Hi there,

not sure in what forum to post this... here or better in "Replays"? - well, anyway...

I've hacked up a little fansite featuring a ladder system based on Glicko ratings (to put it in simple words: it's an improved ELO (see chess) system).

Also featuring the possibility to upload, rate, coment on and download replays.

Tadaa: Qohnil's MA Ratings and Replays

I hope everything there works ok, please go there, try it out and contact me if something is wrong.

Of course, this site will only live if you find it useful and register and enter your match results there. I know it's a bit of a hassle, but just think about the abundance of replays to watch if people join up...

Thats cool that you've done this! But it might be a lot of work... wargamer.com already has something like this for Massive Assault, but it hasn't been used at all (the loser has to submit a report, and nobody has done that yet): http://www.wargamer.com/battleleagues/L ... sp?lid=106

This might be better in some ways though, since its based on replays rather than a generic loss report, if you want to put in the time to manage it. I'd definately be willing to join in.

I'm open for any challenges for this ladder! Just let me know in your challenge that you want the game to be for the ladder. I'll be happy with any planet or side you choose, though its always better to play two games, one as PL and one as FNU.

Ok, now that some of you are in, let's start producing some good replays.

I'm also open for any ladder challenges of course, though these will probably mostly challenge me and be a piece o'cake for you...

Anyway, I'm still in the top 10.

while i like the idea - the practical realisation seems to be not usable - both players need to be registered to upload a replay...but hey i had played with like a hundered people but i can not have them all to register

You're right, Mrakobes.

I didn't think about the situation with replays from "unrated" or old games.

I guess I will add an interface for entering data and uploading replays of unrated games, where your opponent does not need to be registered.

I did it. Now you can upload replays where you can enter any opponent name freely, registered or not. - There is no more excuse left for not uploading replays!

I also dropped the restriction of comment max length to 256.

Hope it all still works and you're happy with it.

(I have encountered strange I-don't-want-to-log-you-in-behaviour, still checking how that might happen - if you login, but are still guest afterwards, please try to log in with wrong password, then with right, then you should be logged in - i dunno why... yet...)

if so - how this system is going to be protected from some jerks who will upload some replays vs AI or vs some other jerk and say - this is replay where i beat tiger

I don't see any jerks around here. Seriously, the community is not that large yet, meaning the number of jerks will hopefully remain manageably small for some time.

You have a point there, of course. - But I think people will realize things like that very fast, and they can write comments to the replays, or rate them down to "boring". As a final measure, they can also always send an email to me.

I think if you have a way to say that you've started a tournament game, and this is the number, with both players confirming, this could work. The problem is, that as of now, there is no way that we can confirm a game using the current system, or force it to be included in the ladder rankings.

Thats why I believe there has been absolutely no activity on the wargamer ladder, as players think "Oh, thats a great idea," but to be recorded they need to fill out a report when they lose. Noone wants to be registered as the first loser, or to post any loss for that matter.

So it might be better if we could confirm the game when it starts, with both players agreeing that the tournament game has started. That way, when it is finished, one of them can post a replay and it can be accepted. Its possible that one player might try to upload a replay that didn't happen between the two, but its up to the loser to make sure that doesnt happen (need some way to resolve disputes). If nothing else, in these situations, we might be able to confirm who won a specific game number with the MA support team, as this ought to be a rare occurance.

So this still leads to a problem dealing with unregistered players... I can't think of a way we can fairly force anyone that hasn't registered to take part in this system. Can anyone else? They wouldn't know what was going on on the site, and someone could easily take advantage.

So the work needed would be up front... where both players have to confirm that they started a game, and this is the start number.

Can anyone think of problems with this approach?

well there isn't any problem...excempt the fact that nobody seems really want this all to be done

I think you are both a bit pessimistic about people just entering bogus results. But I may be wrong. Let's wait and see.

I think it's very well sufficient if the winner enters the result. The loser gets an email and can react if something's wrong.

Concerning unrated game replays: I think there's really never a foolproof protection against someone just claiming he played "against Tiger" and put up a spoof replay (at least as long as the MA guys don't put the player names into the replay itself), even on these here forums. So what? People find out, and then that was that.

Concerning entering the game into the ladder when it starts: Yes, I was thinking about that, too. But I don't know if this doesn't produce too much overhead. It would also be nice fo tracking down which of the games one plays currently are ladder games and which aren't.

For the moment, I think I will add a field for the MA game id, though, so that we at least have the possible last-resort option of checking with the MA guys for a game result in the (hopefully very rare) case of a stuck dispute.

But really, I am quite the optimist concerning that stuff.

The thing I would find sad is if not enough players were to use the ladder. So I've tried to made it as easy as I could to play on it, and to upload replays to it.

there ARE names in replay.i was speaking of different problem.while there is possible to find a cheater who will do it if the said cheater starts just spamming your site with different replays (which nobody checks) and making him the first place>?Before offering a rate system you should think about every possible problem.

anyway i am quite happy with the current built-in MA ladder

Concerning the names in replays, I stand corrected. Either I didn't see them before, or they have been added with the latest update. Well, then, that's really cool!

Mrakobes, I have thought some about that cheater stuff. It will not be that easy to cheat the ladder as far as I can tell.

First, a cheater would have to register lots of players (uploading replays alone does not change your rating; that is only done for rated games, where the opponent needs to be registered too). And also, due to the nature of the Glicko system, playing against some unrated newbies will have nearly zero effect on the rating of a more experienced player.

So, there's a lot of effort with little results.

Also, if the cheating gets noticed at all, I can always nullify the games and recalculate the ratings.

But enough about that sad stuff already.

Btw, you've said something about hundreds of replays, but haven't uploaded a single one yet? - Come on!

And I am also quite happy with the built-in ladder. I only want to supplement it in two aspects: First, it does not offer a measurement of pure playing strength. That's what the Glicko ratings do. And second, and perhaps even more important, it doesn't offer replay downloading.

Perhaps one should think about my site as offering an ongoing tournament of documented and downloadable games, rather than as an alternative rating site.

I fully agree with this. Current rating system, as the developers have stated, is a measure of experience. But that doesn't mean it measures skill. Some people are better than others, but its difficult to tell as is. Of course we've had this discussion before, so I'll refrain from all the details of my opinion

This is a fantastic site. I am confused though - do I need my opponent to agree that it is a ladder game or can I just start uploading all the games that I have played against the currently registered players?

I may be missing the point here but why couldn't the devs give you a download of all the games ever played on the MA server and then feed it into your system? How much work would that involve on both sides?

I personally like the idea of starting with a clean slate

Thanks, Rocklizard!

You shouldn't upload rated results of past games where you didn't explicitely agree with your opponents upon including them into the ladder. I think (as Maelstrom) that it's better to view the ladder as a newly started and from now on continuous type of tournament, where everyone can start or stop participating whenever she likes.

What you can do without problems, however, is upload the replays of your old games (whether your opponents are registered too or not), but not letting the games be rated (selecting "No, thanks" for the rating question when uploading).



I don't think the developers would want to offer a replay feed because there might be matches which both players agreed to keep secret, for example... - I asked them about their point of view concerning match result feeds (quite similar, I guess), and I fully understand that they don't want to do it due to "privacy issues".

So, you can use the site to upload some of your replays, which would be very great, and you can use it for playing rated matches with registered opponents where you agree about rating them beforehand.

I've tried to post a non-ranked replay and got an SQL error :

Query failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ' 1, 0, 15, NOW(), 0, 4, 0, 1643 )' at line 1

Thanks, I'm looking into it.