This is a quick progress report on what I’ve been doing for the next version of Knights (011).
The following changes have now been completed:
- “Observer” functionality now fully works. If two people are playing on the server you can now log in and watch them play. (I wasn’t originally planning to do this yet, but it’s such a cool feature that I couldn’t resist… Hopefully there will be enough people on the server in future to be able to make use of it!)
- When waiting in the lobby, the Knights window now pops to the front (and un-minimizes itself if necessary) when someone else connects to the server. (This only works on Windows at the moment as I couldn’t manage to get it working on Linux. I will have another look at the Linux version some other time.)
- ESC no longer quits the game immediately. Instead it brings up the quest information (this is the screen that you get by pressing TAB currently) and you can then press Q to quit, or ESC again to return to the game. TAB now does something else – see next item.
- Chat messages can no longer be typed directly. Instead, you have to first press TAB (or click on the chat box) to activate “chat mode”, and then type the message.
- The reasoning behind this is to avoid control conflicts. In the current version of Knights, if you define a letter/number/punctuation key as a knight control, then there is a conflict and that key becomes unusable for typing chat messages. In the new version, the conflict is fixed (the key either controls the knight or types into the chat box, depending on whether chat mode is on or off).
- The chat window is no longer cleared after the game ends (this stops messages being “lost” when you click through the Winner/Loser screen).
- The player name (used when connecting to the server) is saved to disk and remembered the next time you start Knights.
The work still to be done is:
- Look at reducing CPU usage while sitting in the lobby.
- A couple of bug fixes (e.g. currently there is a bug in the dungeon generator which might make the quest impossible, because all keys and lock picks are placed behind locked doors).
I’ll try to get these done next weekend.
Sounds great so far, looking forward to playing with these changes. Especially, hoping to see more folks online after the pop-up waiting room is in use. The rest is great finishing touches. Thank you!
All sounds good to me..
Except, the chat thing.. I use non-alphabetic keys for my game controls, and I like being able to type directly without having to press anything first..
So.. Could it either detect when you have configured potentially-conflicting keys, or, have the “chat toggle” thing as an option in the settings or something..
Also, I think when people are in “chat mode” and therefore unable to move, it would leave them open to attack.. Some kind of indication on the game screen.. Perhaps a speech bubble above the knight’s head, or something.. To show the other player that you’re typing.. Would be nice.. Then if your opponent isn’t evil he’ll avoid killing you until you finish typing 😉
Making the chat thing an option is not a bad idea… I might do that actually.
I have set it up so that once you press Tab you stay in chat mode until you press Tab again to turn it off. So if you are using the default controls (arrow keys) you would only have to press Tab once and then you can just leave it on for the whole game.
Maybe some explanation on the options screen would be good too. (It will be explained in the manual of course, but a lot of people don’t read manuals…)
“currently there is a bug in the dungeon generator which might make the quest impossible, because all keys and lock picks are placed behind locked doors”
That feature was in the original version, but it would have been too complex/slow to avoid the situation. So the game started to drop lock picks at random locations after a while, thus avoiding impossible maps.
Actually, I was aware of the random spawning of lock picks, but I think I would rather fix it “properly”. Computers should be fast enough to handle it nowadays 🙂
@Moo:
I’ve been thinking about the chat stuff again. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t just disallow people from setting alphabetic keys as knight controls in the first place. (This would only apply for network games, not split screen games.)
The advantage of this is that you don’t need a separate “chat toggle” key. The downside is that if someone wants to use alphabetic keys as controls (or punctuation, space bar etc.) then they are out of luck.
Does anyone desperately want to use alphabetic keys as controls? If not then I guess I will just go for the simpler option (and not bother with a separate “chat toggle” key). Keeping things as simple as possible is usually best…
Great to see Kalle – my idol 🙂 It’s nice to hear you defending your honor..haha. I used to wonder how those lock picks showed up miraculously throughout the game 😉 As for Chat features – I’d rather be playing this with my old Amiga joystick anyway – but for now I’m using an “Arrows + CTRL/action” setup. Programmer’s choice rules – whatever is easiest is best.