Repeating server for ladder matches

[Dokujisan]

We had discussed this numerous times before in IRC, but I don't remember if we came to any conclusion.

We are starting to focus on a new Nexuiz Ladder now. We really want people to watch these matches, but this brings about a potential problem.

The problem : spectators watching a tournament or ladder match could feasibly report back to a team the actions or location of the enemy during a match, thus result in cheating. When we discussed options for this, various ideas were brought up. One of which was a repeater server that would essentially act as a spectator of the match and it would send a 30-second delayed stream of the match to spectators who would connect to the repeater server. I assume the repeater would automatically rotate between the players, maybe every 30 seconds.

So the repeater server could show up on the public server list when a match is going on. Players would connect to it and it would appear like they are simply spectating a match, except they can't do anything else and they can't chat with the players. They can only chat with the other spectators.

I understand that divverent is generally too busy to take on projects like this. Perhaps this is a project that we could get one of the newer incoming developers to tackle (I've seen a handful of them show up lately asking where they could jump in)

What do you guys think?

[[-z-]]

Why not just record server-side demos and automatically upload them to an http site for download post game? They are only a few mb.

[GreEn`mArine]

In case someone implements such a solution, he should implement it in a way that the spectator can choose himself which player he wants to spectate, and not do a random switch to another player after 30 seconds! Apart from that a good idea and I hope an engine developer takes a look at that.

[Dokujisan]

Green, yeah that would be wonderful. I was just aiming for something simple.

-z- that removes the "live" aspect and the spectator interaction. A lot of the fun of spectating a good match involves talking about the match with other spectators.

[[-z-]]

minutes after? meh I don't think that's a huge difference. Plus the contenders can go pee and get a drink before players start hounding them about their performance.

[Dokujisan]

well the spectators will all be watching the same feed at the same time. So, to them, it will be like watching it live. It'll only be 30 seconds behind the action. But it would allow a group of spectators to talk about the match with one another.

[alpha]

Other than demos, I think the most interesting solution would be some kind of HLTV/SourceTV clone.