With Authority

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WWF: With Authority was an online wrestling game created by Genetic Anomalies in conjuncture with World Wrestling Federation as it was known at the time, and THQ.

1 Gameplay
2 Criticism
3 Shutdown
4 References
5 External Links

[edit] Gameplay

At its core, WWF With Authority! was a Collectible Card Game in electonic form. Players could purchase virtual "Pages" and assemble them into a "Playbook." This playbook would represent the moves and abilities that your wrestler would be capable of pulling off in the ring.

WWE With Authority! was distributed as a downloadable freeware game and was available on CD in retail stores for US$5.00. The retail version came with a redemption code for a William Regal starter playbook. Players could purchase additional preconstructed playbooks for superstars comprised of complete selections of plays for US$10.00. Booster packs were also available for US$5.00 that include an assortment of random individual pages to accentuate your existing playbooks. A certain amount of rarer cards were guaranteed in each booster.

There is a single player mode, which is intended as a tutorial. Only one opponent in the tutorial is truly playable. The game was primarily geared towards the online multiplayer game, where as many as 50 to 200 people were available at any given time during the game's height. The game kept track of the player's wins, losses and draws, as well as the number of times a player has been cut off in the middle of a match. This feature was to discourage players from terminating the program to avoid taking a loss.^[1]

[edit] Criticism

WWF With Authority! was one of the first online collectible card games, along with Chron X, also from Genetic Anomalies. Player reception to the new genre was initially lukewarm. Some players were not comfortable with the concept of paying money for intangible goods ^[2]. While subsequent online collectible card games have enjoyed success, including Magic: The Gathering Online, Genetic Anomalies would not survive to see the genre flourish.

There was also a WWF collectible card game released at about the same time entitled Raw Deal, which was considered to be a better alternative to the online version. ^[3]

[edit] Shutdown

In January 2003, THQ ceased production of the game. The server remained online for several months. The freeware client can still be downloaded from some freeware distribution sites, but the game is no longer officially supported.

A peer-to-peer version of the game was released by THQ such that existing players could continue using the game with the pages they purchased. Various websites continue to offer competition and community for the game.^[4]^[5]