Record Match/Duel Option

Hello people of the Dueling Network forums. I have recently been thinking about an idea that could be important for the betterment of the yugioh player base. That idea is the recording/playback of duels. This would be useful for a variety of reasons. For one, it would allow for the improvement of yugioh duelists. Instead of just seeing the field while watching as a viewer, or just what you saw while playing, if you recorded it, you would be able to see what the opponent saw and how, as well as why, he/she might have decided on a particular move. Sure, while playing, he/she might have played a certain card, but with a replay system similar to what I'm thinking of, you can see what other options the person might have had and try to glean information and other strategies that you might not have thought of before. Another reason is the reporting of cheaters. Taking a picture alone, while quick and simple, does not give justice to what truly happened when the "cheating" player cheated. It just shows the gamestate of the duel when that picture was taken. With the playback feature, you can go back to when the alleged cheating happened and see what really went on. This option would likely need to be optional, so as to minimize server strain, with the option being off by default.

Now you may be wondering to yourself, "Self, how might this be implimented?" Well, I have come up with a possible, and a not to difficult (I hope), way of implimenting it. Essentially, what I was thinking is all you would need to do is to just "record" the actions taken in the game and store that in some sort of array-like dataset. So, if player 1 set card A, then in the array, you would add "Set #CardNumber# from hand" (where #CardNumber# would be what the database references the cards as). Then, when you go to watch it, you would go through it like a slideshow, with forward, and backward options (and likely a skip X moves). The array would be referenced line by line as you move forward through the "slideshow", and would play out using Dueling Networks own engine. Going backwards and skipping, though, may be a little more difficult. It may be necessary to record the current gamestate in the array as well. Such that, you would also record how many of which cards are where in the array, as well. Then when you go backwards and/or skip moves, Dueling Network would reference the gamestate and that current time and adjust the gameboard accordingly. It would, also, be awesome, and definitely preferable, if you could also be able to look at the face down cards, graveyard, banished, extra deck, deck and hand of each player, too. You could also save in the array what was said in the game chat, when and by who.

The code itself is all fine and dandy, but the tough part would be the visual aspect of it. What I am envisioning is something akin to StarCraft 2's replay system. Being able to see everything, as well as just what each duelist would see. In "everything" mode, you would be able to hover your mouse over any facedown card, and any card in any player's hand, and have the card pop-up to the side as it would be now. While in "duelist" mode, you can only hover over and see what that particular duelist would be able to see.

Next, the question is, how to save and share the playback. For saving, I was thinking that each duelist would be able to save 5-10 playbacks online (if possible) at any one time, and that if you are a donator, you would be able to save more playbacks online. Then you could look through your friends profile, click on his/her saved playbacks and transfer a copy of it to one of your free playback spots. It would also be nice if the duelist would be able to download playbacks to his/her computer and be able to share it that way as well, while still being able to upload it to their account. This sharing of playbacks could lead to the coming of a Day9-like person for the Yugioh world, at least I hope it would.

This or something like duel logs would still be nice. Camera is a good thing we have but even it has its limits. Not complaining just saying.

Would be nice and would help dn out with its youtube channel. LET THIS BE DONE!