[Originally posted in the EWR forum by Slim Jim]

quote Adam Ryland - Feature List

Feature: Advance Booking
Description: In order to get fans to come to your events, watch your TV show, and buy your pay-per-views, you have to give them a reason to be interested. This is achieved by promoting matches ahead of time. If it's a match they're interested in, you'll see buy rates increase, if it's one they're not so keen on you'll see your numbers decrease. Throwing together a card at the last moment won't work any more! As you'd expect, there is a screen that keeps track of all your matches, so you never have an excuse to forget them. There are penalties for not delivering a promised match without good reason (such as an injury), as you can get a reputation for lying to your fans.

Feature: Create-A-Storyline and Create-A-Angle
Description: Creating a storyline takes the form of a script - you put together any combination of angles and matches that you want, together with what each role is, and how you want it to unfold. You can then play out the script as fast or as slow as you want, watching as the fans get caught up in the drama. With the new angle editor, this means that you can create virtually any storyline you can think of, any time you want, meaning that your only limitation is your own imagination. Storylines can either be written "on the fly" while in the middle of a game, or in the main editor. They are stored so that you can re-use them, and put together your own library of cool stories.

Feature: Momentum Meter
Description: Perhaps one of the most key new features, every worker has a momentum meter for each promotion that he works for. This is a measure of how hot he is at that moment. The meter rises as he wins, takes part in angles, and fires off great interviews, and goes down as he loses, or is involved in a dull segment. The higher the meter, the quicker the worker can gain overness, and the more fans will respond to him. The lower the meter and the less chance he has of staying over with the crowd. This has a huge effect on booking, as no longer can you simply stick the same big stars against each other every week and expect the crowd to care. You'll need to be careful to protect your rising stars, keeping their momentum high until you can get them into a big match against another wrestler with high momentum, which will of course be something the fans will love to see, the very definition of a dream match. This means you'll have to be skilled at juggling which workers you want to push heavily, and which workers need to take a back seat and help others get over.

Feature: Grades
Description: The different statistics in TEW2005 remain in the form of being between 0.0% and 100.0%. However, these are not visible to the player once the game begins, but instead are translated to grades, ranging from F to A*. There are several reasons behind this. Firstly, it is far more realistic - nobody can look at a wrestler and pinpoint his mat wrestling skill at 71.8%. You can however say that's he's about a B+. It also means that hiring and firing wrestlers is no longer a clinical exercise in comparing two wrestlers, finding that one is 0.2% worse than the other, and so going with the better worker. Using the grades you can get a general idea of who is better, but you won't know precisely how much better or worse, so your choice will have to be made based on your instinct and other factors. It also means an end to being able to follow exactly how much someone is improving, which means you will have to show faith in your decisions - you can't simply stick someone in development and see them gain 0.1% stamina every week, knowing precisely how well something is working. I know this will probably be the most controversial new feature, but even at this early stage, it looks to be working extremely well - it makes the game more user friendly without losing its depth, it allows the user to play in a more realistic manner instead of treating everything in terms of percentages, and it improves the feel of the game. Please note that the percentage system is still working behind the scenes, and so skills will build up gradually in a realistic manner rather than suddenly shooting up.

Feature: Promotion Relationships
Description: The companies in the game can now have relationships, just like workers. These range from all out war, where you bad mouth the opposition at every turn and are constantly trying to steal workers from each other, to non-aggresion pacts, where both sides agree not to approach workers under contract with the other, to talent trading agreements. Making and breaking pacts makes an interesting political landscape. To answer a common question, "invasions" by other companies are not planned to be supported in this game.

Feature: New Game World
Description: The game world remains in the format of Areas, Regions, and Locations, but with a twist. While the game areas (North America, Mexico, Japan, UK and Europe - Australia has been removed as it never seemed to be used by anyone, ever) and regions within them are set, the locations (the cities or arenas within each region) are editable, meaning that the player can customize the game to have as many or few locations as wanted. The other change is that overness is no longer measured in each location, but has been moved up one level, and is now done by Region. This change was because location-based overness was unnecessary (as 99% of workers and promotions had the same overness in every location in a specific region anyway), and it also allows the user to quickly get an idea of how popular a worker or promotion is without having to sift through hundreds of values.

Feature: More Detailed Wrestlers
Description: The wrestlers themselves are far more detailed. As well as having full title and match histories (as in WreSpi), there is a host of new statistics, including: Strong Style, Acting, Consistency, Injury Proneness, Hardcore, Intensity and Flashiness. These new stats improve the ability to accurately model wrestlers. On top of that, wrestlers can now be given habits and characteristics, such as being a heavy drinker, a steroid user, or very religious, all of which have pros and cons on their career, and can be referenced throughout the game. By popular demand, there will also be a "stats tracker", where you can view how the worker has improved in each area over the past 12 months.

Feature: New Morale And Disciplinary Procedures
Description: Morale has now been updated; rather than being a value that can wildly fluctuate, it is instead based on several set factors, meaning that it is modelled much more realistically. Some of the factors are things like losing too often, not being used on major shows, or not being paid enough. So one loss won't plummet a worker into depression, but a constant stream of them might. On top of that, there are new disciplinary measures; if a worker is involved in a fight, or turns up late, you have seven days to take action, which can then directly affect that worker's future. These new features mean that morale is no longer a struggle to maintain, and you aren't constantly fighting to keep everyone happy.

Feature: Improved TV and PPV worlds
Description: The world of TV has now improved. Networks now run in seasons, with a changing schedule to match. They also now have non-wrestling shows, and these are also rated, meaning that Monday night's football game could steal ratings from your own wrestling show. TV shows can now also have multiple slots, which you can negotiate, so your show could be shown live on Tuesday in the US on one network, and then shown for the first time in Japan several days later on a totally different network. The world of PPV has also changed, as now promotions will need to negotiate with pay-per-view carriers to get slots. Getting thrown off pay-per-view or falling out with your carrier can be a major blow, as it can instantly take away a major source of revenue.

And here's a list of some of the other features to look forward to:

* Loading times are much faster
* The Interface is far more user friendly
* Multiple databases can be kept at the same time, as in WreSpi, without the need for swapping files
* There are now unlimited save game slots
* Some parts of the game, such as rosters, can now be displayed in "Excel-style" grid format, including sort functionality
* Pending decisions have been improved, and no longer take so much time
* Workers can now learn new languages while working in foreign areas
* A worker's physical condition no longer falls so rapidly, but is based much more on reality
* Workers get a minimum popularity level when they become stars, meaning that they can never fall into complete obscurity again
* There are several new promotion types, including Family Friendly and Underground. There are 16 styles in total.
* Each promotion has a size rating, so the user doesn't to read all the popularity values to see how big a promotion is
* Each promotion can set multiple ticket prices, so that it doesn't need changing every time the fed goes to a new location
* When sending a worker to development, the user can set what skill area he should focus on improving
* And Much More...!

quote Adam Ryland - Note

To make this very clear, this is not a 100% full feature list. There are a few features that I have left off as I want them to be surprises. There's a couple of features that I didn't want to announce as I haven't coded them yet, and they may be dropped \ altered if they don't work as well as I would like, and I don't want to announce something that might not be in. And finally, I haven't bothered listing things that were already in TEW2004 which haven't been radically overhauled.

quote Adam Ryland - Indepth look at owning promotions

Owning promotions

There are two distinct game modes in TEW2005, selected when a new game is started, and these affect what jobs the user can hold, and how he can get them.

Game Mode 1: Straight Edge

Straight Edge mode is the way the game is meant to be played, and offers the greatest challenge. Under these rules, you cannot begin the game as an owner of a promotion, only as the head booker (or unemployed), and cannot apply to take over existing promotions during the game.

As the game progresses you can improve your personal Reputation level (which begins at zero, and increases based on the shows you book), and once this is fully filled you have the name value to get investors and can open your own promotion, where you become the owner. Therefore the only way to become an owner is to earn the right to open your own company.

The final feature of Straight Edge mode is that when you are Head Booker in someone else's promotion, the owner will set you certain goals each year. You must meet each of these goals in the time limit given in order to keep your job. An example of an owner goal might be "Increase our size by one level with three years". You do not get given owner goals if you are the owner of the promotion, as clearly you are in charge.

Game Mode 2: Free Style

Free Style (or "wuss mode" ) is for people who prefer an easier approach to the game. You can begin the game as an owner if you wish, and can also apply for owner positions during the game. You do not get given owner goals during the game, and so can only lose your job if the company goes out of business or a new owner comes in who doesn't like you. This is the closest to the way TEW2004 and previous EW games ran.

In multiplayer mode each player can pick the style they wish to use, so for example, player 1 can play under Free Style rules while player 2 can play under Straight Edge.

quote Adam Ryland - Indepth look at Promotional Relationships

Promotional Relationships

The promotional relationships are very similar to the normal relationships between workers that have been around for a while, except they are between companies. Their main use is to create certain rules in the signing and treatment of workers. Like their worker couterpart, they can be made in the editor before a game, and can also evolve \ appear \ disappear during game time. There are four types.

Parent Company: This is very similar to how development camps worked in 2004, except the "child" company is not owned by the "parent", and so can breakaway if it wishes. Once a promotion has a "child", it can send its workers there to work on their skills. (NB: Human players cannot play as "child" promotions.)

War: When two promotions are at war, workers are prevented from working for both, even if they are on a pay-per-appearance (i.e. non exclusive) deal. So if Company A "raids" Company B and makes offers to many of its workers, any who agree to sign automatically have to leave Company B. This relationship is good for aggressive owners to take the fight to other companies.

Non-Aggression Pact: When two companies agree to a non-aggression pact, they promise not to try and steal each others talent. They cannot make offers to the other companies workers while the pact is in place. This is good for when two promotions of a similar size with a similar style don't want to risk unbalancing their rosters.

Working Agreement: With a working agreement, two companies agree that they are happy for the other to sign and use the same talent, but are blocked from signing them to Written (i.e. exclusive) contracts. This relationship is useful for promotions of a small size and similar style when there isn't a large talent pool to use, as it means they can both use the better workers available.

Relationships can be between any combination of human and CPU feds. For example, player 1 and player 2 can agree to a non-aggression pact, and as long as it is in place, neither will be able to make offers to sign wrestlers who are contracted to the other.

quote Adam Ryland - F.A.Q. on TEW05

When will it be available? How much will it cost? And will it have real wrestlers and promotions?

The game will be available in Summer 2005 and will cost $34.95, and no, it will not contain real wrestlers or promotions.

What style is the game?

It is a promoter simulation game, the same genre as EWR and TEW2004.

Is this simply TEW2004 with an upgrade?

No, this game has been programmed from scratch, taking into account the feedback from the first game, and ideas given on the various suggestions forums.

What new features does it contain?

A feature list will be made available shortly.

Why is there no suggestions forum?

The game has already been designed and is under construction. No further suggestions are being taken. I have read every single suggestion thread at the .400 board and EWB, so those were not written in vain.

What security will be used?

TEW2005 will use ELicense, the same as TEW2004 and Wrestling Spirit.

Will TEW2004 save games be able to continued in TEW2005?

No, as the games are so different in terms of features that it would be virtually impossible to convert an active game.

I have built up a huge resource of pictures and logos for TEW2004, will these all be useless with TEW2005?

The sizes of the pictures (workers and logos) are the same in both games, so everything you've collected for TEW2004 can be used with TEW2005.

Will TEW2004 or WreSpi databases be able to be converted to TEW2005?

A converter will be made available before the release. Like the WreSpi->TEW2004 converter, some work will need to be done after the conversion, as many of the new stats have no equivelant in the older games.

When will screen shots be available?

Graphics are the last thing to be added, so it'll be quite close to the release before any screen shots are released.

Is the same team as Wrestling Spirit working on this game?

Yes, with a few new additions.

Can I be a beta tester?

No. The main testing team has already been assembled. A second set of 4-5 people will be invited to join the beta team to play test the game a month or two before release to ensure quality. It is invitation only, and I will be selecting posters who have shown maturity and intelligence on these boards. Mailing me to ask to be a tester will automatically mean you won't be picked.