Rankings

[Ben]

I'd say "they" are wasting my time, but I know they can't do much about it.

You're playing a video game. You are already "wasting" your time
I still don't like the term noob. I don't care how you use it, it's still an arrogant thing to say.
Sorry if I appear rude. It's not intended.

[batoonike]

"...but any system where one gains points for winning and loses points for losing only Leeds to people disconnecting from games..."
Disconnecting from games counts as "loss" in most ranking systems. If we wan't to be super-nice you can dispute the loss to not count actual computer crashes as losses but this is often not even included, since it's hard to implement.

Imo it loses some of the essence of multiplayer gaming if you have like 80% chance to win anyway, since there is high chance the opponent is a new player. One purpose of multiplayer gaming is to have less predictable games. It gets predictable if you fight opponents who can't counter your 30 militia or 10 crossbowmen at 45 minute mark and it happens 5 times in a row. And im not even a good player, I just know the building order to get 1st army.

[GreatWhiteBear]

or your 30militia with 10crossbowmen as backup.

[Jeronimo]

My small plan... is recording every game I have (+ taking screenshot of 1st minute with Diplomacy open -> to know the teams/PT/names/colors). Im willing to play some matches to get a small base of Replays.

In those Replays, you can discover a Player's capacity, and so give him your OWN RATE.
I talked via Private with GWB respect this. Dunno if he agrees yet to do it this way.

Instead of using SAVE classification, I recommend another simpler and universal to use: ABCD
A: pro / B: hard / C: normal / D: easy (as Ben, I never use the word "noob")

So.. after a while with many replays, we can make this TABLE, and write all Names + Replays 1-2-3-4-5-6-etc...
A player's performance will be the average result of all grades he got through games.
Example: Florek has B+A+B -> final grade= B (conclusion based on 3 replays)

We can analyze and discuss each Replay here or in Multiplayers results threads. In cases of split opinions respect 1 replay (3 think one played as C, while other 3 think he played as B) we round down the Grade, so its a C. I recommend to be stricts rounding down.

[Mulberry]

I think rankings will be very usefull. I can agree with some points made by GreatWhiteBear. But all this table thing is to hard to manage. Lewin, Is it possible to make some kind of automatical rank system? Take a look on Starcraft Brood War ladder or Age of Empires 1 , just for example.

[Florek]

It was mentioned and rejected as I read somewhere.

[Lewin]

It would be a huge amount of work to implement, (maybe 6 months at the usual amount of time I put into the remake) it would probably require us to pay for a much better hosting service and there are issues with storing people's passwords and stuff, making it completely secure would be hard and if data was stolen it could give us a very bad reputation. People use the same password everywhere so it's a serious risk if it gets stolen.
We don't have the time, money and resources that age of empires and star craft have.

[Mulberry]

Then i can see only one way to make this: We need to grow comunity larger to make the game more popular! And find someone who have enought time to help with permanent programming.

[The Dark Lord]

What would rankings actually add? I think it'll do more wrong than right.

[Kirelareus]

I agree with Dark Lord. Rankings aren't actually now

[Lewin]

Yeah it's been discussed before. Can you imagine public lobbies?:
"I don't want that guy on my team, he has a bad ranking."
"Player X is a noob he has a bad ranking *kick* "

And people will no doubt try to find ways to get a better ranking, e.g. by setting up two accounts, playing 1vs1 games between the accounts and always winning on their main account so they get a better ranking. Sure we could put ways to try and prevent this but at the end of the day people will find another way.

But I'm certainly not opposed to growing the community and making the game more popular.

[kocsis1david]

I think that newbies don't like playing with professional players, this is also a reason to quit. So maybe we don't need ranking, just need to create lobbys for different levels, and players would choose.

[Lewin]

Yes that's a good idea, the host could set a rank for the lobby: noob, average, pro

[Da Revolution]

I don't think that will work till there are more players

[Kirelareus]

Yes that's a good idea, the host could set a rank for the lobby: noob, average, pro

I agree, it'sgood idea. But noobs must play with Pro for increase their level