GameAmp: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Forum >> Main >> General Discussion >> yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

User

Message

concrete

GameAmp Staff
Posts: 4
Joined: 06/02/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

ok so this one guy i know (we'll call him !N!Trapoon) uses his server to show demorecs through UTV while watching with a handful of clanmates occasionally... now this seems like a pretty cool idea to me, watching demorecs at the same time as others while chatting and/or talking in TS

then i get to thinkin, i wonder if it would be possible to script up something to tell a server to basically play the demorec, then pull the next one from a list, and play it, then once that one's over pull the next one, etc...

i.e. have the server playing demorecs constantly and allow people to connect and disconnect as they please...

i don't know if there's any future in this idea but it seemed interesting... i know there's tons of players that watch demorecs all the time but sometimes it's a hassle to try to find and download new ones, and it's also a pain to try to synch up with clanmates to watch and comment together...

or will Master Lotus shoot this down instantly =(

12/23/04 18:07

Powerslave

Posts: 0
Joined: 05/31/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Sounds like a good idea. I'd heard something like this suggested before, but I don't think UTV was mentioned. Good luck on getting a demo rotation going on.

12/23/04 18:16

Ender

Posts:
Joined: 12/31/1969
Credibility: pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Holy shit that's awesome. If I can do anything to get that going let me know.

12/26/04 04:18

concrete

GameAmp Staff
Posts: 4
Joined: 06/02/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

learn uscript? =\

that's the beginning and end of this idea basically...

one of my roommates is a programmer, maybe i can sucker him into learning it...

12/26/04 09:59

Ender

Posts:
Joined: 12/31/1969
Credibility: pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

All we need is Unreal Script? Like the same script that you use to edit the code to make mods? If so, I have a coder on my mod team, and I'll see if he wants to take a break for a bit and script it up...

12/27/04 01:15

concrete

GameAmp Staff
Posts: 4
Joined: 06/02/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

well im guessing that'd be the best way to do it (through a mod/mutator basically).. i mean that's what UTV is and in reality it'd just be modifying/adding on to what UTV already does...

i mean right now you can use a utv server to play demorecs... you can have people watch them together... the only thing that'd need to be coded (if possible) is a way to tell the server to play 1, then after it ends automatically grab the next one in the list and play it, and repeat...

then it's just a matter of stocking a server with the demos...

some other issues that come to mind:
--how to make the list?

well i guess you could just use the demorecs' names... i.e. if you have team A vs team B tdm from the CPL it might be file name "A_vs_B_Summer2004CPL" or w/e... but if you could get the server to grab based on the #s you could simply name it "001_A_vs_B... etc" and tell the server to grab starting with 001 and after the demo ends (or maybe after it starts) add +1 to this search value, then tell it to look for a demorec starting with that in its name...

in other words, you make a playlist of demos by putting #s in the beginning of their names and tell the server to look for 1 higher than the last one it played each time... now as for getting it to repeat and go back to 001 after whatever the highest # of the time is, i'm not sure... maybe you tell it that if you can't find (last demo #) +1, then refer back to 001...

i have no clue how to do all this in coding, but that's just how the logic would seem to progress...

--showing a public playlist

not sure how this would work... is there anything at all in place that allows you to view what a UTV server is currently doing without entering it? i suppose simplest thing to do would be to somehow display the name of the demorec currently playing... idunno if it'd be possible to make that show in the server browser at all... maybe it could forward that data to a web page? if nothing else a webpage could be made with the current playlist of the server, so if you connect and see who's playing and how much time is left you can get an approximate idea of when others would be showing (or i suppose the web page could have approximate times listed in relation to the playlist)

-- and then of course there's user interfaces that need to be banged out...

i guess the biggest problem with all this is the general instability of UTV... i mean i've seen whole matches through UTV without crashing, but i'm not a utv expert...

anyways this was just kinda an interesting idea... it'd be cool if there was some way to pull it off though... it'd give me something to do uber-late at night other than post on messageboards =x

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

12/27/04 07:31

Ender

Posts:
Joined: 12/31/1969
Credibility: pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

I showed it to my coder and he thinks it can be done, but he's not entirely sure. He's currently looking for the demoplayback code so he can edit it to make it work (and he hasn't been able to find it yet).

He doesn't think it will be a walk in the park though...so we may have to find a good way to persuade him to give it a try. ;)

12/28/04 01:41

CombatCarl

Posts: 0
Joined: 12/26/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Europeans made good use of their UTV :/ Only UTV games i was ever able to watch was european ones, it's too little too late, but would've been really nice if it was prevelant here in NA.

12/28/04 02:04

9_Inches_of_Afro

Posts:
Joined: 12/31/1969
Credibility: pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Sounds like a cool idea, actually, and I'm sure I'd be one that would log in and check it out.

However, as CC mentioned, it's too bad that UTV never really took off here. In part, I'm sure it's because it took so long to get going and then seemed to be so iffy once it was up.

But a bigger help to the community as a whole would be to just start UTVing actual matches. Yea, things are pretty slow, but a few posts on ProU, INA (yes, even though many are n00bs, the idea is to get them more into the game by watching good players), etc., would probably still get people to show up. I mean, you have people from INA showing up at Noon to watch Euro ONS matches that get posted about there, so I'm sure you could get them to watch matches here in prime time.

Just a matter of finding people who are motivated enough to want to set up, promote, etc., the UTV and take it from there.

12/29/04 13:55

Saito

GameAmp Staff
Posts: 0
Joined: 05/20/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Like I have said, we are working on it for OLB, and aim to UTV the finals for sure.

But yeah, you hit the nail on the head fro. When it could have really been used, it didn't work... now it works and there aren't many chances for it, nobody cares, and nobody has a clue how to do it.

On the other hand the euro's broadcast every TDM event known to man and people watch it :/ I'd like to think we could get that here. But who knows.

If we can get UTV up and running for OLB, and it turns out to be a huge hit, I'll do it again for the next OLB and maybe some various community leaders should pool ideas and work on expanding it.

Another point, EUROS have events, not ladders. Any player worth anything isn't going to be found storming ladders, they are going to be found at events. THis should help with UTV.

When you think about it xxx vs yyy for the championship game of ttt event, sounds allot more exciting then xxx vs yyy ladder game.

My PC
CPU P4EE Gallitan core socket 478 @ 4.2ghz, Abit IC7-G Max 3, 2 gb PC4000 corsair xms, PC Power and cooling 510 psu, Albatron 6800gt @ ultra, Creative Audigy 2 ZS, Cooler master wave master case, Switech Liquid Cooling, Dual NEC 22 inch CRT, Klipch Pro Media 5.1, Senn HD280 pro, MS 3.0, Steel S&S, logitech elite.

12/29/04 18:15

9_Inches_of_Afro

Posts:
Joined: 12/31/1969
Credibility: pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Yea, definitely. I think the only way to get people to show up for UTV on a regular ladder match is if it's for the #1 spot, or if it's between 2 really well known clans. But I agree that it's much easier to get them to show up for some kind of event.

But even getting people to come to the OLB finals will require promoting the heck out of it -- posting on ProU, INA, TWL forums, and wherever else you can think of. Back in UT'99, Moose used to set his irc so that every few minutes it would automatically announce who was playing on UTV, what the ip was, etc., and that was good at drawing people as well. Might be useful to join a number of clan chans and give that a shot, as well.

Definitely wish you guys good luck with it. Will be a lot of work, but I hope it goes well.

12/30/04 13:15

Saito

GameAmp Staff
Posts: 0
Joined: 05/20/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

Yeah well events and publicity are hard now.

You need to promote to pull it off, but there aren't many people left in a position to do so, and in NA it's hard finding respected players to do it.

Plus things are so scattered among various forums/groups, I'd like to think we (gameamp) could really get something going with TDM here, and then grow it into other gametypes, and really get everybody on the same page.

I personaly think it would be a hell of a lot easier to get something going (UTV for events) if everybody is on the same page and working together. As it is NOW, I can only forsee a pissing contest of TDM vs CTF vs ONS because we are strapped for resources.

I'd just hope that we can stabalize TDM somewhat, and cement it and then work into other things and hopefully get NA to somewhat like the euros are for coverage.

12/30/04 17:26

concrete

GameAmp Staff
Posts: 4
Joined: 06/02/2004
Credibility: 0 pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

there'll be no pissing from CTF unless about 50 people suddenly realize that WOW is retarded compared to ut2k4 and come back...

12/30/04 22:09

9_Inches_of_Afro

Posts:
Joined: 12/31/1969
Credibility: pts

Re: yet another interesting irc-spawned idea

lol, no kidding, concrete. :P hehe

12/31/04 15:01

Don't Forget! - Rate users posts to reward or demerit their posts with Credibility!