Despite its popularity, competitive sports are one area where the MMORPG world has rarely ventured. Despite some pushes into the field (Shot Online comes to mind), there has never really been an atheletics-based MMO. And we all know why.

Latency.

In more traditional MMORPGs (in other words, the ones with elves), you can have raids of up to 40 people working in tandem, and yes, latency issues can cause problems, which is why I didn’t name this place “Smooth-Uninterrupted-Play-O-Rama”. However, when dealing with fans of American football, European football (or soccer), etc, the fans have a tendency to destroy the downtown sector of their hometown when they win. Imagine if they lost because the server hiccuped.

Cybersports has their riot insurance paid up, apparently, because they are in development of Football Superstars, an MMOSPG (The “S” is for sports, and yes, I just made that up…work with me, here.)

“The player will exist in a persistent football-themed world and be able to join or form their own teams and manage their careers whilst engaging in various leagues,” explains developer CyberSports.

CVG goes on to say:

You take control of a single footballer in online games where every player is controlled by another human being. As well as playing in 3, 5, 7, and 11-a-side football matches, you also take your player off the pitch and out into the open world, where you’ll need to pursue success by interacting with managers in efforts to get signed up to the next big team.

This sounds fantastic, except for that nagging problem of lag. I will be interested to see exactly what Cybersports is doing to combat this problem. Admittedly, it should be much less of a problem than it was even a few years ago, but only time will tell.

Now, if somone will only develop Hooligans Online, we’ll be all set.

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