Online in MLB 11: The Show - Why I'm Optimistic - vln13's Blog

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Online in MLB 11: The Show - Why I'm Optimistic

Posted on February 23, 2011 at 01:40 PM.

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SCEA Developer Kolbe Launchbaugh uses "superpowers" to distort the space-time continuum online in
MLB 11: The Show!

Last night, I downloaded the demo for MLB 11: The Show and had a lot of fun. For whatever quibbles people had, it seemed like, overall, the reception was pretty positive. However, no matter how great the meat and potatoes of this series has been (which is quite tasty), many users are still turned off from the game because of its lack of basic performance, functionality, and innovations to modes online. I cannot blame many consumers for feeling this way, and it may even have contributed to me playing less of previous installments than I would have if online was better performing.

I hope Sony has really done something to improve the server this year, but before I get into that, let me first take myself out of my online frustration and give a little credit to The Show. The Sony servers obviously do not seem to have the same kind of consistency and ability to handle users than EA. However, I would be willing to bet that the gap in performance between Sony and EA is much smaller than people perceive it, and that much if it is an unfair advantage to EA - they have not made an MLB game since 2005. Also, remember that MLB 2k still has its lag issues online as well.

A real 90 MPH fastball takes about .3 seconds to get out of the pitcher's hand to over the plate with a 60ft 6in mound. When you are hitting in MLB The Show, a 90 MPH fastball, it seems to me, comes in a little slower than the real thing, but not by much. Let's say that when you see that pitch in the show, it takes .4 or .45 seconds. MLB 2k11 actually comes in much slower than The Show, around .55 seconds or more from the hitter cam. If you think about the degree of difficulty as applied to timing in The Show, there is such a small window for getting your timing right - maybe within .05 seconds with some pitches. 2k, being slower, gives you more reaction time, which means that lag will affect it less.

Now, to put the lag in perspective, compare it to an EA game that generally has pretty good online ranked play performance in Madden 11. The kick meter is the most comparable aspect of the gameplay to baseball, since throwing is so different in essence. Basically, the meter was the same as the old MLB The Show meter with 3 presses of the A/X button. When the game first came out, it was nearly impossible to hit with any kind of accuracy due to lag - and this is with a meter in which the time between presses was approx .8 seconds, twice the length of a pitch in The Show! In a patch, they changed this online so that the time between presses was more like a little under two seconds, so that even if lag affected things, it would not have repercussions of the same degree.

This is mind blowing here - the kick meter was SO off, with a meter that was running HALF the speed of The Show hitting, that they had to make it more than a QUARTER the speed of Sony's hitting. Putting in this in perspective, is there anything Sony can do if EA has a relatively decent amount of lag and that is the result? As you see, just fixing the server is not the only answer for Sony. They really have the greatest online challenge of any game.

Madden's kick meter, a system with more forgiveness than The Show's hitting, worked even worse online.

As this video interview with Kolbe Launchbaugh and other developers describes, they try to improve online every year by increasing server capacity and find ways of getting around online issues. Every year through MLB 10, they had a system which they called "fake batter," which they are taking out this year. In this year's title, they are trying a new approach in which they actually slow down or speed up time at different points in the pitch sequence. In other words, in the acceptance that there will be lag, and that some time will be lost to lag, they are going to adjust the flow of time to make sure that whatever gaps there are happen at less crucial moments such as during fielding, not during the time from the beginning of the windup through the pitch coming to the plate. The interviewer joked that Kolbe is a "superman" affecting the "space-time continuum," which in the virtual world of the game, he really is.

This is why I'm cautiously optimistic about online performance in this year's game, even after years of annual promises that never were kept. I feel like until the internet is drastically changed, there will be no perfect solution to online lag, but if there is ever a time for the servers to work well in this game, it is now, with this new system. Add to that new league systems, a new point system, a really cool roster vault feature, Challenge of the Week, and, oh ya, Co-Op (!!!) the online additions seem more than decent this year from a features perspective. I'm not saying we have seen the "promised land," but I reserve hope!

Comments

# 1 rspencer86 @ Feb 23

Great post, a lag-free online experience in The Show would really make for some fun with OS Leagues. It's always more fun to play against a real person, provided that online play is smooth and glitch-free.