Originally Posted by EvilMike

Dead people would be put into spectator mode.

For such a short time that's overkill. Their camera could be just held in the spot they died (like in old LRS spectating). And 20 seconds of potential wait is too much for a game like JJ2, too.

Originally Posted by Hunter

I was overreacting as usually. Just don't pay attention to that, thank you.

Ok! Btw, you've been the victim of a recent copyright crime

Originally Posted by Cpp

Which game types would have this change? All team-based ones I suppose.

It wouldn't make sense for it to be specific to any game type. It would have to be a server setting that can be enabled or disabled, regardless of gametype. It wouldn't make much sense for it to be enabled in non-team modes, but that would be up to the host to decide.

Originally Posted by cooba

And 20 seconds of potential wait is too much for a game like JJ2, too.

20 seconds (really 10-20) might be a bit much for some games, but if its in the ini it could just be changed to 7-14 or 5-10 or anything. I could see 10-20 working for a full server domination or assault game. 15 seconds average is a lengthy wait, but some gamemodes just get too crowded, and the tradeoff is that lots of players waiting to respawn means you'll generally live a bit longer anyway, unless you suck.

Originally Posted by Hunter

Is there still this issue where too many spectators could crash the server?

I think blur is going to put that fix in the next release (it's already in the private version which was used for JDC).

Originally Posted by plunK

Also a nice possible addition would be a reinforcements system for certain gamemodes sim ilar to that seen in Unreal Tournament 2004. Essentially instead of you spawning whenever the host sets a reinforcements time (usually 7-14 seonds) and instead of people spawning when ready all people to die in the last 7-14(or whatever its set at) seconds respawn all at once.

Personally I'd rather have a system like this based on the level or server settings, but not the game mode. I've wanted to add a spawn delay for a while now, but it's not that simple and it gets awkward for players not using JJ2+. For those reasons I think you're best off making your own system through JCS for the time being.

Originally Posted by Hunter

BlurredD, would you fix the little bug when the player captured the flag message appears before the Pregame ended message (Or maybe it was meant to be like that?). I do realise it's nothing important, just pointing it out.

This shouldn't be happening too often assuming the server you're in isn't too laggy, and even if it does it shouldn't be that confusing. I don't plan on fixing this soon as it will likely be fixed after I redo a lot of JJ2's net code.

Originally Posted by Hunter

I've seen people spam with join packets, causing a flood with player joined/left the game messages. Most of those kids use Cracco Clan's games in progress script, I believe. Would you happen to know a way to prevent this?

I plan to make a system to prevent spamming from all types of packets eventually.

Originally Posted by Hunter

I'm quite curious if we (ordinary users of your patch) would be able to make our own custom game modes. I recall seeing a custom game mode called Homemade while I was messing around with a memory editor before. Is it something to be added eventually or is it there just for testing purposes?

I meant to reply earlier. The answer is eventually.

Does anyone have a preference for how "captured the flag" messages appear? Currently, clients see each message as either all green or the part after the player's name is blue or red depending on the color of the flag captured. I would like to have consistent behavior for this.

I like messages being colour coded. Personally I would be interested to see having it so the whole "captured the flag" line is blue or red, along with the "so and so lost the flag/made the score" messages.

I agree with mike! That sounds like it would make it clear

EvilMike, I'm assuming that you want the colors corresponding to the player's team. I'm fine with making the changes you suggested.

^Agreed^

That's basically what I meant, though I suppose you could have it the other way as well as long as it's completely consistent. What I was really interested in, was seeing the message all in 1 colour, instead of in 2 colours like it is now (see hitch's signature).

I actually have another suggestion somewhat related to that. For some of the messages, is it really necessary to have "Console:" appear before it? A lot of the messages probably don't need that... for example "lost the red flag" or "killing spree" messages. Basically anything that appears automatically. For some other stuff (eg, server settings being changed) things could stay the way they are now. This is a very minor suggestion though. Only reason I'm bringing it up is that the only thing "Console:" does with gameplay messages is tell you that the message is generated by jj2+, and in most cases I don't think that information is important to the player.

Something I have just recently bumped into while trying out some ideas for the Machinima for JJ2. It is currently unpossible to activate player #3 without having a joystick and it is also currently unpossible tot activate player #4 without having a second joystick as well.

Question in short:
Could you please, PLEASE, PLEAZZZE add a 'Keyboard 3' feature? There's plenty of letters on the keyboard anyway.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

I actually have another suggestion somewhat related to that. For some of the messages, is it really necessary to have "Console:" appear before it? A lot of the messages probably don't need that... for example "lost the red flag" or "killing spree" messages. Basically anything that appears automatically. For some other stuff (eg, server settings being changed) things could stay the way they are now. This is a very minor suggestion though. Only reason I'm bringing it up is that the only thing "Console:" does with gameplay messages is tell you that the message is generated by jj2+, and in most cases I don't think that information is important to the player.

It isn't necessary, though it is a reminder that I should be using an entirely different system for displaying those message. But I can remove the "Console:" prefix in the meanwhile.

Originally Posted by Hunter

...some additional suggestions...

As useful as many of those suggestions are, don't expect any of them to appear in the next few updates. It's not my main focus right now, and they can be added at almost any time. By the way, if you're the server you can see who timed out by checking the spy log.

Originally Posted by Jerrythabest

Could you please, PLEASE, PLEAZZZE add a 'Keyboard 3' feature? There's plenty of letters on the keyboard anyway.

No. It's not worth the effort. Use LAN connections if you really have to.

Also when you have 2 players playing on one keyboard already, usually one player gets stuck because you both press too many keys at the same time :P

It's going to take some getting used to....




By the way, the " scored a point" messages will be all blue/red soon enough.

Originally Posted by Vegito

Also when you have 2 players playing on one keyboard already, usually one player gets stuck because you both press too many keys at the same time :P

FYI, this is usually a limitation of the keyboard and not the game itself.

Make the console counters appear on the middle of the screen, similarly to the scrolling "JJ2plus" text that appears after plus.dll is loaded!

It's something to consider.

As a counter when you just start a game it would be fun. Feels like a race a bit

I should've said it's something to do eventually, when I fix up the message system like I mentioned earlier.

It will definitely take a bit of getting used to but I think it does look better overall. Much more "natural", and more importantly, consistent.

Would be nice if the chatlogger didn't automatically scroll down as soon as something is out-putted to it, except if it's already all scrolled down

Originally Posted by Vegito

Also when you have 2 players playing on one keyboard already, usually one player gets stuck because you both press too many keys at the same time :P

I've got three keyboards connected to my PC and I could get a fourth one from another computer if I would ever need it... that's really not that much of a problem. And even if you wouldn't have this multi-key-press-limitation-thingy, four hands on one keyboard is already very... unpractical.

Also, I'd like to make clear that I agree that not many players use splitscreen, but it will be impossible to have a perfect timing, if you depend on 4 individual players all playing on different computers.

As recording a 4-way splitscreen (or even a normal 2-player splitscreen) wouldn't make an interesting video with resolutions being limited to what people considered 'small' back in 2000 already, we'd already need the LAN for someone else to record the things. Imagine this: the splitscreened computer is the stage and the screen recorder is watching the play from the other computer over an LAN-connection.

Now, if we'd have to split up our stage over two computers, timing will suffer. Even if you are still able to press a certain button at both computers at the same time, it would never get as perfect as it would be if everything were done on the same computer due to network slownesses.

So that's why I asked it.

Originally Posted by Grytolle

Would be nice if the chatlogger didn't automatically scroll down as soon as something is out-putted to it, except if it's already all scrolled down

I tried fixing this issue a while ago and then failed miserably. It's not a good chat logger.

a /allammo would be nice for the beginning, it saves time, especially in 2v2s or more.

People should learn to start without ammo, a whole lot more convenient.

Originally Posted by St. Louis

People should learn to start without ammo, a whole lot more convenient.

Yes!!!

/stop (or /autostart off if you enable it before starting the level)
/nomovment on
/k all (if people moved)
/cstart

This magic combination solves all your problems. No need to run around and collect ammo any more. Remember that people started doing that to be fair, since there was no way to enforce people staying still at the beginning back then.

I think starting without ammo makes the start of the game a bit more strategic too... obviously the level needs to be balanced though. People who make levels should time the routes very carefully, so critical things like the seeker powerup are the same distance from both spawns. I think with imbalanced levels, it's probably better to start by collecting ammo.

Originally Posted by St. Louis

People should learn to start without ammo, a whole lot more convenient.

i dont ever bother starting getting much ammo... cuz i usually die in like 30 seconds anyway ill pick as i go.

If your really that picky maybe have a possibility of a "Duel" gamemode with like 2,4,or 6 plays and just slightly modify battle coding to auto start with ammo. But really thats if your the picky type. Me personally wouldnt care

I just got around to looking at the latest update of Open Jazz, and the fur animations are awesome. If something similar to this could be added to jj2+, it would be amazing.

Originally Posted by Troglobite

I just got around to looking at the latest update of Open Jazz, and the fur animations are awesome. If something similar to this could be added to jj2+, it would be amazing.

Doubtful. The way OpenJazz handles the fur animations depends on the tileset. JJ1 doesn't have animated tiles. What's used instead is active palette indices - in essence, a gradient that is automatically animated by the engine.

The closest thing that JJ2+ could do is constantly change the fur colors of a rabbit, but that wouldn't work well with how JJ2 handles fur colors, and would probably cause all kinds of lag trouble.

Reading Rag's post in the Gameplay Theory thread, I got a few suggestions for a few 'fixes':

- Make powerups ALWAYS give you +20 ammo, even if you have <20 ammo.
- Powered up ElectroBlaster and Pepperspray do 2 damage. (Make it optional, say, /gun8pudamage on... or something.)

Will /loadsettings work for remote admins anytime soon?

Test =)

Originally Posted by Uriel

Test =)

Fail/succeed?

Originally Posted by Uriel

Test =)

Why would you 'test' if posting a message works? Can't you see we're all able to post messages, so you most likely will not have any problems either?

Originally Posted by CrimiClown

Reading Rag's post in the Gameplay Theory thread, I got a few suggestions for a few 'fixes':

- Make powerups ALWAYS give you +20 ammo, even if you have <20 ammo.

Incidentally, in that thread I mention I will probably add this feature for Plus Only. In other words, you may never see this feature being used online.

Originally Posted by CrimiClown

- Powered up ElectroBlaster and Pepperspray do 2 damage. (Make it optional, say, /gun8pudamage on... or something.)

Eventually, though I'm not too eager to add this since EB and pepper spray shots look exactly the same powered-up or not.

Originally Posted by Daniel zeal

Will /loadsettings work for remote admins anytime soon?

Probably, now that I came up with a cheap solution.

Just a couple quick thoughts here.

JJ2 was made in a time when widescreen monitors/displays were not at all common in the mainstream market. As a result, it doesn't support any real widescreen resolutions. I know all too well that modifying JJ2's resolution to something higher than what the game supports doesn't really work (at least, reliably). However, what if there was an option for a widescreen resolution that is lower than 640x480? Personally, I wouldn't mind losing some pixels if the game didn't stretch to fill my widescreen display, which looks rather ugly.

From what I've seen, JJ2 seems to work fine if it's increased to say 800x600. Common resolutions past that were more problematic. Of course, increasing the resolution is a bit controversial, since it makes some people have a percieved advantage, and also makes some levels ugly, and I think this is one reason why this feature still isn't in jj2+.

With that being said, I don't think it would be too problematic to allow widescreen in the form of something like 640x360. You'd lose a bit of vertical space, but the game would be less ugly. 800x450 might also work - this gives you about the same viewing height as normal (30 pixels is a fairly negligible difference) but with increased width. Unfortunately since it lets you see more, it has the same problems that I mentioned above.

I think implementing 640x360 would be the best choice, at least at first. No controversy attached, and it would allow the game to avoid looking all stretched out.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

I think implementing 640x360 would be the best choice, at least at first. No controversy attached, and it would allow the game to avoid looking all stretched out.

This is precisely what I was thinking.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

800x600 (...) makes some people have a percieved advantage

As shown by this post, it's hardly an advantage.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

and also makes some levels ugly

Very few levels look uglier in 800x600 - a large factor here are the background layers, which can cause problems in high resolutions if there's some unfortunate use of Tile Height.

The worst I could have found is this: