[Hackfest] Question about player names.

[Russell Steicke]

Hello,

I have a query about player names, and what happens if there are
duplicate names in a game of spellcast.

Duplicate names are accepted by the server, and the players with
identical names are assigned different IDs.  They are then
distinguished by ID number.   When the players are sent a series of
MSG_SEND_NEWPLAYER_INFO messages, the players with duplicate names are
included with their different IDs.  The players are all sent the list
in the same order.

How does a player tell which ID is himself if there are duplicate
names?  The example clients don't seem to care about this, although
they are still fairly simple.  But in an intelligent client this will
be very important.

As a suggestion, perhaps each player could be sent his own
MSG_SEND_NEWPLAYER_INFO message first in the list.  This would be
fairly simple to implement, and involves no protocol changes.  (I have
a vested interest in keeping the protocol stable, as I'm not using the
library.)

Thanks,
Russell



-- 
Russell Steicke

-- Fortune says:
yo-yo, n.:
	Something that is occasionally up but normally down.
	(see also Computer).