The Impressive Sauer Tracker (with Interview)

Word has spread like wildfire already, and it should come as no surprise that Origin has created a quite useful tool for Sauerbraten, called the “Impressive Sauer Tracker“. If you are interested, you can find some info all about it here.

Link: http://tracker.impressivesquad.eu/

How it works

It works by retrieving your IP and then recording all stats from all servers you play on (at least ones that support extinfo, which is the majority of them). You can then head over to the site  and check your stats. You can also browse servers being played in game as they update live, seeing who is playing on them, what the scores are, each player’s stats, and more.

A look behind the scenes

We have also taken the liberty to bring you more than just the news on its release, but also an interview with Origin and his partner-in-crime Obstriegel themselves! Read on for the thoughts and expressions of Sauer’s current spotlight programmers.
Note: The interviews were split into two separate sections, one by Friteq and one by Fatality.

Interview with Origin

<Fatality> Well we should all know you by now, you are Origin from !s, and have just coded an awesome thing for Sauer which many people seem to like. Could you tell us a bit about what it is? Also how does it work?

<Origin> It’s a server tracking system (I don’t know what else to call it). Basically what it does is it pings servers consecutively, each time updating player stats. When a server goes into intermission, it saves those stats in the database so they can be searched later.
<Fatality> How often does it update? Can you really watch the stats live?

<Origin> It pings all servers every 10 seconds, so the server list is updated at that rate. However, it pings servers with players for extinfo every 5 seconds, so games with players will refresh every 5 seconds.

<Fatality> Impressive
<Fatality> What is your history with programming? Is it a hobby of yours, or did you just start for this project?

<Origin> I’m a Computer Engineering student. I’ve worked on a couple other Cube 2 related projects. But lately I’ve been into the Web side of things, and NodeJS is my favorite tool, so I started this project in order to improve my skill and gain some experience in Web programming.

<Fatality> Awesome, what other projects specifically for Cube 2?

<Origin> I was one of the developers of Revelade Revolution, a zombie survival game based on Sauerbraten. And I’m currently the developer of the [happy] Sauerbraten Client.

<Fatality> Wow, who knew :D

<Origin> :D

<Fatality> So you like NodeJS then, what do you like about it?

<Origin> It uses JavaScript which is an interesting and easy to learn language, it has tons of packages that let you do practically anything, and it’s very easy to deploy, making it one of the best solutions for server-side Web programming and general purpose scripting.

<Fatality> What are you plans for the future of this tracker? Do you plan to keep flying solo, or get involved with some other group? SSL maybe?

<Origin> So far I don’t know. The project is still young and I’m not sure where it’s headed. Though I am planning to coordinate with SSL in the future to make the tracker cover SSL events. I will also see if I can get server mod developers/admins to add support for the tracker’s name protection feature, so that it becomes true name protection.

<Fatality> That would be pretty awesome

<Origin> Indeed.

<Fatality> How have you been taking all this positive feedback from the community?

<Origin> It’s great. I’m really glad everyone liked it, and I’m going to try my best to not disappoint, but make them happy with it.

<Fatality> Nice to hear
<Fatality> And from all of us at sauerworld, really great job man, you deserve a trophy for this
<Fatality> Anything else you wanna say?

<Origin> :D Just thanks, to you, !s (especially obst), the people at SauerWorld, and everyone who gave feedback and suggestions.

<Fatality> :)
<Fatality> Oh one more question: how did obst help you?

<Origin> Obst provided the server, created the tracker’s forum board, wrote the announcements and tutorials, helped me find a lot of bugs, and is handling support requests. Without him this tracker would have been just another discarded little project on my hard drive. He deserves a trophy!

<Fatality> :D
<Fatality> Alright, thanks for the time :)

<Origin> Thank you :)

Interview with Obstriegel

<Friteq> What is the main idea of The !mpressive Sauerbraten Tracker?

<obst> Well, the main idea behind it is to give the community a new tool for stats tracking. Since it does not require any client or server modification it can be used right now.

<Friteq> Sounds impressive but how it may benefit the community? What kind of information does it contain?

<obst> In the past we were playing on PSL servers most of the time. Most of the clans required you to have an orgros account and your stats were tracked there but now people play on many different servers. The tracker allows you to play on every server out there which supports the extinfo protocol. You do not even have to sign up but if you do stats for your name are only counted if you are logged in. People love stats so this the most important feature I think.

<Friteq> Wow great. When the idea of making it came your mind?

<obst> I think the idea of global stats tracking is floating around for a longer time but it became a more urgent issue when people moved away from psl servers.

<Friteq> I see, how did your work with Origin look like, how did you split duties?

<obst> I provide the resources and origin coded the stuff. I just sit here and tell him that his code looks ugly and he should work harder. No really credits go to origin :)

<Friteq> And are thre any plans for future innovations? Or it is top secret?

<Friteq> ;)

<obst> We have a lot of ideas. Graphs and more detailed statistics for example. Swatllama and Frosty made an ELO-like ranking formula we consider to implement. We also got much feedback already how to display the data even better. You will be able to see if you are logged in more easily in the future and we will also provide client modifications which keep you tracked automatically even if your IP changes while playing. So make sure to check back often to see what is going on.

<Friteq> How about making some rankings based on won clanwars?

<obst> Clan rankings?

<Friteq> Yeah.

<obst> Yeah good idea.

<Friteq> :)

<obst> It already recognizes if it is a clanwar (even with subs) example: http://tracker.impressivesquad.eu/game/13687

<Friteq> Obst thanks for all answers and your time.

<obst> Thanks.