arena idea

So I've been playing a lot of team fortress 2. They have this new mode called "arena" where players that die don't respawn until the match is over and are forced to watch the other players. This is nothing new, I think the first game to do this was counter-strike. The interesting thing about it is that it turns the game in to a spectator event where people can watch the last player on their team and root for him or ridicule him.

Now, one day I was trying to join my favorite server and waiting for an open slot and I thought to myself, why isn't source tv built in to this. Source TV is a way of watching a game play out with a lot of people without actually causing server load.

Maybe it was also the word arena that got the gears turning, but I thought, what if, for future games they made a server that when it filled up, the players waiting to play watched the action. The players in game that don't do very well get cycled out for the players waiting.

Another idea I had that I should get down is smarter spectator programming. Source TV has a delay so that players watching a match can't ghost, so the action is always a minute or so behind the time it was performed.

If the action is a minute behind, a smart server can see who's getting the most kills in that minute and automatically show it to the viewers.

For example: You want to play in the cool new server for this new big multiplayer game that everyone's raving about. The server has all sorts of appeal, maybe even prizes for the best players. It's "the place to be". So you load up, but it's full, so you watch and see all the best players being awesome.

In real time, Johnny G just got 3 sniper kills in a row. The server doesn't detect anything better so when the delay catches up to the viewer, it shows that 3 sniper kill streak to you. After that's over and Johnny G dies, it goes on to the next most awesome event.

If there was someway to show this spectator view to people that do not own the game, it would be a great way to advertise the game