Testing server lag directly in Server list

Satri · Post by **Satri** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 2:37 am

I tried to see if this issue was brought up before but haven't found it.

Here's my feature request:
Having a way to test the server lag before connecting to the server and join the game. This, directly in the server list.

Why? Because it's just stupid to join a game to find out the lag is bad. Then try another server with same results, etc.

Maybe there's already a way to do that, but if so, it's not obvious how for a newbie like I am

Cheers!
Alex

bzflaginator · Post by **bzflaginator** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 2:45 am

Ehh. That might be a good idea. But the devs may believe its unneeded coding.

Goodbye2U · Post by **Goodbye2U** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:21 am

Just because the devs turn down alot of ideas doesn't mean you should be discouraged.

I think this is a great idea

meeba · Post by **meeba** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:29 am

It actually is a good idea... because not all servers list their location (I know mine don't).

ts · Post by ts » Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:29 am

Of course it is a good idea, the problem is that there is so much to do and rather little available time.

Satri · Post by **Satri** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:12 pm

Needless to say, if this idea is implemented, the possibility to sort the server list by lag time would be nice.

Personally, I hope this will be implemented because it will enable players to quickly find a good server and have fun with bzflag. It's as important as the UI. If you have new players login on on servers that don't work for them, then lose time to try to find one suitable and ultimately give up, then you lose players and potential bzflag fans!

meeba · Post by **meeba** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:04 pm

Yeah, come to think of it, there could also be server scoring, where players can vote positive for servers they like and negative for ones they don't like... and then you could sort by this score, ping, name, etc. Armagetron already does this, so I know it's possible for BZFlag.

Also, slightly off the subject, but the ability to have server bookmarks might be nice.

bzflaginator · Post by **bzflaginator** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:51 pm

Sorting by all those different things is such as that of other online games

. The only thing is, alot of the popular servers that contain alot of players normally have a bit of a higher ping but most of the time its not a problem. Therefore many people many not want to play at those servers. Secondly, if you are worried about lag, talk to the hosts and admins of those servers so maybe they can set a max lag/ping and jitter. This will cut down on the amount of lag on each server...may cut down on the number of people, but so be it.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:06 am

a number of enhancements have been talked about for the list. We all currently agree the current list shows it's data poorly. Someone just has to write the code to change.

A Vicious Muffin · Post by **A Vicious Muffin** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:11 am

How about instead of having one giant list of servers, how about folders specific to certain types of play (ffa, ctf, htr....). From these, you could have even more categories (jumping, superflags, rico....) And in these, you would have your servers. It would be much less cluttered, and maybe (this is pushing it...) you could have groups of servers hosted by the same person in folders.

bzflaginator · Post by **bzflaginator** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:07 am

JeffM2501 wrote:a number of enhancements have been talked about for the list. We all currently agree the current list shows it's data poorly. Someone just has to write the code to change.

If I knew how to do that, I would be more than happy.

Muffin:
The servers are somewhat sorted by styles (color coded).

too much loving · Post by **too much loving** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:59 am

When I played xpilot I used a small perl script to query the servers for player names. It would be easy to rewrite the script ping instead of asking for player names.
http://www.nought.de/xpilot/xp

Would it be possible, and socially acceptable to do something similar for bzflag?

A Vicious Muffin · Post by **A Vicious Muffin** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:00 am

Dark Zodiac wrote:The servers are somewhat sorted by styles (color coded).

Yes, they are. But they aren't in any specific order, are they? Aren't they alphabetized? That's why the folders would make it easier to find servers you might like.

bzflaginator · Post by **bzflaginator** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:42 am

Muffin:
Yes this is true.
This sorting would also help to give other, unpopular maps, a chance. If only we could find a monkey to do it

Lord Flasheart · Post by **Lord Flasheart** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:46 pm

I think a folder style display would be difficult to implement due to the nature of the menus and the fact that they have to be cross-platform. However, I think it would be reasonably straightforward to implement some options for the server list where you could set some preferences for the list of servers that are returned such as:

- Jumping [Any/Yes/No]
- SuperFlags [Any/Yes/No]
- Ricochet [Any/Yes/No]
- Game type [Any/Replay/CTF/Rabbit/FFA]
- Minimum shots [0 - 20]
- Maximum shots [0 - 20]

Adding this as an extra menu on the Join menu would be quite easy I think. Having sensible defaults will make the list the same as it is currently.

As far as I'm aware, I thought the server list was ordered by number of players on the server.

LF

bzflaginator · Post by **bzflaginator** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:30 am

I believe that in other games, you can click the "number of players", "ping", "style" etc tabs and it will order them in descending or ascending order. Could that be done for bzflag??

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:43 am

anything can be done, someone just has to write the code to do it.

the last discussion was about putting the list of servers into tabs based on category and were sortable.

bzflaginator · Post by **bzflaginator** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:41 am

Ehhh. Where have all the good devs gone

. Well this shall be a work in progress for some time if we cant find someone who wants/can do it