Unveiling The Official Soldat Web Gather

[`Kryptonite]

This is a good Idea, but have you thought about the players who skip gathers? If there some kind of Sub system being created? There also needs to be banning for those players who break the rules in gathers, such as constant pausing, torrenting, hacking.. etc Anyways you see what I'm saying.

[chutem]

So apparently clicking on that (really visually annoying) refreshing bar up the top right disables auto-refresh (which is also like a little minigame - gonna make it easier/more intuitive, I only found out by accident), so maybe you want to make it less obtrusive, and add an auto refresh on/off switch. Is there even a way to turn it back on without refreshing the page?

Also some funky temp storage of the chat would be nice so that you don't lose track of conversations on refresh.

Also chat can not handle ಠ_ಠ.

ಠ_ಠ

[thegrandmaster]

Chat can also not handle + but he knows the problem with characters already.
Attached is my workings so far.

[chutem]

Seems like a pain how the page is spread so much vertically, and so much horizontal space is being wasted. Unfortunately the whole design is like that, so it could take a lot of work to change unless the gather was the only different page.

Unless there were some notifications in the chat, having to scroll up and down to check how many people are joined etc. would also be annoying.

[thegrandmaster]

I agree.
Apart from moving the 'who's online' and 'in-game commands' to underneath the nav bar, the vertical spread is the least I can make it really.
Although it's nice having the gather page within the style and size of the site, practically it's not so good.
I would vote for having a separate page for the gather - bigger and thus more practical.

From: December 22, 2010, 07:03:56 amChat's down again...

[jrgp]

Chat's down again...

The chat server crashed. I just added a cronjob that kills/restarts it every half hour so this shouldn't be an issue again.

Apart from moving the 'who's online' and 'in-game commands' to underneath the nav bar, the vertical spread is the least I can make it really.

I don't  really want to put anything outside the content body part of the site since that wouldn't look  very well.

So apparently clicking on that (really visually annoying) refreshing bar up the top right disables auto-refresh (which is also like a little minigame - gonna make it easier/more intuitive, I only found out by accident), so maybe you want to make it less obtrusive, and add an auto refresh on/off switch. Is there even a way to turn it back on without refreshing the page?

Also some funky temp storage of the chat would be nice so that you don't lose track of conversations on refresh.

Also chat can not handle ಠ_ಠ.

ಠ_ಠ

The turning off auto reload was more of an easter egg than anything else, and I wanted to see if anyone would notice or not. I haven't really decided if I should temporarily store chats or not. How it currently works is sorta like IRC but without logging anywhere. It's definitely something I need to think about.

Oh, also, the gather page seems to work 100% in IE8 (when the chat server is running correctly).
edit: Now works in chrome. Probably also works in safari too.

[thegrandmaster]

I think that we either have to have the minorly impractical layout as shown in mine and jrgp's firebug mockups, or have a completely separate page for the gather. This seems the general vibes from people I've talked to..
I think the former should be implemented now, and the latter implemented later.

[jrgp]

I've added current gather in game status. By that I mean when a gather has started the website updates itself with time left, current map, and current round.

[Furai]

Good job, jrgp. Keep it up. After Thursday I'll have more time for testing and feedback.

[DorkeyDear]

A couple of ideas:

(1) Gathers that have people in it (but have not started) will appear up top, so you can see them first right away (same order though if theres multiple ones). I'm not sure if this actually good to do or not.
(2) Clicking on the TEAM_NAME value changes the team name to the next available team. In CTF, Alpha -> Bravo -> Alpha; in DM, no teams ^_^; in TDM, Alpha -> Bravo -> Charlie -> Delta -> Alpha (skips one if the team is full)

[thegrandmaster]

I've added current gather in game status. By that I mean when a gather has started the website updates itself with time left, current map, and current round.

Nice

I'll throw a few more ideas out here...
Spec feature
Order of events:
- People join the gather list
- Gather full, IP/Pass sent to all in the list
- All those people join the game
- Now that people have joined, a 'Spec' button appears alongside the ingame stats
- People who decide to watch click the button and are sent the same IP/Pass link
- Server forces anyone who then joins the game to be a spectator. make sure the spectators cannot do the ingame commands! xD

The amount of people able to click the Spec button should be limited, to maybe 4 or something.

Simple version of Spec button over.

Now to complicate things (some ideas that might influence the working of the above :L):
As soon as a gather list is full in the browser, it should display 'launching' or something, and not go straight into stats. (see why in a minute)....

When the people have received and followed the link to the server, a blank map is what they encounter (see lobbyexample.png attached).
The server displays a countdown as people join. (e.g. "1 player in, waiting for 5 more").
Only when the countdown is complete, and everyone is in, a member of alpha (for 1vs1DM, player one chooses, or for bloodbath DM just any random player) can choose the first map using the ingame !map MAPNAME command.
At this point, when the map changes to the chosen one, 'launching' changes to all the stats and the spec button appears.
The game is played.

Once this first game is over, players are transfered back to the blank map. (the stats in browser could change to 'transferring' or something).
Then, a member of bravo (or player two in 1vs1DM, or any random player in bloodbathDM) can then choose the next map.
Map changes to the chosen one, stats in browser start for round 2.
Round 2 is played.
If there are clear winners overall, players are then transferred back to the blank map, the server displays a message "congratulations %s for winning the game overall" or something (and then kick the players after like 20 seconds?).
IF there's a draw overall in CTF/INF/?1vs1?, the server takes them to a specified tie-breaker map and displays a message 'The teams are drawn, the tie-breaker has been activated'.
The teams play, and the winner is decided. Teams are taken back to the blank map, the winner is announced by a script, and players informed to get out or be kicked in 20 seconds :L

The whole idea of this is to make sure players dont play half a game, and the people in browser know exactly when its starting and where the game's at.


EDIT: I've added a very quick map in Polyworks (image attached) which just shows a better idea of the lobby. I would probably split the map into the top conjoined boxes as the DM lobby, and the two bigger alpha/bravo ones for CTF/INF.


From: December 22, 2010, 01:04:49 pm

(1) Gathers that have people in it (but have not started) will appear up top, so you can see them first right away (same order though if theres multiple ones). I'm not sure if this actually good to do or not.

The idea is nice in some ways... however I think that it might throw the order of the gather in their list atm.
The 'whos online' list has been implemented and that shows who's around straight away, also its kinda a lazymans thing aint it?

(2) Clicking on the TEAM_NAME value changes the team name to the next available team. In CTF, Alpha -> Bravo -> Alpha; in DM, no teams ^_^; in TDM, Alpha -> Bravo -> Charlie -> Delta -> Alpha (skips one if the team is full)

Again, I like the idea of this one, but gathers are meant to be randomly selected really. CW's are for people who want to arrange a specific match. Otherwise, clans might take the gather over to organise their own wars.

I like both the ideas... but I can see some problems too.

[DorkeyDear]

(2) Clicking on the TEAM_NAME value changes the team name to the next available team. In CTF, Alpha -> Bravo -> Alpha; in DM, no teams ^_^; in TDM, Alpha -> Bravo -> Charlie -> Delta -> Alpha (skips one if the team is full)

Again, I like the idea of this one, but gathers are meant to be randomly selected really. CW's are for people who want to arrange a specific match. Otherwise, clans might take the gather over to organise their own wars.

The current setup is not random (I mean it is, but it is easily avoided). The first person who joined is automatically set to a team. A person can easily rejoin to change teams, so essentially a harder version of what I just said. In order to have a truly random one, the teams must be set on the start of the gather (on join when in the "lobby" map (using your idea), a script can display the teams).

In regards to everything else you said, I support.

[thegrandmaster]

The current setup is not random (I mean it is, but it is easily avoided). The first person who joined is automatically set to a team. A person can easily rejoin to change teams, so essentially a harder version of what I just said. In order to have a truly random one, the teams must be set on the start of the gather (on join when in the "lobby" map (using your idea), a script can display the teams).

Agreed.
Using the lobby map to set teams is probably the most random (good) idea to solve that.
Once everyone is inside, the server could relay the teams back to the browser to display... I think that sounds reasonable.

[jrgp]

The current setup is not random (I mean it is, but it is easily avoided). The first person who joined is automatically set to a team. A person can easily rejoin to change teams, so essentially a harder version of what I just said. In order to have a truly random one, the teams must be set on the start of the gather (on join when in the "lobby" map (using your idea), a script can display the teams).

Agreed.
Using the lobby map to set teams is probably the most random (good) idea to solve that.
Once everyone is inside, the server could relay the teams back to the browser to display... I think that sounds reasonable.

Yes, I will implement a lobby. Wraithlike has agreed to make me a custom cool lobby map.

I also just added unique nickname regging, to be used with stats and possibly also ingame recognition, depending on how appropriate it is.

[thegrandmaster]

Awesome. On both accounts. I look forward to seeing what Wraithlike comes up with

[DarkCrusade]

@thegrandmaster: If you want a lobby map, try this: link

[Foxconn]

F12 to this. Forever.

Can't wait for it.

[thegrandmaster]

@thegrandmaster: If you want a lobby map, try this: link

It's not up to me to choose xD
But that map is a very gooood example of a lobby, just the sort of thing I was thinking of! - I like it.
Much better than my quick example
All a lobby needs to be is a glorified/professional looking nothing/uselessness!

From: December 23, 2010, 08:36:52 amNoticed something else.. under a player's profile (e.g. mine), it says I have played in 3 gathers when I have only actually joined the server twice and the third was me and you (jrgp) testing the launch of the ingame stats thing.
I would advise that once the rest of the player stats are implemented, the server should record when a player joins a server rather than recording when you're part of a full list in the browser?

From: December 23, 2010, 04:52:38 pmThe colours seem to have gone a bit wild... *screenshot*

[jrgp]

Just thought I'd let you guys know that I'll be completely gone starting tomorrow morning through tuesday morning. During that time I won't have computer access and obviously won't be able to work on anything.

I have very deeply appreciated all the suggestions posted in this thread and welcome more. Hopefully next week I'll get more work done.

jrgp out

[Dr.Thrax]

The gather chat is working perfect with Safari but the page appears as if it is always loading...
Anyways, good job jrgp and merry christmas!