GTA2 Game Hunter

[BenMillard]

If a feature won't be used by 80% of users, it shouldn't be in the UI. GH has grown beyond a novel personal experiment with VB6. It's now widely used by a varied community of new and veteran gamers. The influence of GHBM helped re-focus it upon that community to great effect.

Game Comment was available to everyone but it never became widely used. And it always contained useless information. Which nobody changed between games. So your ideas about "show it and they'll use it" are plainly wrong, even within the rather special community Game Hunter is for. "If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it."

If you want GH to be a modding tool, put a mode switch in the main Settings window which enables those features. Off by default, obviously. The UI should have the bare minumum to do what 80% of people do most of the time. (Hence you've removed Hamachi, for example.)

[Cuban-Pete]

exit on desync looks to me pretty useful. 80% won't use this if they don't know about it. perhaps some more info when hovering over the text would be nice, not everybody knows what desync exactly does.

play replay is something strange. it is not really something you think about when you want to create a game...

[elypter]

Game Comment was available to everyone but it never became widely used. And it always contained useless information. Which nobody changed between games. So your ideas about "show it and they'll use it" are plainly wrong, even within the rather special community Game Hunter is for. "If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it."

I saw it often, but removing features from a software was never something good. When you implement something you usually have a very good idea why. When it is not used by the public it is almost ever because it doesn't work as expected. In this case not the idea is wrong but the implementation is problematic. Example Game Comment: It could easily be saved by reseting it to the default (none) for every new game.
People are stupid. Sad but true. I have seen people who have set a password and wondered why nobody joins. That is annoying but it cannot be a solution to make the application even dumber than the dumbest user. You should always try to explain things that might be complicated instead of removing them. Thats bad for the people with who would like to use these features and bad for the people who have no idea because the will stay like they are.
There will always be people that are resistent to any type of information but i think dumb people influence the world enough already. And there is also a solution that makes everybody happy.
Like Ben suggested: something like an advanced mode checkbox hidden somewhere.

[BenMillard]

• Show Preview should always show preview image and all levels should have a preview image. That is something you have tried hard to achieve. So I think we actually agree with on this?
• Save Replay could just be on all the time? Is there any disadvantage to that?
• Exit on Desync is probably overkill for games with 3 or more people. Some kind of in-game indicator that someone has desync would be ideal. The host can then decide whether to end the game or play on with remaining joiners.

So these 3 features might not need a GUI.


Good Software has Fewer Features

1. Having 10,000 features wouldn't make Game Hunter 100 times better. It would be impossible to use.
2. A program can have too many features.
3. Having 10,000 features and removing 9,900 of them would be good. Now it would be possible to use.
4. Removing features is good.

Features are usually added for bad reasons. The code to do them was easy. A programmer thought it was a good idea at 3am when they were bored but couldn't sleep. They removed a different feature, it left a gap, so they wanted to fill up the gap. (Nudge, nudge, Sektor.)

Features added for these reasons are usually unwanted by the people who use the program. They fail. Removing failed features is good. Only the features which are needed should be included. Effort should go into making those better, so they are nice to use. Only then can it be called a successful feature.

Sometimes a new feature fails at first. Then it is simplified. Maybe the feature was actually too powerful, with too many settings and buttons. So you remove some settings and buttons, just keep the ones which are really needed. Maybe you remove all the buttons and settings, just give it sensible default settings and better logic. Now the feature is good. It is popular because it is simpler; less for users to think about; less buttons to choose between; less settings to get confused by; less complicated to use.

Less is more.

Advanced Mode
If Sektor insists on adding these unnecessary features, hiding them by default is an adequate compromise. He can remove them again in 6 months when he accepts I'm right about GUI design again. J/K!

I actually think this is a bad solution though. What's that big file table useful for anyway? How many people need that? How often? The better logic in v11.41 removes the PlayerCount setting from new levels. That enables fewer entries in the list. That is A Good Thing. (It also means less files for modders to produce, less files for users to manage...lots of advantages...less is more.)

Description and Player Count gives you 100% of the information to choose a level. Windows Explorer and some basic skills with sort options give you nearly all the information to manage those files. Organising those files could be done by adding to the Create Game UI but there's actually a lot of weird situations people get into. You need Windows Explorer to clean out really messy folders. And how often does anyone need to do that?

As such, the "Advanced Mode" is either unnecessary or is already provided by Windows Explorer.


See Also
Netscape Navigator and Mozilla Suite died because they had too many features by default. Firefox has been a massive success because it deliberately removed almost all of the features. Other features were kept but all the GUI removed, with sensible defaults and better logic used "behind the scenes". This is called making it Just Work - no user intervention required.

• Q&A with Blake Ross - after Firefox 1.0 but before Firefox 2.0 had been released. "[...] Firefox has always been just to make things simpler, and making things simpler usually doesn't mean adding grandiose new features [...]"
• Successful, down-to-earth GUI strategies which I've collected over the years. Mostly blog entries about Firefox's GUI strategy of simplicity by the people who started the project - before it was even called "Firefox".

[elypter]

Many people like it != it is good
80% don't use it != it is useless
No user intervention required != No user intervention possible

You can decide to make popular software or good software. Only in very rare occasions developers do both. Most of the time an application is popular and then gets good because of the help they get then with addons or apps due to their popularity.
Firefox wasn't a perfect peace of software from the beginning on. I stayed with netscape until addons were available to fill some gaps.
Mozilla and Netscape had a lot of features that did not belong to a browser. E-mail, Html editor, ... That made them slow and the gui overloaded but this is something different.

By the way, when you mentioning windows explorer so often i assume you never heard of directory opus. It is a file manager which has about 10000 features .It IS usable and i think it is the best piece of software that is available for windows. I cannot think working with standard explorer again and i would not have been able to do all the gta modding without it. It has excellent gui management. You can modify it in any way you like.

More features requires better UI. There is no such thing as feature-usability limit.

if a feature is redundant or useless for EVERY person in ANY situation then delete it but hamachi is not useless, description is not useless, filter is not useless, file list is not useless but they do harm if they are not implemented properly.

my suggestion:
-hide hamachi, so only people who read a tutorial about portforwarding know how to use it => only people that have no other choice use it. yes there ARE such people.
-reset description for every new game => only relevant information is displayed
-set filter default to unique.
-make a button to switch between preview image and file list details
-Save Replay: maybe required if no write access is available and i also heard it could slow down the game. default on, settings hidden
-Exit on Desync: default on, settings hidden

• I actually think this is a bad solution though. What's that big file table useful for anyway? How many people need that? How often? The better logic in v11.41 removes the PlayerCount setting from new levels. That enables fewer entries in the list. That is A Good Thing. (It also means less files for modders to produce, less files for users to manage...lots of advantages...less is more.)

why don't you do that with your maps?

[Sektor]

Save replay is on all the time since v11.41. It has caused some problems when users didn't have a test folder (Vike will fix that) and in some situations the additional file access may cause slowdowns/crashes (it's only a theory and Vike is working on reducing disk access).

Play Replay can't be on all the time, which is why I made it a checkbox. I could also call it resume from last game since it allows that too. I'd prefer a play replay checkbox to be on GTA2 network window. I want to take over that window like Jernej did with mpaddon.

There are a lot better things GTA2 should do when it detects a desync but with the do_sync_check option enabled it just exits with a sync error message. It's good when the desync happens early in the game (some desyncs can happen right at the start but won't be noticed by the players until much later). I'd enable it all the time but it may have some negative side effects that I don't know about.

[BenMillard]

Code: Select all

Country detected as United Kingdom
Access denied: 
Disconnected

Another problem with the channel?

[Salamander]

tl;dr but re: quit on desynch: thank you, very useful, noobs (ie. everyone else) can no longer simulate desynchs to annul a match.

That is annoying but it cannot be a solution to make the application even dumber than the dumbest user.

Fully agreed.

[Gustavob]

Code: Select all

Country detected as United Kingdom
Access denied: 
Disconnected

Another problem with the channel?

[15/10/10 20:22:26] * Dobosz (001D602986@xxxXXxxXX.net.cable.rogers.com) has joined #gta2gh
[15/10/10 20:22:28] <_RM_FirstBlood> eeee
[15/10/10 20:22:34] <Dobosz> FINALLY !
[15/10/10 20:22:39] <Dobosz> could not log in GH
[15/10/10 20:22:46] <@KingSalamander> Dobosz: accidental .com ban

[Sektor]

v1.514 is out!

The map list filter isn't really intuitive but hopefully you can figure it out.

Selecting 2 player only shows maps that have an MMP file with a PlayerCount = 2 and maps that don't have the PlayerCount line.

Selecting Unique only shows the first MMP file (excluding 1 player MMP files) that have a unique combination of SCR (script file), GMP (map file) and STY (graphics style) files.

All maps shows all MMP files.

If you type any text in the filter box, it only shows maps that contain that text. If you want the filter box to search all map names for the text "multislayer" then select "All maps" and type multiplayer in the filter box. The filter box is the box inside the filter frame, maybe it needs a label next to it.

In a future version, I will make GH automatically delete duplicate MMP files for maps that have a new MMP file without a PlayerCount line. This will clean up the GTA2 lobby map list. I could automatically remove the PlayerCount line from the 6 player MMP file and delete the redundant 1-5 player MMP files. Those changes wouldn't remove any of the default MMP files since all of those use a different filename for each SCR file. Once only unique maps remain, GH wouldn't need the filter choices and could just have the filter/search textbox.

The "Play Replay" feature needs work. It doesn't do any checks to see if your opponent has a matching replay and it doesn't download or upload replay files. It doesn't check if the join/hosting order is the same as before or if you are trying to play a multiplayer replay using the "Play Alone" button (sync won't be right that way). It always runs replay.rep, so that will only be the previous game you played. Calling it "Replay last game" would make more sense. If "Ignore replay header" is ticked then GTA2 will try playing that replay on whatever map you selected and not the one saved in the replay header.

To playback a multiplayer replay, you need to start a multiplayer game with the same opponent you just played against (or someone with their replay.rep file). If you try to play a multiplayer replay using the Play Alone button then your actions will only be synced for a very short time since vehicles and peds will move differently.

Changed country detection site from http://geoloc.daiguo.com/?self to http://api.hostip.info/country.php since GeoLoc ran out of disk space and the site started failing. GeoLoc has fixed that problem now.

Using the Hostip site is likely going to be a problem. Here's a quote from the guy who runs geoloc.daiguo.com:

Hostip seems to be community driven, so it can be misled by some evil kid wannabe hacker Also, it says they've collected only 9 million mask/24 entries so far. Theoretically this gives about 54% coverage of possible ipv4 clients. I have entered a bunch of Polish and Russian ips at hostip, each was answered with "no idea...".

So, maybe you should write 2 layers into your app: use hostip as primary source, and if it is inconclusive for a given ip - fallback to my geoloc for a less precise but at least existent information.

I plan to parse http://www.maxmind.com/app/locate_my_ip since it's the most accurate but it returns a lot more html than I require and it doesn't give a country code, so I'd have to lookup the country code using the country they supply. There's bound to be some country that is typed slightly differently to the list of countries in GH.

I can change your country after you login now, so even if those sites fail, I could fetch your country from another database and change it without having to release a new GH but for now I expect a lot of wrong countries.

[Cuban-Pete]

I plan to parse http://www.maxmind.com/app/locate_my_ip since it's the most accurate but it returns a lot more html than I require and it doesn't give a country code, so I'd have to lookup the country code using the country they supply. There's bound to be some country that is typed slightly differently to the list of countries in GH.

It says it cost money...

I can change your country after you login now, so even if those sites fail, I could fetch your country from another database and change it without having to release a new GH but for now I expect a lot of wrong countries.

My country flag is wrong, I'm not from NL, I'm from IC.

[Sektor]

MrWhoopee is the only resident of IC. It's a very small island.

[elypter]

who is MrWhoopee?

[Gustavob]

who is MrWhoopee?

Elypter, meet MrWhoopee, a GTANet bot:

MrWhoopee

mrwhoopee.png (18.94 KiB) Viewed 36530 times

[elypter]

Oh, yeah. I already saw him. But what is he good for? i mean we already have gtaghbot or is it forced by gtanet?

[BenMillard]

In a future version, I will make GH automatically delete duplicate MMP files for maps that have a new MMP file without a PlayerCount line. This will clean up the GTA2 lobby map list. I could automatically remove the PlayerCount line from the 6 player MMP file and delete the redundant 1-5 player MMP files. Those changes wouldn't remove any of the default MMP files since all of those use a different filename for each SCR file. Once only unique maps remain, GH wouldn't need the filter choices and could just have the filter/search textbox.

Yeah, that should work. If you'd like any help with writing the logic to support all edge cases, just e-mail me. (Or send a message through GH when I'm online.)

Play Replay is way too niche even if it was easy to play replays. As it stands, they seem to take an incredible amount of setup and co-operation. Considering the number of GTA2 videos recorded with Fraps (or similar) and hosted on YouTube (or similar) this seems an extremely rare feature. Should probably stay in the Debug tab of the Manager.

[elypter]

yeah thats a good approach. this especially solves the problem that players have inconsistent mmps if this would have had to be done manually. The same would apply to an umap deleter. there are still some few maps out that are have umap data in it. if you only rerelease it you only get incompatible maps but if gh would delete umap it would not be that important anymore to rerelase it. But if you still want you would not even have the incompatibility problem anymore.

[BenMillard]

I'd like to recreate the basic, focus-based, polite autoscroll so people can review chat history. Basing it on scroll position would be best but we'll see what I can manage. (Might not do anything with it at all.)

It was useful when trying to click links to download a level when many people are arranging games. And when linking to instructions about routers, posting instruction text, port ranges, that kinda thing.

I often clicked the penultimate message before going AFK so I could skim through review subsequent messages on my return.

(EDIT) Preview sizing in the new version is wrong. It's like the map list is fixed-width and the game password box is the same fixed width. That's super lame.

1. Columns within the maps list aren't autosized.
2. Maps list isn't autosized to the width of the first column when there's a preview image.
3. The 2nd column is now half-visible, showing a useless GMPfile value.
4. 2nd column should be Players or something with some degree of relevance for normal games.
5. File extensions are hidden in MMPfile but not in any other column.
6. The horizontal scrollbar means slightly fewer rows can be viewed within the Maps list.
7. Map descriptions are not updated when Unique filtering is applied. (This makes it seem like Tiny Town Arena only supports 2 players, as an example.)

Maybe these are what I'll tinker with instead of autoscroll.

1. Awkward sizing
2. 400x300 space I used to have in this window
3. Auto-sized columns and stupidly long map names

In positive news, it is totally stable.

(EDIT2) In the first message, maybe put the GTA2 update on the same line as the GH download? They would seem equally important and required that way.

[Razor]

Strange bug happens!

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/904/gta2bug.png

We have the same versions but i cant join to him - wicked

[Sektor]

It might not be a bug. If he tries to join your game then it should say the checksum of his exe. Try and get a copy of his exe to see if it really is different. Data corruption, exe attaching virus, resolution patch and an exe compression program could all change the exe.