The Seven Year Itch: Will the Seventh Season of The Show Have Functional Online? - Wiggy's Blog

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The Seven Year Itch: Will the Seventh Season of The Show Have Functional Online? Stuck

Posted on February 16, 2012 at 04:48 AM.

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It's kind of baffling to me why MLB: The Show has always struggled in the area of online play. For such a standout franchise, it seems almost inconceivable that the developers at SCE San Diego can't get this last piece of the baseball puzzle right. There's no question that the gameplay is fantastic in the series, and the audio/visual presentation is always extremely good. The online space actually has some pretty good features (on paper), with weekly challenges, buddy lists, co-op mode and online leagues. The rub comes from the fact that all of this is for nought when the actual online play is a laggy, stuttering mess.

This chronic issue in MLB: The Show is all the more worrisome because it shows no signs of improving. It's difficult enough to cultivate online communities for most games, but it's doubly so when a game is sabotaged by latency issues that will drive away users faster than the price of garlic fries at most stadiums.

How can this be such a problem to create functional online play? MVP Baseball 2005 had a near-perfect online experience back in 2004-05, with only a minor change in flow when playing online as compared to offline. With a sport that requires such critical timing, you'd think that online play wouldn't even be entertained unless it could actually be executed properly. In fact, even the casual MLB Bobblehead Pros has online play that operates smoother than MLB: The Show, even though it's not perfect either.

The crazier thing is that the developers are even aware of the issue and have commented on it when talking up previous iterations of the game. Take this quote from developer Chris Cutliff back in December 2009, in reference to the 2010 version of The Show, as reported on ESPN:

�We're fully aware of the complaints,� admits Cutliff. � ... but we've made online playability a priority area for us this year to make sure the timing of everything from the release points to the swings and check swings finally look and feel right. The online game will be going through much more extensive testing than we've ever put it through before."

Strong words, but unfortunately the only improvement to online playability that the 2009 and 2010 versions of the game had compared to previous versions was the inclusion of a connection quality indicator. However, that indicator really meant nothing, as even under ideal conditions a game could still be marred by delayed timing on swinging and pitching, teleporting baseballs and generally laggy gameplay.

Of course, I'm not naive to the technical challenges that developers face, especially in the fast-paced genre of sports. The fact that most games use a peer-to-peer connection means that not only are results possibly going to be compromised by drop-outs and modem manipulation, but the connection between two players relies heavily on their proximity to one another and the quality of their service provider. Many of the team modes in EA Sports titles leverage dedicated servers, allowing for more players and smoother connections � generally speaking, anyway. However, in light of many peer-to-peer games in the past and present that provide a relatively smooth online experience, one has to wonder if the developers at SCE San Diego simply don't really have that skill set and are just paying lip service to their fans.

Then again, it's not just videogame baseball that has this issue, as tennis games also seem to suffer from similar latency issues. It's no coincidence that four-player doubles play is all but extinct in virtual tennis, as clearly the realities of peer-to-peer make that a difficult proposition. Even singles play has stability issues, depending on the developer. At this point, most sports games are expected to provide a robust online experience, no matter what resources a given developer actually has to execute said experience. Unfortunately, I think a lack of resources and experience in the online space might be the reality for The Show franchise.

I truly hope that this can change in the near future, as I'm all about the competitive aspects of online sports games. Many different sports are already represented well, with fairly smooth renditions of hockey, soccer, football and golf, but MLB: The Show has been sorely lacking from that company. Hopefully the 2012 version of this long-running franchise will finally get it right.

Comments

# 1 thaSLAB @ Feb 16

I don't know, but maybe you missed the memo about MLB 12 The Show having dedicated servers?

# 2 truintellectplaya @ Feb 16

Just because they have dedicated servers does not mean it is correct. Show gets a pass because they virtually have no competition. Even though the competition actually has better online, and they stole the pitching mechanics from the competition and decided to dumb it down. Oh well, I say no they want get it correct but it will not matter. They have a strong base they can get away with it.

# 3 SDwinder @ Feb 16

The Show's Analog pitch mechanic blows away the clunky arcade mess that is 2K's. Nice try 2K little leaguer.

# 4 gigadkc @ Feb 16

will the online experience be better? I sure hope so but I won't hold my breath.

# 5 truintellectplaya @ Feb 16

That's actually false. 2K's pitching mechanics are far superior to that watered down mess that the Show did.

# 6 DustinT @ Feb 16

I agree, the 2K pitching controls are the one thing that is hands-down better than The Show.

# 7 thaSLAB @ Feb 16

LOL, calm down, playa. I didn't say it would be fixed, or even better for that matter, because of dedicated servers. I mentioned that fact because he talked about the shortcomings of peer to peer connections, and that how other game franchises were server based. It didn't sound like he had heard of that change for MLB 12. No need to get tight about it.

# 8 truintellectplaya @ Feb 16

I'm not uptight man it's just that I have been close to buying a PS3 several times just for this since 360 more than covers my needs in other areas and is my preference, but this issue alone has kept me from doing it. The bad thing is people act like this game is just flawless and it can't even get online right, but they kill another company if the online is not flawless even though there online is way better than this game. Then I go deeper and see that other aspects of the game are not better either and I am like I will just pass and play the less visually pleasing game because this experience is not what it is made out to be if I can't compete online and if the pitcher/batter interaction is not as good as the other either.

# 9 Spaced Ace @ Feb 17

I agree. The online play simply has to get better. Why put it in the game if it's gong to be an unplayable mess? It's a shame, because the rest of the package is absolutely fantastic. Here's hoping for the best.

# 10 Wiggy @ Feb 17

Fair enough. We'll see whether they implement proper code to go along with said servers. We'll also need to see how stable the servers are, how often they go down, etc. Again, as I said in the post, I want the online to work, but it's been hard to buy it year after year to only have it turn out like crap online.