Changes are coming!

Discuss the future of Warzone 2100 with us.
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vexed
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Changes are coming!

Post by vexed »

First off, the console messages have got to go.
No, I don't mean chat stuff, I mean where it tells you "Unit lost!" and those messages.
Since we already have a sound for that, this seems useless & spammy, and you lose the more important messages.

The chat messages will be moved to its own window (if things work out that way).

On desync (2+2=5), we will destroy all the stuff that player has. They won't be kicked by the game, we will leave that up to the host.

How many people play in a window (be it full screen or not)?
I was thinking of having the option of offloading the mini-map/radar screen to its own window.

How many people have more than one monitor?

Objections or comments about the above?
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Tzeentch
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by Tzeentch »

This sounds like a good move to me, as wuz21m and I both found independently that displayConsoleMessages is a performance killer. This change would reduce latency locally and probably help improve online too by the same accord. We should make this a configurable option in the menu that way people can choose for themselves if they would like this level of messaging or not. This also provides us a means to do specific tests regarding the messages.

I play only full screen in games, when doing thorough checks in window mode. (as desktop shortcuts don't seem to work like changing virtual desktop screens.)
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by NoQ »

we will destroy all the stuff that player has
Which player? The one that desyncs from the other or the one that desyncs from the other?
How many people have more than one monitor?
Me. I usually observe stderr messages (when modding single player stuff) or read irc chat (when playing mp) on the second monitor.
I mean where it tells you "Unit lost!" and those messages.
The particular "Unit lost" message was very useful for me when i tried to beat campaign without loosing a single unit. Explosions were not enough for that.
Per
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by Per »

Most games have notification settings to turn them on/off... facebook, too! ;-)

I suppose we could implement a voting mechanism for determining who is out of sync, when there is more than 2 players, by sending around crc hashes and seeing who is the odd one out. The host can then stop relaying non-chat packets for that player... (if that player is the host and is cheating, then that won't work, of course).
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by Terminator »

vexed wrote:First off, the console messages have got to go.
No, I don't mean chat stuff, I mean where it tells you "Unit lost!" and those messages.
How about set a "spamfilter" that checks if the same massage repeats too much, so It shows just one time not 10 times. For example: if "unitlost" had been seen for last 10 seconds > Dont show it again.
vexed wrote:The chat messages will be moved to its own window (if things work out that way).
If by "window" you mean to a new place in main game window - its good, I'm for new common play like in all games - In the bottom center (right above power bar and window that shows buildings)
vexed wrote:On desync (2+2=5), we will destroy all the stuff that player has
If you think its best. if I see 2+2=5 - its usually re-hosting time.
vexed wrote:How many people play in a window (be it full screen or not)?
I'm playing in maximized window border-less mode all the time. Cause in KDE I can't "alt+tab" when in fullscreen mode, if it works I would play in normal fullscreen mode.

I have only 1 display (notebook).
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by vexed »

Well, quesoGLC isn't the fastest at rendering, however, we still have lots of other things that are far slower than the text drawing routines.

NoQ, you see the message, but, you don't hear the sound?
Per, sure, in a perfect world, we would have an option for everything.

After looking at many RTS games, I can't find any that I saw that had anything other than an audio prompt when something died. This goes for DoW series, SC, SC2, Red Alert 3, C&C Generals, and so on.

Terminator, how did you get borderless? I assume you modified the code?

For the desync, it only makes sense to go by what the host's data shows. If the host is out of sync, then game is over for everyone.
Speaking of desync, we really need something better to show than 2+2=5, too many people don't understand what that means, and I don't blame them, it isn't very intuitive.
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by NoQ »

If the host is out of sync, then game is over for everyone.
Not sure, isn't it just about the host himself and the AI/scavenger players?
NoQ, you see the message, but, you don't hear the sound? (...) After looking at many RTS games, I can't find any that I saw that had anything other than an audio prompt when something died. This goes for DoW series, SC, SC2, Red Alert 3, C&C Generals, and so on.
Explosion sound does not indicate that a unit was lost. Many games have specific sounds when units are lost (consider death of a protoss templar in starcraft, it's a very specific sound you'd never miss). Also, you don't hear it unless you're looking at the army (but you may hear a lot of other explosions). And, finally, wz is special: other games do not focus as much on unit experience (units don't level up to become ridiculously powerful and don't get transfered to the next level in the process), so unit loss event is much less important. When you're loosing a plotwise-important unit in campaign in other games, even a conversation interlude may happen. In wz campaign, every unit is "important", you really count every single one of them (at least until commanders come in, but even then you need to know when to replace the unit under the limited commander control, as it happens too rarely to use factory assignment to them). In skirmish and multiplayer, i agree that this message should be removed; but that's probably not your point, as you want to remove them technically.
Terminator, how did you get borderless? I assume you modified the code?
That's a good job for a window manager, i think even kwin4 supports special per-application window management settings by WM_CLASS or WM_NAME.
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by Cyp »

vexed wrote:… Terminator, how did you get borderless? I assume you modified the code? …
In KDE, Alt+F3 β†’ More Actions β†’ No Border
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by Terminator »

Cyp wrote:In KDE, Alt+F3 β†’ More Actions β†’ No Border
Nothing add more. I just like KDE :D
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by Tzeentch »

"Speaking of desync, we really need something better to show than 2+2=5, too many people don't understand what that means, and I don't blame them, it isn't very intuitive."

and here I was thinking the game just had a problems with sums. I'd like a frowny face instead. I've made a pointless comment here
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by wz2102 »

I think you need to focus on the performance stressfull functions.
On 2.3.x and versions below, there were generally less lag, that is what we need to get back.

One function that might be important considering this game lag issues is the pointtree function,
which is in my eyes, among other, very outdated.
Don't know if it's just me, but the test of this function wasn't as good as with other iterating functions.

And tbh, the new textures which also was used in the trunk version are getting a bit annoying.
First it seemed like an good idea for everyone, but nowadays no one cares about this and since they
reduce the fps if they are turned on an higher size, most people let them be on a lower level.
In my opinion an option for choosing between the old and the new environment systems is missing.
You told me about the different types of tiles, but there is an way to bypass this.
No need to actually change the type.
(Different types (float/integer) could cause desync cause of the discovered/undiscovered tiles?)

-

Personally I think that a extra measure for hacks/cheats (2+2=5?) is useless. The only problem back then at the times of 2.3.x were,
that the amount of cheat engine users increased.
There are a lot of ways to get rid of those players. If there is someone really hacking, then the other players will probably notice,
otherwise it can almost only be a bug.
And note that 2+2=5? can also be caused through heavy lag.
Maybe add an message in bright text somewhere with a little info to this if it appears.
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by vexed »

wz2102 wrote:I think you need to focus on the performance stressfull functions.
On 2.3.x and versions below, there were generally less lag, that is what we need to get back.

One function that might be important considering this game lag issues is the pointtree function,
which is in my eyes, among other, very outdated.
Don't know if it's just me, but the test of this function wasn't as good as with other iterating functions.
How are you testing that function, and what alternatives do you mean? Oct or Quad trees?
And tbh, the new textures which also was used in the trunk version are getting a bit annoying.
First it seemed like an good idea for everyone, but nowadays no one cares about this and since they
reduce the fps if they are turned on an higher size, most people let them be on a lower level.
In my opinion an option for choosing between the old and the new environment systems is missing.
You told me about the different types of tiles, but there is an way to bypass this.
No need to actually change the type.
(Different types (float/integer) could cause desync cause of the discovered/undiscovered tiles?)
Already thought about texture packs, but there shouldn't be hardly any difference in performance between the lowest level of mips compared to the highest, unless you have a really slow/old video card.
Personally I think that a extra measure for hacks/cheats (2+2=5?) is useless. The only problem back then at the times of 2.3.x were,
that the amount of cheat engine users increased.
There are a lot of ways to get rid of those players. If there is someone really hacking, then the other players will probably notice,
otherwise it can almost only be a bug.
And note that 2+2=5? can also be caused through heavy lag.
Maybe add an message in bright text somewhere with a little info to this if it appears.
That isn't only used to detect hacks/cheats.
2.3 (heck, 1.x) was *never* in sync. That is what the new code corrects.
As for lag causing desyncs, no, that wouldn't do it. The game will pause (Zzz) waiting for that player, it wouldn't do a desync on that.
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by vexed »

Change #1:
wz2100-20150225_150710-Sk-Rush-T3.jpg
wz2100-20150225_150710-Sk-Rush-T3.jpg (137.92 KiB) Viewed 14813 times
And unsure about the exact location for this...but, I think you get the idea on where I am heading? :hmm:
wz2100-20150225_192224-CAM_1A.jpg
wz2100-20150225_192224-CAM_1A.jpg (97.39 KiB) Viewed 14813 times
I think we need new icons... and we don't have any good icons to have for private communication between players. :hmm:
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by vexed »

Explosion sound does not indicate that a unit was lost. Many games have specific sounds when units are lost (consider death of a protoss templar in starcraft, it's a very specific sound you'd never miss). Also, you don't hear it unless you're looking at the army (but you may hear a lot of other explosions). And, finally, wz is special: other games do not focus as much on unit experience (units don't level up to become ridiculously powerful and don't get transfered to the next level in the process), so unit loss event is much less important. When you're loosing a plotwise-important unit in campaign in other games, even a conversation interlude may happen. In wz campaign, every unit is "important", you really count every single one of them (at least until commanders come in, but even then you need to know when to replace the unit under the limited commander control, as it happens too rarely to use factory assignment to them). In skirmish and multiplayer, i agree that this message should be removed; but that's probably not your point, as you want to remove them technically.
Wait, I am talking about unit under attack sound, where when you hear that, you can hit the space bar, and go to that unit.
How does "unit lost" help, if it is already lost?
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Re: Changes are coming!

Post by bendib »

I have a different idea. Can you have an updating unit lost counter? e.g. 13 units lost, then another dies and 14 units lost. It disappears after a few moments just like the current ones do. I know how the console code works and it might take some fiddling, but I think it'd be an improvement.
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