I've been thinking about spectators. It would cool to sometimes to watch games in progress. Especially between highly-skilled teams/players.
Geuis, generally it's frowned upon because spectators in games contribute to lag. I recommend you try late at nite on a weekend when some of us play into the wee hours, cuz at those times the net's cruisin better and some of us may be drunk, stoned or boned and may be feeling more benevolent to the idea of spectators. Other than that, just ask if you're in a game that you want to watch and remember, no means no!
I'd prefer a game logging tool that you can replay later on. Its in the works but its not very far along.
Oh, you said game logging tool, Elvis... yeah cool.
The idea of spectators may not necessarily mean increased lag. It all depends on how each winbolo client updates info to each other.
Elvis would be the only one that can answer this question. A game is hosted by a game server(winbolods) to which the different players connect. Main question is, does the game server keep track of the map-state and transmit changes to each client, or do each client send info directly to the other connected clients.
e.g.
1) Player A, B, and C are playing in a game hosted by player A. Player B blows up a lot of land around his base. Are these changes to the topography of the map then transmitted from B to the server, which then re-transmits the updated map data to A and C?
OR:
2) Player A, B, and C are playing in a game hosted by player A. Player B blows up a lot of land around his base. Are these changes to the topography of the map then transmitted from B to each other player, A and C, directly(ie, peer to peer through UDP), making it so that the map-state of the game is always client-side dependent and avoids sending that data to the server other than general game info?
Now, the answer will mean whether or not a spectator feature can really work. If the answer is 1), then a spectator feature can be integrated very easily without increasing lag in the game. If the server is the central point and controls the map-state of the game, then you can make it so that spectators are watching game from the server and are not actually in the game itself. This would mean that spectator games would have to be hosted from high-bandwidth locations, such as a West game or from a DSL/cable connection. A feature could be added to the server so that if it does not have enough bandwidth to keep the game running smoothly and send out game data to the spectators, then the spectators are cut out until bandwidth improves. It would always have to be remembered that the game itself is more imporant than the people watching it.
If the answer to the previous question is 2), then adding a spectator feature is nearly impossible. Since all the important map-state data is sent from client to client, the server cannot act as a central distribution point for spectators to watch the game. The only way to add a spectator function in this scenario would be to have a bot that actually joined into a game and then transmitted all of the map-state information it receives to spectators.
Hopefully I have outlined the idea in such a way that it is easy to understand. If not, I will be more than happy to elaborate.
Geuis
