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Some help, please...

RussellPosted on 08/04/06 at 02:55:10

Okay, first off, hats off to every single person who's ever been involved in the TNM project. On top of being mind bendingly original, it's fun beyond words and a real treat to a very certain breed of wrestling fan.

Now that's out of the way, my dilema.

Years and years and years ago when I was a wee teenager I played TNM to no end. I screwed around consistently with the trial version for a long time. A few years later, I finally got around to buying TNM. I've still got that version and I just recently dug it up.

My question and problem is this... Can I update it to bring it up to snuff with everything else since I previously bought it? Or am I going to have to spend at the very least 30 dollars again?

I don't know what kind of verification I can show that I even have TNM, I don't want to get anyone suspecious or anything. I was poking around in TNM, went into the options thing, tried to see if there was any... numbers I could show anyone, but I came up with nothing. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for your time, hope to hear from someone soon. Thanks again.
Snabbit888Posted on 08/04/06 at 03:21:49

E-mail copp@tnm7.com with your name and the e-mail address that you registered your TNM under.  He should be able to help.  I warn you though, it may take a little bit of time for him to get back to you.  Either way, welcome back to the TNM fold. :)
RussellPosted on 08/04/06 at 04:03:20

Heh, I'll do that.

And thanks. I intend to start posting here a bit. I honestly don't want to see something as unique as TNM go the way of the dodo, twould' suck.

But, hell, still going strong after all these years. Pretty evident there's a very loyal fanbase.
HugeRockStar760Posted on 08/04/06 at 06:13:45

As far as wrestling simulators go, TNM will always be relevant. Total Extreme Warfare isn't that great when compared to TNM. There just isn't a good match simulator to it, but I guess that isn't the point of it.

If Oliver could get another programmer to help him, and incorporate a lot of the recent wishlist ideas, TNM would be even better. I think eventually there will be a windows version of TNM as well.
RussellPosted on 08/04/06 at 06:20:18

Heh, I messed around with Total Extreme Warfare a bit years ago... You mentioning it just made me remember it for the first time in a long time actually. Nothing special at all.

I'd gladly pitch in solid amounts of spare money to help along a "bettering" TNM7 project. Would there be any way to do that? Through a Paypal account or some such maybe?
Snabbit888Posted on 08/04/06 at 10:25:44

I don't think money is the issue why the updates to TNM are infrequent.  I think it's more that Oliver is a busy man.  He has a lot of outside stuff he does, and quite frankly, as good as TNM is, it doesn't pay his bills and he has to focus on that first, considering he has a family.  The good thing with Oliver though is that he'll disappear for awhile, but when he returns, he always has a bunch of new shit. :)
RussellPosted on 08/04/06 at 19:48:26

On 08/04/06 at 10:25:44, Snabbit888 wrote:I don't think money is the issue why the updates to TNM are infrequent.  I think it's more that Oliver is a busy man.  He has a lot of outside stuff he does, and quite frankly, as good as TNM is, it doesn't pay his bills and he has to focus on that first, considering he has a family.  The good thing with Oliver though is that he'll disappear for awhile, but when he returns, he always has a bunch of new shit. :)
Heh, yeah, I understand that.

Just thought I'd throw it out there. Over, well, the almost decade TNM's been out (It has been that long, hasn't it? :)) it's taken a while for it to progress to the point that it has now. If it took donations to let it, well, reach that next level that much quicker, I'd be all for it.
RussellPosted on 08/05/06 at 13:41:48

I don't think I stressed how bad I want to get this done with.  :- :- :-
Oliver CoppPosted on 08/05/06 at 17:35:21

Hi there folks,

first of all, thank you very much for the kind words and for pointing Russell in the right direction.

If you use the copp@hexacon.de address, I'll be able to read your mail anywhere in the world (except Japan... grrr!) and will get back to you ASAP. The tnm7.com address is swamped with so much spam that I'm having a hard time detecting the ham ;-)

A small update for those interested. I've been doing a lot of work for UFC for the past three years and some stuff for WWE on the side, so yes - busy is the right word. My day-time job, so to speak, is in the TV business in Germany where I work in an executive position for the German pendant to Viacom. And of course, there's also the work on the side as a sportscaster and producer for wrestling and MMA DVDs. So in a nutshell... I *really* could do with a 48 hour day. Anybody in on that ;-)?

The thing about TNM that's holding me back is that it's pretty much gone as far as it can go in DOS. Making a Windows version would mean having to redo every single line of the 1.6 million lines of code from scratch due to the immense differences of programming in DOS vs programming in Windows. Realistically, just porting the *existing* functionality would take me years, assuming I can't put more than two or three hours per day into it.

I realize, though, that some new stuff *has* to come out soon. I really appreciate the small but very loyal core community that's still active on these boards despite my being gone so much. And I really want to do something for you guys.

If there was one feature currently not in TNM that you'd like to see, what would that be?

Aside from TNM, I've really been feeling an itch to make an MMA simulator, learning from the design mistakes in the TNM engine (transitions simply don't look good most of the time... as well as obvious psychology flaws). The upside of that would be that I really could start from scratch without having to worry about legacy design and data portation issues that I'll need to address.

So how's everybody doing lately?

Thanks,

Oliver
HugeRockStar760Posted on 08/05/06 at 17:59:54

Geez, that is some work schedule there. At the same time, though, it seems like it is fun work.

The Wishlist forum has a lot of good ideas. The one idea I like is editing a card already saved to be run and/or being able to book shows ahead of time and then being able to make edits to the future lineups. This would really help for booked circuits.
americamamushiPosted on 08/05/06 at 19:51:02

Japan has the fastest high speed internet in the world, don't they?  And for some odd ass reason you can't check your hexacon addy from there.  Figures, right? ;)

I heart the idea of an MMA sim.  I mean, NHB-Sim is alright, but even just in theory, one by you would far surpass it.

Its been said in the Wishlist forum before many times I believe, but an FCA Cubed by you would rule.

As for how I am?  Dude... don't ask ;)

It is, however, always nice to know (especially for new people) that our grand high pooba still thinks about his loyal followers. :)
Snabbit888Posted on 08/05/06 at 21:39:44

Not knowing a lot about programming, how much room is there to work with having Windows-based plugins operate with the DOS TNM, Oliver?
Oliver CoppPosted on 08/05/06 at 23:14:09

On 08/05/06 at 19:51:02, americamamushi wrote:Japan has the fastest high speed internet in the world, don't they? And for some odd ass reason you can't check your hexacon addy from there. Figures, right? ;)
That came across wrong. Of course I can check my e-mail from an Internet cafe etc. But Japan's cell phone networks aren't GSM-based, i.e. my Blackberry won't work i.e. I won't get these e-mails forwarded to it.

Its been said in the Wishlist forum before many times I believe, but an FCA Cubed by you would rule.
FCA Cubed worked for one reason: Mike took a lot of shortcuts and stripped out things that TNM's match engine normally does. The result was that you could do a lot of different things (and a lot of them very well) but at the core, this wasn't really TNM anymore. That said, duplicating Mike's functionality would require either stripping the match engine to its bones - or going for Windows.

As for how I am? Dude... don't ask ;)
How are you :-)?
Oliver CoppPosted on 08/05/06 at 23:16:39

On 08/05/06 at 21:39:44, Snabbit888 wrote:Not knowing a lot about programming, how much room is there to work with having Windows-based plugins operate with the DOS TNM, Oliver?
If you look at which plugins are available from me, all but two (Interview Integrator and TweakCirc SE) are Windows-based.

The thing is this: for meaningful improvements the match engine would have to be expanded. That unfortunately requires a complete rewrite in a Windows-based technology. Or as a 32-bit Windows console application. The latter don't work all that well from my experience and they don't support things such as reading the contents of the screen buffer (which you need to do to save play-by-play etc).

What exactly are you thinking about?
Snabbit888Posted on 08/05/06 at 23:23:50

Nothing specific... that's just what I was trying to get a gauge on.  You had said that you had went as far as you could with DOS, and I was clarifying in my head with if you meant with the match engine or TNM altogether.

And I'm glad to hear you are well and keeping yourself busy.  You have all these cool jobs you do, but I know I still got you beat because I just got a job at Target, so suck on THAT, Oliver! :)
Oliver CoppPosted on 08/05/06 at 23:43:10

"Cool" always is open to interpretation. I just spent the last four weeks writing German subtitles for the second season of "The Ultimate Fighter"... only to then be told that I manually have to move them to the top of the screen whenever on-screen graphics are present in the lower half of the screen.

1,698 moved subtitles later, I never want to see TUF2 ever again ;-)

Back to TNM. What, really, still needs to be done that doesn't involve the match engine in any way? There's a statistics plugin... two actually. One for images, another for audio. One for all configuration options. One to clean up your databases. And so on. Call me uncreative but I really can't think of much right now :)
Snabbit888Posted on 08/06/06 at 00:05:40

The things I would like to see are pretty small.  I'd like for a little more depth to be put with injuries.  Maybe something like, "Chris Benoit suffered a knee injury.  He will require surgery and be out for 4 cards."  Something that might add a little more creativity from us the booker.  Like if he can just work through the pain, if he needs surgery, etc.  Also, career-ending injuries are still a wet dream of mine for some reason.  I want to use my booking skills to have to work around stuff like that instead of just saying, "Oh, that's a long injury, so I guess I'll retire him."  And of course, have these injuries able to be ignored if the user so desires.

Also, I would love a little bit more depth to why a wrestler quits or gives notice.  Just a line or two that says, "Brock Lesnar wants to pursue outside interests" or "Frankie Kazarian doesn't like the way he is being used" or "Bret Hart doesn't want to work with Shawn Michaels."  Maybe add a little something extra that doesn't necessarily make this a full busienss sim because I don't want to see that, but adds just a little bit more "smark" appeal.  I have no problems with creating that stuff myself in my head, but it would be nice not to have to force it all the time.
americamamushiPosted on 08/06/06 at 00:34:37

As well as the ability to try and convince a leaving wrestler to stick around.

"Frankie Kazarian doesn't like the way he is being used" or "Bret Hart doesn't want to work with Shawn Michaels."
In that same regard it'd be a neat lil feature to have a little forewarning once in a while (though not all the time) so that you can try and book a wrestler more to their liking and get them to stay before they quit in the first place.
HugeRockStar760Posted on 08/06/06 at 00:42:12

Oliver,

How feasible is it to be able to include the option of editing an already saved card to change the lineup around? Furthermore, what about booking a few shows ahead and being able to edit those cards based on the previous cards?

That idea from the Wishlist Forum is probably my favorite.
RussellPosted on 08/06/06 at 01:22:52

On 08/06/06 at 00:05:40, Snabbit888 wrote:The things I would like to see are pretty small.  I'd like for a little more depth to be put with injuries.  Maybe something like, "Chris Benoit suffered a knee injury.  He will require surgery and be out for 4 cards."  Something that might add a little more creativity from us the booker.  Like if he can just work through the pain, if he needs surgery, etc.  Also, career-ending injuries are still a wet dream of mine for some reason.  I want to use my booking skills to have to work around stuff like that instead of just saying, "Oh, that's a long injury, so I guess I'll retire him."  And of course, have these injuries able to be ignored if the user so desires.

Also, I would love a little bit more depth to why a wrestler quits or gives notice.  Just a line or two that says, "Brock Lesnar wants to pursue outside interests" or "Frankie Kazarian doesn't like the way he is being used" or "Bret Hart doesn't want to work with Shawn Michaels."  Maybe add a little something extra that doesn't necessarily make this a full busienss sim because I don't want to see that, but adds just a little bit more "smark" appeal.  I have no problems with creating that stuff myself in my head, but it would be nice not to have to force it all the time.
That's an amazing idea, and I second it.

It's got so much potential it's scary.
RussellPosted on 08/06/06 at 01:32:15

And to add a very small thing to what Snabbit888 brought up earlier... Fans should at times boo people on their way out. People getting ready to quit should get a "You sould out" or "Na Na Na Goodbye". Something demeaning that real wrestling fans actually do.  ;D
Snabbit888Posted on 08/09/06 at 02:10:01

Another thing I'd like to see is a tweak in battle royals.  If you run a big battle royal, it's not uncommon for it to take 45 minutes for the first elimination.