Spectator mode

[ai]

Hey.. I have a suggestion on how to make the spectator mode more efficient, or at least more appealing.

It has bugged me now for a long time that when you spectate there's stupid text right in front of you and you can't see well at all. And if you want to, say for example, record a demo to for whatever reason you would need to go inside the player to get rid of it, but that might not be what the "director" is looking for. And also even when you're inside a player there's text bugging you.

My suggestion would be something like you press a button, say Tab, and then the text would be visible, but when just flying around and having fun nothing would show, not even the scores. Everything would be shown when a button is pressed.
I have brought this up in the IRC channel of alientrap, but maybe my timing wasn't good, got no responses whatsoever So now I post it here instead.

Also another suggestion would be another color for the spectator mode. For example in CTF before you join a team your color is red and sometimes when there's a couple of red and blue players playing it can be hard to actually see how many are on the red team. So another color (black as an example) or if it's a step below the playing players or something like that would be good I think.

[tChr]

Its fully possible to display nothing at all when you are recording. Take a look at my autoexec.cfg, wich is stolen from esteels, maybe wirth some modifications:

Code: Select all

bind "kp_end" "slowmo 0.1"
bind "kp_downarrow" "slowmo 0.2"
bind "kp_pgdn" "slowmo 0.3"
bind "kp_leftarrow" "slowmo 0.5"
bind "kp_5" "slowmo 1"
bind "kp_rightarrow" "slowmo 2"
bind "kp_home" "slowmo 3"
bind "kp_uparrow" "slowmo 5"
bind "kp_pgup" "slowmo 10"
bind "kp_ins" "pausedemo"
bind "kp_del" "stopdemo"
bind "kp_enter" "capturevideo"
bind "kp_plus" "capturevideosound"
bind "kp_minus" "demoview"
bind "kp_multiply" "thirdperson"

alias "+demoview" "set viewsize_backup $viewsize; set viewsize 120; set crosshair_backup $crosshair; set crosshair 0; set con_notify_backup $con_notify; set con_notify 0; set r_drawviewmodel_backup $r_drawviewmodel; set r_drawviewmodel 0; alias demoview -demoview"
alias "-demoview" "set viewsize $viewsize_backup; set crosshair $crosshair_backup; set con_notify $con_notify_backup; set r_drawviewmodel $r_drawviewmodel_backup; alias demoview +demoview"
alias "demoview" "+demoview"

alias "+capturevideo" "set cl_capturevideo 1; alias capturevideo -capturevideo"
alias "-capturevideo" "set cl_capturevideo 0; alias capturevideo +capturevideo"
alias "capturevideo" "+capturevideo"

alias "+capturevideosound" "set cl_capturevideo 1; set cl_capturevideo_sound 1; alias capturevideosound -capturevideosound"
alias "-capturevideosound" "set cl_capturevideo 0; set cl_capturevideo_sound 0; alias capturevideosound +capturevideosound"
alias "capturevideosound" "+capturevideosound"

alias "+thirdperson" "set chase_active 1; alias thirdperson -thirdperson"
alias "-thirdperson" "set chase_active 0; alias thirdperson +thirdperson"
alias "thirdperson" "+thirdperson"


Note the "demoview" section

[ai]

Okey that might work, I'm totaly fine by that (thanks ^_^), but if one isn't smart enough to create ones own cfg like that or can't find one somewhere there should still be a good way how that works. For a future development, and also, I think that would save a lot of trouble and time for people like you. Imagine helping hundreds of people with the same problem And we know how stupid some people are, creating a new thread for the same thing all the time instead of searching for one existing ^_^
It would help us all ^_^

Cause I believe, once there has come some nexuiz movies more people would want to create some too. It will spread like fire

[The mysterious Mr. 4m]

*ahem*: http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... aspec#7536

lol

[esteel]

Well such stuff might be subject to change for Nexuiz 3.0 when finaly CSQC is working in all its glory For example then team-menu can't be supressed right now when watching a demo and other stuff like nogibs is just bad like its done right now. Let alone stuff like forced skins..

And for those too laze to create their own config i created the "Tips and Tricks" sticky thread

[nifrek]

I tried posting this in the thread 4m mentionned but for some reason when I hit "Reply" I get thrown back to forum index. Might as well simply post it here. I know I mentionned this somewhere, but thought I could explain myself better. I'm also talking about this again because I keep wondering why so few people play this game.

Is a "maxspectators" type command being considered? For example, setting a duel server up with maxplayers to 2 and making some spots for spectator too, who cant join the game unless someboby leaves. Pressing F5 could open the same kind of menu as right now, but have buttons that make join the game if it's not a teamgame, select a team to join if its a team game or select spectator mode (if you are not already spectating).

I know there is IRC, but still. Would be nice to join a server and spectate a duel and then when match is finished, ask if you can play. One player goes spectator and you can then get in and get the spot (or get a teamgame going if more spectators join !!). Yes, you can do that on servers that have maxplayers set higher, however that means anybody can join the server and start playing mid-game, messing things up.

Also, that way ladder-servers wouldnt need to be private. Believe me, some newbie joining a server and spectating a duel between k0jak and Morfar is gonna be a lot more impressed by the game then by joining a ffa server filled with newbies who have no idea what they're doing. I'm quite sure this would get Nexuiz more activity and make it more addictive because then newbies would see what kind of skill you can get to if you keep playing more and more. It will make them want to progress and get as good as those players. And what better way to learn than by watching?

Right now Nexuiz kinda has this "underground" feel. Like you can join most public servers (one of the 3 servers that actually have people on it and not bots) and pretty much finish first all maps easily because they're filled with newbies. At the same time you keep hearing about some players who are awesome but you never actually see them play. It's easy to think "anybody can be good at this, it's way too newbie friendly". How many of those people who installed the game actually got as far as to go on IRC and ask good players to play? Unless you get your ass on irc where those good players hang out and ask them for a duel (get your ass kicked 50-0 ), you'll never know what is possible with this game.

That's pretty much what happened to me. I installed the game last week but didnt like it (almost hated it actually). Then I was bored and wondered what a duel would look like in this "newbie" game. When I played k0jak I suddenly got out of boredom.

I don't know, I just beleive that Nexuiz has the potential to be the type of game where there is no limit at the skill level you can get at. I mean jesus, a lot of people still play Quakeworld after 10 years because of this very reason. Skill level is now like 50 times higher than it was 5 years ago. Wouldnt it be great if people still played Nexuiz in 10 years and were still getting better and better at it and still discovered new things all the time?

[esteel]

Try that link: http://www.forums.alientrap.local/viewtopi ... aspec#7536

When you are using www.alientrap.org to sign in there is cookie saved which can not be read when using a link without the www. And as the forum itself seems to use the www. variant one should also use links with www ..

[KadaverJack]

Also, that way ladder-servers wouldnt need to be private. Believe me, some newbie joining a server and spectating a duel between k0jak and Morfar is gonna be a lot more impressed by the game then by joining a ffa server filled with newbies who have no idea what they're doing. I'm quite sure this would get Nexuiz more activity and make it more addictive because then newbies would see what kind of skill you can get to if you keep playing more and more. It will make them want to progress and get as good as those players. And what better way to learn than by watching?

Ladder rules don't allow spectators for a reason: someone could use another client to "spy" on his opponent. So ladder servers should always have maxplayers set to 2, regardless of how many spectators/players are allowed...
And if you wanna have duells with spectators, the arena gamemode is more fun imho

[nifrek]

Yes it makes sense. I understand for offical matches. But I wasnt talking about ladder-matches in particular, but any matches played for fun, and not games where people can join mid-game.

Anyway my point wasnt about me having more fun with having specs watching games, but that Nexuiz needs to be more open about stuff like this because it would help grow a bigger fanbase, get newbies and people that come from other games to keep playing Nexuiz. They need to be impressed by more than just good graphics. Letting spectators watch games with good players would help.

Someone making a website with demos would also help a lot. I could design a site if anyone can host it. However I can't do php or any programming to make the site self-updating, if anyone wants to help that'd be great. But I guess I could update it by hand for a while until it gets bigger. Talk to me on irc if interested.

Someone making good fragmovies and posting them on own-age.com would also help.

[C.Brutail]

It would be fun to have GTV for nexuiz too. I think everybody knows, what's a GTV, but if not, I can explain in a few words.

A GTV is a special spectator, usually the referee spawns and controls them in the game. The GTV client usually spectates one of the players view. Now here comes the trick: the GTV client "broadcasts" it's view to other spectators, but with a certain delay - about 5 seconds. So a spectator can connect to the GTV spectator, to see what the GTV sees, but with a 5 seconds of delay, so none of the spectators can help the players eg. on TeamSpeak, becouse spectators see the happenings always 5 seconds later.