Fantasy wrestling

Fantasy wrestling (also referred to as "e-wrestling") is an umbrella term representing the genre of role-playing and statistics-based games which are set in professional wrestling companies. Several variants of Fantasy Wrestling exist: segregated both by the way they are transmitted (through websites, message boards, e-mail, postal mail, or face-to-face), the method in which the storyline is determined (via roleplay, "angles", strategy- or statistics-based systems, etc.) and how the roster was composed ("real" wrestlers or original characters created by the players.)

Fantasy wrestling's roots lie in the play-by-mail wrestling games that became prominent in the mid-to-late 1980s during one of professional wrestling's boom periods. In the early 1990s, the advent of national bulletin board services like Prodigy, AOL, and Compuserve allowed players to use e-mail and bulletin boards to more easily trade information and post roleplays. As technology progressed and the internet evolved, fantasy wrestling enthusiasts took advantage, using websites and newsgroups to connect and build broader communities for gameplay.

E-wrestling

E-Wrestling is an internet variation on creative roleplay, based on the world of professional wrestling. The basic premise is that the player (also called a handler) creates a character, and manages his or her career in a fictional professional wrestling promotion, called an E-Federation (or E-Fed).

Much like the term "e-mail" became the abbreviation for electronic mail, the term "e-wrestling" became common in the early-to-mid-1990s as fantasy wrestling began to move from a primarily play-by-mail format and instead began to use online bulletin boards, then internet service providers (ISPs) and ad hoc webpages.

In earlier versions of the game patterned on play-by-mail formats, a handler often controlled his wrestler’s success by creating a move and then e-mailing it to an adjudicator. Based on this the adjudicator would then decide the outcome. cite news|title=The Best and Worst of 1994 and Predictions for '95 (extract)|url=http://www.neonshop.com/bio/iw/bwv6n1.htm|publisher=The Internet Magazine|date=1994|accessdate=2007-03-16] As e-wrestling moved from individual ISPs to the World Wide Web beginning in 1994, the roleplay format used on PRODIGY and other services began to eclipse the turn-based system.

In 2004, World Wrestling Entertainment began its own fantasy wrestling game focused on selecting WWE Superstars as part of a team and receiving points based on their involvement on the WWE television shows. WWE singled out "real wrestling" E-Feds who used the names and likenesses of WWE Superstars and began sending them cease-and-desist letters.cite news|title=WWE shutting down fantasy feds, Ross rips on Bash, Smackdown ratings (extract)|url=http://www.pwtorch.com/artman/exec/view.cgi/22/8905|publisher=WWE News|date=2004|accessdate=2007-05-08]

There are eWrestling "promotions" which operate within a more storyline based environment which mimics "angles" used in real federations such as the WWE. Storylines and feuds are decided upon and worked, where the shows are written in full format in a variety of styles, more commonly script and novel style. This is to give the player an opportunity to try the storylines which they would prefer to see on typical wrestling shows but may not be given the opportunity given the types of character personality actual wrestlers take and the ability of pushing the limits more so with created characters.

References

External links

* [http://ewrestling.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page E-wrestling Wiki at wikia.com]