No Spectator Servers
Deadonstick
Join Date: 2013-04-17 Member: 184877Members
Join Date: 2013-04-17 Member: 184877Members
Every once in a while (esspecially after a major patch) I enjoy simply spectating a public game. However these days most of the time I get automated-server messages or just players claiming that spectators are ruining the game and telling me to join up, or if it's an admin, demanding me to join up or I'll be kicked. This ofcourse makes some sense, I mean in a 16-slot server with one spectator that would mean that one team only has 7 members instead of 8. Regardless for me it is very annoying if I do want to spectate a game to have to back and forward between a hundred servers to find a game that's both interesting and allows spectators.
This makes me wonder why UWE hasn't created the option to create spectatorless servers so that people can see whether the server allows spectators. Another possible solution is to make an option that servers are "always open" regardless of player limit, but that each team can only have a set number of players. (so say a 20 slot server can have 10 aliens, 10 marines and practically infinite spectators or just ready room hangers), I realise this has performance reprocussions though, hence why there should probably be a limit on this somehow.
Regardless, it makes me wonder, how does the community feel about spectators? Are they just server-CPU leeching ingrates, the scum of the earth? Or are they just as important as regular players? If so, how should they be catered or treated? What does the community feel spectator mode should be and how it should be managed?
So I ask you community, fire away with your opinions and ideas.
This makes me wonder why UWE hasn't created the option to create spectatorless servers so that people can see whether the server allows spectators. Another possible solution is to make an option that servers are "always open" regardless of player limit, but that each team can only have a set number of players. (so say a 20 slot server can have 10 aliens, 10 marines and practically infinite spectators or just ready room hangers), I realise this has performance reprocussions though, hence why there should probably be a limit on this somehow.
Regardless, it makes me wonder, how does the community feel about spectators? Are they just server-CPU leeching ingrates, the scum of the earth? Or are they just as important as regular players? If so, how should they be catered or treated? What does the community feel spectator mode should be and how it should be managed?
So I ask you community, fire away with your opinions and ideas.
Comments
Spectator slots could be a solution. There are lots of solution. UWE just has to implement them...
I thought that the first person spectator mode wasn't fully accurate. Wasn't it more of an approximation using a few plot points and the computer filling the rest in? Personally I find it hard to see if someone is a bot just from mouse movements.
But I guess as long as some people know how to identify bots this way it is indeed a useful tool.
Yes, but that's true to some degree in all FPS games. NS2 potentially could be very exact when clients sent an update to the server for every frame but now it's more like basically everything else and sends a maximum of 20 or 30 (?) updates per second. So if you for example play at 100 FPS but only send less than a 1/3 of the mouse movements you see on your monitor to the server then yeah, what you describe is true, and it is. This is also the way it was in NS1, CS, Quake, TF... I don't know of any FPS game that doesn't do this.
Human movement is smooth and doesn't move in perfectly straight lines when aiming. If a person uses an aimbot, when a target gets on screen the target reticle will either teleport onto the target or move in a perfectly straight line to it. Also, if they are tracking targets through walls is a dead giveaway. The key is seeing unnatural camera movement or other actions that a player wouldn't be doing normally.
Note: The player having almost perfect target tracking isn't enough of a reason to accuse them of cheating (they could be a pro). The trick is looking for unnatural, or strange movements (aka perfectly straight lines when aiming).
Note 2: If they are shooting aliens that are completely invisible, wait and see if they are shooting them all the time. It could just be that they are checking the usual hiding spots. If they shoot at spots that don't contain aliens, then they aren't cheating, they're just smart :P . If they only shoot at spots that contain invisible aliens, then they're cheating (some sort of texture or shader hack probably).
Ex: One aimbotter I saw had programed his aimbot to target the general color of the aliens . So his/her reticle was jumping constantly in straight lines to items in the environment that where about the same color as well as the aliens.
It would be nice if there was a way to set dedicated spectator slots so that the server list could show a game is full but had spectator slots available.
Impossible for you to register if it was perfect or not. You imply aimbotters are incapable of faking. Also, youre never 100% invisible, its pretty easy to see cloaked aliens.
You make a lot of assumptions that will only apply to either stupid people or shitty aimbots. Sitting in spectate trying to identify a good aimbot isnt happening without watching a recording several times.
I think he is talking about tracking aim (LMG), not twitch aim.
The ideal scenario however would be having the play server replicate to a secondary spectate only server... which has been done in other games as well.
That being said there are negatived to openly allowing spectators in PUBs.
1. Rage quiter, if your going to rage do it right and leave the server. Instead of unbalancing the teams and preventing new people from joining who might finish out the round.
2. prejoin recon, where person joins server sees game in progress, spectates, joins winning team, informs them of enemy status.
Spectating for the sake of spectating can be enjoyable, but in its current state it should be left to admin.
Ha. Most people are fine if you hang around in the ready room ,though.
Anyway, in regards to your how_to_catch a hacker post, it really isn't that easy. With the exception of blatant aimbotting without any smooth-aim assist on, hackers are really hard to find. Wall hacks are next to impossible to identify unless you run a similar program while speccing suspicious person. Anything less is just a guess by a admin.
On the other hand, I have not seen a hacker in ns2 in quite some time... Months to be exact and I play the game quite often.
I'm sure a mod could be made that prevented a player from spectating after F4, or that would prevent spectators from joining until the next round. But as is its one more thing that can be abused that does not benifit the average player.
Twitch mechanics of things like shotgun or railgun combined with lag are useless to spectate. Claiming someone is wall-hacking even with substantial first person spectate "evidence" is useless. Sound, map awareness/understanding, and team chat can nullify pretty much every claim.
Why are people unfriendly to specs? Ghosting. I don't care about being a man down in a 20-24 slot. Ghosting is the same if not more of an advantage to hacking and since spec isn't going to help you catch someone cheating there is no reason to be in it. Wtf would you want spec in 24 slot? Server degeneration?
I'm unsure what you mean by aliens that are completely invisible... Nothing besides alien structures that are shaded are ever completely invisible. There's always a slight shimmer even when idle as alien with shade upgrades. If you mean they're hiding in dark corners it doesn't take a shader mod to see them... Just turn up the brightness, ect.
Thankfully these servers don't exist in Aus.
Not quite true. One borderline individual I spectated a few months ago went over the line when I watched him track several aliens through walls.
It has 3 non-admin spectator slots which don't impact the amount of players in the game (a server-created mod allows for a maximum of 16 players to participate in the match, while still allowing 3 spectators to watch). There's also a spectator voicecomm mod that has several modes the player can choose, including allowing spectators to hear the voicecomm of both the marine and alien teams, only one team in particular, or only the voicecomm of other spectators.
TG's reserved slot system isn't universally popular (and understandably so), but players in spectate are immune to any 'bumping' due to reserved slots. There are some fantastic matches on the server (especially at night when it is filled with regulars), so it can be quite a bit of fun to watch.
Oddly enough, it's not quite as satisfying if I just watch twitch.tv matches, but I suppose it's because of the after match talk...