Spectator Mode Options

[sirshiz]

I feel like there are a few spectator options that could be added. Of course these would be (hence the name "options") optional.

• The ability to see building HP   /player health   
• The ability to turn on team overlay for BOTH teams (seeing both overlays at once while spectating would be neat)
• The ability to view the used/unused BP for both teams
• Basically anything that is possible to view while on a team, I would like to be available to view while spectating
• And of course, Picture-In-Picture (only half-joking... but come on it would be cool as hell to see a split-view of the top players of both teams at once  | | | )

Any more ideas?

[Menace13]

Heh, sorta reminds me of an old SST admins-only client where they had wallhax, radar, and had a thing that said how many eggs/nodes there were and how long until each team staged up. It was epic win.

Of course, that only worked while spectating. And I never got a copy.

I only saw my brother using it. :3

[Meisseli]

Only the first one do I think would be nice, and only in third person mode, others reveal too much for spectators. If you spectate someone you should be only able to see what he is able to see too.

(There seem to be a lot of topics from you lately, maybe you should combine your ideas to one single topic? That's only my opinion though.)

Heh, sorta reminds me of an old SST admins-only client where they had wallhax, radar, and had a thing that said how many eggs/nodes there were and how long until each team staged up. It was epic win.

I'm afraid that's not an "admins-only client"...

[sirshiz]

Meis why do you fear spectators having such knowledge? Are you thinking they might ghost? Because you can already do that, it just takes a little more work than what I am suggesting. To say "No." to options because of ghosting means the ghosters have already won. 

Also I have so many topics today because I just joined the forums and am spilling everything out at once. I suppose I could have combined all of it into one topic but I was wary it might be information overload for one thread.

[Meisseli]

Meis why do you fear spectators having such knowledge? Are you thinking they might ghost? Because you can already do that, it just takes a little more work than what I am suggesting. To say "No." to options because of ghosting means the ghosters have already won.  

I certainly do not feel spectators should get any more information due to a lot of things, of which one is ghosting. Already some not-so-fun people spectate in the beginning for things like where the human builder tries to move and then joins aliens quickly to rush that particular location. Also, there are situations in which I don't want to see anything more than the player does, one being spotting cheaters - when you and the person you spectate see the same things it is a lot easier. One other situation is a scrim where I want to spectate my teammates but I don't want any information from the opposing team to come to my attention.

"Ghosters have already won", what is that supposed to mean? I do not buy your logic, or rather I do not see any logic behind the "argument". If there will be a ton of issues because the changes you mentioned make cheating very easy and possible, then of course they should not be implemented.

[cron]

It'd be cool to see an additional 'muted observer' mode where you see the extra info but cannot speak.
It could disallow joining a team until after a delay where you'd become a regular spectator first (30 seconds or so).

[Asvarox]

I believe that those ideas will mainly just encourage ghosting. Yet the last one sounds really cool though I doubt it's possible to do easily

[sirshiz]

"Ghosters have already won", what is that supposed to mean? I do not buy your logic, or rather I do not see any logic behind the "argument". If there will be a ton of issues because the changes you mentioned make cheating very easy and possible, then of course they should not be implemented.

I was joking around mainly with that statement. I wasn't trying to make an argument and I rather agree with you.
You seem to not like the idea because it would encourage cheating and/or prevent detecting cheaters but like I said these would be OPTIONS not mandatory and I think Cron's suggestion could also help make these options useful.
But alas, if it is too complicated we shouldn't bother.

[Lakitu7]

I asked the ioquake3 folks about split screen / PIP about a month ago and they said there's no way to do it easily/efficiently.

[gimhael]

Hmm, you just have to call RenderScene twice within the same frame (and setup x,y,w,h so that the second pic doesn't overwrite the first one). But you may have to change the cgame a lot to manage two cameras.

[sirshiz]

One other situation is a scrim where I want to spectate my teammates but I don't want any information from the opposing team to come to my attention.

I never intended to mean that these options would be available to teamspectating as we can both agree that would be silly. I'm just wanting for more freedom and options for neutral spectators.
As far as ghosters: If someone wants to ghost they can just set up another computer or Tremulous client anyway. Don't punish the spectators for something that is unavoidable.

[Lakitu7]

Hmm, you just have to call RenderScene twice within the same frame (and setup x,y,w,h so that the second pic doesn't overwrite the first one). But you may have to change the cgame a lot to manage two cameras.

Yeah, doing that and hacking up cgame would be the only way, which isn't easy or efficient. :/