Super Powered Sports / A different sort of PVP

I originally posted this in the beta forums, and I know it's still buried somewhere in the depths of the archives, but I thought since we have an official "Suggestions" forum now, it'd be a better place to drop this.

What inspired this idea was a combination of hearing a dev use the term "extreme sports" during a talk about the Hero Games: Apocalypse maps, and my memory of a Diablo-style game from Westwood called Nox, which had a free multiplayer expansion that included a sort of fantasy-combat soccer game, that you played by "attacking" the ball (and other players) with weapons and spells to knock it around the field. And I've always thought that in any world that features relatively common super powers, the supers would likely have their own sports leagues.


To make something that would work in a video game like CO, I envision a cross between 3D pong; Triad (from the original Battlestar Galactica series); and Quidditch (because people are gonna be flying).

Picture a fully enclosed room (no out-of-bounds) about the size of a high school gymnasium, with one goal at either end. The goal could be either a hole in the wall or a net placed a bit away from the wall as in hockey (maybe floating above the floor).

Now throw in an indestructible ball about two-to-four feet in diameter, with a moderate amount of inertia, which can be moved by any mundane or super-powered means except for carrying it (pick-up and throw is okay. But no moving while holding the ball). All attacks would cause some knockback on the ball, while actual knockback powers would send it flying. You can slam it, kick it, blast it around with all sorts of powers, and even use forcefields to block. Teleporting the ball should probably be disallowed, but players could 'port themselves next to it just before hitting it. Scoring would follow some intuitive system of getting the ball into the goal at the far end.

Whether or not attacking other players is allowed might make for some interesting variations. Maybe you can only attack the opposing team while they're on your side of the center line. Maybe only the goalie is invulnerable, and only while he stays inside his box.

This is of course just one example of a "Super-Sport". Another might be a race through a labyrinth with shifting walls and other obstacles.

Yes, some powers and power sets would be more dominant in some games--Fire would be less useful than Force in the super-pong game (depending on whether it's allowed to attack the other team)--but there might be different games that each cater to different powers. It might even be necessary to limit certain power usages in certain games.

On a "less likely to happen, but would be really cool" note: Maybe allow the game "creator" to specify which types of powers are either allowed, limited, dampened, or enhanced in that particular match. Don't want roots and holds in your super-ball match? Forbid them, or make them function as slows instead. I know it would be a lot of development to facilitate that sort of control. Of course, I'm starting to think I've got enough material to make an entire game based on this concept . . . maybe in a more shooter-y game engine.

p.s. Before you mention it: Yes, I know about Blood-Bowl.