1. Status update 2009

[*DAMN Mauti]

During the holidays I could finally finish most parts of the ladder and season&events modules. What still needs to be done is to assign ladders to a season and to adjust the settings for this special combination.

Contrary to the *DBL where you just created a new ladder if you wanted another ranking system the ladders are now more static, e.g. you create a 4vs4 CoD4 TEAM ladder. For season 1 you want a scheduled Advanced 3-0 system but for season 2 an ELO system because too many clan participate to schedule the season. In the *DBL 1 you just created a new ladder - so theses ladders appear as 2 different ones, although nothing changed except the ranking system. As a consequence you couldn't track records and stats in a combined overall ladder.
In the *DBL 2.0 you only create one TEAM ladder. Whenever you assign this ladder to a season or an event you set the special season settings like ranking system or sign up requirements, but the ladder is the same. So no matter if you play a 4vs4 CoD4 TEAM season or later a tournament, both with its own winners of course, the ladder is the same and all results can be tracked easily in one overall ladder with its own ranking system. This allows e.g. for a yearly 4vs4 CoD4 TEAM award. Another advantage is that if a ladder has an overall ranking you can also submit cbs inbetween seasons just for the overall ranking.

Maybe for you this will only be a minor difference but it allows a lot more possibilities on the admin side and it will be easier for clans and players to follow news about events for a certain ladder, etc.

So as next step I have to finish the link module between seasons and ladders, as well as the different ranking systems. Once this is done the next update gonna follow soon.

For the meantime I uploaded you a small snipped of the ladder overview page. The shown ladders are just for testing purposes and are in no way meant to be the final selection. However you might find some other details I didn't tell you about yet.

Bye,

Mauti

[BFG]

Flipping eck mate, you could never ever be accused of not seeing a job through, - and nice work on the new system for setting the ladders, sounds good!

[PUNiSHER™]

Mauti, Age of the Empires 2 would be huge if it was added.  Its probably the most played game on Gameranger and theres several AoE clans.  You could do team matches and FFA matches.  A lot of FFA matches are played using scenarios/bloods. I know the GWARZ scenario would make an awesome FFA ladder.

[*DAMN Mauti]

That was also my plan. However I need user that play these games to make good rules and ladder settings. So if you play these games you are welcome to add your ideas and suggestions. Personally I want to finish the programming part first, before I go through all possible ladders and games for the first season.

Greetings from Vienna,

Mauti

[*DAMN Mauti]

Alright the module should already been finished, but other open university projects kept me busy the last week.

It's partly finished. One minor problem is that I must be able to add missions for coop ladders and may missions might be ranked differently depending on the game or mod. Some are are ranked by time(least - or max, if a defend mission), others are ranked by points, some are mixed etc. This makes it a bit complicated, but I'm on it and hope to finish this module soon.

Bye,

Mauti

[dr.blake.]

... jeez mauti i really hope youre not wasting your time. are there gunna be enough cod4 and AoE players who wanna compete to make this worth while?

[*DAMN Mauti]

Yes, I think so, especially because many PC ladders haven't changed for years as well. But of course after such a long pause it is like starting from zero so it may take awhile to get everything rolling again, but with your help by playing games it will be a success again.

If not, then the *DBL might be really over after 9 years of existence.

So blake once it is done play, play, play and tell everyone to play ;-)

[dr.blake.]

I dont really have any games.. :-/

You should do a Rogue Spear and or Raven Shield 1v1 ladder.. maybe 2v2 even

[PUNiSHER™]

Mauti the "scheduled match" system on the PC GHR League over at www.ghostleague.net seems to work well.  I was always against playing scheduled CBs but this works so much better because everybody knows what day and time they need to be online to play.  Both clans just need to agree on a day and time to play.  Their website has a "upcoming match" list that shows when the CBs are.  I would recommend having scheduled matches for the new DBL.

Sample from their website:

[dr.blake.]

my boy punski's right.

after rvs shit the bed, I played Call of Duty:UO competitively on TWL... thats how they do it too. All the legit gaming leagues use that system. Its the only way to do it...Probably means a shitload more coding tho.

[*DAMN Mauti]

Hi guys,

time for a short update. Finally I found the time to finish the game mission module, where you can add missions to games. This missions will be used for coop or highscore ladders. So now that this is done I can finally finish the ladder/season settings module, where you set some rules for the upcoming season like ranking system, challenges yes/no, sign up policies like public, best of last season, manual, etc...

This should be finished tomorrow. Then only the clan, news and ranking modules need to be done to get it online for some public testing.

@ Pun: well if you remember most of our tournaments where scheduled, and once even a whole season. Some issues where that a few clans dropped out at the beginning but even worse some dropped out midseason and we had to nullify all cbs that this clan already played with others.

However depending on ladder size I always wanted to add a schedule and challenge system. Coding isn't that much work and it will be incorporated sooner or later. For the initial release there will be probably only a relative ranking system and a tournament setup. However I'll get more indepth as soon as I get some of the modules mentioned above done. Btw Pun are the schedules set by the admins or is there just a deadline when they have to play and the clans negotiate their own times?

Last but not least a small preview pic about the game missions.(Ascending and Descending is just the setting how the mission outcomes should be sorted)

Good night,

Mauti

[PUNiSHER™]

Clans negotiate their own times and days, the admins have March 15th as the date all CBs must be completed by.  I don't know what happens if clans don't finish by then I assume those CBs are forfeited then.

Thats looking awesome Mauti, for the missions/coop ladders will there be an area to upload replays or screenshots of your completed games?  People would need to prove their final result wouln't they?

If you have the GHR ladder completely working by April you might be able to get clans from that PC league at www.ghostleague.net.  We would have to show them how great *DAMN is and why its better to convince them.  Maybe even offer to use their rules.  I don't think Gameranger itself has enough Ghost Recon clans anymore to play CBs.  Theres probably only 2-3 clans left that would play.

I think Age of Empires 2 could be big if you do the 4 v 4, 2 v 2, FFA, and mission ladders for that game too.  Although that game is not Mac-PC compatible so you almost need a Mac ladder and PC ladder.  Call of Duty 4 would probably start out slow but get more popular when people know about it on here.

*Another thing with the other league, their website displays all CB times in military GMT time by default.  But when you login to the site with your own account the CB times will be displayed according to the timezone you have set in your profile.  I don't know if you plan on incorporating something like that but it would be helpful since we're from all over the world.
This picture demonstrates that the times change on the right after I login to match my timezone set in my profile:

[*DAMN Mauti]

Yes, of course there will be an area where clans can upload a screenshot or anything else that proves their result. I already upgraded my webspace ;-)

Oh I see. Thanks for all the infos. Such a system is a combination of my planned challenge feature and a scheduled setup. I'm excited how it will work out.

Cya,

Mauti

[*DAMN Mauti]

So the ladder season setting module is finished for now. Also some menu bugs have been fixed. So you can create a season, ladder and then set some specific season ladder settings.

@ Punisher: a time setting has been included since I have finished the user module at the very beginning. You can even customize how it displays the time and dates. I even have written a small time difference auto-detect javascript. It's similiar to the forum.



More news about the next steps tomorrow morning. I need some sleep now.

Mauti

[BFG]

While i can understand there are not many GhR clans around anymore, i think an active ladder with GhR games - including FFA etc - could mean that more players return, and new clans or groups of competitive players emerge. - That said i'm sure its never going to be like 'the old days' but move with the times etc etc.
Mauti in terms of ss's etc can they be tied to the matches with a auto confirm from the opposing clan leaders as we had before?  All looks really good, nice work sir!

[*DAMN Mauti]

Mauti in terms of ss's etc can they be tied to the matches with a auto confirm from the opposing clan leaders as we had before? 

For any adversial cb the winner enters the data and the other clan or player has to confirm it, as it was before. Screenshots to proove records are only uploaded for Highscore and Coop ladders per default. For adversial cbs you only have to upload a replay or screenshot if one side rejected the cb.I hope that answers your question, because I'm not sure if I understood it right.

Bye,

Mauti

[cO.Vickedson]

Wow, you guys are still doing this league?  What do you play COD4 on?  i have it on xbox

[Cell]

Did you guys start a COD4 ladder yet? Been playing on the www.teamwarfare.com ladder for a while now.

5vs5 Hardcore Search & Destroy with modified/limited kits and perks.  FUn stuff.  If you guys get the COD4 ladder running over here, I will try and get my guys to join.

[*DAMN Mauti]

Hi Cell,

nope. Since the end of march the *DBL development was on hold due some urgent private problems.

They are now solved so I still plan to finish it sooner or later.

More updates as they come.

Have a nice day,

Mauti