Posted by ReDDoT in Blue Milk & Cereal | 15 Comments
Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Think Huttball Should Bring eSports To TOR?
No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal. Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!
What a crazy weekend PAX was! After watching some of the overwhelming mass of gameplay videos I couldn’t help but focus my attention on Huttball. The part I was focused on was particularly how the crowd cheered when a certain team scored and how either the person recording the video or one of the BioWare members was actively commentating the game. It is fairly obvious that Huttball is a very interesting encounter not only to play, but also to spectate. In case you haven’t seen some of the madness – here is an exclusive PAX gameplay footage with Stephen reid, as well as the official Hutball trailer.
And if a certain part of the game is really awesome to watch, as well as it has a very active competitive component – then it would make perfect sense to let this part of the game grow and attract the ever-expanding field of eSports. I really think that BioWare hit the nail on the head when they introduced Huttball to TOR and if everything is done right on the developer’s side – the player base will respond with great teams with very creative strategies and tactics. Unfortunately, it seems that the current group queue size is limited to 4 people, leaving out the fully premade 8-man teams. There is an ongoing thread on the official forums that wants an increase in group size to be able to have “Huttball Leagues”. Really cool idea.
Either way, let us know what you think. Do you think Huttball should bring eSports to TOR? Should the queue limit be increased to 8 from 4? Or do you have some other comment? Write it down below!
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Huttball really would not have mattered when it comes to esports. They would have come anyways simply because TOR is a AAA game and it ends up being successful.
I like the idea of eSport because it brings in an element of “daily life” in the Star Wars universe. in rl we watch/play sports games so having it in there will add to the realism.
I voted no on 8 man ques at launch for the valid reasons that developers have been giving (i.e. denying hard core PvP guild an unfair advantage when there are few max lvl players). I’m pretty sure that they said they were putting in a larger que size at a later date.
something fun that they could put in later would player organized Huttball tournament where group put in entrance credits and battle each other in an elimination system until single group remains to claim the all the credits.
I spent a good portion of my weekend (the parts not dedicated to obsessively following PAX, that is) watching the SC2 tournament at MLG Raleigh. It’s taking some time to catch on (the pros have been at it for years now) but with things like Barcraft starting up, it’s probably going to gain exposure. It’s something people can (And should) get behind – I know many people won’t be okay viewing video games, but those who can, support for it can only further support for video games.
As far as TOR is concerned – I hope it comes in some form, as it will help the game itself. The more exposure it gets, the more popular it will become. I do feel that it will be somewhat destined for 2nd rate – Starcraft is a game designed around the competitive multiplayer aspect (and to be about as even as possible in a 1 versus 1 aspect), and MMOs inherently incorporate the ‘massively’ part into their strategy, and rely on teamwork over single combat. Though, I say that now – and Amantangelo might be laughing at me when he proves me wrong. :)
I love the idea of eSport, more player will join SWTOR for it = more $$$$ for development.
If you don`t the idea of a jedi playing Hutball, then don’t play a Jedi for Hutball. This is steel a game and if you don’t like a part of the game, just don’t play that part.
Sorry for my English.
I miss the days when MMO’s were about community. I don’t believe esports have any place in a world that isn’t a balanced platform. I’m very disapointed in Bioware for some if the announcements as of late, but I guess the true culprit is WoW. Glue eating, helmet wearing downie MMO’s are here to stay..
“Glue eating, helmet wearing downie MMO’s are here to stay.”
Really? I understand frustration over design ideas or with the playerbase, but there’s no reason for a comment like that. Especially the inclusion of something like “downie” as an insult. For the record, people with your kind of attitude typically do far more damage to a game’s community than the players who don’t know how to stay out of the fire.
I understand why they are limiting it for now. Its not fun to get facerolled by a team that may have vent and knowledge of each other. As for Esport I think this is a great idea. Video Games are so much part of our lives these days.
Really it depends on the speed of the matches. If tactics form where you zerg the ball, the retreat and pass over the board to score, then it wont be very fun to watch. We should all be seeing more of it with the beta weekends though.
I hate WoW Arena’s as an eSport, it’s just not very watchable. So much of the action is often elsewhere. StarCraft on the other hand is great to watch as an eSport.
I’m not sure though if Huttball would be great to watch as an eSport. They can try it, but I think too often the action would be all over the place and not centralized enough.
When you have one-on-one, it’s easier to follow the action because a human can only do so much within the game. But when you have 4-on-4 or 8-on-8, it is near impossible to follow the action because of having so many humans doing so many things. This is why StarCraft works but WoW Arena’s don’t.
Dude, you making comments about 4 on 4 and 8 on 8. You do realize most of real life sports (i.e. Hockey, Soccer, Football) are at least 5 on 5? lol.
The difference is that you have a “spectator” view in those sports. If they implement a spectator mode in Huttball, then sure, it can be fun. Switching between players to follow the action, just like in an FPS on a PC. Otherwise, uhhh, how would it be fun? You’ll have to assign to one player and be stuck with him/her, or fixed on a certain point and not be able to do anything.
If they can actually program it in there, the best thing might be to just allow your character to be in there as a “holocam” and go wherever you want manually.
Getting esports into the game with the hutball would not be bad imo. It would be fun to have it there if Bioware will make a good spectator client and keep that up to date and show they care about the epsorts scene. Then ofcourse the factor of action and speed of the game. WoW arena is a bad esport as its almost not watchable. We just have to wait and see how things go.
I absolutely support Huttball as an esport. I’m not even a big fan of esports, but just from watching the early footage it seems like a ton of fun and is just naturally designed for it. I think the solution to team size is to create a league system that is controlled and bracketed. Something similar to the WoW arena system, where players have to form established teams with names that play against each other.
That way there would never be a situation in which a team steamrolls a PuG. Teams could form, name themselves, register, and play against each other. Wins could be tallied and teams could then advance to higher levels or brackets. Each year could have one or more Huttball seasons, with the highest winning teams moving into post-season, ultimately culminating in a Huttbowl type scenario.
Winners could get titles and in-game vanity items, like mounts, pets, gear etc. Nothing that gives them an “i win” button, just items to show off their victory. Just my thoughts at least.
Only if its against other full groups.
I really was prepared to not like Huttball. It just looked goofy after watching the trailer. After playing it 3 times while at PAX this weekend I am a huge fan. That is the most fun I have ever had playing PVP. I got my butt kicked and did not do well at all, and still had a great time with it. I’m all for esports, but there needs to be a random queue bracket and a team vs team bracket in my opinion.