[Request] What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

[Nanor]

I feel it would be pretty cool if there was a tab somewhere, like the way Calendar is and donations, that told us what people were playing at that moment. I don't know how exactly you'd get the information, maybe you could somehow get it off X-Fire, but if we could do this I'd think it would be pretty cool!

Also, it might be useful if there was a tab that showed who was on teamspeak? I've seen examples on other websites, but a quick search hasn't shown me any.

Ideas?

 

[DeZmond]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93798

Theoretically possible, something we'd need the mighty Ronin to comment on . I agree, certainly, that the functionality would be quite neat.

 

[elDiablo]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

An XFire plugin (ala search result, though heavily modified) might be better then a teamspeak plugin. Sometimes I'm in the Chat Room on TS, while I'm playing a game, just as I like to speak to people who aren't playing.

XFire, however (assuming it's running) will give you the game they are playing right now. I'm guessing it's taking the XFire name from a user's profile, looking up the member page on the XFire site, and just screen-scraping for the data. Could probably even do it ourselves (rather than hacking a mod) if need be. Might slow down the page loading though, depending on the speed from the THN server to the XFire site...

 

[KillCrazy]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

THN used to have a teamspeak page which would show you who was currently online on teamspeak. That was a while back though, on the old website iirc.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

I feel it would be pretty cool if there was a tab somewhere, like the way Calendar is and donations, that told us what people were playing at that moment.

I'm planning a widget for the sidebar that will tell you the top 5 or 10 or so games that interest THNers at the moment but I don't intend that to be dynamically connecting to Xfire or whatever; it'd be more of a "what could I play with THN" not "what can I get a game of right now".

I'd question the usefulness of THN implementing a "now playing on Xfire" feature as Xfire already does that so well and also has its own web interface. I'll give it some thought and look at the plugins kindly linked in other posts in this thread and see if this seems worthwhile including as functionality.

Also, it might be useful if there was a tab that showed who was on teamspeak?

I have, in my bookmarks, a TeamSpeak integration module for vBulletin though I've not included it as yet for the same reasons as above.

Ultimately, if you've already got an application to do that job then I would always question why THN is reimplementing that functionality unless it is to make it accessible over the web or to collate new and cunning information from it. TeamSpeak isn't accessible via the web, currently, but then I wonder how useful knowing that XYZ person is on TS when you aren't also on TS...

 

[PsiSoldier]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

If everyone who had Xfire put the mini-profile in their sig you'd not need the 'Xfire plugin', and wouldn't you have them on your friend list if you wanted to know what game they were playing?

 

[elDiablo]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

Well, the "xfire plugin" would collect everything everyone is playing into one easy place, rather than having to look at individual people's posts or profiles. And some people may not like it in their sigs, as they may wish it for userbars, or some such.

Also, even if you do have people on your xfire friends list, you might not have xfire open, as you might only open when you start to play a game, or to see what people are playing. If you're already on games.THN, and feel like playing a game, loading a webpage to see what's happening is quicker than waiting for XFire to load and sign in

I think the XFire thing would be pretty good actually, though maybe have it as a separate page, rather than a widget type affair on the main page (to avoid clutter). Might even try giving it a go, just to test it myself!

 

[PsiSoldier]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

Well if you're too lazy just to press "log in" to see who's playing what, then wouldn't you also be too lazy to press "whos-playing-what-now" tab on the website?

Anyway, what if there is just a page where everyone's mini-profile images are, probably very easy to do no?

 

[elDiablo]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

Well if you're too lazy just to press "log in" to see who's playing what, then wouldn't you also be too lazy to press "whos-playing-what-now" tab on the website?

No! It takes my PC a good 15-30 seconds to log in (as it takes ages to scan for installed games, which it never seemed to need to do before about version 1.69 or whatever it was...) while a webpage loads in < 0.5 seconds (assuming it's coded well and can screen scrap fast enough).

Anyway, what if there is just a page where everyone's mini-profile images are, probably very easy to do no?

Yes Which would pretty much be what the screen scrapper would do, though would contain images, meaning that searching of information (and therefore being able to group people in currently playing, etc.) would be a little more difficult, but meh!

 

[PsiSoldier]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

If you're going to include the time it takes to open/login to Xfire, let's include the time it takes FF to open , that makes them about equal.

Screen scraper? How'd that work? Don't they get text? How'd they read it from the miniprofile?

 

[Taffy]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

I don't think it's about laziness, more about how quick and easy it'd be. If it was fairly simple to put onto the website, then i'd say go for it, as it'd be viewable whilst browsing THN and it'd be something else that other gaming forums would lack. Just to set us apart a bit. Of course, that's easy for me to say, because I don't have a clue how long it takes to make and integrate such things.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Re: What members are playing now and who's on teamspeak

Probably not a useful conversation to discuss development in this forum without actually mocking up some bits and pieces or pulling up some examples (as some already have).

Let's stick to what you'd like and where you've seen it or something a bit like it or a component that does something similar.

That said, feel free to contribute code!

 

[KillCrazy]

I have no idea if this idea is still being mulled over but here is something for the bookmarks that I came across. Yet another web based teamspeak viewer:
http://www.tsviewer.com/

No idea if it could easily be implemented here on THN but it's there if you need it.

 

[Piacular]

But I don't want to win a car...

Oh wait, there is something behind it!

Poking the forums at work or some place where you don't have access to TS, it would be nice to see what people are doing, plus it would make us look like a more active communtiy, since there are generally, erm, loads! of people on TS. Also, sometimes it's nice to spy, if I don't want to log on, I can check the website .

Something like TTP's maybe? Though if there is no one on it you might miss it!