Multiplayer campaigns - current problems

[euschn]

Hi,

As part of my google summer of code project (reorganizing savegames), I want to improve the support for multplayer campaigns. I read a few threads and the wiki howto on this topic, yet a lot of information seems outdated. It is not clear which of the stated problems still exist.

If you know of specific problems with multiplayer campaigns in version 1.6.1 (or higher), it would be great if you could post them here or point me to them.
I am mostly looking for savegame-related problems, but anything is welcome really.

Some problems that I came across in:
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... &sk=t&sd=a
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=9893

- linger mode introduces a bug: seems fixed
- [story] is unavailable over the net: working as intended?
- allow_new_game=no: status unclear
- OOS errors on recalls: status unclear

[tsr]

Yay!

I sure hope that you improve stuff for mp-campaigns. From the top of my head I can only remember one thing that is not working 100% and it might have a relationship to savegames or not: when you observe a game, most often you can't come directly to the next scenario, but have to go through the lobby (sometimes it works, and I suspect that it has to do if you as an observer end the scenario before the players start playing on the next scenario).

I hope that I will have time to check things out so that you have a pile of bugss/FRs to engage with

/tsr

[Wintermute]

Mythological would be a good person to ask. He wrote a great 10 scenario MP campaign that had numerous bugs (most involving bugged savegames IIRC).

From my own experience (once in 1.6.1, but mostly from 1.6a and before), savegame related bugs (such as seeing two of every unit in your recall list, or not having a recall list at all) are most common when a player other than the original host saves the game and tries to reload it. For that reason it is widely known among MP campaign players that the original host should always save and reload the game all the way through the campaign (to avoid the risk of corrupting the save).

In TL's World Conquest, this is the only major bug still remaining (AFAIK). It might be helpful to compare that campaign to some of the others, if they contain worse savegame-related problems. I don't have my old savegames handy (may my old computer RIP), but I might be able to dig up some saves from my backups if you are interested in looking at bugged files.

Fixing what bugs remain in the way of MP campaigns would be great! Good luck!

[Exasperation]

It's not exactly a bug, but I think it would be nice if multiplayer campaigns carried over team color for persistent sides (mostly player sides) from one scenario to the next. The reason is that in a multiplayer campaign you can let players choose the color of their side, but after the first scenario it will revert to the default color for that side. In addition, there doesn't seem to be a way to set the color of a side dynamically based on the contents of a variable, so it doesn't seem possible to get around this in WML.

[TheChosenOne]

This is not really a bug, but a feature request.

How about replacing the 'quick replay' button with 'skip replay'?
I'm sure that people who would like to watch the game from start would untick this button, and those who want to jump straight back into the game would tick it.

Unnecessary replays can be annoying, especially when there are many sides and the game is at turn 25+.

Alternatively, perhaps a 'skip replay' button could be added next to the 'quick replay' button, though I am not sure if the latter is useful once the former is introduced, if at all.

[Caphriel]

I'm not sure how skipping replays is specifically related to multiplayer campaigns. However, I imagine that will still meet the same problems as other suggestions/requests for replay-skipping functionality. In short, that the game does not save the current state, only the replay information, and thus has to actually replay through the game to reach the current state.

[euschn]

Thanks a lot for your replies!

I don't have my old savegames handy (may my old computer RIP), but I might be able to dig up some saves from my backups if you are interested in looking at bugged files.

Oh yes, that would be great! Examples of corrupted/broken saves (or tips on reproducing them) are a good way to get an idea of things.