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Ultimate Baseball Online - Rise Of The MMOSG?

Posted by simoniker on from the take-me-down-to-acronym-city dept.

Cobol Junky writes "Ultimate Baseball Online, a game claiming to be the first MMOSG (massively multiplayer online sports game) has recently transitioned into free Beta status. Each player's character takes a position on the baseball field, and can improve their skills and stats by gaining experience, just like a regular MMORPG. UBO is being created by NetAmin, the creators of an scrapped MMORPG called Fallen Age." This title has been in development for a while, and a GameSpot preview reveals more, but what other genres will get tarred by the massively multiplayer brush before long?

3 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing Special by illuminata · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It looks to me as if they're taking features that have been around in sports games for quite some time in single player mode and putting them online.

    Still, the game doesn't look all too good, and I fail to see exactly what makes this massively multiplayer. From what I can tell, you're still constrained to the field area. You can't roam the land trying to wrangle up teammates to find the perfect ballpark to call your own. Hell, there's even a player lobby, just like normal multiplayer games. To me, calling this game an MMO title is nothing but marketing babble for a crappy sports game without any professional licenses.

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  2. MMO is way overblown by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Insightful

    MMO is waaay overblown. Simple reason. There just aren't enough players. MMOGs take time to play. There just aren't enough people willing to devote a significant enough chunk of their life to a game. There are some, and they were enough to keep Ultima Online flush with players. There were even enough for Everquest as well. But there are now MMOGs coming out at an incredible clip, which keeps fragmenting the customers base further, and reducing the value of other competitors in the field. MMOGs are flopping left and right, and still publishers frantic for a pirate-resistant subscription model try to start new MMOGs.

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    May we never see th
  3. The Problem with MMOSGs... by BTWR · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here's the problem with MMOSG's...

    For example, take any team game. It's an excellent idea - 20 people each in a specialized position, playing like a real match. The problem is that, unlike when you're standing on the field, people will NOT have the patience to play correctly. You'll have fullbacks (defense guys in soccer) trying to score goals because they're bored, shortstops trying to catch a left-field popup (and messing up the play later), EVERYONE trying to shoot in basketball (no one, i predict, will want to be all-defensive).

    This may work, however, with interesting rules (like, for example, the goalie can't pull himself if he's bored since the puck is always on the other side... unless a majority of the team votes it).

    While on the subject, a manager/coach might be one of the most interesting positions in a MMOSG. They would pick who's on the ice (call line switches), pick the pass that the quarterback has to follow (or at least narrow it down to 2-3 options or quartback sneak), etc.

    So again, this could work work, could be amazing, but it's going to need some intelligent programming/rule-creating to make it fun.