1.) New WEB menu option:

WoS Ladders

Takes you to the wos ladder overview page, which currently has exactly one ladder.

2.) Evergreen PK Arena now is a ladder map.

Individual maps can be tagged as 'ladder' maps via the map flags (world designer option - map flag '16')

3.) MIX 1.09 server supports the "ladder" rule.

This lets you indicate whether or not gameplay on your server should be reported or not. If you say "ladder=1" then scores on ladder maps will be reported to ladder #1 (which might not make any sense unless you also force your server to be Evergreen). You can only report scores to 'official' ladders (and '1' is the only ladder at the moment).

4.) PK kills, deaths, and 'karma scores' which occur while on the ladder map, and while connected to a ladder-enabled server, get reported to the ladder web server (which displays the results)

Scores are reported "periodically" so if you want to make sure your score has been reported, return to the well or something like that.

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Don't bother getting all excited about finding ways to abuse the system - there is no security at all, so it is trivial to cheat. At this point, I don't see much reward in it for me to worry about that. I imagine the simplest cheat is just to arrange with a pal to be your punching buddy and let you kill him over and over again.

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If you are wearing a guild uniform at the time, your score goes both to you AND your guild. (though there is no way to determine how much of each guild's score is due to each member, you can more or less figure it out if you really care.)

For example:

I wear WOS uniform and get 2 kills
I switch to TH uniform and get 3 kills

Now MY score is 5 kills, WOS has 2, and TH has 3.

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And, of course, only fighting done with A48 or later is reported...

I mention that because I saw someone online today upset that the guild entry showed him with zero PKs (since all his many PKs had occurred before he upgraded to A47)

I'm guessing you just had the luck of trying during one of the MANY times my web server has been down or wacky.

I got an email from my web host and they PROMISE they have PERMANENTLY FIXED my server.

24 hours with no downtime so far, so I guess I BELIEVE!

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A Note about Karma and Honor:

Yes, the chess score rating thing has taken over some stuff which I was waving my hands in the direction of karma about. Bear in mind that the whole honor/karma thing will take forever and a day to figure out and could end up being so hopelessly complicated that everyone found it totally repellent.

So, following many people's suggestion to keep things simple (ouch, Josh, let go my arm!) here are TODAY'S SIMPLE THOUGHTS:

1.) The 'rating' has nothing to do with snertish-ness or levels or karma or honor or anything. It's just a rating which rewards fighting (and winning) against peers. It is a POSITIVE FEEDBACK MECHANISM, as opposed to an attempt to punish snertishness. Hopefully all the snerts will be very competitive about gaining status through rating and ladder ranks.

The rating system is easy to understand and will hopefully be a happy joy joy solution to one set of problems.

[and example of a BAD solution would be to have the ladder ranks based on total PKs, which would encourage newbie hunting, where the chess rating discourages newbie hunting]

2.) HONOR is still supposed to detect snertishness and to reward the lack thereof by allowing higher than normal levels. (note how I phrase that? It's not that I am PUNISHING snertishness with low levels, I am REWARDING nonsnertishness Spin, man, it's all about spin!)

3.) KARMA is sort of in limbo, having had its thunder stolen by the chess rating. Karma was not supposed to be honor. As it is, Karma will probably end up being the visible name of honor (I never liked the word 'honor')

So, chess ratings is a DONE DEAL, but honor/karma is still mostly vaporware.

As to the bad language issue, I think the extremely simple "noBleep = 1" server rule will actually be the simple and elegant solution.

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SO, to recap:

SIMPLE: Chess ratings, lead to diminishment of newbie hunting

SIMPLE: Server NoBleep Rule, leads to diminishment of swearing on servers that don't approve.

COMPLEX: Honor/Karma drive some wacky meter, control some wacky bounty, affect your max level.

Looks to me like you forgot to turn on a variable somewhere, since the problem is with the game menus and not MY internet connection.

*twists Dan's arm off*

*Looks at Josh... Looks at arm lying on ground... looks back at Josh...*

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...later... The phrase "all fixed" requires a disclaimer. The code is now "all different" and "tested exactly one time in one place,"

Hence, whether or not the description "all fixed" is accurate, remains to be seen.

"Truth In Debugging" - Uncle Dan