GTAMP.com

Adding a "daytime" line would mean you need a double amount of MMP files if you want your map to be playable in both dusk and dawn, and my data folder is already getting rather crowded as it is. Ideally the host should be able to force dawn or dusk for all players with a setting in the network manager, but I doubt this can be done.

I have another idea--you probably already heard this one before, but I couldn't find it in the "Unrealistic/Impossible" section so I might as well drop it in. Would it be possible to add a column to the current game list which shows how many players are already joining pending games? This would make it easier to recognise popular games and thus easier to get games with even more players.

I wouldn't force the host to use dusk/noon but I could recommend dusk/noon and enable it on any joiner's GTA2.

I was thinking of removing the CC column from the games list (leave it on player list) since the games list is never very long, no need to sort by CC. I like the idea of showing a count of how many joiners have tried to join a certain game (successfully would be better but more difficult).

I think I will change status in player list to show the name of the last game you tried to join.

Lighting Modes
Use of Dusk or Noon must be an individual choice. It can give an unfair advantage to make everyone use the same lighting mode. It also spoils the game if you want to play your game with certain settings but you were forced to use something different.

Some levels have oppressively dark ambient light with inadequate lighting. But if a player sets their monitor very bright and sits in a darkened room, they'll be able to see much better than other players.

Also, some players hate how certain levels look in Noon but love them in Dusk. (Such as the way DrSlony feels about my MultiSlayer levels.) If you force them to use a light mode they don't like, the game is less fun for them. The increased stress gives them a disadvantage, too.


Player Status
Sektor, do you still have the e-mails where we thrashed out some ideas to make Status more useful? It's basically fine the way it is, only improvement is to replace the "GTA2" status with the name of the person game you have joined.

If none of GH, Network GTA2 and the actual game currently has focus, setting status to "Busy" (or "BRB" or "AFK") could work well. Only time this happens is when you are doing something outside of GTA2 gaming, after all.


Country Code Column in Players List
Please keep the CC column in the players list! [Actually I mean "games list" here!] It really helps when seeing if any games are hosted by people near enough to play.

In Europe, there are many nations we can get a good pings between. We also have a larger player base and it changes more often. We won't know the names of everyone you can play. Also, many of our flags look similar but represent large differences in distance and Internet quality.

That 2-letter code is really essential for me, at least.

(EDIT) Corrected my confusion about which list is which.

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It will stay in the players list. I was just considering removing it from the games list. I can always have a tooltip show the country if you can't figure it out from the flag and you can right click players in any list to see their /wi info. The CC column doesn't take much space, so I don't really need to remove but if I was adding more then it would be an option. I also hate the Hamachi column, that might just be better as an icon or a warning message.

I remember we talked about changing status to show last attempted join. If you emailed me, I still have it somewhere but sounds simple enough.

Setting it to Busy/AFK/BRB/custom away message when GH or GTA2 hasn't been the active window for 5 minutes seems like a good idea.

I've always found the individual lighting settings illogical. Different gamers playing a single game in both night and broad daylight doesn't make any sense! GTA2 seems to treat it as a mere cosmetic setting, even though it can have a substantial impact on gameplay. I think it is a gameplay element that should be decided by the host--just like which weapons are available, another big missing feature in GTA2.
However, I understand it may be too late to fix this, since everyone is used to be able to set dawn or dusk for his own.

Removing the CC and adding a mouse-over to the flag would be fine. I'm unfamiliar with a lot of CC abbreviations, so I often look at the mouse-over anyway.
If you want to simplify the game list, you could also consider removing the "pass" column and indicate password protected games with a small padlock icon in front of the host name.

I'd certainly add a 5 minute interval (or longer) before the status goes to "busy". Players are often using other programs while chatting between games, which would result in players constantly jumping between "active" and "busy".

Sorry, the Games list is the one I meant. I've edited that part of my message...might make more sense now.

A tooltip is far less convenient than seeing the information at a glance. You have to move the mouse, pause it over the part where the tooltip will appear, wait for it to appear, then read it. There's no visual indication that such a tooltip even exists, so it's far less discoverable than showing it up-front.

And, as you point out, the CC column is tiny. It's the narrowest one, in fact. Although CC codes are less recognisable than the full country name, it's easier to tell apart SI from SK and IE from IT than looking at tiny versions of their flags. The flags certainly help, but the flag plus the CC becomes greater than the sum of its parts.


Lighting Modes
Lantyz, the effect of lighting on gameplay is precisely why each player should have their own choice. If I want more eye candy but harder aiming, I can choose Dusk while another player might find that too difficult. For example, trying to see the green soldiers on the green grass in Army Base.

If it's a !title match I'll use Noon because aiming is more important to me than eye candy in competitive games. But another player might actually prefer Dusk in such a game because the colours and pretty effects are more relaxing. Or they might find the textures too bright and the arrows too hard to see in Noon. For example, DrSlony playing on MultiSlayer Graveyard.

Hosts are free to recommend that joiners use a particular lighting mode, of course. Tournaments could even make it a rule that all players must use a certain lighting mode. But that's as far as it should go, imho, otherwise it can become unfair on the joiners.

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Host's name will be shown as joiner's status. I've added it for beta 39 (not yet released).

GH should set status back to Away when you set /away, get in game and quit it. It currently simply clears the status.

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You just lost the game.

That's a perfect description of the feature!

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Multiplayer Levels | Mission Code Tutorials | Multiplayer Videos

Be able to sort player list by ping. and if pinging is not possible, sort by closest country?

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"Only Silky Milky implants by Zaibatsu feel and taste like the real thing."

no?

been asked before?

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"Only Silky Milky implants by Zaibatsu feel and taste like the real thing."

Figuring out closest country would be a pain, even sorting all countries into continent would be tedious (of course it's been done before but it would also need to have the country code and match my array). I will add ping back once I figure out a more reliable ping method that isn't blocked by most clients. Ping isn't even reliable to tell if a GTA2 game will stutter, it's a bit random.

You could bold chanel operators and administrators and mark bots

most of people think that sally is normal player

Every map in my gta folder now has a preview image.
Thats great but now it's hard to see the rest of the table content and i don't have an entry without an image.
So i suggest an option to disable image preview.

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yur sa'nok ngeyä

Vuvuzela button.

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"Only Silky Milky implants by Zaibatsu feel and taste like the real thing."

hahaha

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You just lost the game.

A must have !!!

i got a modding idea: replace shotgun with vuvuzela
like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V9OJdMI ... re=related

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yur sa'nok ngeyä

well it is possible to do but its not possible to remove the bullets that will come out from it without removing the bullets from all other weapons. Its also possible to replace the sound. Would be fun to replace all weapons with different vuvuzelas and remove all bullets from weapons then each vuvuzela will have different power and sound
Although it would not be possible to stop the vuvuzelas from killing people/players
Just imagine the rocket launcher as a vuvuzela

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You just lost the game.

*throwing out another bunch of suggestions*
-add support for hamachi alternatives: http://segmentnext.com/2009/08/20/hamac ... -adapters/
-add *.mmp entry support for date(version),description,author,readme-file,homepage,update_url and gamesettings such as dusk/noon,police on/off,gametype,time limit,point/frag limit

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yur sa'nok ngeyä

yes seccond idea is nice :>