Spectating

celewign

I'm a shoutcaster of both Company of Heroes and Quakelive... I'm curious if spectating is going to be NS2, I would really like it to be so I can cast good games.

Maybe any chance of spectator tools as well, showing resources etc?

slayer20

I would like to see a big improvement to the spectator team.

A couple things I'd like to see are:

Free-roam
Mapper pre-placed camera angles
Full mini-map coverage (able to see both sides at the same time)

1mannARMEE

Good question, I haven't thought of that yet, but replays and spectating and shoutcasting are a must have for any competetive game ! I hope the game ships with that stuff or at least it gets added asap after release.

slayer20

Another thing I would like to see is that if you record a game, you can load that game back up and still have the ability to free roam and stuff. Would be great for editing videos and stuff.

Quovatis

Yep, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a nice example of how recording and playback should be done. Would like to see that in NS2.

Fortune

<!--quoteo(post=1759118:date=Mar 13 2010, 02:00 AM:name=Quovatis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Quovatis @ Mar 13 2010, 02:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759118"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yep, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a nice example of how recording and playback should be done. Would like to see that in NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Halo 3 too.

*Flame shield* ;P

TychoCelchuuu

Come to think of it, I'd enjoy casting NS2 also. On the other side, I think I'd rather have the devs finish the game first and add replays later. It's definitely near the top of my wishlist though.

ctd

Devs under-estimate the importance of these types of things. It is amazing the number of games that get released these days without dedicated server support on day1 (not saying UWE will just sayin') . Then they are like "wtf our game is so unpopular online..."

Imo Broadcast servers, tournament support, demo+playback, comprehensive admin support, voting system (maps, kicks, settings), sv_pure type stuff... these things are underrated by devs in general.

Wunschkind

what you meant to say. "...underrated devs outside of id software..."

I'd rather have NS2 released without these tools, but they definitely are a must-have for an early update. free-roaming, minimap and resource would be nice. The ability to record demos is essential for competitive play.

slayer20

I would really like a simple in-game recorder to be shipped with the beta. Everything else can come after that.

Bacillus

At least the HLTV replacement isn't going to make it to the first releases. I certainly do hope some kind of recording feature gets added early though, it could help bug tracking, balance discussion and guide creation a lot.

celewign

I'm kind of hoping they'll take it the way Blizzard did and actually encourage replays/casting by adding additional tools beyond simple spectating, although either would be ok with me. I won't complain.

steppin'razor

Would love to see these tools in a release, important stuff!

Borsty

I guess 90% of the above mentioned can be done using Lua anyway. If you're missing a feature, get someone to add it for you :P

puzl

I do think recording/spectating/multicasting is very important,
but in terms of recording gameplay for bug reporting and competitive match analysis, are any of these suitable alternatives?

<a href="http://www.anewmorning.com/2009/01/06/5-free-alternatives-to-fraps/" target="_blank">http://www.anewmorning.com/2009/01/06/5-fr...tives-to-fraps/</a>


I haven't used any of them, and I've barely messed with fraps too, so I can't comment.

TychoCelchuuu

<!--quoteo(post=1759186:date=Mar 13 2010, 08:58 AM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Mar 13 2010, 08:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759186"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I do think recording/spectating/multicasting is very important,
but in terms of recording gameplay for bug reporting and competitive match analysis, are any of these suitable alternatives?

<a href="http://www.anewmorning.com/2009/01/06/5-free-alternatives-to-fraps/" target="_blank">http://www.anewmorning.com/2009/01/06/5-fr...tives-to-fraps/</a>


I haven't used any of them, and I've barely messed with fraps too, so I can't comment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, not really. If you use those you have to record the game as it happens, and you only capture what you see, meaning that people can't follow along on their own except by watching the video you've recorded, which is limited to one perspective and compressed and so on. It's also a giant file which they have to download.

puzl

I don't see why either of these reasons preclude the option of bug reporting or match analysis. I'm not saying they would be as good as hltv, but surely they'll help somewhat. As for the file size, that's hardly an issue with video compression and video hosting sites like youtube.

SgtBarlow

I think he was talking about the conveinance of Half-Life 1 Demo Recording, I dont think it works in NS at all?? , there are only a few hundered KB in size and you could spectate any player in the playback.

puzl

Yeah granted. HL demo recording + hltv like multicasting would be the job.

In the absence of both of these, won't video recording help somewhat.

TychoCelchuuu

<!--quoteo(post=1759207:date=Mar 13 2010, 11:50 AM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Mar 13 2010, 11:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1759207"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see why either of these reasons preclude the option of bug reporting or match analysis. I'm not saying they would be as good as hltv, but surely they'll help somewhat. As for the file size, that's hardly an issue with video compression and video hosting sites like youtube.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not saying it's <i>impossible</i> to do commentary for a game that doesn't have a replay system. Heck, I'm engaged in that process right now. I'm saying it makes it a thousand times easier for the commentator if they can have demo files to work with and it makes it a much better experience for the viewer if they have the option of downloading a small commentary and controlling the action themselves so they can understand the nuances of the game instead of having to run to YouTube and only catch the action that the camera focuses on.

celewign

Every decent caster has FRAPS. Recording isn't an issue, really, just having the ability to see from the cc and from both teams is what really matters, as well as resources.


and yeah someone could lua it all in of course, i was just curious how interested UWE is in supporting a competitive part of the game.

Jiriki

Well HLTV will rock, but as people have said, it shouldn't be a top-priority. ENSL has the framework ready for live multi-person website casting with shoutcasted commentary as long as spectating is possible. This has however its limits, so I'd hope for HLTV release later. HLTV is one thing that has kept NS1 competitive scene alive so long.

About game recording. It'd be <b>awesome</b> if there would be an ability to record every frame as a bmp file to the hard disk. I'm doing a frag movie in NS1 and I use it (basically I use HLAE which uses very high supersampling in between but that's another story). Nobody practically uses fraps for any serious frag movie with HL1. Principle is the same though.

So in other words I hope for frame capture and spectator mode for the intial or near initial release. I doubt either are much of a codework and they'll make wonderful things possible easily.

xposed-

Given the dev's wish to make NS2 the most competitive game since StarCraft, I would be very surprised if there isn't any type of fantastic spectating functionality at or soon after release.

Doesn't make sense to develop a competitive game which people can't watch. Sure, they can watch replays, but live is so much better.