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Chobby Alpha Release 2 (Testers wanted)

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7 years ago
The time has come for our second Chobby alpha release. The multiplayer aspect of the lobby is close to feature-complete and it is as usable as any of the current lobbies. The important thing now is to get users and testers. CZrankAdminLicho is on board with replacing ZKL so I want to get enough testing to justify Chobby as the default. Testing among forum people is the first step, once it appears to work for the communicative people we can move on to apply Chobby for everyone.

Perhaps the biggest change since the last test release is the integration of the lobby and the game. The main menu is, in a sense, an overlay of the game. This allows for features such as displaying your matchmaker progress while spectating a game and having the "Game Found" popup occur over the game. This is a little more restrictive for power users but that is far outweighed by the simplicity and professionalism that a single program provides. I have tried to make it flexible wherever possible and the lobby can still be reduced to IRC window size when the game is not running.

Download Chobby here: http://zero-k.info/lobby/chobby.exe There are a few ways to use this download.

The most reliable way to run Chobby is to put chobby.exe in an empty, writable, folder and run it. It will download chobby and the required engine. Chobby itself will then download maps and games as required. The downside of this method is that you'll have to download all the maps and your settings will not be there. This can be mitigated by copying your maps and luaUI folder from 'My Games/Spring' to whichever folder you put chobby.exe in.

The other way to run chobby is to put chobby.exe directly in 'My Games/Spring' (or wherever your lobby sits). This will maintain all your settings and maps but these settings might clash with chobby.

Some of the new screens:


Here is the previous release thread: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/22781
+15 / -0

7 years ago
Testing this now. Nobody is playing or waiting. There is nothing to watch either. I will try every now and then.
+0 / -0
I decided to put chobby into my games/spring.
Settings were not entirely kept (most notably, setting for local widgets and UI layout)
Maps were not all detected properly, icy longrun v2 beta3 was considered 'not available'. When I joined the running game directly through the 'watch' tab, there was no issue joining.

The battle still reports the minimap as missing:

http://imgur.com/a/umJ5Q

Also, if you use the printscreen button in the menu while spectating a game, it produces a picture of the game, not of the menu.

If possible I would like a way to easily access my profile, and that of other players (For example if I want to steal someone's commander layout).

Edit:

I just tried to exit the lobby on autopilot, and logged out instead.
+0 / -0
Skasi
Noticed while looking at the screenshot: "Anti Aliasing" should say "2x" or whatever instead of "Low". Actually, most options should probably provide numbers as long as they make sense.
+7 / -0
snoke
seems really nice and works fine for me already

the download tab made a nice first look,
qeue seems not editable yet to not download unwanted already changed maps

subjective to design i can the secondary right tabs seem same size as the main tab in the middle, could be a little bit smaller (as well as font size maybe) to keep it secondary (chat takes as much attraction as simple "i just want to play" relevant content ...,tabs,buttons,captions), also a matching chili skin could be a thing.
edit: just saw the other panel mode i like =)
+0 / -0


7 years ago
Yeah exit not being top right is confusing.

Logout should be very rare action, especially after this all is tied to steam account.

Login info and logout could be bottom left (swap with exit) and logout much less prominent imo.
+0 / -0

7 years ago
Works fine for me. After game engine + map download is complete, I had to quit and restart chobby in order to have the green check instead of the red cross.
+0 / -0

7 years ago
Now, I got a crash after rejoining a game : http://pastebin.com/wqnHZCUk
+0 / -0
7 years ago
Works great ! (tested now on 3 linux distros) I experience less crashes after downloading and it's running really smooth now.
Still i think this two major options are missing :
-A better map viewer, with options to swap and change start positions ( + metal & height map ?)
-A way to remove teams. One can add teams, but not remove 'em.

For now, i can't launch a singleplayer 'chickens' map because start positions are swapped. I end up starting in chicken territory.
Any way to fix this ingame ?
+0 / -0
I chose 2nd option and copied chobby.exe into existing Zero-K folder that has engine, maps, and everything.
Created new room, type=coop, added chickens, play. Crash on game loading: http://pastebin.com/fcPHLnaw

2nd try.
Created new dir "Chobby", copied chobby.exe there.
Chat works, but clean install is boring: downloading data for 30 minutes...
Downloads tab has repeatable items in queue (after sitting in room that was restarted several times, yet downloading initial data), like:
quote:

Queue:
* Absolution 2
* Zero-K v1.4.9.3
* Zero-K v1.4.9.3
* Zero-K v1.4.9.3
* Absolution 2
* Absolution 2
* Absolution 2
* Zero-K v1.4.9.3
* Absolution 2
Complete
...

Finished downloads, had to restart chobby because red cross. Then I was able to join/spec a game. Seems clean install works without crashes so far.
+0 / -0


7 years ago
Thanks for the feedback.

UAranklamer your crash is now fixed.

Skasi you should try it before commenting. My guess is that few people even know what Anti Aliasing means, let alone what x2 or x4 means.

FRrankBlackdutchie what do you mean when you say icy longrun v2 beta3 was not available? Did you need to redownload it before you could play? There is a bid difference between whether a map has been downloaded and whether its minimap is available. Currently the minimaps for the featured maps are staticly included in chobby because unpacking files to find minimaps is low priority and may receive better engine support in the future. Besides, this problem has a few different Alexandrian solutions.

The print screen problem is just that weirdness which sometimes causes programs to not update the data they send to printscreen. I find switching focus a few times causes print screen to work correctly on Spring.

FIrankVermind I don't understand any of what you mean. Nobody playing or waiting seems like a problem independent of chobby.
+0 / -0
Skasi
quote:
My guess is that few people even know what Anti Aliasing means, let alone what x2 or x4 means

Yet many do. You can explain it in a mouseover and provide an example screenshot. Most games lack that.
+0 / -0


7 years ago
FRrankBlackdutchie I've added a user page link to the dropdown menu that appears when you click on a player.

FRrankgrfwoot I have fixed your team number problem. The teams you set up in the Skirmish menu will correspond to the boxes ingame. Thankfully, for the chickens maps I tested, Team 1 is the player team and Team 2 is for the chickens.
+0 / -0


7 years ago
quote:
My guess is that few people even know what Anti Aliasing means, let alone what x2 or x4 means.

The industry practice seems to be to let advanced gfx settings be quite technical, mainstream games will let you even pick between MSAA, FXAA, etc.

Battlefield 3: [Spoiler] Even I have no clue what HBAO means.

The idea I think is that most people will just use the big low-medium-high-ultra selector and people who are willing to tinker with individual settings must be the types who are dedicated enough to read up on things.
+0 / -0

7 years ago
will try when I have time
+0 / -0
1)
Skirmish ->adv option ->cratermult=0 ->option doesnt apply(tested on speed donut 10x10)
seems other adv options doesnt work too.
2)
i use lobby in windowed mode.
after every game exit lobby window shrinks from 1696x1036 to 846x815.
3)
chobby\AI\Skirmish\CircuitAI contains 3 folders:
0.9.8
0.9.3
0.9.4
lobby show only 0.9.3
+0 / -0


7 years ago
FRrankSlaab I may have fixed your error. RUranks36 it turns out I forget to send modoptions to the skirmish launcher, it was easy to fix.
+0 / -0
I have released a version which takes much of the above into account. The wrapper (chobby.exe) automatically downloads the latest release version. There are also other fixes and changes. ATrankhokomoko thought the chat font was too small so I increased it and added a slider.

I intend to have tooltips for the settings. It sounds like a good task for someone else.
+1 / -0
7 years ago
I tested it. Very nice - a lot better than ZKL. Great job!
+2 / -0
I have encountered the following problem when using the latest version of Chobby:

- Chobby & game are configured to use "Fullscreen Window" mode (1920x1174 instead of 1920x1200)
- Chobby works fine and I can start a skirmish battle
- the ingame UI seems to be "shifted" (looks like the 26 pixels caused by the windowed mode)
- see https://imgur.com/a/K9hd2 (the mouse cursor was next to the top-left corner of the popup window)
- however: the "Guardian Trainer" is selected instead of the "Strike Trainer" (apparently only the rendering is wrong - spring knows where the UI items are supposed to be)
- Chobby suffers from the same problem if I exit the game and return to the lobby

PS: I am using Linux
+0 / -0
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