TNM Promotion Website

[KWOAOA]

So I've been sitting down looking at my website as of late and I have to ask you guys a few questions:

1) when it comes to visting a fantasy wrestling promtions website when you goto the roster would you prefer to see photos or text ?

2) How indepth do you like things ?
Would you like to see custom music and biographies for each wrestler ?

3) Would you like the chance to bring in some of our wrestlers to your promotion to see how they'd fair in unbooked matches ?

Any other ideas you have for a site ?
I know most of you guys run off of message boards so I was just curious as I'm looking at making some changes to my promotions website.

[KWOAOA]

I guess nobody has any real replies so its whichever a person wants to do since 99% of fantasy wrestling promotions run from message boards....

[LillaThrilla]

I think the biggest challenge fantasy wrestler circuits face compared to real wrestler circuits is giving the wrestlers an identity. Most real wrestlers if you're unfamiliar with the guy you can look him up on Wikipedia and YouTube. What he looks like, what he sounds like, his character, his wrestling style. Fantasy wrestlers don't have that. You have to work harder to give each wrestler a clear character so they're not just meaningless names.

Photos are good, biographies, nowadays maybe even some kind of Wiki are all good reference points to help readers. Regardless, it'll probably be more of a challenge to keep readers than with other circuits.

[fwaroc]

I work strictly with fantasy wrestlers but it's what I like to do. Sometimes I use websites, sometimes message boards, and others, I use blogging tools. Depends on how I feel setting it up.

True, it's definitely tougher to breathe life into fantasy wrestlers. I also find that I have to write more as far as what happens outside the matches. It's easy to picture what a WWE character would do without having to go into too much detail because we are already exposed to them. To set up a good fantasy wrestler, you do have to map out their personality. What are their goals? What are their expectations? What are their strengths/weaknesses (not just in the ring). What sets them off? What is their personal life like? How do they interact with other people in the organization? Sometimes I even go so far as saying what are their favorite foods. Do they stiick to health foods? Do they like fancy restaurants? Are they booze guzzlers? The smallest things flesh out characters. It's just like reading a novel.

Remember, the best feds are the ones YOU care about. If you try to run a fed to impress other people, you'll find the fed won't last very long because it's not what you enjoy, and it becomes more work than fun. If people like my work, fine. If it's not their thing, then (what the heck are they thinking)...I mean...it's just not their thing.

Pictures are good but text is the key to building character. I try not to go into too much detail to start off with though. Just the basics. Later on, you'll want to have the ability to keep your wrestlers fresh. I had a wrestler that got seasick while on a boat. I had one that was a health hound then married a local brewer and turned into an alcoholic. I had one that realized her dream was to become a famous movie director. Things like this can totally change a gimmick but keep the character more interesting.

One other thing I find that helps me: even when I reboot my feds, I try to keep the same people in my league. Sometimes they'll switch personalities but you've already built the foundation of a new character by using what you liked and didn't like from previous ones.

I've been using TNM for over 10 years and I can tell you, I can write a book based on the career of at least one of my wrestlers. So fantasy can be done but you'll have to really commit yourself to it.

[imtheniz]

Mar 4, 2012 0:37:03 GMT -5 fwaroc said:

I've been using TNM for over 10 years and I can tell you, I can write a book based on the career of at least one of my wrestlers. So fantasy can be done but you'll have to really commit yourself to it.

Where can we see your circuit? I'm very intrigued.

[magiccitydawg]

I am doing a website using Joomla with 000webhost as the hosting site. I perfer to do a "magazine' type of site.

oldschoolwrestlingfed.net63.net/

I am one week behind, but will catch up.

[LillaThrilla]

Giving the original questions a little more thought...

Feb 29, 2012 15:05:14 GMT -5 KWOAOA said:

1) when it comes to visiting a fantasy wrestling promotions website when you goto the roster would you prefer to see photos or text ?

2) How indepth do you like things ? Would you like to see custom music and biographies for each wrestler ?

Here's a couple roster page designs from classic fantasy circuits:
SMWA - olympia.fortunecity.com/dempsey/393/roster.htm
VCW - www.courageourknights.com/vcw/roster.html

SMWA gives you good basic information about everyone. I would improve it by including intro music (which often really sets the tone of the wrestler) and all named Signature Moves rather than simply a finisher.

VCW is more in-depth with descriptions, dates of birth, etc. But it may approach the tl;dr for some people.

Photos can be useful to help imagine what a wrestler looks like; I recall them being very popular in e-wrestling. But words are general more important than images; a well-written circuit will have well-defined characters and like a good book we will cheer heros, boo villains, and be excited for more without ever seeing a picture of the character.

Feb 29, 2012 15:05:14 GMT -5 KWOAOA said:

3) Would you like the chance to bring in some of our wrestlers to your promotion to see how they'd fair in unbooked matches ?

Have some exports on your website; if people are interested, they will download them.

Feb 29, 2012 15:05:14 GMT -5 KWOAOA said:

Any other ideas you have for a site ?
I know most of you guys run off of message boards so I was just curious as I'm looking at making some changes to my promotions website.

While message boards like this one are a great way to read card results and get circuit news, I think a website is a good source of reference, especially for a fantasy circuit.

Simple Wikis may be a trend for the future because they can cross-link wrestlers and events better than a website.

[fwaroc]

Sadly I lost my hard drive with all my info (2 in less than a year...bah) so I'm in the process of rebooting everything. I won't have a new site up until I finish the scripts for at least 11 episodes. I was doing a email based league before so there was no site up for about 2 years, and no real backup (again...bah).

My next fed will have a site. The roster I'm putting up will use a picture to give the base physical description so I don't have to use Skin Tone, Hair color, etc. When I get around to it, I'll post a link. Here's a sample template of what I am using:

Stats line include
Name:
Height:
Weight:
Date of Birth:
Hometown:
Debut: (I'm using which episode they debuted on here, not the career)
Alignment:
Style:
Signature Moves:
Titles Held:

I'm using Wikipedia as a basis for the description of the wrestlers. The text categories include:
Personal Background
Wrestling Career
Career Achievements
Personal Notes

Personal Background is basically, who they are, their personality, where they came from, and any other basic background information. This is kind of like the descriptions you would see if you opened up a Street Fighter game manual or read the bio screens on Mortal Kombat but more detailed.

Wrestling Career follows their feuds and any important highlights.

Career Achievements describe their title reigns, tournament victories, etc.

Personal notes are just any little extras used to round out the character.

I usually don't update my roster screens until usually something important happens or I find a break.

In the past, I've also done rosters by making faux trading cards with the wrestler's image on the front, and when you clicked on it, it would flip around to show the wrestler's bio. If you feel artistic, and want to waste a lot of time doing this it was really fun and got good responses from them. I still wish I had those...they would be collector's items by now

[KWOAOA]

OK first things first THANK YOU ALL for the information you have provided... Right now I just got back from Vacation in Florida (for a week) so I'm not doing much at this point in time, but will be reading all the points over and over and making my own notes.

For anyone interested in my website check my sig as that's my site...
I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to work on things sooner then later but not making promises since I know I have a bunch of stuff I would like to do before I dive into the web work of a site... I've had plenty of ideas for the site prior to this, I now have a ton more... But I'm going to be taking things slowly (hopefully)

Right now I am running on mostly fictional characters but have been tempted to switch to guys based on real life wrestlers to make my life easier but I haven't officially chosen one way or another...

I'm hoping that things will progress soon as I know my fantasy wrestling promotion has been around since 2005-2006 but at times its been on and off since I felt like I burn myself out doing stuff since I feel like at times I loose sleep over things when I really get into them.