lucifugo
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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  Posted:
Aug 29, 2006 - 15:56 |
 
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Very good idea! Thanks KingKurt.
Sadly I am not able to programme a site 
but I will glad to partecipate!!!  |
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IchabodIgnatz
Joined: Sep 27, 2006
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| Posted:
Oct 15, 2006 - 22:55 |
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Okay, G33K here, As a Java programmer I will weigh in on a few points: One, the auto-mtchup wouldnt be that hard to implement. We already have a Java Web-Start feature on FUMBBL (the "Play" link next to each team on your home page) so a slight modification of that feature SHOULD result in the auto-start that Kurt is looking for. As for the implementation on the server side, I could write the PHP code for it, but I have been told that the server code is not openly modifiable by the community (not that it surprises me) In the end its a good idea but would take some work server side to realize, work that may just not be feasable with the Admins current workload. But as always, if I am needed my skills are available to anyone here.
-Ignatz |
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Laviak
Joined: Jul 19, 2004
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| Posted:
Oct 19, 2006 - 05:39 |
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OK, so this has been sleeping for a while, but here are my thoughts on implementation:
The entire auto-matchup system can be set up independently of FUMBBL - in fact, I think that just about everything can be done through an IRC bot.
The bot would need to be able to do the following:
- periodically update the teams from the group page (and possibly from the individual team pages)
- know how to choose an appropriate match-up - to do this, it needs a combination of team and coach information, and some extra info to bias the TR/TS for specific races...
- receive "lfg" commands
- when a matchup is found, send a message (query) to each coach giving the server details (probably proxy). This avoids the need for the clients to have anything special installed, and keeps it anonymous (i.e. you don't know what team you'll be facing until you join).
- when a match is reported (or just when it is started), the bot needs to check that the rosters haven't changed since the lfg request. If they have, the bot should publicly humiliate the coach! =D (ok, so perhaps it should send a message to each coach in IRC, and tell them that there is/was a problem). The group admin could keep track of these warnings, and kick any coaches that are repeat offenders.
- catch "match complete" messages from bowlbot (and store the result for later use)
The rules for deciding which matchups are 'OK' needs to be isolated - it's the bit that would be subject to change. The bot will almost certainly need a database on the back-end - to store the teams/races, and also (probably as a second stage) to store results of matches (which hopefully could be used to bias the selection of appropriate matches.
I think it would be a good bit of fun. At the moment, I know a reasonable amount about writing code, and nothing about IRC bots, but there's only one way to find out!
The hard bit will always be getting the selection of an opponent right .. you can guarantee that some races will have a hard time of it, and everyone will end up playing some uneven matches here & there ... but as long as it goes both ways, then I don't see it as a problem  |
_________________
We Fink Wer Orks
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Help save blood bowl, foul an elf today!. |
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Snorri
Joined: Jun 07, 2004
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| Posted:
Oct 19, 2006 - 06:10 |
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Bot would certainly be possible. A database would be useful, but not necessary. You can just as easily store database information in text or xml files while your project remains small.
Didn't think of it at the time, but using a bot like this presents some interesting options for your ladder idea Lav, and we've already got a bot with some of the functionality. |
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Laviak
Joined: Jul 19, 2004
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| Posted:
Oct 19, 2006 - 06:49 |
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Yes indeedy - we'll have to discuss some ideas in IRC sometime soon. |
_________________
We Fink Wer Orks
--------
Help save blood bowl, foul an elf today!. |
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xyphoid
Joined: Jun 16, 2005
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| Posted:
Oct 24, 2006 - 23:09 |
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I had a similar idea to this and have a partially-implemented IRC bot from a while back - I'll leave it running in #matchbot when I'm around.
Msg the bot 'add all' or 'add [teamname]', then 'challenge' to see if anyone else is set up for a random game. |
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Laviak
Joined: Jul 19, 2004
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| Posted:
Oct 30, 2006 - 08:01 |
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Well, I decided to get things rolling, and have a fairly basic bot that i think does the first bit.
It's written in perl, and is the first go I've had at programming in perl (I needed a good excuse to learn some. Naturally, there is lots of really poorly written code in there - especially in the first couple of modules I wrote 
It took me a while to figure out how to use the syntax for arrays vs hash tables vs scalars .. and there is some crazy stuff you can do with regular expressions (I tried to keep it simple so that I could actually understand the code I had written afterwards).
________________________
Anyway, the bot ...
What it does do:
- pulls in a list of teams from a group page, along with TR/TS of each team.
- handles "lfg" requests (followed by a pipe-separated list of teams, or simply 'lfg *' to add all teams in the group)
- handles "lfg remove" to remove yourself from the list. teams are also removed automatically after a period of time (currently 5 mins)
- handles "lfg cache" to update the list of teams / TR / TS from the group page.
- when a match is found, sends a message to each coach with a link to launch the game (only setup to do proxy games, but could be expanded so that coaches can let the bot know that they are able to host direct connect matches)
What it doesn't do...
- It doesn't do any checking of the rosters ... so if they have changed since it got the TR/TS, the bot won't know, and can't warn the coach.
- It doesn't check match results or store them or anything like that
- It doesn't add any kind of "racial variation" to the TS (i.e. a TS 150 amazon team, and a TS 150 dwarf team will be considered "even")
- It doesn't keep an eye on coaches to see if they have left IRC (and should be removed from the lfg list)
- It can't tell when a game is actually started, and it can't stop coaches from adding themselves, then not showing up.
- there is no command to find out whether it thinks you are currently looking for a match, which would be kinda handy.
________________________
I need some fellow SWL coaches (with teams in the SWL Fringe) to help me test it out ... I also need a good name for the bot ("TestBot", while useful for testing is kinda crap as a name). |
_________________
We Fink Wer Orks
--------
Help save blood bowl, foul an elf today!. |
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Synn
Joined: Dec 13, 2004
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| Posted:
Oct 30, 2006 - 08:08 |
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Xyphoid has done this. The bot just needs to essentially be "adopted" into the community and that is the hard thing.
Most people here would not take a random match up.
__Synn |
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Lishi
Joined: Oct 11, 2005
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| Posted:
Oct 30, 2006 - 09:00 |
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Well, what if you have a TS of 260 or 80 and no other team in the group has? You won´t find matches? (Like in the normal gamefinder most of the time! ) |
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