multiplayer ladder idea

[harlekin65]

Hi all. I have a question for the multiplayer community. I'll explain my idea about a automatic multiplayer ladder and i hope to received your comments:

I have a idea to make a automatic and semi-transparent ladder. The key point is use the logs file that Rome Total War generate for each on-line match. I want to use this logs, parse and extract the relevant info, and use this info to make a automatic ladder. The ideal thing is do this without player action, all in a automatic way. Some details:

- The core thing would be a web application. Very user friendly, very clean. In truth just a table with the ratings list, a way to upload the logs in a manual way and a way to search and consult individual battles, individual players, etc.
- The other key point would be a very simple windows program that run like a service. This service just look at the log files directory and send the new ones to the server (just a simple URL call) . I can do it in Java easily but i guess that the people want a little service without the huge Virtual Machine download. So this is the only part that i can't do it myself.
- There will be a “trusting” system. So in a initial phase the system don't trust anybody and only process the battle if it have the logs of the two teams. But the players will be earn trust points (in a easy and transparent way) so it would be possible to take account of match with only one log file, and in this way rate players although they don't know anything about all of this mess :).
- The ratings would be calculate considering previous ratings of the players, numbers of kills, numbers of remaining soldiers, etc. More or less a modified ELO ratings, if you know something of chess ratings.

I have almost all the details nailed, so don't worried much about it. The initial plan, if it's start, is have a running prototype very quick and add features to it. In truth, this can be useful to other things beside ratings and ladders: a central site with the on-line users, a site to search for CoH members, etc.

I'm a experienced programmer and i have a few hours free this weeks, so i can do a initial version in a short time. The question is: It would be useful for the multi player community or in truth nobody cares about ratings, ladders, statistical info, etc.?

NOTE: Sorry for cross posting this in several boards. Just trying to reach the greater numbers of people.

[Tomisama]

Man have I been looking for you (a programmer who is into the game, and has some time to help the community ).

It’s a great idea, and I believe would be a great asset to the Roman community as a whole.

Let me quickly tell you what has gone before.

For Medieval Total War Viking Invasion we had an online (Pearl) logfile reader. You could go to the site and browse your files for a logfile, and have it uploaded, presented in a meaningful format, and analyzed. It was a wonderful thing that Lady Ann put together for us.

The next step was to have it automatically create a database you could lookup particulars and do comparisons in. We just never got that far.

You can have a look at:

http://clan.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/ba/pctscore.pl

If you need a logfile from that era to process, I have made one available at:

http://www.clanwarscomp.org/New%20Folder/
(you will have to save it on your computer, and browse it up using the reader)

Maybe will give you some more ideas.

[Lord Adherbal]

there are Java compilers that can create a stand-alone executable. Maybe that can help you ?

[harlekin65]

Yeah, i know all about it :) (CGJ and a few others that fake a exe). The problem is than in the 'exe' they have to add the Virtual Machine, or at least (in the CGJ case) logic to manage memory and other stuff. I have no problem doing the client program in Java. I just thought that it would be better to the people have a small service in C/C++. I guess that i do it in Java and maybe we can optimize it later.
Anyway, i just trying to know if all this would be useful to anyone beside me :)

[harlekin65]

Ey, Tomi, i check the MTW log analyzer. It's cool :). Although i think that the logs in R:TW are less detailed than this. For example, the MTW logs are down to the MAN level. In RTW are only to the UNIT level. Anyway, i think that we have all the needed info there.

In truth my idea is something like a log_analyzer+ratings_sistem+database and the little windows service to avoid that the user have to upload manually all his logs :).

[Wishazu]

i have no idea about the mechnics etc. of making this ladder but i just thought id say that it is a fantastic idea :) one of the guys from my clan has been thinking about creating a ladder for Rome total Realism, hes a software engineer by trade, maybe you should hook up :D his name is NihilisticCow and you can usually find him here or more often, on our forums, just click the link below my sig if your interested :)

[Lord Preston]

not sure the auto upload thing is a good idea...

cos me and cow and people test out ideas all the time..... so wouldn't want those matches to count as they arn't genuine matches, just a mess around...

how would you know if a match was against a corner camper? or cav spammer? rule breaker?

i like the idea. but it could be an idea to have a program that only uploads the LAST match or have some sort of select to upload the relivent match. but then you would have to have trust that the player would not just upload there wins.

i'd like to see this used for the COH, check all the players name and only count the match if COH is in it.....

[harlekin65]

Wishazu: Can you give me the email of NihilisticCow or any way to contact him? I think that NihilisticCow=Nihilist in your forum clan but i'm not sure.

Ey, by the way, your post make me think about the mods. I guess taht it's not fair to rate the mods match with the vanilla one, but i'm not sure how to identify it.

Preston: I like the autoupload thing just because I'm lazy :). In the web will be a upload form to upload in a manual and selective way.
I guess taht the more easy way to test things, if you're using the hipotetical autoupload, and that this match don't count is a temporaly change in your alias or allow to discard matchs in the web if all the players agree. I think that is less unfair to upload all and then discard in a manual or automatic way some logs. For example, we can discard logs with a all-cav-armies and maybe apply a penalty to this player.


About the CoH thing, with the info in our hands with can do almost all the things that we can imagine :). We can have a general ladder, a CoH ladder, a Total Realism ladder, have reports of different kinds, etc.

[NihilisticCow]

Nihilist = NihilisticCow here aswell...

I do know a fair bit about C++ especially Visual C++, as that is the language I mainly work in... I do though have a few too many projects on at the moment, to commit too much time to another, though I wouldn't rule it out.

[Dutch_guy]

RTR ladder, would be cool

[Wishazu]

cant you just have an automatic system where clans/players arrange matches and then when they play, each side saves a replay and /or screeny of the result incase of disputes. after a match both sides can enter the score and then the ladder gets automatically updated :) if you want to know what i mean go to www.clanbase.com and take a look at their ladders, very well organised, unfortunately they dont do a rome total war one

[harlekin65]

Nihilist: I'm mostly a Java (j2ee) guy. But, in truth, i want to use all of this project to learn 'ruby' and 'rails on ruby'. Maybe i would be slower this way but i win something some new knowledge in return :)

Wishazu: Yeah, this was be very easy to do if I make the logs analyzer. Of course, it would use the logfiles, not a replay or a screenshoot, and the file would be update in a manual way. I guess that the better is get all the logfiles and that this logfiles must coincide in order to update the ladder. I guess that this would be the first thing that i'll implement.

By the way, I'll need a lot of logfiles to compare and study it. Can you send my a few to vega65@users.sourceforge.net? It'll be wonderfull if I can have all the logfiles of one match, of the both teams.

[Wishazu]

i dont even know where to find the logfiles

[Tomisama]

Wish, first you will have to change the last two entries in your RTW preferences to read:

ALWAYS_LOGFILE:TRUE
TIMESTAMP_LOGFILE:TRUE

(just open, change, and save)

Then play a game (custom or what ever). A logfile folder will be created, and the file from the game will be placed in it. From then on, every game will have a file created and placed in the folder.

On the reader:

If there were a Browse, and Analyze buttons, you could use the reader to find the log on your machine, upload and display, so you could examine logs without saving them to the system.

Then if you did want to have it recorded to a particular ladder, press a Record button, and select the appropriate disposition from a dropdown list. There could be checks of course, that would not be made public, so that faking an entry could be made very difficult.

[harlekin65]

Tomi: I think that the first thing that i'll do will be a log reader/analyzer. I hope to it done in a week more or less. Time enough to learn the new tools (Ruby, etc) that i'll be using.

Lord Preston: Do you think that just label a game in a special way would be enough if you're using a automatic uploader? For example, all the games with "test" in the name don't be upload or don't be account it. With rules like that you can test things and mess aroung :)