In this post, I will give a few additional details about all the good things about playing kick off online and logging in the IRC channel.
What is IRC ?IRC is a simple chat program that is used a lot by gaming communities. On first sight, it's not beautiful, but it is extremely efficient. Not only it allows people to chat in rooms, but it also gives a support to programming. The programming part sounds very important to me, as it can help us making our projects reality (see below).
In an IRC room, you will find bots (robots) that automatically control the chat and provide information, and players. They are listed in the right column, letting you know if the place is crowded or not.
Why is online kick off an important aspect of the kick off gaming world ?This question can sound weird, but I will let my personal feelings talk.
I have the feeling the Kick Off communities (not only the KOA) are dying slowly. More and more quitters, no newcomers. The people I recently met are old school addicts, who had waited 14 years to play again. Most of you know the feeling. Less people attend real tournaments, and this state is slowly killing all this organisation as well, and people motivation to get involved in our communities.
Online games ARE an essential way to promote old school kick off. We can't let people play against the computer all the time and getting bored of the game. We have to provide a human vs. human challenge, and we have everything we need to do it. We also have to offer something fun to anyone who want to try out this game. Keeping people interest in this game is a must for a middle-long term hope to keep kick off alive.
More concretely, i invite you to check out sensible soccer website.
http://www.sensiblesoccer.de . This is an awesome website, a big community, they have permanent online tournaments, best goals contests, etc... They even have kids who had never heard of SWOS 2 years ago who come and play. How does it work ? with a great motivation of theirstaff, support from their players, and the fun provided by the game itself.
Online Kick Off is a needed touch of dynamism that our game lacks for now.
What will you find in the Kick Off IRC chatroom ?Everything you need to play... online, offline, any information, friends, challengers, tips. We can also provide clients to play other amiga games online. You come, and we take care of you, if we have the time
We will also make sure you manage to play online, explaining you everything step by step, taking the needed time to do it until it works PERFECTLY. I have been in this place for more than one year now, I have helped over 25 people to set up their computer configuration, modems, routers. It has worked in all cases, except those who had a poor connection or local server restrictions that couldn't allow the game to run properly. The aim is: no lag, no delay, instant controller response and big fun !
You think you're too bad at Kick Off ? or maybe too good ?Even if the online community is not big (around 6 regular players for now), we all need some training and will enjoy being your sparring partners. We don't really mind the scores, we just like playing, want a challenge and to help people to train as well.
How does kick off online work ?It links the players computers together to make one virtual machine that will display the exact same thing on both ends. The players see the exact same things at the same moment on their screens, in real time.
To do that, we use a client with the latest version of Kick Off (cheers to SteveC). It's a little program to download and install.
There are two ways: either it goes through a server (server play), either both computers are directly connected to each others (peer to peer). Both work very well, but the peer to peer way is bit more accurate in some cases. There are tutorials on this forum to set up the server client. About peer to peer, we will ask you to come to the chatroom, as it is a bit technical to make it work properly (firewall / router specific configuration needed).
FUTURE PROJECTSDepending on the success of online kick off, the following projects can be made. I have all the needed tools to achieve them, but for now, the online community population is not big enough to make them a must. If we can reach an amount of 12-20 regular players, then we can seriously think about making these projects real:
- online kick off league: The same way it exists on sensible soccer online. There are no fixtures. Two players meet, decide to play a ranked game, then submit the final score. Their rating will change instantly, and their rank will be updated. I'm thinking about hosting the league table on the KOA forum.
Then we let the league last for a predefined period, when the period is over, we send flowers to the champion, offer a joystick to the worst player, and reset the ratings before starting the next season.
- Tournaments: These can be held anytime, and don't really need any specific tool. Still, we need enough players to make them fun.
- video library: Very easy to do, we ll just have to ask players to capture their goals and submit them. Online and Offline goals will be good
I love watching goals, except when it's my opponent who scores them.
-your suggestions: Any idea is welcome, and it will be a pleasure if you want to share it with us
If we like it and can be made, we'll do our best
Final notesI know this message looks like a big advert, but I have faith in all this work. We have everything we need to be online-happy, but we need more players in the kick off channel. Don't feel forced to join, but if you want to try it and test the fun, you are welcome. All that our community needs is more players and support. Until last Monday, I had lost my motivation to play the game, then two newcomers came and reminded me how cool it is to play this game. The best thing to do is to use this new motivation to advertise online games a little
Thank you for reading ! If you have any question, or idea, or comment, let's talk about it in the kick off channel, or just post here
Happy gaming.
