V4 Bot: An Unique eSport Chatbot Solution
--
We’ve closed one of the most exciting projects of the recent days. Our task was to make V4 Future Sports Festival’s official, bilingual Messenger chatbot.
The RoboRobo team is packed with enthusiastic esport fans and players, so it was a great honour for us to be able to participate in the largest esport festival in Hungary in our way.
At the V4 Future Sports Festival, players have qualified for the offline finals of four games: League of Legends, Counter Strike GO, Clash Royale, FIFA.
The purpose of the V4 chatbot was to inform fans and visitors about matches and festival information during the event.
The bot was designed to replace a mobile app and could be used in 🇬🇧 English and 🇭🇺 Hungarian. All important information about the festival was made available here. Users could also find out more about the venue, registration, programs, competitions and competitors.
In any case, the bot strived to give the most informative and complete answer possible.
Functions
Match Tracking
During the three-day festival, one of the most important basic functions of the bot was match tracking. Users have been able to choose which battles they are interested in, and these could simply follow with the help of a button.
Thanks to this feature, users, who were unable to follow the results live or via stream, could also be informed about the status of the matches immediately.
Match Updates
Five minutes before the start of each match, the bot sent a notification message to users, allowing them to take their place in the venue or launch streaming applications in time.
During the matches, the administrators could use the admin interface to upload continuous updates on match status and scoring, we called these match updates.
Events came after each other frequently, often with more than one match at the same time, so we wanted to make it easier for admins to upload updates.
There were two types of match updates, one for scoring and the other for winning. After uploading the update, the system automatically sent the message containing the information to the subscribers.
In the case of scoring messages, the admin had to enter only the points manually, the text of the message came from the system — they were pre-prepared.
We sent a message to the users comparing the points of the team that scored with the opponent’s points:
- {X} is only 1 point behind {Y}!
- {X} has caught up!
- {X} took the lead!
Cosplay Voting
The festival’s cosplay competition also included a People’s Choice Award. Participants could be viewed and voted on in a WebView window.
Each cosplayer had their own datasheet containing an introduction and an image gallery.
The bot automatically notified users of the start of the vote, when the excitement began! A user could only vote once for a competitor, and the votes were only displayed on the admin interface.
UI
The UI design of chatbot WebView windows was preceded by thorough research. Our goal was to create a completely unique yet esport-ish UI that matches the overall design of the V4 Festival.
Match, Team And Player Datasheets
For matches, teams and competitors, we have created Generic Templates with special information, uniquely generated graphics. Cards were sent to users when they were filtered for a particular item or selected from a menu / quick reply.
In the case of teams and competitors, the team’s logo/competitor’s photo and the game they’re competing in were displayed next to their name. For more info, such as the time of the next matches, the results of the previous matches were displayed in the WebView window.
For matches, the unique card included the date and location of the match, the game, and the photo of the players or their team’s logo. Additionally, the admins could also set up Twitch or TV GO to stream matches, and the WebView UI changed based on the assigned link.
Admin Interface
We have created a completely unique admin interface for managing matches and uploading a lot of information about the event.
Dynamic data was uploaded to the system by administrators both in English and Hungarian, so the chatbot was able to provide information to people speaking any of those two languages.
Match Management
One of the most important functions of the admin interface was match management, so we kept in mind during the production to support the work of the admins as efficiently as possible.
Matches and players were uploaded easily and quickly, and setting up match updates and results took just a few clicks. This enabled lightning fast updates, so users could always find up-to-date information.
Wifi
As we wanted to cover all of the frequent questions, users could even get the wifi password from the bot. Admins could change the wifi ID and password on the admin interface.
With this, we have prepared the system to make sure that the bot is always able to provide a reliable and accurate answer even if the access information might change on different days of the festival.
Programs, Exhibitors, Concerts
Information about programs and exhibitors also came from the admin interface as dynamic data. The programs could be filtered by days, and if one asked about concerts, the bot automatically sent the information about that evening.
Cosplay Voting
Cosplayers were uploaded by admins via the admin interface. Users were allowed to vote for the participants at a pre-set time interval, and the time interval was also specified via the admin interface.
The many features and options available on the bot and the admin interface prove that we have been striving to provide the chatbot that is worthy of the event.
Disclaimer: this is a translated version of an article originally posted on our own botblog.hu, on April 17, 2018.
