B.net-like ladder system?
 

first of all i'm very tired and also quite in a rush so forgive me for any lame grammar\spelling errors i make.

it's all started in a public server where people were discussing about how wicked it would be if jj2 could've used the Warcraft 3 online system. then i just thought, why not try and make many jazzers' dream come true?

for all those who don't know what i'm talking about, i'll try and explain briefly how Battle.net works.

after registering an account, you're available to access your account (where all your stats are logged) from any computer that has JJ2 installed in it. after logging in, you get into an IRC-server like chatroom where you can find and discuss with other players from all around the globe about the game and also check out their profile where their stats are presented.

then comes the interesting part. there are levels from 0-50 and avatars which you acquire by winning games and reaching objectives (win 50 duels in BBLAIR and you can use a big Devan icon, for instance). in order to start a game, you need to choose level (therefore ladder games would most likely be limited to a few levels only) and gametype (solo, random teams or arranged teams), then a special system would automatically match you against a player that is looking for a game as well and is in your level or close to it. each gametype has its own ladder where players are ranked by their their level (determined by EXP. points). the system is also Clan-friendly. you could still organize custom games, but those wouldn't affect your ladder stats. each once in a while quick one-day tourneys (with cool prizes such as new avatars) could be organized easily.

after talking with Gry, we came into a conclusion that such a ladder system is possible to make (he found a way to edit in-game menus) and shouldn't even be too difficult to as well. therefore i decided to start some development team that would take care of this, any volunteers? :)

Hey, quick question, if we use this kind of server database thing, would it be possible to play jazz online using a diffrent port?

Great idea, by the way.

i'd like to note that i've already planned mostly everything, i just need someone to get it work

Sounds awesome. Wonder what kind of avatars there would be besides bosses and such. I guess some of the rankings could be starting from newbie all the way up to jazz master(spaz) or whatever. Sounds great. Well keep nagging people for help and I'm sure it could turn out sucessful.

I think it's an awesome idea! It could even bring some new life into the long un-dead game!

After getting some detailed information, he seems to want theese features to be actually IN THE GAME. In other words this is 1.25 territory, only without the source code. I suggest you take small steps and try to consider other alternatives to make this work.

I could probably help out, not with the actual database work of course, but I've also found some ways to edit the menu. I can program, not in C++ though or anything so it doesn't really count.

Would more than likely be a lot easier to make a program external to JJ2, but to be jj2 aware, and take stats and scores from the game, and if the jj2 server was using it, make clients programs connect to it and such like that ;p

I was about the suggest that alternative but you stated it a lot better than I would Nimrod. Thanks for that one.

Anyway I think the idea has potential but keep in mind there are few programmers in this community that enjoy competiton enough to care about such a project.

I liked the web profiles of WC3. It promoted my ego. We should have that here.

But seriously. It's a good and easy idea taking Nimrod's suggestion. Just gotta make sure there's no cheating, and the profiles should hosted on Jazz2online perharps in system with the current account system.

Hmm... that would be interesting. But it shouldn't start as newbie, it should start at "(unranked)". Just something I wanted to point out.

Yes, to put it bluntly its purpose is merely to stroke egos but in doing so doesn't this help the community? after all look at how the number of new reviews was affected after the removal of the ranking system.

By the way R3ptile, I think you should consult with me asap, I have some ideas I'd like to discuss with you in relation to the ranks.

yeah great idea, but still something designed well, like a completely new game

Honestly, I think this game is way to small to keep that ladder system alive and well.

we'll see..:rolleyes:

Building it into the game doesn't require the source code. I can't really see the use of having it inbuilt though

I posted already this to the newspost-comments without seeing the thread first, so now I am posting it here with some edits.

There could be also a ladder for Free For All. In this case, a small "AYCR" of 4-6 players. The player to reach the score-limit, or most roasts in an amount of time, wins.

About the icons; There could be Bad Guy-icons for an ‘x’ amount of wins. Icons would depend on the character, and on something else if possible. For example 15 wins on Jazz—>Lizard-icon. And for the maximum amount of wins, some boss-icon would fit. 1000 wins with Jazz—>Devan-icon.

I think there should be rather just a mappool of those default levels, where you can only "thumb down" 1-2 levels. That way a player can't stick to only one level, and must be able to play in at least a few other levels. So there's just some more to be prepared for.

How much stats are being given for players? How many roasts you did? Well, that one is yet simple, but would it be even possible to see so minor details, like how many PUs you’ve picked with that character, etc.

Problem of a ladders system is keeping it active, a live and interesting. Ladders are the hardest to maintain and least populair system for the competitive gaming world.

Cups are much more easy to maintain since they are a 1 time event. Not an on-going one like ladders. Leagues with seedings divisions might be a better solution. Since those are kind of a mix between cups and ladders. Plus it's more fair and you can base it on a season.

Battle.net has the advantage that anyone on anytime can play a ladder. Without to much trouble of a 3rd party program or website. Also, winning a ladder brings you big money and fame on battle.net. Which is ofcourse a huge motivation to actually play it. Last but not least is, is that WarCraft 2/WarCraft 3/StarCraft has litterly millions of people playing it. So the ladder isn't affected when groups of people leave or come.

I've seen alot of ladders going dead on ClanBase, ESL, CAL, TWL etc etc because a group of people didn't agree with rule changes so they just leave the ladder and kills it off.

example of a league:
Prime Group:
1
2
3
4
5 - Next Season demoted
6 - demoted

Group Alpha:
1 - Next Season Promoted
2 - Promoted
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -
7 - Next Season Demoted
8 - Demoted

Group Beta - etc etc

The external program could try and "detect" known cheating programs like Ultrawarp and whatever is being used these days. Bit like those UTSecure and stuff use to do on UnrealTournament, where the mod ran on the client machines and checked if the known cheating programs were running. And if they are detected, even disable itself, or alert in game. Not 100% secure, but would stop the casual cheating that goes on.

And like it could keep a note of the players position, and detect if the pos changes suddenly without reason. Though I guess it would need a way to detect legal warps (eg warpzone in the level).

I'm not a programmer so I have no idea whats possible, but going from conversation from Overlord and looking at current programs out I dont see why this wouldnt be possible, though a lot of work.

Hmm... Sounds fun... Might get me more active again, too, and I don't think that I'm just speaking for myself there.

if you ever get to finish this, I'll surely give it a try... though I think this game is indeed too small for such huge things to work so I doubt if it even ever gets finished :roll:

would be (-) cool though :D

For R3p's request, I made a suggesting list of what icons would there be for each character, for an amount of wins.

Everyone start out as a Norm Turtle

Jazz
15 wins - Lizard
45 wins - Dragon
90 wins - Rapier
150 wins - Sparks
250 wins - Hatter
325 wins - Tuf Turt
400 wins - Bolly
500 wins - Devil Devan

Spaz
15 wins - Helmut
45 wins - Bat
90 wins - Raven
150 wins - Demon
250 wins - Monkey
325 wins - Sucker
400 wins - Bubba
500 wins - Bilsy

If there's something for Lori of TSF, then I'd go this way

15 wins - Labrat
45 wins - Dragon Fly
90 wins - (Secret) Blue Ghost
150 wins - Floating Sucker(?)
250 wins - Addon DOG
325 wins - Witch
400 wins - Rocket Turtle
500 wins - Queen

This ones' gonna keep me going for a while.

500 wins - Devil Devan

i don't think anyone will make it in the next 10 years of jj2 to 500 wins tbh.

Why not? ;o It's just ten wins a day in some months

Less than two months actually. Considering that ten wins doesn't take that long, a dedicated player who doesn't even need alot of free time could easily snag the rank in a relatively short amount of time.

You seriously think people will keep on playing against you after you crushed them 5 times in a row? Especially if you want to make it to 500 within 2 months. I seriously doubt you will make it to 500 in that short period of time. You can bet on that.

If people start to care about their ranks and ratings the activity goes down on a limited group of players. People lose the motivation to keep on playing in the ladder and eventually the drop out.

A 3rd party ladder system is the worst tournament structure for a tiny game as jazz.

I thought there was some kind of matching system, but sure. Also, you don't need to take as much personal blame if it's a team game.

EDIT: The activity is already down to a limited group of players, so it can hardly get any worse.

there is quite a huge group of players, most of them just either play in Battle Server or host their own games all the time

is there anyone who noticed that not everyone will sign up for this? the group of players participating will be even smaller

bingo, thats my point. Jj2 is to small to keep the ladder alive. Especially the hardcore and competive gamers is just so mega small that it is bound to fail. It might work out fine the first month.. but after that, when the 'newish' feeling is gone. The activity will slowly drop and ladder bleeds to death.

I have to much experiance with that on ClanBase :-)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against it.. but i'm trying to prevent you guys in wasting a lot of time and effort to add such a system. The ideas are wonderfull but i highly doubt that it would work out.

i have some (-) good ideas to keep it entertaining and thrilling even for a period of YEARS

you get a 1 case of the best Dutch ale if you manage to keep it alive and active for 5 years. Since you have really good plans..

Which is absolutely doubtfull.

Sorry but I don't like the idea. I don't like games where people log stats like kills and deaths, sure it's interesting, but it just mkaes people play to keep their kill death ratio better or to keep a good record, instead of focusing on fun. I like the fact it will be a big development to JJ2 but I also think that these negative aspects are too significant.

This thread makes me remember a conversation I had with (community legend) Mez in an abandoned Anniversary Bash server, where he told me how glad he was JJ2 didn't have a ladder system, since that generally made people care more and more about competition and little about just playing for the fun of it and fairplay. He said it was noticeable from the friendliness of the community and the "fun" people were able to have that we did not have such a system, and bade us to never create such a thing, since the uncompetitiveness was the thing that set this community apart. I even have the conversation on log somewhere I think.

Just relaying.

(to be completely honest, the people in this community who just have a fun time, *do* like some competitive play but wouldn't really care about reputation, ego, etc, seem to me the people generally who make this community so fun and pleasant)

i am still looking for programmers

keep going

I fully understand peoples feelings inregards to ladders and stats, I myself when playing on Xbox Live tend not to play in Ranked Servers as I find its too competetive and more about points than fun.

Then again you see I have a choice, I dont have to play Ranked Games, and it would be the same if Reptile ever managed to actually pull this off in JJ2, people could easily ignore his system and play online using the old fashioned way for fun if they so wished. So to be perfectly fair, there is no reason to even mention about not liking stats, its simple, don't play on his system when it comes out.

But this community as a whole is uncompetitive when it comes to JJ2. So where are the stat fiends going to come from?

The ones who still play the game are all into competitions.