[SWF] Resigning hugely popular main eventers [Archive]

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dPro

03-17-2010, 02:54 PM

Sons of Kohral

03-17-2010, 03:06 PM

Yeah, job them out when they have 2 months left on their contract and force their pop down. Hey, they'll be pissed, but right after they resign, give them revenge wins and it should be OK.

The Shape

03-17-2010, 03:22 PM

I don't thiiink I've had problems with this outside of TCW, might just have blocked it from my memory though. What's your negotiating skill like?

Remianen

03-17-2010, 03:25 PM

I am now two years into my SWF game, and one issue has come up several times. I am talking about the salaries I am allowed to pay workers when negotiating contracts. If you book SWF successfully, your main eventers will have A/A* in popularity across the US fairly quickly. Now, each time one of my main eventer's contract comes up for renewal Richard Eisen blocks me from resigning them since they demand more than the 60k Eisen allows me to pay (my main eventers demand somewhere between 80k-120k). I find this highly unrealistic for a company that is making around $1,2 million a month average.

I don't understand.

You find it highly unrealistic that a rich owner would want to be richer by denying your ability to give his workers whatever they ask for? I think you're looking at things differently than most real business owners. Lemme ask you a question. Eisen lets you give Remo 80,000 a month, then Jack Bruce's contract comes up. How much do you think he's going to ask for? Hint: More than 80k. So then Faith's contract comes up and what's he ask for? Why, it'll be the same or more than Bruce. Five years down the line, you're paying half a million a month JUST to your main eventers. Unless that 1.2 million a month income grows at the same or higher rate than you're dishing out in contracts, you're actually making LESS money than you were previously. So Eisen's refusal makes perfect sense, even for a 'splash the cash' type owner. You want him to be Ted Turner, you'll get Ted Turner results.

Here's my question for you (and everyone who agrees with your point of view), why do you need them? Are you not able to create stars at the drop of a hat? Why not? I look at some of the SWF diaries and I see people turning nobodies like Davis Wayne Newton into international icons, np. Roster turnover is necessary to stave off present day WWE-itis. Having a worker want to break your bank (now and in the future, due to salary inflation) is a perfect opportunity to use said worker to jumpstart your next star making project.

Or, you can run to the editor and fix the perceived problem that way.

James Casey

03-17-2010, 03:55 PM

I look at some of the SWF diaries and I see people turning nobodies like Davis Wayne Newton into international icons, np.

I will soon be offering a masterclass in how to book SWF poorly, to balance all the 'God booker' examples on display.

WATCH as Jack Bruce becomes less popular than Frederique.
GASP as Money/Remo is given away on the B shows.
YAWN at the interminable Brandon James promos.

I promise, it'll be a riot. The fans sure think so :p

dPro

03-17-2010, 04:02 PM

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't really agree with that being perfectly realistic. If this was something that occurred from time to time I would be fine with it, but, as it is now, ALL my main eventers will leave every time their contracts come up for renewal unless I job them out first (in which case they wouldn't be main eventers anymore). I don't think a man who have built up the biggest promotion in the world, would let his biggest stars leave left and right. I know it isn't a problem using the people on the way out to send other people to the top, but if people leave once they get over with the fans, I don't think the fans would be very happy with the situation. I don't think a business man like Eisen, who know the industry in and out, would allow this to happen, especially with TCW growing stronger and stronger.

PeterHilton

03-17-2010, 07:06 PM

I'm making barely 600 k a month with SWF. :(

dPro

03-17-2010, 07:25 PM

I'm making barely 600 k a month with SWF. :(

Still, it's a profit:)

I've raised prices $2 from the default price, and I've got PPV coverage in all areas (Huge in US/CAN, Big in UK/EU and Med in JAP/AUS/MEX). In fact, I just checked my finances and, since I invested in a 50k seat arena where I hold my PPV's, I'm making 2,2 million a month when running A* PPV's. :D

Bigpapa42

03-17-2010, 07:34 PM

I will soon be offering a masterclass in how to book SWF poorly, to balance all the 'God booker' examples on display.

WATCH as Jack Bruce becomes less popular than Frederique.
GASP as Money/Remo is given away on the B shows.
YAWN at the interminable Brandon James promos.

I promise, it'll be a riot. The fans sure think so :p

Well, 2008 had Generation Supreme to show people what not do with the SWF, so its definitely time for a new one! Can't wait til you get things rolling... after you finish out MAW, of course.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't really agree with that being perfectly realistic. If this was something that occurred from time to time I would be fine with it, but, as it is now, ALL my main eventers will leave every time their contracts come up for renewal unless I job them out first (in which case they wouldn't be main eventers anymore). I don't think a man who have built up the biggest promotion in the world, would let his biggest stars leave left and right. I know it isn't a problem using the people on the way out to send other people to the top, but if people leave once they get over with the fans, I don't think the fans would be very happy with the situation. I don't think a business man like Eisen, who know the industry in and out, would allow this to happen, especially with TCW growing stronger and stronger.

Well, you do need to consider that the SWF never starts wtih A* over workers. There might be a reason for that. Eisen might be smart enough to not allow his main eventers hit a certain level of popularity, where they could become "too big" and therefore too expensive. He could be wary of having a worker be "bigger than the company", after Sam Strong conceivably hit that level. Or maybe Eisen is not capable of generating that level of popularity.... I prefer to think that he would be choosing not to.

I'm making barely 600 k a month with SWF. :(

Lots of ways to maximize profits. Some "cheap", but still effective. Make sure you have PPV deals everywhere ASAP - that should mean every region but Australia off teh start. Up your ticket prices by $4 - doesn't seem to affect attandance. Another one is having a brand split just to be able to run double the amount of house shows (WWE did this late 80s, I believe). Don't have drug testing (easier with Big Smack Scott anyway).

Remianen

03-17-2010, 07:41 PM

Well, you do need to consider that the SWF never starts wtih A* over workers. There might be a reason for that. Eisen might be smart enough to not allow his main eventers hit a certain level of popularity, where they could become "too big" and therefore too expensive. He could be wary of having a worker be "bigger than the company", after Sam Strong conceivably hit that level. Or maybe Eisen is not capable of generating that level of popularity.... I prefer to think that he would be choosing not to.

Very good point. Most people don't know the history so the Sam Strong thing probably doesn't register. I think if you watch SWF (from a watcher's perspective), you'll notice their main eventer popularity tends to wane approaching contract time (with a few exceptions, of course).

NordVolf

03-18-2010, 02:53 AM

Another thing that keeps this situation in the realm of the believable and realistic:

Popular Opinion. Eisen would realize that the situation would be like in other sports. If a baseball player, say, demands X amount of money above a certain 'wealth threshold' (an amount of money that becomes "excessive" to the average person's perception), doesn't get it and walks, what do the owners typically do? Hold at least a minor press conference and say something on the order of "We thought we had a reasonable offer on the table, and X player just wanted more." Then, public opinion does the rest. "That greedy such-and-so...!" John Q. Public murmurs. So it ends up not hurting the franchise much, if at all. You see that kind of thing all the time.

Eisen knows this perception and circumstance, and has set that 'wealth threshold' to you at, in your case, 60K. Bear in mind that main eventer would get paid 60K per month. 720 thousand dollars per year. John Q. Public would scream, "Jes** Chr***! I slave for 20 - 50 k a year trying to put food on the table for my family and not loose my house paying the mortgage, have to pay an outrageous ticket price just to see a show (or some outrageous PPV On-Demand price) in order to have some decent entertainment in my life, and Worker X walked because he wanted to make more than HOW MUCH?!"

Of course, Eisen also knows that since 'big' workers will "get greedy", it's the head booker's responsibility to ensure there are other workers able to step up and fill the void when such a "greedy worker" walks. And that Head Booker is you. :cool:

Remianen

03-18-2010, 05:18 AM

James Casey

03-18-2010, 07:35 AM

dPro

03-18-2010, 09:09 AM

He did in my game. When I couldn't resign Remo because of the 60k limit, he immediately signed with TCW. I haven't checked his salary with TCW, but I will when I get home.

ewanite

03-18-2010, 09:13 AM

I just can't see an owner giving up on their top star for a few thousand pounds. If Austin's contract was running done in 1999, there's no way that they wouldn't throw every dollar they had at him, especially given that he could be picked up by the competition.

dubb93

03-18-2010, 12:16 PM

ewanite

03-18-2010, 12:55 PM

He wasn't an A* over person at the time and didn't fit the direction the company was headed. Also WWF wasn't financially stable then.

Bigpapa42

03-18-2010, 01:29 PM

He wasn't an A* over person at the time and didn't fit the direction the company was headed. Also WWF wasn't financially stable then.

And yet the WWE managed to pay out huge money to bring in Mike Tyson shortly after...

ewanite

03-18-2010, 03:01 PM

In a move that by all accounts was either going to make or break them. Tyson at the time would have been A* popularity too. Bret, a B or B+. They paid extra money for a bigger star.

The Masked Orange

03-18-2010, 03:30 PM

And if their price is too high, they'll price themselves right out of the market and sit in the unemployment line for a while. Six months out and you can sign them back for the amount Eisen will allow. If Eisen isn't going to green light 80-120k a month, what are the chances Tommy will?

I once lost Rich Money who was at A* pop to TCW following the Eisen problem as said above.

TCW signed him, checked the editor and they were paying him 150000 :eek:.

It was barely four months into the game!

DreamGoddessLindsey

03-18-2010, 04:10 PM

I once lost Rich Money who was at A* pop to TCW following the Eisen problem as said above.

TCW signed him, checked the editor and they were paying him 150000 :eek:.

It was barely four months into the game!

I think that may be a core problem. The computer doesn't follow the same rules as the player has to. This should really be addressed and changed, otherwise a player will never be able to keep top stars.

eayragt

03-18-2010, 04:15 PM

I think that may be a core problem. The computer doesn't follow the same rules as the player has to. This should really be addressed and changed, otherwise a player will never be able to keep top stars.

"Never"'s not quite right, but there are occasions when you'll have an ownerwho will do just that. Of course, simplifying to making the AI and Human rules the same isn't quite as easy as it sounds, and a human player has so many other advantages over the AI.

Master Gilmore

03-19-2010, 12:12 AM

Antary

03-19-2010, 01:24 AM

chris hbk

03-19-2010, 07:57 AM

The idea of Eisen being weary of somebody being "too big" is interesting, and it could explain why there's apparently no real equivalents of Austin or Rock popularity-wise in the CV (I guess you could argue for Faith or Jack Bruce).

I almost agreed with the original poster on this,until i read the post I've quoted...

Sure he makes a good point that a top company should be able to keep its top stars...

but Remi made a good point too, and I feel it links in with the quote I've used for my post. Namely, I'm pretty sure Vinny Mac would have luuuuuurved to re-sign the Rock, but the reason he lost him to Hollywood is because he couldn't compete financially with the money the Rock could make from just doing a few movies a year. Thats why the Rock left (that and the new challenge and the fewer working days and less time on the road blah blah blah...)

At least in TEW those uber popular stars will just sit unemployed for a while and then you can re-sign them after a while. Maybe if you wanted you could even "pretend" that they were away pursuing other interests in the public eye, such as movie deals etc... that they were offered when they reached an absurd level of pop and left wrestling?

Suggestion?
Maybe there should be something in the game where when a guy reaches an absurd level of pop, he is offered "outside deals" that lure him away from the industry for a while? Maybe if they're loyal to wrestling they at least give you a chance to match the high salary they've been offered by Hollywood? Which sounds to me like whats happened to you in your SWF game? Maybe with my suggestion it'd stop guys from just being unemployed cos they're demanding too much £?

Nachtfalter

03-19-2010, 01:05 PM

Because nobody mentioned it, so far... If you can't resign somebody because your boss blocks the amount of money, you can usually get around it by signing them to a Short Term deal (for really high amounts of money per show, obviously).

In the three months of that additional deal, you can get their overness down a little and should then be able to get them to sign a written deal again.

I've had Christian Faith's contract running out shortly before The Supreme Challenge and I was hell bent on having him headline against Jack Bruce, so I didn't want him to lose Overness right at that moment (because it would have damaged the most important match of my year). I signed him to a Three Months Short Term Deal like I mentioned, kept pushing him until the big match and than just had him lose three in a row to Bruce which got his Overness back down to an "A" across America and with that, I could resign him.

Pretty much the same thing happened the following year with Rich Money, again a Short Term deal got me out of it. Now I'm more careful and try to not build The Supreme Challenge around Main Eventers whose contracts are coming up right before the big show ;)

DreamGoddessLindsey

03-26-2010, 05:21 AM

Don`t tell me that you`d sign him for that much.

Well either the option should be there to sign someone for that much, OR the computer shouldn't be allowed to do it. The computer and the AI should have to follow the same rules, at least in this case.

Remianen

03-26-2010, 06:06 AM

Well either the option should be there to sign someone for that much, OR the computer shouldn't be allowed to do it. The computer and the AI should have to follow the same rules, at least in this case.

I disagree. The reasons are myriad but this isn't an area the AI should be shackled to the same restrictions as the player. Players wind up paying more for workers already (AI signs a worker for 1013 per appearance, players can only offer 1000 or 1500) so the AI overpaying someone should be possible and it should happen as frequently as it does (perhaps even more). And that's just one example.

BHK1978

03-26-2010, 05:32 PM

Given how poor TCW is at the start of the game, they won't go for the very top names - it's just not worth it. Overness matters less in TCW, so signing Mr. A* Steve Frehley is pointless - he doesn't wrestle well enough to merit that kind of money in TCW. Now, if Marc DuBois came up, TCW might roll the dice (more so if the Bumfholes became available...)

Agreed, I had the same thing happen to me in my game, being Eisen not allowing me to sign Remo. I was pissed because I thought that TCW would snatch him up. However, nearly five months later and nobody has touched Remo because nobody can afford to give him what he wants.

tristram

03-26-2010, 06:05 PM

I would find it more believable if a conceivably top rated wrestler was booked poorly leading into his contract renegotiation with a view to get his bargaining power down to a 'game manageable' level that it'd be more likely that the concerned wrestler would be frustrated and negotiate freely in the market rather than accept his value has diminished. Wrestlers would have an idea, obviously difficult to implement in the game mechanics, as to what their current value should be or what their value to an organisation's marketability could still be. Obviously there is the Rock example etc, but wasn't that more to do with wanting a more physically relaxed lifestyle and always harbouring an amibition to go to Hollywood, meaning he for a TEW perspective went to "On Hiatus"?

DreamGoddessLindsey

03-26-2010, 10:18 PM

I disagree. The reasons are myriad but this isn't an area the AI should be shackled to the same restrictions as the player. Players wind up paying more for workers already (AI signs a worker for 1013 per appearance, players can only offer 1000 or 1500) so the AI overpaying someone should be possible and it should happen as frequently as it does (perhaps even more). And that's just one example.

Then players should be allowed to "overpay" someone as well. It's not really fair that we can't sign A* workers but then the competition can go and put ludicrous offers on the table to steal them away and thus boost their own ratings that way. If we have the spare money, then we should be allowed to give lucrative contracts.

I also wanna know how people are making over a million a month on average with an International promotion. My Misc. expenses keep shooting through the roof for no reason (I don't change anything) and are now in the 2 million range, and my production costs tripled up to nearly 2 million for a SMALL TV deal in Japan. I usually end up making around 300,000 a month tops, if I'm lucky. Those Misc. expenses are just a killer, and I have no way to fix them since I have no idea what's causing them. I haven't offered extras to my people, I haven't changed the backstage policies, nothing. It's just over the course of three months from the beginning of the game, my Misc. expenses shot to the moon for no reason at all, as did my production costs. My small TV deal in Japan costs more than the Big TV deal in America and Canada by about 4 to 1. Doesn't make sense to me.

PeterHilton

03-26-2010, 10:32 PM

Then players should be allowed to "overpay" someone as well. It's not really fair that we can't sign A* workers but then the competition can go and put ludicrous offers on the table to steal them away and thus boost their own ratings that way. If we have the spare money, then we should be allowed to give lucrative contracts.

What is your problem exactly? It's a simulator/strategy game.

If the player could be allowed to anything, anytime, without any sort of checks than it's not really much of a game is it?

If you don't want to worry about contracts then start the game as the owner of the promotion. There. Done.

Please stop crying about something which is clearly designed to provide an added challenge to the player.

CubsFan915

03-27-2010, 09:57 AM

Well either the option should be there to sign someone for that much, OR the computer shouldn't be allowed to do it. The computer and the AI should have to follow the same rules, at least in this case.

It's not that the rules are different for human player as opposed to the AI promotions. It's that the human player's OWNER is setting the rules that he wants to use. The bookers in Georgia had a different set of owner restrictions when Crockett owned the territory than they did after Ted Turner bought them out and decided that he'd allow more money to be spent.

Play as the owner, and you won't have this issue, since you get to set all of the rules.

Remianen

03-27-2010, 10:47 AM

I also wanna know how people are making over a million a month on average with an International promotion. My Misc. expenses keep shooting through the roof for no reason (I don't change anything) and are now in the 2 million range, and my production costs tripled up to nearly 2 million for a SMALL TV deal in Japan. I usually end up making around 300,000 a month tops, if I'm lucky. Those Misc. expenses are just a killer, and I have no way to fix them since I have no idea what's causing them. I haven't offered extras to my people, I haven't changed the backstage policies, nothing. It's just over the course of three months from the beginning of the game, my Misc. expenses shot to the moon for no reason at all, as did my production costs. My small TV deal in Japan costs more than the Big TV deal in America and Canada by about 4 to 1. Doesn't make sense to me.

I bolded a couple possible issues.

You're referring to a part of the game that pretty much REQUIRES a certain amount of micromanagement and/or being "numbers oriented". Some people just aren't, so they don't get ideal results. You're talking expenses and profit and you haven't mentioned anything with regard to revenue. You also don't seem to be employing any strategy. For example, if you have a TV deal in the US and Canada on a 'Big' network, why are you adding a TV deal in Japan? Was it a conscious, strategic decision or did you just think "I'm gonna add another area"? In that position, I would regard my TV deal in Japan as a grab for market share. That means, it's run as pretty much a loss leader (much like Microsoft did with the Xbox and what Sony is doing currently with the PS3 or nVidia's doing with its new chipset line), not expecting it to pay for itself. The show won't make you any money in the short term, but the long term benefits will pay dividends far surpassing the losses you took (in theory). TV shows have costs associated with them. If your deal in Japan was one of desperation (or not thought out at all), you're probably not getting enough revenue to offset those costs. If you were really that concerned about making money from it, you would use Hawaii's spillover to bolster your position in Japan so when you do sign a TV deal there, you're more likely to get 20% of the ad revenue as well as the network picking up 20% of the production costs.

Strategy works.

How much revenue are your PPVs generating? Could that be higher? Why or why not? Are you drug testing? What's your product? If it's not mainstream friendly, you're not getting maximum sponsor revenue. Yes, even SWF gets sponsor revenue. You don't know why your Misc expenses balloon, because you don't pay attention to what you do. I say that with conviction because if you looked at what your promotion was doing, from top to bottom, you would see things that would ding your expenses. Some things might even be invisible because they're habitual (the things you tend to do in every game so you don't even think about them at all).

Mind you, I'm not saying any of this in an accusatory or insulting manner. I'm just trying to point out that this game is infinitely more intricate than most people give it credit for (or even notice). Almost every action in TEW has the clichéd equal and opposite reaction. If Adam expanded the finance screen to include everything in its own individual section/column, most people would choke on the information and folks would complain about it being 'too complicated'. So we get the 'Misc expenses' bucket and into it is thrown everything that isn't workers, show costs, marketing, merchandising, production or development. Some people pay strict attention to their bottom lines and others just want to book shows without having to worry about that stuff.