What does that mean?
- level starts at 12:00:00
- the spawn moments (except when first joining) are: 12:00:20, 12:00:40, 12:01:00 and so on. 20 seconds in between.
- if you die, or change class using F1, at 12:00:03, you'll be put in observation mode until clock strikes 12:00:20, that is for 17 seconds.
That works OK in theory. But, what happens in real life is that:
- because of the inherent server-client delays, the wait time is actually longer. Sometimes significantly longer
- if the clock is not that well implemented, it can chew up a lot of bandwidth, thus creating lag. For the whole server.
There are solutions for these issues: for the first one, we'll just reduce the wait time, to keep it to reasonable values (under 15 seconds, but long enough to encourage players to stay alive as long as possible). For the second one, we are already working on improving the timer. The work done so far looks promising.
As I mentioned, this feature does have an upside: since players spawn at the same time, attackers can group together and deliver a more coherent blow to the enemy base. Here is a video showing just that:
In this one, Alien Grand Master wreaks havoc in the blue base, while I sneak in to steal the flag.
Now, all that needs to be done is to take care of the downsides of this new feature. As mentioned already, we have started working on it already, so the next test should get a much better feedback.
Until the new beta with the fixed timer comes, you can view all the clips I recorded here:
- Herr_Alien
It's always fun to look at your videos. This mod offers great gameplay.
Though, the music is so annoying...
I take it you're talking about the 'Aliens' music?
Well, yeah, I guess it could be annoying. I'm myself a big Alien fan (most people helping me test this are), so the music fits the map like a glove fits a hand.
It could be annoying for others though, I have to admit that :)