[developers idea] Handle disconnected and afk players

[JasonVoorhees]

Hello there. For many years there is a problem in Wesnoth with handling disconnected players.

Can't online games have a proper lobby with status reporting? Here is my solution: every 5-10 seconds the game should check if I'm connected properly to the server, if I'm disconnected (no server response) the game should inform me that I'm disconnected. Other players should also be informed that my account is offline for more than 5-10 seconds. I think it's a crucial feature in online games.

The same with afk players. They can watch the movie or listen to music even on the same pc, but they can't hear the "start turn" sound. Then the other players wait, wait and the game is doomed. Why don't you introduce additional alert system for cases like that? Special annoying sound executed with a command (or with a mouse click on icon near player nickname in the game lobby), full screen info that covers anything else. The "current game lobby" should cover all the mentioned use cases. It would report player status (window active/inactive, player connected/disconnected, send alert button).

Some might say that we have a timer. But it's not always a good option. Why? Because e.g. when the player needs to go to toilet, nobody can stop the timer.

[Pentarctagon]

I don't remember in 1.10, but in 1.12 Wesnoth will popup a bubble when your side takes control and it isn't the focused window:

bubble.png (15.44 KiB) Viewed 2056 times

[iceiceice]

Can't online games have a proper lobby with status reporting? Here is my solution: every 5-10 seconds the game should check if I'm connected properly to the server, if I'm disconnected (no server response) the game should inform me that I'm disconnected. Other players should also be informed that my account is offline for more than 5-10 seconds. I think it's a crucial feature in online games.

I am totally with you -- in fact I think this is *supposed* to be a feature, but it doesn't work and no one really knows why. It's a huge amount of work to debug networking problems, and our networking code is so hairy that *angry bees will literally fly out of your computer* if you try to work on it.

I think this like "heartbeat ping" is something you should expect in Wesnoth 2, unless you want to help code / debug it.

The same with afk players. They can watch the movie or listen to music even on the same pc, but they can't hear the "start turn" sound. Then the other players wait, wait and the game is doomed. Why don't you introduce additional alert system for cases like that? Special annoying sound executed with a command (or with a mouse click on icon near player nickname in the game lobby), full screen info that covers anything else. The "current game lobby" should cover all the mentioned use cases. It would report player status (window active/inactive, player connected/disconnected, send alert button).

I am *totally with you* on this. In fact I added a fancy menu to 1.13 so that you can control all of the desktop popups and sounds in response to mp events. But it coudl not be in 1.12 because of feature freeze T_T.

Some might say that we have a timer. But it's not always a good option. Why? Because e.g. when the player needs to go to toilet, nobody can stop the timer.

You never made wesnoth moves while siting on the John?

Seriously you can just save the game if its a serious game, it happens all the time. Timer pause is a long requested feature, feel free to submit a patch.

[JasonVoorhees]

Thanks a lot for explanation

You never made wesnoth moves while siting on the John?

Well... in the past

Now I've got a 17'' laptop connected to 27'' monitor It's a pain to disconnect everything (mouse, keyboard, power, monitor) just to go for a few minutes