A few things...

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by Cap

Back in the 70's and 80's I often attended the fights at the Paul Sauve Arena in Montreal, as well as the grand old Forum. Saw some great action battles there. Not always the greatest talent, but they fought their hearts out.

I myself am partial to fighters on the lower end of the ratings scale. There are probably some great, great stories among the guys you watched at the Paul Sauve Arena.

Originally Posted by Cap

Anyway, just for fun, I thought I'd include a fighter from my alternate universe. Johnny Michael Gillis in the real world died on his birthday in a mud-filled trench amongst his fellow Canadian soldiers. In my alternate universe where there was no European war in 1914, Gillis grew up along the waterfront of Coaltown, Nova Scotia and worked as a stevedore before ending up in "Sam Langford's Professional Boxing Academy" at 16. Two years later he joined the real pro ranks under the watchful eye of Joe Woodman.

Wow. This young man will definitely go into my Golden Age of Boxing Association group (I'm assuming he is fighting in the pre-1920 era). This is what I mean when I say it would be good to give these fictional boxers we are talking about some character, some kind of back story, some reason to care about them.

I know this will not be possible if we are going to create thousands and thousands of low-level fighters, but I'm going to try to individualize each of my guys in some small way.

Cap, I have not DL'd this fighter yet, but did you include his story in his bio? Did you at least mention that he was trained in "Cap's Sam Langford Professional Boxing Academy"? It would be a nice touch.

As I mentioned to Pierre in emails, it would be fun to give some indication in a fictional fighter's bio of who created him. All of my guys, for example, will have "Trained at Big Tony's North Coast Gym, Cleveland, Ohio, USA." I'm not really "big," but my name is Tony and my city, Cleveland, is often referred to as being on the "north coast".

[crusadecat]

Hey there I really like the ideas so far i'm hearing on the project and I'm definetely in on it. The bios idea really intrests me and would give some back story to build in on. I think its going to be very interesting for sure. I was kicking around some fighters to include and will post some of these guys. What weightclasses are we looking at? I assume we aren't concerning ourself with jr. wt classes atleast at this time. But I wasn't sure if we were just doing heavyweights.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by crusadecat

What weightclasses are we looking at? I assume we aren't concerning ourself with jr. wt classes atleast at this time. But I wasn't sure if we were just doing heavyweights.

Big Tony's North Coast Gym is partial to non-HWs, but we want our fighters to be used in everybody's TBCB fictional universe, so we will certainly train some big fellas as well.

[Montreal]

Originally Posted by crusadecat

Hey there I really like the ideas so far i'm hearing on the project and I'm definetely in on it. The bios idea really intrests me and would give some back story to build in on. I think its going to be very interesting for sure. I was kicking around some fighters to include and will post some of these guys. What weightclasses are we looking at? I assume we aren't concerning ourself with jr. wt classes atleast at this time. But I wasn't sure if we were just doing heavyweights.

Glad that you join us, Crusadecat. As for the number of divisions, it's like Antonin said. At the start of this thread, we were talking about using the eight basic divisions and nobody contested that. So...

Antonin: your big guy, Delbert Craw, is 3-0 in one of my fictional universes -- thanks to some of my TC - lol. Will begin to give him some serious opposition one day or another, likely around his 15th fight. Meanwhile, he's about safe until October...

Pierre

[Brooks TVB]

i like the part about including a biography with the fighters, makes for some good interest points going into the fights. You will watch Tyson whether you like him or not because of who he is not because he is a good boxer. I say we go with this a little and see how it goes, i will give my created fighters a biography anyways.

[Montreal]

Originally Posted by Cap

Back in the 70's and 80's I often attended the fights at the Paul Sauve Arena in Montreal, as well as the grand old Forum. Saw some great action battles there. Not always the greatest talent, but they fought their hearts out..

Like in Gaetan Hart, for exemple Well, no doubt about that for so many of them. That's not to say that Hart was a tomato can, though. More of a weak 1-rated guy IMO. By the way, Cap, maybe you can help me out to solve something I almost consider as a mystery for more than ten years now... Will post that story somewhere next week, just in case you were there when *that thing* happened...

Originally Posted by Cap

Anyway, just for fun, I thought I'd include a fighter from my alternate universe. Johnny Michael Gillis.

With his rating, won't have any trouble getting over his 0-2 start in real life! He's obviously a champ. Would you mind sending eventually some of your lesser guys when we will create the thread for fictional guys?

Pierre

[Montreal]

Originally Posted by Antonin

As I mentioned to Pierre in emails, it would be fun to give some indication in a fictional fighter's bio of who created him. All of my guys, for example, will have "Trained at Big Tony's North Coast Gym, Cleveland, Ohio, USA." I'm not really "big," but my name is Tony and my city, Cleveland, is often referred to as being on the "north coast".

As for me, I will probably include a few notes in the bio section for every fighter not being a TC (well, Okay, not being a 0-rated guy - lol). But since you made an official announcement about your gym, I will do the same here and let everybody know that they will have to deal with my boxing crew at the Jungle_Gym in Montreal Cyberspace...

Pierre

[Gunsmoke]

I like the thought that's going on here, some really good stuff, particularly from Pierre. I agree with the bios that it would be nice if we could get some personality for some of these guys, maybe 5 or 6 per year out of the 30 would be a good aim at this stage.

In regards to the weight classes I definitely think we should limit the initial offerings to the 8 original weight classes, otherwise we'll be going forever.

Anyway I'll be glad to contribute once the group gets started in earnest.

Cheers,
Mark

[Dave1877]

I think the best idea, if this went ahead, would be to have everyone who is interested create 30 fighters for a particular division, with 'strict' guidelines on ratings. Someone earlier on page 1 or 2 (might have been Montreal) suggested that out of 30 fighters, 12 or 13 of them should be tomato cans.

As for me making fighters, I would be able to help a lot, but I need a bit of help first. I quite enjoy creating fictional fighters but I get to a certain point and don't know the meaning of some of the ratings. I understand them all from reading the manual, except the following:

---Clinching: I get the feeling that the higher this number, the more clinching the fighter does. The numbers range from 20 to 76, could anyone explain, for example, what number a fighter would have if he hardly ever clinched and the rating if a fighter clinched a lot?

---Could anyone explain further the 'Punches Missed' rating? What number for punches missed would be suitable for a crap fighter, which rating would be suitable for a top class fighter in this section? Again the numbers range from 20 to 76.

Thanks

[Montreal]

Hi Mark! I thought you were on your honeymoon for another week - don't know where I got that, though. Anyway, hope everything went well.

<< Anyway I'll be glad to contribute once the group gets started in earnest. >>

More good news! Might need a few other days. For instance, I would like to get some feedback from anyone about a number of things related to the first screen (things like Nationality, Era, Career stage, Trainer, Cutman, etc.). Will send a post on this later today or tomorow. Then would probably need to get in touch with Josh and Antonin so we could create the new thread with a good post as an intro. They will have to take care of that, my own English is so corny that I regularly fall asleep when I have to read my own stuff - lol.

Pierre

[Montreal]

Hi Dave,

<< I think the best idea, if this went ahead, would be to have everyone who is interested create 30 fighters for a particular division, with 'strict' guidelines on ratings. >>

I think that if we make that an obligation, we will lose lots of guys that would otherwise have probably contributed here and there. But...

<< Someone earlier on page 1 or 2 (might have been Montreal) suggested that out of 30 fighters, 12 or 13 of them should be tomato cans. >>

... If you want to join the troops yourself as a *regular* contributor, just see posts #36 and #37 on page 2 of this thread. You will have there some clear guidelines. Anyway, when we will create the thread on Fighters Creation, we will make sure that all the important guidelines are posted there.

<< ---Clinching: I get the feeling that the higher this number, the more clinching the fighter does. The numbers range from 20 to 76, could anyone explain, for example, what number a fighter would have if he hardly ever clinched and the rating if a fighter clinched a lot? >>

Clinching at 65-68 is not a lot, clinching at 72-75 is at the other end. Sounds like 69-71 is about average.

---Could anyone explain further the 'Punches Missed' rating? What number for punches missed would be suitable for a crap fighter, which rating would be suitable for a top class fighter in this section? Again the numbers range from 20 to 76.

The most accurate fighters in the game are in the range of 58-61, the worst ones are around 65-68. A very crapy fighter (as for accuracy) would be at 67-69, I guess. But it's not impossible that a crapy fighter might have some accuracy (63-65) though.

I would say that the basic keys to create a very bad fighter are primarily related to Control Factor (using 1, 2, 3) and Punches and Counter-punches (under 25). Then Recovery, Chin vs Knockdown and vs Knockout (don't fear to go over 4 and 5 if you want a bad fighter). And defense of course (+6 being extremely bad, -6 being extremely good, the best defense in the business). Other attributes (accuracy, etc.) play their role also, of course.

But if you start with CFs at 2, Punches/Counter around 24, defense at +4 and Recovery/Chin around 5-6, you're on your way to create a pretty decent tomato can - lol. Then test him vs all 1-rated fighters in his division (from 500 to 1000 fights). If he wins over 25% of his fights, he's simply to good to be a real tomato can; Reduce the value of his attributes.

As a matter of fact, if you put every and all ratings at their maximal worst value, your absolute tomato can will win about 2% to 3% of his fights vs 1-rated fighters anyway... Test that, you will see.

Pierre

[Dave1877]

Thanks Montreal, before I came back I'd actually worked out the clinching rating already, but thanks for the thing on punches missed, that is a lot more clear now.

I am fine at creating decent fighters, but when it comes to tomato cans, for some reason I find it more difficult to get them right. I don't know whether I could be a regular contributor, but I might be able to chip in with a few fighters here and there. I'll leave the majority to the clever people!

[Montreal]

Hey, Josh... Is everything okay? Do you feel that something is going wrong somewhere so far?

Pierre

[Brooks TVB]

Just an idea, may be getting to involved in detail. Fighters start out with generic trainers and cutmen, when they further thier career they can go into a gym which has trainers and cutmen assigned.

[Antonin]

I really want to individualize even my worst fighters. In the bio I put "Born in (name of city/town)." This will show you instantly that the fighter is fictional and not one that comes with TBCB or is created from Boxrec info, because most of those guys have "Hometown."

For my places of origin I use the names of places I've been, places my relatives live, etc. For example, in April we spent some time visiting family in the Philippines, and on the drive down from Manila we passed through lots and lots of small towns with interesting-sounding names that will eventually find global fame as the hometowns of some of my fighters.

Then, of course, my "Trained at Big Tony's North Coast Gym" line. The "Big Tony" part is a reference to the fact that Cleveland was once considered to be a stronghold of an organization called "the Mafia," or at least that's what the Feds and a bunch of misguided and misinformed newspaper guys said. The area where the alleged wiseguys allegedly used to hang out is not far from where I live. Every time I drive down Mayfield Road I see some well-fed gentleman and think "There goes Big Sal...strolling down to the corner diner to chew the fat with da boys..."

As far as info for trainers, etc, is concerned, I just put "generic." I agree that it's a nice touch to add a real trainer after the guy has fought a few times. Making this change, I imagine, would be up to the player who DLs the fictional fighter.

[JoshEngleman]

Sorry, I haven't been posting lately. I've been kind of busy. Anyway, I think everything looks good so far. I like the idea that we have in place. I'm excited to get started on the project. I have some stuff I need to get in order, then I'll be ready to start pounding out some fighters

[Montreal]

Hi Guys. Before we create the thread on Fictional Fighters, I would like to get some feedback on some points that might help us writing the final guidelines. So here goes, with some starting suggestions and /or interrogations...

Group: My suggestion is that we recommand that everyone creates a group called *Fictional* in one of their databases and that they create their fighters from there. So when they will upload them on the board and that anybody gets them directly from there, there will be no risk of confusion about the nature of the fighter (since several guys also create *real* fighters going into the "Men" group). I think that Josh will donwload all the fighters in one blank database but, in the short run, about no one else will work using it. Moreover, Josh's blank database contains no real fighters, so it would be impossible testing our tomato cans while using such a database. However, if you think that this idea is not the best one on the market, please let us know...

Era: I suggest that all our fighters are created as being Retired.

Division: Assigning each fighter to one of the eight basic ones (HW, LHW, MW, WW, LW, FW, BW, FLY). I think that we already have a consensus on that anyway.

Southpaw: It seems that there's approximatively one lefty for ten righties in real world boxing. If this is true (anyone?), I really wonder why is it that the default choice is set to *left-handed*... In fact, someone that is not very attentive to details could end up producing 100 left-handed guys out of 100 fighters! Anyway, if the ratio is not 1-10, please let us know so we could recommand something else to our distinguished futur contributors...

Nationality: Anyone is aware of a study on that? There are zillions of USA fighters, no doubt, but what is the percentage of Americans in real world boxing? Someone knows where we could get some info on that? That is not to say that we would necessarily have to respect the real ratio, but we could possibly use it as a guideline...

Career stage / Default to use: Prime seems to be the best choice, I guess.

Career (From... To): For now, I suggest that we let these spaces blank. Otherwise, we could end up with an overload of guys from one particular era and almost none from others. For instance, having 75 heavies as newcomers in 1900 while we need only 30 of them... Moreover, if one creates (say) 30 FW beginning in 1908, that would mean that we would end up having only that contributor's newcomers for that year in the FW division, all that resulting in a lack of diversity. So, my best guess is that it would be better that some sort of a commitee assigns eras to fighters at some point later on...

Trainer: I suggest Generic Offense -- but Generic Trainer is possibly better. What do you think?

Cut Man: I suggest Generic Cut Man.

Biography: As Antonin and others have suggested, it would be nice to add some personal touch there...

Ratings: Well... The Calc Button should do the job (except for tomato cans, for whom testing is mandatory).

Anything you would like to say about the above, please, go ahead. Any important point not being in this post, please let me know! If you think that my suggestions are just OK, would you be kind enough to post a word here just to let us know that you're aware of what's going on? - lol

Thanks Guys.

Pierre

[Brooks TVB]

I am a lefty myself and would like to see more lefties than real life, since it is fictional lets make it a little less real.

[Gunsmoke]

...since it is fictional lets make it a little less real.

I think this is a very important concept as we go through this. I think it's kind of exciting to make this world not just a reflection of the real world. For me that means that many of the fictional boxers created can be based on real boxers but we should try to avoid having the HW golden age occur in the sixties with equivalents of Ali, Frazier and Foreman. That sort of thing doesn't really interest me. Well that's my opinion anyway

Just as an aside I am working on template import files for Rating 1, 0 and -1 rated fighters as well as working on a spreadsheet to generate a year's distribution of ratings based on Pierre's guidelines posted earlier. When both are ready I'll post them (may not be for a couple of days though as I have some chores to do before I go back to work next week).

Hi Mark! I thought you were on your honeymoon for another week - don't know where I got that, though. Anyway, hope everything went well.

Thanks Pierre we had a fantastic time but like always it's kinda nice when you get back home too.

Cheers,
Mark

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by Brooks TVB

I am a lefty myself and would like to see more lefties than real life, since it is fictional lets make it a little less real.

I'm left-handed also. Most of the fighters I've created have been lefties. I don't see any real reason that a fictional universe should have the same handedness as the real one. Like Mark, I'm also not interested in having fictional equivalents of RL boxers and the ages they fought in.

That said, if others want to limit lefties to just 10% of the total, that's OK.

Nationality: I'm not interested in seeing US fighters represent the overwhelming majority of our fictional creations, but if the rest of you guys prefer it that way, I won't argue. Something to consider, though: if we are beginning at 1900, we are going to be limited in what nationalities we can/should use, because many nations that exist now didn't exist then. If we are creating a bunch of fighters for use in a "current" universe, that problem goes away.

I should also note that every fighter I've created so far has a birthdate and a career start date.

It might be a good idea to decide early on if we are starting with a particular (past) era or starting with a "current" universe.