"Titles can be defended on any show.
Storylines make sense now and blend together better.
DRAFT!!!!! And it looks just like it does on TV, with the wrestler faces flipping through until one is picked. Even has the same music.
Everything just feels tighter, no more inferno matches for 8 straight PPV's.
Tag teams/stables stay together, some may still split up, but not anything like it was last year.
EVERYTHING can be edited. We'll get to that here in a few
I love Universe mode personally, feel in complete control of 3 shows.... (yes 3).
Superstars...
BUT
I did say everything is editable. So, you can make that show, whatever you want. Name it whatever you want (Same with Raw/Smackdown).
For instance, I made Nitro on Monday, complete with logo, arena, belts. Then made TNA Impact on Thursday (didn't have logo or arena, but those will obviously be created by the community probably in a matter of days after reelase). Then I put Raw on Friday night. You can then remove entire shows from the draft and for titles. So only wrestlers on TNA can complete for whatever titles you set for that show, no cross over unless you let it. When you set up the show, you name it, set the belts for it, etc.
Or you can have all 3 shows open and compete on other shows here and there.
Unfortunately the title rankings still isn't editable, so you can't just put Cody Rhodes as the #1 contender for every belt But you can give him a title shot whenever you want and for whatever show you want.
So as you can see, the ideas here are pretty much endless. Want an all ECW show? Sure! Want an all Legends show? Sure! Want Raw/Smackdown/Superstars as it is now, SURE!. Want John Cena and Randy Orton to be stuck together on GLOW on Friday nights? Go ahead.
Yes, it's that cool!
you can turn on/turn off anyone you want to be involved in the mode. So if you download 50 CAW's and only want to use them in your universe, go ahead.
You can edit titles for what they are set for. So if you want the WCW belt to be the TNA title, you can do that. Can't edit the actual title. Sorry.
There can be 3 World Titles, one for each show. There are 23 belts in the game to choose from and use.
I don't know all 23 belts in the game, only a few that were shown to me.
They are unlockable, but if you buy Fan Axxess, they are all unlocked from the start like last year.
Feuds: The same as last year in a way, just more natural than it was. Didn't feel as disjointed to me.
Rankings: I still saw some goofyness, not as bad as last year, but there was some. It's an easier fix now allowing title defenses on any show.
One big thing that I and others expressed we wanted back was a title history. So hoping that is in next year.
I didn't really experiment with heels vs heels to see what would happen. I know I kept a faction together for 5 months without anyone turning, until one guy did, and he was immediately a face and feuded with the faction leader. So at least it all made sense.
Commentary still sucks...it is what it is. Besides Cole being a heel, talking about Cole Miners, and praising all things Miz, it's not very good. LOL
Matches were 5 a show, up 1 from last year. Superstars only had 3/4 I believe. So whatever show you make on Thursday will have less matches.
Did not see new cutscenes that I noticed, but they were better placed than a guy sitting front row randomly every show.
Still in wrestling gear, reason is that the character models are caked on, so can't just add clothing options. That's why the Nexus armband last year couldn't be moved or adjusted for Wade Barrett and others. It was actually a part of him.
1. If I take the World Title off Smackdown, what happens on their show? Do I have to replace it with something? You can replace Smackdown's title with whatever belt you want.
2. If I assign them one of the other belts, say the WCW championship, will they have rankings for that belt or are rankings still only for WWE, World, US, Intercontinental and Tag belts? Ranking are set for each show's titles.
3. Can you split the tag belts like they used to be and have two separate sets of rankings? Did not mess with tag belts, sorry
4. Is there still just one announce team? Yes, just Cole/Lawler
5. I saw one of the achievements has something to do with getting 75% momentum in Universe with a caw... how does that work... is this like the popularity thing in GM mode? God I hope not. I'll let the IGN review explain that better, I didn't mess with actually doing too many matches myself in Universe, did mostly simming through it and played out things like the Rumble, MitB, and the Draft night (winner gets the draft pick).
6. Can you still give a caw any ratings you wish... we don't have to build them up through pointless grinding do we? Yes
7. Do you still see like the World champion competing for the US belt? Possible, but not as bad. The ratings are still not perfect.
Pretty sure PPV's had 6 or 7 matches, can't remember, it's more than a regular show.
Cannot move the date unfortuantely, Always a Monday, Thursday, Friday show.
There's a global setting, so if you change Monday to Nitro, it'll always stay that way until you change it back.
Can't edit PPV's.
Draft occurs after Mania.
I'll try to clarify this.. So Raw has the WWE Title and USA Title. ROH (Thursday show) has Random belt and Random Belt. Smackdown has World title and IC Title. Each show will have their own rankings for their own titles. Then you can lock down each show so only the participants on that show can compete for those titles.
Draft: All the matches occur on Raw. And no, it's completely random. You can obviously move them back. I didn't try if I cut Smackdown off from the draft what would happen, but my Thursday show was cut off and none of their wrestlers were involved. So each match was a Raw (nitro) guy vs. Smackdown (raw) guy. Winner got the draft pick for their show.
All 3 shows still on one PPV?: Unfortunately, it is. Since out of the box it recognizes that it's WWE. But you have the editing power to make it 3 different brands that don't intersect except for PPV's. You can obviously change all the matches though. It's a limitation I know they are looking to change, but not sure if it'll be ever given the green light by WWE. They don't have multiple PPV's a month so why would their game to accommodate other fed's. So the dev's basically found a way around the limitation. It works well.
Arenas: Every PPV, Raw, Smackdown, Superstars, NXT, Nitro, Clash of the Champions and Starrcade.
Editing matches on PPVs: Yes, you can edit each match. If you want Raw only PPV January, then a Smackdown one in February, and then a ROH one in March, you can do that. Just have to edit before the show.
Special Shows: Draft is the only special show. There is a Tribute to the Troops though.
For me, I loved Universe mode last year, kept me playing the game, but at the same time, I HATED how limited it was. I expressed this when I met with the devs of WWE '12.
Most, not all mind you, of my issues have been fixed and this will eat up TONS of time.
I still wish I could book matches better and keep better track of feuds. Still needs to steal or buy a text sim to really get Universe to where it needs to be. And still needs to get it online!
We tried to get that across as much as possible.
But in the mean time, Universe 2.0 will make many "sim" guru's for wrestling very happy."