Bring back create a story and the potential for ghost problems most to exist and I'll buy it day 1 just to support that.

fwiw I answered "Staying as far away from WWE 2K as I can" in the poll, but tbf I have zero interest in Wrestling or Wrestling games ever even if people thought this year's game was the best ever.

I an in the minority and enjoy these games every year so I'll end up getting this one as well. I play these games mostly for Universe mode and enjoy running my own stuff so I should get some good fun out of it

Bought last year's game since it was the first ever to feature my three all-time favorites (Bret Hart, Kurt Angle, Macho Man) - but even with that, it was a pretty lousy game. Until a year or so passes and everyone says this one is great, I'll be staying away from it.

In addition to the franchise's trend of being a bad wrestling game, I cancelled my WWE Network subscription in July when they decided they were a company okay being associated Hulk Hogan. That's their decision, and mine was to not spend any more money on their products or watch their events.

I'm leaning towards "not until it's waaay on sale", but they surprisingly still haven't bothered releasing much info on the actual game as we're now three weeks away from release.

After two super lousy years in terms of overall package this seems a little better but not enough to go sink $90 on...and yes, if you even bother, you're pretty much required to drop it all on the Deluxe edition as a great deal of user created content makes use of it.

Last year they cut back on DLC material while keeping the price the same, this year they're seemingly recycling past material (though the dlc hasn't been announced). It's a mess, and it's frustrating as this series is my most played title every year with how much the creation suite adds to the mix and how good the core in-ring gameplay is, but with certain legend cuts, few legends added (two, that are recycled), terrible (often times trolling) social media marketing, and the fact we know they're sinking a much larger budget into 2K20 while being ultra hush on improvements to this year's game will probably lead me to just sticking with Fire Pro Wrestling World until Red Dead drops.

The roster addition is nice, but a lot of fans including myself seem to be down on this year's installment going in. They need to do a better job next year, and they need to finally get "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan in the game. It'd be twenty years with no appearance from him and that's inexcusable.

When they finally bring back the story creator otherwise No Way Jose. I will watch New Legacy Inc. break the game in funny ways on launch night.

Until they find a way to better moderate uploads and figure out how to address the a story's file size in an age where custom content can contain upwards of forty separate logo uploads apiece, I don't see it returning despite being a massively popular feature for THQ.

Just like Mario Maker, though....like 90% of what was uploaded was crap...and that's being generous.

So they're announcing the dlc roster tonight during Smackdown on twitter (what a weird marketing turn this year).

Announced so far...

• The War Raiders
• Bobby Lashley
• Candace LeRae
• Mike Kanellis
• Maria Kanellis
• Lio Rush
• Dakota Kai
• EC3
• Lacey Evans
• Rick O'Shea

That's the last for tonight, there better be more.

Ciampa, Cross, and Kendrick still aren't on the roster which is complete bullshit, and I'm not feeling too good about additional Legends outside of the slim pickens and recycled members of the 2018 Hall of Fame class.

EDIT: There's no more. Legend fans were absolutely screwed this year.

EDIT: How they gonna release a Smackdown legacy title and not include Mark Henry? He's been in the series since the beginning.

I enjoy the games, but my kid REALLY wants to play it as soon as it launches, so we’re all pre-ordered and everything.

I splurged for the digital deluxe trap so I didn’t have to worry about spending months unlocking characters. It’s a scam, but whatever.

I’m dreading the first few weeks of inexplicable glitches before they get patched out.

Anything 2K sports related is hot garbage.

I love the games, heck, I'd say they're my favorite wrestling games easy (apparently unlike most). That being said, the complete lack of information this year is weirding me out. I kind of want to see where this goes before I spend money on it. However, I'm sure I'll get it eventually. I'm pretty curious about the House of Horrors match.

No Ghost Problems No Sale.

"Spin the wheel make a deal ....... WITH A GHOST!"

@quarters: I’ve only been playing since 2k16? Whichever one had the Austin story mode. It was free on Xbox and I thought I’d play it as a joke. I wound up getting into it.

The game would benefit greatly by not being tied to a yearly cycle and a demanding license. It’s not super polished. I get the criticism. But I think the core gameplay is fun.

It’s easy to pick-up and play, and has some solid depth to the various meters.

Anyhow, I dig Fire Pro World and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2. They’re more focused and polished experiences. There’s something super satisfying about playing those 2K games at their hardest difficulty, though. I think part of it is that I go for a high star rating, even if the way it’s implemented is bullshit.

I’d actually love to see something more like an audience engagement meter, and if the match isn’t one-sided or too repetitious, the bar holds. Big moves, taunts, reversals, two counts, signiture moves, etc. would raise the meter.

Fire Pro has a mechanic where you can hold LB to NOT attempt a move in a grapple, instead letting your opponent perform a move. This builds up a hidden gauge that allows you better success later in the match (and helps to get the match rating up, if used right).

@nutter: The thing is, they aren't bad games. Sure tag matches and ladders fundamentally don't work, but they are fun. Character creation is nifty and you can get a lot of CAWs

The main issue is that it is the same game every year. For wrestling fans that sucks because they keep throwing money at it. For reviewers that sucks because they keep having to play it. But if you just grab one every three or four years, you're set.

No, Never!

Make the gameplay and the animation as beautiful as those AKI wrestling games and I'm back in, but that will never happen so I'm out. Don't know what it is about the WWE games these days, it just feels like there is absolutely no impact to any of the moves. Big moves in the AKI games looked and sounded brutal.

WWE edits in fire pro will have to do for now. Making my own original edits , figuring out signature move sequences, giving them cool attires and then letting them fight it out has been a blast, there's nothing like it.

Only thing WWE i'm touching would be modded WWF No Mercy which I haven't dived into for years, I heard there is something big coming 'AKI evolution' I believe it's called the person/people behind it have been releasing videos of the progress and it seems insane.

To be fair, most moves in the actual WWE don't feel like they have impact either ;)

Seriously though, the reason for that is a simple combination of MoCap + Quantity. PW at it's core as we all know a large component of it is to protect your opponent from actual pain as much as possible. Combine that with the fact that no one can afford to replace thousands of mocap tracking balls to properly capture the impact of a real bodyslam. So the mocap data is captured very gently to protect the equipment, and taken to the animators to help make the animation look better, and smooth out the curves. The problem here is quantity of animations vs man hours. Even with a mammoth team, there's just not enough hours in the work day to get literally tens of thousands of mocap looking crisp and clean, before the next iteration comes around.

The reason the AKI games looked so good (Including my personal favorite, Def Jam FFNY) is they're hand animated from the get go, but in order to do that you sacrifice time to get more moves in.

Personally speaking, I'd prefer if WWE 2k dialed back the roster and move sets in order to focus on making things look and feel better. But WWE 2k's primary business model is to provide fans as close to a simulation of the TV product as possible, and that means cramming as much as possible, as WWE changes rapidly all the time, so the games play endless catch up with a cutoff point

But I dunno, there's likely a reason why AKI is now.. well, doing this now Style Savvy: Styling Star (as syn Sophia)

----

Actually it's an interesting parallel to how I feel about the quality of wrestling in WWE vs.... literally anybody else. In WWE's world: quantity = better. As long as something is there it's better than not having it at all. If you don't like something, there's usually something else ready to consume you might enjoy, rinse, recycle, repeat. (Basically, WWE Network)

But you might look at a WWE PPV match of Cesaro running through three or four other talents, and looking pretty good, and call that a WWE highlight of the year. But, that's just par for the course on the indies where everything is seemingly cranked up to 12, never mind 11. The intensity, the impact, the gimmicks, and the energy are sometimes insane even in Ring of Honor.

But that's likely because of the schedule. WWE wants you to see everyone they can get out there evey time the cameras are rolling, and then to continue pushing the brand and maximizing their investment, get's the talent to perform near daily across the world. That's a fuck load of traveling and performing. No wonder impacts are weak and people botch all the time.

Then look at the schedules for Ring of Honor and even Impact these days. It's no where near as crazy, and the talent get a decent amount of time to recover and make creative decisions by the time they're performing next.

I like these games. This one seems like it is making real good steps forward. I pre-ordered it 35 minutes ago.

@fissionmailed10: I like AKI and Fire Pro games more than 2k’s offerings, but I still enjoy 2k.

Also, the 2k games are mocapped. Some liberty with that data could make for better impact, maybe upping the crowd reactions or improving the selling. They’re handling the game kinda like a sports sim, so that’s just what comes out the other end (for better or worse).

Some of the moves do look devastating, though. There’s more impact in one 2k18 knee trembler than every move in Fire Pro World put together.

Yeah, despite still being extremely ticked about the legends situation and the recycling of content for dlc purposes, today's info dump has this year's game looking like it might even be better than 2K16. Seriously why did they wait so long to release details when all it did was stir up the fanbase?

I still have my reservations about Universe mode, but they've listed some really cool additions to it such as creating your own divisions, but I can't get too excited until I see if they've addressed shit like the constant cutscenes treating veterans as rookies, the terrible promo system that needs to be removed completely, the fact you can't copy your tag teams and settings from the main menu over to Universe and vice versa which takes FOREVER to set up, and the unbelievably archaic process of deleting certain content including images. This year's MyPlayer looks pretty fun however, as it seems to be returning to a more structured Road to Wrestlemania storyline, which is something fans have been asking for.

I'm tempted, but I don't know if I can juggle it, Fire Pro, RDR2, and a backlog until Thanksgiving when it's sure to be on sale even with the preorder bonuses as the deluxe content was included on the same voucher last year.

Also, the entrances are a mixed bag, they really need to figure out a way to get the actual superstars to do their own, whoever does fill in for Lana/Bianca/Sasha just aren't cutting it, and despite finally getting the hand gesture on the apron correct for Banks, they didn't include her knucks....the sole reason she even bothers with it. (smh) Oh, and her model has a really weird looking neck this year. They fix the hairline, but mess up something else in the process. There's no quality control to the process. Some of the better community creators could likely do a better job if they had the tools. Shayna looks great though.

Creation mode looks nice...

You can mirror pads and hopefully boots this year, and they FINALLY fixed the deletion utility allowing us to ditch all logos attached to their specific content when we delete them as well as the ability to get rid of all unused logos with the touch of a button. A process which used to require us going through a list and deleting them one by one if we reached the 1,000 logo limit.