Viewable game without spying either side

[Molean]

Right now there are only two options, either you make the game allow observers and risk someone logging in as a second person guest and spying your troop location (granted normally the game alerts you of same IP's, but I am sure there are ways around that)

Or you make the game unviewable, thus problematic if someone drops but the system says they left. Or you want to talk with someone in the game. Or they dropped and you know they dropped and you want to just add them back without having to reload the game.

I would like a third option, to allow observers, but if fog is on, observers can not see anything other then the map itself, unless assigned to control a side, or the game ends. That way you can allow players to rejoin games after dropping easier and to talk with people in the game, without any chance of cheating.

[Soliton]

That way you can allow players to rejoin games after dropping easier and to talk with people in the game, without any chance of cheating.

Before someone jumps through hoops to get two instances of wesnoth with different IPs he'll probably figure out that he can simply save the game and load it or hack his client to disable fog etc.
Really preventing fog cheating is a huge undertaking. Just allow observers and/or play without fog...

[pauxlo]

I would like a third option, to allow observers, but if fog is on, observers can not see anything other then the map itself, unless assigned to control a side, or the game ends. That way you can allow players to rejoin games after dropping easier and to talk with people in the game, without any chance of cheating.

This would be quite a unfunny observing. It should additionally (in case of 2 players) show the action in this part of the map which both teams can see.
Since this is where the action is going on, this could be enough to observe.

Paŭlo

[Molean]

Saving and loading would be very time consuming and not at all real time, which would discourage most people from doing it.

Noones developed a fog hack yet that I have heard of, and I seriously doubt it would be harder to have two IPs or get a friend to help you cheat, then it would be to figure out how to hack the game itself.

What is the purpose of refusing observers? If it is so useless, why is that option there?

[Zarel]

Noones developed a fog hack yet that I have heard of, and I seriously doubt it would be harder to have two IPs or get a friend to help you cheat, then it would be to figure out how to hack the game itself.

I assume that's just because no one's tried? :/ I mean, I presume all you have to do is comment out the part of the game that tells it to pay attention to fog, and recompile.

[Rya]

I'm pretty sure it's already mentioned by the system if a person with the same IP logs in?

[Yogibear]

What is the purpose of refusing observers? If it is so useless, why is that option there?

It's there to provide some privacy. If for example you are not a skilled player and you don't want to have observers around looking (and maybe commenting) at your mistakes. I know there is "mute", but it's not the same.

[Caphriel]

It's also useful if you're playing with friends you know in Real Life, and you don't want random people from the internet reading your conversation during the game, which may disclose details of aforementioned real life

Saving and loading would be very time consuming and not at all real time, which would discourage most people from doing it.

This is incorrect. Running a second instance of Wesnoth would make saving and loading the game in the second instance trivial in terms of time consumption. Generally speaking, though, fog isn't terribly important after the first few turns, and the first few turns are when it's easiest to pull the save-load trick, because those turns leave the player with plenty of time for shenanigans.

Or, a player could have a friend with a different IP spying for him via out-of-game chat.

Most players won't cheat, and the ones that will have more time and energy to put into cheating than the developers have to put into preventing them from cheating.

[Molean]

This would be quite a unfunny observing.

I assume you mean it would not be fun, funny means humorous. Anyway the point of being a observer in such a game would not be fun, it would be the other reasons I mentioned.

Regarding the logic that we should not bother because the cheaters have already won:

If it provides one more means of dealing with cheaters at no cost to playing, then it is a good thing, even if there are other ways to cheat. And saving and loading over and over in a second window, its a hassle, and its demanding on system resources. You would be surprised how many thieves and cheaters are deterred by just a bit of hassle, I suppose that is because by nature they are usually lazy. Now if there was some software that simply defeated the fog, I am sure there would be many players who used it, many more then those who would bother abusing saving.

Save abusing could be managed too, you could have a option to disable saving the game except for the host.

It's there to provide some privacy. If for example you are not a skilled player and you don't want to have observers around looking (and maybe commenting) at your mistakes. I know there is "mute", but it's not the same.

Ok lets use that then, aside from any issues of fog cheating.

What if someone wanted privacy for the purposes of preventing others from seeing their skill or commenting on their mistakes, but wanted people to easily rejoin the game or be able to come in to talk as is the benefits of a joinable game, then such a option would be very nice.

You can mute observers? How?

[MDG]

You can mute observers? How?

Various commands including mute.

[tadpol]

would password protecting observers be a good enough solution? It doesn't guard fog, but stops you from having to save/load for dc in non-observer games.

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=26492

There has been some (mostly positive) discussion of that, only with out any conclusion. That probably means it died on the vine right?

[Turuk]

Welllll, did you check to see if a Feature Request was ever submitted for it, and if so, the progress of that FR?

[tadpol]

I just did a check and don't see anything. But to be honest I'm a little intimidated by the bugreport system, and would not be surprised if I wasn't looking in the right way.

I just though the other thread covered about the same thing, so might be worth having on hand.

It also occurs to me I wouldn't use this feature, so I'm not going to request it.

[Turuk]

It also occurs to me I wouldn't use this feature, so I'm not going to request it.

Fair enough, but then why dredge it up in the first place? Sometimes you just have to let these type of threads either seem sort of actual effort made to put them into place, or just let them die.