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Why Are There No Sports MMO Games?

Posted by Zonk on from the mmo-madden dept.

Brian P. writes "With the online gaming market growing at a remarkable rate and new games being announced frequently, why have developers and publishers shied away from creating an MMO sports game? Online fantasy leagues are bigger than ever and online sports games such as Madden '05 are huge franchises. It seems to me that a logical evolution of this trend would be a gaming experience that lets a player start out as a street-baller and work their way up to virtual super-athlete status. The possibilities are endless...but obviously there's something seriously wrong with the concept because all we keep getting are tiresome sword and sorcery games and online adaptations of megafranchises such as Star Wars."

14 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Also... by hollismb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why are there no team sports games where more than one or two people can play against eachother at a time? Why not large amounts of human controlled players on each side? I call first baseman!

    1. Re:Also... by Ayaress · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is also one of the big problems with MMORTS games like Shattered Galaxy.

      Quick refernce: Each player in SG can have 48 units, which they can take into battle in gruops of 6 (up to 12, depending on their stats). The most common thing for players to do is to take six units of the same type into battle and use them as a single squad.

      The thing is, in any given map, there are usually three to five control points that must be held, and a number of strategically useful postions to occupy (cliffs, choke points, cover, etc). Its great when you get mostly experienced players together who will coordinate to win the battle.

      However, 99% of the time what happens is everybody mass swarms one point of the map while ten people try to play commander and give bad, conflicting orders. Ideally, somebody finds Arbalests (artillery units) in grid A1, they say, "Arbs a1" and a couple people with fast air-to-ground units will rush in to kill them quickly.

      Ideally, its an easy situation and any enemy arbalasts are doomed the minute they open fire. But what happens usually is somebody finds arbs in A1, says, "Arbs A1" and every last player on the map abandons the strategic points and mobs A2 where they discover that the arbs are on top of a cliff and you can't reach them by ground, thus falling directly into the arbs' line of fire and get wasted, leaving all the strategic points wide open for the enemy to take.

      I don't know how many times playing that game, I've had my tanks set up in a nice spot, but getting annoyed by really weak air-to-ground units. Meanwhile, some strong air-to-air units are sitting by. I say,"Hey, little help here?" and if I'm lucky, they just say, "hey, sup dude?" and ignore what is basically a free kill for them.

    2. Re:Also... by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      what do you call battlefield then? or unreal tournament?

      16vs16.

      it's just that computer games allow simulated settings you wouldn't be able to have in a 'real' sport.

      (also, here's an answer: traditional sports would require people to stay in the game from start to end and a single bad player could ruin the fun for everyone. a bit hard to have the occasional fun in a game like that.)

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Also... by c0bw3b · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah so football and baseball would make bad examples of this type of thing, but I could definitely see a Hoops style basketball game like this, or hockey or maybe even soccer MMORPG.

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      ||:|::
  2. Why? by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Because sports games tend to require a level of strategy above and beyond that of current MMORPGs. Sure, guilds and clans with voice chat might be able to have fun, but it wouldn't be suitable for the mass market of individual gamers who just want to pick up the game and play.

    Plus, sports games tend to be more based on the skill of the actual player than the character, and someone who was good at basketball games would be mighty pissed if they got schooled by some noob who had just played a long time.

    --
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    1. Re:Why? by numbski · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are technical limitations as well.

      There are huge amounts of problems with real-time sports games that require quick, split-second judgements. Most online games now rely on a peer-to-peer game-state. Two consoles, running the same game and occassionaly checking to make sure they're reading the same 'story'. If a divergence in the gameplay is detected, the game drops.

      It would require a huge rewrite, running the game server side, and the console only running clients.

      I don't see that happening soon. :\

      --

      Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    2. Re:Why? by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Allow me to restate some of my points.

      My basketball example was meant to highlight the "twitch" nature of most sports games. You can NOT simply translate the "hit a to attack, sit back and watch" technique in todays MMORPGs into a sports game. Implementing that correctly would be akin to implementing a MMOFPS correctly. And they tried that already with Planetside and we ended up with the oh so wonderful "cone of fire" (that was sarcasm btw).

      Now to address strategy. In EQ and others, the strategy revolves around planning the development of your character so you have certain skills and abilities at certain levels, and then knowing how and when to use those skills in a team environment. Sports games on the other hand rely more on location than simply knowing what combos to do and the timing for them. I'm talking about plays. Where players have set positions they need to stick to for the general good of the team. So far with MMORPGs, for the most part if you just stand near your target and use the button, things work. Again, Planetside took it a step further, but we're still nowhere close to being able to do sports games.

      And all of this is leaving out the fact that sports games would require EVERYONE on the team to participate and follow the general team guidelines. One person can ruin it for the team, much like in FPS.

      Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that even if you did group people in games based on their characters exp/skill level so they'd be equal, who the hell wants to play a sports game where you can't do anything cooler than shoot, dribble, and pass (to borrow from my basketball example again) until you spend X number of hours playing so you can level up and be able to dunk, steal, etc.

      Sports games are about immediate action, much like FPS, whereas RPGs are about character building. THAT is the reason why all thats been done to date has been RPGs.

      --
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  3. Individualism by matlokheed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In MMOs, the game is based around you being a character in this alternate world. It's something you probably aren't in reality for lack of monsters or foes you can legally slay.

    Sports games revolve around one person controlling an entire team. In an MMO, assuming your character finds a team, they have to:

    1) be online at the same time as the team
    2) the designers need to come up with an entirely new way of playing sports games online from a 1 player=1 player perspective
    3) the new way of playing has to be fun

    This is not remotely easy and might not be possible at all. Otherwise, if you're just looking for seasons, doesn't X-Box Live have support for that?

    --

    "If the good lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates." -Willy Wonka

  4. Re:Latency by Reapy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was thinking they could have zones of control. I guess that rules out man to man, but have the zones as a toggle. Basically you say that a certain player in a certain position can only move his player with in a certain box. This would force pub teams to more or less play their positions and let newer players get to learn where they should be. More advanced games could have these rules turned off. Or you could maybe tighten or relax the size of the boxes. Maybe have a coach option where you can create your own zones of control on the field for positions.

    That actually sounds pretty interesting. It'll still be boring if the ball/puck/whatever never comes your way. But games like soccer, hockey or volleyball tend to cover the whole field for the most part.

  5. Re:Bandwidth.. by DJayC · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah you're right.. I should have expanded on that. Bandwidth is an issue though, becaues the amount of seamingly "real-time" data that would have to go down the pipe to support, say, 20 human players at one time would be incredible. Plus, given the instability of a lot of home network connections, the likelyhood of one person causing a lag in the game would be high, so yes, latency would be a huge contributor to diminishing the gameplay.

    I do, however, agree that this capability might not be too far off, and most likely because of the transport medium getting better, not the programming techniques or anything.

  6. It can't be done by SirBruce · · Score: 3, Interesting

    First of all, many people have already pointed out, you have to get people to play all the positions. Not just that; you need people to play BENCH players, too. Who's going to do that? Second, they all have to be at the games at the same time. You're talking co-ordinating anywhere from 25 to 50 to 100+ people to all show up at the right time, every day or every week, to play a game. That's going to be a nightmare. What do you do when a team doesn't show up, or doesn't show up with all its players? Modifying the schedule will be a nightmare. Thirdly, what happens when a guy gets disconnected during the middle of a game? Does he disappear? Is the game suspended until he returns? Do you replace it with some lame AI player? Great, now you have to go code AI players somehow. What if the guy comes back? Finally, what do you do about seasonal rosters, trades, and so on? If you require the guy to be on the same team all season, he may just not want to play anymore when his team is 0-12. What do you do when all of your QBs quit the game? Can you get a new QB? They're not retired; what if they suddenly come back? On the other hand, if you let players just move around all the want and play on whatever team all season, the league will be a joke, not to mention very confusing to follow. You could do this at the managerial level, but then it's not really a MMOG. But having everyone control their own player? No way. (It should be noted, however, that there are some MMOGs in development that are trying to solve these issues.) Bruce

  7. It's the social interaction of play that's missing by 1iar_parad0x · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Social interaction is one of the things that makes play fun.

    One of the games I liked to play with friends was Hidden and Dangerous. This was partly because the atmosphere of the game definitely had an authentic WWII feel. Also, the added twist of the main characters being British soliders didn't hurt either (you played members of an elite SAS sqaud). However, the real gem was it's cooperative multiplayer game. The missions were in-depth (for it's day). It supported up to 4 players at once. Also, the game embraced the fun of Rainbow Six without the wonkish strategy. The game was fun. I enjoyed teaming up with other actual human beings.

    Cooperative games bring human interaction into gaming. Gaming is no longer a solo activity. I know ubergeeky computer nerds (being a programmer, I probably qualify as well...) tend not to design socially enhancing games. However, that's what makes Monopoly or paper RPGs so popular. You get to "play" with friends. I don't particularly enjoy virtually killing some kid from Germany in Wolfenstein 3d. Alas, the hunt-and-kill FPS is so easy to design...

    Suprisingly, I lack the necessary drive to wantonly kill my friends, even in digital form.

    --
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  8. There is one, sort of...Hattrick by microbrew_nj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.hattrick.org/ In Hattrick, you manage a soccer team. You buy and sell players, hire and fire coaches, then play in leagues. Just like most soccer leagues around the world, there's promotion and relegation. Your goal is to climb the ladder and stay on top. You basically be the next Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger but not Roman Abramovich. It's massively multiplayer with hundreds of thousands of players,the 'role' is of a soccer manager. I don't play the game, but my brothers do- and neither are huge soccer fans. Funny thing is that I'm the big soccer player and fan.

  9. They Exist.... by Primis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...just not as Action-oriented sports titles.

    The closest thing to MMO sports games right now would be online leagues based on popular sports management sims.

    I'm in two online hockey leagues based off EHM, where the other 29 teams are controlled by a real person as well and on person acting as a "commissioner" ties it all in together. Full financial model, player development, trades and free agent signings, entry and waiver drafts...

    Out of the Park (OOTP) baseball also has a plethora of online leagues in much the same way.

    Done correctly, these are about as close as you'll probably get.

    Years ago I helped playtest an online football (football, not soccer) game where all the real players were in "skill positions". Technically it worked. It was impossible to play though, the twitch/reaction requirements mean there has to be no lag whatsoever, and it's impossible to organize a group of people online like that to just even run one play, let alone a 2-minute-drill offense or audible a new defensive scheme at the line.

    -- Primis.