Shoutcasting/streaming features

[sado1]

Hello. I wanted to request a few features that would be handy for making KaM videos - whether they are live streams, or shoutcasts made after the games.

1. Spectator mode, along with being able to give spectators a team so they can beacon each other. It has been requested already, but it will be good to start with that one, since it's needed for all the features I'm asking for below.
2. Advanced spectating controls. While spectating a game, I want to be able to do everything I'm able to do while looking at a replay - see player perspectives, their statistics menu, wares in storehouse/barracks/other buildings, troops conditions etc.
3. Ability to have at least one spectator for a 8 player game. 2 would be ideal, since it's really fun to make live commentary with another person. Is there a technical possibility to do this? Can this bring more lags to the game?
4. Ability to watch a replay with other people spectating it, being able to place beacons, change speed to x3/x6/x10 etc. Basically, I want everything that is needed for 2 (or more?) person shoutcasts, which are impossible at the moment.

Lewin already said he might try to implement 1. and 2. in the game before the next release, but I'm mentioning these 2 things here as well, to gain feedback, and also make Lewin not forget about the idea.

[Leeuwgie]

Excellent post Sado!

[Lewin]

Good list. I'd like to implement 1 and 2 initially, I'll see if I can do it for the next release. There's no technical reason why we can't do 3, it just needs a redesign of the lobby to fit more player slots (make chat smaller or use a scrollbar if your screen is too small). When we do that we'll probably increase the player limit too. I'm not sure about 4, watching replays with two people doesn't really fit into our designs, so it probably won't be done. Can you use screen sharing on Skype or something so both commentators can watch the same thing at the same time?

[Nissarin]

Good list. I'd like to implement 1 and 2 initially, I'll see if I can do it for the next release. There's no technical reason why we can't do 3, it just needs a redesign of the lobby to fit more player slots (make chat smaller or use a scrollbar if your screen is too small). When we do that we'll probably increase the player limit too. I'm not sure about 4, watching replays with two people doesn't really fit into our designs, so it probably won't be done. Can you use screen sharing on Skype or something so both commentators can watch the same thing at the same time?

Maybe instead of redesigning current lobby implementation (more players or "spectator" slots) it would be easier to create "ghost" lobby - so "main" lobby would store game state (basically server side save file), preferably with some snapshots so some kind of rewinding would be possible (Krom mentioned something like that before), then when someone joins the ghost lobby he would download such save file, this would probably allow to reuse current replay code. And more importantly spectators won't affect game they're currently watching (lags).

[pawel95]

Good list. I'd like to implement 1 and 2 initially, I'll see if I can do it for the next release. There's no technical reason why we can't do 3, it just needs a redesign of the lobby to fit more player slots (make chat smaller or use a scrollbar if your screen is too small). When we do that we'll probably increase the player limit too. I'm not sure about 4, watching replays with two people doesn't really fit into our designs, so it probably won't be done. Can you use screen sharing on Skype or something so both commentators can watch the same thing at the same time?

Maybe instead of redesigning current lobby implementation (more players or "spectator" slots) it would be easier to create "ghost" lobby - so "main" lobby would store game state (basically server side save file), preferably with some snapshots so some kind of rewinding would be possible (Krom mentioned something like that before), then when someone joins the ghost lobby he would download such save file, this would probably allow to reuse current replay code. And more importantly spectators won't affect game they're currently watching (lags).

Agree with Nissarin. Sorry for taking Dota again as an example, but as a free to play game it really has great features and exactly there you have those "Ghost lobbies" You see sometimes a "game" that has already started for example, and just click "connect" or "leave". The players that are IN THE GAME, have no negative influence of it, that should also work in the Remake. So I mean, when a spectator has a small ping/internet is broken, that player should be kicked from that game fast as possible (and he can rejoin after some min again), just what Nissarin wrote more or less

One other point is, that is really a nice idea, that in Dota the Live games, aren´t 100% Live, but like 4 min later showed for the spectators. That extra made, to avoid "tips" from the spectators to a player in a team. In Dota at least, that works because it doesn´t help you anything, to know where some player is hiding, because in 4 Min this player won´t be there for sure anymore

In Kam that is the only - point for me, when players just could join games to spectate. When I tested some things, I also saw that it is possible to play and watch a replay at the same time for example. Watching the game for like 1 min, and you normaly know in KaM how to win:

"Ah he has a stable, Ok Mass Pikes" "Ahh looks like total no food management, I will try to camp long as possible"

[Krom]

KaM is inherently a slow-paced game. For spectator lag to work in KaM it should be at least 30 min in economy phase (PT). So that makes me think that adding a small lag to spectators won't help that much (as Pawel pointed out), and adding a big lag is the same as just watching replays after the game was complete.

[Lewin]

KaM is inherently a slow-paced game. For spectator lag to work in KaM it should be at least 30 min in economy phase (PT). So that makes me think that adding a small lag to spectators won't help that much (as Pawel pointed out), and adding a big lag is the same as just watching replays after the game was complete.

I'm pretty sure streaming services like Twitch.TV lets you set a delay on the transmission since most games need that to prevent cheating (or if not you can do it with a second application). Hopefully it lets you set a high delay like 30 minutes.

It would be quite hard for us to let the spectators watch on a delay in the game like Nissarin suggested, joining half way through, downloading the save+replay, then streaming live commands from the game. I don't think that would be worth all the extra work for us when streaming services already offer delaying solutions for multiplayer streams.

I disagree that watching replays is the same, it's more exciting when the commentators are watching the game live and talking about it without the commentators knowing who will win or how long the game will go. If the commentators are just watching a replay and talking about it that's not nearly as interesting since they already know the results and don't get excited about it. If streaming doesn't work the commentators could spectate live and record it with FRAPS, then upload it to Youtube after. That's still a lot more interesting than a recording of a replay where the commentators know what happens and you can see how long the game will last.

Also, streaming gives you the social aspect. You all watch the game at the same time and have a conversation in the stream chat. It wouldn't matter if the stream was delayed by even 2 hours, you can still have fun watching the game together. We had a great conversation the other day in the Twitch chat while Sado commentated, about 20 viewers and 5-10 people using chat.

I would personally love to see more KaM streams, and I think it's a good way to build the community.

[Krom]

Adding spectator lag to Remake is troublesome mostly because we would need to send out games state (save) for a moment N minutes in the past.

Realistically speaking, streams we watched last week could have been made from months old replays (which players sent to Sado) and noone would notice. Same way KaM championships finals could have been kept secret for 2 hours and only then streamed from replays - that would not be inherently different from 2 hour spectators lag. There's matter of trust here, do we trust players to keep results secret until spectators catch up with them (30min) same way we trust commentators did not watched replays outcomes on fast forward?

I haven't said a thing against streaming :-P IMO it's a great concept and I really enjoyed recent streams by Sado
In that sense streaming is the same as spectating with additional bonuses. So maybe we should plan spectating first and streaming will naturally sit on top of it.

[Nissarin]

I'm afraid you misunderstood me - the whole idea behind separating game lobby and spectator lobby (using "save file") is not to introduce some kind of "stream delay" mechanics but to support features like fast forward (speed changes), perhaps some rewinding (basically all of the "advanced" features pointed out by Sado). Since you would be extending existing infrastructure (replay code) it should mean less work in theory and tbh if you're planning to support such features in the future then some kind of buffering (either client side or server side) is necessary anyway. And when I said spectators won't affect the game I had in mind situation when one of the spectators steaming the game would slow it down due to FPS/latency problems.

[pawel95]

I'm pretty sure streaming services like Twitch.TV lets you set a delay on the transmission since most games need that to prevent cheating (or if not you can do it with a second application). Hopefully it lets you set a high delay like 30 minutes.

I experimented with that function, when I wanted to stream for our battle tournament, but I was only able to set some small delays, like 5 min instead of the normal twitch delay of 30 seconds, but maybe it is somehow possible to set a streaming delay for like 30 min.

[Krom]

@Nissarin: Buffering is against the way KaM engine works. It works from certain state and applies changes to it each tick, those changes can't be reversed or played back. It would be much easier if streaming software could do the spectator lag and buffering thing and support rewinding within that buffer.

@Pawel: What did prevented you from setting higher delays than 5min?

[Nissarin]

@Nissarin: Buffering is against the way KaM engine works. It works from certain state and applies changes to it each tick, those changes can't be reversed or played back. It would be much easier if streaming software could do the spectator lag and buffering thing and support rewinding within that buffer.

But you can buffer those commands, so you can imagine situation when the caster pauses the "replay" in order to show something and then resume the "playback", even speed up in order to catch up. And if you mix in "snapshots" of game state every X minutes it's possible to "rewind" the replay to such snapshot and go one from there, correct ?
Streaming software is not a solution here because it's just a video feed and you can't interact with video the way you interact with the game, not to mention I doubt the streaming software have such features in the first place, stream delay, maybe writing something on the overlay it's the best it can do.

[pawel95]

@Pawel: What did prevented you from setting higher delays than 5min?

Nothing No seriously, I just tested it one minute ago and yeah it really works for every delay So you can easily set in your streaming program the delay, not on twich itselves!

Note: The only problem is, because the delay is caused by your program (OBS for example) So when you stream with a delay of 30 minutes, you have to let the program run 30 min extra, after your end of stream You can abort that, but then the last 30 min are missed in the stream

Haha sorry that I have to open that "discussion" again but I was right Krom I only didn´t test it after you said, it should be possible OBS only let you set a delay of maximum a few minutes(100 sec is the maximum I guess). I just didn´t noticed that, because I set like 24000(for 40 min delay) in obs and clicked "start streaming". I normaly started to stream with sado and got a lachflash then, after I saw on my twitch dashboard, that I have one viewer already, since the stream should begin after 40 min
The delay setting is reseted every time, when you start to stream with a set delay over 100 without any warning in this program

So we had to stop the stream like after 2 minutes in game. I wrote also on the obs forum, but they say that it might be changed or maybe also not They for sure want implement a warning "your delay is too high".

So actualy, maybe this delay function would be still a nice thing in kam spectating as an optional setting in the faaar future?

[Lewin]

Is it possible to get Twitch to add the delay on their end rather than doing it on your PC with OBS? I read about a delay from within Twitch here:
http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/a ... elay-works

[pawel95]

Is it possible to get Twitch to add the delay on their end rather than doing it on your PC with OBS? I read about a delay from within Twitch here:
http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/a ... elay-works

No. You have to be an official partner of twitch to get this delay feature! That means you have to get 500 viewers in average per week and other things I didn´t asked for partnership yet, and no of our kam streamers, is an "official twitch partner"(You get 50% money for subscribers / 50% go to twitch).


And even when I would be in a partnership with twitch, sado told me somewhere that Twitch.tv only alows delays up to 10 min or sth like that.