Observers

[Sangel]

For 1.0, I think proper implementation of Observers in multiplayer is a must. The two most important changes are, in my mind:

1. Allowing Observers to talk
and
2. Allowing players to kick Observers out (in case they abuse that privilige)

[miyo]

Why should observers be allowed to talk?

- Miyo

[Circon]

Because otherwise they have to set labels if they want to say anything.

There have been some cases where an observer joins a two-player game on turn 1. The players don't notice the observer (darn small hat!) and the observer has to set some clumsy labels to say anything, but once he writes "would you mind starting a new game so I can join" the players agree that 3-player is much more more fun.

[turin]

Because otherwise they have to set labels if they want to say anything.

There have been some cases where an observer joins a two-player game on turn 1. The players don't notice the observer (darn small hat!) and the observer has to set some clumsy labels to say anything, but once he writes "would you mind starting a new game so I can join" the players agree that 3-player is much more more fun.

well...the observer really shouldn't be allowed to set labels either... but yeah, he probably should be allowed to talk. and people should definitely be able to kick him- some people don't like playing with observers.

[Kamahawk]

Observers should be able to talk, though maybe not in fogged or shrouded games where they could reveal things...

[Dave]

So, perhaps we should switch things around and allow observers to talk but not allow them to set labels? Or perhaps we should allow them to do both?

Allowing them to set labels but not to talk is certainly illogical.

I can understand people wanting to kick observers, but to keep it simple, perhaps the option should be simply to turn off the "Allow Observers" switch in-game. Yes, I know there may be cases where there is one anti-social observers and some 'good' observers etc etc, but if we want to ban specific observers we're going to have to start working out how to ban them by IP so they can't just rejoin etc etc and it's going to start getting messy....

some people don't like playing with observers.

You can just untick the "Allow Observers" option when you start the game.

David

[telex4]

How about being able to toggle abilities on a per-observer basis:

Observers

Tom
[x] Can talk
[x] Can set labels

John
[x] Can talk
[ ] Can set labels

This way you can mute annoying observers, have particular observers acting as commanders, or just have normal observers.

[Darth Fool]

So, perhaps we should switch things around and allow observers to talk but not allow them to set labels? Or perhaps we should allow them to do both?

Allowing them to set labels but not to talk is certainly illogical.

I can understand people wanting to kick observers, but to keep it simple, perhaps the option should be simply to turn off the "Allow Observers" switch in-game. Yes, I know there may be cases where there is one anti-social observers and some 'good' observers etc etc, but if we want to ban specific observers we're going to have to start working out how to ban them by IP so they can't just rejoin etc etc and it's going to start getting messy....

some people don't like playing with observers.

You can just untick the "Allow Observers" option when you start the game.

David

I think this is a good idea. In most cases you probably won't mind observers, but a simple way to cheat in multi-player with FoW, would be to log in as an observer for the game. I would hope that most Wesnothian warlords would resist such a temptation, but disabling observers in games where you worry about such things would prevent this.

[erl]

How about having the ability to set a password for observers? Then this password could be given to the observers that the players want and unwanted observers will be kept out. Fairly straightforward to implement and could be quite effective I'd think. It would really reduce the need for the ability to kick people.

[Sangel]

Well, the chat forum doesn't actually support private messages right now, so keeping a password secret could prove difficult...

Personally, I rather like Telex's idea. When you click on an observer's eye, you'd get a small menu with three options:

Observer can talk
Observer can set labels
Kick Observer

Of course, there will always be problems with antisocial [censored] (something about anonymity, I believe), but if you combine that with David's idea to turn off all Observers, you'll only have to kick the "nice" Observers when the antisocial ones keep on coming back.

[Darth Fool]

Instead of disallowing observers by each individual observer, perhaps allowing each player to enable/disable observers would be better. Thus, If a player thinks he is being harmed by observers kabitzing and revealing top secret info, he could prevent all observers from watching.

Another possibilty is having the observers on turn lag. You could set the lag at the beginning of the game. So for example, observers might only see moves 2 turns after they take effect...

[Dacyn]

Of course, there will always be problems with antisocial [censored] (something about anonymity, I believe), but if you combine that with David's idea to turn off all Observers, you'll only have to kick the "nice" Observers when the antisocial ones keep on coming back.

or you could make it so that only observers who have already joined can stay in, and not let any more join. It would work like this: each observer's status is kept seperate, and there is another status that observers recieve upon joining (each observer that is already in has a higher status than this). The join status could include 'kicked out', which means that no new observers can join.

[miyo]

I don't think observers need to be able to talk or set labels.

- Miyo

[Dave]

All these ideas are nice, but honestly, I was hoping for a solution that I could implement in under 100 lines of code

David

[miyo]

If observers must be able to talk then just have 'mute observers' if any player has 'mute observers' enabled then observers can't talk at all.

- Miyo