Games in the *DBL 2.0

[*DAMN Mauti]

With the release of the *DBL 2.0 we are also opening our ladders to all Mac games.

The *DBL will be much more user centric and users can form an interest group and add games/ladders submitions on their own. So Age of Empires II ladders are also as possible as iConquer. Once there are enough user, who would like to play, admins only have to approve new game and ladder submitions. So new additions depend very much on user interest.

Bye,

Mauti

[Tin]

Awesome!
 I play AoEII actively and I can tell, the aoe2 community would higly appreciate the support of a battle league like the *dbl. Some ppl have already tried to work out something similar to the the *dbl, but until now they all failed ending up in organizing small tourneys.

[<82ndAB>Tigah]

ooooo UT4 ladder would be awesome! (more people need to play this) oh and Literati!

[PUNiSHER™]

The AoE 2 community on GR is very big with many clans already.  I can see this working out very well for that game, the only issue I see is what should be done if a player crashes during a game or the host crashes?  I assume the GhR rules would apply here and you just keep playing or if a host crashes the other team gets the victory?  Alot of people play this game religiously, I'm betting more clan battles would occur in this game than any other game.

EDITED: No flames Pun - Mauti

[Tin]

I wish it was like that, Pun.

Basically you can divide the aoe2 clans in three groups as the game has three diffrent game types: Random Map (you start with a few resources and must build your empire from scratch), Death Match (you start with many resources and you must quickly build an army to fight your enemy) and Blood ( custom made games by aoe2 players, you gain ressources for kills ). So if you look at it as a whole there are lots of clans, but in fact there are only like 5 clans playing the same game type ( some clans play more than only one type ).

[Phara]

Yep, AoE2 would be super. From playing aoe2 for a long time now and knowing how actively this game is played I think adding it would be great and maybe at last a tourny/league that works for aoe2 (all others have failed in the past).

[<82ndAB>Tigah]

and UT4!

[Tin]

What about other games? *takes a look at gr's top game list*

5     Star Wars Battlefront 
6     Command & Conquer Generals     
7     Zero Hour 
8     Age of Mythology 

 

[BFG]

As Mauti said any game is possible but it will only suceed it the clans that play on GR etc and around the web are made aware of the league and actually put their hands up to be included... so basically pull the sandwich boards out and start gathering your brethen.

[Tin]

Ok, I finally posted about this "project" on several aoe2 forums. Let's see what happens …

[Chino]

I just dont get why you dont support this ladder for the most played game on Gameranger, if you finally do this lots of people will be happy and will thank you. Im one of them. 

[FischGurke]

This is great news! Most other attempts ended after planning how to do it, and I hope lots of clans will participate. I like the system. Maybe you should make a new layout to fit the AoE theme.. 

Your iConquer link needs to be fixed.
http://www.kavasoft.com/iConquer/

"I can see this working out very well for that game, the only issue I see is what should be done if a player crashes during a game or the host crashes?  I assume the GhR rules would apply here and you just keep playing or if a host crashes the other team gets the victory?"
If it's early in the game, most people would decide just to go back and start over. (Some say AoE II gets 14000 games a week because of this.  ) If it's late in the game (like 45 mins or later), it's possible to play on. If the host crashes, it is possible to look at the scores to decide who has performed better (it's only accurate late in the game though).

Basically you can divide the aoe2 clans in three groups as the game has three diffrent game types: ... , but in fact there are only like 5 clans playing the same game type ( some clans play more than only one type ).

There are more game types like Nomad, but those are the most common ones. RM (random map) and the different blood types (for example gwarz ) are played mostly, and there are lots of clans. DM only clans are rare, and there aren't lots of teamgames. IIRC there are no nomad clans, but some RMers play it quite often.
Thanks for posting the information on many aoe forums, Tin!
I don't think Age of Mythology would work, because there very few clans.

[BTs_Mysterio]

I encourage all people currently reading this post from AoEII forums to also look around the other parts of the *DBL 2.0 dev log and give input there; this is important to make sure it turns out the way you want it to.

[Tin]

"I can see this working out very well for that game, the only issue I see is what should be done if a player crashes during a game or the host crashes?  I assume the GhR rules would apply here and you just keep playing or if a host crashes the other team gets the victory?"
If it's early in the game, most people would decide just to go back and start over.

An extract of the ghr rules: "If a player crashes during the game, the game continues" This works fine for ghr, crashes hardly occur. It only happened to me once during acb and my team still won.

 AoEII is a diffrent case, if the teams are even and you lose one of your teammates you'll be dead. We'd need a specific ruling for AoEII, for example:

If someone crashes within the first 15 mins you'll go back and restart. ppl might just crash on purpose, cuz of a bad dark age. ( they lost a villager, someone stole their sheep …)
If it crashes, the team with the higher score will win. ( … uh we are leading by score, im gonna unplug my cable … dum dee dum) 

Maybe the better solution in this case would be applying the ghr rules, but then again a connection timeout could make you lose the whole game. We could make it best of 3. Then, losing one round cuz of a crash would still suck but will not make you lose the game. Considering that close game takes like one hour or longer, I doubt clans would want to play two or three games in a row.
 

[:V: Stripes]

Well, if it's such a big issue you can just say the invidual member has his own responsiblity to have his connection 100% working.

I can see the unfair and the fair in it, but that's life sometimes if you want fun in the CB, something un-expected has to happend;)... naaa, all im saying is i don't think theres anyone out there who wants to CB for 2-3 hours, that would be waste of time. a CB should last like 30-mins 1hour (Intense games 1.5 hours)..

Ofcourse we can't give an exact time of the CB length, ive been in a CB that toke 3 hours.. that was damn boring..

Maybe start a poll about what other people think, if there is enough interest in AOE2 ladders.. i don't see why it would destroy the "DAMN R6 League" with bringing in some new blood, new activity.. if this is the only solution, then well go for it!


What about cheating, how does that work for AOE2? - there is a " No Cheating " Buttom right?
If so, is there still anyway to cheat? like viewing all the map from the start?

Interesting!

Regards,
Stripes

[FischGurke]

Maybe the better solution in this case would be applying the ghr rules, but then again a connection timeout could make you lose the whole game. We could make it best of 3. Then, losing one round cuz of a crash would still suck but will not make you lose the game. Considering that close game takes like one hour or longer, I doubt clans would want to play two or three games in a row.

I wanted to say that making 3 games would take forever, but then I finished reading... Yeah, I got the same ideas but you already pointed out the flaws... I think we just have to admit when we would have lost when the game crashes, I think it's the only option that would work well.

Well, if it's such a big issue you can just say the invidual member has his own responsiblity to have his connection 100% working.

But there can be other problems like out of sync errors (they also lead to the end of a game), and you can't do anything to prevent it.

I can see the unfair and the fair in it, but that's life sometimes if you want fun in the CB, something un-expected has to happend;)... naaa, all im saying is i don't think theres anyone out there who wants to CB for 2-3 hours, that would be waste of time. a CB should last like 30-mins 1hour (Intense games 1.5 hours)..
Ofcourse we can't give an exact time of the CB length, ive been in a CB that toke 3 hours.. that was damn boring..

AoE II is a slower game. A short 4vs4 game lasts about 45 minutes, a long one would be 3 hours. Standard games are about 1 hour. But I've also seen some 2vs2 that lasted 5 hours!

What about cheating, how does that work for AOE2? - there is a " No Cheating " Buttom right?
If so, is there still anyway to cheat? like viewing all the map from the start?

Right, there's a "no cheats" button. People say it's possible to cheat, but I've never seen a game where I could make out someone cheating, it shouldn't be a problem.

In the *DBL 2.0 you can earn awards, kinda stars and stripes for your clan. You earn awards for a lot of different things like:

Rookie Award: Playing more than 50cbs
Veteran Award: Playing more than 100cbs
Pro Award: Playing more than 500cbs

Just wanted to say that these numbers are pretty high for AoE II... maybe divide them by 5, or 2 at least?

-IBD

[Tin]

Cheating.
You can make slight modications, that give after all a huge advantage in the game. I'm thinking of modifying your aoe2 graphics. Like deleting all fog files, so you can see through the fog. You could compare this to wall hacking in ghr. I'm just assuming this. There's a mod available on fg clan site, that made me aware of cheating this way around."pussywood mod".
Pussywood helps you by making the trees smaller so you can see behind them.
If this works for trees why wouldnt it work for fog too?

In the *DBL 2.0 you can earn awards, kinda stars and stripes for your clan. You earn awards for a lot of different things like:

Rookie Award: Playing more than 50cbs
Veteran Award: Playing more than 100cbs
Pro Award: Playing more than 500cbs

Just wanted to say that these numbers are pretty high for AoE II... maybe divide them by 5, or 2 at least?

Read carefully and please post in the topic related threads. 

The things I post here, should give you an idea where the *DBL will go in the future. Values are just examples.

Good night,

Mauti

[Chino]

I think mods only work in multiplayer when every player have them.. right?

[Tin]

I think mods only work in multiplayer when every player have them.. right?

I'm testing this mod right now. It's working so far and it doesn't seem like the other peeps have to have it. 

[FischGurke]

I think mods only work in multiplayer when every player have them.. right?

I'm testing this mod right now. It's working so far and it doesn't seem like the other peeps have to have it. 

Mods that give you an advantage with stats, like better attack or faster units, will always and immediatly cause and out of sync error if not all players have it (like the 500 pop mod). Mods that change the graphics or sounds of your game will not cause an out of sync error, and will not be notified by other players. Some people think the pussywood mod is a way of cheating, but it's nowhere near wall hacking. 
It helps you to wall correctly for a better defense, because it's easy to leave a hole in the wall behind a forest.

You will not be able to mod the fog by editing some graphics. Handling the fog with black graphic tiles would be a waste of resources (from the view of a programmer). There are, however, hacks that exist for windows that made it possible to do several cheats without the game going out of sync, like instant winning, no building time, infinite resources. After an unofficial patch was released (1.0e, 1.0c is the latest for mac), most cheaters disappeared.

Also, sorry I should have read the thing about the values more carefully.