Ladle 38+: Aliases (and a bit Seeding and Team Changes)

[PsYkO]

Personally I like to see the names of who I am playing against, especially for something like ladle. And it's not really to adjust my play style; I'd play the same way as I usually do, but having the random names everywhere makes the whole match seem like a joke to me. This ofc is a personal preference; I can't give any logical reasons why aliases are bad if logins are visible.
I'll just say if you consider sports, players aren't allowed to makeup new names & numbers on their jerseys, with a lookup table hanging somewhere in the stadium if peopel want to actually know who is playing.

Chad Ocho Cinco disagrees!


But yeah I agree with you. I feel like the ladle is really special and feel like using aliases tarnishes it.

[Eckz]

This isn't a sport though, this is a computer game.

[gawdzilla]

Why does everyone care so much about using a damn alias? Seriously, if I see a team using only smurf names on the challenge board I don't flip my shit and try to figure out who it is all week -- you people need to go out and get some vitamin D because this is A VIDEOGAME.

Also, I agree with sine.wav; underestimating your opponent 'cause of their name is your own fault.

[sinewav]

Ok Ok, I have a different idea. While we are waiting for a @ladle framework to be in place, can we try to define what it means for a player to use their "common name"? If we can define it, maybe we can vote on a rule that prompts players to use it instead of an alias? How about using gridstats.com as some measure of "commonness"? And what do we do about new players? And how about players who use alternate nicks so much, they really don't have a common one? (example: teEn/i Am)

And even though it would be a pain in the arse, we could make a fully authenticated Ladle right now. We can require all participants to sign up with a GiD and add Team Member to the ladle_authority.cfg. Since we now have complaints about substitutions on Ladle day (which I'm now against after Ladle 36) we can eliminate that problem. You can't sign up a full team and have them show up? Tough luck. Try again next month.

[INW]

What will stop a team from making a bunch of alias account on this forums and basically making them open for all of its team members...there is always a way around any alias idea.

[LucK]

Er that would pretty much kill the open team sine.

[Z-Man]

I'd like to throw in my opinion. The @ladle authority is a nice idea, but will be hard to get to the level where it basically works, and some issues can't be solved with it. It won't be able to check whether two players are from the same IP, game servers don't pass on that information (and they shouldn't); sure, IPs can be checked when players register on the web interface, but at that stage, they're easy to forge. It won't help against smurfing via new accounts, it won't be able to check whether a single player was active for multiple teams (it can track the server hopping to simplify finding violations, that's all). It just adds more work for everyone. And the more complex a system gets, the easier it is to break.

Instead, I'd suggest to reduce the bureaucracy. Have the only team management rules left (replaces 1, 2 and 4-9 of the current "For Players" Regulations):
1. On the challenge board, each team is listed with a team name and one or two leaders. The leaders need to be registered with their true identity (global ID, contact data like the forum username, most often used game nicknames, nickname to be used on the tournament).
2. Team leaders can't switch teams after the brackets were made, ever.
3. Team leaders don't have to play on their team, but they can't play on any other team, must be logged in with their registered global ID, must not share that ID with anyone else, and if they are online while their team is fighting, they must be on the same server.
4. It's the responsibility of team leaders to do a reasonable level of checks to ensure none of their players play on any other team. It's the responsibility of the players not to play on multiple teams.
5. Players need to be logged in to play to make 4. feasible.

Further notes:
To 1: Yep, team member lists would be optional and can contain smurfs.
To 2: Have a secondary team leader registered for the case the primary team leader can't make it (or play leaderless). And yep, team members can switch around freely.
To 3: That should be enough to guard against 'dummy' teams getting registered to be able to switch places of entire teams after brackets were made. Yes, you can shuffle your best players to the slot facing your nemesis team, but you yourself need to stay put. You can watch them in a second client, though. Maybe extra provisions against clan teams using their low rank members as non-playing dummy team leaders would be required.
To 4: Checking the team member lists on the challenge board should be considered enough for most players, as far as they exist. For VIPs (the star player of the last ladle winner), talking to the other team leaders would be required. It would be for the punishment vote to decide whether the team leader has done his due diligence and the player needs to receive the ban or not, with a large bias towards blaming and punishing the player.
If there are reasons to believe rules 1-3 were violated, we can check IPs. If Z-Man@forums doesn't play under any IP he lately posted with here, that would be fishy.

[syllabear]

How about we make a rule "Aliases can only be used if GID are visible, from most commonly used grid names"

And people stick to it? Why are you making people like sine, and zman put all the effort into huge posts like this so you can get a (possible) little advantage, or, more likely, be douchebags? Seriously, just can you stop being idiots (to no-one in specific)

[PsYkO]

Ok Ok, I have a different idea. While we are waiting for a @ladle framework to be in place, can we try to define what it means for a player to use their "common name"? If we can define it, maybe we can vote on a rule that prompts players to use it instead of an alias? How about using gridstats.com as some measure of "commonness"? And what do we do about new players? And how about players who use alternate nicks so much, they really don't have a common one? (example: teEn/i Am)

And even though it would be a pain in the arse, we could make a fully authenticated Ladle right now. We can require all participants to sign up with a GiD and add Team Member to the ladle_authority.cfg. Since we now have complaints about substitutions on Ladle day (which I'm now against after Ladle 36) we can eliminate that problem. You can't sign up a full team and have them show up? Tough luck. Try again next month.

But let's be honest. It's a little bit different than what you are saying. Players that use smurfs during the ladle KNOW what they're doing and KNOW it's not their common name and KNOW they are trying to be deceiving. In other cases, like ID/Vcl (which I won't comment on) and uNk's case I don't believe they were intentionally trying to be deceiving, I don't think there is anything malicious going on, but absolutely nothing beneficiary either.

If you made a thread and asked everyone who played in the ladle to post the name they are known in the community for, 99% of the time we would have no problems nailing down each identity to one name. The problem can be solved with an easy "Don't use aliases" and have it the captain's responsibility to maintain the integrity of his/her team.

[Lackadaisical]

Players that use smurfs during the ladle KNOW what they're doing and KNOW it's not their common name and KNOW they are trying to be deceiving

I've been trying to stay out of the whole L35(?) alias drama, and I guess you don't have to take my word for it, but when we decided on using the aliases we sincerely thought a) it wouldn't be a big deal, b) the initials would be enough to recognize us either way. In other words, trying to deceive people was the last thing on our minds. If I can accept that changing two teams on the challengeboard was naive, please try to give us the same benefit of the doubt.

edit:
Anyway, at least I know I'm not going to use aliases anymore because apparently it's good to be scorned for it for the rest of my life. (hyperbole)

[sinewav]

I don't think we can do anything about aliases. I'm not even convinced it's a notable problem. I recommend we use Z-Man's suggestions above to open up the rules a bit and accept that there will always be things people are unhappy about.

[Titanoboa]

I recommend we use Z-Man's suggestions above to open up the rules a bit and accept that there will always be things people are unhappy about.

+1

Z-man makes sense

[Concord]

Ultimately there are loopholes and ways to cheat. As long as we define the rule to follow and have sufficient punishments to lay on violators, we should be set. No need to make the 99% of people who are trying to do good by the system 99% of time to jump through hoops trying to avoid that 1%. The punishments need to be hard if they are going to truly be preventative.

Something like:
1 warning: 1 Ladle ban from being a Team Captain.
2 warnings: Suspension from non-Open Teams for 1 Ladles. 3 Ladle ban from being a Team Captain.
3 warnings: 1 Ladle suspension. Suspension from non-Open Teams for 2 Ladles thereafter (community service almost). Banned from fortress servers owned by ladle server admins for the month of the Ladle suspension. 12 Ladle ban from being a Team Captain.
4 warnings: 6 Ladle suspension. Suspension from non-Open Teams for 6 Ladles thereafter. Banned from Fortress servers owned by ladle server admins for 6 Ladle-months after violation. Permanent ban from being a Team Captain.
5 warnings: Permanent ban from the Ladle. Encouraged to be banned from all other Armagetron competitions.

[gawdzilla]

Something like:
1 warning: 1 Ladle ban from being a Team Captain.
2 warnings: Suspension from non-Open Teams for 1 Ladles. 3 Ladle ban from being a Team Captain.
3 warnings: 1 Ladle suspension. Suspension from non-Open Teams for 2 Ladles thereafter (community service almost). Banned from fortress servers owned by ladle server admins for the month of the Ladle suspension. 12 Ladle ban from being a Team Captain.
4 warnings: 6 Ladle suspension. Suspension from non-Open Teams for 6 Ladles thereafter. Banned from Fortress servers owned by ladle server admins for 6 Ladle-months after violation. Permanent ban from being a Team Captain.
5 warnings: Permanent ban from the Ladle. Encouraged to be banned from all other Armagetron competitions.

wtf? this is going too far

[Flex]

So, just assume the center player is owned even if his alias says Jennifer. Problem solved. Good teams use surprise anyway, regardless of names.

What.. You just ignored my whole example.. Actually I give up now. This is worthless and then again, it was always worthless. This is deja'vu. I never came here to seek help on how to play better against an aliased player. This whole discussion is about aliases in a tournament and the impact of it to the tournament and to the game. Why is it so hard to understand.

I gave you a solid example, but your response is trying to find something that sounds like a flaw? The whole point is about ALIASES. The WHOLE example was about showing how much of a difference it is by knowing who it is. I explained that we under-estimated Woned and never properly took care in making sure our centre was properly secure. My point was that the same results would occur if we were not aware of the team and player we're facing. A right we all have equally, but something an aliased team can avoid (and a few other things it can also avoid). Is that justifiable?

It's not a teams responsibility to make things fair and it shouldn't be either. Specially in a tournament. To make things exactly fair; we all have to go under alias and that's not a pretty picture. It won't be worth it to play, at least for me. Either we all know who we're playing against or we all don't. In consideration to that; In Ladle 36 the same player who went under alias said such words that he woke up expecting to play a lower skilled team, but came to see he was playing against us. Ironic he can say such things, I think.

This shit isn't my life nor am I concerned either. When I've had enough and there's too much things I don't like about it, I'll un-install the game and move on. I've played enough, anyway. In retrospective it doesn't change a lot of things, either. It just means it's something my team will have to be aware of.

Lack: What was done was done and I never brought up the past. I'm talking about the future and this was the only reason I made any of my above posts or even asked a question in regards to aliases. What we done in my eyes was switched around our players for OUR teams. We apologized for that. Yes we did switch a bit too many and yes it was a majour switch of players, but we had that capability and that's what we did. The whole bullshit drama was because of people stirring the shit.

*Note that aliases did not help DVAS at all Sunday.

Is that even a point to make? Aliases don't give you skill, they give you an advantage. Why is it so hard to understand.

The shit you say.. You must be trolling me.. Seriously.. Haha. I am done posting in these forums. There's too much shit, literally.