The CTF league

#21 BAD NEWS
I have just got my first oppurtunity to comtact -Z-. I have wanted to include him, and have him "up there" with me. He has refused assistance, and told me My league was not proper. He will not allow us even a server for our games. Maybe if Bravetree includes them in the next version, we will have hope. I literaly begged with him, until he turned my chat abbilities off. I am not sure what we will do, but I will not give up. Much hope, FilbertMM If any of you know him better then me, please ask him.

#22 I don't know what else you were expecting Filbert. You organize a league on a public forum for someone else's MOD and then have the presumption to say that the author of the mod is "allowed" to join YOUR league. Your perspective is a little skewed, this is HIS mod and thus HE is in charge of it. With your posts here it really seemed like you just appointed yourself CTF league leader and expected everyone to follow suit.

That's just a little presumptuous if you ask me. In the future you would be wise to ask the permission of the content creator about what HE would like to do with HIS mod before you go announcing plans for it. It may just be that -z- is working on his own CTF league? Had you even considered that?

I do happen to know that there are plans for a CTF league, with automated score/stat tracking that will be published to a website in real time during games etc. Past league attempts have shown that without an automated website it is VERY difficult to organize, schedule and record league games and data. Sadly filbert I think your CTF league would be doomed to the same failure.

For all of you who have expressed interest in a CTF league, be patient and when the time comes you may be rewarded with a league that is done properly, instead of hastily thrown together.

#23 Filbert,
Take it easy and let Z set up his league. we can already see how hard (by how fresh) he's been busting his ass on the script. live web-site scoring updates? how can anyone beat that?

better than sour grapeages, mb we can all volunter to help z out in some fashion.
i'd be more than willing to put off my homework and do some graphics work for him, par example.

answer the call.

th

#24 Past league experience shows that being run by an involved senior community member is what's key.

The Psycho scrum league runs just fine without automated stats btw. Dan your remark about past league experience is a bit presumptuous. People who don't show up are the cause of league turmoil.

Wow real time stats on a website lol cool I guess." Hey guys be right back i wanna check my stats "-bah. Nice feature sure but it's not gonna make or break a league.

How about in game stats that relate to CTF. To me individual scoring or steal stats are much more helpful & informative than kills.

Az

#25 Well, I want to go forward with my league. We will see.

#26 THE LEAGUE IS DISOLVED. SORRY GUYS, I WANTED IT OO!

#27 I would submit that the reason people do not show for the games is because they are unaware or need reminding of when they are playing. This is just a natural consequence of having a single human updating the HTML for the league site and sending out reminders and passwords in email. It's a huge time commitment and invariably sometimes the individual doing everything will not be available. When that situation occurs people start missing games and the league starts to fall apart.

Az, you may well be able to support your league single handedly now, but I guarantee you that it is not a scaleable solution. A league run and administered by a single human can only scale to a certain size before it becomes unmanageable. Eventually even you will get sick, get depressed, crash your computer, or some other malady and wont be around to administer the league for a while. When you have a league that's based around the administration of a single senior member, then the minute that member disappears the league begins to fall apart.

This is why an automated league site is needed. It does not need daily administration by a senior member; in fact if done correctly It should be able to run itself for weeks on end without ANY administration. I'm not sure what -z- has in mind, but this would be an ideal solution. Then you have a website that can send out reminder emails, password emails, track stats and all the tedious aspects of running a league that can be so draining for an administrator tiring to do manually themselves. Players would show up more because the site would always be up to date, and they would forget less because the site would mail them friendly reminders.

#28 Thought I'd chime in here and comment. BraveTree is very interested in doing what it can to help the community grow and organize itself. We like what we are seeing with the formation of leagues and armies, and we are aware of the problems that have been happening. We want to do what we can to facilitate the creation of tools that help the community.

We do not have infinite resources, but we want to do what we can. Here would be a good place (or maybe start another thread) to talk abotu what the communtiy thinks it would need to organize itself better.

We have to look at what is lacking and find a solution to fill the gaps.

We ask for your patience as the ThinkTanks community goes through it's growing pains.

#29 Dan, sure it's scalable because Tank Dork made it that way. Obviously daily administration is not necessary. I do understand your point here. No offense, but you omit the fact that you're not involved in our current or past leagues however . Non of the examples you stated above would hinder the Psycho Scrum Arena League, we work together. Keeping it manageable I think was Dork's vision. Further more, if people can't go to a website and check for the time and day of games or respond to an email they shouldn't join. Missing games is not my point exactly. More it's the lack of consideration in just letting the league community know that a conflict exists. At this point in TT league management is indeed more than just posting stats.

Automated posting is a great feature sure. And as I stated way above, a CTF league would have to be run by -z- at this point. Obviously he's a busy man and I whole heartedly support any feature making the job of managing easier. My advice, make it small roster wise to start out.

Joe, I appreciate your support in this area. I think the leagues are an important way to keep the community involved in TT. Our league games are the most competitive, intense games I've witnessed. It's a great place for someone who's mastered the game a bit to further their enjoyment of the game.

I for one would like to set up a two man scrum league on a ladder type system. You and Mike had expressed interest in this in the past. Any help setting this up would be great. I can't set up the site but I have web space for it and can promote community involvement. Anyone out there with HTML knowledge or familiarity with ladder type set ups ? lol not Robert Brim. heh heh sorry bout that Mike. I for one would like to see league sites that reflect BT's and the communities creative vision. The community has done a great job at this so far:)

Here's a link to an old Atari Tank league, boy we've come a long way.Click Here

Az

#30 Filbert, I have just read this thread for the first time, and I think -z- was being extraordinarily nice to you. I guaranty that if I had worked for days and hours and WEEKS thinking of and writing of and perfecting of a CTF script and putting up a website with another script too, and it was ALL FOR FREE, and someone came up and said, "Hi, I am doing the CTF league. I have about 15 members so far and I need you to run a few dedicated servers for it. You're welcome to join," I GUARANTY I would have had to hit something.

I cannot believe how mean you were, conciously or unconciously. Just taking over someone else's hard work, taking credit for it, expecting favors of them, and then expecting them to go along because you made one dinky post telling people to sign up with their name and eddress. You are treating his work like public property. I sure hope you are aware that he could sell that script to Bravetree if he wanted. I know I would pay good money for it. I know if I made something like it and you just started a league off it and appointed yourself commander and offered me to JOIN without even asking permission first...

-Z-, even if you did |bot|icize me once (grrr) I still think your work is absolutely great and I really like the CTF maps and script! You are the Tankster/FoulPlay of scripting. GO Z!

* * *Asterisk* * *

#31 I guess I had it all out of perspective. I would like to get out my point of view. You must understand that I am relatively new to TT. I thought that CTF WAS public property. I thought that since it was played just like any other scrum or BM game over The Think Tanks game, that it was just that...a think tanks game. I saw leagues going up al over the place. I saw me doing a BM league, then the next day Fp starting one, that I had not known about. I realized, later, that there was no CTF league. I absolutely loved CTF, so I tried to start a league. I guess I did not know how much work -Z- put into it. I had seen people spit out interesting MODS and say "that took 5 minutes." That is also why I was surprised he would not share it. I still did not know how hard hew had worked, and thought he was being selfish. Now that I see it all, I look forward to his league, and when the game might be integrated into TT. -Z-, I hope you read this and understand that I appologize for everything that I did in trying to push my way into your creation. I hope, also, that now that you all understand my mistake, you can forgive me.
Most appologetically--FilbertMM--The low one.

#32 I played -z-'s CTF MOD for the first time yesterday and was completely blown away!

@ FilbertMM...perhaps your heart is in the right place but your considerations are not. A league would be great so that those that are playing actually know the rules and stuff. Very frustrating when teammates run off with the scrum thinking they just scored or something. Perhaps you may have bee more successful by asking -z- permission or something first. Were you being obnoxious about it during game play, did you ask his opinion on the matter, or did you just try to invite him to his own party? No wonder he just shut you down, anybody would have.
@ Dan MacDonald...If it is true what you are saying about what -z- is up too, then cool. Stats and stuff are great but stats on what? All I see are Battlemode scores. Are -z-'s automations going to record how many times I stole scrum and ran it all the way back to the goal and kept it there by dodging and killing opponents for 2 or 3 points?
@ *...I would think -z- would rather publish the MOD so other players can run their own servers. He can't legally sell them to anybody accept maybe Bravetree, even then I don't think so. Maybe they will name it after him or something.

I don't know what -z-'s plan is but he has done all of us a service that is difficult to reward other than by verbal and mental praise. Maybe that's all he wants, that's all I wanted when I made The Magic Kingdom (does anybody remember The Magic Kingdom?). Monetary compensation never entered my mind, but I also didn't take it to the level that -z-, FP, and Nathan have. I only spent like 10-20 hrs where they have made it a part time job and have spent hundreds of hours. What can we do except love what they've done.

My 2C
MAX·CR

#33 The reason -z- is holding on to CTF and not "sharing" it is not because he's a mean hoarder, or selfish, or wants everyone to play on HIS server. It's simply that he wants it to be done properly before it's released. He's developed enough software in his lifetime to know what a hassle it is to update things after they've been let loose in the world.

-z- Is something of a perfectionist, so yes, things may take a little longer for him to do, and he polishes things past the point where most of us would have just said "Ok it's done!". So yes, it's a little hard to wait for CTF everywhere when you see it playing so nicely on -z-'s server. But it will pay off, once -z- it will go up on the homelan servers and I'm pretty sure he'll make it available for download as well.

I know for instance, that -z- still wants to tweak Freudian Forest so that it's less laggy. One of the by products of having a lot of trees and objects is that the lag goes up. He doesn't want to release the CTF maps until he's sure their balanced and work well with the game. I think this is fair; Blizzard does this kind of thing all the time. Blizzard start's their beta tests with a product that is so polished and refined that most companies would have shipped the game. Not blizzard though, they'll sit and have two 4 month beta tests with it. In my experience, the end result has always justified the wait.

As for CTF stats, the kills, times killed, points contributed to the team score, powerups picked up, ammo reloading terminals used can all be tracked without too much effort. I don't know about being able to check how many times you stole the flag. There are a lot of cases to try and check for, and it may never be 100% accurate. You can ram a tank. Someone else can shoot it and you pick up the flag, you can shoot it and then pick up the flag, you can take it from one of your own teammates, or shoot your own teammate and take it. There are a lot of things to deal with trying to record a stat like that, so I doubt it will make the cut.

#34 I'm talking about the stats on the screen btw . I'm somewhat mystified why kills are an on screen stat? Individual points scored is much more informative. Its a lot easier to count your kills if you want. Much harder though to dance around the ring avoiding the opponent and have time to notice the aggregate points you scored. In both BM and Scrum the individual stat in team games is points scored. It's just more Pro to me.

#35 -z-, where areth thou?
Do you care about Filbert's league?
Or aren't you happy someone else will do the work?
Whoever wants to volunteer to manage a league will have my support.
Played a full house of CTf yesterday with the usual tankers... was such a blast!
Perchance -z- only wants to develop the scripts and doesn't care about running a league?

' must...peruse...-z-...brain..."
Hugobrain

#36 Thank you for the response Dan, it was very informative. I am in 100% support of the best product through perfectionist detailed scrutiny. When it is ready I shall be interested in the leagues that are created. I'm happy as hell he has made the beta available so we can test and play in it for now.

MAX-CR

#37 I have appologized, that is all I can do. May I ask what more you want?

#38 Yes, next time you see me pass me the scrum just before the goal. =)

'be nice to me, for I am a newbie'
Hugobrain

#39 Hey Filby I see no big deal btw

You just got inspired from the game. So did Foul Play when he came up with the CTF/KOTH concept.

Getting to know the community always takes a little time thats all.

Az

PS Hey you gamers are "ladder" set ups just what we sports minded individuals call "brackets"? lol

#40 I will try and answer as many points and questions etc raised here, but forgive me if I miss a few. I have been working hard on getting CTF perfected and most of it is background stuff that you guys dont really notice going on - extra little messages and stat logging.

I envisaged a CTF league long ago and have been building in all sorts of support for it within the code. I was quite amazed at the audacity of someone puclicly organising a league using my server (home computer which I have left up and running almost 24-7 for testing purposes) and CTF mod without even mentioning it to me or asking me about it first. Posts like:

Quote:Yeah I relly want -Z- in, but I'm not letting him take over. Juast hope he is OK with that

I just found incredibly presumptuous and arrogant.

There is still a small amount to do to the CTF mod and I still have one map to finish designing. I have already experimented (successfully) with saving in-game data and displaying it automatically live on a web site and all tests look positive.

Things like number of kills (broken into categories of Team Kills, Bot Kills and Enemy Kills), Deaths, Powerups picked up, Number of times you have reloaded, number of points you have contributed to the team and so on will all be logged automatically and added to a databased web site. Players will be able to go to the site and view their own CTF stats etc.

Maintaining a league is hard work, and regular updating of a league site is absolutely paramount. This is one of the biggest reasons that the regular scrum league has pretty much fallen apart. Scores were never updated, new applicants left in the dark etc. (Not having a go at those responsible or anything.. just pointing out that regular updating is crucial) 99% of mine will be automatically done by the game itself and a few extra scripts.

Zaz: As for the current game showing (kills - deaths) as opposed to points contributed (as it originally was) This promotes team work and removed the selfish obsession to be the one who scores all the team points, and yes, there was a LOT of this selfish behaviour in all the beta testing before I changed the scoring system. CTF is a Team game, and requires teh team to work with each other not against each other. Sure. the more experienced and 'professional' players wouldnt steal the scrum purposefully from a team mate just so that they could get the points. They are above that kind of behaviour. However, and rather sadly, the populace has proven that such players are in the minority. The current scoring system also appeals to the battlemoders and favours the defenders as opposed to the 'actual scorers'.

Since its early days, the CTF mod has been changed considerably, little things here and there which have all added up over time. Things like 'balanced teams' had to be introduced as (again sadly) everyone always tended to join one team - presumably through fear of actually losing a game. more playwers = better odds of winning. To counter this (and yes, again it was getting ridiculous with teams of 8 against 2 or 7 on 3) I simply added in code to prevent people from joining the game if the team they chose to join would have 2 or more players than the other team (including them)

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