Is this possible? Has something like this been attempted?

[SeraphimLeftNut]

A new game mode for either 1v1 or team games:

A neutral civilian faction is spawned at the same time as the players, controlled by the FAF lobby. This neutral civilian can give resources or units to either to anyone in the game when people in aelous who are watching live replay or twitch stream feel like it.

To make this interesting there have to be strict rules about what can be given and under what conditions as well as a good interface for voting for a given action.

[Sheeo]

It's definitely possible and would be fun.

[pip]

Considering what Zep did with Galactic War, it's totally possible indeed.

[Sheeo]

Considering what Zep did with Galactic War, it's totally possible indeed.

Actually this will require more than what GW does -- since we can't statically determine what actions need to be taken at the start of the game.


It requires implementing enough of the game protocol to be able to issue commands during a live game, something a bit harder than writing the time of a drop/autorecall data to a lua file before game launch.

[lextoc]

It certainly sounds fun to me.

[Lyr]

I doubt it.

Modifying the lua to launch custom parameters/game events at the start of the game is one thing. Feeding in commands into a live game state from an external source - e.g the lobby or twitch is quite another thing altogether. All GW was - was a system of unique game events and launch paramters all fed into the "mod" (GW) at game launch. You're talking feeding network data from an external library into the game during a live sim. At the very least desyncs are going to be a problem. More likely you are going to have issues crossing the C/lua boundary . I researched, and discussed with Zep having players reinforce live GW games, pretty much the only way it was considered possible was by saving the game state and reloading it with a new player into an existing dummy player slot. I'm not aware of any methods/functions that let you parse commands into the sim from outside the game apart from starting the game, ending the game and parsing game data to an external source.

This also ignores the myriad implementation issues, and the validity of creating a game mode that is essentially a popularity contest. Fun, sure.

[SeraphimLeftNut]

I doubt it.

Modifying the lua to launch custom parameters/game events at the start of the game is one thing. Feeding in commands into a live game state from an external source - e.g the lobby or twitch is quite another thing altogether. All GW was - was a system of unique game events and launch paramters all fed into the "mod" (GW) at game launch. You're talking feeding network data from an external library into the game during a live sim. At the very least desyncs are going to be a problem. More likely you are going to have issues crossing the C/lua boundary . I researched, and discussed with Zep having players reinforce live GW games, pretty much the only way it was considered possible was by saving the game state and reloading it with a new player into an existing dummy player slot. I'm not aware of any methods/functions that let you parse commands into the sim from outside the game apart from starting the game, ending the game and parsing game data to an external source.

This also ignores the myriad implementation issues, and the validity of creating a game mode that is essentially a popularity contest. Fun, sure.

One way to get around this would be to allow a 3rd player to be in the game, neutral to the other two. This player can be looking at faf chat and then giving units/resources based on what they are told to do. It would be nice to have this be automatic, but I am sure there are people out there that would be willing to play the "referee" role.

[Sheeo]

I doubt it.

Modifying the lua to launch custom parameters/game events at the start of the game is one thing. Feeding in commands into a live game state from an external source - e.g the lobby or twitch is quite another thing altogether. All GW was - was a system of unique game events and launch paramters all fed into the "mod" (GW) at game launch. You're talking feeding network data from an external library into the game during a live sim. At the very least desyncs are going to be a problem. More likely you are going to have issues crossing the C/lua boundary . I researched, and discussed with Zep having players reinforce live GW games, pretty much the only way it was considered possible was by saving the game state and reloading it with a new player into an existing dummy player slot. I'm not aware of any methods/functions that let you parse commands into the sim from outside the game apart from starting the game, ending the game and parsing game data to an external source.

This also ignores the myriad implementation issues, and the validity of creating a game mode that is essentially a popularity contest. Fun, sure.

It's fully possible by simply emulating a client, using the normal network protocol. Desyncs would not be a problem, as you would just be relaying the same sim-state hash that peers are sending.

The toughest part is fully reverse engineering the protocol, followed by making sure the issued commands are valid. It's in our interest to fully understand the networking protocol for more purposes than this fun anyway.

[Petricpwnz]

The concept is quite flawed but with some changes and good thought can be really fun, tho games like this have to be unranked.

[pip]

Ah, I thought it was not more difficult than GW. It seems an awful lot more complicated than GW if it involves reverse engineering. Better resume and finish GW first (and the tons of things to do before it). But in the long run,that's a great idea, and it could be very interesting if / once technology is mastered.