FreeGameDev

Networking Lobby -- Interfac related part

Next to the multiplayer button on the main menu state screen, a new button for online play will be added. When selecting the latter a user is confronted with a new menu consisting out of the following:

A login screen with a link to the registration form and a recovery option. This will be replaced by a “Profile” button when the user is signed in.
A “Quick play” button, that will automatically select the best game for a user. (More on that later.)
A “Find server” button that will link to the server-selection interface.
A “Create server” button that will allow a user to start his own room. (Only when signed in: this is the easiest way to prevent people of making thousands of servers which would overload the addon server.)

The server-selection interface will include a table containing all open games together with the following attributes:

Name of the room
Current game-mode
Number of currently active players.
Maximum number of players allowed.
Latency
Satisfaction score (Further details will follow.)

It is possible to sort on the attributes, by clicking on them in the header of the table. Filtering options will also be available (e.g. latency < X ms, max. number of players < Y), together with a small search bar to look for a certain server on name. Registered users can also filter to only include games from friends.

To join a game, a user simply has to click on a server in the list and additional details including the description will pop up, together with a “Join” and “Cancel” button.

Creating a server will present the user with a form to fill in the attributes mentioned before together with restriction options like password protection and accessibility. (Open for all – Open for all but anonymous players – Friends only)

The actual lobby lists all players present, together with a chat application and the details of the next game. The players will be able to toggle to a ready state, so that the host can start the game only when a certain threshold of ready players has been reached. This threshold will be based on the satisfaction score of the host.

The host is able to edit the attributes, as well as selecting the next track, number of laps and AI karts. Any change will reset all ready-toggles to false. He also has the ability to kick and ban any user by clicking on the username and selecting the corresponding option.

All players will have the ability to invite friends to the room. The players, excluding the host, will have the option to vote for the room. An up-vote will resemble a good host, who takes in mind the wishes of the users. A down-vote can be given when there is suspicion of a patched version of the software. This rating (previously defined as satisfactionscore), will be associated with the host and is shown in the server-selection list.

This score, in combination with latency, will also be used to determine which server a user joins when going for the Quick Play option. The user will then only have to select a game-mode (though random will be an option). The default order in the server-list will also be based on this principle.

The profile of a player will consist out of different sections, with a navigation bar on the top. The different sections would be:

A default overview
Notifications : for friend requests, challenges and invites.
Friends
Statistics & Achievements
Settings : e.g. change password

Of course when visiting someone else his profile, the notification and settings sections won't be showed. An option to send a friend- and challenge request however will be provided, as well as a “Join game” option if possible.

Anywhere in the application, except during a race, a pop-up will be shown when a new notification comes in together with applicable actions. Users will also get notified this way when an achievement is reached after a race. During a race, newly accomplished achievements will be shown using the existing interface at the bottom of the screen.

Clicking on any username (in the lobby, friends-list...) will give a pop-up with certain details about that user as well as some options :

Send friend-invite. (If not yet a friend.)
Join game. (If that user is in a game, it's joinable and they're not already in the same game.)
View profile. (If a user is in a game-lobby at the moment, a warning shall be shown that the user will leave the lobby.)
Hosts of a game-server, will have the extra option to kick and ban a user in their lobby.

This feature, including visiting profiles in general will be excluded for anonymous users.

Challenge friend with ghost race

When challenging a friend, the user records a ghost race and sends it to the server. The friend will get notified, and has the opportunity to beat the challenge. With this feature there is already some interaction between users without having the actual online racing experience. Scores will be maintained and to make it more competitive we can add an option to allow only one attempt to record and beat a ghost-race per challenge.
Votes for add-ons

Since user accounts will now be available in-game, it's only a small effort to include voting for add-ons.

Achievements

To have extra goals for the user and something to show-case to others, achievements are a fun addition. A decent amount of achievements will be added as part of the project, but the main goal is to add a base layer to easily add new achievements later on. How we will achieve this can be found in the implementation details.

A button for online play on the main state screen. (Big icon)
Buttons for the profile : overview, friends, achievements, notifications, settings (small icons)
Buttons for the online play screen : Quick play, search server, create server, Sign In, Sign up (big icons) [Especially here I'm not 100% sure of the lay-out]

Uni {l Wrote}:Disabling networking will be an option, but it's of no high priority

tavariz91 {l Wrote}:You have the volunteer

Auria {l Wrote}:These icons look nice when they are so big, but in-game they will be much smaller than that. Maybe just remove the driving wheels and keep only the globe?