NSL

chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Updated URL: gathers.ensl.org

Hi all,

You may have noticed the web admins have been busy. We've push a whole bunch of updates to make the site faster today so load times in many places are an order of magnitude faster

Our attention has also turned to NSL Gathers. The current version has served NSL admirably (currently 10,000+ gathers and counting) but is now getting a bit long in the tooth. It's prone to certain bugs (some serious) and generates a disproportionate amount of traffic because it tries to mimic a realtime system (poorly). Furthermore, some of the features we'd like to do just aren't feasible in the framework we're using.

Recently we've created a (tentative) specialised replacement app for the gathers system, with the goal of:

1) Speeding up gather creation & more intelligently notifying participants
2) Creating a nicer space for the NS2 community to convene
3) Improving experience on 2nd screens like tablets/phones

The super-early/incomplete/tentative prototype is available here: http://gathers.staging.ensl.org

If you're signed onto http://staging.ensl.org you will join as your user. Otherwise you'll sign in as a random user

A number of features are not there yet, they are listed here: https://github.com/cblanc/sws_gathers/issues

Feel free to add your own or ask on this topic to have one added.

You'll notice it's a true realtime system, with messages and gather states updating in realtime. A number of features I'm hoping to implementing are: steam messaging integration (for better notifications & invites) and twitch integration so gatherers can tune into ongoing streams. There will also be a number of nice-to-have features like specifying lifeform preferences and skill level (incl. hive integration)

I'm opening this topic to solicit feedback for 3 things:
1) Features which will speed up gather creation
2) Misc features to make the process more enjoyable
3) Things that break the app or don't look right

Also, if you're a dev and want to get involved with a Node.js/Socket.io/React/ES2015 project feel free to make a pull request with your ideas. The repository is here: https://github.com/cblanc/sws_gathers

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Also want to emphasise this is super early days and super tentative. A lot of features are still to be discussed and ideas to be surfaced.

But as always the focus is on:
1) Speeding up gathers
2) Community
3) Suitability for modern web (i.e. tablet / phone usable)

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CRaZyCAT

Gorges Gone Wild

Admins: Ref Admin
Posts: 105
Location: Omsk (Siberia), Russian Federation
Joined: 3 December 2012

The best, the most effective and as I understand the hardest feature that can speed up gathers is synchronization with NSL mod, installed on the servers. With that you can:

1) make a server vote list based on feedback from NSL mod on the certain servers
2) punish violators (different ways) for lateness and force start in 15 min after captains picked teams
3) make a statistic of gather results and even create an opportunity to implement a unique ranked system for future devs
(etc)

Otherwise, you can introduce a simple timer which will:
1) Show people on gather page and on second screens how many time remains until gather start
2) Make a sound at the end of counting
And please show people which server to connect right after vote ends (not only after team picked).

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simple

Posts: 131
Location: Germany
Joined: 16 November 2013

Please take this with a grain of salt. It is not a given that this system will be used.
I think is a great prototype but there are some software architecture and management concerns yet to be resolved.
But still awesome work chris!

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Yup, everything discussed is 100% tentative and subject to review & approval from the powers that be

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simple

Posts: 131
Location: Germany
Joined: 16 November 2013

Okay short update:
As soon as we get the basics down (not much longer), we are gonna lunch it as
pre-alpha early access with day one dlc. And everyone is gonna be our guinea pig.

There is one think where we need your opinion.
Should the pick order be: Capt. A picks one, B picks two, A picks one, B picks one, ....
Or as it is now: A 1, B 2, A 2, B 2, ...

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ryssk

Ram Ranch

Posts: 319
Location: Sundsvall, Sweden
Joined: 3 November 2012

simple says

Okay short update:
As soon as we get the basics down (not much longer), we are gonna lunch it.

Why are we gonna EAT the new gather? Isnt it quite sour and toxic?

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maxamus

IG

Posts: 75
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 18 November 2012

Looks good so far, seems like this would be awesome in so many ways.

Nice lobby chat system that alot have been wanting for quite some time, BIG IF, But if this dose go ahead, and is completed, could it be put into the main menu off NS2? as that would be great, even it just just opened steam in game browser and linked to it right away, so you can stay logged into this, but be able to play without much hassle..

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Robby

Posts: 58
Location: Sweden
Joined: 24 February 2013

Nice work! This looks promising. Logging in to staging.ensl.org doesn't log me in on the gather page however.

maxamus says

...even if it just opened steam in game browser and linked to it right away, so you can stay logged into this, but be able to play without much hassle..

That's a great idea. Combining the game with the gather would probably bring lots more people to ENSL too.

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Robby: thanks for the bug report. Think I found the issue. FYI, it may just be easier to try gathers.ensl.org as this will use your account off www.ensl.org

With regards to ns2 integration - seems unlikely tbh. This is just a modest app to serve the gather community on ensl.org and I'm sure CDT have their own list of priorities to take care of.

It will be integrated with steam however to make things easier. At the moment, you can friend the gather bot and pm !info for latest gather status. I've yet to implement !join, !leave and outbound gather notifications. If there's a more straightforward system... I'd like to know

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Robby

Posts: 58
Location: Sweden
Joined: 24 February 2013

Thanks, Chris. gathers.ensl.org works well!

Some more feedback: Could you make the background a bit darker? The areas with content can remain white, but it would help a lot for the eyes if just the background itself was gray. Or maybe even the same blue as this forum.

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Robby says

Thanks, Chris. gathers.ensl.org works well!

Some more feedback: Could you make the background a bit darker? The areas with content can remain white, but it would help a lot for the eyes if just the background itself was gray. Or maybe even the same blue as this forum.

Will do. The contrast between ns2 game and the page is painful

https://github.com/cblanc/sws_gathers/issues/13

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Mega

pubstars

Posts: 225
Location: Germany
Joined: 28 September 2009

First of all what is up with [Project] Match scheduling widget: http://www.ensl.org/topics/1467

I thought your helping there Chris beside its also a PCW planer what would be double awesome ;)

Now to the Point the "Featureset" of the old Gather and what i think is still missing on the New Gather.

Old Gather:

-Registred or not you can visit the Gatherpage
-You have a Gatherarchive pretty usefull to check when and how often people play gathers.
-You can vote 2 Maps that improves the chances to play custom maps and not allways Veil, Tram, Summit
-You have the possibitly to Mute/unmute the Gather Music
-You get Removed from the Gather for being inactive. (its buggy but it most of the time works)

New Gather:

-You see Lifeforms of the Player if you expand it:
1) Can you just put it behind the name instead of expanding to have a quicker more precise overview
2) Where do you select it ? it might be possible that someone dosnt like to Fade/Command the 3rd time in a Row.
(So you gotta make selection boxes that you have to fill out inb4 you can join with at least 2 things. )
( []Fieldplayer []Fade []Lerk []Gorge/Onos []Aliencomm []Marinecomm)

-You can see the Skill Level: (can you please explain where your taking this valvue from?)
I see there possibitlitys to display this valvue: (but if you chose 3 you might aswell remove this valuve)
1) its from the Google doc that everyone can fill out idk
2) its based on the ensl database teamhistory which divison somebody was in
3) its based on hive elo

-You can see the Hive Stats the ELO and the Hours:

(If you chose n3 abouve remove the Skill Level)
Would be nice to see hours in ns2 next to this valvue aswell.

- Its probly pretty easy to acess from a Mobile Phone thats defintly a plus in comparison to the old Gather system ^^.

Sorry if i sound so harsh i mean you did a awesome Job it works pretty well but i just dont wanna miss a "Feature" ;)

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Yaluzan

Admin Abuse

Posts: 174
Location: Netherlands
Joined: 18 November 2012

Mega_noComm says

1) Can you just put it behind the name instead of expanding to have a quicker more precise overview

How it is now still makes it easy and isn't in the way for people who don't care about it, i'm sure Chris can give more input on that. And without it there were some bugs on mobile where it would go through each other.

Mega_noComm says

2) Where do you select it ? it might be possible that someone dosnt like to Fade/Command the 3rd time in a Row.
(So you gotta make selection boxes that you have to fill out inb4 you can join with at least 2 things. )
( []Fieldplayer []Fade []Lerk []Gorge/Onos []Aliencomm []Marinecomm)

top right, mute and your own name, click on your own name and select "profile".
http://puu.sh/kdrlH/95eebd81b7.png
http://puu.sh/kdr68/d722a53431.png
http://puu.sh/kdrkg/71a5679f3b.png

Mega_noComm says

-You can see the Skill Level: (can you please explain where your taking this valvue from?)
I see there possibitlitys to display this valvue: (but if you chose 3 you might aswell remove this valuve)
1) its from the Google doc that everyone can fill out idk
2) its based on the ensl database teamhistory which divison somebody was in
3) its based on hive elo

Selected by yourself in the "profile" section, explained above.

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ryssk

Ram Ranch

Posts: 319
Location: Sundsvall, Sweden
Joined: 3 November 2012

Can you please add the function to fill in "drunken skill master"?

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Thanks for taking a look Mega

With regards to the PCW planner, I'll attempt a simple/modest solution for this soon

The following requests are in the pipeline:
- Gather archive: completed gathers will be archived to the usual place on ensl.org
- 2 Maps votes

The following have been completed:
- Preferred lifeforms by gatherer name
- Muting/unmuting music
- You can see the Hive Stats the ELO and the Hours

The following things need to be discussed / figured out:
- Removing inactive gatherers. For the moment, I'm going to try letting people joined in the gather to vote eject inactive gatherers.
- Self reported skill. Need to decide if we let people self report their skill and what it can be represented as. E.g. division, low / medium / high

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

ryssk says

Can you please add the function to fill in "drunken skill master"?

Done

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Cr4zy

SpookerZ

Posts: 195
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 29 January 2014

It would be nice when a gather is full that the players are listed in the order of amount of gathers captained. I don't know if you can pull that stat from old gathers, but as it stands currently in the live one, people who join last are at the bottom and people sometimes don't notice a high skill player and it messes the teams up, if you make it so a player that has captained the most at the top and the least, or never at the bottom I think votes for captains would be much more sensible with less troll votes.

If the same system of captains carries over.

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chris

TAW.af

Extra-Staff: Gather website creator
Posts: 52
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 6 March 2015

Cr4zy says

It would be nice when a gather is full that the players are listed in the order of amount of gathers captained. I don't know if you can pull that stat from old gathers, but as it stands currently in the live one, people who join last are at the bottom and people sometimes don't notice a high skill player and it messes the teams up, if you make it so a player that has captained the most at the top and the least, or never at the bottom I think votes for captains would be much more sensible with less troll votes.

If the same system of captains carries over.

As of a couple of days ago, gatherers are sorted by Hive ELO. Not perfect, but it's a rough gauge of skill I guess?

In any case, number of games captained would be a good stat to track. I'll put it in once completed gathers are archived to ensl.org (https://github.com/cblanc/sws_gathers/issues/17)

We can try out ordering by captaincy and see how it works then

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simple

Posts: 131
Location: Germany
Joined: 16 November 2013

Alpha released!
Try to break it!
n^n virtual cookies as bounty for every bug found (with n = number of bugs since now)

Get your virtual cookies from chris.

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Cr4zy

SpookerZ

Posts: 195
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 29 January 2014

chris says

Cr4zy says
It would be nice when a gather is full that the players are listed in the order of amount of gathers captained. I don't know if you can pull that stat from old gathers, but as it stands currently in the live one, people who join last are at the bottom and people sometimes don't notice a high skill player and it messes the teams up, if you make it so a player that has captained the most at the top and the least, or never at the bottom I think votes for captains would be much more sensible with less troll votes.

If the same system of captains carries over.

As of a couple of days ago, gatherers are sorted by Hive ELO. Not perfect, but it's a rough gauge of skill I guess?

In any case, number of games captained would be a good stat to track. I'll put it in once completed gathers are archived to ensl.org (https://github.com/cblanc/sws_gathers/issues/17)

We can try out ordering by captaincy and see how it works then

Looking at the new system, sorting by ELO has it's issues, certainly doesn't put most in a perfect order of skill. Captain order would generally go well with how players view others skill wise.

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Cr4zy

SpookerZ

Posts: 195
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 29 January 2014

issues:
*Can only vote one captain, needs to be two votes per player

*Time limit for captain votes should be at MOST 60seconds, 5minutes is too much

*Once the gather has started captain votes you should NOT be able to leave, this will only result in trolling

*Previous gather allowed players to vote for two maps, would be nice if that was an option

*Regather vote is out of 6 people, this should be a vote that requires all people to agree to a regather, not half a gather

*Most voted map should either be highlighted or moved to top of the list, same applies for server and captains when being voted.

*Gorge icon looks like a turtle, so I made you a new one http://i.imgur.com/mskno1V.png

*and see above post for the current player ordering

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Yaluzan

Admin Abuse

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Cr4zy says

*Regather vote is out of 6 people, this should be a vote that requires all people to agree to a regather, not half a gather

TBH make it like 10/12

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Cr4zy

SpookerZ

Posts: 195
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Joined: 29 January 2014

Yaluzan says

Cr4zy says

*Regather vote is out of 6 people, this should be a vote that requires all people to agree to a regather, not half a gather

TBH make it like 10/12

Why? People only ever sign up for one, what are you going to do to the two that didnt vote and don't want to play? ban them for not playing a game they didnt sign up for?

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BauerJankins

nazi hunter izO

Posts: 368
Location: Paderborn, Germany
Joined: 20 October 2013

I like this new system very very much. It's really awesome and just needs some minor improvements.

I can agree with each of crazy's points except for [*map and server votes moved to top of list, they should only be highlighted] and [*regather option, this should be changed to 10/12 imo]

Obviously the most important issue is the gorge icon, crazy is really mad about that B)

Keep this work up, it's so much better than the old system!

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simple

Posts: 131
Location: Germany
Joined: 16 November 2013

BauerJankins says

I can agree with each of crazy's points except for [*map and server votes moved to top of list, they should only be highlighted] and [*regather option, this should be changed to 10/12 imo]

I don't think so. The regather is for cases were captains or multiple players are afk.
How are you gonna get 10/12 Votes with 3 guys afk?

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Cr4zy

SpookerZ

Posts: 195
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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ultimately there's no need for a regather option anyway, you can just regather.

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BauerJankins

nazi hunter izO

Posts: 368
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Make it 8/12 then, just don't leave it at 6/12 cuz it can be abused so easily when one team is not happy with their players

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Simba

Posts: 311
Location: United States of America
Joined: 24 June 2012

So for reals feedback, Chris:

- I would like to see what life forms people are AFTEr I have picked them for my team for reference. When they've been moved to the "Marines" or "Aliens" column, I lose the ability to see their information.

- The "Captain" icon is the same as the "Commander" icon. That's a bit confusing.

- Cannot vote regather AFTER all the teams have been picked? I am not sure the reasoning behind this. It seems that one would want to vote regather once the teams have been picked, NOT before. Also, you can vote regather when there are only 2/12 people joined. I don't understand why you want to vote regather when there is not even a gather yet.

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Simba

Posts: 311
Location: United States of America
Joined: 24 June 2012

Might also be useful to have separate positions for "Alien comm" and "marine comm". that's up for debate though.

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New NSL Gathers Prototype

chris

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CRaZyCAT

simple

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ryssk

maxamus

Robby

chris

Robby

chris

Mega

Yaluzan

ryssk

chris

chris

Cr4zy

chris

simple

Cr4zy

Cr4zy

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Cr4zy

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simple

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