Let's Talk E-Feds

Infernum

So, a lot of wrestling fans have been involved with one or several e-feds at some point in their lives. Maybe in the late 1990s/early 2000s when Geocities and Angelfire more than likely hosted the majority of them, or maybe in the early years of social media (as is the case with me.)

Have you ever been in an e-fed?
Are you still active in some?
What has your e-fed career been like?

Feel free to discuss and reminisce.

johnnysmack

What's an efed?

Ageyev

johnnysmack wrote: »

What's an efed?

It's like championship manager or whatever them football games are where you create fantasy leagues and teams.

Afaik there's a Boards.ie Pro Wrestling fantasy draft but I'm not familiar. There is or was a prediction thread for each monthly PPV show with a running tally. Someone else will have to pipe in with more on-hand knowledge

Bounty Hunter

Boards.ie PW forums history with E-Feds would revolve around 2 things - The Draft & the BWE

The Draft:

Next year will be the 10th year of The Draft. It works like any other fantasy draft with 20 participant taking turns to draft picks for their respective rosters. It usually takes between 3 & 4 months in total and now runs from the start of January (so only recently ended for 2016). Why it takes so long it because after 20 rosters have been selected people then book a PPV card to display their roster and many if not most will also book a number of shows to build up to that PPV. After which everyone reads the submissions and vote on the winner. Recently we have added Slammies too for best feud, match etc I have ran the draft twice, once about 4 years and the most recent one while Beakerjoe the most recent winner will run it next year. MrNiceGuy has won the most drafts with 3 wins.

For an example of how it works: Here is this years Discussion thread, where the rules are no doubt explained, here is this years picks thred where the rosters were chosen and finally The Evaluation thread, where the shows were posted.

The BWE:

This was something that I first posted but that came about from discussion on one of the eaflier draft threads were people wanted to keep writing having gotten caught the bug from the draft. It stands for Boards Wrestling Entertainment and the idea was simply that we took the current WWE roster of the time and tried to book Raw / SD better and then continue them on from what we wrote and not what the WWE wrote. We did so with restrictions ilike if someone got injured or suspended / fired in reality we too would have to write them out.

The Discussion thread for it can be seen Here and the shows can be seen here.

actually my bad those BWE shows are from the re-birth of the BWA around the time of the Shield while the original BWE was around the time of Jeri-show (from reading the discussion thread) and the first show was written by Furious Red as apposed to Beakerjoe who wasn't on boards when it started I think

Lord TSC

Started efedding when I went into Uni. A group of lads from the GameFAQs wrestling section started up one, and it grew. Eventually ended up running it, but a group of trolls drove everyone off. Tried to keep it alive via spin-offs (my favorite was a fed set on a remote Island off the coast of Ireland, where the roster was split into two factions and each PPV revolved round Red vs Blue matches. Whichever team won the most matches would have advantages for the next few weeks.

Main character was called Dave Shadow, who used Brian Kendrick as his avatar. Also went by the names Candyman and Dave Chaos.

It kept me massively sane during my Uni years. I went through a good few efeds, but generally stuck with the same core group of 10 guys or so. When we all started losing interest, I just kind of left the worlds behind; it was writing and collaborating with those 10 guys that kept me interested.

Sadly, the main issues was that, inevitably, there'd be 4 or 5 guys who followed after us who tried "living their characters". They were people who would always play the badass who never lost, and tried to shrug it off if they did; who just wanted to destroy everyone, so took that to the OOC stuff as well :rolleyes:

But I still loved my time efedding. It was a great 5 years.

Straight Edge Punk

I used to love efeds. The main one I was a member of was WWF Sadistic with a load of English guys and girls which eventually managed to get in a handful of America and Canadian members too. We were all a fairly close knit group who used to chat constantly on MSN. My promos used to be absolutely massive,i would spend hours every Sunday and Wednesday evenings getting them perfect.

Much simpler times

beakerjoe

Ah e-fedding what a great yet flawed concept. I tried my hand at these when I was 17/18 (some 14 years ago now.) and I really thought there were extinct these days.

Any time I ever joined one, my own personal experience was that who ever ran the fed was hell bent on running the fed for his own gain and push his own avatar/character and like Lord TSCs experience, internet trolls had a habit of ruining anything that made things enjoyable. I did enjoy the promos and the character development, but overall they were a disappointing experience.

I remember I loved my own two characters, Alexander Kale and Bad Joke, and really put a lot of effort into making them as fun as possible, however I’m sure they are awful If I ever came across some of my writing.

The Boards draft is the best fantasy draft/ writing game I’ve ever found. Lord TSC and Bounty Hunter have ran it over the years and each year has been a great experience. The run it fairly and everyone really is really respectful which helps the game flourish to no end. Some Idiot is running it next year and will no doubt ruin the game in its 10th year of its existence. (lol its me ). I’m actually already planning ideas on how to make it extra special this year considering the milestone and may have a prize lined up for the winner.

Andersonisgod

Anyone here a former member of the Bebo online wrestling society? It was pretty popular at one stage.

beakerjoe

Andersonisgod wrote: »

Anyone here a former member of the Bebo online wrestling society? It was pretty popular at one stage.

No, in hindsight it sounds grim but I'm sure at the time it was the place to be. IO honestly can't remember the names of any feds I joined in the early 2000's. What a time to be alive.

Lord TSC

beakerjoe wrote: »

Any time I ever joined one, my own personal experience was that who ever ran the fed was hell bent on running the fed for his own gain and push his own avatar/character

God, yeah. I know we had constant people branching off to start their own efed, led and booked by themselves, and usually with themselves "top of the card".

My character's gimmick when I ran the various efeds I did was that he always, ALWAYS lost....though I still ended up with various titles for paper reigns every now and again. :P But as a point, I used to make sure that if I was feuding with anyone, the intention was always to make them look their best and come out of stories ready to move up to the next tier.

Andersonisgod

beakerjoe wrote: »

No, in hindsight it sounds grim but I'm sure at the time it was the place to be. IO honestly can't remember the names of any feds I joined in the early 2000's. What a time to be alive.

I ask just because there was quite a strong Irish contingent and the whole thing extended beyond Bebo to crazy MSN group conversations. I'm also convinced that the Al Foran guy who does impressions was a member of that community.

Imnotthehulk

I joined an e-fed several years ago. Could be over a decade ago at this stage.

Created a character who with a military background. He came in and won the main title within a week! Then I realised the whole thing wasn't for me, vacated the title, and never looked back. Sounded like a great idea, but the role playing elements of it just wasn't for me.

brianregan09

Was part of one for nearly 2 years orginally called IWF and then CW when owners changed , Had 2 main characters Bryan Blade who was a cult leader based on a mismash of Raven/Christopher Daniels won 2 titles with him

My other character was my favourite Brian James he was basicallly a homeless dude with nothing to lose I found writing for him so easy and still could i bet

My 1st and 2nd time the draft was awesome and enjoyed the hell out of writing for it , this year unfortunatley time got the better of me and despite having a good roster just couldn't get going on it

Would love to have an E-Fed Tournament (would even set it up) if people were interested in making up a character etc and having a go

Infernum

Andersonisgod wrote: »

Anyone here a former member of the Bebo online wrestling society? It was pretty popular at one stage.

I was active on Bebo wrestling sites in 2007-2008... Even started up many of my own failed ones. My first fed on there was Bebo Wrestling Federation, then on to Online Wrestling Entertainment which I became a mod of, but got kicked out and ended up having a blow-out with the other mods for stupid reasons.

It was Irish-based too if I remember correctly. I went on to a few e-feds after that and left it behind. Returned periodically in 2009 and 2012-2013 as Saviour Jericho (obviously based on Chris Jericho).

Only won a handful of matches though.

Stereomaniac

This is an interesting thread. How do people in e-feds decide who is going to win matches if their characters are facing off, though? I'm guessing they either agree amongst themselves what way it's going to be written or maybe there's some sort of democratic method. If anyone has any links to the stuff that they used to write on ye should post them up here. The draft got away from me this year but I enjoyed writing what little I did contribute.

Straight Edge Punk

Stereomaniac wrote: »

This is an interesting thread. How do people in e-feds decide who is going to win matches if their characters are facing off, though? I'm guessing they either agree amongst themselves what way it's going to be written or maybe there's some sort of democratic method. If anyone has any links to the stuff that they used to write on ye should post them up here. The draft got away from me this year but I enjoyed writing what little I did contribute.

Any feds I was in it was fairly simple.

Me vs you on Raw, whoever does the best promo wins the match. The winner was decided by the people who ran the efed, if they couldn't decide then they would ask the opinion of the other members.

Lord TSC

Stereomaniac wrote: »

This is an interesting thread. How do people in e-feds decide who is going to win matches if their characters are facing off, though? I'm guessing they either agree amongst themselves what way it's going to be written or maybe there's some sort of democratic method. If anyone has any links to the stuff that they used to write on ye should post them up here. The draft got away from me this year but I enjoyed writing what little I did contribute.

As above, usually it was based on who wrote the best promos. Was also in some where the decisions was made by the "bookers", though that was rarer since you were working on the whims of whoever was writing.

A lot of the time, I found if you were working with someone decent, most Feds would let you determine the winner between yourselves if you thought you could tell a good story between ye. A lot of the time, when I was "feuding" with people, we co-wrote segments weeks in advance and cleared results with the bookers.

Turtyturd

Yep, used to be involved with some over the years. Found a lot of them to be hit and miss in regards to shows being up on time, and members role playing consistently but when you found one that had that they were brilliant.

Always surprised me that boards never had one given the 'community' aspect of the pw forum.

Stereomaniac

Lord TSC wrote: »

As above, usually it was based on who wrote the best promos. Was also in some where the decisions was made by the "bookers", though that was rarer since you were working on the whims of whoever was writing.

A lot of the time, I found if you were working with someone decent, most Feds would let you determine the winner between yourselves if you thought you could tell a good story between ye. A lot of the time, when I was "feuding" with people, we co-wrote segments weeks in advance and cleared results with the bookers.

Sounds like a fairly immersive process. Would these things just carry on indefinitely, or would their be a wrap-up time for them, like the draft has on here? I guess you encounter a lot of lads who want to pull the piss on those things.

Lord TSC

Stereomaniac wrote: »

Sounds like a fairly immersive process. Would these things just carry on indefinitely, or would their be a wrap-up time for them, like the draft has on here? I guess you encounter a lot of lads who want to pull the piss on those things.

Same as a normal wrestling show, I guess. You had feuds that typically lasted as long as you wanted them too. The feds themselves lasted for as long as they could keep going. I ran one that lasted 3 years, and afterwards joined one that had been in operation for 5 and lasted another 2 after that point. I saw loads that the guys who made them would either get bored or burn out after a few weeks.

The one I ran that lasted three years...I was in charge of it for 6 months, took a break for a few months and then ran it for 2 years. The one I joined afterwards, I ended up in charge of for a year, but by that stage, A LOT of the original people had left, and it was more a case of trying to keep it going. Typically, in both feds, it was two "TV" shows a week and then a PPV once every month or so. But the nature of those sorts of things is that eventually people would move on or get bored. And if that happened too many people at once, the feds faded away.

Feuds could vary in length, same as in real life, I guess. You'd have your one month feuds, three month feuds, whatever you wanted really. If you had people you trusted, they could last longer. One guy I got friendly with, we ran a feud that ran for 3 years, off and on. We started together roughly the same time, constantly climbed the ladder together, and knew each other's characters so well, we could write segments for each other. We were tag champs together, won titles and lost to each other, and took that feud across three or four different feds. Immersive was a great term, cause it was.

Other feuds, you couldn't wait to get done, cause the person would always want to win everything and refused to ever look "weak" (in a ****ing written roleplaying game!). But when you found a group you trusted and enjoyed writing with, it was awesome.

Though it could really burn you out, especially when you were trying to run the entire thing. The first time I did it, I had these massive notebooks, trying to chart everything out. You'd be getting so many messages a day, asking if this was a good idea, or asking you to read over what they've written (at the time, they also knew I was in Uni studying English, and there was a good few 14-17 year olds, so they were trying to get feedback from teacher, so to speak). I'd be spending hours trying to make sure everyone was happy. But it was worth it when you'd get a show written up, post it and everyone was so thrilled seeing their characters interacting and come to life.

brianregan09

I think it could be pretty easy run a small scale one here on boards say you have 10 members , You could have 2-3 matchs on a weekly show that way everyone wasn't forced to write promos every week , an even if you're not featured you could always write a small backstage segment for it , Have a show either once a week or once every 10 days with a PPV once a month or every 6 weeks if the interest is there it's quite sustainable

Turtyturd

brianregan09 wrote: »

I think it could be pretty easy run a small scale one here on boards say you have 10 members , You could have 2-3 matchs on a weekly show that way everyone wasn't forced to write promos every week , an even if you're not featured you could always write a small backstage segment for it , Have a show either once a week or once every 10 days with a PPV once a month or every 6 weeks if the interest is there it's quite sustainable

I think the one over on Reddit has a small enough roster (by choice) and works well enough. Also has some good stuff with characters using Twitter, which wasn't an option when back in the day.

I'd assume the main problem with getting one going on boards would be having a specific board for it. Seems to be quite the process to try and get a new one set up.