Anyone else get put off by people watching?

[Jeremiah]

Since I've started playing webtiles, I've enjoyed watching other peoples' games, and learned things about the areas of the game I have never been to, like Pan, Hells, etc.

But when I'm playing, I find seeing that someone else is watching is quite disconcerting - I'm always thinking 'do I look like a noob?' and worrying more than normal about making stupid mistakes - maybe that's a good thing and will improve my play though.

Spectators seem to particularly home in on high level characters and interesting branch ends - if you're just another MiBe on Lair:1 then no-one is interested, but if you're XL27 going to Vault:8, it tends to attract more viewers.

Does anyone else feel that way about being watched?

[lucy_ferre]

I don't watch other people's games. And I usually don't care if they watch me. Though, I find it annoying when noobs keep asking me questions and offer (bad) advice. Spectators also seem to follow known winners' progress. Before my 1st win in the tourney nobody watched my games. Now, I usually have a couple of people watching my games all the time.

Oh, and some guy started insulting me. I can't find his (or anyone else) comments in my morgue files. Anyway, I checked his profile and found out that he's a lousy noob. Haters are gonna hate.

[tcjsavannah]

I got my first spammer last night playing (baller) but otherwise it's been interesting. I do feel a little self-conscious once I know someone is watching, but I've had some good conversations about the game and met some good folks who play as well.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I must confess I'm a question spammer.
It's rather uncosy to let some of the dungeon ghosts have your web alias, so when I come to Webtiles, I usually watch somebody playing.

Usually I spectate either some high-level characters,
or some well-spectated adventures,
or the characters of those people whom I have had a chat with in somebody else's Webtiles attempts.

Perhaps Webtiles might need some flags when creating a game?
!s - no spammers
!q - no question spammers
!h - no hint givers
!D - no dumbasses
!S - no spectators
!C - chat disabled

And, perhaps, some simple commands like:
!priv [nicks] - allow only these people to speak
!mute [nicks] - mute these people
!mute! - stop everyone from saying anything until I, the player, say something
!mut - bask every chatter in mutagenic energy and make him or her utter a Yiuf quote

[casmith789]

I like people watching me. And I like a bit of informal banter while I show how much of a noob I am

I see webtiles watching is very popular. I'd love it if people could watch my games in tiles while I played in console, because I've tried tiles and I really can't get used to it.

[evilmike]

Yeah, it would be pretty neat if you could spectate console games via the webtiles interface. Although, webtiles should add a way to send in-game messages in that case, since console players won't be able to see the little chat box that you get when spectating webtiles.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

By the way, which pseudonames do you use when playing? Your regular aliases?

[Dustbin]

The opposite! I love to watch other people play, and enjoy when they watch me too as long as they're not creepy silent spectators. (Especially when they point out obvious things I often miss.)

[moekitten]

i watch games, mostly ascii but webtiles too sometimes and i should say, i was surprised how active chats webtile games have. ok, it's nice to get messages sometimes (btw, in console games these messages and your answers are written in your log) but if i played webtiles i am afraid i wouldn't be polite and would ignore the chat completely because it seems to be pretty distracting. also i doubt that it's a good idea to let those who watch webtile games send messages to console players.

[galehar]

i doubt that it's a good idea to let those who watch webtile games send messages to console players.

why? Because the tiles noobs are going to annoy the leet console players? I think it would be better to have full spectating support both way and a decent chat system which allows to silence or kick idiots and spammers.

[moekitten]

i didn't say anything about 'noobs' or 'spammers', just about too active chatting which could be annoying

also imho it would be better if there weren't shown the number of spectators

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Why? It's a reason to be cheered up! With the consequences!

[Moose]

How can you tell if someone is watching your game? Is there a signal somewhere in the console UI?

[Grimm]

You get a creepy feeling, and a tingling at the back of your neck.

[DemiFiend]

Anyone else misread that as "Anyone else get off by people watching?"

[absolutego]

i personally welcome silly banter. :)
(not that it happens much when you kind of suck.)

[moekitten]

How can you tell if someone is watching your game? Is there a signal somewhere in the console UI?

no, not in the console, in webtiles.
you can open another console window and see if anybody is watching you though

[Shade]

i doubt that it's a good idea to let those who watch webtile games send messages to console players.

why? Because the tiles noobs are going to annoy the leet console players? I think it would be better to have full spectating support both way and a decent chat system which allows to silence or kick idiots and spammers.

I remember prior to Wesnoth being 1.0 one of the developers commented on IRC, "We're really building and IRC client that happens to have a game attached" (or something similar). Given the competitive nature of online play it became really important to have robust controls. Crawl doesn't have that competitive element, but investing in being able to set defaults as to who can watch and speak, even buddy lists / groups / guilds / clans, and actual chat controls is always a good idea if there is a developer with that itch to scratch.

Personally I've always liked to play (all of my) my games locally, but being able to set defaults and actively manage interlopers / spectators is the sort of thing that would help current players and help lure us shy types online.