Total Extreme Wrestling IX

Media Scrums

Brand new to the game are media scrums, which is where the user, in their capacity as head booker, sits down and fields questions from the wrestling media. These are only available for companies of Medium size or larger, only after 'normal' intent events, and only if morale effects are enabled.

Participation is entirely optional and there's no penalty for skipping it, but once you choose to start a scrum you must stay until you've answered all the questions in order to stop you being able to easily avoid tough ones (there is a limit on how many can be asked, so you'll never face an overwhelming amount). Each question has three different flavours / text versions (to add variety) and can have between 2 and 5 (pre-written) answers to choose from.

The reason to take part in a media scrum, other than for fun, is that it can give you the opportunity to boost the morale of both the locker room and individual workers based upon your replies, as well as building relationships with your roster and improving your own reputation - in fact, media scrums are one of the only ways that you can build your reputation as a booker without needing to book great shows. The downside is that you may be asked tricky questions and 'bad' answers can lead to morale issues, complaints, or even ruin your relationships with people if you throw them under the bus.

The questions asked and the list of potential answers are all contextual, and can be based on the event that just ran, recent important happenings in the game world, upcoming events, what your rivals are doing, etc. Some answers are explicitly positive, neutral, or negative regardless of context, but many can have different impacts depending on the situation and the people in question.

The members of the media remember previous answers and can react negatively to inconsistencies or outright lies, and can also follow-up on previous answers (either in the same media scrum or a later one) if they sense a juicy story. In some cases, especially if the user is clearly lying, this can lead to very difficult follow-up questions where it may not be possible to avoid negative effects.

When you choose an answer you'll sometimes get instant feedback telling you of its effect, while other times the effects may be more subtle and you may have to look out for clues as to how people have reacted or what the consequences were. Other answers may simply be so neutral or uncontroversial that they do nothing - in fact, sometimes giving intentionally boring platitudes as answers may be the best way of surviving!

In order to avoid the obvious trap of repetition, there are over 270 possible questions in the game for release day and it's been set up so that it's easy to patch in additions post-launch. While you're obviously going to see some quite often - the 'standards' like asking how you felt an event went, for example - the sheer amount means that there's plenty of scope for finding new content even when you've been playing the game for quite some time.

Primarily this is designed to be a fun feature to play around with, but it also adds some realism, gives you some new (and more subtle) tools to interact with your locker room, and adds to the sense of you actually being the head booker and needing to deal with being a spokesperson for the company.

Attendance Levels

Attendance levels at the higher levels have been slashed across the board, particularly for events, with the importance of the event now being far more important to the calculation than in the past. Truly massive record-breaking attendance levels are now locked to only the most prestigious events. This brings the figures more in-line with reality - so in real world mods, for example, you're only going to be seeing huge 80,000+ attendances for shows like WrestleMania - and means that building up historic / legendary events for your company becomes key.

Owner-Booker Relationships

The relationship, if any, between an owner and the user's head booker is now more important as it impacts the type and difficulty of the owner goals given. This is another realism touch that is designed to make the user's avatar feel more a part of the game world and less like an exception.

Toggling Graduation

By request, the graduation of AI-generated rookie workers from training facilities can now be toggled via the Options menu. This, along with some other settings, allows all character generation to be turned off entirely if desired, which can be useful for databases that have a large supply of pre-made rookies.

Company Headquarters

Companies can now build themselves a physical headquarters via the investments screen. A company with a HQ gets some minor benefits to their prestige and influence. Companies can be preset to have headquarters via the editor.

Physical Hall Of Fame

As an addition to the list of possible investments, the player can now choose to build a physical hall of fame building (with a requirement of having at least a minimum number of people inducted before this can happen). Having one gives the company some minor benefits to their prestige and influence. Companies can be preset to have a hall of fame via the editor.

Developmental Reports

The developmental screen now includes detailed text scouting reports on each worker, giving the user more data with which to gauge whether the worker is ready to be called up or not.

Attribute Additions

Many brand new attributes that were requested over the past four years in the suggestions forum have now been added. I'm not going to list them out here, instead leaving them for the player to discover once the game is out.

Database Summary

By request, the editor now has a summary screen for a quick overview of how many items are in each category (i.e. the number of workers, the number of broadcasters, etc). This info hasn't been easily available in one place since the editor changed to the new style so may be of use to some database makers.

Broadcaster Coverage Comparisons

The broadcaster coverage editing screen now allows for on-screen comparisons with other broadcasters and also adds a cloning process that can be applied to quickly fill in the information by coping another broadcaster's details. These are just little extras to make life easier for database makers.