Ozyman wrote:

I like Yertle's idea for allowing players to use whichever title they want out of the ones they've earned.   Here are some general thoughts on achievements/titles.

* Some achievements should not be tied to being 'good' at wargear.  This will allow everyone (even not so great players) to have something to strive for.

* Achievements could be used as a way to simplify the site for newbies.  i.e. Once reaching achievement X,Y, or Z, yellow difficulty maps become available, similar for red difficulty.  This is called 'Progressive Disclosure' - from the wikipedia article: "By disclosing information progressively, you reveal only the essentials and help the user manage the complexity of feature-rich sites or applications."  This is a more broad topic than just achievements, and could be discussed separately.

* Achievements could represent a general achievement, that has a standard title, that gets modified by bronze, silver, gold, platinum as the N goes up.

Here are some examples of achievements/titles that could be achievable by average players:

* Achievements for playing N games/turns. - adversary
* Achievements for eliminating N players - executioner
* N Posts - communicator
* Vote in a mapmaking competition - Suffragist
* Publish a map - designer
* Finish a game on N different boards - completist

This way even players who are not that great can get 'rewarded' for time spent playing.

Obviously there would also be achievements for skill in wargear:
*Achievements for ranks, champion points, etc. - warlord


Some things to think about:
http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Design#Achievements
http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Design#Discovery - This ties in to having unlockable areas on wargear.
http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Design#Progression - Player profile page, should show what you need to do to achieve next achievement/title.
http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Design#Status - Titles/achievements should be displayed next to player name in as many contexts as possible.

+1!

I like all of these suggestions.

Ozyman wrote:

* Some achievements should not be tied to being 'good' at wargear.  This will allow everyone (even not so great players) to have something to strive for.

Here are some examples of achievements/titles that could be achievable by average players:

* Achievements for playing N games/turns. - adversary
* Achievements for eliminating N players - executioner
* N Posts - communicator
* Vote in a mapmaking competition - Suffragist
* Publish a map - designer
* Finish a game on N different boards - completist

+5

Making the achievements available to even the newest of players is the best idea so far.
And what I like even more is that the achievements that you've laid out also draw new players more into the community.

I'd think that the newbie progression into WG (or other online gaming sites) is almost universal:   first you play a few private games with the person who originally introduced you, then you progress to public games, then branch out and try new boards, then new battle types (SG/team play/lightening), then the forums, then tourneys, etc.
Making achievements that draw/lure people down this path will create more involved players, broadening the community.

When looking at rounds of a tournament, active games and game winners are currently the same color, which makes it a little difficult to navigate easily.  If either one could be changed to a different color, it would be much easier to find active games amongst a sea of finished ones.

Edward Nygma wrote:

When looking at rounds of a tournament, active games and game winners are currently the same color, which makes it a little difficult to navigate easily.  If either one could be changed to a different color, it would be much easier to find active games amongst a sea of finished ones.

I would further request that it be easier to navigate to a known matchup for two player games.  I think the easiest way to create this would be a matrix with the players listed in alphabetical order and the intersection of the rows and columns as the matchups.

AttilaTheHun wrote:
I would further request that it be easier to navigate to a known matchup for two player games.  I think the easiest way to create this would be a matrix with the players listed in alphabetical order and the intersection of the rows and columns as the matchups.

Although I think this would be a nice feature, it would only apply to two player tournaments and for many of those it would probably be too big to be reasonable.

Alpha wrote:

AttilaTheHun wrote:
I would further request that it be easier to navigate to a known matchup for two player games.  I think the easiest way to create this would be a matrix with the players listed in alphabetical order and the intersection of the rows and columns as the matchups.

Although I think this would be a nice feature, it would only apply to two player tournaments and for many of those it would probably be too big to be reasonable.

How about a way to highlight a certain player's games? Similar to how continents or player territories light up when in the Player.

It would fulfill the need to easily and quickly find a player's matches

I am pretty sure you are looking for something different, but in the leader board, under the Games column, you can click view and see all of the games which have started.

Maybe, the list of games to be played could be filtered into this view and show all games: started, completed and waiting (along with round/game number).

Your suggestion could also be useful on the rounds page and I can see the need for this as it is a lot to look through.

Alpha wrote:

I am pretty sure you are looking for something different, but in the leader board, under the Games column, you can click view and see all of the games which have started.

Maybe, the list of games to be played could be filtered into this view and show all games: started, completed and waiting (along with round/game number).

Your suggestion could also be useful on the rounds page and I can see the need for this as it is a lot to look through.

The Games tab is already good...I was thinking more of implementation for the Rounds tab.  For example in this tournament : http://www.wargear.net/tournaments/view/371

it would be nice to have a way to quickly find a match if I know one of the opponents.  Currently I think the only way to do this is to either look through all games visually, look through the Rounds tab (if Round # is known), look through last games played/live on the board Games List, or look through last games played/live on the player profile.

tom wrote:

ConquerClub ranks:

http://www.conquerclub.com/public.php?mode=instructions4

MajorCommand ranks:

http://www.majorcommand.com/wiki/Ranks

MajorCommand medals and achievements:

http://www.majorcommand.com/wiki/Medals_and_Achievements

I really like the titles and Badges system they have at the majorcommand site you linked.  Looks pretty slick.

Feature Request:

A system for anonymously notifying admins of possible multi-account users; this forum posting is getting ridiculous and libelous.

I would imagine the system to be very similar to PMs but should be open to all users.

hear hear

AttilaTheHun wrote:

Feature Request:

A system for anonymously notifying admins of possible multi-account users; this forum posting is getting ridiculous and libelous.

 

I would imagine the system to be very similar to PMs but should be open to all users.

Amen!!

So how would it work?  What would differentiate it from a regular forum thread?

M57 wrote:

So how would it work?  What would differentiate it from a regular forum thread?

It would be an anonymous way to alert an Admin of any issue.  Similar to a PM but open to all members and I imagine simplified in some manner to just represent: author, issue, game ID, turn ID, etc.

I'm sure there could also be some code that makes it trackable so multiple Admin alerts aren't sent from the same player for the same issue.

The particulars of the system are open...anything will be better than seeing a thread called "CHEATERS!" every few days in the forums and doubt cast on any player mentioned in them.

M57 wrote:

So how would it work?  What would differentiate it from a regular forum thread?

I agree with ATH.  The issue I have with the current method (something that is posted in the forum publicly) is that it breeds negativity.  You think someone is cheating, you should be notifying the admins, who have the final say, not the court of the public opinion.

Go back over the last few cheating e-mails, and you'll find the following scenario on multiple occasions:
Player 1:  "I think X and Y are the same person"
Tom:  "There's no evidence for those two being the same person."
Player 2: "I went through all their games, and I found one that I played with both of them, and one of them eliminated me."
Player 1: "Exactly...that means they are the same person."
Tom:  "There's still no evidence of those two being the same person."
Player 2: "Right...they're cheaters, we need to ban them."
(...continues ad nauseum)

Needs to be moved private forum that won't lead to lynchings.

BorisTheFrugal wrote:

Go back over the last few cheating e-mails, and you'll find the following scenario on multiple occasions:
Player 1:  "I think X and Y are the same person"
Tom:  "There's no evidence for those two being the same person."
Player 2: "I went through all their games, and I found one that I played with both of them, and one of them eliminated me."
Player 1: "Exactly...that means they are the same person."
Tom:  "There's still no evidence of those two being the same person."
Player 2: "Right...they're cheaters, we need to ban them."
(...continues ad nauseum)

Needs to be moved private forum that won't lead to lynchings.

So what's a "private" forum?  One where only certain members can post? .. or read?  Or just where people can post anonymously?  In the latter case, you would still have the same conversations.

I don't think private forums will help the situation.  Other than that point I agree with Boris.

As he said, "You think someone is cheating, you should be notifying the admins..."

Notify the admins, continue on with life.

AttilaTheHun wrote:

Notify the admins, continue on with life.

exactly. if tom needs help weeding thru all the submissions Toto, et all find; then Tom can ask some others to help him out privately.

By private forum, I don't mean an actual forum, like these boards. 

I was more saying "via a method that is available to all players (premium or standard) and is private, and therefore not viewable by the rest of the players on the site (so as not to incite riots)". 

Maybe a page with a form to submit that type of request that is not displayed to the rest of the players, and to which Tom can respond.  Or, if Private Messages are available to all players (I don't know whether non-premium's have that option) I'd even be happy with using that method.

Looks like Tom has already been thinking along these lines:

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1146/Multiple_account_bans

"Please contact me at [email protected] if you suspect any other abuse of multiple accounts."

Bingo!