Jeffool.com

With the popularity of sports games, the only surprise is that MMOSports games aren’t already a norm. But, MMOSports games are on the way. (Tony over at Buttonmashing.com has a pretty good roundup of plenty of them last week, too.) Everyone knew they’d happen eventually. It’s a no brainer really. Sports games sell well. MMOs offer continuous income. So MMOSports games should offer a lot of cash. But what are MMOSports games?

I mean, I barely know what classifies a game as an MMO anymore. Is it anything with more players than an id software game will support? Is it NeverWinter Nights’ 64 players on a server ‘massive’? How about 1000 players? That ‘Massive’ part has always been the trick. But we can’t apply the standard ‘thousands per server’ to sports games as you can’t have 3000 people on a baseball field playing at once. The best I can come up with is we either (a)change our definition to mean “thousand/hundreds of players in a designated league who play in scheduled and/or pick-up games,” or (b)define it as “a sports game that allows every member of every team to be represented by a user.” But ‘(a)’ is essentially the same is ‘(b)’ with arbitrary league restrictions. And both definitions could make FPS’ like Counter-Strike and Halo ‘MMOs’.

But if “MMOSports” games must exist, I believe that’s what they’ll be. So I’m going with (b). And while Tony did cover lots of the games out there, he didn’t mention International Online Soccer. (Maybe soccer isn’t a sport to George Carlin, but I’ll let it slide this time.) It’s a Half-Life mod (with a Source version coming out soon.) The Beta was originally released May 12th, 2003, so it’s just over two years old now. And looking at the stats from August, it’s doing ‘okay’. Over that month only three days did they have below 400 players (5670 unique players the 31 days.) Sure it’s not Natural Selection, the HL mod with 66,500+ players in a given month, but it’s something.

Speaking of which, I’ve been kicking around the idea of making a sci-fi sports game myself. I figure it’s time I updated the resume with something, y’know? Need to look around the Quake 3 code and see if I wanna go that route or just mod Half-Life 2. Think “Halo 2 meets Soccer.” That’s right baby, Rocketball.

I saw a post about a book being made about gamers and their online avatars. The makers of the book are looking for people who either look like their avatars, play a different gender than their avatar, met their significant other online, or just have colorful, off-the-wall, or unusual stories about their online experience. Well, I’m possibly D. After all, we all get a little bored and screw around occasionally. But A? Definitely.

From WoW, to Tony Hawk, to crappy wrestling games, to The Sims, I’m all about making me. I make my avatar in the game look as much like me as possible. Sure in Warcraft all that means is that I’m a bald Orc with a scraggly beard. (Ugly, balding, beard.) But in Tony Hawk and wrestling games? I make a pretty damn good me. Anyone walking by who takes a glance will see a fat guy with a balding; bearded; baggy jeans, green t-shirt, and black glasses wearing guy; skating (or doing a DDT) and say “Damn, is that you? Did you make yourself in the game? Huh, that’s cool.” And I really don’t know why. I have a pal currently going through a checklist of MMORPGs, (let’s call him… Craig,) sampling the MMO-flavors out there. I asked if he ever customized his characters to look like him and was quickly replied with “Nah, I’m into escapism, not ego soothing.” Is that it? Ego-stroking? ‘I dislike aspects of my real life, so I do this to feel better?’

I find that a curious assumption, only earlier that day I had said “I do it because it’s my avatar. My virtual representation. If I’m to be as immersed as I can be in a world, I want the character I’m playing to fully represent me in at least the looks department.” So, Craig and I have taken opposing positions on this one, and it’s squarely an issue about how we interact with the game. How about anyone else out there? Is this balancing escapism with immersion? Is it a personal preference, or does it matter at all to you?

Got back from my Maryland job interview on Tuesday at about 9:30ish pm local (Eastern, as I’m in Georgia.) And I’m not sure how it went, to be honest. It didn’t go bad, but I didn’t kill’em like it was Def Comedy Jam or anything. Sort of that ‘meh’-ish middleground. But from that hour or so I spent in a room with them, they seem like a really good bunch of people. I’m one of those folks who believes that someone you can entertain is someone you can work with. (And vice versa.) At least that’s my theory based on my non-gaming-and-only-twenty-four-years-of-life experience. And of course, they haven’t offered me the job or anything, they just flew me up for an onsite interview that lasted three hours tops. (I’m kinda worried that flying me up and sending me back after three hours is a bad thing… But I dunno.)

It’s an entry level programming job. The company ports cell phone games and mentioned some sports titles as examples. Okay, that’s where it goes a bit ‘out there’ from what I expected or wanted. I mean, I’m not above sports games. I’m not really a sports gamer, but I appreciate the work put into’em and the love shown by fans. And I’m not above porting. I just like the idea of having the choice to pick your platform for games and I think it’s a worthwhile job. But that whole cell phone thing… Am I taking my preconceptions about cell phone games (ie: they suck,) too far? Would I let it keep me from putting my foot in the proverbial door? I once touched on many wannabes failing because they become closeminded to the point of only loving particular IP or companies, but is choosing against a platform the same thing? My brain says yes. It’s stupid and if they do offer me the job I should fall to my knees and thank them. Even if it’s no dream job it’s experience. And it’s a job programming, unlike my current job which isn’t even programming related. Of course my heart’s still being a whiny bitch about it. I guess I’ll be okay. I’ll strangle it down with some Chinese food. It’s not like cell phone games have nothing to offer. I’m curious about the Elder Scrolls Travels games for the Nokia NGage. I mean, even Carmack’s doing cell phone games. They must be cool, right?

(Don’t you just love how I’ve rationalized not wanting a job offer that I quite possibly won’t be offered? Oh the ego. :D )