Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[Gabriel Morin]

2010/3/10 jeremy rosen 

> having an option "delay shroud update on new game" would be a great
> EasyCoding task, feel free to implement it/add it to EasyCoding if you
> have your platefull with something else...
>
> Boucman
>
>
Just so everybody knows and doesn't duplicate the work, I've submitted a
patch for this "delay shroud update on new game" idea:
https://gna.org/patch/index.php?1556

Apart from that, more commentaries on the whole *Share undoable moves with
allies* topic are welcome. I'm gonna do the wiki page and formal GSoC
proposal for this pretty soon.
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Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[Gabriel Morin]

2010/3/10 George B 

> Wwith regard to sharing the same info with enemies, I would lean toward
> saying "yes", or at least having it be optional.  Currently many players
> don't delay shroud updates anyway, so much competitive play basically has
> this info in public anyway. I think from a gameplay point of view it makes
> sense to say that "all undoable moves are public" and just leave it at that.
>  However, I don't have a strong opinion about the secondary issue, so either
> way is fine by me.
>

>
According to what people said in the thread where started brainstorming for
my proposal , a while
ago, some players really like their undo options and do delay shroud
updates. So I suspect there would be strong opposition to having this
mandatory rather than optional.

Cheers,
gabba (aka gabm on IRC)
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Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[jeremy rosen]

having an option "delay shroud update on new game" would be a great
EasyCoding task, feel free to implement it/add it to EasyCoding if you
have your platefull with something else...

Boucman

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 10:37 PM, Greg Boggs  wrote:
> While on the topic of delay shroud updates, could this setting be
> remembered? Every time I play, I (and many others) forget to turn it
> back on right away. This generally isn't a problem until you misclick,
> kicking yourself for forgetting yet again.
>
> George B wrote:
>> As another MP dev I'd like to jump on board.  I think this is a great
>> idea.  Many players use the "delay shroud updates" option - myself
>> included and as Gabriel points out, coordinating with allies after 15+
>> moves that your ally can't see is a real headache.  I think that this
>> annoyance is only likely to grow with time because of the addition of
>> MP campaigns and the dearth of MP user made content.  Now allies are
>> not pressed for time because they are fighting a computer, and they
>> might be pushing around many more units than in a normal MP game.  So
>> this is a timely and desirable feature IMHO!
>>
>> Wwith regard to sharing the same info with enemies, I would lean
>> toward saying "yes", or at least having it be optional.  Currently
>> many players don't delay shroud updates anyway, so
>> much competitive play basically has this info in public anyway.  I
>> think from a gameplay point of view it makes sense to say that "all
>> undoable moves are public" and just leave it at that.  However, I
>> don't have a strong opinion about the secondary issue, so either way
>> is fine by me.
>>
>> I'll second what Noy said about allowing undoable attacks or moves to
>> avoid luck - this is a bad precedent to start and is likely to lead to
>> much trouble IMO.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> George aka Wintermute (happygrue)
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Noy > > wrote:
>>
>>     Umm, I don't think we'd accept that idea. The whole idea about the
>>     current set up is to to encourage players to think about
>>     probabilities and act accordingly. If you mess up, you shouldn't
>>     just be able to undo and try to get a better result... we might as
>>     well just strip RNG out of the game if that was the case. For
>>     single player, the current system prevents re-rolling for a better
>>     outcome by forcing players to go through an involved process if
>>     they want a redo, but not too involved. Its a good compromise in
>>     my mind. Moreover we'd never accept this for a competitive game
>>     because probabilities management is THE core skill that determines
>>     who wins. Your proposal weakens that significantly. More often
>>     than not there is disagreement over what is considered bad luck,
>>     so adding a system that allows subjective judgements to influence
>>     outcomes is a whole can of worms I'd rather avoid.
>>
>>     Noy
>>
>>     On 10-Mar-10, at 9:34 AM, Greg Boggs wrote:
>>
>>>     A related idea to this is to allow you to redo a move if you both
>>>     agree to it. When your playing with someone trying to teach them,
>>>     and they make a bad move, it would be infinitely valuable to be
>>>     able to take back their move without having to quit and reload
>>>     the game.
>>>
>>>     This option would also be very fun in competitive games. When
>>>     horrible bad luck strikes the other team, and you want to give
>>>     them another shot, so that you can continue the game.
>>>
>>>     Gabriel Morin wrote:
     Hi everybody,

     Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC submission
      accepted,
     but I'm very motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to
     contribute to Wesnoth for a long time, and the GSoC seems like
     the ideal kickstart to get to know the codebase.
     Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will
     me my last summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and
     last in software engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal
     - , so it's now or never!

     I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in
     particular has been well-received
     .
     (I'll copy the text at the bottom of this email to allow for
     easy commenting.) Since apparently you devs don't frequent the
     forums that much, I'd like to have your opinion on:
     1- Whether this is a desirable feature
     2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much
     work, how many things to modify?
     3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
     4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I
     can do, and get to know these areas of the code better?

     After browsing the GSoC 2010

Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[Greg Boggs]

While on the topic of delay shroud updates, could this setting be 
remembered? Every time I play, I (and many others) forget to turn it 
back on right away. This generally isn't a problem until you misclick, 
kicking yourself for forgetting yet again.

George B wrote:
> As another MP dev I'd like to jump on board.  I think this is a great 
> idea.  Many players use the "delay shroud updates" option - myself 
> included and as Gabriel points out, coordinating with allies after 15+ 
> moves that your ally can't see is a real headache.  I think that this 
> annoyance is only likely to grow with time because of the addition of 
> MP campaigns and the dearth of MP user made content.  Now allies are 
> not pressed for time because they are fighting a computer, and they 
> might be pushing around many more units than in a normal MP game.  So 
> this is a timely and desirable feature IMHO!
>
> Wwith regard to sharing the same info with enemies, I would lean 
> toward saying "yes", or at least having it be optional.  Currently 
> many players don't delay shroud updates anyway, so 
> much competitive play basically has this info in public anyway.  I 
> think from a gameplay point of view it makes sense to say that "all 
> undoable moves are public" and just leave it at that.  However, I 
> don't have a strong opinion about the secondary issue, so either way 
> is fine by me.
>
> I'll second what Noy said about allowing undoable attacks or moves to 
> avoid luck - this is a bad precedent to start and is likely to lead to 
> much trouble IMO.
>
> Regards,
>
> George aka Wintermute (happygrue)
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Noy  > wrote:
>
> Umm, I don't think we'd accept that idea. The whole idea about the
> current set up is to to encourage players to think about
> probabilities and act accordingly. If you mess up, you shouldn't
> just be able to undo and try to get a better result... we might as
> well just strip RNG out of the game if that was the case. For
> single player, the current system prevents re-rolling for a better
> outcome by forcing players to go through an involved process if
> they want a redo, but not too involved. Its a good compromise in
> my mind. Moreover we'd never accept this for a competitive game
> because probabilities management is THE core skill that determines
> who wins. Your proposal weakens that significantly. More often
> than not there is disagreement over what is considered bad luck,
> so adding a system that allows subjective judgements to influence
> outcomes is a whole can of worms I'd rather avoid. 
>
> Noy
>
> On 10-Mar-10, at 9:34 AM, Greg Boggs wrote:
>
>> A related idea to this is to allow you to redo a move if you both
>> agree to it. When your playing with someone trying to teach them,
>> and they make a bad move, it would be infinitely valuable to be
>> able to take back their move without having to quit and reload
>> the game.
>>
>> This option would also be very fun in competitive games. When
>> horrible bad luck strikes the other team, and you want to give
>> them another shot, so that you can continue the game.
>>
>> Gabriel Morin wrote:
>>> Hi everybody,
>>>
>>> Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC submission
>>>  accepted,
>>> but I'm very motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to
>>> contribute to Wesnoth for a long time, and the GSoC seems like
>>> the ideal kickstart to get to know the codebase.
>>> Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will
>>> me my last summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and
>>> last in software engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal
>>> - , so it's now or never!
>>>
>>> I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in
>>> particular has been well-received
>>> .
>>> (I'll copy the text at the bottom of this email to allow for
>>> easy commenting.) Since apparently you devs don't frequent the
>>> forums that much, I'd like to have your opinion on:
>>> 1- Whether this is a desirable feature
>>> 2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much
>>> work, how many things to modify?
>>> 3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
>>> 4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I
>>> can do, and get to know these areas of the code better?
>>>
>>> After browsing the GSoC 2010 current list of ideas, I find this
>>> one more motivating, because it would have a direct effect on my
>>> wesnoth gaming experience. This said, some of the other ideas
>>> look interesting as well, so I'm not putting all my eggs in one
>>> basket, i.e. I'm open to other options. I'm even thinking of
>>

Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[George B]

As another MP dev I'd like to jump on board.  I think this is a great idea.
 Many players use the "delay shroud updates" option - myself included and as
Gabriel points out, coordinating with allies after 15+ moves that your ally
can't see is a real headache.  I think that this annoyance is only likely to
grow with time because of the addition of MP campaigns and the dearth of MP
user made content.  Now allies are not pressed for time because they are
fighting a computer, and they might be pushing around many more units than
in a normal MP game.  So this is a timely and desirable feature IMHO!

Wwith regard to sharing the same info with enemies, I would lean toward
saying "yes", or at least having it be optional.  Currently many players
don't delay shroud updates anyway, so much competitive play basically has
this info in public anyway.  I think from a gameplay point of view it makes
sense to say that "all undoable moves are public" and just leave it at that.
 However, I don't have a strong opinion about the secondary issue, so either
way is fine by me.

I'll second what Noy said about allowing undoable attacks or moves to avoid
luck - this is a bad precedent to start and is likely to lead to much
trouble IMO.

Regards,

George aka Wintermute (happygrue)


On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Noy  wrote:

> Umm, I don't think we'd accept that idea. The whole idea about the current
> set up is to to encourage players to think about probabilities and act
> accordingly. If you mess up, you shouldn't just be able to undo and try to
> get a better result... we might as well just strip RNG out of the game if
> that was the case. For single player, the current system prevents re-rolling
> for a better outcome by forcing players to go through an involved process if
> they want a redo, but not too involved. Its a good compromise in my mind.
> Moreover we'd never accept this for a competitive game because probabilities
> management is THE core skill that determines who wins. Your proposal weakens
> that significantly. More often than not there is disagreement over what is
> considered bad luck, so adding a system that allows subjective judgements to
> influence outcomes is a whole can of worms I'd rather avoid.
>
> Noy
>
> On 10-Mar-10, at 9:34 AM, Greg Boggs wrote:
>
>  A related idea to this is to allow you to redo a move if you both agree to
> it. When your playing with someone trying to teach them, and they make a bad
> move, it would be infinitely valuable to be able to take back their move
> without having to quit and reload the game.
>
> This option would also be very fun in competitive games. When horrible bad
> luck strikes the other team, and you want to give them another shot, so that
> you can continue the game.
>
> Gabriel Morin wrote:
>
> Hi everybody,
>
> Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC 
> submissionaccepted, but 
> I'm very motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to
> contribute to Wesnoth for a long time, and the GSoC seems like the ideal
> kickstart to get to know the codebase.
> Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will me my last
> summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and last in software
> engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal - , so it's now or never!
>
> I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in particular
> has been 
> well-received.
> (I'll copy the text at the bottom of this email to allow for easy
> commenting.) Since apparently you devs don't frequent the forums that much,
> I'd like to have your opinion on:
> 1- Whether this is a desirable feature
> 2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much work, how many
> things to modify?
> 3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
> 4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I can do,
> and get to know these areas of the code better?
>
> After browsing the GSoC 2010 current list of ideas, I find this one more
> motivating, because it would have a direct effect on my wesnoth gaming
> experience. This said, some of the other ideas look interesting as well, so
> I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket, i.e. I'm open to other options.
> I'm even thinking of making several proposals, but from my experience last
> year making a detailed one is very time-consuming, so we'll see.
>
> Without further introduction, here's my proposal:
>
>
> 
> Main idea: Share undoable moves with allies
>
> Currently when playing a coop game (either RPG or more standard multiplayer
> campaign), there are several things that really irk me when it's not my
> turn:
>
>- You wait a long time before seeing anything happening
>- When your ally who's taking his turn finally attacks an enemy or
>makes another non-undoable move, you have to s

Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[Noy]

Umm, I don't think we'd accept that idea. The whole idea about the  
current set up is to to encourage players to think about probabilities  
and act accordingly. If you mess up, you shouldn't just be able to  
undo and try to get a better result... we might as well just strip RNG  
out of the game if that was the case. For single player, the current  
system prevents re-rolling for a better outcome by forcing players to  
go through an involved process if they want a redo, but not too  
involved. Its a good compromise in my mind. Moreover we'd never accept  
this for a competitive game because probabilities management is THE  
core skill that determines who wins. Your proposal weakens that  
significantly. More often than not there is disagreement over what is  
considered bad luck, so adding a system that allows subjective  
judgements to influence outcomes is a whole can of worms I'd rather  
avoid.


Noy

On 10-Mar-10, at 9:34 AM, Greg Boggs wrote:

A related idea to this is to allow you to redo a move if you both  
agree to it. When your playing with someone trying to teach them,  
and they make a bad move, it would be infinitely valuable to be able  
to take back their move without having to quit and reload the game.


This option would also be very fun in competitive games. When  
horrible bad luck strikes the other team, and you want to give them  
another shot, so that you can continue the game.


Gabriel Morin wrote:


Hi everybody,

Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC submission accepted, but  
I'm very motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to  
contribute to Wesnoth for a long time, and the GSoC seems like the  
ideal kickstart to get to know the codebase.
Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will me  
my last summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and last  
in software engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal - , so  
it's now or never!


I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in  
particular has been well-received. (I'll copy the text at the  
bottom of this email to allow for easy commenting.) Since  
apparently you devs don't frequent the forums that much, I'd like  
to have your opinion on:

1- Whether this is a desirable feature
2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much work,  
how many things to modify?

3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I  
can do, and get to know these areas of the code better?


After browsing the GSoC 2010 current list of ideas, I find this one  
more motivating, because it would have a direct effect on my  
wesnoth gaming experience. This said, some of the other ideas look  
interesting as well, so I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket,  
i.e. I'm open to other options. I'm even thinking of making several  
proposals, but from my experience last year making a detailed one  
is very time-consuming, so we'll see.


Without further introduction, here's my proposal:


Main idea: Share undoable moves with allies

Currently when playing a coop game (either RPG or more standard  
multiplayer campaign), there are several things that really irk me  
when it's not my turn:

You wait a long time before seeing anything happening
When your ally who's taking his turn finally attacks an enemy or  
makes another non-undoable move, you have to sit through a delayed  
replay of his moves. If he already finished his turn, your ally has  
to wait while you watch this.
After a few undoable moves by either allied player, communication  
is completely out of sync. If you tell your ally, "look, I'm  
encircling his leader", he has no clue what you're talking about:  
he doesn't see what you're doing. If your ally asks you "should I  
move my white mage here to heal you units next turn", you 1) have  
no clue about which hex "here" is supposed to mean 2) even if you  
did, you can't adequately counsel him, since you don't see how he  
positioned his other units


I think the reasonable solution is simply to add an option called  
Share undoable moves with allies. Both you and your ally need to  
enable it for it to work. If you both have it enabled, what it does  
is it shows you your allies' moves exactly as if you were staring  
at the same screen while he plays his turn. Net effect: you don't  
wait forever for something to happen, you don't sit through a  
replay and make others wait in the meanwhile, and you can actually  
shout to your ally on skype "NO idiot, don't move your white mage  
there!" before it's too late.


When sharing undoable moves, some mild confusion might happen when  
you ally undoes a move: if you're not paying attention (after all  
the unit just changed from "red" movement status to "yellow" or  
"green" orb), you might think you're witnessing a move instead of  
an undo. This is why extra visu

Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[Greg Boggs]

A related idea to this is to allow you to redo a move if you both agree 
to it. When your playing with someone trying to teach them, and they 
make a bad move, it would be infinitely valuable to be able to take back 
their move without having to quit and reload the game.


This option would also be very fun in competitive games. When horrible 
bad luck strikes the other team, and you want to give them another shot, 
so that you can continue the game.


Gabriel Morin wrote:

Hi everybody,

Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC submission 
 accepted, but I'm 
very motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to contribute to 
Wesnoth for a long time, and the GSoC seems like the ideal kickstart 
to get to know the codebase.
Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will me my 
last summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and last in 
software engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal - , so it's 
now or never!


I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in 
particular has been well-received 
. 
(I'll copy the text at the bottom of this email to allow for easy 
commenting.) Since apparently you devs don't frequent the forums that 
much, I'd like to have your opinion on:

1- Whether this is a desirable feature
2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much work, how 
many things to modify?

3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I can 
do, and get to know these areas of the code better?


After browsing the GSoC 2010 current list of ideas, I find this one 
more motivating, because it would have a direct effect on my wesnoth 
gaming experience. This said, some of the other ideas look interesting 
as well, so I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket, i.e. I'm open 
to other options. I'm even thinking of making several proposals, but 
from my experience last year making a detailed one is very 
time-consuming, so we'll see.


Without further introduction, here's my proposal:


Main idea: Share undoable moves with allies

Currently when playing a coop game (either RPG or more standard 
multiplayer campaign), there are several things that really irk me 
when it's not my turn:


* You wait a long time before seeing anything happening
* When your ally who's taking his turn finally attacks an enemy or
  makes another non-undoable move, you have to sit through a
  delayed replay of his moves. If he already finished his turn,
  your ally has to wait while you watch this.
* After a few undoable moves by either allied player,
  communication is completely out of sync. If you tell your ally,
  "look, I'm encircling his leader", he has no clue what you're
  talking about: he doesn't see what you're doing. If your ally
  asks you "should I move my white mage here to heal you units
  next turn", you 1) have no clue about which hex "here" is
  supposed to mean 2) even if you did, you can't adequately
  counsel him, since you don't see how he positioned his other units


I think the reasonable solution is simply to add an option called 
Share undoable moves with allies. Both you and your ally need to 
enable it for it to work. If you both have it enabled, what it does is 
it shows you your allies' moves exactly as if you were staring at the 
same screen while he plays his turn. Net effect: you don't wait 
forever for something to happen, you don't sit through a replay and 
make others wait in the meanwhile, and you can actually shout to your 
ally on skype "NO idiot, don't move your white mage there!" before 
it's too late.


When sharing undoable moves, some mild confusion might happen when you 
ally undoes a move: if you're not paying attention (after all the unit 
just changed from "red" movement status to "yellow" or "green" orb), 
you might think you're witnessing a move instead of an undo. This is 
why extra visual clues would be needed in that mode, possibly just a 
red UNDO text that floats up from the unit, or alternate red footsteps 
symbols that the unit gobbles up backwards as it goes back to its 
previous location.


For the true "over the shoulder" experience, I think this option 
should show you everything, down to the attack dialogue your ally gets 
when he attacks an enemy. This way you can discuss which attack he 
should use, while you both see the attack stats and odds. Same thing 
for the recruit and unit upgrade dialogues. All those would make for a 
more interesting coop experience, and would be especially good for 
teaching newbs to the game.
Oh yeah, and those chargen menus from Bobs' RPG era and the like would 
also fall in this category: help your friends choose their class and 
starting items instead o

Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[Gabriel Morin]

2010/3/10 jeremy rosen 

> hmm interesting proposal, here are my first thought (so no deep
> thinking, just ideas thrown around)
>
> * we are really early in the GSOC process, organisations havn't even
> been chosen by google yet...
>

Yup, I'm aware of that.


> * I won't directly voice on the overall desirability, I think our MP
> devs are more competent on that aspect
> * please do a Wiki page for your proposal, it's always more handy for
> us than forum/mail
>

I'll wait until some MP dev gives me a general idea of whether the idea is
welcome or not, and then I'll get to work on a wiki page.


> * this is probably the right level of complexity for a GSOC
>

Good news.


> * right now the MP server is only able to broadcast to all players, so
> we would have to rely on the oponent's client good faith not to
> display undoable moves (just like we do with fog)
> * beware of potential conflict with the "new alliance" GSOC project
> (if it's accepted)
> * don't worry too much about the display part at this point, that's
> easy to tweak later...
>

All noted.


> * about the displaying of combat stat and menus : remember that we
> have a philosophy that players don't need to be in front of their
> screen when it's not their turn. If you display combat stats, the
> player might have to dismiss it for the combat to take place which
> break that philosophy.
>

I'd rather show it in a non-interactive way, so that it disappears as soon
as the active player has made his choice. As I said my goal is to reproduce
as much as possible the experience of cooperative hot-seat.


> we had an idea some time ago to solve the problem of "nothing to do
> during oponent's turn" which is not conflicting with your idea, is
> much simpler and touch some common areas of code. It's a bit
> complicated for an EasyCoding, but i'll explain it anyway since it's a
> good way for you to start.
>
> The idea is to use the current "goto" system to help players move
> units during other player's turn.
>
> If we allow players to set gotos for their units during other people's
> turn and not autoplay goto at begining of turn (gotos would be
> executed only when the unit is selected and the shortcut is pressed)
> we allow players to think their move early and have a quick review
> process at the start of their turn (next unit, review position,
> execute or cancel goto, next unit...)
>
> this causes no network traffic, is only an ergonomical change, and
> should make the out of turn period more useful.
>
> their might need some changes to the display to see all units gotos at
> the same time or something. This idea is not complete at this point
>

Could be a nice preliminary project indeed, even though designing the proper
interface might not be easy. Also it sounds like it could conflict with the
"show dialogs" part of my proposal: imagine trying to set a goto just to
have an attack dialogue pop-up in your face (I guess it could turn
transparent when you hover your mouse over it though, to get out of your
way). There would be the same kind of conflict with the vanilla "track enemy
moves" features, which would scroll the map just as you were about to click
to set a goto.
I guess we'll need a very easily accessible toggle, i.e. not hidden in a
menu, where you can switch between a) "don't bother me mode", where you can
set your gotos without being interrupted and b) "show me what's going on
mode", which would show events as configured by your other options.

Cheers,
Gabba


>
>
> Regards
> Boucman
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 5:11 AM, Gabriel Morin 
> wrote:
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> > Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC submission accepted, but I'm
> very
> > motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to contribute to Wesnoth
> > for a long time, and the GSoC seems like the ideal kickstart to get to
> know
> > the codebase.
> > Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will me my
> last
> > summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and last in software
> > engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal - , so it's now or never!
> >
> > I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in particular
> has
> > been well-received. (I'll copy the text at the bottom of this email to
> allow
> > for easy commenting.) Since apparently you devs don't frequent the forums
> > that much, I'd like to have your opinion on:
> > 1- Whether this is a desirable feature
> > 2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much work, how
> many
> > things to modify?
> > 3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
> > 4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I can do,
> and
> > get to know these areas of the code better?
> >
> > After browsing the GSoC 2010 current list of ideas, I find this one more
> > motivating, because it would have a direct effect on my wesnoth gaming
> > experience. This said, some of the other ideas look interesting as well,
> so
> > I'm not putting all

Re: [Wesnoth-dev] GSoC idea: Share undoable moves with allies

[jeremy rosen]

hmm interesting proposal, here are my first thought (so no deep
thinking, just ideas thrown around)

* we are really early in the GSOC process, organisations havn't even
been chosen by google yet...
* I won't directly voice on the overall desirability, I think our MP
devs are more competent on that aspect
* please do a Wiki page for your proposal, it's always more handy for
us than forum/mail
* this is probably the right level of complexity for a GSOC
* right now the MP server is only able to broadcast to all players, so
we would have to rely on the oponent's client good faith not to
display undoable moves (just like we do with fog)
* beware of potential conflict with the "new alliance" GSOC project
(if it's accepted)
* don't worry too much about the display part at this point, that's
easy to tweak later...
* about the displaying of combat stat and menus : remember that we
have a philosophy that players don't need to be in front of their
screen when it's not their turn. If you display combat stats, the
player might have to dismiss it for the combat to take place which
break that philosophy.

we had an idea some time ago to solve the problem of "nothing to do
during oponent's turn" which is not conflicting with your idea, is
much simpler and touch some common areas of code. It's a bit
complicated for an EasyCoding, but i'll explain it anyway since it's a
good way for you to start.

The idea is to use the current "goto" system to help players move
units during other player's turn.

If we allow players to set gotos for their units during other people's
turn and not autoplay goto at begining of turn (gotos would be
executed only when the unit is selected and the shortcut is pressed)
we allow players to think their move early and have a quick review
process at the start of their turn (next unit, review position,
execute or cancel goto, next unit...)

this causes no network traffic, is only an ergonomical change, and
should make the out of turn period more usefull.

their might need some changes to the display to see all units gotos at
the same time or something. This idea is not complete at this point


Regards
Boucman


On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 5:11 AM, Gabriel Morin  wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> Last year I couldn't get my Wesnoth GSoC submission accepted, but I'm very
> motivated to get in this year. I've been wanting to contribute to Wesnoth
> for a long time, and the GSoC seems like the ideal kickstart to get to know
> the codebase.
> Unless I get conflicting course schedules next session this will me my last
> summer as a student - next year will be my fourth and last in software
> engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal - , so it's now or never!
>
> I've been posting a few ideas on the forums, and this one in particular has
> been well-received. (I'll copy the text at the bottom of this email to allow
> for easy commenting.) Since apparently you devs don't frequent the forums
> that much, I'd like to have your opinion on:
> 1- Whether this is a desirable feature
> 2- Whether this is a good idea for a GSoC project: how much work, how many
> things to modify?
> 3- Which are the areas of the code I should start looking at?
> 4- What would be an easy coding project I can use to show what I can do, and
> get to know these areas of the code better?
>
> After browsing the GSoC 2010 current list of ideas, I find this one more
> motivating, because it would have a direct effect on my wesnoth gaming
> experience. This said, some of the other ideas look interesting as well, so
> I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket, i.e. I'm open to other options.
> I'm even thinking of making several proposals, but from my experience last
> year making a detailed one is very time-consuming, so we'll see.
>
> Without further introduction, here's my proposal:
>
> 
> Main idea: Share undoable moves with allies
>
> Currently when playing a coop game (either RPG or more standard multiplayer
> campaign), there are several things that really irk me when it's not my
> turn:
>
> You wait a long time before seeing anything happening
> When your ally who's taking his turn finally attacks an enemy or makes
> another non-undoable move, you have to sit through a delayed replay of his
> moves. If he already finished his turn, your ally has to wait while you
> watch this.
> After a few undoable moves by either allied player, communication is
> completely out of sync. If you tell your ally, "look, I'm encircling his
> leader", he has no clue what you're talking about: he doesn't see what
> you're doing. If your ally asks you "should I move my white mage here to
> heal you units next turn", you 1) have no clue about which hex "here" is
> supposed to mean 2) even if you did, you can't adequately counsel him, since
> you don't see how he positioned his other units
>
> I think the reasonable solution is simply to add an option called Share
> undoable moves wit