[Music]
what's up everybody it's your boy lionel
jinx i am the creative director of the
ww2k franchise and with me once again
hey y'all i am christina dm fam art
producer on wwe
2k22 and welcome to episode 2
of ringside report brought to you all by
the teams at 2k and visual concepts now
if you missed the first episode of the
ringside report with that sweet gameplay
click the link below this video to check
it out but in the meantime we're here to
provide regular updates and deep dives
into the many areas and features of wwe
2k22
and of course you'll hear from both
lionel and myself on a regular basis
through the games launched in march on
game updates dlc patches and more and
also again we're not doing this alone
because we're bringing the homies from
the dev team
all right so in one of our previous
announcements we ever so briefly called
out the new my gm mode where you take on
the role of a wwe general manager to
prove whether you have what it takes to
run the most successful brand in sports
entertainment so please join me in
welcoming three folks who are
instrumental in making my gm a reality
design director alan flores senior
designer chris masenis and producer
brian fritz
yo thank you so much for joining us
today
thank you for having us yeah i have my
uh my gm outfit on today i suited up for
this very fancy very fancy nice
except me mcmahon
uh so let's get right into it we're
gonna roll the footage
to start off who are the gms and what
does selecting one versus another mean
for the player experience so we let you
choose um a different starting point you
can choose your own gm or you can choose
a brand that you want to manage so
having those different combinations of
things can affect the way that your game
is going to play throughout so you can
play as um adam pierce sonia deville
stephanie mcmahon shane mcmahon or a
custom gm you can play as raw smackdown
nxt or nxt uk and it's really pretty
interesting the way that those things
combine because each one of those
choices is going to give you a very
powerful uh power card that you can play
throughout the course of the game so
like for example adam pierce will allow
you to he's got an instigator card if
you play that then all of your rivals
will be increased by one level or if you
play as uh sony deville you'll be able
to boost the morale of your entire
roster to me the next part of the
the mode is is my favorite part is
selecting the draft right so selecting
your superstars
but i always find trouble like trying to
you know select a balanced roster
because i i get you know my eyes get big
whenever i see like those big names on
the board that's still available and
then i run out of money so
uh i know there's a lot that goes into
booking a balanced roster and so can you
talk more about that process and and
help me help me become a better gm
well that's also my favorite part of the
mode as well once you get into the draft
basically that's your first look at all
the superstars and what you're going to
find is you're going to see a lot of
different stats that are going to stand
out to you
um you're going to see things like their
class their alignment
their popularity their stamina
but what's really important to look at
kind of early on is what their class is
so like there's giants cruisers
specialists
and what you're going to want to do is
like drop the kind of variety of
different superstars that kind of go
well together and we do a good we do a
decent job of telling you like oh these
are going to be good matchups to help
you along the way
but obviously you can you can draft
whoever you want um make your dream
roster and speaking of dream roster um
players they can upload their own custom
draft pool that include paraded
superstars too so they're gonna be able
to go wild with that um
when they create their their custom
superstars it will will generate a cost
for them uh and speaking of which uh
when you're drafting something to also
be very careful about is how much each
person is uh it's gonna cost when you
draft them you have a budget when you go
into it and um if you spend all your
money after the draft you might not have
money to sign free agents
enhancement talent
legends
there's a lot of things you can do with
money so you gotta be very careful
i'm exactly like lionel i go in i draft
all the available superstars i can and i
go in with zero dollars to kind of set
up this entire show and i'm like oh i'm
in trouble oh no uh if you have the
budget you can have awesome matches in
hell in a cell or tlc but that was cost
a little bit extra money to set up so if
you don't have the budget you're stuck
running one-on-one normal matches or tag
team matches with you know no awesome
match types with these show logistics
you can have that high school gym arena
or you can
move up into
like concert halls and even these giant
arenas that can give you bonuses not
only just to your show ratings but also
uh if you achieve certain little uh
goals assigned to those things we have a
store where you can buy different power
cards we can buy a lot of useful things
like um there's a health spa so say i
have a superstar that's feeling maybe i
put him in five hell in his cells in a
row so he's a little bit injured or
something like he's a little bit down so
they're like all right here's a here's a
health spot you go go there for a week
and rest and then you boost some of your
stamina just take a little bit of a
break
but we also have a system of
commissioner goals where basically
triple h will show up will say i want
you to not put say don't put drew
mcintyre in a match this week and if you
do that then you can earn a power card
from him and some of those are very
powerful things that will boost your
ratings boost your superstars it's
really a lot of fun stuff in there
yeah see i i tend to be you know
the guy who just follows the rules but i
know alan you you always play like the
villain type of gm
yeah it's weird because you know i
i don't really consider myself a bad guy
when i'm doing it my superstars react
that way so basically what i do is
i will book them in the hardest matches
i can to really boost my ratings all the
time and they'll complain they'll come
to me and the dramas go like i'm feeling
tired i'm feeling injured and then if i
actually put them in another match they
become and then they'll come to me like
what the heck are you doing i'm injured
i knew this is gonna happen and then
there's a tendency that where they might
want to leave
so i try and you know use some of the
stuff to boost the morale of it to get
them to stay around give them a little
bit extra money so they can hang around
and help fill out my brand still
so i want to get into once you actually
build out your shows for the week um
let's talk about some of the different
variations of how you can view your show
because there's the option to simulate
an entire show you can play these
matches but then also one of my
favorites is that you can spectate
as
yeah exactly exactly what lionel's doing
you can spectate
let's call out that spectate mode is
exclusive to my gm
uh so chris i want you to talk about uh
what this means for the player
experience
obviously you can you can play your
matches we really wanted to make sure
you were able to do that
another really cool thing is and i know
like maybe you thought that you wouldn't
be seeing your gm anytime in the ring
but you're going to be able to use your
dm and interfere in matches as well
whether that's one of the ones you
picked or one of your creative ones
you finally get to see yourself in some
action
christina like you're mentioning
spectate you're gonna be able to do a
really good job at basically
being in a production truck and acting
as if you were running the show from
from that side it's really cool it's
something we haven't seen before i don't
i don't believe so um you get to like
change the cameras at will um
and basically how how you think you
should run the show you finally get the
chance to run the show that way try as
you might you know you i know you want
to maybe cheese a five-star rating out
of there i know i i'm assuming that's
probably what you would do um but
if you really want to get the highest
ratings you're gonna have to really be
good at your matchups because it's the
viewers that are gonna give you your
ratings at the end of the day
why you always gotta pick on me though
[Laughter]
yeah i feel like chris is saying lionel
isn't great at building these matchups
he's knocking
chris
chris is looking at my my stats and he's
just seeing like yeah i never got out of
the high school gym because i keep
blowing my budget you know like i i i
don't listen to you know i listen to
triple h all the time so you know like
i'm just a rule follower i guess man
brian i do want you to go into what
happens post match
definitely so regardless of whether you
are playing spectating or simulating
after you are completing your match card
you go to a nice host match breakdown
screen get a nice little match report
that you can click on for all of your
matches to show you like
well when you went in this match you can
see that these styles didn't quite click
or uh it was you know people were hoping
to see maybe a
higher popularity superstar in the main
event and we're surprised to see this
superstar in there so there's a lot of
really cool things that can really help
out uh for people like lionel who maybe
just go in and do whatever the heck
there we go here we go just just going
to keep piling it on huh
see how it is
and then we get a nice uh breakdown
screen that shows you um exactly what
you did that impacted your revenue it
impacted your viewership and as allen
alluded to earlier there's also some fun
social media posts on the side when you
get to these screens i'll giving you
hints but also giving you a little bit
of flavor
going into your specific my gm season
it's just cool having that kind of
flavor that kind of personality to my
gym that kind of grows as your season
grows throughout the
15 25 or 50 week season
i'm glad you brought that up but what
can our fans come to expect when they
actually play through a complete session
well i mean the the goal of the mode is
to win basically so you decide if you're
going to play against an ai gm or you
can play against another person you can
play local co-op um we've even figured
out a way to do some local some remote
play via steam remote play type of thing
so you can play a little bit of online
play that way so basically your goal is
to win so throughout the course of the
week you're going to put on weekly shows
you want to make those great but you're
building towards a pay-per-view every
five weeks so then there's real wwe
pay-per-views there's like backlash and
extreme rules with ending up with your
wrestlemania at the end so on your
courses you're going through there
you're trying to build up money unlock
new arenas get new logistics get better
crew all that type of stuff make your
show bigger and bigger make more money
and then go into wrestlemania with a
bunch of killer rivalries put on your
best show and then just go in and
destroy your opponent that's that's the
goal
so you mean how i'm going to destroy
chris the next time we play
multiplayer because you know i mean now
that i got all the tips i'm i'm i'm out
of the high school gym
putting smackdown on you chris done
yeah i don't know if you got all the
tips
[Laughter]
you know actually um speaking of like
going through the season and allen
mentioned this a little bit earlier he
mentioned the word dramas and basically
what dramas are is basically you as a gm
get to interact with either the
commissioner or which is triple h or
your superstars and they're going to be
asking you for like promises or like
rematches or triple h will be saying
you're doing this kind of poorly and
those are ways of getting tips as well
like triple h will tell you what you
should be doing better so i really hope
you're paying attention to those lineups
because they're you're gonna probably
need those along the way i don't need
those but i do wanna make sure i'm
keeping my superstars happy um that's
something that you're gonna have to also
manage throughout the season is your
superstars happiness and their morale
yeah i think one of the things that i
love that you guys have done was
building in those tips that you talk
about like even like when you talk about
the draft like that little hint at the
bottom of like hey here's who we
recommend you guys draft based on who
you already drafted and so like we hold
your hand throughout the entire process
which to me it makes it way less
intimidating when jumping in to this
brand new mode to our game people want
to draft their top guys guys that they
like which is great you know but it's
like well maybe this person will match
up a little bit better with that person
just so they understand it as opposed to
just going i have these two top stars
what's going on they're not getting the
ratings that i want it's like well you
have two guys that are slowly plotting
around each other and they're not
putting on a good match right so that's
where we're trying to help people uh put
on the best matches possible
that's that's one point when you're
talking about putting on those matches
and pairing people up properly they're
at the very end when it shows you the
match breakdown um
you'll get a certain amount of stars
obviously but then there'll be comments
like
one and a half stars disappointing and
that
hurts could have picked anywhere
disappointing i'm like oh man but
christina does it does that hurt more
than like the fans calling you out for
having a terrible show i i get man that
stuff i get butthurt i'm sorry oh yeah
definitely like my show i mean it just
compiles at that point so it's
[Laughter]
there's nothing worse there's nothing
worse than being a smackdown show and
just seeing if someone like oh raw
really did great this
happened smackdown yeah
y'all we are just about out of time
so i got one final question so you're
pulling up my gm for the first time
which gm are you picking what brand are
you running and who's your first draft
pick
let's start with
lionel because there's been a lot of
smack talk oh okay
smack talk so i'm gonna stick with
smackdown because i'm gonna lay the
smackdown on chris
and alan if you want to step in too like
i got i got it all for you guys brian
what do you mean
uh and uh for my gm i am choosing adam
pierce for obvious reasons we have a lot
of things in common
shiny domes uh but yeah uh that that's
my top two right there
alan no no no wait hold on chris you've
done the most smack talking today so
you're next i feel like back and forth i
think it was equal um
well he took my show i was going to go
smackdown behind because you were
talking all that mess i got gotta go
smackdown
you know what i'm gonna go nxt uk and
i'm gonna beat his smackdown easy um
because you know you'll see you'll see
what the power card is and then you'll
be scared and you'll be scared but for
my gm
uh i'm gonna go with shane mcmahon
because we also have something in common
oh it's gonna that's gonna be a battle
for the ages just
don't worry he's fired man i'm gonna
practice my people's eyebrow man i'm
gonna get that down and whoop that candy
ass
[Laughter]
all right allen who you got
um i definitely have to go with sonny
deville because she has a uh her power
card is basically she boosts the morale
of the roster which is very useful for
when i'm you know driving people to
ground making them very upset they come
and complain to me like she's gonna take
care of them make sure that it's all
good so they're gonna hang out gonna be
okay um then i would probably pick rob
because that allows you to
basically mess with the other show and
beat us some of their superstars um but
then once again
when i'm doing my draft i like to draft
in paris look at guys that match up
really well so i'd probably go with um
walter and rey mysterio because you know
the big guy and the little guy they're
gonna put on a great match you know and
they're gonna mix really well together
got a good guy and a bad guy it's gonna
work out well together
that was a very thoughtful answer
yeah very very thoughtful
brian how about you
uh well i'm gonna go with probably
the best gm you can pick and that is
me
i'm gonna be the gm that i pick uh
because like i said we could have custom
gm so i'm gonna make my own character uh
through community through creations you
can even download them through community
creations uh i'm gonna create myself i'm
gonna put myself as the gm uh i'm gonna
be and even as a created gm you still
get an awesome power card so i'll get
the ability to uh raise the popularity
of my lowest popularity superstar by 20
right off the bat so that's awesome and
that fits with what i want to do because
i want to go to nxt where i get all my
title where i get a title match uh that
gets a bonus uh to my ratings uh and i'm
gonna i'm gonna draft john cena i'm
gonna put him with a bunch of maybe
lower popularity up and coming
superstars and have like a little david
versus goliath thing thing going on you
know uh maybe a little john cena versus
dexter loomis or something you know for
wrestlemania i think we can make that
happen
i think the fans want to see it
nice
all right i forgot i forgot to who's my
first pick i'm picking
some enhancement talent a free agent
i'ma pick the silence or whatever the
mime is that's my guy i mean he's gonna
tear you up chris just well i'm going
roman reigns so you can acknowledge that
okay
it's gonna be like this the whole time
right shut you up
so christina
right back at you who are you picking
all right well initially i was gonna go
stephanie mcmahon but i have this really
fresh my gm suit on so i'm gonna go with
brian's answer i'm gonna
treat myself
i'm gonna run raw
and i'm gonna pick the esc bianca
bellaire
and then i'm gonna go against brian
oh there we go
you do the bianca taunt like twirling
rock that ponytail
all right y'all that is all the time we
have for today thank you so much to alan
brian and chris for joining us on
today's episode
that's great
we're gonna try this again
all right y'all
that's it for our time today thank you
to chris allen and brian for joining us
on today's episode about my gm and if
you missed our kickoff episode about all
things gameplay click the link below to
check it out
thank you all for tuning in we will talk
to you again soon and in the meantime
check us out on social media wwe games
peace
[Music]
you