forameus

Wrestler from another company given elimination in a Royal Rumble. What a time to be alive.

This camera work has been fucking woeful. Buzzer goes off, then they wait a good few seconds while the crowd all go "oooooh, it's them!", before they finally decide to show everyone at home who it actually is.

I demand an exact copy of the booking Brock got two years ago now. Then Bayley playing McIntyre.

Women's Rumble now? Interesting...

Yeah, completely lost what they'd built up with that ending. Assume that means another match at the Big Saudi Execution Chamber show, at which point Big Rom can properly punt him out to prepare for his match with Brock. Shame.

ooft, I fucking bit on that one

I like how they've kept with the spirit of the Royal Rumble and everyone for themselves by putting 4 hosts on the same kick-off panel alongside the embalmed corpse of Jerry Lawler.

Cannae believe Doink's coming back.

The British Tour Just the 83 Dates The State of Play - Scotland We've got 11 competitions running in Scotland, and after a few years, they're all looking predictably...well, predictable. Ayrshire A predictable last few years, but what a 2022/23 season for Winton Rovers. They took advantage of Auchinleck Talbot having a bit of a nightmare in their group to win it, and then beat Glenafton in the quarters, then, amazingly, Killie in the semi finals on penalties. From there they beat Cumnock in the final to pick up an extremely unlikely trophy. Since then Killie have gotten their act together, and it's been pretty predictable since. However, as we'll see a few times, the completely random draws you get in these competitions mean that smaller sides can end up with a decent chance. Borders The first of our complete diddy competitions with a complete lack of any big boys in this one. As it is, Gala Fairydean Rovers are big favourites each year. Wouldn't be surprised to see them pick up the trophy every year from now on. Central Scotland Imagine you're a club from Stirling. Hardly the biggest clubs, but now you've been handed a competition with only a handful of clubs better than you, and then loads that are, for want of a better phrase, fucking pish. Then imagine that you f**k it all up and let a University win it all instead. Falkirk and East Stirlingshire went through from Group A, but in Group B the likes of Stenhousemuir struggled to put any kind of form together. Stirling Uni won the group, with Alloa in 2nd. And the former went on to win it all. Since then though, Falkirk fans finally have something to smile about, sharing out the other five trophies with Alloa. Should at least be a battle between those two going forward. Dumfries & Galloway Another one which looks like it's going to be one club's to lose. Queen of the South are far and away the best club here, and five out of the six trophies points to that too. Fife The Kingdom of Fife, where Raith Rovers reign supreme. Looking at the groups though, the likes of Kelty Hearts, East Fife, Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline are all up there, so hopefully some healthy rivalry develops. Glasgow City Now we get on to the first of the big boys, and probably more the fiercest rivalries will take place. Yes. The Maryhill Derby. But away from that it's all looking depressingly familiar, with the Old Firm sharing the six trophies. That doesn't tell the whole story though as, like I mentioned earlier, the random draws mean that the Old Firm can meet outside of the final and open the field out for others. They've met in the final three times, with Partick Thistle of all teams being soundly beaten in each of the three others. Still a big ask for anyone other than Rangers and Celtic to win it though, as you're almost certain to have to beat one of them, maybe even both. Not impossible though. Grampian Even when you're got a competition where there's one dominant side, we've yet to see one winning it all. We have now though. Aberdeen smashed through and won six on the bounce, in a very well populated competition. However, it's not exactly populated with quality, and the Dons have been largely imperious, barely even conceding double figures over the six year spell. Cove and Elgin are probably your best bets for an upset. Highlands & Islands Now this is more like it. Ross County and Inverness have been going at it and trading trophies for six years. Again though, there's a big step down in quality after those two. Nice to see Orkney and Shetland doing not bad, with the former reaching a few knockout stages. Lanarkshire Although there might be some predictable winners, the knockout stages are looking pretty competitive with narrow victories and penalty shootouts all the rage. Airdrie, Albion Rovers, Clyde, Motherwell, Hamilton, East Kilbride...there's a number who could make that push. Lothian Just like Glasgow, but with more heroin, salt and sauce and castles. Just like Glasgow, it's all about who survives the longest. Hearts and Hibs have met more often than not in the semi finals, but no-one has managed to take advantage of it in the final. It's going to take a big performance for someone to do that. Renfrewshire What a time to be Morton. You would expect St Mirren to be the side to dominate this league as the only other team of substance, but Morton have beaten them convincingly on six occasions now. A dynasty in Greenock. Tayside And looks like we've saved the best for last, with Tayside looking like it might be the most competitive. Three different winners, a lot of derbies set up, so maybe this will be the sleeper hit. League Season I won't cover this in much detail as there's absolutely hunners of them, so I'll just cover some notable stories so far. In the top league, titles have been shared between Man City, Arsenal, and Liverpool. Fucking yawn. At time of writing, both Rangers and Celtic are still holding on in the top league. Rangers were relegated in the second season but came straight back up as Champions the next. Which is odd as in every single test save I did, they both got absolutely murdered and ended up getting relegated with only a handful of points. I guess deleting players has levelled the playing field considerably. In terms of European competition...well, it's all generally fucked. The English sides are getting absolutely battered and have only just about recovered. They're now 6th in the coefficients table, so have lost those magic 4 spots. However, Scotland have fucking tanked, probably due to losing the league system. The best ranked Scottish (and Welsh and Northern Irish) clubs still qualify, but it's definitely slim pickings. I think it's going to take some absolutely massive performances to boost that back up for Scotland. Dundee United, Hibs, and St Johnstone are now in the second tier, but the latter two are a bit yo-yo. Dundee United were almost in the playoffs though, great stuff from them. Aberdeen, Ayr, Hamilton, Hearts, Inverness, Kilmarnock and Motherwell are all in the third tier, with Dundee, Falkirk, Partick Thistle and Ross County in the fourth. So that's 16 Scottish sides in the non-regionalised British leagues, which is really good going, almost a quarter of the sides. British Cup The massive British Cup has to be one of the pinnacle competitions to win. Maybe not in terms of reputation (although it is the most reputable cup competition in the game) but definitely in terms of the sheer length. f**k your entering in the 3rd round, the latest you'll enter is the second preliminary, and you'll face 11 ties before you pick up the trophy. I think it's near enough 2500 teams involved, in a completely open draw. I could go through and try and work out all the shocks, but there's far too many ties, and I really can't be arsed. Perhaps the biggest stories would include Raith Rovers getting put out on penalties against Leeds in the last 16, or Celtic just about getting past Aldershot at the same stage. Unfortunately, no-one from any lower than the Regional Conferences (step 5 of the pyramid) has made it past this round yet. That doesn't mean you can't get an unlikely winner though, as both Wolves and Norwich have lifted the trophy. The latter beat Man City 2-0 in the semis, and then Man Utd 3-2 in the final. Ooft. Best Scottish performances? St Johnstone, Raith, Falkirk, Morton and Motherwell got to the last 16, Dundee United, Aberdeen, Celtic and Hibs got to the quarters. Rangers have only ever made it to the last 32. Which is fucking woeful.

The British Tour Just the 83 Dates As you may have seen in the editor thread, I've been working on implementing some kind of State Championship in Scotland. Because I hate myself more than I hate the editor, I decided I'd up the ante and extend the project to cover the whole of Britain. It...works, I guess, at least on the surface, and this save will be as much about seeing just how many mistakes are made, and how entertaining/shite they make the ultimate save. So what am I aiming to do? Well, win every single State Championship in one save. Aye. That means there will be at least 83 seasons, and that's assuming I win one every single season. Which I won't. Because I'm shite. So something more achievable will be going country by country. I'll start out with Scotland, then likely move to Northern Ireland and Wales, before turning to England. The vast majority of cups exist in England obviously, so should be achievable to get through the first three countries. As an extra wrinkle, I've done something I've wanted to do for a while and gone in and deleted every player from the database that has a PA of at least 100. Then on setting up the save I've set the game to use fake players. This means that the game has had to "fill in the gaps" in clubs with random players, with the jobbers still existing but with changed names. Won't be for everyone, and it's made some interesting situations (which I'll cover in the next post) but it makes things a little different. I'll also be starting a few years down the line to let things balance out a bit, but again, I'll cover that in the next post.

Think I'll probably stay up for it too, then regret it all Sunday. With the card the way it is, and the fact that it's the Royal Rumble, surely they can't fumble this one

I was more referring to the latter bit, that it'd be "a relief" to some clubs. I didn't really see it causing that much bother when it was enforced.

They were checking them at Firhill on Saturday. Just the one guy (at least on the gate I was using) and everything was moving pretty fast. Although to be fair from what I overheard, a guy behind us just said "ahve no got one", and he went right in anyway.

Yeah, that's the sticking point. A WWE helmed by Vince McMahon would maybe let other company's talent in, but I doubt they'd be given anything interesting other than getting largely buried by the "better" product. Like, what's in store for Mickie James on Saturday? I doubt she's going to WM.

In a sensible world, you'd think that both companies could be adult enough to let talent flow in both directions where both sides can get something out of it. Hypothetically (and I'm stressing that, there's surely no fucking way anything like this happens), Moxley appearing in the Rumble lets WWE pop a rating, but long term he'll be on AEW's show. I don't think there's necessarily a loser in either situation. You get all the neckbeards going over TV ratings and the like, but do they really matter to WWE? Do they even matter to AEW these days? WWE's product is fucking shite at times and makes money, and AEW could shite in a box and a lot of people would praise the work rate of said shite. Realistically though, I could maybe see AEW being alright with it happening, but WWE will still be stuck in the past with their memories of the Monday Night War. The enemy is the enemy, and I doubt they'd be that interested in getting a loan of talent. But it's a fun thing to imagine. Would certainly shake up WM season.

Anyone had to deal with lost property at Firhill before? Misplaced something today, and of course offices are closed now. Nice wee message from Ian McCall before I left a message on the answerphone.

Thing is, I actually expect it was a misunderstanding, which is almost worse. I expect they'll all be sat in the writers room, and told they need to come up with a "German sounding name" ("Isn't he Austrian?"/"Shut the f**k up you fucking nerd"). Gunther Stark sounds like a good one, great, lunchtime. Same as "The Submission Sorority", they just don't seem to think it through. I could be wrong, I just can't see them doing something that would probably see them getting into a bit of legal trouble if they ever fancied going to Germany ever again.

He looks like the typical smug c**t, but then a lot of YouTubers do, even the ones I actually enjoy. Personally just the thought of watching anything FM related on YouTube puts me to sleep. Can't imagine anyone would be able to make that look interesting.

If he was in red hot form and would obviously bring you guaranteed goals, it would be a difficult decision, and you'd have to weigh up the success he'd bring with the clear baggage and attention he would bring. As it is, you can easily turn him down for footballing reasons before even going near his personal issues. No thanks.

A mess on all sides with that one. Dynamic Youth Ratings wasn't announced in the usual way through the official marketing, instead in a tweet from Miles. Which was fucking stupid in hindsight and should never have happened. But that goes out and the wording makes people run away with the idea and get all kinds of ideas into their heads. Come release, the feature is exactly what SI envisioned (short of a few inevitable tweaks) but a million miles from what a lot of people did. Not sure exactly what people - particularly the YouTuber - expected would happen with putting out a clickbait, hyperbolic video like that would be though. I'm not surprised at SI's reaction. BUT, it all stems from them being stupid in the first place. Put in a wee line about youth development being slightly reworked and put it through a marketing translation and no problem. Only surprise is that the weird distinction between a "personal account" on Twitter being constantly described as such, but still announcing features for a product hasn't created more problems like this before now.

You know what makes me roll my eyes about this? The "you can hate" part. If marketing your product now has to add an element of talking about the "haters", then you can get in the fucking sea, and that's before thinking about whether it's a really good idea.

The Rumble winners, particularly the men's, probably depend on what happens on the card itself. Still no idea what they're planning for WM - presume it's still Brock/Reigns, but depends what configuration that takes. Title vs Title? One drops? I think if Lesnar drops the title, he probably wins the Rumble. Same with Reigns. Or maybe neither actually end up entering (Reigns would surprise me if he did) and they go a different way. They've unfortunately booked themselves into a bit of a hole, as I don't think there's a lot of options for winners that make sense, and I doubt they're going to go with a complete surprise. Probably got to be one from the top tier - Lesnar/Reigns/Rollins/Lashley/Big E. Last one is a stretch too. For the women's, f**k knows. Ripley is probably going to be tied up with Cross for the season, so you're probably looking at a face to challenge either Champion. Maybe Bayley? From what she's saying, sounds like she's near ready to go. Probably enough to enter at 30, get a pop then throw someone out.

I fucking despise the editor now, but after weeks of chipping away at it, it's finally just about there. Attached an early version of the British State Championships, a complete overhaul of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Probably going to start a thread to chronicle it, as I expect my complete lack of attention to detail will mean it all goes entertainingly wrong at some point. But as a small taster, I know what you're all desperate to ask? Whit c***s won the opening Scottish Championships in the first test run? Aberdeen - Cove Rangers 0 - 3 Aberdeen Angus - Montrose 3 - 0 Forfar Central Highland - Nairn County 0 - 2 Inverness Central Scotland - Falkirk 2 - 1 East Stirlingshire Dumfries and Galloway - Queen of the South 3 - 0 Annan Dundee - Dundee United p2 - 2 Dundee East Ayrshire - Auchinleck 0 - 4 Kilmarnock East Lothian - Tranent 2 - 0 Musselburgh Eastern Glasgow - Celtic 1 - 2 Queen's Park (FUCKING LOL) Eastern Grampian - Fraserburgh 2 - 1 Inverurie Locos Midlothian - Hibernian 1 - 2e Hearts North Lanarkshire - Motherwell 2 - 1 Airdrie Northern Fife - Raith 2 - 1 East Fife Northern Highland - Wick Academy 2 - 0 Halkirk Utd Perthshire - Jeanfield Swifts 0 - 2 St Johnstone Renfrewshire - Port Glasgow 0 - 2 Morton Scottish Borders - Mid Annandale 0 - 2 Gala FR Southern Fife - Dundonald 0 - 3 Kelty Hearts Stirling - Stirling 2 - 0 Dunblane Thistle South Lanarkshire - East Kilbride 0 - 3 Hamilton West Ayrshire - Irvine Meadow 0 - 2 Ayr West Highland - Glenelg 2 - 6 Lewis and Harris West Lothian - Livingston 4 - 0 Linlithgow Rose Western Glasgow - Partick Thistle 1 - 2 Rangers (FUCKING BOO) Western Grampian - Buckie 0 - 1 Elgin City Writing them all down, I wonder if I've divided things a little too much. Glasgow seems a bit shit that we're splitting up Rangers and Celtic (although, again, fucking lol at them getting pumped in the final), and a few of the competitions have absolute haddies in it, and may just lead to the same side absolutely dominating, even if they're shit themselves. Darvel and Cumnock got strong points totals in East Ayrshire, but Killie won all 12 games, scoring 37 and conceding 2. Would they ever not win their trophy? If anyone wants a wee bit more Old Firm related japery, unfortunately they're currently getting absolutely murdered in the British Premiership. In every single test I've run, they get relegated in the first season, and I think Celtic have had successive relegations a few times. Be interesting to see how things balance out after like 10 seasons. CountyChamps v3.1.fmf

Yeah, as @54_and_counting says, it really depends what that 500 hours is made up of. But then, like @BFTD says...well, I doubt they've packed it with engaging content, and it'll likely be more on the Fallout 4 level of busy work. Although whether it's a good thing is subjective. There have been a lot of games going down that route, and some have been a lot more tolerable than others. And there will be people that genuinely enjoy that kind of stuff. Not sure I agree with the last part in all cases, but the first part is very true. Ultimately your time is a commodity, and there are a million things vying for that these days. You could either craft a brilliant narrative and product that demands your time just by how good it is (hard and time-consuming) or you could copy and paste content to take a decent experience and pad it massively (easy and relatively quick). Unfortunately not enough developers make much of an effort to go for the former.

Just when it seems like they've sacked it off, they've pulled out quite a card for the Royal Rumble. Both Rumble matches, Brock/Lashley, Reigns/Rollins, Nakamura/Zayn amongst others. Just in time for them to raise expectations ahead of an overly long, overly booked WM. Tremendous.