Replay option

[TheSkirmishLord]

It would be nice to replay either a single player or multiplayer game with access to the battle data that you have while actually playing the game.

I asked about this when the game first came out and was told that it was on the developers wish list but that it would be a lot of work to create the option.

It's been awhile since then.

Is there any plan to actually implement this feature ?

If so, is there any time line as to when it will be completed ?

If not, is there any plan to work on it in the future ?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

[lapdog666]

i d like that alot but trust me , they wont do it. not in this decade

and the real time multiplayer also, never

[pipfromslitherine]

Full game replays are actually on my tasklist, but as you have said it is a considerable task. Mainly the task of maintaining the save data (often you don't know whether you want a replay until the end of the game - but that means all the savegames (including MP) would balloon massively to maintain some kind of robustness, and to keep synced with the way the game expects playbacks to work).

Another issue is that things would likely break if the scripts/rules/data updated during a game, as the replays would expect to play out based on their initial rules and could likely end up with incorrect end states etc. So it is a feature with a lot of moving parts - while being one which some people would use a lot, but most people would use not at all

Cheers

Pip

[SnuggleBunnies]

It would be great to be able to watch battles from fellow players in various tournaments. For the League, for example, uploading loss win % and a replay would be great.

[melm]

Mainly the task of maintaining the save data (often you don't know whether you want a replay until the end of the game - but that means all the savegames (including MP) would balloon massively to maintain some kind of robustness, and to keep synced with the way the game expects playbacks to work).

How large a file could a save be?

Another issue is that things would likely break if the scripts/rules/data updated during a game, as the replays would expect to play out based on their initial rules and could likely end up with incorrect end states etc.

That's all right. Other games in the industry don't always keep replay working. Once updated, replay is outdated. In fact, the game doesn't update very frequently.

Furthermore, replay is kind of crucial for adjudication. Loss report with some description may not provide enough information.
And a replay is easy for youtuber to record a continuous match to advertise this great game.

[Juger Gonzo]

Yeah guys, replay and real time MP, would be great add.

[TheSkirmishLord]

@Pip
I have to disagree with your assumption that most people would never use the replay option.
I think that most players WOULD use it, especially when first playing, to see where they made errors in their gameplay.
Many players give up on a game if they can't get their head around the basic principles of it. I think this feature would help them and increase your player base.
It would also be a great advertising tool as mentioned by melm in a previous post since great games could be replayed for others to watch. From a personal viewpoint, it was early youtube battles that were posted before the game's release that prompted me to buy it.
Given that, I think the replay feature would yield more benefits than you think.

I appreciate that it's a difficult task and am VERY glad to see that the feature is still being considered.

[nyczar]

I would definitely use a replay feature to improve my game play. That would indeed be a great value add, Hell if it was inexpensive, less than $10 US, I would pay to see some games between our wizards. Even more if there was a little voice over.

While I am not in IT, my boss wears a couple of hats, one of which is IT so I have heard aplenty the need for cost benefit analysis to justify any hour invested in coding. Here is what i would tell him: If replays were housed in a library there could be a tiered approach to accessibility. At an essential level, designed to illuminate the subtlety of FOG for newbies, the community would have access to any games recorded from B or lower level divisional play. The "A" division replays could be gated and monetized with pricing based on the depth of the library. Plus there would have to be games there by Lundendorf, pantherboy, Nosy_Rat, ruskicanuk; etc. to make it worth it. Then there is indeed the intangible, but I imagine more easily tracked, value of traffic being driven to the Steam or Slitherine FOG web page for purchase from replay content linked to in other websites.

If you accept the premise that anyone who plays Chess or Go is the target segment of FOG, I imagine the possible Market for FOG is huge. Serious players of go and chess will read and watch tons to improve their game play. A content library of recording games, properly marketed, would go a long way to driving consideration and purchase of the base game and could be monetized as well for purchase by those already in the community.

[Swuul]

Full game replays are actually on my tasklist, but as you have said it is a considerable task. Mainly the task of maintaining the save data (often you don't know whether you want a replay until the end of the game - but that means all the savegames (including MP) would balloon massively to maintain some kind of robustness, and to keep synced with the way the game expects playbacks to work).

Many games save only the last game replayed to tackle that issue. With FoG2 the problem is of course that there can be several games going on at the same time. But it sure would be a nice feature to have in the game

[kronenblatt]

I'd like to have the replay functionality as well. But I appreciate that not all people do, or not even many people.

Maybe a Replay DLC that people interested enough to be willing to pay for it actually pay for it? In order to increase the chances to make it happen. I could even consider signing up in advance to help finance the DLC.

[76mm]

I would like this features as well, as it would allow me to up my game by watching the best players beat up on someone other than me.

[SnuggleBunnies]

Yes, for now the only recourse is to upload games to YouTube, which I will do for my league games. If a replay feature were created, being able to download other people's games would be great. It would also make the process of uploading video to YouTube easier - the change being the commentary would be retrospective instead of in real time, which would perhaps be less useful. It would also be useful for all the various debates that occur on these forums - instead of arguing from anecdotal evidence, you could do something like downloading and analyzing all of the games in Classical Antiquity Division A - though of course actually watching them all would take a ton of time.

If this feature is indeed possible and financially viable to create, I wouldn't expect it to be a paid DLC - some of us (myself included) would be willing to pay, of course, but that's the sort of feature that would annoy more people - "why isn't it just patched in?" I think putting it behind a paywall would probably be a bad move from a PR standpoint.

[kronenblatt]

If this feature is indeed possible and financially viable to create, I wouldn't expect it to be a paid DLC - some of us (myself included) would be willing to pay, of course, but that's the sort of feature that would annoy more people - "why isn't it just patched in?" I think putting it behind a paywall would probably be a bad move from a PR standpoint.

True, some people may expect to get it for free and may get annoyed if they don't. But then again: what would be different from now? They don't have it now either.

And if it takes a paid DLC to make this happen, it is definitely worth it, in my view. After all, there's a reason that the feature hasn't materialised yet; that it has to be prioritised when it comes to financing development resources.

Hopefully though it can be made for free and included in a forthcoming patch.

[telesien]

I would love this feature.

Both Blood Bowl games by Cyanide have this and it is great way to analyze your past games or games played by others.

It would IMHO be worth it even when updating game rules would destroy the past replays

[MikeC_81]

Full game replays are actually on my tasklist, but as you have said it is a considerable task. Mainly the task of maintaining the save data (often you don't know whether you want a replay until the end of the game - but that means all the savegames (including MP) would balloon massively to maintain some kind of robustness, and to keep synced with the way the game expects playbacks to work).

As I have suggested before, you could simply keep saved games as is and make the replay file a client-side only feature that has to be turned on at the start of the game. It doesn't even need to be feature-rich. Just enough for us to replay the battle from the start to the end using the existing engine by which saved turns are replayed to us at the moment. That way Slitherine doesn't need to change any of its PBEM function or put any additional load on its PBEM server. It would all be client-side and you could even make it a permanent beta feature which is not officially sanctioned or supported to the degree the rest of the game would.

There is plenty of precedence for this in the industry where user-requested features, not originally part of the game, are put out in such a way to limit liability to the developer should complaints arise about the feature while allowing players something that has been repeatedly requested.

[pipfromslitherine]

It's been my experience that, even with those caveats made clear, we would just be dealing with tech support or complaint issues if we put in something half-cocked. It would also be a shame to not have it for MP, where I think it would get most use and attention.

Cheers

Pip

[MikeC_81]

It's been my experience that, even with those caveats made clear, we would just be dealing with tech support or complaint issues if we put in something half-cocked. It would also be a shame to not have it for MP, where I think it would get most use and attention.

Cheers

Pip

You could still have it on for MP. The game could read the incoming save, see that the replay feature is flagged true along with the replay name file, and begin appending to it until the turn is shipped back to the server. The other reason I understand but don't agree with. Gating the option behind an exe parameter that a user has to manually go in and enter themselves to even see the option to add a replay file would be more than enough of a deterrent to the casual user from stumbling on it and generating unwanted complaints.

[SimonLancaster]

I think people are overcomplicating things a bit. Yes, have replays for players. Quite a few strategy games offer this feature. But, creating replays that others can access is a whole different ball game. I play Total War games and a replay is just for you to see. If you want to put up the replay somewhere then you have to extract the file off your hard drive and then post up yourself on Discord, for example. It isn’t all in-game.

At this point in time, after a few years of the games’s release, I would just campaign for a standard replay because even that might never happen!

[kronenblatt]

If you want to put up the replay somewhere then you have to extract the file off your hard drive and then post up yourself on Discord, for example. It isn’t all in-game.

Totally agree: this is a viable solution in order to not make it more complicated than necessary.

I would just campaign for a standard replay because even that might never happen!

Fully second this: a robust yet simple solution that will hopefully require less resources and time to develop and maintain. I personally would just like to replay my own SP games and see what happened; what, when and where went right or wrong, just to relive it basically, probably only immediately after the battle.

But I guess if someone has the Replay function active in MP, as SLancaster points out, the file could just be extracted after the battle and posted somewhere for other people to download and view in-game as their "own" battle.

[SimonLancaster]

If you want to put up the replay somewhere then you have to extract the file off your hard drive and then post up yourself on Discord, for example. It isn’t all in-game.

Totally agree: this is a viable solution in order to not make it more complicated than necessary.

I would just campaign for a standard replay because even that might never happen!

Fully second this: a robust yet simple solution that will hopefully require less resources and time to develop and maintain. I personally would just like to replay my own SP games and see what happened; what, when and where went right or wrong, just to relive it basically, probably only immediately after the battle.

But I guess if someone has the Replay function active in MP, as SLancaster points out, the file could just be extracted after the battle and posted somewhere for other people to download and view in-game as their "own" battle.

I am an active Napoleon Total War player (with mods) and we have groups on Discord. We have a replay channel for people to post replays for others to download and then watch. It is fairly easy to do. You don’t have to wait for things to be uploaded to YouTube.