weathertop wrote: i thought private games by definition weren't ranked.

and how does one win something that noone is joining? or are you saying against a duplicate account?

If a Rematch is created from a Ranked game, then that new game becomes a Private (non-Ranked game), which is what EN said too I believe.

sorry misread/understood then. why would it become private if the original wasn't (i mean i understand that currently if you invite someone in particular then its private and thus unranked) but that doesn't mean that would have to be the case with a rematch, especially since tom is doin this from the ground up.

My post above (#139) is why I don't know if I'm a fan of Rematches being Ranked.

weathertop wrote: sorry misread/understood then. why would it become private if the original wasn't (i mean i understand that currently if you invite someone in particular then its private and thus unranked) but that doesn't mean that would have to be the case with a rematch, especially since tom is doin this from the ground up.

How do you make a rematch game that's open to other players to join? It wouldn't be a rematch.

So a rematch game is functionally a private game <i>per se</i> because only certain players are invited to play and the game is not open to the wider WG populace to potentially join. This would be in violation of the spirit of the Ranked/Open game, therefore a rematch game should remain Unranked. QED.

per se, yes. i understand what you're all saying about how its a direct invite. but if the original game were an open ranked game to begin with, why can't a rematch be the same, it's just a unique caveat, or even shortcut. like i said before: the 'rematch' currently available would be to create a whole new game, by going to the board making sure the same rules are set up and puttin in the title for noone but the specified person to join. and hoping you got what you wanted to get. thats just a serious pain in the ass for someone who wants a ranked rematch because the last game was such a good one.

yes there is potential for abuse, but it's absolutely no different than any other possibly abused thing we have already. if we start to see some ranking/board ranking creep that looks suspicious then we can handle it then.

but the arguments: 'but someone won't be able to jump into it instead', and that it 'has' to be that way are assinine. we've all had some input somewhere along the lines to include this or that because this site IS new and can do whatever we (and tom) want.

weathertop wrote:  and hoping you got what you wanted to get.

That's one of the good things about Ranked games is that they are open and even if you say it's for someone, anyone can jump in. 

It's not just because that's the way it was on WF is why I think Rematches should be non-Ranked (I would rather join Ranked games anyhow, than to have a Rematch that is unRanked), I just think it's good for all Ranked games to be Open at some point.  One of the things that annoyed soooo greatly on WF, was the ability to Filter out players from Ranked games (I got annoyed at KK many a time because I could see his games but couldn't join them since he created them to the more "open" queue), I' opposed to seeing that here at all, which is one reason why I think Rematches shouldn't be "Private" Ranked games.

not sure what you mean with the KK reference. not sure how you would filter out players on a rematch. it is (or should/could be) all or nothing, dependant on the player to rejoin...

weathertop wrote: not sure what you mean with the KK reference. not sure how you would filter out players on a rematch. it is (or should/could be) all or nothing, dependant on the player to rejoin...

If a Rematch is restricted to only those players that were in the original Ranked game, then that means no one else on WG could join it, hence they are filtered out.

thus a 'rematch'. by definition is replaing the game with the same rules and same people. you're getting too hung up on being personally left out. if all the players are wanting to redo what they just did (or tried to do!) why do you have a problem with that (aside from the abuse issue)? i know you're wanting to be in on as much as you can, but if you weren't in the original game you wouldn't know you're missing anything! :^P

weathertop wrote: you're getting too hung up on being personally left out. 

I don't necessarily disagree with that :P But...I still think it can lead to:

(aside from the abuse issue)? 

but if you weren't in the original game you wouldn't know you're missing anything! :^P

Like I said, one thing that would annoy me is Ranked games that aren't Open (which you could/should be able to get to from the Boards>Game List).

EDIT: I just realized that I could go on arguing the point just to be right (what I typically do), but I really don't care one way or the other and I see what 'top is saying.

So it just comes down to the question of the potential for abuse? That is, how much easier is it to start a 1v1 with a player who intends to lose and then click 'rematch' to do it again rather than set up another pre-arranged game. The danger of that occurring vs the nebulous benefit of all Ranked games being Open even if the existing set of players wants to play again amongst themselves (which IMO doesn't actually occur all that often - most rematches at the other site were initiated by one party unilaterally and agreed to only grudgingly at times by the rest of the players. I used to turn down a lot of rematch invites).

yeah i was done 'discussing' also!

most rematches at the other site were initiated by one party unilaterally and agreed to ... by the rest of the players.

 i'd agree, that they were by definition asked to restart by one individual (and i don't see that being different here), and i usually didn't have a problem playing rematches unless i was teamed up with an idiot, but that's cus i was/am not terribly concerned about a ranking; i just like to play. but we can definately add something to the procedure that if all don't agree to replay it doesn't get replayed. i don't have a problem with that.

curious tho asm, what were your main reasons for denying a rematch (assuming you didn't get teamed up with an idiot)?

It seemed anecdotally that they were typically requested when I saw no reason for them. An unremarkable game on a map that didn't blow me away with a group of players I didn't know which had had no interesting chat in the first game.

That's really what always ticked me off a bit - you didn't even say 'gl' or 'gg' in the first game, but you were so charmed by playing against me that you want to do it again?

Rematches were nice because you can switch positions from any point in the game if you want to show you had a strategy that would have worked in someone's instance, or for other reasons.

I agree with yertle that Ranked/Open shouldn't refer to private rematches. It is basically an invitation-only, ranked game.

As far as exploitation goes, you don't even need someone to collude with you to get you free wins via rematches, you could also just rematch opponents who frankly suck. On the other site I was often very close to 1550 with connect some, and would just lose by virtue of going second against a smart opponent -

What if I could have just rematched one or two of the people who instead of killing me simply tried to get 4 in a row? Would I have succumbed to temptation? Sometimes you get predictable idiots in larger games too. You may want to climb the rankings by avoiding the top-ranked players on the board.

We all know that plenty of us playing against the masses on the other site had a pretty high chance of winning that map. Put any of a number of people Tom, Highroller, and well, pretty much anybody but asm in that game and it gets a little more difficult to keep the marks high.

I think rematches are great to say "Man! I want to play these guys again because that was such an awesome game!" - it doesn't need to be ranked for it to be an awesome game. Having rematches unranked encourages people who are climbing the ranking ladder to play multiple and diverse players, encourages growth and differing strategies as well as greater interaction throughout the games in general.

**** SUBJECT CHANGE ****

Didn't really know where to put this. Two minor requests/fixes:

I'd asked before about putting a little more detail in the notification emails, specifically the "You've Won!" email. That is, I'd like to see pre- and post-victory rankings in that email. Tom, I think you acknowledged this a while back but I'm sure it's on the back burner. Just a nudge.

I love love love the continuing addition of stats to the site. I think it was at my request that the "Eliminations" column be made sortable, which I love even more. However, if you're looking at a board ranking chart (as opposed to the overall ranking chart), the 'Eliminations' column simply reads 0 for every player. Ideally it would be possible to actually pull this information out so you could see that additional dimension of data, but otherwise could the column just be wiped out on that page?

asm wrote: I think it was at my request that the "Eliminations" column be made sortable, which I love even more.

You LOOOOOVE me! 

Ack! I hate it!

This may be super nit-picky, but in Premium Preferences you have the following option..

Hide the display of player profile images when browsing forum threads to further enhance work mode.

I purposely haven't checked it out just to demonstrate my confusion.  Does "On" mean the image will show, or does it mean that the description above it will be implemented (e.g., the image will be hidden)?

Fixed :)

Re: Hidden Profile Images

Perfect!

But can we extend coverage to messages below the game boards?