Feedback II

[Geit]

I feel i should remind you that sometimes it's unrealistic to ask or expect not to be killed when submitting a feedback as many pieces of feedback with the exception of signs or broken doors are left in highly contested areas such as choke points. It's unreasonable to ask the game to be paused for 30 seconds whilst one person writes an annotation.

But there is however nothing stopping them from revisiting or visiting the map prior to test sessions to avoid that dilemma.

As for the non-regulars who probably don't have that level of patience i should remind people that Geit did add in the functionality to view and leave annotations whilst in spectator. So instead of trying to unsuccessfully leave feedback during combat there's nothing stopping you from jumping into spectator the next time you die and flying around for a bit to assess and leave the relavent feedback.

Only just saw this message, sorry for the double post! - As part of Milestone 3, functionality will be added to "bookmark" a location. When this happens, the back end will attempt to download the map and take a screenshot of the location. The screenshot will then be uploaded to the web panel, and when the player next joins the server, a new round is started or the player enters a specific command, a dialog will pop up and ask them to annotate each screenshot. They will also have the option to skip doing this if they've forgotten why they bookmarked the location, the bookmarks will automatically be deleted after 7 days unless they are annotated.

That should help with the problem of having to break the flow of the game to create a feedback. It could also be bound to a key to make it even simpler.

 

[Trotim]

I dunno how to feel about this. The feedback plugin right now works even if it is a bit simplistic, and yes more stats would help, but I just have this inherent fear of feature creep and the plugin becoming too cumbersome if all that stuff is done.

Yes it would be great if all this were made and worked. It just seems like such a colossal project. Good luck anyway.

 

[LeSwordfish]

Only just saw this message, sorry for the double post! - As part of Milestone 3, functionality will be added to "bookmark" a location. When this happens, the back end will attempt to download the map and take a screenshot of the location. The screenshot will then be uploaded to the web panel, and when the player next joins the server, a new round is started or the player enters a specific command, a dialog will pop up and ask them to annotate each screenshot. They will also have the option to skip doing this if they've forgotten why they bookmarked the location, the bookmarks will automatically be deleted after 7 days unless they are annotated.

That should help with the problem of having to break the flow of the game to create a feedback. It could also be bound to a key to make it even simpler.

So to clarify, I can, say, hit "T" to save a location, and then at the start of the next round or when I type a command, it shows me all the locations I've saved, and I can put feedback on them?

Will I be able to do this from outside the game/map/server? Being able to save them for later then annotate them the next day through the website at work sounds cool.

 

[Geit]

I dunno how to feel about this. The feedback plugin right now works even if it is a bit simplistic, and yes more stats would help, but I just have this inherent fear of feature creep and the plugin becoming too cumbersome if all that stuff is done.

Yes it would be great if all this were made and worked. It just seems like such a colossal project. Good luck anyway.

The feedback plugin itself won't be changing much, the inherent system design is just getting spruced up in some places, all the end user stuff will be almost identical. Milestone 1 is a redesign of the existing system and Milestones 2 and 3 are extra features that shouldn't touch core functionality. - I understand your worry, and it's one that I share, however I'm also extremely concious about anything that would slow a system down too massively, so everything should remain nice and fast, even with the extra features.

So to clarify, I can, say, hit "T" to save a location, and then at the start of the next round or when I type a command, it shows me all the locations I've saved, and I can put feedback on them?

Will I be able to do this from outside the game/map/server? Being able to save them for later then annotate them the next day through the website at work sounds cool.

Yes - The Bookmarks would be attached to your Steam Account, and you could fill them in whenever you pleased, whether it be through the web panel, or from within the game (In-game will likely only open the page on the web panel anyway)

 

[LeSwordfish]

That sounds bloody lovely, although i do predict a lot of "I have no idea what i wanted in this area, i'm still hungover" comments. I guess that's what the skip command is for.

 

[Bereth]

Personally I like a minimum limit on characters. It means that if someone comes by when you first start to leave feedback you can just hit enter and run away to leave feedback later.

There's two other feature I think would be good. The ability to correct an annotation would be nice. I'm not talking about editing it after you make an annotation, but if you say !ca (correct annotation) you would leave your new location as well as a message attached to your last bit of feedback. It helps with typos and clarifications.

I would also like to have voice chat recorded along with the location of the player when he/she first begins the broadcast. People seem to do this already, and adding it to the feedback system seems like it would be beneficial. Of course the ever present finger slipping off the button is a problem, plus sound files occupy a lot of memory compared to numeric values/text.

 

[Harribo]

Personally I like a minimum limit on characters. It means that if someone comes by when you first start to leave feedback you can just hit enter and run away to leave feedback later.

There's two other feature I think would be good. The ability to correct an annotation would be nice. I'm not talking about editing it after you make an annotation, but if you say !ca (correct annotation) you would leave your new location as well as a message attached to your last bit of feedback. It helps with typos and clarifications.

I would also like to have voice chat recorded along with the location of the player when he/she first begins the broadcast. People seem to do this already, and adding it to the feedback system seems like it would be beneficial. Of course the ever present finger slipping off the button is a problem, plus sound files occupy a lot of memory compared to numeric values/text.

Don't demos record ingame voice chat? I think they are a better solution to hearing people's voice chat feedback

 

[Seba]

Yeah, you can just watch a demo. Although rewinding back to the beginning of the comment is annoying as fuck...

 

[Geit]

Added Milestone 4, this is largely an overhaul of the functionality used for the existing Events scheduler, with some added perks thrown in for people who haven't got the ability to create their own events. - Initially the functionality detailed here will be restricted to TF2M only to see how bandwidth/resource demanding it is, if it proves successful, it'll be deployed to any valid servers.

Milestone 4 (9th August 2012):

• Servers that support the replay system will have their replays copied to the Web Panel and reconstructed into STV Demos and attached to the applicable map page.
• Servers that support Source TV will have their replays copied to the Web Panel and attached to the applicable map page.
• Extended Details:
  • Replays will always be favored over Source TV demos if available on the server, if both systems are enabled, only the replays will be downloaded.
  • Map authors will have to opt in to have their demos fetched, an 'Opt-In' is only applicable for a maximum of 72 days after it is created (User selected length for below that) and demos will be deleted 28 days after their creation, or at author or server owner request (dual ownership)
  • Anyone will be able to download demos, however, they must be logged in to do so.
  • Events will have demos recorded automatically for any maps in them, regardless of opt-in status.
  • This option will only be available if the server owner has provided FTP details direct to their server, or they can be harvested using the readily available replay download link - It may also be possible to send them over a socket from the game plugin, however this may not be viable due to performance issues.

 

[Pocket]

Man, if you can figure out a way to piece together whole working demos out of replay files, you can look forward to having Valve knocking on your door. That shit ought to be a standard feature!

 

[LeSwordfish]

It would also mean the tf2m servers could get replays, and be only a year behind the curve.

 

[Harribo]

It would also mean the tf2m servers could get replays, and be only a year behind the curve.

What are you talking about? we had replays for like the first 6 months they were out, your behind the curve

 

[Geit]

Man, if you can figure out a way to piece together whole working demos out of replay files, you can look forward to having Valve knocking on your door. That shit ought to be a standard feature!

I actually asked for functionality to be added to the game for this to happen automatically before replays first came out.

Jon Lippincott, the guy behind it said it was a good idea, but he was unable to get around to it, and instead released all the information needed to complete the task. - Actually doing it is fairly trivial with the information provided, and should be exetremely quick/cheap, - The main problem is that the files are considered useless and are deleted if no one is downloading them when the round ends, meaning you have to check that they exist constantly, and pull them as quickly as you can.

All the information needed on the replay system can be found here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1882941

This is the only time I've ever seen Valve release TF2 Specific source code to the modding community.

 

[LeSwordfish]

What are you talking about? we had replays for like the first 6 months they were out, your behind the curve

We had them for a month, tops, and then we had to choose between them and demos, so we went with demos.

 

[Geit]

Doesn't look like I'll be able to get this done for this Friday - I'll still be trying my hardest, but I haven't even started work on the central server yet, and there's still a fair bit to do on the web panel before then. - At the moment I'd put an optimistic guess at Milestone 1 occuring on the 20th of May, or after my exams, depending on how much revision I feel like doing!

Also, I'm unsure whether it's worth writing a script to import the data from the old feedback panel... thoughts? :s

In the meantime, have a beta page: http://geiti.dyndns.org/feedback2 -- Please be aware that you will run into errors on some pages, I know they are there, and they are normal, feel free to report any real bugs or anything you don't like, and if it appears slow, it's because it's on my home server, which can only provide 1 mbit/s up.

Current (rough) to-do:

• Groups:
  • Create Group Page
  • Edit group page
• Servers:
  • List page
  • List pagination and search
  • Details page
• Maps:
  • Edit Map page
  • Comment moderation
  • My maps page
• Events:
  • Edit Event page
  • Add event page
  • Timezone localisation
• Misc Pages
  • Notifications
  • TOS

 

[Harribo]

Doesn't look like I'll be able to get this done for this Friday - I'll still be trying my hardest, but I haven't even started work on the central server yet, and there's still a fair bit to do on the web panel before then. - At the moment I'd put an optimistic guess at Milestone 1 occuring on the 20th of May, or after my exams, depending on how much revision I feel like doing!

Also, I'm unsure whether it's worth writing a script to import the data from the old feedback panel... thoughts? :s

In the meantime, have a beta page: http://geiti.dyndns.org/feedback2 -- Please be aware that you will run into errors on some pages, I know they are there, and they are normal, feel free to report any real bugs or anything you don't like, and if it appears slow, it's because it's on my home server, which can only provide 1 mbit/s up.

Current (rough) to-do:
-snip-

yeah I don't think importing the old data into the new system is vital and good luck with your exams

 

[Geit]

So, just a quick update before I pop off to bed, I've updated the first post with some updated release estimates. These are a fair bit closer together than the original ones, however I'm confident that now I can work on this project full time, I should be able to meet them.

The first push will occur this week, with the release of Milestone 1, this will include most of the functionality of the original feedback panel, with the temporary remission of some functionality, most notably screenshot uploading and user groups, which will be added in early next week. This update should be mostly seamless if you're used to using TF2 Feedback, however old data will NOT imported, but will instead be available at an archive URL. -- I'll also be looking for some other communities to register their interest in the system and run the plugin on their servers, but there will be more information on this in the near future.

Also note, that some of the milestones may not meet their full specification critera at release, this is purely in the interest of getting the finished product into your hands as quickly as possible and iterating on your feedback, rather than my assumptions. Most, if not all, specification points will be finalized before the next milestone recieves it's first specification point.

Also, part of this project has been preliminarily approved for use as A level computing coursework, specifically the components related to heatmaps and the data storage, retrival and analysis procedures behind them. This doesn't mean much for you as the end users, but it does mean I can dedicated school resources and school time into developing it after the holidays are over, the end result will be (as estimated by the school) a 100~150 page report complete with user guides, specifications and annotated source code which I'll probably publish here after it's been moderated by the exam board some time next spring.

Exciting times are ahead, let's hope it all goes well!

 

[Pocket]

Yyler recommended that I bring this up here. It would be nice if Feedback tied in with the forum's database somehow and auto-posted everyone's feedback into the map's thread under their own forum accounts. This would allow mods to deal with uncivil feedback the same as if it had been posted here, as well as keeping the thread from becoming barren of all but creator comments as more and more people use the feedback system instead (a problem that's already starting to crop up).

A couple drawbacks that I could see: First of all, right now there's no Steam API set up on the forum to verify that users are actually who they claim to be on Steam. That would need to be sorted out. The second is that it would really only be useful for !gf comments at first, though once that screenshot engine of yours is working, the bot could be upgraded to snag and repost those too.

EDIT: OK, I just saw your timeframe estimates. Waiting for the screenshot engine to be finished before implementing this wouldn't be so bad, so I guess disregard that last point.

 

[EArkham]

If you do ever implement something like screenshots being added to a thread, please do it as a link to the picture rather than actual image tags. Threads would easily get clogged up and take ages to load otherwise.

I figure that might be an obvious thing already planned, but it can't hurt to mention it.

 

[Freyja]

I think maybe the plugin should do a conglomerate of posts on the map after every time it's played, rather than a single post from each person that comments. Otherwise, with a map getting upwards of 30 annotations every play, the thread would be spammed with just 1-line posts. You could pester Drp to maybe make a new "bot" account that can post in the corresponding map's thread with all the comments and corresponding screenshots.