I would like to announce the availability of a service to inform game Hosts of player entries and exits in their Public Custom games. When the player list changes, the Host of the game will be notified via PM. To use this service, the Host needs to PM a request to me. Only the Host may request that a game be monitored, and only Public games will be monitored.
A service of this nature could be useful, as the in-game messages about players entering and exiting the game are not transmitted to the Host, or to other players. In addition, this service performs a small amount of research on the entering players, to help the Host. I expect that this service will be most useful in games where the Host isn't playing.
When a player leaves a game, and the position is marked by the system as "open", the Host receives a PM. This allows them to advertise the availability of an open position on the Activity Feed, and, if appropriate, pause the game. When a player slot is set to "dead", no message will be sent, as this does not require any action from the Host.
When a new player enters the game, a PM is sent to the Host. That PM includes the player's ID, and race. It also contains information on how many times the player has resigned/dropped or died in the last 10 and 20 games (up to the limit of the games the player has been in - see sample message at the end of this post). Finally, if the player has been a recipient of the Tim Continuum, that information will be included in the PM.
When a game is added to the list of monitored games, the above information will be sent to the Host on all active players.
At this time, the only known action that a Host can take to remove a player from the game is to pause the game and request that the unwanted player leave. If this doesn't work, the Admins might respond to a request from the Host to remove a player from a Custom game (I don't know their policy on this). For Hosts who want a bit more control over their game, please vote for "https://planets.uservoice.com/forums/136520-general/suggestions/19286422-allow-a-game-host-to-eject-players-from-games-they", and/or send a message to Big Beefer requesting this change, or something similar.
Note on Game Summary:
The game summary sent to the Host includes all games (up to 20) that a player has been in (Resigned, Dropped, Dead or Completed), including games as a replacement, and MvM games.
Note on Tim Continuum:
I have checked the messages in over 3600 games, looking for Tim Continuum violations. If the Tim Continuum was used in games that are no longer available to the Public, it won't be on my list.
The list I have assembled will NOT be made public. The Host will receive notification when a Tim Continuum recipient joins a monitored game. If the Host requests additional information, they will receive the game/player/turn information. No further information will be provided.
This list has not been verified by the Admins.
Planned future enhancements:
In the near future, the player rank will be added.
The list of optional advantages/hulls that the player has researched will be added, if the game is a Campaign game. This is primarily to help Hosts who require that specific optional advantages/hulls not be used in a game, as it will reduce the amount of effort to verify.
There are a few other enhancements that I'm still trying to define.
Please feel free to suggest other enhancements.
Note on stability/reliability:
This service consists of almost 1000 lines of Python2 code. I've been running it for a few weeks, and I've fixed the few bugs that have surfaced, but I can't guarantee that I found/fixed all of them (there were a few late enhancements). If you see something that looks to be in error, please inform me and I'll look into it.
Sample messages:
Changes for Sector 'Wormhole X-Treme! - Melee' (http://planets.nu/#/sector/222692):
Slot 1 changed from 'open' to 'edward jacobs' of The Missing Colonies of Man.
New player 'edward jacobs' has dropped from 10 of the past 10 games and 20 of the past 20 games.
New player 'edward jacobs' has died in 0 of the past 10 games and 0 of the past 20 games.
Changes for Sector 'YouTwo Sector' (http://planets.nu/#/sector/223291):
Slot 2 changed from 'open' to 'gimbal' of The Empire of the Birds.
New player 'gimbal' has no game history.
Slot 4 changed from 'yidi' to 'conibu' of The Solar Federation.
New player 'conibu' has no game history.
Slot 10 vacated by 'gozeko'.
Changes for Sector 'Wormhole - Beginner's Standard' (http://planets.nu/#/sector/223325):
Slot 6 changed from 'open' to 'mofu' of The Cyborg.
New player 'mofu' has dropped from 0 of the past 3 games.
New player 'mofu' has died in 2 of the past 3 games. |
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