Guild Progression Ranking

[Inzi]

I'm not disputing that it would be easy to doctor the combat logs. What i'm wondering is that would having to make 2-6 separate doctored combat logs, each uploaded by a different account be enough to keep the trolls out?

 

I think if somebody cares enough, they'll do what they have to do. As a scenario, let's say I want my guild to look good and we killed BeastBoss#3 12 hours later than RivalGuildOfDoom. My guild is already planning to require members to submit combat logs so we can get a better idea of overall raid performance. So we have logs in a pile someplace, ripe for the picking. If I really care enough that we didn't kill the boss faster, having to hit 1 button 6 times isn't going to bog me down in the least.

 

I mean, there are people on the site making accounts just to downvote progress that's months old. That takes a lot more time than find&replace on a bunch of logs :\

[SageH]

I mean, there are people on the site making accounts just to downvote progress that's months old. That takes a lot more time than find&replace on a bunch of logs :\

 

Pretty much this.

[Inzi]

It's good to see more guilds posting their progress Maybe we'll be surprised and 1.2 will include an armory too!!

[cshouston]

Just FYI, I believe we talked about this the other day, but someone created fake accounts using members names to downvote troll Nerf Dialogue. Basically, this means that we can't use our legit display names because some troll claimed them. Any way we can get that fixed? I'm kind of attached to my name.

[SageH]

Just FYI, I believe we talked about this the other day, but someone created fake accounts using members names to downvote troll Nerf Dialogue. Basically, this means that we can't use our legit display names because some troll claimed them. Any way we can get that fixed? I'm kind of attached to my name.

 

I support purging all accounts that aren't attached to the creation of a guild on the site, and letting people go from there prior to 1.2's launch. A discussion still needs to occur however, so this is by no means a statement of intent, just what I personally think should happen if not a complete purge once the "beta" tag is ditched and 1.2 is live.

[ZachBraven]

Just FYI, I believe we talked about this the other day, but someone created fake accounts using members names to downvote troll Nerf Dialogue. Basically, this means that we can't use our legit display names because some troll claimed them. Any way we can get that fixed? I'm kind of attached to my name.

 

Same things happened to my guild <Temerity> Someone used my name before I could create my own account an then used that name to bash not only my guild but other guilds like Nerf Dialogue.

[Inzi]

I support purging all accounts that aren't attached to the creation of a guild on the site, and letting people go from there prior to 1.2's launch. A discussion still needs to occur however, so this is by no means a statement of intent, just what I personally think should happen if not a complete purge once the "beta" tag is ditched and 1.2 is live.

 

I've been thinking about this for a while, and the only things I can think of are:

 

"You have to be able to verify that it's you."

 

But there's no really effective way to DO that. I had the though of "well maybe you can just verify guild maintainers and that's not SO many"... but that shoots the confirm/dispute thing out the window.

 

The ONLY thing I can think of really that might have SOME sort of viability is having a kind of moderation queue. You submit your evidence and somebody (or people plural) have to approve that it has enough evidence and then it's posted. But that seems like a lot of work for that group of people and for the site structure :\ And of course, you can't approve your own guild's submissions.

 

I'm sorry this is painful

[charliebass]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and the only things I can think of are:

 

"You have to be able to verify that it's you."

 

But there's no really effective way to DO that. I had the though of "well maybe you can just verify guild maintainers and that's not SO many"... but that shoots the confirm/dispute thing out the window.

 

I've been running through the same though exercises. We have no way of verifying who people are, at least not in any largescale sort of way. With this in mind we have to rule out systems that require users to be known. But yes, at this point there is no viable way to continue with the confirm/dispute system. It was worth a try but its simply turning out to not be viable.

 

The ONLY thing I can think of really that might have SOME sort of viability is having a kind of moderation queue. You submit your evidence and somebody (or people plural) have to approve that it has enough evidence and then it's posted. But that seems like a lot of work for that group of people and for the site structure :\ And of course, you can't approve your own guild's submissions.

 

This is looking more and more like what would have to be done but logistically I'm a little wary. To give you an idea of the number involved let me reference our database. So far we have ~160 guilds registered, and from those 160 guilds we have almost 2000 reported kills in the system. I would expect this to grow.

 

Now, this is from an entire tier of content, and come 1.2 we wont be seeing a spike like this. If we spread those 2000 kills over the ~90 odd days its been since the first kill we would be looking at something like ~20 kills reported per day on average. Something a small team could probably handle.

 

Thinking about it though, verifying every single kill is probably overkill. If we limit the verification process to say, the top 25? guilds (first 5? reported kills per boss/size/difficulty perhaps?) this would cut the work down into something that is very manageable.

 

We're still kicking around ideas but it will involve moderation/verification in some form or another, of that I am sure.

[Inzi]

If you're going the moderation route, it might be nice to have a "Flag this Kill" kind of thing. While I know that a lot of us are only really concerned with the top however many guilds, some people are interested more in their server progress. While the 2nd guild on the server might be 60th in the world, the guild that's 3rd on the server might be frustrated if the guild ahead of them has claimed kills they don't think they deserved.

 

I think if I were doing it, I would make the threshold for moderation higher to begin with and then cut back if necessary. It's easier to cut back than it is to start having to go through things after the fact, ya know?

[Garricus]

I posted up all of our progression for Sleepless on Black Vulkars, I really like this site much better than the swtorprogress site.

[Garricus]

Should get this thread pinned up. Edited April 7, 2012 by Garricus

[Inzi]

Are there any updates as 1.2 approaches?

[Garbuk]

here's the old pve progression list, make sure the kills match up against those that were posted in here.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=252999&highlight=Official+16%28m%29+Nightmare

 

Some of these guilds have quit SWTOR including us, so just a heads up. Also, I'd suggest making the site only applicable to the new 1.2 content. There are bound to be discrepancies concerning four month old boss kills

Edited April 9, 2012 by Garbuk

[Beergogglez]

There's no way to prove date/time .../facepalm therefore swtor can't be ranked because there's too much corruption. If and when they add date/time to achievements ..then you can rank, but you get my point.

 

Save money/time and close the website/don't post.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Beergogglez

[charliebass]

Sorry for not posting any updates sooner, its been hectic irl.

 

Raidranks will be rolling out a slew of changes for 1.2.

 

First, kills will no longer be able to be deleted. There will be a short window in which they can be edited by guilds (for mistakes) but after that point they will be locked from editing. Additional proof (video/screenshots) can be added later, but this will not replace what they initially include, simply add to.

 

Second, confirms/disputes will have a slightly different behavior. We will have two categories for guilds, those with disputed kills and those without. You will have a toggle to see guilds ranks with disputed kills included... or not. The choice will be yours. Oh yea, confirms/disputes can be changed after the fact.

 

We will also have some new security features and moderation tools where troll kills/guilds can be reported, and tools to let us lock kills from un-justified down voting.

 

There's no way to prove date/time .../facepalm therefore swtor can't be ranked because there's too much corruption. If and when they add date/time to achievements ..then you can rank, but you get my point.

 

Save money/time and close the website/don't post.

 

This is what I thought at first as well, that there was simply no way to prove that a kill happened at a given date time, and given the tools bioware have provided this is true.

 

That said, were not going to give up simply because bioware can't give us the most basic of information. It feels like they are working at cross purpose to us sometimes but with some additional effort from the community I think we can still make this work.

 

We have a potential work around that comes in two steps. First is a new function on the raidranks site. You will be able to spawn a small popup window that will have the current date/time, updated in real time. It will also have a confirmation code, generated by the server, that is unique to that particular moment in time. If you take a screenshot of your kill with that popup included and I can prove what time that screenshot was taken.

 

Second will be a page on raidranks where confirmation codes can be checked. Enter in any code from any screenshot taken with the popup and the site will tell you when that kill occured. Have it be a good screenshot with the difficulty/boss showing (or codex) and now you have a screenshot that can prove the boss/difficulty/time trifecta.

 

Is it foolproof? Probably not. Is it enough for us to rank some guilds successfully so that the site is usable? I think it will be.

 

-Timelord

[Inzi]

The new code thing sounds amazing Good idea! Is there any possibility of being able to try it out before Thursday's patch? I wanna play with the new tooooys!!

 

Thanks for all your hard work & I hope all's well irl

[charliebass]

The new code thing sounds amazing Good idea! Is there any possibility of being able to try it out before Thursday's patch? I wanna play with the new tooooys!!

 

Thanks for all your hard work & I hope all's well irl

 

I'm shooting to release the update tomorrow evening, ahead of 1.2

 

Thats the plan anyways

[charliebass]

Ok, the RaidRanks update for 1.2 is now live.

 

I didn't get to polish and test it as much as I would have liked (ill be honest, I didnt expect them to get 1.2 out this month ) so don't be surprised to see little fixes get pushed out in the coming days.

 

That said, most of the changes that we needed are in place.

 

Starting with verifying kills, there is now a new link at the top of the site labeled 'Timer'. It will bring up a small popup window with the current UTC time. You can use it to give your kills some added validity by showing the current universal time. It will update in real time so you can have it open in the background and just drag it forward for the kill shot. (you will need to paste the screenshot into paint or your favorite image editor, it wont be included in the automatic swtor screenshots)

 

There have been some major changes to kills and how they are ranked. We still use community feedback to confirm or dispute kills, that part hasn't changed. What has changed though is what happens when a kill passes the dispute threshold. If a kill passes that threshold it is marked as disputed.

 

When you are looking at the lists of ranked guilds you have two options, to include or exclude disputed kills. If you include them you will see the rankings with every good kill, and every kill that has been disputed, nobody is left out. If you don't want to include disputed kills then you will only see kills that are undisputed.

 

What this system does is allow you to see a guilds rank no matter what the community decides. If you think their disputed kill is legit, choose to include it and see their (probably higher) rank.

 

Kills also have new report options, you can report fake kills, report kills with errors in them (bad links, wrong dates, or un-deserving numbers of downvotes). The more details you put in the reports the easier it will be for moderators to deal with them. This not only helps keep the site clean but leaves us all with higher quality information.

 

Oh yea, and you can now page through all of the kills on the site with the new paging list widget!

 

As always, thanks for your continued interest and feedback.

 

-Timelord

[Odarim]

Awesome, thanks for all your hard work on this.

[Inzi]

Is it just me or is it broken? >> Nothing's showing up, no links work.

 

Edit: after poking at it for like 5 mins, things work now >>

Edited April 12, 2012 by Inzi

[Jurugar]

Glad to see all the new features.

 

Also glad to see you guys trying to fix some of the massive trolling that plagued the first iteration. Any word yet on deleting troll accounts? Some of our members would love their names back.

[Inzi]

minor minor minor "bug"...

 

Progress is listed as 1/10, 2/10, etc... and there are only 4 bosses in the tier.

 

Again, uber minor. It's looking awesome, thanks for all the hard work!

[cshouston]

Also, the person who registered our guild is not an officer or our GM and has now fallen off the face of the earth. What's the protocol for recovering access to our Guild's info on your site?

[charliebass]

Glad to see all the new features.

 

Also glad to see you guys trying to fix some of the massive trolling that plagued the first iteration. Any word yet on deleting troll accounts? Some of our members would love their names back.

 

One of the updates we will be rolling out soon will do some tweaking with user account. We will be removing the requirement that names be unique across the system. You will be able to set your display name and server. Hopefully in that patch we will also have the guild members system in place where you can associate your members with your guild (and promote officers to help report)

[charliebass]

Also, the person who registered our guild is not an officer or our GM and has now fallen off the face of the earth. What's the protocol for recovering access to our Guild's info on your site?

 

Good question. Let me know which account should me made owner (use the feedback form, put in there the email address of the account to be made owner) and ill work on getting it switched over.