News of NBA Live 08's online team play patch (which will pit five-on-five teams across 10 different consoles)--along with FIFA 08's similar announcement a few months back--might just be the biggest sports news of the year. Sure, once the patch is live, you're going to have players online who have no idea what they are doing. Everyone's going to be crowding underneath the basket trying to pick up a rebound. There will be ball-hogging galore. It's going to be a mess right out of the gate. But, sooner or later, groups of friends are going to figure out how to play the game as a team, where to put their players, how to run plays effectively, how to communicate on the floor (you know, like real hoops team does). And those teams are going to wipe the floor with the virtual Allen Iverson's online.

　　So EA is finally taking online seriously, it seems. Both NHL and NBA Live 08 have online leagues. NHL (and soon, Live and FIFA 0 include the ability to play online with multiple players. Next year's Madden will almost certainly include one or both of these features. Tiger Woods 08's hit or miss GamerNet feature needed some polish out of the box but sounds like it could get better in the future. And NASCAR 08… okay, bad example. Let's just say NASCAR has a ways to go before it catches up. This is all good, if overdue, news. The sports gaming fan's dream of 11-on-11 Madden or FIFA games seems to be well within our grasp; the technical restrictions of such features are rapidly falling away. The problem that will remain long into the future, however, is one of design. How do you make 11-on-11 (or 5-on-5 in hoops, or 6-on-6 in hockey) a fun, compelling experience for everyone involved, even those who aren't shooting the basketball or firing the puck at net? After all, online team play sounds great but someone's going to have to end up being Wally Szczerbiak. The first problem will be the getting the online miscreants in line. The same guys who refuse to punt on fourth down, who refuse to give the ball to anyone but Kobe, and who use language towards perfect strangers that would make car mechanics blush when you're playing against them will be a problem when they're your teammate as well. The trick here, I think, will be for developers like EA (and honestly anyone who is thinking about the future of online sports games) to encourage folks to work together without adding artifice to the experience (such as a pass timer, or something else that forces players to spread the ball around and play as if there wasn't an "I" in team). Online jackballs are the short-term problem. The long term challenge is making sure that playing offensive tackle is fun. Or that the guy playing Andris Biedrins is having as much fun going up for offensive boards, as the guy locked in as Baron Davis is having tearing it up from every spot on the floor. It needs to be just as fun to play Joe Thornton bowling towards the net as it is Kyle McLaren sitting at the point and blasting pucks at the goalie (or, more accurately blowing guys up in the defensive zone). Series like Madden NFL and Sony's MLB series has attempted this kind of thing in the past with career modes, which let you play any role on the field. Still, I think there's more work that needs to be done. After all, eleven-on-eleven football sounds like a hoot, but there's no way you're going to get me to play Olin Kreutz for a four quarters the way things play now. In a way, I suppose the two problems--and the solutions--are related. Reward people for playing nicely, for fulfilling their role, and playing as a team. Make every role on the pitch, field, or ice as important as every other. Even the punter. Give the punter some love, too. It's probably asking too much of a game to change human nature, especially online human nature. Still, it's worth trying, right? No, you can't change folks through game design. But you can encourage them to do better. To try harder.