Stephen4Louise
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Yay, another first place! Or is it? Recently, when I've been getting a 1st place tie in a room, the in-game banner is displaying it as a proper first place (same goes for 2nd place ties etc.)

It's not a big problem, but it would be good to see my proper placements again.

Only thing I can think of that may have caused this is I had to re-install recently after my laptop blue screened and had to be rebuilt. JTRH was reinstalled with latest release and my data files were recovered from the old installation.

Steve.

Briareos
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Stephen4Louise wrote:
Yay, another first place! Or is it? Recently, when I've been getting a 1st place tie in a room, the in-game banner is displaying it as a proper first place (same goes for 2nd place ties etc.)

Was that when Schik had recently fixed a highscore bug where everyone and his dog were re-submitting demos? In that case, the thus unverified demos weren't being considered...

Heck, I got a "1st place!!!" in every room of Roaches Revenge at that time, only to be pushed back to the proper places when the spider had done it's work...

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[Last edited by Briareos at 11-15-2006 09:48 AM]

Stephen4Louise
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I can't remember exactly when it started happening, but when I get a 1st and hit f6, sometimes it is a tie. This was still happening yesterday on Pilchards hold.

Example - The Slayers Revenge : The Strange Complex : 1 East
When I completed this room yesterday I got the 1st Place banner, but when I re-entered the room and hit F6, wallu had already got the the same score and the proper first place. My banner should have read "1st Place Tie"

Steve

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[Last edited by Stephen4Louise at 11-15-2006 09:58 AM : Added example]

Stephen4Louise
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That's what I thought at first, but that room is one of many that I should have had a tie over the last couple of weeks.
If it did happen as you described it must have been a very close thing between me getting the 1st place message and the spider verifying your score. I stepped straight back into the room and hit f6 and your score was already there.
I'll keep an eye over the next few days and see if I can replicate on an older hold.

Steve.

zex20913
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With this sort of thing...I think that beta testers (and HAs) have an unfair advantage on highscores. If they already have demos for all the rooms, and can just upload them, then they have a distinct advantage. I'm thinking of a hold like the forthcoming Metroid: Echoes. I've played it through, and it took me 16+ hours. If I upload all my scores, that's a huge unfair advantage in terms of first place scores I know are optimal. Of course, I'm going to play it through again, because I like it that much, but (and not that I'm saying a HA would...) I think something needs to be in place to stop BETA demos from counting for the actual hold. It's not fair to the people just getting the hold.

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Doom
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On the other hand, having to play a long hold completely again for scores after first mastering it in testing doesn't sound tempting to me.

I don't personally concentrate on scores, so this doesn't really concern me. But I think this would be a nuisance to people like wallu...

Briareos
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zex20913 wrote:
If I upload all my scores, that's a huge unfair advantage in terms of first place scores I know are optimal.

Does that actually work for anyone?

Every beta hold I played through didn't pick up my scores when I tried uploading them; it's as if the beta and the final hold were considered two different entities.

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zex20913
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It would be a nuisance, yes, but can you imagine the uproar if (as S4L described in the other topic discussing this) someone did this for TCB? I think it'd be nice if there was some way to lessen the placedness of beta scores. That is, if you have a guaranteed 1st place uploaded via a beta demo, then the next person who comes ties that score, they get the 1st place, and the beta demo gets a 1st place tie. Of course, this is impossible. So then should a beta tester be forced to wait to upload? This also seems unfair. They did do the rooms after all, and probably would have completed them before anybody else. (However, this option is better than uploading immediately, IMO).

Secret option C (what I choose) is to play through again once the hold is released. That way, there's a level playing field.

Edit: Re: Briareos:

Maybe it's just a HA thing. Do your old Beta holds have any sort of markings on them, signifying that they are Beta? Do your HA ones? My HA ones don't, and I didn't really do any beta testing previously, so I can't check.

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[Last edited by zex20913 at 11-15-2006 02:15 PM : clearly shown in message.]

Briareos
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Doom wrote:
On the other hand, having to play a long hold completely again for scores after first mastering it in testing doesn't sound tempting to me.

Well, you could always come back to it sometime later...

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Briareos
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zex20913 wrote:
Maybe it's just a HA thing. Do your old Beta holds have any sort of markings on them, signifying that they are Beta? Do your HA ones? My HA ones don't, and I didn't really do any beta testing previously, so I can't check.

Ugh... can't really remember, as I really didn't pay much attention to it...

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Schik
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There's nothing in a demo saying what state the hold was in when the demo was made. Not to say we couldn't *add* something, but...

To upload demos you made before a hold was released, you'll have to do a batch upload. So one possibility would be this:
Upon receiving a batch upload, look at the times the demos were recorded. If they were recorded before the hold was released, then modify my local timestamps of the uploads by (timeHoldWasReleased - timeFirstDemoWasMade). So it would be as if the player had started playing immediately upon release of the hold.

I think that's feasible.

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michthro
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Schik wrote:
There's nothing in a demo saying what state the hold was in when the demo was made. Not to say we couldn't *add* something, but...

To upload demos you made before a hold was released, you'll have to do a batch upload. So one possibility would be this:
Upon receiving a batch upload, look at the times the demos were recorded. If they were recorded before the hold was released, then modify my local timestamps of the uploads by (timeHoldWasReleased - timeFirstDemoWasMade). So it would be as if the player had started playing immediately upon release of the hold.

I think that's feasible.

That would help a lot, yes, but it wouldn't stop a beta tester from quickly restoring to and replaying those nice juicy trivial #1s it took them 10 hours to get to in the first place. I like to think that we could all simply agree not to take advantage of anything that we know to be an unfair advantage. Is that feasible? If you're going to batch upload your beta demos, for instance, I see no reason not to wait. If you're going to replay the hold, remember that you still have the advantage of already having solved the rooms, so maybe it is only fair to wait a little.

Stephen4Louise
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Copied from the thread in The Site...

wallu wrote:
For upload of demos played during beta. I would divide them to different categories.
1) HAs who have played rooms during verification process.
2) Private betas.
3) Public betas.

1) and 2) are not public to every one. So, they get unfair advantage. But 3) is available to any one. Therefore, every member can download and play that hold. Therefore, they don't get unfair advantage and IMO those demos can be uploaded immediatelly after release.

There isn't any rules about uploading demos. From this point I won't upload category 1) and 2) demos before someone has conquered the hold.

Create a Hold Admin Code of Honour based on wallu's quoted post. Everyone invited to the group has to sign up to it, anyone breaking the code can be removed from the group. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love to take their place.

The Hold Admins group should be made more public, maybe a page on the site describing what they do and why they need to do it. And I'm sure someone can come up with a nice code of honour to put at the top of the page.

Steve.

zex20913
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Good plan. I agree to it.

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Schik
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michthro wrote:
I like to think that we could all simply agree not to take advantage of anything that we know to be an unfair advantage. Is that feasible? If you're going to batch upload your beta demos, for instance, I see no reason not to wait. If you're going to replay the hold, remember that you still have the advantage of already having solved the rooms, so maybe it is only fair to wait a little.

I have no doubt that we can count on the Hold Administrators to abide by this Hold Admin Code of Honor, but I think it's a lot to ask of non-Admin beta testers. *Someone* will eventually (if not on the first or second hold uploaded...) break the code, or perhaps not even know it existed. What to do then?

As for the public list of Hold Admins & what they do, I fully agree. Any HA is welcome to work on some text fit for public consumption regarding what we do and why we do it. In the meanwhile I'll probably work on getting hold uploads from Architecture to work.

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Stephen4Louise
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Schik wrote:
I have no doubt that we can count on the Hold Administrators to abide by this Hold Admin Code of Honor, but I think it's a lot to ask of non-Admin beta testers. *Someone* will eventually (if not on the first or second hold uploaded...) break the code, or perhaps not even know it existed. What to do then?

I don't think anything should happen then. The code should only apply to the official hold admins team, and as they will have to sign up to it on admittance to the group there shouldn't be a problem.
If a private beta tester (or architect for that matter) decides to upload their scores after a hold is released, then so be it. I'm sure when it happens the optimisers among us won't be too far behind to reclaim the scores.

Steve.

Briareos
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Schik wrote:
I have no doubt that we can count on the Hold Administrators to abide by this Hold Admin Code of Honor, but I think it's a lot to ask of non-Admin beta testers. *Someone* will eventually (if not on the first or second hold uploaded...) break the code, or perhaps not even know it existed. What to do then?

Ummm... exactly what in a demo file stores the information what hold it is for?

If it's a unique id for each hold, you could just change the id to a different one on the first non-beta upload; that way, the beta demos can't be used for the final hold - period. Of course, the ID of the hold stored on the architects computer might need the same update...

At least that would be the solution I would be comfortable with, although I have the nagging feeling there's others here that aren't...

np: Kettel - Halt Him (My Dogan)

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eytanz
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But that would require that all testers and hold admins play each hold twice. That's going to be rather annoying and time-consuming. I'd happily give up any advantage I have as an admin, but I don't want being an admin turning into a penalty.

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Syntax
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How about invalidating all demos which pre-date the hold promotion for high-score purposes only?

The hold would still count as conquered/mastered and the player would still be able to restore to any room played during testing... also, 1 point would be given for every completed room, but no more.

jbluestein
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Syntax wrote:
How about invalidating all demos which pre-date the hold promotion for high-score purposes only?

The hold would still count as conquered/mastered and the player would still be able to restore to any room played during testing... also, 1 point would be given for every completed room, but no more.

You probably can't just do that, because you still have the issue of people who could optimize pre-promotion and then input the proper moves.

Mind you, I don't actually think that a formalized 'Code of Honor' is necessary...but if people are that worried about it, well...

Josh

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eytanz
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That still seem pretty unfair. If you care about highscores, you're still discouraged from testing holds.

It's always been possible to get an early stab at highscores by beta-testing, but I guess what's different with the hold admins is that they are a small, selected group, who gain early access to all the holds. I really think that the best way to deal with this is having admins agree not to exploit their position, rather than by trying to impose any sort of mechanical solution. If the admins weren't trustworthy they wouldn't be admins to begin with.

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Stefan
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Here's my scoring habits wrt holds I've played before release, if anyone's interested:

- If the hold is short, I usually replay it after release (sometimes immediately after release). In some cases I just upload my scores after a couple of days.
- If the hold is long and I liked it, I replay it after release if I feel like it, often depending on how many times I've played it through from start to finish during beta.
- If the hold is long and I didn't particularly like it, or if I just don't feel like replaying, I upload my scores a couple of days after release. I may or may not check whether or not someone else has already completed the hold before I upload, but since I normally never ever play with optimization in mind*, I don't really feel this matters all that much (I did this with Beethro is Getting Home (waited about a day before upload; I would probably have waited longer if room images would not have been unavailable to non-explorers), and I don't have (nor did I get by uploading) any #1s for that hold...).


As a response to some of the above posts, I think I'll go with Tahnan here and say that we should not look for technological solutions to sociological problems. If I've played a hold such as Beethro's Teacher four or five times from start to finish during beta**, I'm probably too tired to play it though again after release, or at least I would like to have the option to upload if I so wish. To be perfectly honest, if a system were to be implemented to prevent people from uploading pre-release demos, I'd probably circumvent it if I really didn't feel like playing the hold again.

*) I have 113 pages of Used-to-be-#1 scores...
**) I did not do this during the beta for BT (I was pretty busy at the time), but it's quite normal for me to do so (I think I played Beethro and the Secret Society seven times, but I'm not entirely sure about that - it could have been only six times), regardless of hold size.

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Syntax
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jbluestein wrote:
You probably can't just do that, because you still have the issue of people who could optimize pre-promotion and then input the proper moves.

I thought people just wanted to be able to upload their demos so they wouldn't have to play through the hold again... I struggle to see how optimising pre-release is fair in any way, but either way this is impossible to restrict. I still think it best if uploaded demos pre-release don't count as high-scores. If player's then care about their scores, they can go and replay the rooms if they so wish.

eytanz wrote:
That still seem pretty unfair. If you care about highscores, you're still discouraged from testing holds.

Not sure I understand. My proposition is just to stop optimised demos being used to get #1s which are not beatable by anyone else who play the hold post-release as they can't possibly upload demos quicker than someone who's already played all the rooms. I also understand those who have played through and don't want to replay the entire hold. These players are catered for by my proposal.

Finally, let's imagine this scenario:
One of the top optimisers decides to beta test every hold, and optimise every room played, batch uploading all demos each time a hold is released.

This simply must not happen as it ruins highscoring for everyone else.

eytanz
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Syntax - I agree that it's bad if that happens. I still think that the best way to stop it from happening is asking the top optimizers, politely, from refraining from doing that. That might not always work for every set of top optimizers, but with the current set, I think they're all basically very honorable people.

As for what's wrong with your suggestion - take someone like me, not a top optimizer but who prefers to have decent highscores if possible. I don't want to just score 1 point per room, I want to score the 3 points per room 7th place gives me. I don't usually try for 1st place, but I do want to be in the top 8. In other words, if I only get 1 point per room, I need to replay the room after release. If that happens, I'll stop playing before release.

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Syntax
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Ok, makes sense now...

How about this then... #1s played pre-release count as #1 ties (if someone matches it post-release)? A player can obviously re-play those rooms he/she thinks are 100% optimised after release, but this is a lot harder to establish (without re-mimicing every room).

I also like Schik's idea of off-setting the timestamp but maybe it would be fairer if the offset was based on the first conqueror's completion timestamp as it would reward fast and dedicated players whilst pseudo back-populating the demos as though the pre-release players had been playing at the same time, but not punishing those players who actually were playing (to whichever point they got to).

Hmmm... maybe forget that last point. My head is muddled today. But yeah, Schik's proposal would work.

[EDIT]

Typo

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[Last edited by Syntax at 11-15-2006 05:18 PM]

jbluestein
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Syntax wrote:

jbluestein wrote:
You probably can't just do that, because you still have the issue of people who could optimize pre-promotion and then input the proper moves.

I thought people just wanted to be able to upload their demos so they wouldn't have to play through the hold again... I struggle to see how optimising pre-release is fair in any way, but either way this is impossible to restrict. I still think it best if uploaded demos pre-release don't count as high-scores. If player's then care about their scores, they can go and replay the rooms if they so wish.

I'm not saying optimising pre-release is fair, I'm just saying that it's unpreventable. There is not going to be a technological solution to what is essentially an understanding about ethical behavior.

You can come up with a lot of rules, but rules will be followed by those who would have behaved ethically anyway, and they'll be circumvented by people who don't care enough to follow them.

Finally, let's imagine this scenario:
One of the top optimisers decides to beta test every hold, and optimise every room played, batch uploading all demos each time a hold is released.

I think we can agree on what is inappropriate behavior, and the site admins have both gentle and not-so-gentle ways of encouraging appropriate behavior by forum members.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I immediately uploaded all of my scores from Beethro's Generic Quest when it was promoted. Since I don't particularly care about high scores, and I don't optimize, I doubt anyone was too affected by it.
Although I do still hold two #1s in that hold, so maybe I'm wrong. I didn't do it for the scores, though.)

Seriously, though: anyone getting early access to a hold has certain expectations placed on them already, right?

Such as "inform Hold designer of problems you find, including unintended solutions." I don't think it would be inappropriate to ask that beta testers wait a day or two before uploading their scores. I doubt it would be necessary to do more than that...

Just my thoughts...hope I'm not rambling too much.

Josh


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Syntax
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I'm all for technology being used to minimise the possibility of cheating. It's always those with no morals who will cheat, and it is the same ones who need restricting.

As I said elsewhere:
There is no etiquette in sabotage

jbluestein
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Syntax wrote:
I'm all for technology being used to minimise the possibility of cheating. It's always those with no morals who will cheat, and it is the same ones who need restricting.

As I said elsewhere:
There is no etiquette in sabotage

I don't oppose the use of technology in principle, but I do think that one should be careful to avoid restricting the choices of ethical people while solving problems. All of the solutions proposed so far won't really deter a dedicated cheater, and I doubt that one will come up that will...

Josh

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Syntax
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wallu wrote:

Syntax wrote:
How about this then... #1s played pre-release count as #1 ties (if someone matches it post-release)?

This means that anyone, even 10 years later, will get past to #1 with tie. That's not good.

Unless the pre-release player is so confident that it is indeed optimal that he/she will replay it post-release. It's this extra step which may avert blanket #1 stealing pre-release. Being able to tell if a room is actually fully optimised can be almost impossible at times seen as there are *genius* solutions available a lot of the time.

I remember one of yours in the Slayers Revenge recently, and michthro's BT's WW feat of utter genius for example (having played both holds recently).

I would have been quite confident that my attempt at the latter (had I played it pre-release) would remain as a #1. Instead, it's way down in #2.

[EDIT]

Typo

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[Last edited by Syntax at 11-15-2006 07:27 PM]