Planet M.U.L.E.

I'd like to suggest that all games ending with 1 player & 3 bots should not be counted towards the Hi-Score list nor the weekly challenge.

I'd also like this policy to be retroactive.

What are your thoughts?

- WhosYourBuddy?

Wholeheartedly agree.  Also I'd like to be able to quit a game against three bots without it counting as an "abandon" in your stats.

There's been some controversy about this subject lately. We in the development team are thinking of how to fix this for the next release.

Currently there is a problem when the host can kick human players and then finish the game against the AI to score a win.

But there is a similar problem if players can leave by the end of the game to deny the leading player his or her score.

Maybe we should require at least 3 human players to start a tournament game?
Require voting to kick players?

Many games which currently do count as abandoned should maybe maybe not be abandoned. For example if you're kicked, if you leave when there are 3 AI and maybe even if you leave during the first round?

My current suggestion of how to count a won game is this: Two human players must have been in the game for at least 3 rounds. The host may not have kicked the last other player.

Do you better suggestions?

Sure. Abandon the simple number-of-wins ranking and implement a true skill-based system. Then, if you scored a three-AI win, you could raise your ELO as much as if you played against humans - humans tend to have much higher ELO than bots. And even better, you can score some points for being 2nd, so there is no need to disconnect ;)

For example, a great skill-based ranking system is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueSkill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueSkill)

Yes I would prefer a point based system where you can get score for coming second or third as well.

Yes, point system would be great, but with one important thing to say - victory against AIs or low-ranked players should you give considerably less points than if you won against Rhodan or such a monster ;D

Hello Peter,

All games that are to be counted should have 4 human players at the beginning and at least 3 human players at the end and that should be retroactive.

I don't believe voting will help in this particular situation. The problem that I've seen with certain hosts is that they will not necessarily "kick a player" but will wait them out until the player finally disconnect.

(Example after the end of round 3 energy auction, the host simply takes a 20 minute break by not pressing their spacebar to continue the game, the other users are forced to abandon the game as it maybe 3 hrs before the host comes back to continue).

I would also ask that other users be able to report bad hosts to you directly. If the bad host quota gets reaches say from 10 different users in a 2 week period then I would 1st warn the host that there was a problem. If there were to be a continuation of bad reports, then a 1 month banning maybe in forced or even an extreme  penalty of "loss of Won" games.

As it is now, we've been policing ourselves. I've built up a list of players that I will not play against, nor hosts that I will not join. It's the new players unfamiliar with this predatorial tactic that get fooled initially by the host and then discouraged to continue or it's the hosts 2nd account that they use to initiate a game with "2 players".

- WhosYourBuddy

Not too hard to do it instead of going strictly by wins use a point system, games with all humans being worth the most points.  This would make coming in 2nd not as much of a disappointment cause you'd still get something.  There are lots of variables when you use a point system, perhaps even having a user lose points for coming in last.  More points awarded when playing against players with a higher score (more reward for playing against tough competition)

I think it would be good i you can join a game in progress to either take over an AI spot, or to replace a player, or even just spectate.

It's exactly stuff like this that we should be trying to discourage and prevent:

http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=23355

I'm calling out: eumel-123, ushi, and akire

- WhosYourBuddy

I Totally Agree!

While I'm very appreciative for the work put in to creating and running Mule, I have decided to decline my Weeks "Gold Badge", as a form of protest, until the game scores are re-ordered/re-organized to prevent exploitation of noobs by those 3 players.

Furthermore, you will not see DandyDan again at a game until such time.

Thank you and good bye.

:-( DandyDan

We understand your motivation for doing so, DandyDan, but we are afraid we can't possibly solve the deeper issues with starting to ban certain players or doing a quick fix.

So while you won't or can't enjoy Planet Mule for the fun part and ignoring those players, all I can say that we are 100% committed working on a solution, that will offer pretty much all of the proposed features rolled into one solid package:
New ranking system + new scoring method + new centralized server code.

Look out for some announcement around summer this year!