RTB Development

[Ephialtes]

IMO I don't think public rooms will be used enough to justify all those categories, they will just end up looking empty and dead. Not sure categories should be such a big thing, after the first few weeks of people trying it out, I doubt there will be enough rooms to warrant them.

By categories it's more of a filter mechanism than a display mechanism, so it's just a way of indicating the content of the room:



Then you can choose which to show/hide:

[Ad Bot]

[Bester Bageler]

Thinking about categories for player chat rooms at the moment to help with filtering. I've got the following I've come up with:

 Clans
 Servers
 Modding
 General
 Drama
 Help
 Off-Topic

They're legit just categories I've pulled out of my ass so suggestions for different categories would be awesome if anyone's got any ideas about what they'd use their chatroom for.

Add in the two following

research
Building

[elm]

Yeah, work on some other feature. That's a waste of time, because like lub said, after a week nobody will use them.

[Ephialtes]

Yeah, work on some other feature. That's a waste of time, because like lub said, after a week nobody will use them.

Well you've got to pick one so people are always going to use it, and if they have to pick one then they're probably going to pick the one that best describes the function of the room. The work involved is trivial and I think it still helps in describing the purpose of the room short of a full-blown user-written description.

[-Jetz-]

Definitely, but that's not a category. On that topic however, how do people think invite-only rooms should work? Would it essentially be an access list of permitted people or a one-time one-use invite to the room that expires once you leave?

Is "Both" an option? Like have a list of people who are always allowed but having the option to invite outsiders?

[Ephialtes]

Is "Both" an option? Like have a list of people who are always allowed but having the option to invite outsiders?

Yeah that'd be good. I kinda underestimated the complexity of room access control I think. What I'm going to go for at the moment is:

 1. Rooms can either be public/private.
 2. Private rooms can have a list of always-permitted users.
 3. Private rooms can have an option to "allow invitations" to be sent from either users/mods/admins/owner.

I think that meets all the requirements?

[Evar678]

Is there an option to join the chatroom when you connect with RTB?

[DontCare4Free]

Yeah that'd be good. I kinda underestimated the complexity of room access control I think. What I'm going to go for at the moment is:

 1. Rooms can either be public/private.
 2. Private rooms can have a list of always-permitted users.
 3. Private rooms can have an option to "allow invitations" to be sent from either users/mods/admins/owner.

I think that meets all the requirements?

I think it depends on whether private rooms are persistent. It doesn't really make sense to have persistent-ish options (such as a permanent ACL) for non-persistent rooms.

[Ephialtes]

I think it depends on whether private rooms are persistent. It doesn't really make sense to have persistent-ish options (such as a permanent ACL) for non-persistent rooms.

Rooms are going to have a persistence flag that can be toggled by service admins. I'm not sure yet if that's going to default to on or not. The initial idea was to have all rooms non-persistent and the outstandingly good ones be granted a persistence flag. I'll have to have a think about that.

Is there an option to join the chatroom when you connect with RTB?

Click the settings icon of the chatroom window when you're in one and there are further options specific to that room.

[Greek2me]

Rooms are going to have a persistence flag that can be toggled by service admins. I'm not sure yet if that's going to default to on or not. The initial idea was to have all rooms non-persistent and the outstandingly good ones be granted a persistence flag. I'll have to have a think about that.

I think they should be persistent by default. It wouldn't take up very much space on the server.

[Ephialtes]

It's more a case of encouraging users to congregate in larger groups within fewer rooms instead of hundreds of rooms each with a couple of people in.

Plus I imagine the room browser would turn into a bit of a ghost town when people create a room then abandon it without deleting it or anything. There's an obvious solution to that by just doing a cleanup of rooms with no activity for X days but the first issue is one I'm a bit concerned about.

[Scout31]

You could do something similar to skype - You're in a group conversation until you're either kicked or leave, and once all the participants have left or an identical group has been created, the group gets deleted.

[Altiris]

Yeah I think thats the best way. I don't think it should be kept persistent at all mostly because its just a waste of resources or something. If everyone leaves than the chatroom goes bye bye, it works like this on Skype and Xbox Live and we all find it "normal" and acceptable.

[Greek2me]

You could do something similar to skype - You're in a group conversation until you're either kicked or leave, and once all the participants have left or an identical group has been created, the group gets deleted.

Yes, this is definitely the best way. There could also be a way for the RTB admin to mark it as persistent, even when people leave.

[Chrono]

It's more a case of encouraging users to congregate in larger groups within fewer rooms instead of hundreds of rooms each with a couple of people in.

Plus I imagine the room browser would turn into a bit of a ghost town when people create a room then abandon it without deleting it or anything. There's an obvious solution to that by just doing a cleanup of rooms with no activity for X days but the first issue is one I'm a bit concerned about.

Sort the chat rooms by number of players by default?