EWR Stats and Scenarios in Theory and Practice

[OGpistolpete]

Here's something else to consider about tag teams that might prevent "ADD A TAG TEAM OF JERN CENER AN RAY MYSTERY, THEY TEAMED ON THE RAW" from continuing to be normal.

Let's say that, in your given EWR game, you decide to have a tag team match on your show. For simplicity's sake, let's assume you're doing a current WWE game, and you're running top feuds between Daniel Bryan & Randy Orton and another between Big Show & Alberto Del Rio. You decide to end a TV episode of Raw with a tag team match that encompasses both feuds, with Bryan and Show against Orton and Del Rio (so fairly typical Raw booking).

Unless I'm mistaken, in EWR, neither team will gain tag team experience unless they are actually made into a team. Most players, of course, would not make these into teams; after all, the match was made to put together a typical face/heel tag team main event for Raw, and there's obviously no intent to have Bryan and Show form a permanent tag team.

Let's reverse the scenario and imagine this match happened on Raw, and let's even say a rematch happened on Smackdown (and, hell, let's even say they ran it on some house shows). The intent is still obviously to use a tag team match to build two singles feuds, not to form a permanent tag team. But in all likelihood, someone would drop in a stats thread and say we should make Bryan and Show a tag team with "2-3 experience."

My question is this: what's the value of this?

Because we now have a whole fuck-ton of first-run wrestling television on all week long (Raw, Smackdown, Superstars, Main Event, and god I'm sure there's more)--along with house shows--it stands to reason that a lot of small tag teams are going to be put together for no reason but to fill a card. By what criteria do these get added?

The result of making a team in EWR and putting them together in a tag team match is usually that they gain a point or two of team experience; therefore, you can have the same result if you put Show and Bryan together in a tag team, then have them fight in a tag team twice.

Is it really worth adding to an already hilariously bloated list of tag teams to add new teams all the time?

There is no value to it.

As a solution for future addition of tag teams, I suggest the requirement of a minimum experience level needed for the creation of a tag team between two workers. Maybe something as small as 5, while I'd suggest 10. I don't think the addition of recently played out combinations of heels and babyfaces is a bad thing per monthly update, and would require Bill to only look up the last month or two of results from the big companies and add something like Bryan/Big Show to the data with a minimal amount of experience. Obviously the level of experience is completely subjective, so arguments may still come into play, but at least it would funnel out the addition of needless teams. At the same time, deleting teams that haven't been used in ages is another efficient method in cleaning up data and gameplay of scenarios to go along with this new policy of tag team addition.

[Nerf]

You guys do realize that there doesn't need to be strictly adhered rules for this shit right? Common sense is a viable alternative.

[mkpunk]

You guys do realize that there doesn't need to be strictly adhered rules for this shit right? Common sense is a viable alternative.

Common sense is a natural resource on the internet that is at low levels.

I say if the team has a tag name by 5 matches of regular teaming. add them. If they don't, make it 10. Mainly because most of the teams with names wont be broken up as easily baring injury or suspension (looks at Evan Bourne.)

[TheWho87]

I'd say for simplicity I'd have it so they have to have been teaming for at least month

[jupiterhill]

Just to bring something up since we've been discussing tag teams- is there a reason Robert Gibson isn't in the game (or did I miss him somewhere?) I find it odd that Rock & Roll Express isn't in the game even though they still compete. I'm not saying he needs to be added (or else I would put it in the suggestions thread), but I do wonder now if there are other aging tag teams that are not in the game for whatever reason.

[mkpunk]

Just to bring something up since we've been discussing tag teams- is there a reason Robert Gibson isn't in the game (or did I miss him somewhere?) I find it odd that Rock & Roll Express isn't in the game even though they still compete. I'm not saying he needs to be added (or else I would put it in the suggestions thread), but I do wonder now if there are other aging tag teams that are not in the game for whatever reason.

I think Robert Gibson was briefly a WWE trainer and was moved to being a trainer and that didn't last...

[Hornswoggle4PM]

Yeah, I was surprised to not see Robert Gibson listed as a worker, he should probably be put back to there and given a tick in the "trainer" box so when he does retire that can still happen.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Okay, so I've just read through this whole topic and have picked out a few things I'd like to add my voice to.

Spoilers purely because I hate when people clog up the pages with long posts.

Firstly, I'm one of those people who would potentially use guys like Scott Snot down the line, especially for a revamped XPW promotion. I was also disappointed to see Raj Ghosh as a deletion candidate, as I've used him before in the game. I'm not saying they shouldn't be deleted, but don't think because you never used them that nobody ever used them at all.

Fairly unknown and talentless workers with notable backgrounds should stay, and while I don't know enough to say either of these two are noteworthy, that should be considered too. For the Backyard to Global games, I think the only time this issue should arise is when people want to delete substantial amounts of workers who work for under 5-10k per show. Otherwise, that probably shouldn't be an excuse.

Deleting workers based on their nationality? Seriously, one of the worst ideas I've heard. Although EWR is designed to be a North American wrestling simulator, it wouldn't be too hard to create a promotion and run it as if it was in Europe, India, Australia etc. and you need a good variety of international workers for that to be able to happen.

Aside from that, another thing I've noticed is that upon turning 50 it appears that every worker automatically becomes a non-wrestler, so maybe that will prove helpful to someone (not sure exactly how, but it could).

I seem to remember one of the errors in EWR's mechanics is that owner preferences are linked wrong. So, if you choose "prefers entertainers," they will actually hire high fliers instead. I'm not making that up, am I?

Sort of. I've briefly tested some of the game mechanics just out of interest, and on easy level they do shift up or down one option (eg. Linda McMahon hires technical wrestlers instead of "going for sports entertainment"), but on medium it certainly does not change the owner preferences. Haven't played for a good deal of time on either Hard or Rock Hard so I'm not sure about those, but that's easy to test out.

Non-workers- I don't have a problem keeping them in. It may seem like it just takes a couple seconds to add them back in, but when you just have 4 or 5 guys a month you need to add just because they pop up a few times a year, it makes more sense just to keep them in. I do agree though that their stats do need to decrease over time though. Bill has stated many times that he has a few pages of backlog that he tries to work on each month in addition to the suggestions made by people. No need to make more pages just to add/remove people who are still alive and in the game.

I think the first thing though is removing some of the relationships, then we can weed out some of the retired workers. I think maybe if a 5 year limit would be good. If they haven't wrestled or been used more than a couple times since say 2008, we could start removing them.

I think this same rule could apply to tag teams, I mean there are teams like Heidenreich/Rodney Mack and Al Snow/Kane who to my knowledge haven't teamed up in years and who I think very few would even use. I have a lot of time on my hands so I could take a look at the teams that could be removed and list them here.

There's currently over 4000 teams so I think this would be in order.

So I think teams that have one or more of these should be removed:

A) Haven't teamed together since 2008 (Al Snow and Kane)

B) Have very little experience and/or were randomly thrown together (Mysterio and HBK)

C) Have very little chance of ever teaming again (Bret Hart and Goldberg)

D) Superstar-Diva teams (AJ and Punk)

how does this sound?

ofc teams like Edge and Christian, New Age Outlaws etc are safe from this one.

I've removed parts of your post(s) that didn't seem to be heavily related to what I'm posting here. Firstly, are you seriously suggesting that we'd have to add in 4 or 5 people each month who have been deleted based on some pretty decent criteria we're setting out here? I'd think about 10 a year would be the absolute maximum people would ask to be re-added into the game. Also, plenty of people who were in wrestling and are alive would not considering going back to wrestling, like the example posted with Lash LeRoux.

You're right, dodgy relationships should be a higher priority than old tag teams getting deleted. Having said that, 5 years without teaming together should not make any team immediate candidates for deletion. When combined with other criteria, then yes but if for example a team with 50+ experience or a team of relatives don't team together for this time, it is still reasonable to assume that they'd gel well as a unit if and when they reunited, and by removing the team you lose this dynamic which is quite important for the match quality ratings of tag matches. This is also why I'm in favour of keeping teams similar to Rey-Batista where one wrestler has decided to retire and could conceivably work a match in future. Being a non-wrestler shouldn't have anything to do with deleting this team unless the non-wrestler is physically incapable of stepping into a ring and throwing a couple of punches, in which case it should be dealt with in the worker's stats foremost anyway.

TL;DR, 5 years alone and one of them is a non-wrestler are not sufficient on their own for a team's deletion.

Let's say that, in your given EWR game, you decide to have a tag team match on your show. For simplicity's sake, let's assume you're doing a current WWE game, and you're running top feuds between Daniel Bryan & Randy Orton and another between Big Show & Alberto Del Rio. You decide to end a TV episode of Raw with a tag team match that encompasses both feuds, with Bryan and Show against Orton and Del Rio (so fairly typical Raw booking).

Unless I'm mistaken, in EWR, neither team will gain tag team experience unless they are actually made into a team. Most players, of course, would not make these into teams; after all, the match was made to put together a typical face/heel tag team main event for Raw, and there's obviously no intent to have Bryan and Show form a permanent tag team.

Let's reverse the scenario and imagine this match happened on Raw, and let's even say a rematch happened on Smackdown (and, hell, let's even say they ran it on some house shows). The intent is still obviously to use a tag team match to build two singles feuds, not to form a permanent tag team. But in all likelihood, someone would drop in a stats thread and say we should make Bryan and Show a tag team with "2-3 experience."

My question is this: what's the value of this?

Because we now have a whole fuck-ton of first-run wrestling television on all week long (Raw, Smackdown, Superstars, Main Event, and god I'm sure there's more)--along with house shows--it stands to reason that a lot of small tag teams are going to be put together for no reason but to fill a card. By what criteria do these get added?

The result of making a team in EWR and putting them together in a tag team match is usually that they gain a point or two of team experience; therefore, you can have the same result if you put Show and Bryan together in a tag team, then have them fight in a tag team twice.

Is it really worth adding to an already hilariously bloated list of tag teams to add new teams all the time?

I realise I'm not an average player of EWR but I actually do create tag-teams every time I put two workers in a 2 vs 2 match. I feel it leaves my options open for if they've teamed together in the past and allows me to look at their history together (not a lot in 70-80% of cases, but I think you get my point). I've tried the same for 3 vs 3 matches, and they do not count towards any tag team experience whatsoever.

I think a good way to solve new tag teams is to simply not add any team under 10 experience. If we cannot say they have, or will have 10 tag matches together, there is no point in adding them to the data.

Say for example, Santino and Khali. They have teamed together on recent Raws and even a PPV, but I don't feel they need to be added, if they team semi regularly for the next month, then okay, maybe they should be added.

It would eliminate adding teams that were together once or twice and then never again. I don't think someone not having a team with 1 experience going into the game is going to be a game changer, and they could always just create it themselves if it is that important, but in the long run, it would prevent having a huge number of tag teams with no experience and make it much easier to go through the tag team section in game.

This is an idea that could easily work, but we need to allow for a rare example when there is a team with under 10 experience is clearly going to last for longer. Most of the time you can tell when there is a team put together if they are intended to be a one-off, but if they work together 3 times in a month or actually win a title, there's a case for adding them.

Yes, very long-winded but I'm interested in this and want it to amount to something at least.

[Skummy]

Fairly unknown and talentless workers with notable backgrounds should stay

Maybe I'm missing something, but if someone is "fairly unknown", I can't see how they could also have a "notable background"?

In terms of deleting workers, it should come down to two things - when they last wrestled, and how much information is available about them.

Scott Snot, for example, isn't even on the first page of Google results for the name "Scott Snot", so clearly isn't "notable" in the slightest.

Raj Ghosh, your other example, hasn't wrestled since 2007. It's not a case of "just because you haven't used them, someone might have done", as conceivably that covers every worker in the game, but it brings up what's basically the key discussion of this entire thread - what's more important to people, something exhaustive in size, or something tailored to suit the game's mechanics?

As for deleting foreign workers - it's an interesting point. I disagree with the notion that foreign workers should be deleted just because it's a North American simulator, as plenty of workers from all over the world could conceivably go to work in North America. However, the argument that a promotion based outside of North America could be simulated in the game by running it "as if" it wasn't doesn't work for me. Again, that's looking to the game as something you can tailor to the needs of a stats update, rather than looking to the stats updates as something there to make the most of the game. EWR is a North American wrestling simulator, so should not be used to simulate international promotions, as it's not designed to do so.

That does not mean, though, that international workers should definitely be deleted to accomodate for that. But I would suggest that more obscure workers from outside North America could possibly be a candidate for deletion prior to active North American workers.

I've not played EWR in years, but I don't remember ever coming across wrestlers automatically becoming non-wrestlers when they turn 50? I know that wrestlers are more likely to become non-wrestlers after a certain age (35?), rather than going straight into full retirement, but I didn't think it was as set in stone as "when they turn 50". Probably worth looking into.

As for tag teams...there's some common sense you can apply there, I think. I don't think it's as simple as "delete them if they've not teamed together in X years". It depends on the nature of the team. It should probably be a combination of experience and time since they teamed; so, for example, if a team like The Midnight Express only come out of retirement to do a tag match every few years, that shouldn't warrant them being deleted in the interim, because they've still got 1000s of matches worth of experience before that. It's a rule that, I'd think, you could apply common sense to more than anything, though a lack of common sense in stats updates and the requests made of them is what necessitated this thread in the first place, so perhaps not.

[Hornswoggle4PM]

Not sure how to break up a quote into individual parts on the new board, so I'll include my responses in the original quote.

Fairly unknown and talentless workers with notable backgrounds should stay

Maybe I'm missing something, but if someone is "fairly unknown", I can't see how they could also have a "notable background"?

Sorry, I should've worded that better. When I said fairly unknown, I meant workers with low overness. I only bring this up because a few people were suggesting earlier in this topic deleting a list of low-overness workers before it was pointed out that they had worked regularly for companies such as PWG or ROH.

In terms of deleting workers, it should come down to two things - when they last wrestled, and how much information is available about them.

This. A million times this. Deleting workers should be based mainly on these two principles.

Scott Snot, for example, isn't even on the first page of Google results for the name "Scott Snot", so clearly isn't "notable" in the slightest.

Raj Ghosh, your other example, hasn't wrestled since 2007. It's not a case of "just because you haven't used them, someone might have done", as conceivably that covers every worker in the game, but it brings up what's basically the key discussion of this entire thread - what's more important to people, something exhaustive in size, or something tailored to suit the game's mechanics?

I agree 100%. The point I was trying to make here was that some posters were assuming because most players had never used these types of workers, they should all be deleted which I think is a ludicrous idea, as it would leave the game with under 1000 workers in it. Plus, we can always add in these sort of people again ourselves provided there is some kind of record of when they were last in the database.

As for deleting foreign workers - it's an interesting point. I disagree with the notion that foreign workers should be deleted just because it's a North American simulator, as plenty of workers from all over the world could conceivably go to work in North America. However, the argument that a promotion based outside of North America could be simulated in the game by running it "as if" it wasn't doesn't work for me. Again, that's looking to the game as something you can tailor to the needs of a stats update, rather than looking to the stats updates as something there to make the most of the game. EWR is a North American wrestling simulator, so should not be used to simulate international promotions, as it's not designed to do so.

That does not mean, though, that international workers should definitely be deleted to accomodate for that. But I would suggest that more obscure workers from outside North America could possibly be a candidate for deletion prior to active North American workers.

I get where you're coming from here, and in principle I agree. But most of the people who would be potentially deleted are American, so nationality should not really be a deciding factor.

I've not played EWR in years, but I don't remember ever coming across wrestlers automatically becoming non-wrestlers when they turn 50? I know that wrestlers are more likely to become non-wrestlers after a certain age (35?), rather than going straight into full retirement, but I didn't think it was as set in stone as "when they turn 50". Probably worth looking into.

Yeah, I was very surprised by this myself and would greatly appreciate if someone else could run a full year's simulation just to make sure this is actually a game mechanic and my data isn't corrupted. My thinking is that at age 35 is when workers can first decide to either retire or become a non-wrestler.

Mostly un-related to that, but I recall hearing that Terry Funk never retires, presumably until he reaches the maximum age in the game. Can anyone confirm or deny?

As for tag teams...there's some common sense you can apply there, I think. I don't think it's as simple as "delete them if they've not teamed together in X years". It depends on the nature of the team. It should probably be a combination of experience and time since they teamed; so, for example, if a team like The Midnight Express only come out of retirement to do a tag match every few years, that shouldn't warrant them being deleted in the interim, because they've still got 1000s of matches worth of experience before that. It's a rule that, I'd think, you could apply common sense to more than anything, though a lack of common sense in stats updates and the requests made of them is what necessitated this thread in the first place, so perhaps not.

My point entirely, just put far more eloquently.

Edited November 11, 2013 by Hornswoggle4PM

[Reflecto Is My Favorite Poster]

Scott Snot, for example, isn't even on the first page of Google results for the name "Scott Snot", so clearly isn't "notable" in the slightest.

Raj Ghosh, your other example, hasn't wrestled since 2007. It's not a case of "just because you haven't used them, someone might have done", as conceivably that covers every worker in the game, but it brings up what's basically the key discussion of this entire thread - what's more important to people, something exhaustive in size, or something tailored to suit the game's mechanics?

I agree 100%. The point I was trying to make here was that some posters were assuming because most players had never used these types of workers, they should all be deleted which I think is a ludicrous idea, as it would leave the game with under 1000 workers in it. Plus, we can always add in these sort of people again ourselves provided there is some kind of record of when they were last in the database.

Personally- I scour the updates for anyone of any perceived value. I blatantly hoard wrestlers when I'm playing EWR for fun. If you're talking to someone like me, there's no player in the game I wouldn't use for my fun games- but I do know that it's ludicrous to keep everyone. But the bigger problem is all the people saying 'cut everyone I never heard of', which would be a blatant problem since if you do that, you'll ONLY be left with WWE,TNA, ROH, SHIMMER, CHIKARA, and MAYBE PWG alumni in the game- which is too unreasonable as well and won't give the real problem (you'll be more likely to see a Non-Wrestler who used to work for WWE 10-15 years ago stay in the game and an active free agent who didn't get deleted because less people heard of the latter- which isn't suiting the game's mechanics, but just "But I WANNA make a promotion of all the stars I loved whether they're active or not!.)

As for deleting foreign workers - it's an interesting point. I disagree with the notion that foreign workers should be deleted just because it's a North American simulator, as plenty of workers from all over the world could conceivably go to work in North America. However, the argument that a promotion based outside of North America could be simulated in the game by running it "as if" it wasn't doesn't work for me. Again, that's looking to the game as something you can tailor to the needs of a stats update, rather than looking to the stats updates as something there to make the most of the game. EWR is a North American wrestling simulator, so should not be used to simulate international promotions, as it's not designed to do so.

That does not mean, though, that international workers should definitely be deleted to accomodate for that. But I would suggest that more obscure workers from outside North America could possibly be a candidate for deletion prior to active North American workers.

I get where you're coming from here, and in principle I agree. But most of the people who would be potentially deleted are American, so nationality should not really be a deciding factor.

It shouldn't be the total deciding factor because international workers could work in North America, but there should still use international wrestlers as a distinct tiebreaker, in certain scenarios where North America simulators take priority.

For example: The two wrestlers used in Hornswoggle4PM's examples: Scott Snot and Raj Ghosh. Both performers are in the game as Non-Wrestlers, so they're both considered effectively retired. Scott Snot is an American former XPW performer, Raj Ghosh is a British person who was a regular on the UK indy scene, but never really crossed over to North America. As Non-Wrestlers, the game would consider both people part-timers.

With this in mind: Of these two things, is it more likely that a North American promoter would have Scott Snot show up at his show , or is it more likely a North American promoter would be able to get a semi-retired UK standout who never made a dent in North America to not only come out of retirement, but come out of retirement and start wrestling in North America where they'd basically be starting from scratch?

Of the two, it's more feasible that the North American promoter brings Scott Snot in than Raj Ghosh- and as a result, if it's down to those two guys- one of them HAS to be deleted, Ghosh should be the one deleted.

I've not played EWR in years, but I don't remember ever coming across wrestlers automatically becoming non-wrestlers when they turn 50? I know that wrestlers are more likely to become non-wrestlers after a certain age (35?), rather than going straight into full retirement, but I didn't think it was as set in stone as "when they turn 50". Probably worth looking into.

Yeah, I was very surprised by this myself and would greatly appreciate if someone else could run a full year's simulation just to make sure this is actually a game mechanic and my data isn't corrupted. My thinking is that at age 35 is when workers can first decide to either retire or become a non-wrestler.

Mostly un-related to that, but I recall hearing that Terry Funk never retires, presumably until he reaches the maximum age in the game. Can anyone confirm or deny?

That is in the game- it's an inside joke by Adam Ryland for his wrestling games that Terry Funk never retires.

Edited November 11, 2013 by Reflecto Is My Favorite Poster

[mkpunk]

Yeah, I was surprised to not see Robert Gibson listed as a worker, he should probably be put back to there and given a tick in the "trainer" box so when he does retire that can still happen.

I think there are a good number of guys who had that distinction. The fact is that many have wrestled after getting their release. Finlay comes to mind.

[apsham]

I think a lot of the guys who are in as trainers and road agents are just absolute overkill in a major way. Leave it up to the few people who have been in that position for years and bring some of them out as Non-Wrestlers, just because it would be nice to use them on screen if you so had the choice. Plus - the WWE promotion is SO over populated with workers that if you ever wanted to play as them you would certainly have to trim the fat majorly before even being able to start your game. ESPECIALLY in terms of the Production. Is Shane's wife still unsackable and stuck in production with low values as well?

That was VERY annoying especially when you only need one person for production to make the game happy.

[mkpunk]

I think a lot of the guys who are in as trainers and road agents are just absolute overkill in a major way. Leave it up to the few people who have been in that position for years and bring some of them out as Non-Wrestlers, just because it would be nice to use them on screen if you so had the choice. Plus - the WWE promotion is SO over populated with workers that if you ever wanted to play as them you would certainly have to trim the fat majorly before even being able to start your game. ESPECIALLY in terms of the Production. Is Shane's wife still unsackable and stuck in production with low values as well?

That was VERY annoying especially when you only need one person for production to make the game happy.

WWE has tons more people because some are specific to working for say RAW, SmackDown and now NXT.

I remember an issue with medics, trainers and road agents being that they were too low to run 30 somehow promotions in the game. This to me is a big reason why we have some.

[apsham]

I know why they're there basically - but for the game to work properly they don't HAVE to be there. Just look at how many releases the computer has to do. Someone who knows what they want/need with the way that EWR stats work shouldn't have to release all of those people on contract.. even if they're verbal it's a time loss, along with a money loss for written.

[Hornswoggle4PM]

For staff who are purely play-by-play announcers, road agents, trainers etc. I don't mind having them under staff, but for people who do regular colour commentary and/or still make occasional on-screen appearances, I agree that for the WWE at least they could be shifted to workers. But then that just creates an even more bloated workers roster, which means they do even bigger roster cuts at the start of a game. I might be missing something here, but it seems like a bit of a lose-lose situation when they actually have as many people working for them as that.

[apsham]

The way that I see it, there's absolutely no value in terms of having them as Staff instead of Workers. Even if they're released by a computer controlled WWE, they are there for the user and honestly - a lot of them are a lot and I mean A LOT bigger names than some of the people who deserve to be removed or trimmed from the roster/database. Some stats updates put in the damn ring announcers as well, when they have absolutely no conceivable role for 99.9% of the players. So some people can be rectified by being removed as well.

[Skummy]

I know why they're there basically - but for the game to work properly they don't HAVE to be there. Just look at how many releases the computer has to do. Someone who knows what they want/need with the way that EWR stats work shouldn't have to release all of those people on contract.. even if they're verbal it's a time loss, along with a money loss for written.

This is a valid, and very interesting point.

At the beginning of the game, look at how many workers and staff the WWE release. Or any other promotion for that matter. That shows you roughly how many of each a company of that size should have, by the game's definition.

That's almost the perfect example of contrasting how the game works against "realism"; how many of those workers or staff, realistically, are there for "completism" rather than actually being necessary to simulate the WWE? As there's no "ring announcer" role in EWR, are the likes of Howard Finkel, Tony Chimel and Justin Roberts even required, for example? And, again, the likes of Shane McMahon's wife being in the game as a staff worker.

[Colly]

I think the tricky thing there though is that when the game came out the WWE was just one entity, there hadn't yet been a brand split and there was no NXT. Because of that the game doesn't need the dozens of staff members who are listed at WWE for completeness, whereas if you were playing as WWE and didn't have say William Regal you'd be steaming.

Agree on the ring announcers thing though, why bother? Why aren't cameramen listed...

[Hornswoggle4PM]

Agreed, ring announcers always seemed like a strange thing to have in EWR, seeing as I can't remember any of them being used as a regular announcer. Potentially they could be transferred into something like 'production' or road agents if there aren't enough people for those roles.

[=BK=]

I think the tricky thing there though is that when the game came out the WWE was just one entity, there hadn't yet been a brand split and there was no NXT. Because of that the game doesn't need the dozens of staff members who are listed at WWE for completeness, whereas if you were playing as WWE and didn't have say William Regal you'd be steaming.

Agree on the ring announcers thing though, why bother? Why aren't cameramen listed...

The original data has the brand split and is the reason there is a brand split function in the game the first place iirc.