's own source code, including adding improved DX support and another engine in UDK.
Thanks for reading. HFD.
Edit: Just a note, this is my own personal opinion, not that of anybody on the boards (apart from the scepticism on PWX posts of course)
Thanks for taking the time to post your feedback, HFD (Liam?). First, no need to shield my girly ego from the PWX hate on certain forums. My adventures in game development have taken years beyond my most pessimistic predictions and I fully expect some healthy pushback on the issue. It's all good. If the roles were reversed I might be found behaving the same way.
I think what you are doing to improve on Mat Dickies work is exciting and very much worth all of our support. Gamers have always had very specific criticisms of Mat's games and now you are coming along to actually do something about it? Good! Your efforts will always have my support regardless of a little PWX hate anywhere. More indy wrestling games on any platform is where I believe wrestling games are headed.
I respect all wrestling game communities and that's why I generally keep my big Ukrainian nose out of forums like Mprire Mall where PWX talk appears to not be welcome. That's ok. I and everyone here will certainly look forward to seeing your MDickie mod project and I will be among the first to congratulate you on your efforts and innovation whatever they may be. I think I can also guarantee that when I do speak positively of your project you won't see Horn or Dickie on this forum saying you don't deserve it and that I'm jealous. That's the kind of helpful and supportive development community we have going here. You're welcome and invited to participate.
Good luck and keep us posted on your project! At least gamers already have proof that an Unreal powered wrestling game can be expected to look amazing like the TNA and AAA games. If I'm jealous of anything it's that you've got a beautiful foundation to start from. Do you have a release date in mind? Any website I can send people to for more info?
Many thanks for the reply, let me make clear, you're always welcome over on the Mpire Mall (@ boards.mpiremall.net), but there will be guys who take the negative approach towards PWX (myself included until we see at the very least a playable demo, at least coming out of this I will be more open minded with regards to your work :) ) and I'm sure you can kind of understand that.
We've actually been working with Mat lately in getting TWC4 more publicity, so it would be great to see you drop us a line as well so we can work together to get a good partnership going between the Mall and PWX.
Thanks for the Mall invite. Very kind of you and I appreciate it. Considering the crappy reputation I and PWX have there I think the best time to stop by again would be when I have a finished game to show them. Sound fair?
The WGU newsletter subscribers would LOVE to hear more about you and TWC4. Would you be interested in doing an email interview for the newsletter?
"This is truth, however, I have played that game and in fairness this is not on the same level as what THQ are implementing. AAW is 2d, WWE 12 is 3d, that extra dimension makes a huge difference. In addition, the mainstream audience of the WWE games will clearly reach a bigger crowd than that of an indy title of any quality."
I might as well comment since you brought up my game. I couldn't agree more that it's not on the same level as THQ. I made it on my laptop on my back porch lol. But conceptually the create-an-arena is similar - unless you've seen footage of wwe 12 that I haven't
And to correct you, the extra dimension makes a really no difference. I've made both 2D and 3D games. Swapping textures on a 3D model is pretty much the same amount of code as swapping a sprite. The wresetlers in my game are 3d and that's how I swap the textures to make the CAW.
And you're right, of course, THQ's game sells millions. Mine is up to about 6,500 - which I'm actually pretty proud of :) So yeah, it reaches more people, but does that really matter? I guess I just have a lot of respect for Dave and Mat - they definitely inspired me to do what I did.
Anyway, the only thing that I really hang my hat on that NOBODY has ever done to my knowledge, is that you can change the arena mid-match. That's something no 2d nor 3d wrestling games have done.
But I do think it's important for Dave to keep in touch with what the other wrestling games are doing, don't you?
Thanks for stopping by to reply, Dave. The more I fall in love with the scope of indie games the less useful I find comparisons to traditional big budget games. I haven't used this analogy in a while, but it's like saying Blair Witch Project would have been a better movie if Michael Bay directed it with a $100,000,000 budget and it starred the cast of Glee instead. I love that our indie wrestling games are each carving out their own very cool and very sustainable niches. There's room for everybody and I really doubt the existence of WWE games affects us at all. For every thing a WWE game can have that PWX can't there are equally cool things that an indie wrestling game can do that WWE never will. We just have to start releasing PWX games to prove it.