Capacity to issue invitations to MP games (GNA #4884)

[wesnoth-bugs]

Original submission by anonymous on 2005-12-12

I'm going to record this, from the forum. Dave wrote:

"I think it'd be better to have 'invitation only' games and the capacity to issue invitations." in http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=119308#119308.

(Reproduced on all) Release: any Priority: 3 - Low Severity: 1 - Wish

[wesnoth-bugs]

Modified on 2005-12-12

anonymous wrote:

22:04 <Sirp> I think we need an invitation system.

22:04 <Sirp> option to set game as invite only, and then capacity to invite a player

22:04 <Sirp> or when you set a slot to computer, local, network, etc, add an option "invite..."

22:05 <Sirp> and then it brings up a list of all players in the lobby and you select the one you want to invite

22:05 <Sirp> if you have that, you don't need passwords.

This makes sense.

The logical continuation is, that the player in lobby gets a (preferably private) message, and can join the game.

Invitational games could show information in the lobby such as: "3 free slots, 2 invitational slots." Colour should be green for "free", yellow for "only invitational slots available".

This way you can set up teams properly with who you want, where you want.

In the game setup screen, the name of the invited player can be shown first greyed out, and when he joins, brighten it up to normal.

[wesnoth-bugs]

Modified on 2005-12-13

anonymous wrote:

The invitation message: Could be a pop-up, "You have been invited by nick-of-inviter to join "game-name" with options "Accept" / "Decline".

Or... could be a simple message of the form "<server> You have been invited to join "game-name". If you do not wish to accept this invitation, you may want to drop by to notify the game's creator of this."

Or... "<nick-of-inviter> I have invited you to join "game-name". Welcome. If you do not wish to join, please drop by and notify me.", if using <nick-of-inviter> is implementable instead of <server>.

[wesnoth-bugs]

Modified on 2006-02-14

xan changed priority: 5 - Normal -> 3 - Low

xan changed severity: 3 - Normal -> 1 - Wish

[jostephd]

Do we really need this? If you want a private game, use a password. If you want to play with a particular person, you can put "Reserved for josteph" (or whomever) in the game name, I've seen people do this (and if someone joins anyway, politely tell them you're expecting someone). If you want to ask someone to play with you, use lobby chat; we can add the IRC functionality of popping up a balloon from the system tray when your name is mentioned in an MP lobby message, if it's not already that way. What am I missing?

[AI0867]

Using a password is a hassle, and if you want to play using a team with friends against a team of whoever is on the server, you have to manually mess around with slot allocations, or communicate with other players that you don't want them in that slot.

[jostephd]

Using a password is a hassle

How so? It doesn't need to be terribly secure. If I ever do a password-protected game, the password will be josteph. There, zero hassle :)

if you want to play using a team with friends against a team of whoever is on the server, you have to manually mess around with slot allocations, or communicate with other players that you don't want them in that slot.

:thinking:

How about adding a Reserved option to the mp_staging assignment dropdown? When new people join they get assigned to one of the sides set to Network player, the host then assigns his friends to one of the reserved sides. That'll help with communicating expectations to the "whoever is on the server" people. Would this work (in combination with tray balloons on lobby chat)?

[AI0867]

How so? It doesn't need to be terribly secure. If I ever do a password-protected game, the password will be josteph. There, zero hassle :)

Instead of inviting a player, you need to ask them to join and tell them the password. They then instead of accepting the invitation, need to look up the game (the auto-find game based on selected nick doesn't currently work) and enter this password.

This isn't a terrible burden, but it's something a good interface should automate away for you.

How about adding a Reserved option to the mp_staging assignment dropdown? When new people join they get assigned to one of the sides set to Network player, the host then assigns his friends to one of the reserved sides. That'll help with communicating expectations to the "whoever is on the server" people. Would this work (in combination with tray balloons on lobby chat)?

This sounds like a good simple fix for part of the issue.

[soliton-]

The Reserved option sounds good. For players on the server it might also be easy to just add them to the drop down list (after the static options). I think assigning the right slot with the player that fits the name already works so missing would just by an invite notification.

[CelticMinstrel]

I can't believe you're actually arguing that the existence of passwords mean we don't need this. This would be so much easier than setting a password if your goal is to invite a specific person.