Any additions to the "Battleroom" dialog... - Page 3

Any additions to the "Battleroom" dialog...

Discuss the source code and development of Spring Engine in general from a technical point of view. Patches go here too.

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Dragon45
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Post by Dragon45 »

If each mod is going to have a seperate file (or an integrated component or whatever) to describe it and have settings, might as well go for the full shebang and include things like

(first of all) version number, with version compatability checking to ensure that nothing funky goes on. Maybe even base the "version" on an MD5 checksum or hash of the mod file or summat to ensure that someone can't use an older version of the mod and trick the lobby into thinking its a newer version simply by changing a setting in a text file. Could help avoid cheating.

I think it would also be standard procedure to load up all the units the mod uses, for enabling/disabling.

Also: List of comptabile mutators (for much farther into the future)
colorblind
Spring Developer
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Post by colorblind »

zwzsg wrote:Also, make sure your battleroom can be used offline and in a LAN game and in games joined via IP, and not only within the spring server.
I'm with that.
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Ace07
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Post by Ace07 »

I will look into making it offline. That should help out those without broadband be able to make games vs the AI. And LAN too...

In other news....new pics of the interface are in:

Image
Image
Image

I like how the mod tab turned out.... =)

Tell me what you think. The mod settings in the mod tab change depending on how the mod defines what variables are changeable (it also won't say "Mod Setting #1" when you load a mod with changeable settings in it). We will see how it turns out in later versions. For the first version it will be disabled of course. =)
coryrc
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More info

Post by coryrc »

Ace07: Look at allowing any number of mod options (i.e. a list of run-time determinable numbers) rather than 5 fixed ones. Also, know of any easy way to change the toolkit to allow, say, a TA theme?
coryrc
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Others

Post by coryrc »

Here's the goal:
In addition to the battleroom, there will be a very simple server. It keeps all the settings, and has only two options: set admin and set password.
At a LAN game, you run this, and everyone connects to your IP address. It stores everyone's choices, and, when everyone hits go, spits out the text file to every client.
If playing a PhoeniX WorX game, it is probably compiled in his software.

Oh, and I believe we will be able to port the existing Spring client, so that should be usable until this is fully featured.
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Ace07
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Re: More info

Post by Ace07 »

coryrc wrote:Ace07: Look at allowing any number of mod options (i.e. a list of run-time determinable numbers) rather than 5 fixed ones. Also, know of any easy way to change the toolkit to allow, say, a TA theme?
I doubt there is an easy way to do it. If we used openGL to draw on the windows and whatnot, you could have it look like TA. We don't currently have enough art to even begin to do that though.

5 options in GUI form is all the space that is available on that dialog box. Mods should be able to create configuration files that can change more than 5. The 5 are just there for convenience. Its hard to make more than that editable due to space constraints.
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Ace07
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Post by Ace07 »

I lied....I think it can be done....I just didn't give it enough thought.
Doomweaver
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Post by Doomweaver »

I think that just a picture for the mod should do. Because if we have a whole theme, then that's just more images to download. One for the actual image of the mod is all we need. Make it big enough to a be a loading screen as well (800x600). Then for higher resolutions it can just be stretched.
SJ
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Post by SJ »

I can see now way in that gui to change allyteam. Allyteam and alliances work quite a bit differently internally so you wont be able to rationalize one of them away.

The map name/mod name should probably be visible on the main tab so you can see the most important stuff at a glance?

Also there must be some really easy way to see if someone has modified a map parameter(make the map name red or something), I dont want to have to go through the map tab to see that no one has turned up the wind to 30 on comet catcher every time I play.

The speed should probably be an intervall not a single value.

There is also some stuff like unxeplored terrain in there that isnt supported by the engine. I hope you are planning to implement those ones yourself :)
Gurkha
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Post by Gurkha »

A few things:
1) Don't have a forced ready, if the host can force a player to 'ready' status there's no point having a 'ready' button in the first place.
2) Kick should be by a 2/3 vote of the other players - I'm fed up of online games where everyone is at the mercy of the host to not get kicked
3) File transfer. Rather than upload to 3 at once have everyone who has the map upload to one person who doesn't. (This is the way Warcraft3 does it). Say everyone has the same connection, that there are 4 of you, and only the most has the map. If he uploads to all 3 it takes 3 times as long as one transfer to give everyone the map. If he uploads to one it takes one map-upload time, and then they both upload to one each for a total of only two upload times. Of course you could use a bittorrent model where everyone gets the file in one upload time, but it would be harder to code.
Another idea would be (if you still plan to keep the lobby system) to poll all the people who are in the lobby but not in a game (i.e. chatting) to see if they are willing to donate some bandwidth and if they have the map in their maps folder (which would be controlled by a maximum 'not in a game with me' upload bandwidth slider which could go down to zero if you were feeling mean.
4) Any chance of the colours being entirely custom ('cept something to stop people trying to diguise themselves as other players by keeping their RGB values a certaina mmount apart)
5) Can we have custom icons for players at some point? I don't know what we'd do with them at the moment, but they could hae uses later on (units modelled to have a custom icon rather than a custom colour on a face, a special flag model for the commander to build, to put on the score screen, to put as overlays on the map to show what areas are controlled by whom, etc.) so leave a space.
6) But don't make it obvious that you're leaving a space (make other things bigger than they need to be, etc) trust me, if you leave a widget that doesn't seem to do anything people will waste hours (and ask incessantly) trying to find out what it does. Ever seen the chat gem in DiabloII?

-Gurkha
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NOiZE
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Post by NOiZE »

@ point 2

how would did work in a 1v1 game?
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Min3mat
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Post by Min3mat »

good question! :shock: confuses me! i think if u host a game u kick who u want....in fact u r THE HOST! u need almighty smiting power (i'm sure alantai will agree with me here!)
Doomweaver
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Post by Doomweaver »

I really like the idea of bandwidthe being pooled from people not in a game. But have it limited, at say 20 megs per week or so. And make sure you can turn it off. Some people will abuse this and just leave it off for no good reason, but the majority should be okay!
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Ace07
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Post by Ace07 »

SJ wrote:I can see now way in that gui to change allyteam. Allyteam and alliances work quite a bit differently internally so you wont be able to rationalize one of them away.
What does allyteam do again exactly? I will add it, but I forgot what it does. :?
SJ wrote: The map name/mod name should probably be visible on the main tab so you can see the most important stuff at a glance?

I will add the map name. The mod name is already on the main tab.
SJ wrote: Also there must be some really easy way to see if someone has modified a map parameter(make the map name red or something), I dont want to have to go through the map tab to see that no one has turned up the wind to 30 on comet catcher every time I play.

I was planning on doing something like that. Make the name of the map red or a certain icon appear if the host has modified values.
SJ wrote: The speed should probably be an intervall not a single value.


The speed of the game is affected by the connection isn't it? In that case, I will change it.
SJ wrote: There is also some stuff like unxeplored terrain in there that isnt supported by the engine. I hope you are planning to implement those ones yourself :)

That is just something I hope someone gets to at some point. It is just there until it gets made, if it ever does. However, I am not trying to create more work for you SJ.
coryrc
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Post by coryrc »

Gurkha:
@3: Including bittorrent should be easy enough.
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PauloMorfeo
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Post by PauloMorfeo »

Ace07 wrote:...
What does allyteam do again exactly? I will add it, but I forgot what it does. :?
...
You have two ways of allying with others.

In one way, both players have it's own army, share LOS, do not shoot each other, etc.

In the other way, both players (or more, of course) share the same army. Both of them control the same commander. That way, they are indeed just one army but controled by more than one person.

Also, as a note, do not use the system that TA::Spring uses now for naming the two types of alliances. It's confusing. In Sourceforge i added a feature request requesting for that to be changed and you can also find some threads discussing that.
I, again, propose Commander/Alliance or Army/Alliance.
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Ace07
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Post by Ace07 »

coryrc wrote:Gurkha:
@3: Including bittorrent should be easy enough.
Open source 4eva!
Gurkha
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Post by Gurkha »

*smacks self* oh, yeah, I forgot BT is opensource so you can just grab the code...

on 1v1 games:
Then the host can kick the other player (much as I don't like people just kicking their potential opponent, it's gonna have to be there).

I don't like hosts having almighty smiting powers, they get abused all too often. Ever tried joining a custom map game in war3 without having the map on your computer? almighty smiting power allows people to get kicked 20 times in a row for not having the map.
If hosts really don't like it they can cancel and host again with a password.

Oh any chance of an instant-messaging system to anyone logged onto the lobby server?
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Ace07
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Post by Ace07 »

Gurkha wrote: Oh any chance of an instant-messaging system to anyone logged onto the lobby server?
Yes...we want to impliment something like this.....it probably won't be in the first release however.
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Dragon45
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Post by Dragon45 »

The ally/team thing does defintely need a name change, as PaulMorfeo suggested. Whatever name is implemented, I would like to suggest that a pop-up-on-hover box (if the mouse is held there for a few seconds) displays that function of that button.
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