LAW Patch Notes - Year 5? 6?

[winner3]

Hey guys. Winner3 here. In the past, I've often been pretty wordy with these. So I'm gonna try to keep this set of announcements nice and concise.

Previous Announcements that some users may have missed

I've had multiple users message me either asking or not knowing about the following. So I'm addressing them here:

- What happened to the middleweight title?
The middleweight title has been vacated and will be awarded to one of the middleweights that finish LAW Apex.
You can find more detailed information here

- LAW works internationally?
Yes. You can have any thread or match take place in any major city or really any place you'd like and you are encouraged to do so if it fits a story you have in mind (like a match taking place in a wrestler's hometown, for example). LAW threads are not locked to just Japan, though LAW HQ is stationed in Japan)

Updates to the intro section: I've rewritten parts of the newbie guide, mostly this page which I hope both new and long-time users find useful

New Direction: Throughout the past year to year and a half, LAW events have been very large in scope. The PPV's keep getting bigger, LAW Apex has been all-encompassing. This has and can create situations where users who miss out on a PPV or another event feel like they'll be waiting a very long time before they'll get to participate in anything else that ties stories and characters together like events do. It also creates situations where users feel like they need to sign up for every possible new event idea that comes up because they don't know when the next big thing will be.

So going forward, I'll be doing my best to go the route of doing more events more often, and keeping them small enough in scope so that things feel engaging and so that everyone feels like there's something for them to be a part of and get excited about.

So let's get into the changes for the existing stuff and the new things to come

PPV's -> Restructured

• There will be no more division between Main Card and Undercard. Going forward, it will be one big PPV card

• The requirement for a character (barring exceptions) to appear at a PPV will still be having 3 completed matches. All matches are the equivalent of Main Card matches

• I've felt there's an expectation among users that every title ought to be defended at every LAW PPV Event. While users with champions are encouraged to defend at events, we will be doing away with this expectation both in and out of continuity. Champions are expected to be actively used, but they don't necessarily have to defend at every PPV.

Explanation

LAW's come a very long way as a community. We've grown quite a bit. Each year, the PPVs get bigger cards. And while that is exciting, in the past year or so, we've trended towards having big events less often rather than smaller events more often. That's not to say that we can't ever have big events again. But when PPVs get large enough, they not only become harder for me to organize, but it also becomes harder to keep track of all the big matches and stories.

When the cards are too big, things can get lost in the shuffle, and people who don't manage to get a PPV match end up having to wait for quite some time to find their way into another event. For all these reasons, I'm choosing to enact these changes.

Formal Introduction of Supercards

• You can think of these as mini-PPVs or special episodes of a usual wrestling program

• For our purposes, these will replace/iterate upon the undercards of PPVs. Users are encouraged to use these for events for lower-card and mid-card wrestlers, but you are also welcome to include upper-card match-ups and title defenses to help these events feel important. Champions are encouraged to defend at these events if they chose to skip a PPV

• Finally, in order to keep these smaller in scope than PPVs, users will be limited to one match for each card, plus one additional match for a title defense if they are booked for one for a maximum of 2 matches per user per Supercard event

Explanation

My (hopefully effective) approach to getting more events going alongside PPVs and other events. By giving each user a max of 1-2 matches, my hope is that we get a collection of fun, small events going that feels engaging.

Please be aware that if you have a match from an official event or PPV from a year or more ago, you may be asked to complete it before being allowed to get a match added to the card for a PPV, Supercard, or another official event (exceptions can occasionally be made).

Now that LAW Supercards are a thing, I'd like to announce a few.

Martial LAW - An event that is meant to pit wrestlers of different weight classes against one another. There is more information in the link if you are interested, but the idea my hope is to encourage users to have wrestlers represent their weight classes going into their matches. The weight class that wins most matches here will earn a tournament event similar to the Lightweight Classic, where members of a given weight class compete to crown a winner that may receive a championship opportunity. The tentative date for this event is Feb 18th


Do or Die - A mixed event Supercard that I'll be using to gauge interest in the mixed division at LAW. If you'd like to see the division prosper, please show your support by joining and letting me know what you'd like to see for the mixed division for this event and beyond. The tentative date for this event is March 18th


Wildcard Tag Event Part 2 - I'd like to run a follow-up to the first Wildcard Tag Event, an event in which LAW Management pairs very unwilling wrestlers, rivals, and enemies, into tag team to take on another unlikely duo and risk backlash from management if they walk out on their partners. This time around, I want users to volunteer teams/pairings they'd like to see in the linked post. I feel that will make things more engaging.The tentative date for this event is April 17th


Moving on to Non-Supercard Events and Important Dates

Queen of the Ring Tournament - People have been asking me for/about this for heckin' years. The Martial LAW Event already implies that there will be another tourney besides this one in the future. But if there's one thing LAW's history has proven to me, especially in the early days, it's that our users love tournaments. So I'm confident things will work even with multiple tournaments in the cards. The tentative date for this event is April 17th


We Are LAW 6 - This will be our first PPV following the rules I've laid out far above. For those uninitiated, We Are LAW tends to be our biggest PPV of the year. I realize that We Are LAW has been getting pushed back year after year for some time now. But I think it's been with good reason. Hopefully starting next year, we can pull it back close to Jan/Feb. The tentative date for this event is May 19th


LAW Apex - I think by now, everyone's familiar with Apex. I'm giving this event as much time as I can so that everyone can (hopefully) comfortably finish everything they need to for this event. LAW Apex will be used to crown both our Middleweight Champion and our World Openweight Champion.
While it is unfortunate that only 1 character can win the gold in this event, I have to say that Apex overall has been a success and I hope you all feel the same way. The goal with Apex was to build a robust and fun world title scene and storylines that would help shape the very top of the card and the height of the roster at LAW. And even going by the list of contenders I've been logging (it hasn't been fully updated but I'll try to get on that), and going by the front page, you can see that there are tons of characters that could believably be World Champion or very strong, very viable contenders. It is my belief that many of these characters will contend for the belt, and many of them will become World Champions in the coming years. Thank you all for bearing with me and for through all this. The tentative date for the end of Apex is June 31st

Some of you have pitched your own event ideas to me. I encourage you to post them in the event ideas section and to garner feedback. If you're reading this and you have event ideas you'd like to see brought to life or if you'd like to oversee an event you have in mind, please let me know. I will try to do what I can to assist, though I'll be occupied managing the above. You don't have to participate in every event. My hope is that there is enough going on and enough options that users can pick and choose what they want to get excited about and what they want to participate in, and that champions will be able to defend and play out the stories of their reigns at their leisure without having to hyper-focus on PPVs.

Finally, I'm sure there are those of you that question or disagree with some of my decisions as admin. From day 1, I've always done what I thought would be best for this community and I've always given it my all. If you feel I've done anything with LAW that you don't like or if you feel that myself or the community have let you down in any way, please let me know what you feel I can do to make things better for you.

Much love, everyone. Thank you all so much for being a part of what makes LAW great

[winner3]

Hello. Below is a list of relevant updates for the events described in the above post. If you have any questions, please make sure you fully read the explanation posts linked in the announcement post above.

Martial LAW

• LAST CALL: This event is is scheduled to begin on February 18th. The card is currently 4 matches long (which is fine, as Supercards are meant to be on the smaller side), but this is the last call to those that may be interested in getting a match for this event. After a week from today (February 14th), signups will be closed. Please make sure you read the Martial LAW post before proposing a match-up so that you can be prepared to propose matches with characters that qualify

Do or Die

• No Significant Updates: Card is currently 5 matches long. If you have any interest in the success/progress of mixed wrestling at LAW, please consult the Do or Die post

Wildcard Tag 2

• Next Steps: There have been many teams proposed and many teams validated/consented to by both RP'ers in the team. That's an awesome start in and of itself. In order to progress to the point of arranging actual matches between the pairs of RP'ers that are willing to team, I'll try to create a discord server to facilitate discussion. I'll try to wrangle people to join it and discuss. I'll do my best

Queen of The Ring Tournament

• LAST CALL: At this point in time, we now have approximately 10 entrants. 6 of which are qualified, 2 are doing Queen of the Ring Qualifiers, and 2 are working on qualifying via Apex. Tournaments are fun but they are a task to organize. In order to avoid the number going over 12-16, I'm going to close signups in 2 weeks from now, on February 27th. Priority will go to those that have qualified or have started Queen of The Ring qualifiers. I will be sending a list of entrants to those that have expressed desire to enter in the hopes of getting a preliminary view of their opinions and feelings on match-ups, the event, and so on.
  
  If you are interested in joining the event, please read the Queen of the Ring post linked in the announcement post above. And please be cognizant of the fact that like most things in LAW canon, the tournament serves as a plot device to tell stories in the many matches within it. There can only be 1 winner. You shouldn't be entering to win, you should be entering to elevate the status of your character and others and to put on great matches and spur stories/RP from those matches and from this event as a whole.

We Are LAW 6

• No Significant Updates: Many users are familiar with this PPV. Please remember to read the notes on PPV changes in the announcement post above. This event is still a ways off.

LAW Apex

• Some Updates: Like the Queen of The Ring Tourney, there can only be 1 winner for Apex. But the event is so much more than that and I hope that gets across to users even long after the event is over. I'd like to think Apex has succeeded in building a vast, diverse, and competitive World Title scene. This particular update, however, concerns the deadline for Apex and LAW Middleweight title
  
  After being queried for this by 10+ users, I have consented to pushing back the deadline for Apex until the end of May. Apex will now end May 31st. You have until that date to finish all qualifiers and Apex matches.
  
  The way things are currently, The Middleweight Title is a bit of an afterthought in the grander scheme of Apex. I, of course, don't want that. The title has meaningful history and prestige in its own right, representing the largest weight division there is at LAW. In order to avoid the feeling of the Middleweight Title feeling like a "silver medal" at Apex, I'm going to enact two changes
  
  1) The Middleweight Title will be awarded at least a month before The Openweight Title. I think that timing works better than awarding the title at the same time as the Openweight Title or afterwards. If anyone disagrees, please let me know
  
  2) In a month or so, I will be reaching out to/canvassing users with Apex-qualified middleweights about their preference for the title they want their character to come away with. You will be asked whether you want your middleweight to be put forward for the Openweight Title or the Middleweight Title, but you will not be able to put them forward for both. The reason for this is that if you participated in Apex with the hope of winning the Openweight Title, coming away with the Middleweight Title will make it feel like a silver medal to you. I think the best thing that could happen to the Middleweight Title right now is for it to go to an active and passionate user that actually wants to win it and use it for stories in a Middleweight Title run, hopefully to elevate the belt and make it mean as much to others as it does to them. Again, if you feel differently, please let your voice be heard either here or by reaching out to me directly.

That's everything for now. Thank you for bearing with me, everyone.

[winner3]

Update: I've added more specific updates in some of the event pages but TLDR - Wildcard Tag pushed back a month to April 17th; Queen of the Ring signups are closing; Next PPV/We Are LAW pushed to May 19th