Random Suggestions (Was: 0.2.8.3.1: What to put into it)

[Z-Man]

Yeah, consider this thread officially derailed now. Well done. I restarted it with the original purpose on our private forums. Not because it's secret, but because it's stuff you pesky users shouldn't care about

If users have to click something to get news, what's the difference to them to just looking at a webpage? Any news we deliver needs to come automatically via a fullscreen message, or it's worthless.

Regarding integrating personal messages from the forum, keep in mind all armathentication goes over the server. We can add a 'news to display to the player' item to the response from the armathority, but I'd have to advise armathority admins to refrain from adding sensible information to that. "You have x personal messages and y unread posts in threads you posted in" would be possible, but "z-man wants to know how your vasectomy went" probably not.

Regarding the server filtering, here's what we *could* do: we could switch the protocol from the current connection based one, where the client connects to the master, gets the list, disconnects, pings the servers, to a polling one: the client says the master it's interested in the server list via a single packet, then the master sends a series of small packets (around 100 bytes payload) containing the servers. It starts with servers that have been more popular in the past (it polls them enough to gather some stats), but always sends them all. The client starts pinging the servers it had from last time and the new ones coming in right away, without waiting for the full list. The client, too, keeps stats, and pings the servers that were generally popular, and especially the ones the player connected to recently, first. It's not too much of a change internally. The crucial thing to consider is how the continued stream of new servers sent from the master influences polling. Let's see, we can expect at least 8kbtye/s incoming bandwidth, UDP has around 50 bytes total overhead, making the 100 byte packages 150 bytes really, each one takes 150/8000=16 ms to get from the net to the client, that's the maximal extra ping a server would get. Pings already fluctuate by way more than that under those conditions. If we really care about accurate ping measurements, we can let them be polled again when the list is complete, one by one so there is no congestion, and multiple times, too, to get averages.

[DESiRE]

I suggest for the servers you do something similar to what you guys did with the Tr2n hack.

You can either choose to load the full master server list, or you can choose to load only servers being played in!

Also, I think someone should take back over Trunk in updating it. I just hate the 2.8 interface. 0.3 looks brand new and everything is so crisp. 0.2.8 looks old school if you ask me, graphics aren't that great.

[sinewav]

0.2.8 looks old school if you ask me, graphics are totally kick ass.

Fixed.

[Phytotron]

Word. Like, I'm adamantly opposed to rounded, stylistic fonts, heh. I want late-70's/early-80's blockiness.

Actually, I do think the default 0.2.8 textures are whack, in a bad way, but that's another—nevermind, Z-Man already declared us derailed, so hey.

Ah, I just got an idear for a lightcycle model.

[Lucifer]

In case you were wondering, Phytotron, 1) I was responding to a comment you made about there being more servers than players, and 2) I was half-heartedly trolling you.

What I really want will have to be done in the trunk, anyway, because I want to eliminate the current screen that shows the client is connecting to the master server, replace it with a progressbar-style dialog, and simply have the client start with its cached list and quietly poll the master server from time to time in the background (or some other way of scheduling it so that the client is still responsive to changes in the server list, but doesn't have us all wait every single time we hit internet game for a server list that doesn't change very often). Everything else I'd like would just be UI config options, like a checkbox to hide servers with 0 players (they'd still get polled, and if you're looking at it when a player joins, the server would reappear), or an option to list bookmarked servers first, stuff like that.

But I'll worry about that later, right now I'm working on getting the cycle engine sound into the trunk.

Edit: I tried to find a link to backup my 1) statement up there, but failed, so maybe it was someone else who said it. Which means my 2) statement should replace Phytotron's name with whoever said "there are now more servers than players".

[DESiRE]

Yay for Lucifer Keep updating Trunk imho!

[madmax]

Here goes my random suggestion.

What about if you "Disconnect" from a server it always takes you back to the previous screen you were on?
In the particular case of the server list, it's sometimes a PITA when you just want to change to another server and you have to load all the servers again...

[DDMJ]

But you'd still have to load the servers otherwise you'd be browsing an old list.

[madmax]

But you'd still have to load the servers otherwise you'd be browsing an old list.

A couple of hours old? What's the chances of the server you want not being on the list?
Of course, a refresh should still be done.

[sinewav]

But you'd still have to load the servers otherwise you'd be browsing an old list.

A couple of hours old? What's the chances of the server you want not being on the list?
Of course, a refresh should still be done.

I understand what madmax is saying and I agree. I've thought about asking this myself.

[Phytotron]

I was half-heartedly trolling you.

Good thing you make these big self-righteous stinks about others' so-called trolling, huh.

[Lucifer]

I was half-heartedly trolling you.

Good thing you make these big self-righteous stinks about others' so-called trolling, huh.

Yeah, it is. (I didn't expect you to notice that after people participated in the thread and shared their thoughts, I didn't pursue the subject any further)

Speaking of whiches, when are you planning on manning-up and responding to my PM? Or do you prefer to bitch-fight out in public? Is direct communication too much to ask of you? Someone offers you an olive branch and what do you do with it?

[DESiRE]

This is how Phytotron gets his post counts, by posting things nobody cares about.

Anyway, I tried fixing the cockpit error myself, but I'm no good with coding and compiling, so hopefully you can fix this Lucifer when you get the time to.

Also, Another bug I found while using 0.3 client is certain servers spam messages like the one below. Doesn't happen in 2.8.3.

[Z-Man]

Those servers use ill-named resources.I think they were ill-named from the get-go, but only the trunk cares about it.

What's wrong with the server browser screenshot?

[kyle]

Those servers use ill-named resources.I think they were ill-named from the get-go, but only the trunk cares about it.

ya only trunk cares about them, I fixed all of CT's once I found out about it.

i think maybe he was just showing what server