[1.0] Something like 'S_Mode_afktimer' Required?

[MrA]

Another small observation from play.

Sometimes a player needs to leave his PC, perhaps for a toilet break, to answer the door, put a child back into bed, whatever...

As things are, he could put himself into Spec, but on a popular or busy server, he could loose his place in the game. So he doesn't want to go into Spec. Hence we get players who are just AFK, which is annoying for those trying to play and so they get vote kicked. Such a shame.

Now, if a player could elect to put himself into 'AFK Spec' , which is on a definable timer (lets say 3 minutes for now), then the timer would keep his place in the game until he returns, while the other players are not inconvenienced enough to need to kick him. If he doesn't return within the defined period, then he reverts to normal spec and his place in the game can be taken by a new player.

Some thought needed about how this can work if a match is not in 'free mode' , I would think it must only be possible if the match is not 'broken' by loss of a dependant number of players per side

How does it sound?

This is not the same a different post I made which was about allowing 'Vote ForceSpec' instead of always 'Vote Kick' , that's a different thing, although related to the goal of making player interactions smoother.

[TMarc]

interesting idea
what would you do with players who don't use the function and just run away from keyboard?

[MrA]

Those guys probably get vote kicked (or preferably VoteSpec if it existed) like they do now

That's not to say people can't gradually become informed, and that server plugins (or even the game if you are voted against) cant give hints about this kind of thing.

[TMarc]

right. perhaps warn them first, with something like "if you don't react within this round, you'll be put to spectator automatically".