Skip Replay

[LonKaer]

Would it ever be possible to add a "skip replay" option while observing a game on the official server? In longer games where disconnections occur, it would be nice to be able to get right back into the game instead of having to watch the entire replay. Even with quick replays, it can take a while to get through 40 turns.

[Sangel]

A Developer can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Wesnoth does not send a "current state of the game" to players when they join it; it only keeps track of a replay file (and sends that). Thus, when you join a game, your copy of Wesnoth needs to run through the replay turn-by-turn to calculate the current state of the game. Even on a fast computer, this takes time - thus why there is a "fast replay" option, rather than a "skip replay" option.

To have a "skip replay" option, Wesnoth would need to feed the "current state of the game" to players when they join, rather than just the automatically maintained replay file; this would take significant code changes.

[zookeeper]

There is the "fast replays" checkbox in the lobby, but IIRC it still doesn't skip all animations that it should.

I'm sure it'd be useful if someone wrote a list of things it's currently not skipping/accelerating as it should.

[PingPangQui]

Would it significantly help (speedwise) if the replay was set in background (i.e. saving calculations regarding graphics, except of maybe showing the turn number)?

[Sangel]

Would it significantly help (speedwise) if the replay was set in background (i.e. saving calculations regarding graphics, except of maybe showing the turn number)?

I can see that being useful on slower computers. Of course, you'd have to have some kind of feedback window for the player to show the computer's progress in running through the reply. Perhaps a dialog window over a greyed out map with text reading "Replaying Turn 1..." etc.

[Wintermute]

as a workaround, remember that you can set "accelerated speed" in the preferences. You could, for example, max that out before watching a long replay and then set it back to a more normal setting once you are in-game. Also, it helps to have "skip AI moves" turned on as well.

[Yogibear]

A Developer can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Wesnoth does not send a "current state of the game" to players when they join it; it only keeps track of a replay file (and sends that). Thus, when you join a game, your copy of Wesnoth needs to run through the replay turn-by-turn to calculate the current state of the game. Even on a fast computer, this takes time - thus why there is a "fast replay" option, rather than a "skip replay" option.

To have a "skip replay" option, Wesnoth would need to feed the "current state of the game" to players when they join, rather than just the automatically maintained replay file; this would take significant code changes.

I wrote most of the quick replay functionality and what you say is correct. The only thing that i am not sure about is the reason why we don't send the gamestate to the server. Actually that isn't very difficult to do, in fact we already do it as we place the starting state on the server. IIRC, it is an issue of bandwidth why we are not sending a complete state to the server every turn.

Would it significantly help (speedwise) if the replay was set in background (i.e. saving calculations regarding graphics, except of maybe showing the turn number)?

It would help, but not significantly. By far the most time consuming stuff is the animations and those are cancelled with quick replays. The reason i didn't cancel the screen refresh after a side turn as well was to give you an impression where you are at the moment. However, one screen refresh doesn't take much time, so you won't notice a considerable difference if we skipped that, too.

@zookeeper, everyone:
There shouldn't be *any* graphical updates in between a side turn. If that is the case, please let me know.

[A Guy]

I suggested this, but Noy felt the need to bash me for it.

[MDG]

I suggested this, but Noy felt the need to bash me for it.

You mean this? Seems more annoyed you didn't use the search function and SHOUTED as well...

[Wintermute]

@zookeeper, everyone:
There shouldn't be *any* graphical updates in between a side turn. If that is the case, please let me know.

AFAICT, what is happening is that quick replay works pretty quickly, but only goes up until about the "current" turn when the player joins the game. That works fine in most cases AFAIK, but it is a problem for some of the survival games and other UMC, because there might be LOTS of AI moves, with lots of AI sides, and then players moving a few units. So what can end up happening is that you skip 60 (sometimes less, sometimes 120) turns, or what have you, pretty quickly but then in the 2 minutes it took to do that, the players are playing quickly (and not seeing most of the AI moves), while the person in replay watches lots of AI moves and may end up watching another 10-20 turns (in close to real time - which can take quite a bit longer than all the turns that were skipped, given all the AI moves and maybe clicking through dialogue) until they really catch back up.

Now, in a 'normal' game this only takes another minute or so to watch the turn and a half that has been played since joining the game. I may not really be describing things correctly, so someone can feel free to correct me if something else is going on.

[A Guy]

I suggested this, but Noy felt the need to bash me for it.

You mean this? Seems more annoyed you didn't use the search function and SHOUTED as well...

I used the search function, but was unlucky enough to not know that it was broken.