Option to watch players online

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Re: Option to watch players online

Postby Elias » 19 Feb 2014, 17:46

Yes it is :

manutoo wrote:Elias,
there were (and still have, but not that much anymore) many things more important to do than this feature, especially if you take into account the ratio "time needed to do it" / "people who will enjoy it". So if I have to chose between this & only this for next update, and a dozen of small improvements / fixes, and I'll always go for the latter.


Well i understand this point Manutoo. But still, it's been years you thought about it :)
About the ratio, i aknowledge this idea, you told this about 4 humans players double as well, i remember. Though i think, it's about rich content, exclusive features, that brings polish and more success to a game, and could be talked about here and there (i'm pretty sure a good youtube video of a 4-man double match, with audible comms on mic, and good lauggh & points, would be successful and may draw some people in).

In some way, ofc there is always loads of things to add/modify about the gameplay, offline features etc, but somehow you are limited by the engine now and the way it's conceived i think, so anyways you can't probably change some things without re-doing a whole bunch of the engine code, physis (like about the spin etc). Even it's never perfect the game is good as it is, so i don't know, heading for such features could be interesting as well in my opinion. And i'm also sure after so much years coding and improving TE you're probably not that into it now with the same excitment and passion to create more and more new content for it, it's perfectly understandable, although a bit sad, but better starting fresh with TE4 then (and open it in some way to python modules extensions or alike scripting, for some areas of the game, so that later on, users can code some feats for the game directly for you) :wink:

manutoo wrote:Yup, I'd add a "end of file" statement + a "waiting for data" flag so it'd be possible to show it on-screen.

I won't provide the format of .dmo (it'd be just too long to dig it out). For matches with CPU (ie: doubles), it's not possible to fast forward. For singles, it could work though, but I could also change the current fast forward so it'd not display anything while fast forwarding.


Got it. well, maybe i'll do some tests just messing hexediting some dmo's to see what happens playing partial ones. In case it's not doeable, maybe you could then also add some "go-to-end" button wich would allow to go straightly to the last point of a .dmo, or point n-1 ? (dunno if it's possible, but that would be very handy then when starting to watch a match, instead of running a full length fast-forward).

manutoo wrote:It'd be better to upload at end of each point, but actually, TE requires only ~1.5KB/s for upload, and .dmo = ~0.15KB/s + upload data => 0.5KB/s at most (for a binary stream). Most (if not all) connections have at least 128Kbits = 32KB/s ; so adding 0.5KB/s won't be an issue and should add almost no lag, if any.


well, yes i guess so, better about keeping low profile bandwith usage. If there is some "wait for data feature" anyway, that could be working, but still wouldn't be nice to see this message too often (some points lasts longer than others etc), but then buffering some points can be done locally so that's ok i guess.

About this though, what would be the best way to know a point just finished ? Because if there is no events / way to communicate with TE, the only one is to periodically scan the recording dmo file to detect any file size change, wich is okay, though maybe not the nicest way. I also saw you added some xfire features, i didn't digged this at all, but i was wondering if you use some kind of xfire com lib for this, and if this added some communication features to TE with external programs, wich may help, just wondering.
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Re: Option to watch players online

Postby manutoo » 20 Feb 2014, 04:10

Elias,
as actually I'm in the few that would like to see that feature (for debugging/tuning purpose, it could great :yes: ), it naturally comes higher on my priority list, so I might do it someday, if the mood & the time come together..! :P

It should be easy to fast forward till the end of the last point, but not before that point.
1 problem with file fast forwarding => the stats wouldn't be updated.
I think most PC should be able to fast forward at 100 at least, so it'd require about 30 seconds to go to the end of a 1-hour .dmo . You can know a new point is starting, but not when it's finished. I could add a flag for that as well.
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