Get a Sideline View in the Game Lobby

You’re the Coach, the Fan or Even the Commentator

In Strat-O-Matic’s New Online Football Adventure

By Glenn Guzzo

Combine NetPlay, chat rooms and Strat-O-Matic pro football and you’ve got the latest and hottest interactive simulation-gaming experience.

It’s the Strat-O-Matic Game Lobby and it has the potential to be one of the biggest things so far in game company’s computer-gaming evolution.

It’s new, it’s experimental and it’s free (at least for this year).

Enter the Game Lobby and a new Strat-O-Matic world, where you can:

n Using the chat function, find other gamers looking for a game.

n Play head-to-head games online, even easier than NetPlay. In one of the Game Lobby’s private rooms, opponents’ computers connect automatically, without having to exchange IP addresses.

And now that either the home or visiting team can host a game (another new feature of the Version 7 Pro Football game), online play is simpler yet. Whoever has the easier time hosting can do so.

n Using Spectator Mode, another new Strat-O-Matic feature, watch friends’ games. Up to 64 people can be in a private Game Lobby room at one time, so invite the whole league for the league championship. Scout next week’s opponent. Or pick up tips watching more-accomplished players match wits.

n Chat away with other gamers, either out in the Lobby, or during a game right in the main game chat area.

“This should be a great place to hang out and connect with people,” says Bob Winberry, Strat-O-Matic’s director of product development. “Hopefully you’ll be able to find someone to play SOM football. Hopefully it will be a place to meet new and old friends.”

The utility of the Game Lobby seems limitless. Without the necessity of scheduling a time to play, it ought to be much faster finding an opponent – especially once the Strat-O-Matic fanatics make it their regular hang out. It ought to be much easier to line up a group wanting to enter a unique league.

Whether spontaneous or pre-arranged, game opponents simply click a button to create a private room, name it, and then launch the game. Winberry estimates it will take only 30 seconds to open the room, establish it and designate the coaches. The coaches then pick their teams and click “Launch” to start play.

Example: Bob hosts Glenn in the Virginia League Super Bowl. Bob clicks to create the room, names it (Virginia League Super Bowl), specifies the number of people allowed in the room, and gives it a password (if desired). Glenn sees the room, clicks on it then clicks “Enter” to enter the room. Bob then clicks on Glenn’s name to designate him as the opponent and launches the game.

Opponents can set a ceiling on the number of spectators allowed in a game room, and they can limit who is invited, via password. Most spectators will need to be there when the game starts, because you cannot enter a private room directly from the Lobby once the game has started. However, invited spectators can join a game in progress if IP addresses are exchanged, Winberry suggested. In such instances, he said, the host may want to have his Instant Messenger running in the background so that friends who wish to watch after the game has begun can contact him for the appropriate IP-Address to join. As a safety measure to prevent unauthorized viewing, the game announces when the spectators have arrived.

Spectators may find this better than TV games. Since spectators are also launched into the game, they can see everything an opponent would see – formation selections, the play animation and play descriptions. But they also can watch with the card-image and other options on, even if the coaches aren’t using them. And spectators can summon game and stat reports at any time.

While watching, you are inactive in the Game Lobby, but you can chat during the game you’re watching and everyone in the game can view what you have to say (leagues might want to advise the “crowd” on the amount of “advice” they offer the coaches).

Now, about the experimental part.

While the game has been tested on a variety of systems, Winberry notes that the endless combinations of computers, operating systems, firewalls, routers and third-party software in the hands of gamers always have the potential for connection issues. Similar to Netplay, many of these issues cannot be resolved by Strat-O-Matic because they require each user to alter the network settings on their computer. Also, there will likely be some systems that are simply incapable of running the Game Lobby. “The industry standard is about 98% compatibility,” Winberry said. “This feature is experimental, and available for free this year because we want to work through whatever issues we are able to resolve on our end.”

Since the Game Lobby runs on a hosted server and is not operated by Strat-O-Matic directly it will sometimes be down. “From our experience the Game Lobby should be available most all of the time, but like any other server-based product there will be times that it is not available due to software upgrades, hardware problems and software glitches,” Winberry said.

Game hosts should make sure port 6501 is open (the new default port for SOM football) or designate another.

As always, both online opponents will need to be running the same version of the game and have the roster disks installed for the teams on the field.

During the experimental period, Strat-O-Matic is offering a one-year free trial for all purchasers of Version 7.

So everyone gets a test drive. As gamers learn and experience the Game Lobby, Strat-O-Matic will learn from their experience.

“We think this is going to be very popular,” Winberry said. “We’re looking forward to the customer feedback.”