WMMA Developer's Journal

[Adam Ryland]

This is the developer's journal for the upcoming World of Mixed Martial Arts game; for those of you who weren't here for the release of TEW07, the concept is simply that I will be doing posts most weekdays giving information on the features that will be in the game, updates on the progress being made, etc.

The game is currently scheduled for a late August \ early September release, however as the game is still deep in development that is merely an estimate and could change.

[Adam Ryland]

July 1st: Fighter Stats

The stats for each fighter are as follows. Please note that this only includes fields editable via the database, it does not include "in game" data such as fatigue, focus, etc.

Cosmetic
Name (including Nickname), Pictures, Weight, Height, Birth Date, Debut Date, Hometown, Nationality, Currently Based

General
Fighting Style (Ground And Pound, Greco-Roman, BJJ, etc), Status, Current Momentum, Fighting Approach (Methodical, Hyper Aggressive, etc), Conditioning, Strength, Mobility, Reflexes, Chin Strength, Stun Recovery, Cut Resilience, Injury Resilience, Dedication, Excitement, Reach (Arms and Legs)

Standing Game
Footwork, Punching Power, Punching Technique, Hand Speed, Kick Power, Kick Technique, Kick Speed, Knee Power, Knee Technique, Wrestling, Takedowns, Takedown Speed, Takedown Set Up, Slams, Clinch, Takedown Defence, Striking Guard

Clinching Game
Grappling, Takedowns, Takedown Defence, Elbow Power, Elbow Technique, Knee Power, Knee Technique, Dirty Boxing

Ground Game
Striking, Sweeping, Submissions, Submission Defence, Attacking Positioning, Defensive Positioning, Control, Escape, Flexibility

Mental Game
Experience, Fighting Instincts, Killer Instincts, Patience, Courage

Physical Health
Head, Body, Arms and Legs

Marketability
Reputation, Popularity (by region), Charisma

Personality
Still under development

External Skills
Play-By-Play Skill, Colour Commentary Skill

[Adam Ryland]

July 2nd: Game World

The game world consists of 90 regions, divided by nine areas. They are:

USA: The 50 States
Japan: Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu, Hokkaido
Canada: The Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, The Prairies, British Columbia
Mexico: Norther, South Eastern, West Central
South America: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia
UK: London, Midlands, North, Scotland, Ireland, Wales
Europe: Northern, Western, South Western, Central, South East, Eastern
Australia: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western, Southern, New Zealand
Asia: Eastern, South Eastern, Southern

In tomorrow's entry I will be continuing this topic, by giving details on the new system that has been developed for allowing regions to have differing importance, a system that allows a greater degree of strategy.

[Adam Ryland]

July 3rd: Game Regions

Continuing from yesterday's entry, today looks at the individual game regions.

The most key element of each region is its Prestige value. This is a measure of how valuable it is within the game world. This is where a new level of strategy comes in. In my previous games, a promotion always had its size calculated by how popular it was in each region. This continues in WMMA, but with the popularity is weighted by the Prestige. To explain this better, I will use an example.

Originally Posted by Example

Let's say that Nevada has Prestige of 90%, New Jersey has 60%, and Alaska has 10%.

Let's also say that Promotion #1 has a Popularity of 50 in Nevada, 10 in New Jersey and 10 in Alaska.

Promotion #2 has a Popularity of 10 in Nevada, 50 in New Jersey and 50 in Alaska.

In previous games, Promotion #2 would be considered a much bigger promotion, as its total popularity is 110 compared to 70 for Promotion #1. However, that is not the case in WMMA.

Promotion #1 would actually end up with a score of 45 (90% of 50) + 6 (60% of 10) + 1 (10% of 10) = 52. Promotion #2 would end up with a score of 9 (90% of 10) + 30 (60% of 50) + 5 (10% of 50) = 44.

So, in conclusion, because Promotion #1 "holds" the key location of Nevada, it ends up being the bigger promotion. This means there is a strategic element to building a promotion; whether to target a few key regions (which are more desirable and therefore will attract more competition) or to build up a foundation is the less glamorous regions (which are less difficult to conquer).

There are other statistics attached to each region:

Size: This is how many potential fans there are, and affects potential attendances levels, etc.

Public Perception: This is how MMA is considered by the average fan; a negative value means that the sport has a stigma attached to it, and may put off fans. This value can change over the course of a game.

Cultural History: This is whether the region has a history of MMA or its related sports. If a region has a history of martial arts, it may be more likely to embrace MMA.

Regulation: Each region can be Illegal, Unregulated or Regulated By An Athletic Association; this effects whether shows can be held, and what rules can be used. These can change over the course of a game.

Media: This is divided into Media Stance and Current Media Feeling, and is how the regional media look at MMA. A negative stance may mean they are actively putting off fans by writing scathing articles, for example. This can change over the course of a game.

Authority: This is divided into Stance and Current Feeling, and is how the Powers That Be see MMA. This can effect decisions such as whether they will allow MMA in their region, or whether they want to ban it, regulate it, etc.

[Adam Ryland]

July 4th: Previous Fights

As well as the game keeping track of fights that happen after you begin a new game, you can also use the editor to input fights from the past. These will appear in a fighter's profile, and are also used in the game when calculating the interest in a potential fight.

It is worth noting that the fighters involved do not have to be included in the database as well, they can just have their names referenced instead. The same goes for the promotion that held the match.

The fields are:

Fighters
Result
Method (KO, Submission, etc)
Round \ Time
Event Name
Event Date

[Adam Ryland]

July 5th: Teams

Teams \ Camps are able to be added via the editor, and have the following stats:

Name
Reputation
Membership (Male \ Female \ Mixed)
Based
Training Strengths (Jiu Jitsu, Boxing, Muai Thai, Physical, General Stand Up, etc, etc)

Members, both permanent and non-permanent, can also be assigned via the editor. The membership can change once the game is in progress, with fighters moving to and from camps.

When a fighter is with a camp, his training is heavily influenced by that team's strengths, and as an additional effect, some fighters will also refuse to compete against team-mates.

[Adam Ryland]

July 6th: Templates

One common problem is the time it takes to create databases for my games, due to the amount of stats. To counter this, WMMA comes with a Template utility.

Essentially, this consists of three parts.

1 - You pick a pre-loaded template. Each template has a name and description. These range from generic ones like "Submission Fighter: This fighter has excellent submission skills on the ground, and decent takedowns with which to get his opponent there. His weakness is his striking game, which is weak." to more speciality-based ones like "Beach Boy Gone Bad: This fighter has an exceptionally vicious and successful ground and pound game, and is noted for being very dangerous once he has taken his opponent down. If he has a weakness, it is his standing game, and even that is pretty good."

2 - You pick a quality level, ranging from Terrible to World Class.

3 - You (optionally) fill in several "modifiers", which are things like "Punching Power", "Takedowns", etc. These allow you to override the settings made by the template in a specific area.

Once you have filled those three parts in you simply select "Done", and the AI will generate the fighter for you in a matter of seconds. You should be able to create an accurate representation of any fighter using this method. You can of course then use the editor to tweak any stats that you think require changes.

NB: Please remember that the journal is only updated on week days, so the next entry will not be until the 9th.

[Adam Ryland]

July 9th: Weight Classes

Each promotion has definable weight classes. There are four elements to each class; its name, its upper and lower weight limits, and its gender assignment (Mixed, Male Only or Female Only).

A player-controlled promotion can change its weight classes around whenever it wants, while an AI promotion will always remain with what it is originally given.

It is worth noting that the gender assignment category "Mixed" does not mean the promotion will book intergender matches; it means that that weight class is essentially divided into two, one for men and one for women, and the promotion will maintain both.

There is a limit of eight weight divisions per promotion, although it should be noted that there are no limits on how big the difference can be between the upper and lower limits (so you could, for example, have a weight division that spans 200lbs!) and that there is the option to book "open-weight" matches that don't take place in a specific division.

[Adam Ryland]

July 10th: Promotion Rankings

Just a small feature today, but one that will probably also crop up in any future TEW games too; promotion ranking numbers.

In a nutshell, promotions are ranked against each other by size at the end of every day, and their placing is stored. Whenever you view a promotion, you will instantly be able to see what their ranking is. This means that you don't have to mess about with any lists or filters, you know immediately where each promotion places. As it is done on a world scale, it also stops any confusion over whether X is doing better than Y because of any differences in the size of their respective game areas, as it's automatically taken into account.

Tomorrow I will be commenting on the rankings for fighters.

[Adam Ryland]

July 12th: Fighter Rankings

Again, a small feature today, but one I think will be popular. Via the Media section of the game the player has access to a screen that gives rankings for the fighters in the game, divided by weight categories (with an additional option of "pound for pound" that rates everybody at once). The rankings are done on a number of statistics, taking into account everything from their skill levels to their win\loss record.

This allows players to get a quick overview of who the stars of the game world are, whenever they want.

[Adam Ryland]

July 13th: Weigh-Ins

One of the key goals of WMMA is to recreate the atmosphere and events of real MMA. To this end, one of the in-built features is pre-show weigh-ins. These are brought to you in the form of a web site story, changing depending on what happened. People can fail to make weight, matches can be altered as a result, etc, etc. These are presented in traditional fashion, so that as well as the story itself, you get a list of fighters together with the weight they officially came in at.

[Adam Ryland]

July 16th: Fighter Status

Accessible via a fighter's profile is his or her Status screen. This is essentially a review of what the fighter is up to at that specific moment in time, and is designed to give you as much information as you could possibly need.

Amongst the things that are tracked by this screen are his weight (how he is doing in terms of making weight if preparing for a fight, how many pounds he is piling back on after a fight, etc), his training (how he's doing if at a camp, or what sort of self-made routine he has come up with if he's training independently), and his physical and mental fatigue (for example, he may be taking a few weeks off after a big fight to recover from how focused he was beforehand, even if he didn't expend much actual energy in the bout).

[Adam Ryland]

July 17th: Owners

Unlike TEW, each company in WMMA can have up to three owners. They are always ranked by importance, so owner #1 is considered more influential than owner #3 (this becomes important in case of disputes).

Generally an owner who is working solo will continue to do so, unless he has a good reason to bring in a new person - whether because they are a blood relative, a friend, or because somebody very rich wants to get involved.

Owners can also be removed from the board (either being forced out or voluntarily) and take part in sneaky takeovers (i.e. owner #2 and #3 banding together to get rid of owner #1).

[Adam Ryland]

July 18th: Medical Suspensions

In order to model reality as closely as possible, WMMA includes enforced medical suspensions. This means that fighters can be barred from competing until a set time has expired. Generally, these occur after fights, with the primary one being an automatic 28 day suspension for being knocked out.

[Adam Ryland]

July 20th: Viewing Stats

One of the biggest differences between WMMA and my other games is the way that character's statistics are viewed. While characters are still made up of exact percentages, and are created in the editor using that method, once you are in the game you cannot see the exact results. Instead, you receive a "translation" in the form of a scouting reports.

For example, let's take a fighter who has 80.2% for his punching power and just 42.9% for his punching technique. In the old days of EWR, you would have seen those exact scores. If you fast-forward to TEW07, you would see that in the form of two grades, perhaps a B+ and a D-. In WMMA, when viewing that fighter you will see that part of his scouting report will say something along the lines of "This fighter has fairly heavy hands, certainly enough to get a knock out, but his technique is ragged and inaccurate."

There are several reasons for this. One is realism; it's simply the most realistic way to get an opinion of a fighter, to see a report on him. Another is cosmetic, in that a scouting report written in English is a lot nicer (and less daunting to people not familiar with simulators) to look at. Finally, there is simply the case that unlike my previous games, where you needed detailed information as it would effect your hiring patterns, there is no real need in MMA to know a person's exact skills - you'll be far more concerned with their pro record, their reputation, and their popularity. While knowing their style, level, and damage their capable of is nice, a scouting report giving that information in broad terms is more than sufficient.