Wardrobe alternative.

[Hugin&Munin]

Hi there people!

I'm here today to give an alternative that may not be as pratical, but yet still an alternative to the sadly failed Wardrobe.

Forrest and I were talking about the wardrobe yesterday when he discovered that, after the introduction of the wardrobe for Gold and mods (were it before was just avaible for Division Leader and higher), caused a very a problem with the server that made it lag and run with one of the worst performances.

The result of this lag, made his decision to fully remove the wardrobe from the server to no longer be added back, meaning no one will be able to use it, nor those who had access for it before.

The reason of what caused such lag as commented by himself was " Highly likely it's massive bandwidth usage from sending constant huge net messages ", althought he said that it's really unknown.

As said above, I'll now talk about my not so pratical, but at least more controllable, alternative for the wardrobe. Keep in mind the idea can be refined and further modified (or not in case of the idea being already fine as it is) by any of the comments below.

My alternative is the following:

- We already have a tab with models for Donators, which every one above and including Gold+ have access to.

As a start, my idea is to change the name of that tab by calling it "Gold+" as well as a new Section on the forum called "Gold+ Playermodel request"

What would happen as following, would be that any member above and including Gold, and I mean every member as for: admins, mods, staff, DL, Directors, Council, so on, will have to post a topic requesting a player model that they want to use in game to be added.

As soon as the topic is created, a Division Leader would have check it in order to evaluate and test the model to see if it's not breaking any rules.

After the model has been tested, it would be added as a general model that any of the Gold+ members could use, as an exemple: If I request a model and it is accepted, any other member present from Gold and above could also play using the models I requested.

 

- Now something to keep in mind as a alternative in case people start to request too many models. All members have in total of a max of 1 MODEL IN GAME PER USER. Here is the exemple:

I requested a model a week ago, Now I want another model to be added, this means that the LAST model I REQUESTED, will be deleted in order to add the new one, this does not affect models requested by others, as for each one has the right for 1 model.

What was said above, is either to prevent a Gold+ member to resquest too many models, or to prevent the server from having models that no one really uses anymore, OR if the server somehow endes up with 50+ Gold+ members, to prevent having countless models by the higher number of Gold+ members present.

 

Thats all I had to give about my alternative, thanks for reading and feel free to refine or modify it by using the comments.

 

 

 

-Special thanks to Techmo btw.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Hugin&Munin
Edit: changed font as requested by fume, he could not read lol.

[moistJam]

i think this is a really neat idea

i would hate to see the custom playermodel option go away entirely

one thing to clarify though, as i may be misunderstanding

you say any gold+ member can choose a model thats been requested by other members but also that if someone changes their 1 model the previous one would be deleted

if you were using another member's previous model would you just have to request that model yourself or could you still use it?

 

[Hugin&Munin]

13 minutes ago, moistJam said:

i think this is a really neat idea

i would hate to see the custom playermodel option go away entirely

one thing to clarify though, as i may be misunderstanding

you say any gold+ member can choose a model thats been requested by other members but also that if someone changes their 1 model the previous one would be deleted

if you were using another member's previous model would you just have to request that model yourself or could you still use it?

 

Thats something I thought of but I decided to see if someone else could get an alternative for it.

If that person is no longer using their requested model (if they resquested any at all) and is using another users model instead, then if it gets deleted, he should probably re-request the model from that other user as their own.. Unless we change the max number of models per user or find another solution for it.

 

Another more Individual alternative would be not allowing the models to be a "general model" and instead be avaible just for that user that requested instead.

The problem of this alternative is that eventually someone will request a model that is already present for a specific user, this eventually would have to go through the "programming" side of things with Forrest or someone else to see what they can do about it.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Hugin&Munin

[Lady Luck]

I want my telly tubbys back xD.

[Hugin&Munin]

10 minutes ago, Lady Luck said:

I want my telly tubbys back xD.

If this turns into a thing, maybe you will, who knows lol.

[moistJam]

i just hope custom models dont go out the window entirely

Edited January 18, 2019 by moistJam

[Hugin&Munin]

I would hate if went away too, custom models is actually something interesting to have, it also makes it worth to donate and help the server in any way possible.

[Techmo]

I think a system in which players can suggest models to be added to the gold player model collection is a good idea. Players wouldn't need to download during gameplay when a player changes a model, or download it as an asset from the server. We could simply add the workshop id to a list, and have the client download them as they join the server. It would be added to the standard list of assets to be acquired by the client, after being approved by staff of course.

If changing the model of a player during the game is a significant source of lag even with all assets present on each client, perhaps we could also apply the player's desired model when the map changes to avoid spikes in lag.

Having some system in place for custom models is better than nothing at all if it can be done without causing any major problems.

[Hugin&Munin]

The quote button is again not working for me, so I'll manually quote Techmo.

Quote

I think a system in which players can suggest models to be added to the gold player model collection is a good idea. Players wouldn't need to download during gameplay when a player changes a model, or download it as an asset from the server. We could simply add the workshop id to a list, and have the client download them as they join the server. It would be added to the standard list of assets to be acquired by the client, after being approved by staff of course.

If changing the model of a player during the game is a significant source of lag even with all assets present on each client, perhaps we could also apply the player's desired model when the map changes to avoid spikes in lag.

Having some system in place for custom models is better than nothing at all if it can be done without causing any major problems.

Yes, After the model is accepted, all that would have to be done is indeed add just the ID to the list and have it to be download on the next map change by all clients or by clients are about to join, this sure will reduce the lags or any future issue.

Since I think Forrest was the one who made it, he would have better understanding with your comment than I, since I dont have access to the code nor knowledge with LUA.

But @Techmo, I just thought, this could hit a problem with workshop playermodels that have more than one type of playermodel together with it (more than one playermodel.mdl files) This will end up with people having 5 or more playermodels  instead of max of 1 or any max set per user.

We could modify/fix that rule and add it as "1 workshop item per user" instead of 1 playermodel per user. Yet this can become a problem if someone request a workshop with a pack of 20 / 100 playermodels.

This again comes to the "Gold+ playermodel request" forum section,  the workshop item that will be reviewed by a Division Leader will now have a new rule applied, as for "max of 5 playermodels per workshop item" or something close to that to solve this issue.

After all, if you really want just one player model that is a part of a pack of 20 or 100, you can just ask the creator or decompile it yourself (the user who wants to use it) and reupload it on the workshop with just the playermodel wanted in order to be accepted by the DL.

This Idea would work nicely.

[Snowyamur]

This sounds like an interesting idea, but I have some issues with this in-terms of efficiency and flexibility.

It's not a huge surprise that Wardrobe could be creating some bandwidth issues because it's working right off the Steam Workshop to access models, and when a user selects their model, it downloads it, so that takes up even more bandwidth in-conjunction with accessing the Steam Workshop to find suitable and compatible player models. All of this takes work on the server itself, and right now, our ZS server isn't strong enough to handle this, so I agree with removing it to maintain the lag fluctuations on the server, but only temporarily.

I'm not comfortable with having users request models they want, then having DL run through these requests to improve or deny them because that's extra work on them, and for me, something like this just feels like more work in-general, and it isn't as efficient as allowing players to select what models they want on their own. I would say this system definitely avoids the possibility of players breaking rules in-game, but we have Moderators in-place for the purpose of dealing with rule breakers, so doing this adds an extra layer of security at the cost of flexibility.

Additionally, having it where every player is limited to 1 model isn't bad, but the way it's handled by this suggested system isn't good. If players wished to change their model, their last one would be deleted, but that would result in them making a request for a new model, so that's even more work for DL, and it's great that it doesn't affect the models requested by others, but again, it's more work.

I'm saying this out of favoring and helping out the Garry's Mod Division Leaders because why give them extra work that would eventually become a mountain of requests for every Gold+ on the server? Granted, I've never taken the mantle of Division Leader for Garry's Mod, so I don't know what responsibilities DLs uphold, but even though I've never worked as DL, I'm aware of when giving someone extra work is unnecessary when a more flexible system could be established.

 

If I wanted to revise how the Wardrobe system worked, I would say reduce the freedom by which Gold+ players select their models. Make it where once they select their model, there's an hour or 2-hour cooldown for selecting another model. By doing this, players would have to be careful about which model they want to use, because once they select one, they have to wait for a period of time to select another one. Doing this could potentially help reduce the incoming bandwidth traffic by having it where players aren't selecting player models at will and at any time, by which one player could still be on their Wardrobe cooldown, while another is selecting their player model from the Steam Workshop, and that puts less strain on the server by having it where it could only be one player selecting their player model instead of 7 - 8 players.

Coupled with the freedom of selecting what player model a player wants, this system is most effective and efficient. Most importantly, it helps players make a choice and stick with it, while allowing the server a higher chance at lagging less.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Snowyamur
Updated player specifics to pertain to Gold+ on the server

[Hugin&Munin]

@Snowyamur

The old Wardrobe is already "trashed", Forrest is unable to fix it due to how bad the format of the code is, he said that " It's hard to read and figure out what's going on " so we won't have that system added back.. this makes my suggestion "something" to start with in a good direction.

We could assign multiple mods for it instead of DL. I mainly said DL because of the reason that is well known by them and us.

With multiple mods this turns out into something more flexible. At the moment my suggestion is the only one so far that can be added since we will no longer use the Wardrobe.

It's also just like Techmo said, check if the models are fine in relation to the rules, get the workshop ID, add to the list, done.

Any other option as for "Max of workshop item per user" or "'Max of playermodels per workshop item or per user", it's all their side, whatever fits how the server works and the performance of the server. Since this is alike wardrobe but not like it's system, we probably can't afford having tons of models.

Now the number of models avaible can be fixed by what Techmo said just above.

 

[Snowyamur]

@Hugin&Munin

If that's the case with the Wardrobe no longer being a usable feature for ZS, then I'll take my chances with your suggestion. As I said, it sounds like an interesting idea, but I compared it with the old Wardrobe feature in-terms of efficiency. If we took that out of the equation, I think this newly-revised feature could work, but it'll need some adjustments upon implementation.

The only reason I opposed the Gold+ player model request applications was because I don't like giving extra work to people if it's unnecessary work. However, if the work turns out to not be as bad as initially-perceived, then I'll play it by ear and go along with it.

[Hugin&Munin]

@Snowyamur Once thi feature is added as the new wardrobe (if added at all), we should try to get feedback for those who are checking the models.

Nonetheless I think that for now we will have some small model request traffic once added, but after the members who request it are dealt with, it will not be a every day rush with very long model traffics that cant be dealt with.

I do agree with one thing that should carry on based on your idea. Requests for a new model / workshop item should have a cooldown for each user.

Something around "Every Gold+ member can re-request only once per week from the day of your last request" and even further in case this turns into a huge traffic to "only 3 weeks per month"  This can reduce any future traffic with the requests.

THIS WAY we make sure that you have to really pick up something that you really want to use for a very long time before re-thiking on picking something else. This would work nicely with the "1 workshop item with 5 player models" or the General model "able to use every model from every gold member requested including yours".

Edited January 18, 2019 by Hugin&Munin

[Snowyamur]

@Hugin&Munin

Until it gets implemented, and when it gets implemented into the ZS server, we'll just have to play it by ear.