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I found as a major issue, its hard to arrange a match.
You have to hang up on the server to find a team, than u dont have a teamy. In the beginning i tried to arrange a match via bzmail, i never had success with that. Some calls on IRC had success, but more not. I pushed my team to use an instant messanger, i tried to collect all icq numbers and jabber account for all league player.
Than i found TLZ site, show the instant messanger status of the TLZ player. that could be usefull for the ducati league. Additional to show the instant messanger status grouped for every team.
In a second stage a league-jabber-server would be great.
In the future that the bzflag-chat send u automatical a message if ur teamy join a bz-server.

I and Xell have been using strayer's site recently... really easy, because it lists not only the players, but also the teams online.

Of course, for arranging when no teams are online, hmm.. that's a different story. I usually hang at IRC.

gilly wrote:I and Xell have been using strayer's site recently... really easy, because it lists not only the players, but also the teams online.

Of course, for arranging when no teams are online, hmm.. that's a different story. I usually hang at IRC.

Yes, strayers league stats ( http://bzstats.strayer.de/leagues/ducati/ ) in combination with IRC camping ( irc.freenode.com ##ducleague ) seems to work pretty good. But it's true, sussi, it's harder to search a match than search a teammate, i.e. you should look for a team first, and then ask your teammates who could do a match (or look if a mate is online). That often has more success than hanging around with your mate and asking everybody.

sussi, i also realized that problem, so i wanted to try to solve this. As you, I see the communication as essential to improve this.

My idea is to make an in-game cross-server communication system (kinda like irc), and i've begun developing it. I have just gotten a working prototype working, but it stills needs some work to be ready for the public. Any comments and ideas is most welcomed.

I got a wiki with more information http://dennis.moellegaard.dk/wiki/gps:start

/gps [dmp] Wow, that looks awesome. Great Work

Wow, meacan... Just, Wow.

Is it done yet?

I think we need to pressure the server owners, in both the public and
private match arena, to install some of these plugins. OR, as I have already
come across, we should set up a few test ports and make sure it works, and
doesnt crash any thing.

meacans older ChatChannel plugin could also be helpful... It seems like the GPS plugin will let you talk to groups, but not on-the-fly like ChatChannel did.
maybe meacan can incorporate ChatChannel into GPS, or if not, server owners could just run both - can't do any harm - the worst that could happen is that nobody uses it.

My idea is to keep GPS as basic as possible, so only vital features are implemented, to see if it is going to be used. The GPS' channels is as basic as they can be for now, but I plan to add more (channel) features later on. For now, I need to finished what I've got, and see if its going to be used.

The main difference between ChatChannel and GPS is basically, that GPS spans over multiple servers. Both of them are realtime. The other difference is that the GPS plugin is pretty thin, meaning that most work is done by the server. This allows me to add features and fix bugs, without needing server owners to upgrade their plugin.

Once GPS is done, it will have the features ChatChannel got. And hopefully more.

I didnt give dmp's GPS (GPS is already used for Global Positioning System- a satelite nav system) a try, but i think thats the right way. All former solutions are only query. I would like if u get automaticly a message : "Your ducati-teamy NAME joined server:port", or : team Name has [nummber of teamies] playing at...That would very helpfull.

Another topic is for players who wont play but are hot for a match. The solution i have in my mind is: a jabber (or another instant messanger)-server for the league, every league-player has an account.
If the player goes online, his instant messanger client shows his online status, what is a sign for willing to match. If he is not interessted in matches, just go offlineor away for that server. Of corse he need a instant messanger client that can connect to more than 1 server.

the wiki page wrote:This can be extended by adding ways for external systems to communicate with GPS. E.g. A webinterface, where authenticated users can chat with players in-game. IRC and instant messaging systems, such as ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, etc. However, this is a secondary goal.

However, it introduces alot of issues I need to deal with. So this is low priority until the first version of GPS is running.

My current setup allows you to define buddies, and you are notified when they joined/leaves a server.

some automatics are fine.
An individual buddy list has everybody to keep valid. An automatic system what align with the actual league teams would be nice.

sussi wrote:some automatics are fine.
An individual buddy list has everybody to keep valid. An automatic system what align with the actual league teams would be nice.

It's surely not a problem to automatically set your team mates on your personal buddy list. So it's important to get the buddy list stuff working first. ;o)

I agree, lets get a proof of concept, and get the core working before we
try adding all the little perks. I would like to volunteer my practice server
to /dmp for testing, and I think any one else up for it should do the same. The more the better in this case

sussi wrote:GPS is already used for Global Positioning System- a satelite nav system

Yes, "GPS" was sort of a take-off on that idea. Global Player Search (GPS) is sort of like a global positioning system for finding players.

SportChick wrote:

sussi wrote:GPS is already used for Global Positioning System- a satelite nav system

Yes, "GPS" was sort of a take-off on that idea. Global Player Search (GPS) is sort of like a global positioning system for finding players.

Also, tell me an abbreviation which does not exist at least twice. I doubt there is one

and ..where is your argument?
"sort of like a global positioning system for finding players." is a good explanation for the double use, it's both for some kind of navigation.
Or use the bz as a kind of namesspace, what lead to bz_GPS.

Just an update: I've made a setup that works. There is probably a ton of bugs to find, but that will have to wait until I return from my vacation.



The screenshot shows a chat between players on 3 different bzflag servers. So, at least there is progress

Wow... meacan, you are a genius of god-like standards. *clap*