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Building the Sports MMO Genre
Kheldon writes to point out an interview with David Chang of GamesCampus about the up-and-coming sports MMO genre. He also talks about their efforts to bring older demographics into gaming. Quoting:
"One of the things about the baseball game in particular that's so great is that there is a leveling component, not just to the team, but also to players. So you're exactly right in terms of the persistence. We want people to not just play a baseball game, but ... to grow their team and their players over time. So, there are things where if you win a game, that's how you gain experience points. If you win against a higher level opponent, you get more experience points; if you bottom feed and you take advantage of lower-level players, you don't get as much, and so on. There are a lot of MMO-type concepts in the game. If you're talking about individual players, if you hit a lot of homeruns, or if you steal a lot of bases, your power or your stealing stat will increase over each season."
That might actually be fun to watch.
Still holding out for massively multiplayer Calvinball, though.
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The pitcher throws; it is a curveball. You swing and miss! You are out.
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Isn't that a somewhat old and fairly standard team rating/ranking system? I'm fairly sure that various sports games already do that kind of system so that you can't do as well by just beating low teams.
If not then half of Games Workshop's sideline table-top 'skirmish' games already do it, and Blood Bowl has already been made in to a game (once with license, and before that without a license).
Actually, it kinda reminds me of Fargo's MMO chess idea :P
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I know sports games are popular, but MMOs require a lot of time and devotion. If you care enough about a sport to play it with others online and devote months or years of your life playing it, why not pick up a ball a play the real thing outside, with friends?
How about going outside and playing actual baseball? Wouldn't that be more fun?
You could (and people do) say the same thing about Guitar Hero. Playing guitar well is hard, and so is playing real baseball. Guitar Hero proved that people can have fun with a simplified version of a real life hobby if the learning curve is easy enough and the interface is a close enough approximation of the real thing. In fact, pretty much every video game ever simulates something you could do in real life if it were so inconvenient, dangerous, or time consuming.
Just because a game doesn't appeal to you, doesn't mean someone else can't have fun with it.
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Even tho i personally think its all rather stupid. I see alot of people who enjoy sports. But they are not the types of people who will sit and play a pc game for several hours.
The Madden and NCAA football franchises are among the hugest game franchises ever, and from what I've seen they're popular with people who enjoy playing and watching real football. Multiplayer sports games in general are a major segment of the video game market, so there's no reason to believe there would be no interest in sports MMOs.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
there is also the team management side with players trades and a lot of other non physical parts.
Of course there's that pesky team in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
If there was another league that rivaled the skill level of MLB I might worry about it being called the 'World Series' but since there isn't... oh well.
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The only reason why Madden and NCAA are huge franchises is because of the fact that sports games are the only games you can really do the same thing year after year after year, still get people to buy it and have the reviewers not totally bash it. It would be like releasing "level packs" for Super Mario Bros. for the lifespan of the NES, doing the same thing for Super Mario World for the SNES, doing the same thing for Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, doing the same thing for Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube, and doing the same thing for Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. It just doesn't work for any other type other than sports games.
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Here is a Youtube of 2K Sports NBA 2009. Played online, 5v5:
http://nba-tube.com/nba-2k9-online-5v5-teamup-lakers-vs-rockets-4th-quarter/
I think you can see, it looks and feels like a real game on tv. I think if you made Football 11 v 11 - people would sign on and play OG. I really do. I would play Madden online 11 v 11 and just work on being the best pass rusher in the game. I think online sports, where all the players are played by real people is the "next big thing" in gaming. In Football, there could even be a slot for coach, and that person gets to pick the play called. Then you could have 12 v 12. Real flamewars between Coach and QB's who go off script. I think it would be extremely popular, although some selfish people would refuse to play unless they could QB, that's how it is in real life too. It's whatever works.
I can think of no better way to kill the sports MMO genre than to start it off with baseball.
One of the things about the baseball game in particular that's so great is that there is a leveling component, not just to the team, but also to players.
OK, but that's only because people have been focused on stats in baseball games since, well, forever. Can't this be applied to any sport?
So, there are things where if you win a game, that's how you gain experience points. If you win against a higher level opponent, you get more experience points; if you bottom feed and you take advantage of lower-level players, you don't get as much, and so on. There are a lot of MMO-type concepts in the game.
Again, couldn't this be applied to any sport?
I could see a sports component in an MMO, but not an MMO completely based on sports.
Gabe at Penny Arcade complained about the latest Tiger Woods game, because of the idea of leveling. Leveling causes the game to be more about time spent than it is about skill.
It would be like releasing "level packs" for Super Mario Bros. for the lifespan of the NES
I would LOVE if they would do that. If they released more SMB levels like the "Lost Levels" for the NES, I would buy it today. I would also love to buy more episodes of Doom. When the formula is that good, more of the same is no problem at all.
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Japan does have a decent league and I'm sure their top teams could compete in MLB... but the overall quality is lower and I can't imagine their team would ever be a favorite to win it here. Now if MLB was only Americans (err, United Stateians) playing, then I would agree it would be absurd to call it the World Series.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Yeah, they hopefully will be giving experience to everyone involved in a play after that play. Catch the ball, throw it to first, you get XP even if you didn't get them out.
The thing about MMORGs is that you can keep from having to fight off better players, and run around killing rats or whatever until you get enough XP to actually compete in PvP. (Or, even, not do that at all.)
A game that is only PvP is going to have to do something else. There needs to be a way to earn XP that doesn't require winning, or it is going to be very frustrating experience.
Of course, there's no reason, if they're having people on a team, not to let them have practices where they can earn XP. That would work too. (And even have a few public fields where non-grouped people can practice with random people.)
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I don't know about you, but I'm pretty certain we didn't invent GTA to give all the hooker-killers a safe outlet.
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Yes I know that. But it was also essentially just a level pack for the first SMB engine. The same way Doom 2 was just a level pack for the original Doom engine.
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Greetings rookie! We'll get to playing shortly, however there's a lot of preparation we need to do. There are uncollected balls all over the field and someone needs to pick them up. Come back with 10 of them and we should be ready to start pre-season training. Be careful though, there are some hostile umpires out there who don't like players on the field before the game starts. Accept quest?