There is no reason to risk any game interference in a comp environment
of course there's a reason! there's plenty of reason. i'm not saying we should just throw out performance for this cause, but first person spectate in a first person shooter is incredibly important! it's all about community and adoption. people don't want to play a fps without first person spec. it's so much harder to learn from watching other players if you can't see their perspective, and it's that learning and getting better that competitive games are all about. saying there's no reason to risk it is incredibly naive. should we just throw caution to the wind and say if you lag you lag? no, of course not. but should we take carefully calculated risks in order to increase playability and enjoyment of the game at a minimal risk to accurate competitive play? if those options are valid and open to us, then yes, definitely!
if you're making a list of the top reasons people do not play NS2 number one is obviously performance. number two is probably learning curve, but right up near it, and possibly tied with a few other things, is no first person spec. not having first person spec causes a sense of detachment from what people feel is the critical information they need in order to improve. why is joshy so much better than me? i'm not sure, i can't really tell what he's doing without first person spec. it's a mystery. is this an accurate view of reality? maybe not. but it's the feeling you get when you never experience another player's perspective. the fact that NSL casters can't show player perspectives is ridiculous. you may argue that the overhead perspective is more important in terms of gameplay, and i'd agree with you. but for engagement with the medium, for immersion and excitement, for capturing urgency and technique, you need a first person perspective.
it's often a lot harder to improve at playing NS2 without first person spec. i've been drilling with people a bunch of times and i would want to say "just spectate me while i play this game," but then i'd remember that that's useless. they can't spectate me to learn anything from me, and they can't spectate me to give me critiques. the only way to do this is by watching perspective streams on twitch, and they usually cause more lag than in-game first person spec would.
i'm rambling. TL,DR: saying first person spec is unimportant in competitive is objectively false, it's most important in competitive. and if it can be fixed, it should be fixed as a matter of relative priority because it will make the NS2 experience significantly less broken in general.
Until some dude comes along and reveals all that had to be done was change one line of code.
You mean that as a critique of another bugfix, but that is actually how most bugfixes work. its often one obscure line that does not what one expects. that is how software development work.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
@matso
Can't those 20hz updates be smoothed out / interpolated further? (forsaking the time it's delivered to the viewer)
Hmm... I just tried out some first person spectating, and it seems to be pretty smooth, actually - no hitching/rubberbanding which would occur if interpolation was the problem.
Now, you get a bit of motion sickness when in first-person spectating because the view angle shifts pretty abruptly - but that's probably unavoidable; the view angles are interpolated so you get as smooth a transition as you can get.
The reason (most) people don't have a problem with that when actually playing the game is that your brain predicts the outcome when you control the player (your brain is really helpful that way), so you are not surprised when the world shifts around.
Now, pre-264, there was this time-bug which caused a bit of jitter for player values; I can imagine that that may actually have been causing extra trouble when spectating... could you check if spectating has improved since 264?
I've always been fairly certain that the first-person spectator bug is because the engine is basically tricked into believing the spectator is actually the player - thus sending the spectator all the same data that the player gets. The problem occurrs when the player and spectator have largely different pings, the server doesn't know what game-time data to send to each.
I can certainly do some tests and see if the problem's resolved since 264.
remiremedy [blu.knight]Join Date: 2003-11-18Member: 23112Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester
I was under the impression that that was how 1st person spec was first implemented, but that there was some engine work that had been done to make it do a better job... so now we get the gun model and all the rest that's going on in first person, but there seems to be an issue with how the server handles the spectated client that is causing the update rate to slow down or something.
It's Super Effective!Join Date: 2012-08-28Member: 156625Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
IMO: Develop NSTV (equivalent to HLTV).
The game server dumps a copy of all player telemetry to a 3rd party server to offload all that traffic. Spectators can log into that and watch it like a live stream, but with a delay. So long as it is smooth, and players can still toggle between players and perhaps even demo it, it would be awesome.
I was always wondering what the hell was all about with spectator mode after deaths. Every single time, when you die, and you see another player, it's rubberbanding horribly and i also ALWAYS see the red connection problem icon flashing. Now i know why. That part of the game is apparently entirely broken. Yay...
The game server dumps a copy of all player telemetry to a 3rd party server to offload all that traffic. Spectators can log into that and watch it like a live stream, but with a delay. So long as it is smooth, and players can still toggle between players and perhaps even demo it, it would be awesome.
Raza had the idea a long time ago but dropped it. I asked for the network specifications of NS2, to see if it can be easily done (without touching the server), but never heard back from anyone.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I would like to know, as a member of the general modding community, will we be able to receive feedback on when updates are going to have implications for our mods? As I have finished GorgeCraft, and am workingo n a new mod, I'd be very appreciative of knowing in advance when I have to get my head around the GorgeCraft code again to fix any new updates..
If there is a serious consideration for a demo-recording system, has anyone thought of contacting Player regarding the system he was working on for NS2 during the Beta?
YES, Soul_Rider! We will be working very hard to alert the community of incoming updates and releases. make sure you follow us on twitter @ ns2cdt for the most up to date info for now...
We've been working hard on patch 266, which we will start testing today.
Amazingly this forum thread now been featured in the wider gaming press, with articles from Rock Paper Shotgun, Polygon, IGN, pcgamesn, AusGamer, zehngames.com (esp), Polygamia (polski) and many more. Thanks to everyone for your continued support! We can't wait to share with you what we've done in 266.
Point of clarification: is it possible for any member of the community to get access to the source and propose improvements (i.e. is this game going open source?) Or is the development merely moved from individuals employed by Unknown Worlds to some community team picked by UWE?
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
@scanfield This has been touched on earlier in this thread. The Engine code will not be made available; however, you already have access to the game code (Lua).
Point of clarification: is it possible for any member of the community to get access to the source and propose improvements (i.e. is this game going open source?) Or is the development merely moved from individuals employed by Unknown Worlds to some community team picked by UWE?
The game will not be going 'open source'. Only the community Dev Team will have direct access. You of course can look at all the lua code yourself, being an owner of NS2
What about flawless SteamOS support? Is that considered? The machines will be arriving next year. How about trying to time that with a content update to get a free ride on the hype train, and focusing on fixing bugs and improving the GUI and so on in the meantime.
Still too early to say I guess, but I'm interested in hearing about the long-term goals.
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Comments
of course there's a reason! there's plenty of reason. i'm not saying we should just throw out performance for this cause, but first person spectate in a first person shooter is incredibly important! it's all about community and adoption. people don't want to play a fps without first person spec. it's so much harder to learn from watching other players if you can't see their perspective, and it's that learning and getting better that competitive games are all about. saying there's no reason to risk it is incredibly naive. should we just throw caution to the wind and say if you lag you lag? no, of course not. but should we take carefully calculated risks in order to increase playability and enjoyment of the game at a minimal risk to accurate competitive play? if those options are valid and open to us, then yes, definitely!
if you're making a list of the top reasons people do not play NS2 number one is obviously performance. number two is probably learning curve, but right up near it, and possibly tied with a few other things, is no first person spec. not having first person spec causes a sense of detachment from what people feel is the critical information they need in order to improve. why is joshy so much better than me? i'm not sure, i can't really tell what he's doing without first person spec. it's a mystery. is this an accurate view of reality? maybe not. but it's the feeling you get when you never experience another player's perspective. the fact that NSL casters can't show player perspectives is ridiculous. you may argue that the overhead perspective is more important in terms of gameplay, and i'd agree with you. but for engagement with the medium, for immersion and excitement, for capturing urgency and technique, you need a first person perspective.
it's often a lot harder to improve at playing NS2 without first person spec. i've been drilling with people a bunch of times and i would want to say "just spectate me while i play this game," but then i'd remember that that's useless. they can't spectate me to learn anything from me, and they can't spectate me to give me critiques. the only way to do this is by watching perspective streams on twitch, and they usually cause more lag than in-game first person spec would.
i'm rambling. TL,DR: saying first person spec is unimportant in competitive is objectively false, it's most important in competitive. and if it can be fixed, it should be fixed as a matter of relative priority because it will make the NS2 experience significantly less broken in general.
All i'm saying is don't expect a fix any time soon.
You mean that as a critique of another bugfix, but that is actually how most bugfixes work. its often one obscure line that does not what one expects. that is how software development work.
Hmm... I just tried out some first person spectating, and it seems to be pretty smooth, actually - no hitching/rubberbanding which would occur if interpolation was the problem.
Now, you get a bit of motion sickness when in first-person spectating because the view angle shifts pretty abruptly - but that's probably unavoidable; the view angles are interpolated so you get as smooth a transition as you can get.
The reason (most) people don't have a problem with that when actually playing the game is that your brain predicts the outcome when you control the player (your brain is really helpful that way), so you are not surprised when the world shifts around.
Now, pre-264, there was this time-bug which caused a bit of jitter for player values; I can imagine that that may actually have been causing extra trouble when spectating... could you check if spectating has improved since 264?
I can certainly do some tests and see if the problem's resolved since 264.
joshhhy you're bad and wrong
i want fix nao
The game server dumps a copy of all player telemetry to a 3rd party server to offload all that traffic. Spectators can log into that and watch it like a live stream, but with a delay. So long as it is smooth, and players can still toggle between players and perhaps even demo it, it would be awesome.
Raza had the idea a long time ago but dropped it. I asked for the network specifications of NS2, to see if it can be easily done (without touching the server), but never heard back from anyone.
If there is a serious consideration for a demo-recording system, has anyone thought of contacting Player regarding the system he was working on for NS2 during the Beta?
We've been working hard on patch 266, which we will start testing today.
Amazingly this forum thread now been featured in the wider gaming press, with articles from Rock Paper Shotgun, Polygon, IGN, pcgamesn, AusGamer, zehngames.com (esp), Polygamia (polski) and many more. Thanks to everyone for your continued support! We can't wait to share with you what we've done in 266.
Seems our community is 'rabid'. I lolled (after googling the word).
Oh btw: not in the article, just in the comments.
The game will not be going 'open source'. Only the community Dev Team will have direct access. You of course can look at all the lua code yourself, being an owner of NS2
Still too early to say I guess, but I'm interested in hearing about the long-term goals.
WTF PUT IT BACK
i cant handle changes in my environment like this!
Where did you even find his old avatar?
You can keep an eye on what we're doing, and also vote on cards that mean the most to you. Click on a card and hit the 'vote' button in the Actions area.
We'll be adding more cards for the future work very soon. Cheers!