Spectating next release

[Killer!!]

Hello,

I just had an idea for the next release about spectating.
What if we could make it like that that if you are a spectator in a game but jou when the game is playing want to do something different on KaM at the same time, what if you could leave the game as spectator and rejoin the game later on?
Or maybe beter that everyone who wants can join a game as a spectator when the game is already in progrues?
(srry for my englisch btw )

[Lewin]

There's a few problems with that:
1. The players of the game need to allow and trust the spectator. Otherwise the spectator might be a friend of one of the players who will tell them what their enemies are doing. So allowing "everyone who wants" to spectate your games is a really bad idea.
2. Joining while a game is in progress is technically difficult in our engine. It's not impossible, it would just take quite a bit of work (the process would have to be: save the game, transfer save to the joiner, joiner loads the save, joiner receives and quickly simulates the events he missed during transfer/loading time)

I think a better way to do this would be to give the host a "return to lobby" button which automatically saves the game and instantly places the game back in the lobby. Then you can allow new people to join who will download the save (they can replace leavers too) and then click start and the game continues. This actually wouldn't require too much work to implement, and it might finally solve the issue of leavers (assuming people are happy to join and take somebody else's place in the save). It would also make "rehosting" very easy (after returning to the lobby you wouldn't have to continue the same game, you could start a different one).

Do you think that's a good idea?

[Killer!!]

That is a very great idea.
Maybe you could add (I actually don't know if it's already possible) that if you are in the lobby you can download the save of the game which you were playing in the lobby it self.
Now I already know that it is possible to do that with downloading maps in the nightly version, so maybe it could be Nice to do the same with saved games.
Like a rehost game after already 30min for example, so there is someone else who can download the map instanly

[Lewin]

That is a very great idea.
Maybe you could add (I actually don't know if it's already possible) that if you are in the lobby you can download the save of the game which you were playing in the lobby it self.
Now I already know that it is possible to do that with downloading maps in the nightly version, so maybe it could be Nice to do the same with saved games.
Like a rehost game after already 30min for example, so there is someone else who can download the map instanly

File transfers already work for both saves and maps

Does anybody think the "return to lobby" button might create problems? For example hosts could press it to "troll" everyone or because they want to pause the game even if nobody else does...? Currently the host has no extra powers after the game starts (only in the lobby) so this "return to lobby" button would be changing that.

EDIT:

Given that it didn't seem too difficult I went ahead and implemented it. It works well, when the host clicks "return to lobby" the game saves with filename "paused" and returns to the lobby and allows you to resume your save after adding players (to replace leavers) or even selecting a different map. This can also serve as a pause feature by returning to the lobby then resuming later.

However I don't think it's fair that the host has absolute control over this feature, since if the host is losing the game he might click that just to annoy everyone. So instead I think the host clicks it, then all players get asked "host wants to return to the lobby, do you agree? (yes/no)". When > 50% of players agree (including the host) the game returns to the lobby. This means that even a whole team in 4vs4 can't take you back to the lobby, you would need 5 votes "yes" to allow it. What do you think about that?

[Killer!!]

I think if you doping it like that everyone or 50% wants to restard/pause it will work fine.
But how can you when you restard a game select an other map, because if you pause and rejoin the game on an other map you lose your buildings I think?

[Lewin]

I think if you doping it like that everyone or 50% wants to restard/pause it will work fine.
But how can you when you restard a game select an other map, because if you pause and rejoin the game on an other map you lose your buildings I think?

Yeah if you select another map then you won't have your buildings of course. This button isn't anything special it just does the following:
- Saves the game
- Returns everyone to the lobby with the saved game selected

So it's just like you saved and then all quit and joined the same new lobby and selected that save. This button just makes it very fast and easy (normally getting everyone to quit and rejoin is hard, and it takes more time).

[MaxDeus]

Would be like in LoL or other games. Maybe make it like this. Everyone can click this button, and then a survey starts (> 50 % blabla..). That would be more fair, so nobody must have more rights. And what about a pause-button (everybody can make 1 break for 30 secounds, maybe for going to toilet, or something else if nessessary like it is in some other games).
GR
MaxDeus

[pawel95]

Would be like in LoL or other games. Maybe make it like this. Everyone can click this button, and then a survey starts (> 50 % blabla..). That would be more fair, so nobody must have more rights. And what about a pause-button (everybody can make 1 break for 30 secounds, maybe for going to toilet, or something else if nessessary like it is in some other games).
GR
MaxDeus

Disagree. Exactl that way it works in Dota 2, and I remember one time that I paused, watched the whole battlefield, and got a rampage then (killed whole enemy´s team ) So this is quite abusable in KaM also. You will walk into a trap, press pause and watch "Aha, there are horses coming. Aha here I should run, aha here my ally should help" That´s really not good, if a pause button is needed, then better like I said longer time ago sth like a pause button, where 80% have to agree ( 3 players in a 4 player game / 6 in a 8 player game and both in a 1vs1 game).

[MaxDeus]

It was only another idea, to let the players have a break. it is not nessessary (only an idea came to my mind when i wrote the sentence before ). The more inportant one was the idea: everybody can "ask" for stopping the game to go back in the lobby.
GR
MaxDeus

[sado1]

That's a neat idea, also would be nice when people play a bunch of tactical maps in a row, so instead of making a new lobby after the game is finished, you can just 'return to lobby' with the same players squad, and pick a different map.

[pawel95]

That's a neat idea, also would be nice when people play a bunch of tactical maps in a row, so instead of making a new lobby after the game is finished, you can just 'return to lobby' with the same players squad, and pick a different map.

Agree for that, for tournaments it could be way easier, but it isn´t really necessary when it needs lot of programming work(what I actualy think) It´s in that way not important, because mostly when you play tactical maps there are often single guys, that leave after one guy, and another is joining, replacing the other guy

[Ben]

However I don't think it's fair that the host has absolute control over this feature, since if the host is losing the game he might click that just to annoy everyone. So instead I think the host clicks it, then all players get asked "host wants to return to the lobby, do you agree? (yes/no)". When > 50% of players agree (including the host) the game returns to the lobby. This means that even a whole team in 4vs4 can't take you back to the lobby, you would need 5 votes "yes" to allow it. What do you think about that?

Just make sure there is a cool down or some way of preventing the host from spamming the button. I can't stand it when people spam the chat, but this (along with spaming pause votes) would be way worse.

[Lewin]

That's a neat idea, also would be nice when people play a bunch of tactical maps in a row, so instead of making a new lobby after the game is finished, you can just 'return to lobby' with the same players squad, and pick a different map.

Although that would mean you wouldn't get to see the statistics, which would be sad

We were planning to make it so you can chat while looking at the statistics screen, which might just mean making the statistics a "popup" from the game screen that you can open once the game has ended (when you have won or lost). I guess that might solve the problem. Anybody have thoughts on this?

So I guess we need a voting system in order to make "return to lobby" work. That sounds annoying to implement I'm not sure where we can fit it in the UI either...

[Ben]

That's a neat idea, also would be nice when people play a bunch of tactical maps in a row, so instead of making a new lobby after the game is finished, you can just 'return to lobby' with the same players squad, and pick a different map.

Although that would mean you wouldn't get to see the statistics, which would be sad

We were planning to make it so you can chat while looking at the statistics screen, which might just mean making the statistics a "popup" from the game screen that you can open once the game has ended (when you have won or lost). I guess that might solve the problem. Anybody have thoughts on this?

So I guess we need a voting system in order to make "return to lobby" work. That sounds annoying to implement I'm not sure where we can fit it in the UI either...

Perhaps once "Back to Lobby" is pressed, you see the statistics, but you are actually in the lobby. Once you exit out of the statistics, you see the lobby?

Although, this won't be useful for chat, huh?

[sado1]

A couple of spectate mode i deas.

-As far as I remember, the main reason for 10 player/spec limit was that it was believed to be unnecessary to have more than 2 spectators in a 8p game. Seeing as we almost have to beat each other up for spec slots on TS nowadays, would it be possible to extend the spec limit?

-It would surely be hard to do, but would it be possible to not treat specs like players, and for example let them get out of sync? This would likely be necessary if we plan to have a lot more specs which might mean more lags etc.

-Assuming above is done, could it be possible to let specs join without returning to lobby somehow? Pauses related to specs are quite annoying.