Pixel Medals - Ideas for TWL 2020

[Grasps]

Hey guys

I meant to post this earlier.. been stressed, depressed and busy (sitting on my ass playing Tales of Maj Eyal). Anyways, am active on forums at the moment and wanted to share my thoughts for better or worse with you guys just to bounce them off and see if something sticks.

TWL like any league, takes a lot of time to run, time to play and commitment from it's players and staff to show up ON TIME and play for hours on end on the defined day(s). I feel like to only give the winning squad a pixel medal while they 100%, no.. 1000% deserve it, seems unfair to the other squads who worked and played hard all season. I feel like runner ups should get something to show for as well. I also don't think it would hurt to give out a simple participation 'pixel art' to everyone just to have that shows they played in TWL either.

TWL shouldn't be structured off Nascar in my opinion with the whole "if yer aint ferst.. yer last!" type mantra. Ideally, we could go about medals something like how the Olympics or Formula 1 does, giving medals to the Top 3 and maybe a simple certificate/pixel artwork designating they participated in TWL 2020 for players to look back on and remember.

It's 2020. I thought this might be a good time to change some regulations and how we go about future leagues. I don't think giving out Silver/Bronze medals is going to remove anything from the game. It won't make vets of old less relevant or competition less fierce. It's simply a "Thank you for taking the time to play this game".

So in closing, I think it would be awesome to be a little more generous with the pix's. Game lack achievements and those are all we have to show for. I don't see any harm in them personally. Thoughts?


Medals;

Gold -- No change to the current medals we use for LD/JD/LB
Silver -- Silver for WB/LD. Outline silver for JD.
Bronze/Brown

Non-Medal Awards;

TWL 2020 Participant - Could be any number of things as far as the pixel graphic for this is.

Might be fun but TWL MVP pixel art for getting MVP during the Season, Semi's and Finals? Thinking a single pixel sprite could be given out for obtaining an MVP in TWL that possibly stacks ie. MVPx1 MVPx5 MVPx20 ect. or just keep it basic. Either way


Said at the start of this post I play Tales of Maj Eyal (should check it out.. best rpg/rogulelike ever made and can be played for free at te4.org). It's older than Subspace and it's community is sweet as pie. Game still receives updates/DLC and gets over 1000 euro's a month in recurring donations (doesn't count 1 time donations).. for a single player game! Large part of it is that it takes into account the time you invest into it, giving you achievements for the big feats you pull off and saves every character you win with or lose with on their database. They also really hype up donators, giving them special profiles and colored names in-game so you stand out among the rest. There's just some little things this game can learn from ToME and improve upon with.

Bottom line..I think medals for top 3 and a possible "played a season of TWL 2020" artwork wouldn't hurt or decrease the competition of the game by any means and would be a nice 'thank you' to the people who made it happen in 2020.

-ixa

[ronaldinho]

Less is more. Thanks for sharing your thoughts but this is ridiculous. Also add your teammates instead of foreign players before thinking about participation medals in TWL. Giving special stuff to donators is good if it comes with a good idea, but a medal for losers… no. And I can already tell you people won't like it, thanksfully.

[Grasps]

Less is more. Thanks for sharing your thoughts but this is ridiculous. Also add your teammates instead of foreign players before thinking about participation medals in TWL. Giving special stuff to donators is good if it comes with a good idea, but a medal for losers… no. And I can already tell you people won't like it, thanksfully.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I think stating my idea is ridiculous is a little harsh but overall I valued your input on this. Am simply brainstorming ideas, all of which are just to better the zone and help retention post TWL. Really, that's the biggest thing I'd like to address, is the massive slump in activity after TWL ends. Some players get burned out, TOTALLY understand that.Some get hurt, their ego's get hurt, their confidence and they sometimes quit the game for good or for very long periods. Just trying to figure out a way, in this case, using incentive, to soften the blow of losing and making the sacrifices they made to show and play every weekend worthwhile.

Just where I am coming from, don't want to see people get upset and quit after TWL or go inactive for years. Don't want players who didn't get on the right squad and missed the mark of winning TWL to walk away with nothing but the sting of defeat. Would like a way to keep TWL incredibly competitive yet also fun that takes into account the sacrifices people made to make it happen (staff too!) That's all. Hope you are doing good man. Take care!

-ix

PS: Forgot to add but stating the obviously--we are all old now. Back in highschool/college, we had ample time to throw away on this game and giving away weekends to play it for hours was no big deal. Now we have families and kids. It's much harder to devote time to this game over them. I think it's an achievement in it's own for most of us to simply show up every Sunday and play for hours lol. Don't see the harm in thanking people who were active in TWL playing/staffing with a little pixel art of somekind (could be a heart or a smilely face). Just something to recognize their devotion and thank them for making the TWL a possibility.

[Rab]

Medals are for achievements.
Certificates are for taking part. idc if you want to create the concept of certificates, but don't confuse it with medals.

Also - there are some people with so many medals it's starting to break the website layout. Probably time to format the medal output in a smarter way. It's also annoying that the roster page and profile page are different.

[Grasps]

Medals are for achievements.
Certificates are for taking part. idc if you want to create the concept of certificates, but don't confuse it with medals.

Also - there are some people with so many medals it's starting to break the website layout. Probably time to format the medal output in a smarter way. It's also annoying that the roster page and profile page are different.

Agree Rab. Miswording on my part--didn't mean to call them medals (made edits to clarify), definitely not what I envisioned. Bascially a pixel artwork of somekind that isn't a medal but more of a memento designating you were a participant during TWL. I do think having a Gold, Silver and Bronze would be a nice as far as medals go.

Also. 100% agree medals need to be reworked on TWD.org. I don't like how some medals are shown on roster page and some are shown on profile either. It's a mess and could use some love on formatting them so they are sleek, neat and tidy.

Appreciate your input for sure. Super valuable. Didn't even think to mention the formatting issues with the medals. Great stuff. Hope you and yours are doing good man. Cheers.

[Nipple Nibbler]

You millennials and your awards for participation lol.........want us to cut the crust off your toast too?

[ogron]

No to participation, but you could definitely make an argument for runner-up, specifically TWL and TWDT.

Looking at terr for example, it adds a lot of context to players like Zizu, Thix, and Tim:



Zizu has almost won 3 TWLB titles and is a top 5 all-time terr, but there's nothing on his profile. Yet Jebass has like 4 participation medals from dead elims... makes no sense.

I'm sure there are dozens of relevant examples in other ships, too. Provides a much more complete image.

[Nipple Nibbler]

Claushouse might be on to something here with separating the medals based on ships. I would be willing to meet half way and +1 the idea of greyed out medals for finals.

Another thought for TWD site, medal page which lists everyone who has medals, pre-sorted by ship similar to how Oggy has that picture.

I always did say zizu best terr that never won a medal.

[Rab]

Not sure about ships, but I do think medals should be sorted by division.
So instead of:
BDBJDBJDBJDBDBJD
DDDDDD JJJJ BBBBBB is better

I was trying to guide towards a layout which took up less space - so the roster and profile pages could be consistent, and so the layout would not be broken.
Eg:
D: 6 J: 8 B: 10

It's a tradeoff between simplicity and being able to see what was actually won. Perhaps this could be clickable and use Grasps' idea of actually having a list of stuff you took part in.
E.g:
D: 6 J: 8 B: 10 [+]
When [+] clicked:

Duelling:
- 2004 TWL Winner
- 2006 World Cup Runner Up (Finland)
- 2020 TWDT Participant

Javelin:
- Nothing

Basing:
- 2007 TWL Winner (Spid)
- 2018 Basing Cup Runner Up (Terr)

[Edit: added..]
Other thoughts:
- Just a thought, not advocating it: what about the idea of ranks (e.g. naval) or levels (e.g. MMO), and upon hitting a certain number of achievements (e.g. Steam) you achieve a new rank. So Zid is like an Admiral and Ogron is like a Captain, w/e. It's similar to how the pips on a starfleet uniform show rank without taking up a ton of space.
- Currently a medal is tied to a name, I'm not the first or last person to change names, and I think medals from any of your names should appear for all of your names. So when you view TPZ you should see medals from Rab.
- I also think the TWDT star ratings should be displayed on the roster and profile. I like the idea of power bars from character selection screens in the 90s, e.g https://imgur.com/a/9BSij5z
maybe that ends up something like:
[D_6*_] [J__7*__] [B____9*____]
- or instead of clicking [+] there could be a Tournament History page, similar to the Squad History page.

[Nipple Nibbler]

+1 for summing up division medals and having it clickable to show more details, sort of spoiler style.
+1 for DT * ratings in profile, also like the idea of the layout of the stars from that old fighting game.

I still think seperate basing medals per ship could work, and if they come out with seperate DT ratings that as well.

It would be cool to click a profile and see something like:

John Doe

1 LD medal
+ 2002 TWLD Thunder
2 LJ medals
+ etc

Warbird
**********
Javelin
*********
Spider
******
Shark
******
Terrier
*******



Unrelated, why does everyone in your picture have a banner but me Claushouse ? *sniff*

[Grasps]

I really like the idea of having medals count towards a global rank like you presented Rab along with the drop downs for medals on profile ie. clicking TWL brings down ALL possible medals someone's earned in it, TWDT the same, ect.. Will really clean up the medals on profiles and make everything streamlined. Love it.

Touching back on ranks, think it's a neat incentive to keep folks active and willing to participate in all leagues, not just TWL so they can level those up, has my vote but think we'll want to polish out rank names and what you need to get to add towards ranking up.

Do have some questions on how you envisioned ranks Rab. What if people use multiple names? Can a rank system be tied to their IP so all names someone uses adds to it or keep it just per profile name? What were your thoughts on this?

Game REALLY would benefit some QoL changes like this and help modernize SubSpace. This game doesn't offer much in terms of giving you anything to show for your time and stuff like this would big step to improve on it.

I also love the way Oggie went about with the medal tiers and really love that it's per ship for base too. As I said, it's always been a 'if youre not first, youre last' in terms of getting medals and as we all know, lots of guys have gotten close on multiple occasions (Zizu) but were just short of obtaining 1st for whatever reason and this will take those guys into account. Think having 3 tiered awards is going to be massively positive and a nice way to keep folks coming back.

I understand pushback on a participation certificate, kind of wish we could meet in the middle somewhere..say everyone who makes it to Semi Finals or Finals? Just a little something to look back on in years time to remind you of this league and the sacrifices you made both in-game and out to be apart of it. If not, that's OK. Just threw it out but the main things I wanted to see done have been well received and that's the main thing!

TL;DR
Loved Oggies tiered medal suggestion
Liked Rab's idea to offer ranks
Loved Rab's idea to clean up medals offering drop downs
Interested in giving out TWL Semi Final/Finals pixel artwork achievement--if not, can scrap the idea altogether.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your ideas and feedback. Hope you guys have a great rest of your week!!!

[Rab]

Do have some questions on how you envisioned ranks Rab. What if people use multiple names? Can a rank system be tied to their IP so all names someone uses adds to it or keep it just per profile name? What were your thoughts on this?

Not IPs for various issues, just link up the names in the database.

Currently there'll be a database table with player names in it, like this:

Players
ID     Name
1      Rab
2      Grasps
3      TPZ
etc.

And another table with medals in it, like this:

Medals
ID    PlayerId      Icon       Description
1     1             red.gif    TWDT-B 2020
2     1             jav.gif    TWDT-J 2001
etc.

And a SQL query to select the medals, like this:

SELECT * FROM Medals
      WHERE PlayerId = (SELECT Id FROM Players WHERE Name = 'Rab')

What we would need is a new table which linked mains and aliases together, like this:

Aliases
ID       MainPlayerId       AliasPlayerId
1        1                  3

There'd be a bit of work to populate this data, presumably only done when a player requests it.
The system would pick one of your names and consider it your main, but you'd never see that as the user.
Perhaps we could even display known aliases on the profile page as links to the other profiles.

Then the SQL query could be updated to use that new table, like this:

SELECT * FROM Medals
     WHERE PlayerId = (SELECT Id FROM Players WHERE Name = 'TPZ')
     OR PlayerId = (SELECT AliasPlayerId FROM Aliases WHERE MainPlayerId = (SELECT Id FROM Players WHERE Name = 'TPZ'))
     OR PlayerId = (SELECT MainPlayerId FROM Aliases WHERE AliasPlayerId = (SELECT Id FROM Players WHERE Name = 'TPZ'))
     OR PlayerId IN (SELECT AliasPlayerId FROM Aliases WHERE MainPlayerId = (SELECT MainPlayerId FROM Aliases WHERE AliasPlayerId = (SELECT Id FROM Players WHERE Name = 'TPZ')) )

scenarios:
- you are the main, show medals from you (current functionality which persists for everyone without aliases set up)
- you are the main, show medals from your aliases
- you are an alias, look up your main, show medals associated with the main
- you are an alias, look up your other aliases, show their medals too

That's how you get medals from any of your names to show for all of your names.

[Nipple Nibbler]

Grasps
Middle ground + idea

Achievements!

like steam. "has particpated in TWL", "has made TWL PLAYOFFS" etc. Would not have to be limited to just TWL. The reach out to the community we could come up with LOADS of achievements I mean I could probably think up 50-100 myself if I spent 10 minutes thinking about it.

TWD site needs an overhaul for sure. There are loads of bugs and community suggestions around the forums and QOL improvements that the site needs. What exactly can us as a community do to assist in getting the ball rolling on the TWD site I wonder.

We should merge all tw/dt/twl etc all into one site IMO.

[Grasps]

Bump! We should also work on adding medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place teams--especially this DT.

[Pressure]

I don’t want a medal unless I win or was a core member of the squad that won.