award?

[Shattered Rose]

Something I thought of, that I personally would love, and can maybe argue would be good for the site...

Each month, right before the wipes, award the highest ranking grey account a free one-month gold account... a kind of award for proving their worth.

Since it's only a one-month account, no one could get it twice in a row anyway, or keep winning it and manage a free life-account, so no worries about that... example- say I manage to make it up there pretty well in a month, win it... next month, I'm a gold... can't win it again, cause the winner is the highest-ranking GREY, and for that month I'm a gold. I feel happy cause I got the award, and a taste of how nice a gold account is- I might even be more likely to pay for one at the end of that month than I was before... if I don't, at the end of the month, the account expires and... well... not only am I back to being a grey again (just like before/just like if no such award) and I lose any progress I made as a gold.

Also would add some spice in the game among the greys- give us a little more to play for, and awards the truly talented. The owners, site/game programmers lose nothing- it's only one account a month from each server (unless more seems like it's worth it to them, and they do two or three), and like I said, they could gain a bit from the extra flavor it would give, and winners who want to keep the gold account.

It would also cut down on the constant complaining of greys for the monthly wipes (which I understand are not just a perk of being grey- they're outright necessary... the site would become completely clogged otherwise), cause they could try to do something about it.

And wouldn't it be great anyway just to give the highest ranking grey something anyway, for making it up there? 1-Give them a chance to show what they can really do. 2-Golds have a huge advantage when it comes to ranking (top 100 and such)... this could shake things up a little for them, make it more interesting...

I could prolly come up with more reasons... but for now, I think this enough until I hear something of a response...

Lemme know what you think

[Bottle]

What about people who cheat to raise their stats? This idea would create more of these people, trying to get a free gold account for a month. Ratings are not a foolproof method of finding a good player. Anyway, there are far better ways to get people to go gold... like releasing a new unit. *cough cough*

[Shattered Rose]

eh, aside from the idiots who pull the "press f5 to win" on newbies, I don't know of any cheat methods...

You're also right- rankings aren't the best way to tell how good someone is- a poor player with a few lucky drops can rule the arena... but we're also talking about only the highest ranking grey player- I think it's fairly safe to say that by the time you make it up to number 1, you've weeded out any of the poor players, and prolly any cheaters (unless there is a way to genuinely cheat)... after all, luck is double-edged... wins you some, loses you some... it takes talent to always win. and the cheaters- picking on new players only gets you so high, before you really stop gaining many points from it... talented players will want a challenge and play people closer to their level than that (most of the time at least, or am I making a bad assumption about the ppl on here, that they're here for the fun and the challenge?) and ergo make more points faster.

by the way- by no means do I expect this to be me anytime- there are better players out there than me I'm sure- I've not played anyone who can reliably beat me, but then, I haven't played many ppl more than just once, so I don't know either. I'd not be surprised if I'm up there, but never do more than make it into the top 100 of any server (I'm closing in on it right now...), but I'd love to see the outright competition for something like this- give the greys something to really work for, and boost the interest a little.

Yeah, new units could boost interest a lot too, but I'm willing to bet this takes a lot less programming, lol.

[Bottle]

How to cheat: create 2 normal accounts. Open a second window and log on as each one. play each other, but one keeps on surrendering. You'll soon reach 1000, at which point you make another new account to replace the one that's lost about 200 points, keep repeating... until you reach about 1300-1400 at which point you score no points for beating 750s. Then build up another account to 1000, then give those points to the 1300 account... etc. If you don't get caught (which is highly unlikely fortunately) you can reach 1450 if you have enough patience.

We should play on Banff, I'm widely regarded (not boasting or anything) as one of the best greys or golds on Banff.

I think the game needs a new unit more than this feature; after all, current golds are leaving the game because of the lack of new units, and not many greys are going gold; a new unit would help this situation. And only giving one free gold account to one person each month isn't going to make that many people want to stay upgraded when the month is over, a maximum of 3 per month is not much ($15).

[Shattered Rose]

only $15 a month cost to them means low cost... maybe it'd be low gain, but I imagine better gain than loss (since after getting the gold account for a month, their new rating would be up there pretty well, wouldn't want to lose it, and having gotten to try it... eh... I dunno... some would at least)...

I didn't even think about doing that... bothers me a lot. hrm. It wouldn't be hard to fix at all though... have the system check incoming IP addresses (or any number of things- there are addresses attached to every modem, lan-card, or computer that's unique to it that they send out when they connect- I kind of "hey, here I am"), and never let the same one on a server 2ce at once. Fixed. You can lock your computer out from giving most or all of these addresses out, but it makes connecting to a lot of sites a bit more annoying even for the connects that don't care, and if a connection specifically asks for it, the computer lets you know and asks if it's ok... there's no reason not to ok it.

Eh. They could fix it pretty easily... I hope they do. But that's off-topic. Curious what anyone else thinks... yeah, I still agree, new units would prolly do more, but this would take less to do. eh.

[Office_Shredder]

Hmm.... I think I would cancel my gold account just so I can win a free month of gold before renewing the account!

The real problem with this is that the grey account with the highest rating probably isn't holding back from going gold because he doesn't know what it's like... I mean, you get greys with 1400+ ratings, I can ensure you they aren't n00bs or anything.

[SlipknotiCX]

I personally like the idea somewhat. It sounds decent but expensive at the same time. It's only $15 a month. But that's $15 a month extra the admins would be shelling out for the feature. I think a new unit would increase the "need" for gold and wanting to stay as a gold. And as far as the whole ip thing goes....what about routers and nic cards? I have a regular and a wireless nic card. I've been banned from a few yahoo booter sites (for reasons that will not be mentioned), and I can easily switch between my regular nic card, and my wireless...not to mention my internal nic sittin in my laptop. You would most likely have to ban the first and second set of #'s in an ip to fully ban someone. Even that would cause problems to AOL members (who sometimes share ip's) and people who are on a LAN setup. Good idea though ^_^

[Shattered Rose]

it's not like they're losing $15... it costs money to run the site, program, etc... not to have members... so they wouldn't be paying for someone's account- they'd essentially lose nothing except the 2 minutes to switch that user to gold for one month.

Again- I agree- new units would create more interest, but this is another idea on top of that, and one aimed more at getting greys hooked on gold. Shoot- I could see some sort of minor reward for highest-ranking gold each month being a good thing, too- help boost competition. I have no idea what though- a gold would have to make the suggestion- I don't know what one might want most.
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As for the IP stuff- Switching's not a problem, cause we're not talking about booting you, we're talking about preventing simultaneous uses ( unless you're using the wireless and the nic at the same time... and then... well... that's a lot of trouble to go to to farm some points)... AOL people and some lans (not mine, thank goodness- it's built better than that) would still be problems though with the IP addy...
I thought about something like that, and hence the modem/lan-card # being a better idea maybe, cause that is unique to the connection, and would fix the problem above of two logins on the same modem/lan-card (and therefore assumably same computer, unless again you happen to run two simultaneous cards for some godforsaken reason...)


Eh- another thought... isn't it possible to program a pop-up link (like the one to play the game) so if that pop-up is already active on the system it brings it forward instead of starting a new one? I could swear I've seen it done: I click the link for a popup, it comes up, I tab back to the window with the link, and hit it again, it tabs me back, or resets the old one, or heck... the link includes a command to close any duplicate java/pop-up/run-time windows before it opens (still limiting you to one at a time- by duplicate I mean same coding, not same exact data)...

does that make sense? I swear I've seen something like that...

[SlipknotiCX]

Originally posted by Shattered Rose
Eh- another thought... isn't it possible to program a pop-up link (like the one to play the game) so if that pop-up is already active on the system it brings it forward instead of starting a new one? I could swear I've seen it done: I click the link for a popup, it comes up, I tab back to the window with the link, and hit it again, it tabs me back, or resets the old one, or heck... the link includes a command to close any duplicate java/pop-up/run-time windows before it opens (still limiting you to one at a time- by duplicate I mean same coding, not same exact data)...



I think something like that is already in effect. If you goto Play Now page and open the pop up link...then try to do it in a different window, it will just reset the one you already have open. But if you know the direct link to that pop up window and put it in the addy bar in IE...you're able to open up multiple windows of TAO at the same time. I'm not sure about the duplicate coding part of your post cuz i'm not sure how that works....but if it means no 2 windows that have the same coding can open on 1 machine, i'm all for it. Would be a great idea to stop cheaters :D

[Shattered Rose]

eh... basically... I didn't want to say no two identical windows, cause then you say "well, if one's on load-in screen, and another's in battle, they're in different places in the game"... and you're right, they're in different places in the game code, but it's still the same code...

So it should be possible to set the code/link up to check for another window with that code in it... and if so, then link fails or sends you to a "stop it, that's cheating" screen or summat.

[Shaman]

Originally posted by Shattered Rose
have the system check incoming IP addresses (or any number of things- there are addresses attached to every modem, lan-card, or computer that's unique to it that they send out when they connect- I kind of "hey, here I am"),


quote:
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Originally posted by Shattered Rose
the farming for points could be easily prevented... check out 'award' suggestion if you don't know how.
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How is that?

Even if it prevented a person from opening 2 windows, it would not stop someone from using 2 PC's.

Nor would it stop larger guilds from having 'cattle' that are lower ranked members who 'give' up their points to higher ranked members on a regular basis.

Nor does it stop the high ranking gold who is deciding not to play anymore and simply exits out of a game with a friend repeatedly until he drops below points gained for his friend.

I like the reward/award ideas. There is just really no way for it to be truely representative.

[Megabyte]

rose, ppl aren't trashing ur suggestion itself, just pointing out thats its not too practical with the game itself right now. There's simply too many ways for this to be exploited and turned around. Its a nice idea, but I'm with shaman, just don't see a way to implement it.