I get a lot of 'this is the way it is' responses. That is not what we are looking for. I am suggesting 'this is the way it could be' to enhance the user experience. - Eliminate any need to run multiple clients - Eliminate any need to jump through hoops, sending special messages to remove you from queues - players don't need to know this, they just want to play a game. - Provide players with the functionality they want, which is to join a game (ANY game) in the style of their liking, NOT just to join a game on a particular server. As developers, we must understand how to separate concerns, not expect players to do it. The metaserver is the logical place to do this since it is already an aggregator of server information. Further, this style of game setup is becoming quite common with game metaservers providing matchmaking, most notably based on skill or game type desired. We should learn from the rest of the industry. -----Original Message----- From: netrek-dev-bounces at us.netrek.org [mailto:netrek-dev-bounces at us.netrek.org] On Behalf Of Rado S Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 12:00 PM To: netrek-dev at us.netrek.org Subject: Re: [netrek-dev] netrek ideas =- ChronosWS wrote on Thu 12.Apr'07 at 13:49:44 -0700 -= > You would configure this to say which kinds of games you were > interested and potentially which servers you were interested in as > well (in case you specifically want to use only a subset of the > ones listed on the metaserver.) This information would be > communicated to the metaserver at the time a metaserver refresh is > made by the applet. The metaserver, in turn, would broadcast the > number of players waiting for games matching each server to those > who are listening (other applets, the metaserver application, > etc.) When the applet sees that enough players were available to > start tmode for a particular server, it would pop up a > notification informing the user of such, which if clicked would > launch the Netrek client. You don't the metaserver for that. Paradise has the TQ (tournament queue). When you join normally with the client, you send yourself "tq" and are removed from the galaxy into the waiting room (race selection + MOTD, but no autoquit, no kill, but can talk to all channels). The client reports players/ race in the icon title when iconized. When T starts, the client then pops up ready to go. Currently you'd need to start 1 client per server, which is not ideal, so there a meta-server solution would help ... but ... does it really pay off? How many servers are there to track that you'd like to join (by type and ping)? Having 2 clients in the background with 1u/s won't hurt (you aren't in the galaxy anyway, more isn't needed, you can only talk but not be harmed). This is on the to-do list next to "ob" to switch observser status. Might be faster to implement when copied over from Paradise than modifying meta-server. -- C Rado S. -- You must provide YOUR effort for your goal! EVERY effort counts: at least to show your attitude. You're responsible for ALL you do: you get what you give. _______________________________________________ netrek-dev mailing list netrek-dev at us.netrek.org http://mailman.us.netrek.org/mailman/listinfo/netrek-dev