http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4928 <-- for a tldr; version of this post.

Foogs' idea for a QuakeWorld 1v1 Duel Ladder:
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*Note* I haven't taken the time to re-read any of this. I'm sure I'm missing tons of shit but this is probably good for a good scratched up outline. It wasn't originally created to be a forum post but I decided to post it anyway. Sorry for the shitty formatting.
*Note* I don't really know any programming languages at all. I need to learn something. I do know HTML/CSS and my way around Adobe Photoshop though if that's any use.
I'm not begging for this to be done but can you imagine how rad it would be to be able to use this league to judge your skills / play Quakeworld? It could be adapted for 2v2 / 4v4 as well!

Edit: Matches would actually be considered just 1 map. e.g. 1 won map = 1 match win. Random selection of maps from map pool (TB5: dm2, dm4, dm6, ztndm3, aerowalk)

[MATCHES]
[3 Maps = 1 match (Best of 3)]
[Only maps from current ladder map pool]
[Season last 3 months or something like that]
[#1 Rank = Ladder Season Champion]
[Top 8 players at the end of the season get invited to True Ladder Season Champion Tournament to decide who the best really is (Non obligatory)]
[PTS/Divs]
[Read about ELO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system]
[No Divisions. Anyone can play anybody]
[You earn more points if you play/beat a person with equal or ELO rating than yourself]
[You lose more points if you play/lose a person with a lower ELO rating than yourself]

[WEB INTERFACE]
[VIEW 1v1 LADDER STANDINGS (User names clickable / takes you to their stats page)]
[Uses Ladder Standings MySQL Database/Tables or whatever to store]
[View individual player statistics: LG% / RL% / Average Frags per map / Total Frags / Efficiency / ELO]
[Register FOR 1v1 LADDER .html/php]
[desired username]
[desired password]
[email address]
[List akas] (Required for the admin to review your application)
[captcha]
[submit]
[Saves their information into the QWDL UserWaiting MySQL database]
[Emails the admins of the league with the applicants information]
[Admin has to okay the registration somehow..]
[If admin okays send confirmation email]
[If admin denies send denial email]


[FILE MATCH COMPLAINT .html/php]
[Basic form emailer to ladder admins email account]
[OR contact information for current Ladder admins]
[QWDLBot Manual .html/php]
[documentation on the bot]

[IRC BOT INTERFACE]
*Note* Does not handle new player registrations *Note*
If player isn't logged into the bot ignore any commands or messages sent to it

---Commands---
*Notes* QWDLBot checks IP/Hostmask of the IRC user to see if that user is still the same user before any command is executed

{Login to bot}
[command : /msg QWDLBot login username password]
[QWDLBot checks the MySQL user database to verify if the login is correct]
[IF login info is correct give them a welcome message]
[Welcome username. There is # left days on the current ladder season]
[Use IP somehow for users session]

[IF login info is incorrect give them a wrong username/password message]

{Start a new Match}
[e.g. command : /msg QWDLBot challenge username-of-to-be-challenged]

[QWDLBot checks the CHALLENGE variable of username-who-is-challenging]

[IF CHALLENGE variable = 1 (player has challenged someone else)]
[QWDLBOT messages username-who-is-challenging telling him he can only challenge one person at a time]

[IF CHALLENGE variable = 0 (player hasnt challenged anyone else)]
[QWDLBot checks same User database website uses to see if the player exists]
[IF player exists]
[QWDLBot sets both players CHALLENGE variable to 1]
[QWDLBot messages username-of-to-be-challenged With username-who-is-challenging (With his stats / Ladder ELO) to see if he accepts]
[IF player accepts (/msg QWDLBot accept)
[QWDLBot sets username-of-to-be-challenged CHALLENGE variable to 1]
[QWDLBot waits for match results (1 Hour Timeout)
[If either player reports (/msg QWDLBot report win)
[QWDLBot asks the reporting player for the demos / match logs]
[QWDLBot waits 10 minutes for the user to DCC him at least 2 maximum 3 .mvds / .log]
[Abstract bot coding to accept DCCs and file determination HERE]
[No Idea how this part works]
[If the .mvd and .log are DCCed successfully]
[Parse them for stats etc]
[Check the names of the players in the .logs to see if they match the name they registered with]
[Update Ladder Standings MySQL tables etc]
[Add pts to winning players ELO]
[Subtract points to players ELO]
[Update Individual Stats pages for both players LG/RL% etc]
[If the user doesn't upload anything for 10 minutes just cancel the whole match and resets CHALLENGE variable to 0]
[If 1 hours and no report from neither player set both players CHALLENGE variable to 0]
[IF player doesn't accept (/msg QWDLBot deny) OR 2 minute timeout]
[Reset CHALLENGE variable to 0]
{/End Start a new match}

{Check player ranking / wins/losses}
[e.g. command: /msg QWDLBot stats username]
[QWDLBot checks username in MySQL database for players ELO / Match Stats]
[QWDLBot returns a message something like (username 32-1 | 1035.ELO)
{/End Check player ranking / wins/losses}


Benefits of having an IRC bot to control match creation / reporting:
Games potentially could be started within the ezquake client because ezquake suports connecting to IRC
Everyone that I know who plays quakeworld regularly hangs out on IRC anyway.
I don't see any negatives other than there might be a stronger possibility for abuse than a web interface (I bet they're equal)

Benefits of non-scheduled matches:
Will definitely promote more activity because humans are impulsive and usually dont like to wait around for a required time for shit
Play anytime you want if another player is on IRC and willing


So would any coders / Quake enthusiasts be interested in doing some sort of a project like this with me?
And how about players, is there anyone else out there who would love to have this as a league option?

I've always wanted this. Sounds superb. Prac games actually getting recorded to your stats somehow, makes all games more meaningful. ELO rankings ftw.
I could help out with making a design(.psd) for the web page.

If by points you mean ELO ranking points, that's not how it works. You gain/lose rank from any win/loss.

If you mean ladder points, why would anyone play vs a lower ELO player then?

There are probably more suitable ranking systems than ELO. Glicko? TrueSkill?

Sure, it doesn't really matter.

I would certainly play vs a lower ELO player if no one else was on to play because I would be confident that I could beat him. My theory is that the most active players on the ladder have the best chance at making the top 8 or even the #1 rank. The details / rules need to be ironed a bit more.

Sounds good to me. I'm not what you would call "active" anymore - but this would fit in nicely with another project that I am working on. I'm more than happy to do the coding BUT I don't have the time to deal with the rest of it - gfx (bps does good work though ;-)), rules, admining, dealing with complaints, etc, etc.

Some thoughts:

If a season only lasts 3 months, are you suggesting that player's ratings are reset every season?

Is the final tournament really needed?

From memory, ELO is good but requires tweaks to deal with stat whores and rating protection.

I really like the idea of using the IRC bot to do more but (as I recall) DCC isn't the most reliable system. I don't know if this is technically possible but I am wondering if players could just tell the bot where they are playing so that the bot can ask, after the match which demos/logs are relevant. The website could then download the logs and demos directly from the game server. This would be quite cool - no need to download and upload. This would also mean that logs can't be altered. Is it even possible to get a log from the server?

Non-scheduled matches would be great with the bot's involvement - it would be possible to add spams and subscriptions so that people are alerted when their favorites are playing.

The big questions are... does anyone still play? Would this system be any better than stats.qw.nu?

In that regard, any competitive ranking system will need such "tweaks". ELO comes out of the box as the simplest and most meaningful rating system. Lots of organizations use it - chess as you know, starcraft (teamliquid, official sc2 ladders), etc.

Awesome! I'm so excited.
Yes, players stats would be reset every season. Maybe we could archive their stats somehow? It would be similar to how the successfully run Starcraft:Brood War iccup is ran.
http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/ladder.html
http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/sc_season.html
http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/sc_rating_system.html
http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/sc_ladder_rules.html


Not really needed, just a fun idea.


an excerpt from the iccup rules page:

A problem I see with trying to defend against rating protection is that you cannot force another human being to do something (example: play another player even though he doesnt want to because of his fear of losing). I don't think iccup has any rules on (dodging another player) rating protection. Sure there will be whine about this, but a solution would be to grind out games against players who will play vs you.


Yeah I'm not sure if you can grab .logs from a quakeworld server, I did some poking around and couldnt find anything. But you can most certainly grab .mvds from the server and then generate a .log from that. If its not possible to have the bot download the .logs from the qw server we could:

Ask cokeman if we could use his .mvd parser that is over at http://qw-dev.net/projects/mvdparser. Then we could just have the bot download the .mvd from the server instead and we would have to parse the demo on our side. Probably would be a huge bandwidth whore. If this fails we could instead have the .mvd/.log uploaded by the players instead using the website since DCC is unreliable. E.g. when a player reports a win to the bot, the bot then gives a player a unique link on the website to upload the .mvd/.log. I think users would complain to us about other players that are editing their .log files to pad LG or RL or Match stats. But I totally agree with you that it would be one less problem if we could just retrieve everything (from the server) unaltered by the players. It would = Less babysitting.


I estimate that there is a duel everyday in North America being played on a server, and North America only has like 10-15 active quakeworld duelers. Europe I couldn't be certain, but whenever i check qtv.quakeworld.nu I can find a duel going on. Just checked it now and there were 2 duels going on.


I'm biased but I think it would be better because stats.quakeworld.nu matches wouldn't be as meaningful as these matches would be.
stats.quakeworld.nu doesn't have an authentication system for players. e.g. I set my /name Milton and then lose over9000 duels to some random newbie and down his rank goes. Another "flaw" with not having any authentication system is that you can never have an unrecorded duel that doesn't affect your stats.

Hey grump. Fenris

Only catching up on this thread now. The plans for the stats.qw.nu are prertty much as above. Thing is most of the framework already exists. Myself and johnny_cz have been working hard the past few weeks to get Enhanced ktx Stats working for the
website. This is now finished and will be launched hopefully next week once we are finished testing. Which I think is huge

The idea is to have your qw.nu login assoicated with the stats site(Not intended as main authentication). So you logging in would bring you to a seperate view, where you see all your own detailed stats. You then browse through the player list and challenge people or add players as favourites. The ladder was to be handled seperately to all the other general stats arriving in to the site.

Perhaps we could join efforts on this ?

TELEFRAG.ME supports this!

I would love to help out in anyway that I could if it included an IRC bot and a ladder.

I can't speak for Grump though. I will talk to him tommorow as soon as he gets on and direct him to your post.

I must have missed the thread on your guys' project (Not the stats.quakeworld.nu part). Shame on you if you never posted about it because look at all the people willing to help!

Do your ladder plans include an IRC bot for challenging players? I think that feature might be what would set this apart from just another side project that would never get used.

Hey I know we've talked and will work out how we can merge efforts if possible. It's great that we have so many willing to do stuff. But just on that point above.

The work I have been doing is part of the ongoing stats.qw.nu project and not a new project.
The stats thread on qw.nu asked for help and suggestions and in fairness, of the few people that responded I have replied to all suggestions and fixed those that i could.

Also to note there is a ladder system on the site already for each of four 1on1 modes (pov,end,endif,1on1(TB5)) of which i wanted feedback on improving. And the improvements that we've been working on are with a view to improving this. I also posted up the ranking algorithm which was tailored for qw back in the day and asked for feedback and got little or none.

So I have been working away on the ideas I have had for a while now. First was to fix the existing bugs on the stats site and then to add on new features which I have talked about. Instead of posting ideas on qw.nu site, I just try and implement them, as everyone knows in qw there is loads of talk but less action. And in fairness myself and Johnny_cz have put a massive amount of time into the site.

Through no fault of our own there are flaws with the rankings and and the ladders on stats.qw.nu. You wont ever get agreement on an algorithm to use which affect the ladders. And secondly the auth issue, I think we have a mechanism we can use now (Again though its never going to be perfect).

The fact that stats.qw.nu has no authentication system is not its fault at all. There is none in qw. The work that's been done though, on the site over the past few weeks will help towards that goal for ladders etc. We will shortly have the ability to authenticate in a easy enough way and we already have the KTX stats fed to the stats site now. And from there it wont be too hard to support a private or public ladder. I have been working towards a multiple ladder system and other features for the site which will work seamlessly on top of, but indepedndently to the stats side of things. But there is a lot of work still to be done.

But anyway in reealtion to the two projects, I'm open to peoples views, opinions or criticisms

Is someone still working on this?