Disconnects

[CyberShadow]

Hi. I'm thinking of possible ways to solve the problem of games ruined by network disconnections.

We will probably not have the ability to continue a game from a replay before 4.x (and I personally think this solution is overcomplicated), but instead I'm thinking of trying something much simpler: trying to simply reconnect to the host if the connection failed.

Before we go ahead with this, I'd like to collect some information from people who are affected by this problem. Please answer these questions:

1) If the host rehosts immediately after you drop, are you able to join their game with no problems?
2) Do you (or the person on the other side of the disconnect) have to wait for the broken connection to "time out" in order for the game to continue?
3) When you're disconnected, do any other programs (e.g. IRC) lose their connections as well?
4) Do you generally have sporadic Internet connectivity problems (e.g. web pages not loading one second, then loading fine after a few seconds)?

Also, please post some replays of games with such disconnects.

[franz]

Haven't had a history of 'network disconnects' myself but hoping you find a good sample from others.  Best of luck!

[MonkeyIsland]

1) Both yes and no. Depends on how bad my disconnection is. But normally when it drops, I can join their rehost game right after.
2) Yes. There have been games which I've waited a lot.
3) Depends on how bad the disconnection is. Sometimes it is just a WN disconnection while other programs work.
4) I do. Sometimes when I see lags in my games, I minimize and try to open a web page and it fails for 2-3 seconds and then it works.

[Khamski]

Hi. I'm thinking of possible ways to solve the problem of games ruined by network disconnections.

We will probably not have the ability to continue a game from a replay before 4.x (and I personally think this solution is overcomplicated), but instead I'm thinking of trying something much simpler: trying to simply reconnect to the host if the connection failed.

Before we go ahead with this, I'd like to collect some information from people who are affected by this problem. Please answer these questions:

1) If the host rehosts immediately after you drop, are you able to join their game with no problems?
2) Do you (or the person on the other side of the disconnect) have to wait for the broken connection to "time out" in order for the game to continue?
3) When you're disconnected, do any other programs (e.g. IRC) lose their connections as well?
4) Do you generally have sporadic Internet connectivity problems (e.g. web pages not loading one second, then loading fine after a few seconds)?

Also, please post some replays of games with such disconnects.

1) Yes
2) Not always. But sometimes yes. You hang there and wait while your opponent is already in ag waiting for you. (case 2 in the rar)
3) Not always. I had a lot of dicsonnections in which both sides stated that there internet is perfectly ok (case 2 in the rar).
4) Yeah i have it. Not often. But My internet may go down for a few sec. Yes. (case 1 in the rar)

[Khamski]

Btw, maybe there is even simpler solvation.

How about echanced map editor?

Map editor with an option of loading replay in it in order to get
map, barrels, mines, worms, in the places  the were on the moment of dc.

I know some wormkit module helps to do some of that already.


So all we do is just restoring the situation on the map.

All we need is a possiblity to plant mines, barrels and worms with modiifed hp.

[kukumber]

1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) Sometimes, but quite rarely.

P.S.
Game continuation feature is the most important thing we need. And people are praying for it ever since I started worming. I used to have terrible internet which dropped quite often, being unable to continue dropped game can be extremely disappointing. Also it would be great to be able to start a game at any given time of a replay, at least offline.

[kukumber]

Here are 2 dropped games. First one has dropped because of my internet, second because of skipped packet.

[Prankster]

Btw, maybe there is even simpler solvation.

How about echanced map editor?

Map editor with an option of loading replay in it in order to get
map, barrels, mines, worms, in the places  the were on the moment of dc.

I know some wormkit module helps to do some of that already.


So all we do is just restoring the situation on the map.

All we need is a possiblity to plant mines, barrels and worms with modiifed hp.

Yeah, with a possibility to see exactly where to place the worm, maybe a little dot on map, ot something you can align the cursor to.

[Csongi]

Btw, maybe there is even simpler solvation.

How about echanced map editor?

Map editor with an option of loading replay in it in order to get
map, barrels, mines, worms, in the places  the were on the moment of dc.

I know some wormkit module helps to do some of that already.


So all we do is just restoring the situation on the map.

All we need is a possiblity to plant mines, barrels and worms with modiifed hp.

Yeah, with a possibility to see exactly where to place the worm, maybe a little dot on map, ot something you can align the cursor to.

Still this won't solve the matter of worms health and weapons.

[CyberShadow]

Btw, maybe there is even simpler solvation.

How about echanced map editor?

Map editor with an option of loading replay in it in order to get
map, barrels, mines, worms, in the places  the were on the moment of dc.

I know some wormkit module helps to do some of that already.


So all we do is just restoring the situation on the map.

All we need is a possiblity to plant mines, barrels and worms with modiifed hp.

I don't think this solution is very practical, because:

1) As presented, the idea will not restore worm health / poison status, weapon inventory, sudden death status, etc.
2) Presently, the map editor is just an image editor with some metadata. It is completely separated from worms/teams or network code. Thus, this would be difficult to implement.
3) It would be rather tedious to do for every disconnect, rather than simply wait for the connection to be re-established.

Deadcode informed me that resuming a game from a replay would not be too difficult, however there are many details with this approach that need to be dealt with, such as user interface presentation (usability and discoverability), and security.

[TheKomodo]

CS - How about allocating specific HPs for each player?

For example, in BnG, the game will crash, usually people can write HP's start from 200 again but they die earlier, for example, I had 159hp when game crashed, so next game I die on 41hp, is it possible to allocate different HPs for each player?

This would also help in Ropers, possibly other schemes also...


Another idea, sorry if this isn't the place to write this, but about automatic teleports, I heard it's very hard to implement automatic teleports for TTRR etc, but how about after 1st worm places, the rest automatically appear in the same spot? Would that be possible?

[StepS]

Another idea, sorry if this isn't the place to write this, but about automatic teleports, I heard it's very hard to implement automatic teleports for TTRR etc, but how about after 1st worm places, the rest automatically appear in the same spot? Would that be possible?

Automatic teleports are not hard at all. the idea you proposed considers that the first person is not going to ruin the game. However such tools as wkMagic allowed to define a start (if I remember) with some colour data on the map. this could be done via a PNG chunk as well.

[Fcrate]

Another idea, sorry if this isn't the place to write this, but about automatic teleports, I heard it's very hard to implement automatic teleports for TTRR etc, but how about after 1st worm places, the rest automatically appear in the same spot? Would that be possible?

You're thinking darts xD would be amazing if possible.

On topic: usually my disconnects are because of low signal, or switching from 3G to EDGE ( I play using a USB dongle ), however, a nice way to approach this issue - in my opinion -: Don't drop the disconnecting player, allow other players to vote to drop him or not, the game then would be waiting for the disconnected player to issue a command, like reconnect or something, and upon successful connection, the game would resume, as if nothing happened, if the vote was negative, the player is immediately dropped, and the player can't rejoin.

[TheKomodo]

Darts/TTRR/Bungee etc yeah

Would be awesome for Darts, I thought I said it already, nvm lol.

[CyberShadow]

Let's please keep this thread on topic. Other suggestions can be posted as new threads or on the W:A UserVoice page.