Announcing the Valr community alpha

Discussion in 'Public Discussion' started by Imbick, Mar 30, 2014.

  1. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant
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    At the start of October 2013 I began developing some software intended to help work around some of the restrictions present in PlanetSide 2.

    Specifically;
    • Enable simple and rich inter-platoon and inter-outfit communication and coordination.
    • Remove the hard limits set on the number of units and members that can be commanded by any one player.

    Once I got the tool to a satisfactory feature set, I began to bring members of our community into the development process to help guide its progress and shape how the tool will likely be used and flesh out anything it may be required to provide. After several rounds of these presentations I then set about implementing the suggestions and polishing the app ready for a (community wide) alpha release.

    This is where I need the help of Trident members.

    The staging version of the application can be accessed from the following URL:
    http://staging.psk.adamjamesnaylor.com
    If you're still scratching your head as to what this is all about try the about page. If still unclear I'll be starting some threads in the forum where you can drop me some questions and I'll bring you up to speed as best I can. In the near future I'll be putting together some resources to better demonstrate the purpose of the app rather than explaining it.

    Please feel free to take a look and play around.

    First thing you'll realise is that this is an entirely web-based app. Meaning:
    • No download.
    • Works everywhere.
    • + all the countless benefits the web brings.

    Feedback
    Feedback is essential at this stage. Which is why, structuring that feedback is essential. I have implemented a User-Echo system into the app which will allow you to feedback easily and contextually. It will also allow me to keep tabs on all the feedback and keep you updated on any progress. Please don't hold back! I need both positive and negative feedback. I need everyones opinions here, large and small, low-ranking and high.

    The first piece of feedback I need is a name. The working title for the app was PlanetSideKick, but I currently feel this is a little cheesy. Hence I have renamed it Valr (for now). Plus the app will eventually be expanded to support any tactical multi-player game (next plans are Star Citizen) so at least part of the name needs to be game agnostic. Like SideKick in the first example.

    Please bare in mind that this is an early access preview to a very unfinished product. Please critique it as you would a finished product but don't depend upon it as I make no guarantee as to stability or consistency during this early phase.

    The data stored is as secure as I can make it. No personal info is collected (other than what you enter) and any and all passwords are not stored in plain text meaning myself nor any-one who may get their hands on the data will be able to read them. Eventually I intend to host the site over SSL meaning all communications will be encrypted, further protecting your information.

    Competitors
    I am aware of a number of apps and developments that are similar to PSK. If you guys are aware of anything that is even remotely similar could you post them and I'll collate them here:

    Disclaimers
    My goal here is to help players in the spirit of the game. I played with the idea of trying to gather helpful information like your current location by using techniques like packet sniffing or memory scrapping but in my mind this is too close to hacking and will be treated as such.

    The tool will be limited to Trident for the near future, and once mature enough it will be opened up to every outfit on every server. At that point the database will contain a lot of valuable and sensitive data. None of which will be used by myself or third parties other than to improve the system where necessary.

    Also, this app is currently running off a small server at home so it may get a little slow. Especially if it's left idle for some time or if it experiences load. Please bare with it. If things prove popular then I will be forking out for some commercial hosting.




    Thank you for taking the time to read this (and hopefully taking part) and I truly hope you enjoy using this tool.


    Adam
    A.K.A. Deus

    With special thanks to Dinger, slightjunky and JackJack and many others.
     
  2. Zhorts

    Zhorts Lieutenant
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    Uhm... if you intend for it to be tested by Trident-only for now as you stated, posting it in Public discussion may not be the best idea... :)
     
  3. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    I'm not precious about it.

    Any other feedback?
     
  4. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    Sooo I'm guessing (hoping) everyone's having issues testing the app so here's a quick video that might shed some light:



    Please reply here if you have any questions or issues. No matter how small.

    Thanks.
     
  5. Vincentiusx

    Vincentiusx Lieutenant
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    Looks very impressive, good job. :)
    I don't play PS2 that much though, so won't be giving you any feedback I'm afraid.
     
  6. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    Thank you Vincentiusx, very much appreciated.

    I'll start a new thread soon asking which game players would like to see this app developed for in the future.
     
  7. aigroti

    aigroti Lieutenant
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    If you could get this as a hud so people don't need to alt tab out of the game to use it I can see this being used in Server Smash.
     
  8. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    Thanks aigroti.

    The 'second monitor' problem is something I've been actively designing around since the offset. The plan is to make the site work on mobile and tablet devices (with minimal friction for the user) so alt-tabbing and/or second monitors aren't strictly required.

    I'm interested to hear what your thoughts on this are?

    Edit: I'm now wondering if this was not obvious from the start. As a lot of people could dismiss this app if they didn't realise it could be used on the mobile devices... Hopefully this clears that up and assuages any fears.
     
  9. JoeJay

    JoeJay Lieutenant
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    Making this into an overlay, similar to mumble would be really cool and handy for PLs, since they won't be playing that seriously. It's looking really cool so far and I'd love to see the mobile device support if it comes for iOS :)
     
  10. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    Thanks for the fantastic feedback everyone. Keep it coming.

    Regarding an overlay, I have tested the app running inside the Steam in-game web browser. And due to the fact that the browser is based off of WebKit (powers Safari and early versions of Chrome) the app actually runs as well as on the desktop. Spare a few styling issues which would have been fixed when I test on the desktop version of Safari anyhow. All of the interaction works really well. So this is an option for anyone who wants to run the app strictly from within the game.

    Now this isn't really an overlay. You will still need to press the steam hotkey [shift] + [tab] to access the app but it's certainly a minor step.

    Providing a true overlay for Valr is certainly something I'd love to provide. I am currently unaware of an easy way to achieve this without hand writing a DirectX/OpenGL hook or something. Which I suspect is how Mumble et. al. achieve it. Also there may be some steam API that I can leverage to provide notifications to users perhaps but this would then require a download - not out of the question, it's just an important decision to make.

    Try it out in the steam in-game browser and let me know how you get on. I was actually surprised how well it worked!

    Thanks again.
     
  11. Using the steam hud is fine although a lot of players use Pro sieben so I'm not sure what their work around is (unless of course they just add it to their list of non-steam games in the library).

    I think to get the most use out of this is to pitch it to the Server Smash teams though. The one this Saturday has 5 platoons on each side so something like this is perfect for it. I'm not sure they'll be interested this time as it's short notice but as soon as it's over you could give it a shot.

    You could also try adding a voice comm system onto the program. There are already tons of browser based sites that let you use voice chat by simply loading the same webpage as someone else so I don't think it's too complicated.
     
  12. Perbert

    Perbert Sergeant
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    Found another good way to use this while in game, although it would require download. Overwolf has a smart overlay browser, it seems to come as an extension to teamspeak so a lot of ppl would already have it

    [​IMG]
     
  13. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    That's awesome thanks for the info Perbert. I'll take a look.
     
  14. TronManForever

    TronManForever Lieutenant
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    good work here , GJ !!!
     
  15. WOW, that looks really awesome!

    Maybe we could use this if we play another SeverSmash with more than 3 Platoons? That would really help us and the only reason we lost the last one was because of Communication...
     
  16. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    Glad you picked that up Daninator and thanks for the appreciation.
    That is exactly what this app is designed to solve.

    When you have many platoons needing strong leadership and communication.

    My next step is to get this used by a large group like in a ServerSmash, but wondered if it would be better to test it in a less competitive setting first to iron out any kinks? What do you think?
     
  17. Skaara

    Skaara Lieutenant
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    Just be careful if you do intend to go down he Overlay route, I did allot of research into this when I started the Trident Desktop app and It would seem that using DX hooks can get you banned in most games unless the game creator white lists your application
     
  18. Imbick

    Imbick Lieutenant

    Thanks for the advice Skaara. You're right about anti-cheat software potentially picking this up. For now I won't be persuing it as in-game browser's are becoming very mature - and as this is a web app it is a very natural choice.

    One thing I'll do is get feedback from users as to how they would prefer to use it.

    Thanks again.
     
  19. I'd say post this onto the reddit/r/ps2cobalt subreddit to get more attention from other platoon leaders.

    Have you looked into adding voice comms to it using browser links? Your program seems to already use the same method to connect. I'm not sure if that's too complicated it could be a nice end goal though being able to use different hotkeys to talk to different rooms/people or simply click another group/platoon on the list to enter their chat room.
     
  20. Perbert

    Perbert Sergeant Donator

    https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/ind ... ts.177960/

    It seems like SOE is working on "companies"

     
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