Ideas how to make waiting in mp easier

[Blake 0]

Now, maybe this has been suggested before, but all we know the pain of waiting for new game to start in OFP multiplayer, especially in long co-ops. And we also know that when people wait, they don't stare at the player list - they alt-tab to windows and surf the net or kill time any way they please...

But when they go back to the game after some time, they find themselves kicked out of the game because of idling and that's because there's no way of telling without voice in OFP that the round/map has ended!

So I suggest the following:

1) Make admin have some kind of "alarm" sound which he could play and which could also be heard by waiting players currently alt-tabbing to windows when map has been ended/restarted etc.

AND/OR

2) Make OFP play a sound automatically when a map has ended/reassign or restart has occured. This would alert players from Windows back to OFP.

In all, I think one of these or both simple methods would make multiplayer in OFP much smoother and less time consuming.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

The problem is, that when u alt+tab ofp, you kill the main ofp channel as well... Theres only 2 channels, and both can only be used if u have setupped sound and have a soundcard that can play it on the same time (full duplex).

I have a soundcard that can do it, but i havent setupped sound yet, since i hate 12yearold kids who start playing their own "cool" hanson brothers.

If their simply was an "ignore function" in ofp. But it doesnt seam like BIS is willing to implement it

[Die Alive 0]

Question or Possible Option

Ok, a few days ago, I was waiting in a lobby for a game to start and there were a few ppl there (in the lobby) and we started to chat (on global chat) and after a few minutes of chatting, the admin (who was in the game at the time) asked us to stop chatting cause the people in the game were missing some of their game related messages.  So my question is, if I go to "Side Chat' or of the other chats while waiting in the lobby, will only the lobby people be able to read it and not the ppl in the game?  I didn't have time to try it, but would it work?  I mean, it's annoying to me to see a important team message I typed just zoom off the screen because there's 6 people in the lobby telling fart jokes, and the teammate might of not have time to read what I wrote.  If it doesn't work, can it be fixed so that lobby ppl can chat to each other without in game people reading it?  Just a suggestion if it's not an option yet.

Oh yeah, and I dislike alt-tabbing to MSN or ICQ while in lobby because every maybe 1 in 10 alt-tab, caused my system to lock up for me.

-=Die Alive=-

[Major Fubar 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Espectro @ April 29 2002,14:17)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I have a soundcard that can do it, but i havent setupped sound yet, since i hate 12yearold kids who start playing their own "cool" hanson brothers.<span id='postcolor'>

Hanson? You're lucky, the mic spammers I've encountered haven't even got the IQ to do anything more intelligent than make burping, growling and farting sounds into the mic.

I really wish there was a way to put this crap on ignore. Like Espectro, I haven't bothered setting up Voice since my last install for exactly this reason. BIS, please give us a way to shut these morons down...

[Psycho1 0]

This is not totally on subject here, but it's something very important in regards to waiting and such.

What I noticed is that ASE can tell you an accurate time left for a game.....it's up to the map maker to actually implement it. I almost never check the time field on ASE because about 99% of the time the map maker doesn't implement the commands so ASE can read the time left from the server. That would drastically cut down on the amount of time you have to wait since you know before you get to the server when the game will be over. This will also prevent joining a server only to find out the game just started a few minutes ago.

I tried messing around with a map I made, trying to get it to work. I used pboextractor so I could look at a map that does correctly implement it, but I'm missing something. I noticed an "estimatedtimeleft" command in the init, but when I put it in my map it still wouldn't work. Their is more to it than that, and I haven't gotten around to really looking hard for what other changes need to be made before it is correctly implemented.

I'm surprised that most maps do not use this, it's probably not hard to do at all, and it would save everyone the hassle of joining servers when they have no clue when the game will be over. OFPeditingcenter and sites like that should really harp about this and mention in lots of their tutorials how to correctly implement it.

[HellToupee 0]

if you have para 1 defined put "estimatedtimeleft para1" i always use it in my maps with time limit it shuts up the poor guys waiting going whens it gonna finsh but very few people use it.

[Psycho1 0]

Thx, got it working now. I can't believe practically no one uses this when it is so simple to do. I guess most people must not know about it. Since a great deal of people play OFP through ASE, it would only make sense to make use of the estimatedtimeleft command so ASE can read the timeleft from the server.

It's a real coincidence you replied Hell, because your tank valley map is one of the maps I noticed use it.

[kegetys 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Psycho1 @ April 30 2002,08:26)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">it's up to the map maker to actually implement it.  I almost never check the time field on ASE because about 99% of the time the map maker doesn't implement the commands so ASE can read the time left from the server.<span id='postcolor'>

Propably because you just cannot know how long some games take. For some time limit TDM/CTF maps maybe (who plays those?? ) but for coop, A&D, etc. you just cannot predict how long the game is going to last.

[Psycho1 0]

That's true, but their are many dedicated servers that run games with a fixed time of 30 minutes.......Stoners, Fraghaus, MTCO. They could all benefit by using it.