I think a kill can like call of duty would be cool. I would also like to spectate to see my own grave and how people react to my death. If there was a mass death that would allow me to see that too.
There should be a kill cam and the ability to spectate after death
Urgle
#2
:knightthumb:
Maybe the spectate time varies if youâre a level 5 or a level 20 with a knight 7/8, and etc
= nope 
= yes
Skandling
#4
I think the objection (apart from someone having to write the code for it) would be it would mean someone else could not connect while you were doing it.
The main constraint on servers is network capacity. Itâs the sheer volume of data that dozens of players at 60fps generate, which has to be sent over the network to every player. Thatâs why it organises players into Realms. The limit on numbers of players per server (EU West, US West etc.) is quite high but normally you canât have more than 85 in the same game at once.
A spectator mode would have similar network requirements, and so count towards the player limits. Basically if lots of people were spectating lots would not be able to join. It only makes sense therefore if it was very short, a few seconds or so, before it kicked you back to the main screen. In which case is it really worth it?
Kalitaio
#6
There is already a spectator mode of sorts that was developed, however I do not know if DECA has access to old Kabam builds of the game, when it was implemented.
One of the first terrible decisions by Kabam was the Cursed Amulet of Zombification, which rendered all amulets nigh useless. When you died, you initially had a 5-10% chance of turning into a zombie instead of resurrecting. Then they turned this into 60%, and finally 100%, forever altering the Wild Shadow core gameplay loop. It wasnât even half a year into their ownership, and yet they soulbounded all UTs, removed the option to buy things for fame in the nexus, and broke the end game. If you canât tell, Iâm still salty about this, seven years later.
When you died and turned into a zombie, you would have a spectator mode of the zombie that took your place around your grave, as it wondered haphazardly in random directions with poor AI, as it tried to kill other players. The deathcam ended when you either clicked Accept Death, or when your zombie was killed, as it had somewhere along the lines of 1000 - 2000 hit points.
So the code for a death cam is already there, in the older builds of the game, and itâs not server intensive as @Skandling may suggest. I donât think OP is talking about a spectator mode that you can freely join, like TF2, but rather a deathcam of your own grave, post death, seeing chat, etc.
Skandling
#7
Er, it is server intensive. As you play the main communication with the server is updates to positions, shots fired, abilities used, status effects etc. But this is highly antisymmetric. Each client uploads only the data for 1 player. But it downloads data for all of them, as well as all enemies.
A spectator would not need to upload data. But it would still need to download data, which makes up almost all of your communication with the server. So a spectator would have as much impact on the server as a player, and count towards the 85 player limit and other limits.
I know the amulet used to do this. But it was very rare â even when it was dropping regularly I can remember seeing it only once in action â and was removed from the game soon after. And the game is more data intensive now, with more maxed players, more bullet-hell type enemies, faster paced play.
PrimeGrind
#8
Dude even if it counted towards the player count it canât be that server intensive. Whats one more player if there is already 80+ ppl there?
Leohe
#9
Well, all increments are 1 at a timeâŚ
@demonseye Might just be me but whatâs the point of a 5 second deathcam. Seems legit useless.
PrimeGrind
#10
Just make it so that the spectator counts towards the player cap, if it is so server intensive. Its not like 80 ppl are going to die and the dungeon gets full off of spectators.
Skandling
#11
In which case it should be strictly time limited. A few seconds, certainly much less than a minute. Enough time to screenshot your grave and see any other carnage in the aftermath of whatever killed you.
Kalitaio
#13
It is literally 1:1 to a regular player. I donât get why you think itâs server intensive. Player A is in Server S, in realm R. Player A is impacting the server normally. Player A dies. Player A spectates his own grave. A button appears to âaccept deathâ which brings you to the character fame stats screen. Player A is still impacting the servers as a player, taking in the same amount of data that you normally would. The only exception, is that the client is no longer sending any data back to the servers, since the character is dead. After they click the button to continue, or after x seconds, they disconnect from the servers and go to the character fame screen. They cannot spectate again, until they die again inside a realm/dungeon instance.
Initially it was a 5% chance. After a few patches, it was increased to 60%. Finally Kabam made it 100%. It doesnât matter how much more data is in the game, since this spectator mode impacts the server normally. You cannot have more than 85 players in a realm under normal conditions, save for hacking. A spectator, still counts as a player in server code, they simply cannot perform player actions, such as nexusing, using items, etc.
Nevov
#15
Something maybe worth mentioning about the zombie amulet deathcam-like feature that others have referenced, with the video above: this wasnât a completely new thing, but a spin on something already programmed in which was designed to help new players:
Once upon a time, a playerâs first death triggered a process similar to how the zombie thing worked (only with no zombie) and (I think) might even have given you one death for âfreeâ sending you back to the nexus (canât fully remember that, I could be mixing that with amulet-nexusing). There definitely was a âYou have died! Realm of the Mad God is a permadeath game blahblahblahâ message to teach about permadeath, the screen went grey, and it had a deathcam thing going on which lasted until you clicked âAccept Deathâ.
I canât remember completely as I only saw it occasionally if making a new mule (and failed/died during levelling). And no idea when this first death = teaching experience feature was added, and I couldnât see any references to it being added or removed on a quick look through the patch notes history just now. Possibly it was removed when the zombie amulet ended, as I seem to remember hearing of an avoid-death exploit connected to these things, but am uncertain.
Edit: below (left) is the text box that used to display when the first death happened, you can compare it to the one clipped from the zombie vid (right) to see itâs what they started with, only with the text altered to zombify it. This went hand-in-hand with the dying/deathcam thing that the zombie amulet also made use of:
*disclaimer: I have mild suspicion that the âAccept Deathâ text in the left one is not fully authentic, as this screenshot relates to a p2w resurrection idea topic off the old Kabam forums.
So anyway the point is, yes the zombie deathcam thing is (was) already kinda programmed into the game, even before it was used as the zombie thing, and if such a thing is (was) possible in the old days it shouldnât be too hard to hatchet it into an actual deathcam feature, which would be a cool addition.
[Edits edits Iâm out of practice posting, sorry!]
Kalitaio
#16
Ah I barely remember this, but now that you bring it up, itâs faintly on the back of my mind. I canât place this though⌠chronologically. Cursed Amulets were added in fall of 2012. This death screen wasnât in the game when Kabam took over in mid 2012. And it definitely wasnât in the first hundred or so builds of realm in late 2010 - early 2011.
So perhaps it was a feature of mid 2011 to early 2012?
BaadGuy
#17
This is true, it indeed happened that way. But while you were in that screen, your game rubberbanded forever, as if you had lost your internet connection.
Itâs also the main reason people used to create alts, to max 8/8s and use their two lives.
I donât understand why Skandling mentions how server intensive this would be. It isnât really a concern. Even if 20 people died at the same time, nothing would happen.
Skandling
#18
Because of the nature of each clientâs communication with the server. The client uploads one set of data â your position and whether you are shooting, when you use your ability, etc. That only needs a few bytes every frame.
But it needs to download much more. It needs to download similar data to the data it uploaded, but multiplied by the up to 84 other players in the area. It also needs to download data for any enemies, some of which generate a lot of data for shots, data for the landscape if you are moving, messages and chat, etc.
A spectator does not need to upload data. But it still needs to download data. The uploaded data is so small it is in insignificant: in effect each spectator uses as much bandwidth as a normal player.
Bandwidth is the main constraint on server capacity. The 85 player limit is there for a reason, and is probably too low for the current high-paced game. If each spectator needs as much bandwidth as a normal player, then each spectator would block a normal player from joining.
There is an easy fix: limit it to only a few seconds. Just long enough to see why you died, if you were suprised by it, and to record or screenshot your grave.
BaadGuy
#19
I get it, you are talking about unlimited spectating. But it seems to me like OP suggested exactly what you were saying, when he mentions a âcod-likeâ kill cam. 15 seconds of spectating wouldnât do anything bad.
Besides, you commonly see crowded realms with 90-100+ players (/who) and they wonât lag or crashâŚ
system
#20
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