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THQ's Roster "Answer" Doesn't Please
Posted by Gamer3:16 on 9/29/07
 IGN has provided an answer from THQ regarding the highly disappointing roster for Smackdown vs. RAW 2008. Unfortunately, as has been the case with many of these interviews in the past, the only thing that is derived from this "answer" is even more frustration. Let's break down THQ's statement regarding roster updates:
"This is a good question [about the lack of superstars] and one I'm sure our fans are very curious about. There are many factors that affect the roster size. Our development cycle is approximately 16 months long, so it takes a very long to develop the great game our fans love to play. During this development cycle we need to decide the roster very early so that we can begin to model, animate and record the Superstars for the game. Since the roster is decided rather early, situations happen in the WWE that change the landscape of our roster. Superstars come and go, characters change, etc."
How does this explain the complete lack of a tag team division? London and Kendrick, Cade and Murdoch, and Benjamin and Haas would have provided for a somewhat entertaining tag team division to work with. Instead, none of them are going to be in the game. It also doesn't explain why someone as prestigious as Rob Van Dam isn't in the game, considering his popularity at the time the game was being developed. I hate to use the Chris Benoit example here, but that shows that they are certainly capable of making changes to the game if it was high on their priority list.
"Although we planned for a bigger roster this year, there were some unfortunate events that change our overall roster total. Keeping up with the departure and arrival of new Superstars is one of our biggest challenges. Adding Superstars to the roster during our development cycle has proved very challenging, but a challenge we are definitely looking to solve in the very near future. We promise!"
Sweet everyone! We get to wait another year to hear again that there "will" be a solution to adding superstars to the roster quickly. Publicly getting everyone's hopes up that the roster would have been bigger this year was a huge mistake. They verbally committed to it without having legitimate intentions to make it a reality. Is that a marketing ploy gone bad, or were there actually some "unfortunate events"?
"Another factor to consider is the time it takes to create the Superstar models. Each model takes 5-6 weeks to create from scratch. A lot of comparisons have been made between past games and the size of their rosters to current games. Creating models on the PS and PS2 platforms take far less time to create then the 'next-gen' platforms, which gave us a little more flexibility in adding more characters and updating the roster. Also developing and creating characters for all the different platforms is a whole new challenge in itself!"
It's not even necessary to take 5-6 weeks to create the "perfect" models, is it? I'd be pleased enough if they used their own create-a-wrestler mode to make some very comparable models, and then incorporate them into the storylines.
"We will continue to improve and grow with the times and continue striving to give you the roster that you hope for. As I'm sure you know, it's impossible to please everyone. All and all, having over 50 playable characters in a fighting game is quite impressive and we will continue to push that limit. We also try to find a healthy balance between quality and quantity so that we don't short-change our fans with poor looking models or animations. Also, don't forget that we've improved our Create-A-Superstar mode so that fans can create the Superstars and Legends that they most want to see."
It's actually kind of insulting for THQ to tell the fans that having 50 superstars to work with is good enough, considering that number is a step backwards from last year's version. It doesn't make sense for your boss to tell you "hey, we're giving you a $30,000 salary instead of a $40,000 salary, but don't worry, because $30,000 should be good enough for you."
This entire response is trying to play off the ignorance or towards the extreme optimism towards the viewpoints of certain fans. THQ did remind everyone though that the WWE has the final say on the rosters, so the lack of talent used in certain situations is very comparable to their actual programming. THQ's vagueness only continued in the next question, when a fan asked about how general manager mode would be implemented into WWE 24/7. Here was THQ's response:
"I can't answer your question right now, but we'll be announcing information on WWE 24/7 mode very shortly. When we do, hopefully all (or at the very least most) of your questions will be answered."
Why would IGN even bother publishing this question and answer, considering it doesn't contribute whatsoever to new information? IGN would be better off stating that THQ told them that they were unable to discuss the matter at this time.
Feel free to sound off on this topic at our message boards, as we'll be submitting our own questions to THQ based on information from the fans.
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Released: November 19, 2001
Dvlpr: YUKE's Future Media Creators
Publisher: THQ
System(s):
Playstation 2
4/5 Stars |
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