Video Description

This is meant as a visual supplement to freem’s (and my own) documentation on WCW/nWo Revenge. This is NOT going to be a ROM hack. With that cleared up, read on for more info…

In this video, I am showcasing the original roster for the game as it was when the roster was decided circa March-April 1998. There are reasons we can assume this was the timeframe. Firstly, the ID4s of the nWo roster make no reference to the Wolfpac. Therefore, the roster could not be decided any later than May 5, 1998. Secondly, and quite critically: Scott Steiner is not a member of the WCW roster internally, but a member of the nWo roster. Thus, this game’s roster could not have been decided any earlier than February 22, 1998. Thus, in this time period where change was a step above inevitable, it’s something of a free-for-all in terms of trying to figure out who the missing wrestlers were. We’ll never really know until someone from THQ or AKI confirms it.

With regard to the video itself, here’s what I did:

1. With reference to the game’s original roster (see end of description), I have moved everyone into their respective place. This is not a perfect process as the game, internally, has different definitions of what makes a stable relative to the final game. You can only have 9 people in a single stable, with only 9 accessible for regular use (an extra 2 are for managers, and another 2 are used in the Cruiserweight Championship mode). Thus, the only clear delineation possible for this demonstration is between the nWo and the ‘rest of the roster’, that I just refer to as “WCW”.
2. Similar to what was done for Salvo, I have repurposed ID4s of the removed managers to restore life to the removed ID4s. Wrath is still Wrath, but the other characters don’t really have names defined anywhere, so I have referred to them by their ID4s so I don’t add my own bias in terms of who I think people are. Generally speaking, it is agreed that:
   • ID 0006 = Ric Flair
   • ID 020A = nWo Sting
   • ID 0402 = Ernest Miller
3. As a supplement to the above, I used the Nameless Man method to give life to the last two WCW roster members (ID 010A and ID 010C). They can’t be named in-ROM due to the nature of the Nameless Man method, and will crash the game if you try to default them in the Costume Change menu. Changing their costume will add an asterisk to Larry Zbyszko’s name due to how the costume change affects his name in-memory, but you can default Zbyszko with no issues. Another quirk is that the nameless men are mutually affected by one another; naming one will give the other the same name, and costume changes are mutual in the same fashion. That aside, you can go as far as winning the title with any of the nameless men with no issues, should you wish to do so. 4) Given that the original roster was established pre-Wolfpac, I did some very minor default costume definition modifications in-ROM so that Macho Man, Scott Norton, Sting, Luger, and Kanyon/Mortis are as they would have been at the time of the roster’s establishment. These are just the costumes they already have, so nothing is custom about the costumes themselves. It is possible that my adjusting this is why the two nameless men are in Crow Sting attire rather than Wolfpac attire as they’re supposed to be, but that really shouldn’t be the case. Also a point of note – Kanyon really was Kanyon, probably, by the time February 1998 rolled around, but internally, he’s treated as part of a stable of four, two of which are Wrath and Glacier. Additionally, his face texture is a redrawn version of Goldberg’s, furthering the notion that he probably started out as Mortis.

To understand how we got to this roster, this document is a good reference, though it might be tough to understand if you’ve never tried your hand at ROM hacking):

https://vpw.ajworld.net/revenge/defaultcos.txt

– @RagDas01

Comments & Replies

So that explains all the Finlay faces I was seeing when going through VPW Studio.

Precisely! They all also share the same default costume definition, though in nWo Sting’s case, his having a different body type means he defaults to Giant’s attire, not Sting’s..

– @RagDas01

So could the extra slots be used?

Yup, but they’re just slots. Hard to say who they were for aside from nWo Sting, Flair, and Miller. In nWo Sting’s case, he already has most of his data, just needs a costume and a donor profile to give him a name, height, and weight. The others lack these details, and are therefore just placeholders for roster members that we can only make guesses about.

– @RagDas01

So theoretically you can use those slots for additional wrestlers? Sorry if it’s the same question, just curious.

Yeah, it isn’t theoretical though – Salvo is living proof it can be done.

– @RagDas01