United Football Interview
KeyWord: United Football, Interview Date: 05-07-2007
Summary: United Football Interview with Martyn Hughes---Managing Director of Staggan Interactive.

Bored of playing the same old soccer games? Want to play the soccer game online with your friends and others from all around the world? Then look no further, United football is here!
You can CLICK HERE to visit United football official site.

 

MMOSITE.COM: For the players who are not familiar with your game, can you give them a brief introduction? In your opinion, what makes the game special?

Martyn: United Football is a free, multiplayer, five-a-side football game. Unlike many other soccer games the user controls a single player on the pitch using FPS like controls and viewpoint. Users can play with people all over the world in a single game and because of the game s immersive viewpoint and controls they get a real feeling of being in the action. We allow the player complete control of the ball when they kick and pass. Unlike other games where there may be some interference from the game AI when the ball is passed, in United Football a player is able to kick the ball anywhere on the field (or off it if they like!). Also, did we mention it s free to download and play?


MMOSITE.COM: You state that United Football is "Easy to play. Hard to master." Does that mean the game is appealing to both casual gamers and the hardcore?

Martyn: We hope so yes. The game controls are easy to pick up and play with very little practice, but with experience users are able to do very cool things like curve the ball around opponents or the goalkeeper. We also hope that the skill involved in the controls will appeal to the more hardcore users who want to improve their skills and become the best.

MMOSITE.COM: What about the control system in United Football?

Martyn: The control system in United Football is designed to be different to other popular football games since we wanted to give the user as much control as possible over the ball. We also wanted to give the user a greater feeling of immersion so they really felt like part of the action. To do this we first decided on the camera view that most put the player in the action. From here we looked at the controls again, because originally we were using the FIFA / PES style camera view and controls and in fact gameplay style. We decided on the new control scheme after weeks of playing and came to the conclusion that we would trade off some of the visual aspects of the game in favour of giving users more control, both in terms of where and how they kick the ball as well as how quickly they could do this. Our game controls allow a new player to quickly be able to get the ball, pass the ball, shoot the ball, and with practice they can place the ball in any position on the field they want with incredible accuracy.

MMOSITE.COM: Let s come to the leader board. What do experience points and rank indicate? It seems rank has nothing to do with the position. How often do you update the board?

Martyn: The leader board is real-time. It is updated whenever a user completes a game.

Experience points are points gained from actions within the game. So players get points for successful passes, shots, tackles etc. To discourage ball hogging and promote team play we reward the whole team when a teammate earns some points. A player s rank indicates their position on the experience point "ladder".

We will also shortly be logging and sharing individual player s statistics to show top scorers, tacklers and such like.


MMOSITE.COM: The goalkeeper seems quite weird; why not use a real goalkeeper?

Martyn: The "Fairground" keeper was a novel approach to a time and design problem. We needed a working goalkeeper quickly and did not have the time to implement a good working human type keeper. We designed this keeper and many people found him enjoyable to play against; especially in power-up games.

Our latest patch includes a human style goalkeeper but we ll still be allowing players to select the old style fairground keeper if they prefer.


MMOSITE.COM: What community system can we have in the game?

Martyn: The game has normal chatrooms and game rooms, which can be public or private. There is also a Messenger-like buddy list for players to keep track of their friends and we will be featuring a full team management interface to let people organize and manage their own teams to take part in tournaments and competitions.


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