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Adding a in game profile page for players that can be seen by right clicking their callsign when in a server, also probably tied into their FAO forum account.

This is a discussion topic to look at what could be on this profile and what achievements could be included.

As a side note there could also be a tab from the profile to bring it to an admin page where previous bans/notes/hiders etc can also be shown only to admins.

Freyja wrote:QUOTE (Freyja @ Jul 21 2010, 06:56 PM) From a game design point of view, it's simple, aside from basics like gameplay and graphics and the like, almost everyone likes milestones, achievements, awards, medals, and that whole slew of things. Take some of the more infamous games of late that offer nothing but those pats on the back; Farmville and Evony... both those games complete[ly] suck in every way possible, but you get shiny little things for playing them.

The primary purpose is for interest and hopefully to encourage newer players (typically less than a year) to complete these achievements, both for fun and for learning the game. Players that have been here a long time will typically have many of these completed when a system would go online, however it can still create interest and friendly competition. The goal is not for these to be restrictive or overly difficult to complete, rather to fosters a fun learning environment. It will more than likely also help with newbie retention a long time issue of the community, and the concept has been used extremely well for many games.

There should be very little effort (aside from ribbons & roles which rarely would change) to maintain a profile as it mostly would refer to a database.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us] Any similarity to any player is purely accidental.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us Any similarity to any player is purely accidental.

Things that can be included in a profile;

-Callsign (including player rank and comm rank)
-Squad (nice shiny graphic)
-Roles (ZL, SL, ASL, Alleg, Admin, Dev, etc)
-Stats (parsed from current system more or less)
-Badges (q.v.)
-Ribbons (AFS, ACS, Community, Participation, Contribution)
-Medals (?, squad tournaments, special events, MVPs, 2010 best scout whore, misc., etc, ?)

Ribbons;

AFS; Ribbon for completion, w/ Star for honours, w/ star & bar as instructor past/present)
ACS; Ribbon for completion, w/ Star for honours, w/ star & bar as instructor past/present)
Community; Ribbon for FAO Forum account (50+ posts), w/star for Allegiance Supporter, w/star & bar for Allegiance Supporter Plus.
*Participation; Ribbon for past/present */^ @help @sen @alleg, w/ star for anything more involved, w/star & bar for crazy people like TE/BV... etc
*Contribution; Ribbon for any substantial contribution, w/ star for anything more involved, w/ star & bar for crazy people like Kage/Noir... etc etc

*I realize that some of the above are subjective, as such I divided them into fairly easy areas, ribbons for people that have done 'a little', w/ stars & bars for people that have done 'a lot', and ribbon w/ star for anything inbetween. Probably best to have those responsible for the areas above to give with fairness the ribbon, and once a year (say in Decemeber) run a month long poll for people to get upgraded to the next tier (option 1 upgrade them, option 2 not yet), those that have ribbons with simple majority (1/2 +1) can get upgraded to the star, anyone with a star and super majority (2/3 +1) get upgraded to star & bar.

Badges;;

Some badges will be easy to code as they are already tracked (con kills), others may only be able to be added in the future if there is the will (con kills in a scout). Each badge would have four states (example; unaccomplished (partially transparent graphic), accomplished x1 (bronze outline), accomplished x10 (silver graphic), accomplished x100 (gold graphic).

In many cases badges will be completely unique to each other (won a game as comm), in other cases they will be related but different from each other (killed 1 miner in a game, killed 2 miners in a game), in some cases they will be similar (killed 2 miners in a game, killed 1 miner (difference being that in the first case the player is required to kill 2 miners in a single game, in the second case killed 1 miner gives them the bronze badge and each additional miner kill increases the times the receive that badge and if they do so 10 times they go from bronze to silver, 100 times from silver to gold), at times they may be dependent on each other (example; let's say there are 5 miner related badges; killed 1 miner, killed 1 miner in a game, killed 2 miners in a game, killed 3 miners in a game, killed 4+ miners in a game, the dependent one might be I received 5 badges for miner killing (bronze, silver, and gold badges each count as a seperate badge and stack for dependencies).


Example Badges [50 types, available space] (required repeats for; bronze outline, silver outline, gold outline);


Killed 1 Miner. (x1, x10, x100)
Killed 2 Miners in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)
Killed 3+ Miners in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)

Killed 1 Con. (x1, x10, x100)
Killed 2 Cons in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)
Killed 3+ Cons in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)

Killed 1 Base. (x1, x10, x100)
Killed 2 Bases in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)
Killed 3+ Bases in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)

Captured 1 Base. (x1, x10, x100)
Captured 2 Bases in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)
Captured 3+ Bases in 1 game. (x1, x10, x100)

Obtained a Miner killing badge. (x1, x2, x4)
Obtained a Base killing badge. (x1, x2, x4)
Obtained a Base Capturing badge. (x1, x2, x4)
Obtained a Con killing badge. (x1, x2, x4)

Played # Games (x1, x10, x100)
Won # Games (x5, x10, x100)
Played # Squad Games (x1, x10, x100)
Won # Squad Games (x1, x10, x100)
Anti-Stacked a Game (x1, x10, x100)
Anti-Stacked and Won a Game (x1, x10, x100)

Commed a Game (x1, x10, x100)
Commed & Won a Game (x1, x10, x100)
Commed & Won a Game As Specific Faction [Giga, Tf, etc] (x1, x10, x100)
Commed a Game of Each Faction (x1, x10, x100)
Commed & Won a Game of Each Faction (x1, x10, x100)

Podded a Pilot. (x1, x10, x100)
Podded 5 Pilots before being killed. (x1, x10, x100)
Been podded. (x10, x50, x250)
Been killed. (x10, x50, x250)

Played an hour. (x1, x10, x100)
Gained 100 in game points. (x1, x10, x100)
Gained 50 badges. (x1, x2, x3)
Defection (x1, x2, x3)
Mutinied [Voted "Yes" in a mutiny]. (x1, x2, x3)
Resigned [Voted "Yes" in a resign]. (x1, x2, x3)

Scouted the map. [50 points from scouting] (x5, x25, x125)
Dropped ten probes. [not tracked currently] (x5, x25, x125)
Found an aleph. (x5, x25, x125)

Something else, profiles can be useful for recruiting players to squads, primarily those newer players of course.

Different badges would have different look of course, and mouse over would give name, details, and how close to the next goal, etc.

The different ribbons (acs, afs, community, participation, contribution) could be clickable to go to another page with details if wanted.

Could also have a badge for kill assist.

I presume that these achievements would be limited to "games that count". (no silly side games for the purpose)

I'm not sure that the code returns certain information for some of these to be viable. Does the code take separate note that it was a miner as opposed to any drone? I also don't think it registers what kind of ship the killer was when the drone was killed (ie it doesn't differentiate between a hvy int or a scout kill).

FreeBeer wrote:QUOTE (FreeBeer @ Jul 23 2010, 01:01 AM) I presume that these achievements would be limited to "games that count". (no silly side games for the purpose)

Yes, it would definately only use games that count.

FreeBeer wrote:QUOTE (FreeBeer @ Jul 23 2010, 01:01 AM) I'm not sure that the code returns certain information for some of these to be viable.

In some cases you may be right, in others it may be a small change, and still others might not be worth the effort. Hence the discussion thread.

FreeBeer wrote:QUOTE (FreeBeer @ Jul 23 2010, 01:01 AM) Does the code take separate note that it was a miner as opposed to any drone?

I'm not 100% though I think it might.

FreeBeer wrote:QUOTE (FreeBeer @ Jul 23 2010, 01:01 AM) I also don't think it registers what kind of ship the killer was when the drone was killed (ie it doesn't differentiate between a hvy int or a scout kill).

I'm not 100% though I think it does not.

Yeah.. nothing insurmountable, but a fair amount of work if more detailed messages have to be sent than is done currently. Then another process must run on the stats server to crunch through the achievements to see if a new level has been obtained. Or at least that's what I would think is needed.

Achievements like this could also hinder pilots too, it would depend on the possible achievements gained. Negative achievements shouldn't be added; things like podded most times for example shouldn't be added. It would just hurt pilot reputations. Oh, No! Here comes Omniwraith and his most booted medal!

what about?

AFS Graduate (I know what a scout is!)
Cadet Graduate (I don't totally suck!)
ACS Graduate (I dont totally suck as a commander)

All those medals pics in the core files could be useful to this end. At the moment, they just sit in everyone's HDD and do nothing.

Commander given medals/achievements could be incorporated too. This list could go on and on. This could be done possibly via forum under a new zone, which wouldn't require any coding. It could have just a few admins @Achieve or something. A commander would recommend medals given via forum through a thread, and a witness or 2 could add their opinions. It could be that an @Achieve has to have been in the game to witness it (which would make the awards that much harder to get.)

If this were to be incorporated, here are some of my suggestions:

Nanite defender! (no points are given to nanning, this has always been a problem)
The All Seeing: (Man, If P wasn't there in his scout to eyeball that HTT, it would have been game over!)
The Prox bandit: (OMG! I can't believe X podded Y with that prox/drone!)
The Flying Gat: (Pilot X was deadly in that AFig)
The Flying Mini: (Pilot Y was to be feared in his HInt)
The Assassin: (OMG! Did you see how pilot K raped Piloted Y in his Lux SF?)

The Jumping Bean (Player N was never in base!)
Miner's Friend (Player W got our miner safely home and despite fighting off 3+ enemies (variable))
Miner Scourge (Player Y killed a miner despite having 4+ people defending it (variable))

Some really hard one to get could be:
The Commander's Star: (Commander Only: All the pilots of a color in a 30+ people game say "Awesome commanding" and thread it.)
Master and Commander: (Commander Only: Receive The Commander's Star x10)
Backseat Driver: (Commander recommends player J bc without J backing up the commander the team would not have won, witnessed and verified)
Medal of One-Mind: (The pilot obeys and performs all orders given by the commander successfully, witnessed and verified.)

Patience Medal: (Pilot G has been in his low sig scout forever waiting to Drop a tp2 or spy a miner in sector Z, witnessed and verified.)
Courage/Valor Medal: (Pilot Q is either crazy or stupid for going up against that many pilots for REAL reason. OMG he lives!?)
Friend to All: (Pilot is NEVER negative and is very productive (gets team motivated for example))
Morale Medal: (pilot has turned a team's negative morale into a positive one, we win!)

etc etc

Sorry if some of the names of awards are cheesy.

What do you all think?

Too late for R6 for certain, but with the new stuff Imago has done for server reporting stuff, I think it will be easier now than it has been since there's more of a groundwork laid.

Would be interesting, though. Things like what ship the player makes their most kills in, what ship the player spends their most time in, etc

Well alot of cool @#(! can be brought back from the Zone days with the old AllClub server and clubScreens w/o too much swearing.

Certainly lots of possibilities for the future.

=-=

Omni Wraith wrote:QUOTE (Omni Wraith @ Jul 23 2010, 03:08 AM) Negative achievements shouldn't be added; things like podded most times for example shouldn't be added.

The 'negative' badges I listed above aren't 'negative'.

Any pilot worth their salt will pod themselves to lay a probe that will detect an enemy miner or spot an enemy rush for their miners. Almost everyone that's been around longer than a day has been podded 250+ times (the maximum listed above, most whores have been podded many thousands of times). These are listed for a good reason, there is value in sacrifice. The resign/mutiny voting is there as an instructional tool, it's ok to vote for those things in certain circumstances and will make voting a bit faster, the fact a player would go from bronze>silver>gold for voting 1/2/3 times only is to make new players not to get the wrong idea and always voting yes.

The comm award thing is interesting, problem is that which comms give them, all comms, then the awards are valueless... perhaps 10 different comms using an in game reporting system (much to much work probably for anything other than a squad game or special event) could be in the "not insane" area.

I would say "$#@! NO" to any proposal to have an achievement for mutiny/resign voting, as regardless of how it is implemented, people just glance at achievements and try to get them for whatever reason.

Being podded - I think it sets a decent standard that "Being podded isn't always bad" so I agree with that one.

I would say the game lends itself more to a "Medal" style of system as opposed to an "Achievement" style system, for the simple reason that you can have many levels of "Medals" and not have it seem funky, where most games' "Achievements" you do once and never think of again. My suggestion would be to have four levels of Medals:

Bronze - Easily obtainable, but requires some work.
Silver - Harder to obtain, but still decently possible.
Gold - Hard to obtain, requires a lot of work and effort.
Platinum - Nigh-impossible to obtain, depending on whatever it is.

Let's say for a bomber killer medal.
Criteria: Kill a number of bombers in one game
Bronze: One bomber kill credit
Silver: Two bomber kill credits
Gold: Three bomber kill credits
Platinum: Five bomber kill credits

Or for a generic "Kills" medal:
Criteria: Gain a number of total lifetime kills.
Bronze: 25 kills
Silver: 50 kills
Gold: 100 Kills
Platinum: 250 Kills

Or for Base Kills:
Criteria: Kill a number of bases in a single game. Light and regular bases
Bronze: 3 Base Kills
Silver: 5 Base Kills
Gold: 8 Base Kills
Platinum: 15 Base Kills

These are, of course, numbers pulled out of my ass but they illustrate what I think would be a decent system. Have the standard Bronze/Silver/Gold that are possible in most standard games (Maybe with a little work, but still possible), and have the Platinum level that is something that would likely have to have a Zone Game or other event to get.

I would also lean away from any user-given awards, since those quickly become meaningless. IMO, all achievements/medals/awards should be automated so one person can't ruin the whole thing by refusing to give any/giving them to everyone. People would give "Best Player Award" to StupidCircleNoob(0) even if he just flew into rocks all day and ignored the commander's orders, and people wouldn't give "Best Player Award" to DeservingVet even though they wouldn't have won without him just because they don't like him.