No, you won't be seeing 4 team Pipeball Odyssey. That would be.... massive. Far too massive. A single BSP can barely contain 5 PBO stages, and those are just barely big enough to qualify as "legit" stages in their own right. To make a 4 team PBO map would, and I am not joking when I say this, require the number of stages to increase
exponentially. As you know, (or if you don't, here it is,) the 2 team Pipeball Odyssey transitions between eras. Starting with NYC in 1974, BLU wants to move back in time, RED forward in time, for 5 stages total. To accommodate an additional two teams, though, they would also have to have 5 stages to battle across. Think of it like a plus sign. If RED and BLU's battles move the setting vertically, YLW and GRN's battles would have to move it horizontally.
Snickerpuffs and I had a laugh at how gigantic a 4 team PBO concept like this would work, for 25 stages in total! I theorized that it would start in 1974 New York as normal, but depending on which team scored, it would either move forwards or backwards in time by different amounts. If RED and BLU shift between eras, GRN and YLW would shift between what's more or less contemporary in those eras. So, in New York, if YLW, who wants to go from less contemporary to more contemporary, were to score, instead of jumping to cyberpunk South Korea in 2149, the map would shift to Brazil in 2000. If GRN were to score in New York, instead of 12 BC Egypt, we'd visit Vietnam in 1962. This sets up a truly ridiculous 4-way tug of war, that can end as late as 2706 on Saturn's moon of Enceladus, or 300 million years ago on the supercontinent Pangea. There's Revolutionary War South Carolina in 1777, ancient Rome in 23 BC, and a sort of two-parter on the opposite ends of YLW and GRN's spectrum- an under-construction base on the moon in 2317 in one of GRN's final stages, and that same moon base, now completed and operational in 2387, serving as YLW's last chance at survival. Would you liked to have seen Pipeball in 844 Scotland? Or 1942 Stalingrad, right in the middle of the fiercest fighting of World War II? Play Doom Pipeball on Mars in 2411? Or see Pipeball on the Fertile Crescent in 7502 BC?
So a team would win if SOMEONE, not necessarily themselves, score on the appropriate end of that diagram. For instance, RED would win if someone scores on BLU's goal on Europa, or Jupiter's orbit. Doesn't matter if RED, GRN or YLW sinks it, RED would win. So that gives GRN and YLW added incentive to save BLU's ass, while also fighting each other. Or, GRN would win if YLW's goal gets piped in Assyria or Toronto. It would make a very interesting dynamic of suddenly having to forge alliances- or even truces- between teams depending on which one of them is teetering on the edge of defeat. And just think of the chaos that would ensue when TWO teams are on the brink. Hatti in 2022 BC could spell victory for BLU or YLW, while the completed moon base in 2387 could see either RED or GRN win. Could you imagine the absolute pandemonium that would entail? I can, and I curse cruel fate for such a dream to be deemed impossible.
And before you say, "But Asylum, just split it up across 5 or 6 BSPs! Surely people won't mind the loading and reconnecting times!" Yes, yes they would. And if that wasn't an issue, don't fucking tempt me. I absolutely would if I could.
