So guys i was thinking a ladder system would be really nice for Endless.



As im a programmer who is after long holiday due to health problems and looking to write somethign small to get back into shape, im considering writing it.



My main design ideas:



1-Simple web application with a view of all the members and their position.



2-To post results you must be logged in, registration email based.



3-Posting results , the most tricky part to be somehow cheating proof:

a) At least 2 players must post a result so its logged.

b)No posting with two different players from same ip.I hope this will eliminate pmost of poeple creating multiple emails and posting false resutls.Ofc you can go around it but still it should stop 90 %.the problem will be for poeple playing from same lan with one external ip... i dont know.



My main design questions:



1-How do we approach settings : Do we force a specific galaxy settings for ladder plays.

Now one thing that causes me headeache: hwo about number of players? do we give points only for the winner or also for second place etc? Do we allow for example 3 players and one ai bot?



2-Still would like to have better proofing against cheaters then idea described in 3.b .



I woudl liek to hear from you , if you would welcome such a system, and what are your ideas?

I think a leader board would be fun, and i don't think you have to worry to much about cheating seeing as there such a low MP base. I think to keep it fair there should be regulation on the galaxy type,size, and number of total players (both AI and Human).



To count i say there has to be at least 3 Human Players and point can be award based on finishing level if an AI is in 3rd and a Human in 4th no point are awarded for 3rd and only the two Humans in 1st and 2nd get points added.



There is my two cents any way.



Where are you planing to host this?

Well it will be java based application + prolly mysql db, so i can host it whereever its available.



But for start it will be on my home server,we will see how it works, if poeple are at all using it, dont want to pay for hosting for somethign that nobody gonna use.

FireStorm wrote:
Well it will be java based application + prolly mysql db, so i can host it whereever its available.



But for start it will be on my home server,we will see how it works, if poeple are at all using it, dont want to pay for hosting for somethign that nobody gonna use.

Sounds good, if you go ahead with it people will use it as long as they know its there.



If i can be of help let me know, i am not a programmer but i pretty fair with a server.

cool thanks

Would be cool if the app could accept and read save game file XML to verify steam IDs and possibly game state... kinda a pipe dream I know.

It sounds nice for people who it interests, but it doesn't interest me.

FireStorm wrote:


3-Posting results , the most tricky part to be somehow cheating proof:

a) At least 2 players must post a result so its logged.

b)No posting with two different players from same ip.I hope this will eliminate pmost of poeple creating multiple emails and posting false resutls.Ofc you can go around it but still it should stop 90 %.the problem will be for poeple playing from same lan with one external ip... i dont know.

The way you should do it is parse the savegame at the end, if possible. I haven't bothered to look at the format and I just uninstalled ES indefinitely so I can't, but better than taking it on faith would be to require 2 or more players to submit their saves and diff the files for consistency and parse the score out to their profiles.

A Ladder sounds good, but difficult to realize it with the game structure.