FROM THE BLOG

New build with completely new server browser interface

A new build (still build number 421 since there are no netcode changes) is on its way out right now —

Shadlington and myself have been working hard over the past 3-4 days to build a new server browser that has some proper filters and search abilities. Here is a quick list of the new features:

• Search instantly for whole player names, partial server names, partial descriptions, partial IP addresses, or partial game mode names
• Filter in/out gold and passworded servers
• Show only selected game modes
• Shadlington build a custom control for selecting how many players are in a server. It is extremely intuitive and allows you to set the minimum and maximum threshold for how many players you want in servers. You can select everything from empty to full, or do things like “half full to almost full”
• The minimaps are now shown centered in the preview window (so you don’t see some meaningless piece of sky), though you can drag them around as always

This is a few days of hard work for the new interface, but on top of months of work developing the new King Arthur’s Gold API which is the backend for the new fast server browser as well as the new authentication code that was rolled out a few months ago.

The API is used by things like this server browser as well as available for use by community developers. Another post should be coming on that in the next week or so as it is more ready for public use.

Much more should be coming in the near future in terms of finding friends and viewing who is in a server before you join it. This information is all already available over the API, in case any site/server owners or developers want to start using this data. Post in this forum thread if you are a developer interested in some API information.

Favorites are still a bit buggy, but we waned to get this new interface out and used rather than waiting longer just to fix something that has been broken for a long time 

Here is the quick overview of how the new browser works

How to use the server browser

Instant Search: If you enter text here it will filter the server list down to those containing this text in one of the following fields: name, description, game mode, IP address. It will also search the names of players on servers shown.  Only entire names are matched.

e.g. entering ‘Shadlington’ will find any servers with ‘Shadlington’ in the name/description or any that Shadlington is playing on.

Players (%) slider: Use this to set the min and max percent full you want servers to be.

e.g. set it to 1% min and 99% max to find servers that are not empty and not full, or set it to 50% to 99% to find servers that are ‘at least half full’.

Gold/Passworded servers: These buttons have three states – No/Yes/Doesn’t Matter.

Map Preview: This shows the current state of the map on the server. Note that it can be dragged.

For more information, go to the KAG Wiki article for Server Browser.

Join the discussion on the forums in here!

-FliesLikeABrick