I think, that a sort of spectator mode should be an option for games. Before, the "game starting" window there could be a spectate button next to the ready button.This could be used for strategy development, or just if your tired, you could watcgh a game go on.In this mode, there is no fog of war, but you wouldn't be able to talk to the actual players. People could spectate even if the max amount of players had been met, because they wouldn't be contributing to the unit count.
Cool idea but i see at least one problem with this idea. If there is no Fog of War for the spectators than they can simply start helping out one team/player via Skype or some other thing like that and effectively cheat their way to victory.
You can delay the the spectators from getting into the game by 5 minutes or so. So they will be viewing the game 5 minutes behind the current time it is at. This will prevent cheating.
Well, even with a bit of delay it is still possible to cheat... People have to learn not to be dicks.
Seriously guys, spectator mode is not an uncommon thing, even with the possibility of cheating. Pretty much every RTS released in the past few years has had it in one form or another. I personally think it is extremely important, as it offers a way for people to get interested in playing on-line, without dropping them in at the deep end. PA seems to be built around some pretty innovative features in terms of observation and replays (e.g. Chronocam). Perhaps a dev could confirm, but I think I heard it mentioned that it will be perfectly possible for spectators to drop into a match at any point during it, and see how it is going. I would love the initial lobby to have a list of games that people can drop in on, and watch people play, as it would be a great way to encourage players to think about playing on-line without being worried about getting their asses handed to them by a more experienced gamer.
Spectator mode is awesome and will show up. We want to have a highlight reel at the end of the game that lets you chronocam the whole game and has notable events. That's basically speccy mode.
Any kind of spectator mode gives the possibility of cheating, but at some skill levels this is ok. I've lately been thinking about what other games have done to deal with this. Strategy games that currently allow spectator camera are often delayed by some amount of time based on the relative "speed" of the type of game it is. However for some games to truly prevent cheating from being an issue you may have to disable spectating during a game completely. For Counter Strike I remember they had several levels of spectating, and they might be different between if you were just spectating or were on a team after you died. * Full view of the game. Free cam, fixed camera positions through the level, or follow any player in first person or third person with full camera control. * View limited to fixed cameras. * View limited to team mates, first or third person view. * View limited to team mates, limited to first person view. * No view, screen is black. That plus some mixes of options based on how 'competitive' the server wanted to be. As is with the popularity of live streaming it may not even matter if we implement limits. There were games the day the alpha went live where I know people were playing games while watching the live stream of an opponent.
Love that. Only RTS has notable events is Age of Empires 1/2, but it's also got cool Timeline statistics view: Is there chance that you can do something like Timeline for PA?
