This was requested a few times on the forums before we had the tracker, so others have wanted this as well.
There are several problems that need to be addressed before something like this can be added:
1) Standardization of some kind would be a must.
2) We would need to decide if the splash worked when downloading the game as well, and if so that would mean storing it on the hub itself.
3) If only the server held the splash, there would be a consistency problem in that when you first joined the game you'd have the BYOND splash, then it would be replaced by the specialized image. This would be less than ideal for most people.
I'd suggest keeping it as simple as humanly possible. Place an additional image upload option on peoples hub pages for them to specify an image that will be used in place of the default splash (what's there now).
The good thing is it's quick and easy. One image, one size, upload and bam, done.
The bad is there's very little customisation involved, as there's no real way to change the download status bar colour or the text colour of the resources.
To weigh the differences, some control is better than no control. That's my take on it.
The basic problem is that whatever approach is taken, it's an implementation nightmare. If the implementation can be figured out, the approach can be figured out.
Actually, when you first connect to a BYOND world, the splash will popup with "Connecting to blah", would it be possible to transfer a small image real quick just as the connection is established and then redraw the splash screen before the resources begin downloading? And skipping the effect entirely if no new resources need to be downloaded?
If that's possible, would adding a world/splash_image = '' or something to that effect be an incredibly tedious and painful task?
I'm not sure I completely follow what you mean. The big problem is that the need for immediate feedback for the user, and the undesirability of starting with the BYOND splash and switching to another one, are conflicting goals. There are numerous other problems but that's the big one.
Ok thanks for the info its just Pepole will be more willing to play a new game if te splash was flashy and lureing it be like "wow this most be worth my time to play " Thanks,Kama43
could'nt this be handled by the skin file entirely and not the client?
just like how byond uses the default skin if no game has a skin file created or possible a advance option for skin creation allowing more indepth changes to some aspects of the options we get in skin creation, would be nice if the skin file had options for bars to work like loaders without the need to code the steps (like hp bars would be done)
What if a custom splash screen were a member's feature?
An image could be supplied and stored in the member's files. If there is indeed a splash screen image specified for the game in question, the pager could download the picture before it starts the splash screen. It could then store it so that it doesn't need to be downloaded again.
Why not make the application load the custom splash screen in the background as soon as a connection is made and THEN show the window.
If a significant delay is foreseeable, you could make a small slightly stylized BYOND window (maybe like 32x96) that says "Please Wait..." for that second that the splash loads.
could'nt this be handled by the skin file entirely and not the client?
Not with anything like the current implementation, no. The splash screen belongs to the pager, not DS. Besides, the issue of needing to load the splash screen from somewhere first, and display something else until then, still applies just the same either way.
