Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => Online Games and Competitions => Leagues (including expansion leagues) => Topic started by: danisthirty on February 13, 2015, 07:36:23 AM
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Hello all! This is a fairly long post but please bear with it as there's a lot to take in! :)
The absence of any kind of ongoing reward and recognition program for Carcassonne Central's online tournaments is something that has been felt by myself and others for a little while now. Whilst the tournaments themselves are a lot of fun and help individual competitors to improve their playing skill as well as building friendships and rivalries here on the forums, there hasn't been anything to unite the tournaments we've run so far and as such it's easy to view them in isolation rather than being parts of something bigger. With this in mind, please allow me to introduce you to: "The Order of the Meeple" :meeple: :green-meeple: :blue-meeple: :red-meeple: :black-meeple:
In the same way as many forms of martial arts use a system based on coloured belts to represent individual skill/ achievement, a similar system has been devised by jungleboy, MrNumbers and myself based on colours of meeple. Anybody who has taken part in at least two online tournaments and one weekly online game qualifies to become a Yellow member of the order, but progress towards membership at the Black level becomes increasingly challenging as you advance through the various levels/ colours of membership.
So... what is the actual point of the Order of the Meeple?
- First and foremost: Fun! (obviously)
- Universal recognition of your Carcassonne-playing achievements and abilities
- Provides specific goals to aim for during tournaments (as well as just trying to win, or at least beat certain people)
- Encourages ongoing participation, and helps players to stay motivated
Right. So what do I have to do before I can tell my friends/ colleagues/ pets/ random people on the bus that I'm a "Black-belt" in Carcassonne?
Before you can become a member at the Black level you need to be a member at the Red level. Before you can become a member at the Red level you need to be a member at the Blue level. And so on, with Green and Yellow coming before Blue. Here's a look at the overall plan with some definitions to follow just in case anything isn't clear:
Order of the Meeple: Yellow member... :meeple:
- Participate in at least two online tournaments (anything since and including the 2014 Base-game League)
- Participate in at least one weekly game
Order of the Meeple: Green member... :green-meeple:
- Be a Yellow member
- Finish in the top half of all competitors taking part in any online tournament
- Win any tournament match by 35 points or more
- Hold at least 2500 Career Points
Order of the Meeple: Blue member... :blue-meeple:
- Be a Green member
- Reach the knock-out stage (top 8 ) of a World Cup style online tournament
- Win any tournament match by 60 points or more
- Hold at least 3500 Career Points
- Complete any individual tournament with a Total Score Differential of 100 points or more
- Hold at least 30 Career Experience Points
- Win a weekly game against at least 3 opponents using any combination of expansions
Order of the Meeple: Red member... :red-meeple:
- Be a Blue member
- Finish in the top 3 of all competitors taking part in an online tournament
- Win any tournament match by 80 points or more
- Hold at least 5000 Career Points
- Maintain a Career Score Differential of at least 350 points
- Hold at least 55 Career Experience Points
- Beat 2 existing Blue members (or higher) in a head-to-head, base-game only, best of 3 games style challenge match
Order of the Meeple: Black member... :black-meeple:
- Be a Red member
- Win an online competition
- Hold at least 8000 Career Points
- Maintain a Career Score Differential of at least 700 points
- Hold at least 80 Career Experience Points
- Beat 2 existing Red members (or higher) in a head-to-head, base-game only, best of 3 games style challenge match
- Beat a mystery opponent in a head-to-head, base-game only, best of 3 games style challenge match
- Win at least 5 weekly games against at least 3 opponents (all major expansions 1 – 5 should be included at least once)
Career Points: total number of points scored by you in all games of all tournaments you've taken part in. This can only go up and is updated at the end of each tournament.
Career Experience Points: these points are awarded at the end of each tournament based on finishing position. Last place gets one point, each place above this gets one point more than the rank below i.e. (total number of players – rank) + 1. This can only go up.
Career Score Differential: total number of points scored by you in all games of all tournaments you've taken part in minus the total number of points scored against you in all games of all tournaments you've taken part in. This can go up or down depending on whether you have more or less points scored against you than you score against your opponents during each tournament.
Challenge Matches (Red and Black levels): in order to qualify for membership of the order at either of the top two levels (Red and Black), you must win two "challenge" matches against players at the same or higher membership level as yourself. So once you reach the Blue level you may publically challenge any other Blue, Red or Black member to a match and that member must respond to your challenge within a week to arrange a suitable date/ time for your match (there will be a special thread for issuing challenges, arranging matches and posting results). Challenge matches are base-game only and decided on a best of 3 games basis, and you can't challenge the same opponent more than once per calendar month.
Mystery Opponent (Black level only): in order to qualify for membership of the order at the Black level, you must win a challenge match against an opponent who is unknown to you. This isn't to say you won't ever have played them before, but you won't know who it is, nor will you have any control over who it is as your opponent will be selected for you. Other than this, the match will operate in the same way as any other challenge match (see above).
Other Notes:
- Members of the Order at the Yellow and Green level will be subject to "demotion" (i.e. they will move back one level) if they don't participate in three or more consecutive tournaments. Members at the Blue, Red and Black levels will not be subject to the same on account of the increased difficulty associated with reaching these levels.
- I will maintain a master list of all necessary statistics and results from every eligible online tournament played at Carcassonne Central (coming soon). This will be used to assess whether individuals are entitled to be promoted to the next membership level so please contact me directly if you think you've spotted a mistake in this.
- Promotion from one membership level to the next is only possible outside of active tournaments. So in other words, you can't be promoted from one level to another while you're taking part in a tournament and must wait for it to finish before your eligibility can be considered.
Hopefully you're as excited as I am by this and can't wait to join the order and start charging up through the different levels of membership. Initial memberships will be handed out to all qualifying players once the current tournament has finished. :(y)
Any further questions, please ask!
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A great idea and sounds like fun!
One thing needs to be changed, though. Anyone should eventually be able to reach max colour, even if it takes 10 years.
I understand that in real life, a Black Belt is earned by honing their skills but since this is less strict and supposed to be fun, there should be less mandatory requirements.
This is merely to make things fair. I am a good example in this.
I will never win a tournament and most likely not to reach any finals (or maybe have a very slim chance). This will exclude me from advancing.
Thus, this will also take away the fun for me, seeing some people will get recognition for their wins while I contribute to a whole lot of other things and won't get any recognition at all.
O:-)
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So when is the next weekly game?? Haha :D I guess I can't ignore those anymore!
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A great idea and sounds like fun!
One thing needs to be changed, though. Anyone should eventually be able to reach max colour, even if it takes 10 years.
I understand that in real life, a Black Belt is earned by honing their skills but since this is less strict and supposed to be fun, there should be less mandatory requirements.
This is merely to make things fair. I am a good example in this.
I will never win a tournament and most likely not to reach any finals (or maybe have a very slim chance). This will exclude me from advancing.
Thus, this will also take away the fun for me, seeing some people will get recognition for their wins while I contribute to a whole lot of other things and won't get any recognition at all.
O:-)
Yellow, I think it is meant to be difficult. For instance I got a few victories in the tournaments so far but my weak point appears to be the score diffential so it is possible I will never reach a colour if I don't improve that particular aspect.
...and the main objective is (beside having fun playing) to encourage participation so if it takes 10 years then we can say it was successful :)
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@Yellow - there’s no reason why you don’t stand as good a chance as anyone else of reaching the higher levels. It seems you’re going through a bit of a tough patch at the moment but let that be your motivation to beat everyone else! I know that you’re a strong player from the games we’ve had and I know that anyone can beat anyone else if the right tiles come along! So stick with it and you might surprise yourself...
@Jere - part of the thinking was to try to include many different aspects of playing Carcassonne so naturally this includes playing against more than one opponent. It’s expected that we may have to run at least two “weekly” games every week to ensure that everyone can join a game at a convenient time but we can work that out as we go.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the scale is staggered so that the next achievement should be considered within reach. The top levels may seem unattainable for some, myself included at the moment, but as we all work towards them over a period of time (perhaps years) the idea is that we will be able to focus on the individual criteria as we improve and celebrate each and every achievement along the way.
A great idea and sounds like fun!
One thing needs to be changed, though. Anyone should eventually be able to reach max colour, even if it takes 10 years.
I understand that in real life, a Black Belt is earned by honing their skills but since this is less strict and supposed to be fun, there should be less mandatory requirements.
This is merely to make things fair. I am a good example in this.
I will never win a tournament and most likely not to reach any finals (or maybe have a very slim chance). This will exclude me from advancing.
Thus, this will also take away the fun for me, seeing some people will get recognition for their wins while I contribute to a whole lot of other things and won't get any recognition at all.
O:-)
Yellow, I think it is meant to be difficult. For instance I got a few victories in the tournaments so far but my weak point appears to be the score diffential so it is possible I will never reach a colour if I don't improve that particular aspect.
...and the main objective is (beside having fun playing) to encourage participation so if it takes 10 years then we can say it was successful :)
Spot. On. Couldn't have said it better myself! :(y)
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So when is the next weekly game?? Haha :D I guess I can't ignore those anymore!
:(y) We seem to be having them on Sunday nights now, at about 9pm CET.
Yellow, I think it is meant to be difficult. For instance I got a few victories in the tournaments so far but my weak point appears to be the score diffential so it is possible I will never reach a colour if I don't improve that particular aspect.
...and the main objective is (beside having fun playing) to encourage participation so if it takes 10 years then we can say it was successful :)
Yes, this is the way we approached it. The point is not that everyone becomes black. Actually it will be quite hard for anyone to get to black. It's about giving a wider meaning and context to these leagues and games that we're playing (and to be fun as Dan and Jéré said).
Thus, this will also take away the fun for me, seeing some people will get recognition for their wins while I contribute to a whole lot of other things and won't get any recognition at all.
We thought about site-wide recognition with the Order of the Meeple but decided for a variety of reasons to limit this to a competitive 'rank'. It doesn't measure your contribution to the community. e.g. kettlefish doesn't play these leagues/games at all but we all know that her contribution is enormous. Same for you with the shipping you've been helping people out with recently, or for quevy with all the great fan expansion work that he does, or for Graham W with his amazing new artwork, etc. We have merit to recognise these contributions and even without merit we can all see who deserves recognition for what they do in the community.
The point is that your efforts can and will be recognised regardless of your Order of the Meeple rank. So, thanks again for sending me Carcassonne: the Castle! :meeple:
Besides, you can just get to yellow and decide that you've already reached your favourite colour so you don't need to move up anyway! :meeple:
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I'm sorry but this is just not fair. Not just towards me but for many members.
If you are going to do something like this in the forum, it should be made so that many can take part in it.
What has been suggested here, laid out and without my knowledge or input is a slap in the face.
This needs to be revised so that at least half of the members can join in, right from the start, and without having to join the leagues.
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This needs to be revised so that at least half of the members can join in, right from the start, and without having to join the leagues.
I don't understand. Anyone can join in. The whole point of it is that it's supposed to be about the tournaments and other forms of online play.
I can only assume that I'm missing something here as this was supposed to be something fun for anyone... ?
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I think - we all should come together and we like to decide together what format of "ranking" ist the best.
I am also not much happy with this.
And with this - ranking - I never have any interest to play online.
I told you I don't play online, because I have much other work for the forums and for HiG to do.
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I am also not much happy with this.
And with this - ranking - I never have any interest to play online.
I told you I don't play online, because I have much other work for the forums and for HiG to do.
You have said that you have no interest in playing online and that's absolutely fine with me. I don't hold it against you. I prefer to play up at a table too, but I like to play online because there are so many people to play against here on the forums and it would be too expensive for me to fly round to their houses individually to play them in person. I'm very grateful of all the other work you do for these forums and for the world of Carcassonne in general too, as are many other members of this community. Thanks!
What I don't understand is why you have any interest in this ranking (given that it is a ranking that is earned through online play) when you've said yourself that you don't play online. I don't do Judo, but I can accept that those that do do Judo should be entitled to wear whatever colour belt befits their skill level.
I just don't get what all the fuss is about or why anyone feels that they've been excluded from this?
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Dan.
If two people seems to have an issue with this, shortly after the thread was created, the first thing you have to do is take a step back and think about this further. It's just as me going how can you NOT understand the fuzz when it's clearly stated.
This is a public forum meant to engage as many as possible. What's been proposed here is something grand and official that will only engage and benefit a few people.
Meaning:
1. One small group will enjoy this and get the ranks while others that enjoy tries to step up
2. One larger group will have to endure these posts seeing "achievements" and "abilities" go to luck of the draw games that will get others upset because they will never be part of this, whether entering the league or not. And please don't go all "then don't read them" on me, that's just insulting.
3. The rest of the members in the forum, probably don't care or is just not in the forum that much.
Now, personally, I'd like to think I would have wanted a saying in this, input a few ideas, but I was never approached. And most certainly would disagree from the start. Everything I work for to bring to this forum has always been to benefit as many members as possible on equal terms.
This said, a revision of this idea mighst still make it work.
One thought would be to go more global with stats.
For example Graham's artwork seems popular by many. We could make a poll and have people vote if they like the art or not. When poll is closed, Graham earns the amount of Career Points as there was votes that favourited his artwork.
Hope this helps clarify things a bit.
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As jungleboy has written, this is not about contribution to the forum itself. It is ONLY about skill level in online games and tournaments. We could think about other system, that will show member contribution to the forum, but nobody can do everything: someone can make fan-expansions (me, for example, not), someone maintain the CAR... We all know those people and give them merits all over the time. The Order of the Meeple is about just to make online games more attractive, apart of this is an interesting way to spend some free time, you can be proud of what you have achieved.
Maybe my explanation was a little bit discursive, but I hope you have understood what I meant.
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I would like to make a few points.
1. As I said in my last post, The Order of the Meeple is a way to add context and meaning to the leagues and other competitive online games that we play here. Nothing more and nothing less. It is not intended to measure overall site contribution or anything else. Not all site members have to participate nor should they feel that they have to participate. All it is is a supplementary ranking system for those who play in the online games.
2. The idea and implementation of the leagues is almost entirely due to Dan. He has put an enormous amount of work into it and it has helped make this place a better community for all of us. Personally, I am extremely grateful to Dan for all his efforts in all parts of the site, but particularly in setting up the leagues. So I think Dan has earned the right to guide the future direction of the leagues. He sought input from MrNumbers and myself on this idea and we had a lot of interesting discussions and spent quite a lot of time working out the details. I don't think Dan could have been expected to consult every single member.
3. Part of the purpose of The Order of the Meeple is to give meaningful and achievable goals to all online players, especially those who aren't likely to win a league. It's true that most people (myself included) haven't won a league yet and perhaps won't ever win one. But instead of saying, "I won't win a league so I can't be black so this idea is no good," think about it this way instead: the Order gives you other targets to aim for in each league, so that even if you don't win a league, you can possibly achieve one or more of the goals for the next colour. It means that all players in a league have something significant to play for.
4. Several months ago, Dan and I had a deep discussion about the future and purpose of the leagues. My biggest issue was that I thought eventually the leagues would lose their appeal (especially if we replayed the same league several times). I believe that The Order of the Meeple is the solution to this because I think it will keep the leagues interesting and relevant in both the short-term and (especially) the long-term. The purpose is not that everyone reaches black immediately - actually it has been set up so that no one will even be red at the conclusion of the Traders & Builders tournament.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to reply with your thoughts.
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Can I Suggest the Following?
I for one very much like the idea if for example an Yellow member will win a tournement, that his action is being recorded and he then already finished the achievement necessery for the black member.
Maybe you can add another level meeple with the same points as black just a little easier and make the points of black a little harder as an exclusive one.
But to add to Yellow's comment, Maybe you can also add a similar idea in the future with NON-tournament based in with stuff like
- Design an Fan-expansion.
- Write 10 reviews of your played games (not online, and with picture!)
- Post a 1000 times.
- Own all the mini expansions released in 2014. (picture in your own Meet the member section )
In this case you meet some members who dont play much online game halfway. Its their choice to participate in the order of meeple.
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I think, this sounds fun. It also gives people aims, in which direction to improve there online game. I must say, I can not follow kettlefishs argument. @ her: if you are not interested in competing in online games, why do you bother about the way, this will be measured overall? You did a great work with doing the X-tables during the T&B League and got merit for that by me and probably some other persons as well. Nevertheless, this is in no way a system to measure the effort some people put into the community. (I for instance can not say, that I contributed anything special at all.) But just for the fun, of giving all the small games and leagues a "bigger meaning".
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I for one very much like the idea if for example an Yellow member will win a tournement, that his action is being recorded and he then already finished the achievement necessery for the black member.
This is by design. One achievement can be used multiple times.
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I'm not sure, if I understand the following condition correctly:
- Win any tournament match by xx points or more
So, just because of my one victory in T&B League with 111 points difference, I meet the "red belt" condition in this aspect, although most of my won games had been rather tight?
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Yes, Hounk, you understand this correctly.
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Fine with me. I think, this particular branch of requirements won't do a lot of delaying the advancing of any player. That's why I was uncertain, if I understood the wording correctly.
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There is something what makes me confusing:
We are here in the forums section: LEAGUES
That means for me, that some special Bonus like MEEPLE comes only from the played games from the LEAGUE.
To put weekly online games, the CarcC WorldCup and the Leagues all together - that is for me here the problem.
The weekly online games are in a different section.
We don't have there any x-score list or something like this. Sometimes they play only with 2 people, sometimes with 3 or with 4 or with 5 people.
The weekly online game is so much different than the leagues. Each game here in the weekly online game has different expansions, sometimes many expansions. That means - the score difference is very difficult than in the league.
Also the CarcC WorldCup works different.
If you create an easy "Meeple" bonus for each section - than I will be happy.
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the weekly online games - weekly
the League - perhaps 4 times a year
the CarcC WorldCup - once a year
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The weekly online game is so much different than the leagues. Each game here in the weekly online game has different expansions, sometimes many expansions. That means - the score difference is very difficult than in the league.
Just to be clear: score difference achievements affects only tournament games, i.e. official league games. Weekly games only represented by participation (Yellow Member) and winning (Blue and Black Members).
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Clearly my voice is not taken into consideration at all and it's obvious I won't have any one on my side nor reading what I write.
I hope some of you will at read this:
If you are going thru with this, which it seems like so, then please change a few key words.
Remove achievements and abilites and words that has to do with a player being good. For this is truly a random thing.
Understand that I am very upset about this and I feel betrayed so at least have the courtesy of adjusting this idea so it's solemny suited for the League and nothing in general, as it appears to be so atm.
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I have read all the messages about this and I understand all sides. I like the idea of it in principle. I personally am unlikely to ever get to be black but I am ok with that. I realise my merit score is very low and that's ok too as I don't really contribute much to the forums. I can't make fan expansions and other similar things. But I appreciate those that do like kettlefish, obervet, yellow, Danisthirty, and various others.
I think that it is clear that yellow is frustrated by this but yellow I have to disagree about Carcassonne being truly random and luck of the draw. If it was, the same people wouldn't almost always win. (edit: there is obviously a large element of luck but skills and abilities and experience are important. I have managed to beat some very skilled players, but I have also lost drastically matches I shouldn't have. But usually I am consistent. )
But I do agree that maybe it should only include official competitions and have stats from other games just for interest sake. Challenge matches could be made official somehow but normal weekly online or table games should just be for interest sake.
How does that sound?
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One thing I would like clarified, do you have to meet all requirements for a level. I would think if you achieve half of them you advance to that level. I do like the concept.
The only other thing I would suggest is score differentials be wiped annually. It is a big handicap if you start by losing games and improve. It would take twice as long to get to the same level for a total newbie than an intermediate level player if they both end up at the same ability. They may be equal in skill but one will have a lot bigger score differential than the other.
Maybe score differentials could be based on your last 10 or 20 games or something like that so as you improve your earlier performance does not have so much influence.
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I don't really have a horse in this race -- I don't particularly care for playing JCZ (not because I think it's a poor-quality piece of software, far from it, I think it's amazing), but just because I much prefer the experience of playing the real article; it makes playing the game that much more enjoyable for me if it's something I only do offline.
This isn't to say I won't come around, but for now I think I'll be steering clear of online play. That said, I've also loved following the progress of the T&B League these last few weeks, reading the game reports and tracking people's progress. I'm glad to see a bunch of folks having a good time and playing some really good games!
But I will also say this... I lurked around on these forums for a long time before deciding to poke my head up out of the water. And I'm glad I did, because it's nice to participate in the conversation instead of watch from afar. But speaking as someone who took a while to make that jump from lurker to participant, I would just want to make sure that the community stays open and accessible and as easily-welcoming to newcomers as possible. I definitely think that any sort of recognition of your progress in the Order of the Meeple "track" should be limited to within the "Leagues" forum, as a sticky post or whatever. That way people who want to participate in that can see their achievements recognized but new folks aren't wondering why their profiles aren't adorned with :meeple: or :green-meeple: and feel "left out" and maybe not want to participate (either in leagues or in general) for that reason.
Anyway, I'm sorry to see this has caused some distress. I'm sure that was the farthest thing from dan, MrNumbers, and jungleboy's minds.
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Thanks for all the comments guys. Obviously, we had hoped for a better reaction overall. Part of this must be our fault for miscalculating what some people would think of this idea. But I also think it's being blown out of proportion and misunderstood. All this was ever intended to be was as a fun side project connected to the online games and tournaments.
I'll try to address some of the comments from my point of view.
But to add to Yellow's comment, Maybe you can also add a similar idea in the future with NON-tournament based in with stuff like
- Design an Fan-expansion.
- Write 10 reviews of your played games (not online, and with picture!)
- Post a 1000 times.
- Own all the mini expansions released in 2014. (picture in your own Meet the member section )
In this case you meet some members who dont play much online game halfway. Its their choice to participate in the order of meeple.
We thought about something like this, a site-wide recognition achievement. But the thing is, everyone contributes to the site in their own way, and we didn't want to force people to contribute to different areas against their will just for a site-wide recognition. For example, not everyone is interested in making fan expansions. So we decided to make something just for one corner of the site - online play. It doesn't measure or pretend to measure overall contributions - it's just a kind of ranking system for the online players. If other people want to create a recognition system for fan expansions or reviews or anything else, then they are free to do so.
A week ago you suggested a CarcassonneCentral leaderboard (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1506.0) for the tournament players. The Order of the Meeple is that leaderboard, and that's all it is intended to be.
One thing I would like clarified, do you have to meet all requirements for a level. I would think if you achieve half of them you advance to that level. I do like the concept.
Thanks Andrew. The idea was to meet all requirements for each level, but you only need to achieve the requirement once (i.e. if you win a tournament game by 60 points while you are yellow, then this counts as the win that you need if/when it comes time to move from green to blue).
The only other thing I would suggest is score differentials be wiped annually. It is a big handicap if you start by losing games and improve. It would take twice as long to get to the same level for a total newbie than an intermediate level player if they both end up at the same ability. They may be equal in skill but one will have a lot bigger score differential than the other.
Maybe score differentials could be based on your last 10 or 20 games or something like that so as you improve your earlier performance does not have so much influence.
Good point and we thought about this quite a lot. That's why we made the score differential for blue based on a single tournament rather than for a whole career, to make blue easier to achieve. We also discussed wiping the points but decided against it, though maybe we should reconsider based on feedback so far. Your annual idea is quite an interesting one.
I definitely think that any sort of recognition of your progress in the Order of the Meeple "track" should be limited to within the "Leagues" forum, as a sticky post or whatever. That way people who want to participate in that can see their achievements recognized but new folks aren't wondering why their profiles aren't adorned with :meeple: or :green-meeple: and feel "left out" and maybe not want to participate (either in leagues or in general) for that reason.
Anyway, I'm sorry to see this has caused some distress. I'm sure that was the farthest thing from dan, MrNumbers, and jungleboy's minds.
Thanks for the support Doug and for your balanced comments. This is exactly what we had in mind - a little something extra for the online players. Those who don't play online don't need to be interested in or concerned by this. It doesn't measure your forum status or contributions, it just serves as a kind of leaderboard for the leagues and other online games.
I have read all the messages about this and I understand all sides. I like the idea of it in principle. I personally am unlikely to ever get to be black but I am ok with that.
Thanks for the comment Rosco. This is the type of response that we were hoping for :) I don't know if I will ever get to black either but I am also fine with that - if everyone made it to black it would defeat the purpose of having this leaderboard. The idea is to celebrate everyone's achievements, whether that achievement is earning yellow or earning black or something in the middle.
Understand that I am very upset about this and I feel betrayed so at least have the courtesy of adjusting this idea so it's solemny suited for the League and nothing in general, as it appears to be so atm.
I understand that you are upset but I truly don't understand why you are so upset. The idea is already solely for leagues (plus some other online games). It's not a general recognition system.
Let me start again. Some people on the site participate in leagues and other online games. Not everyone participates, and that's fine. The idea behind the Order of the Meeple is to give a wider context for these competitions, a sort of ongoing leaderboard to put the results of all of these games into perspective. That's all.
Remove achievements and abilites and words that has to do with a player being good. For this is truly a random thing.
Achievements and abilities is the entire point of the idea to begin with - that's what the leagues measure and that's what the Order measures. We play these online games for fun, but we also play them for competitive reasons. That's why we have scoreboards and rankings for the leagues. The Order is simply an extension of that.
As for the bolded part, I'm sorry, but this is absolutely not true. For example, we have played three tournaments now and MrNumbers has come in the top two all three times. Do you really think this is truly random and that he is not an excellent player? We all know that there is luck involved in Carcassonne, but the games are not random, especially 2-player games.
To end on a positive note, let me go back to the first comment you made in this thread:
A great idea and sounds like fun!
I agree! O0
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Clearly my voice is not taken into consideration at all and it's obvious I won't have any one on my side nor reading what I write.
I've read everything you've written and I don't see it as being about sides. It's fine if you don't like this system, but I'm yet to understand why this is as everything you've posted about it so far seems to stem from your misunderstanding that it's based on what individuals are "worth" to the community as a whole. As discussed, we already have merit points and also a "Member of the Month" award of which you yourself were the first recipient. Personally I think this is enough, but if you want to take it further and come up with something of your own then I'd be very happy for you to do so, with or without my input.
Remove achievements and abilites and words that has to do with a player being good. For this is truly a random thing.
I respectfully decline this if you're suggesting that Carcassonne in general is entirely about luck. Some players are better than others and there are many factors to this including experience, how they react to various situations and general tactical preferences. Luck is of course a factor too and as such nobody is ever guaranteed a win no matter who they're playing. But achievements and abilities are still perfectly valid in the context of the online tournaments and games played here, so I don't see any reason to change this.
Understand that I am very upset about this and I feel betrayed so at least have the courtesy of adjusting this idea so it's solemny suited for the League and nothing in general, as it appears to be so atm.
It's pretty obvious that you're upset about it and I'm sorry that this is the case. This was never my intention, nor was it anything I considered likely. I would have consulted with you beforehand if I thought it would be a problem for you, but because this is purely about the tournaments and online play, and because jungleboy and MrNumbers have always been full of good ideas in this area in the past, I sought advice and collaborated with them. I don't regret this at all and I'm very grateful for their input.
If you feel disrespected in this, please understand that the whole area of online play between forum members is something that I've "owned" since May last year when I first suggested an online league even though I had no idea how one could be carried out. As others have eluded to, getting this up and running was a huge task but the fun we 7 had and the friendships we made along the way were worth it a hundred times over. Things have moved on since then, and the area of online play is becoming increasingly established within these forums. Please recognise that it hasn't just sprung up out of nowhere, and although I appreciate everything you do for the community in general in many different ways, this is not an area you have had any direct involvement in so why would I feel inclined to run everything by you? Because you're also an Administrator? I didn't involve Scott or Gantry in this either, but I'd be just as surprised if they felt upset or betrayed by my actions...
I don't know what the solution is, but I'm keen to hear from as many people as possible before making any decisions.
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I'm very sorry about the issue, Yellow has with this system. It has nothing to do with neglecting his posts, I just don't know, how to reply to them. So I want just to reply to an other aspect below.
But I do agree that maybe it should only include official competitions and have stats from other games just for interest sake. Challenge matches could be made official somehow but normal weekly online or table games should just be for interest sake.
I would say, the inclusion of weekly online games is rather loose. There are just three points of requirements, and the biggest is for black belt, for which you have to win 5 individual games with at least 3 players and the first 5 expansions all covered at least once. And it made Jéré say: "Hey, now I can't totally neglect them any more." I think, this is a good thing. It wont exclude anybody from "black belt" or even "blue belt", because everybody, who is participating and is experienced enough to meet the other requirements of an individual belt, will sure take part in at least a few of this games to gain the needed victories there as well.
Plus, it adds a little layer of multi player gaming into the leader board. 2 player Carcassonne may be the "prime event", but Carcassonne is not a solemnly 2 player game and more players should not be completely excluded, since they require other skills.
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Thanks Hounk, your thoughts in this thread are exactly what we were thinking too!
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I'm a bit behind but I have now read all the posts on this topic. I have a couple of thoughts.
First, I'm not certain what the proposed method of recognition is. ? If I have an Order of the Meeple, how do others know it or see it? If it's contained in a sticky topic somewhere in the Forums, I am fine with that. If it is proposed as a banner or symbol or some such on public display on your profile panel adjacent to your avatar, etc. then I am not in favor of that. Any recognition there should be generic in nature. Such as the Merit system, which is generic. Or the Author banner, or Admin banner, etc. Those are generic in that they do not qualify who the best Author or Admin is, or who got the best Merits for what good work, etc. In keeping, any recognition there must be in a generic form - such as some symbol that indicates you have participated in some online play.
Any specialized ranking system should be contained in a sticky thread specific to online play.
Second, It seems odd to lump in the weekly online games with any recognition system. Putting aside the logistics and time zone issues of putting those games together, the nature of them is more casual than league play, and so subjective in outcome and player fancy that it would seem to preclude any measure of sheer ability.
Third, The points differential requirements should be excluded or at least greatly altered. This is purely about style of play and strategy. Speaking for myself, there is a strategy of play in attempting to keep scoring completely muted. Each, or any, game is not necessarily a race to some high score. It's a struggle to score more than the other player. There are different methods for achieving this that straight point differential recognition does not take into account. Requiring a game to be won by X points in order to achieve a particular level is no less arbitrary than requiring one to be won by less than 5 say.
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First, I'm not certain what the proposed method of recognition is. ? If I have an Order of the Meeple, how do others know it or see it? If it's contained in a sticky topic somewhere in the Forums, I am fine with that. If it is proposed as a banner or symbol or some such on public display on your profile panel adjacent to your avatar, etc. then I am not in favor of that. Any recognition there should be generic in nature. Such as the Merit system, which is generic. Or the Author banner, or Admin banner, etc. Those are generic in that they do not qualify who the best Author or Admin is, or who got the best Merits for what good work, etc. In keeping, any recognition there must be in a generic form - such as some symbol that indicates you have participated in some online play.
There's no intention of doing this. As much as anything else, special banners or avatars won't be of interest to those who don't take part in the online games so there's no reason to make this public to the rest of the site. The entire system is intended to be kept local to the online play side of things so aside from a sticky thread logging who's what (as you've suggested) and perhaps the odd secret handshake here and there, I don't consider anything beyond this as being necessary.
Second, It seems odd to lump in the weekly online games with any recognition system. Putting aside the logistics and time zone issues of putting those games together, the nature of them is more casual than league play, and so subjective in outcome and player fancy that it would seem to preclude any measure of sheer ability.
The reason for the inclusion of this was that Carcassonne isn't purely a 2-player game. It plays very well with just one opponent and this is how I like it best, but the basic game comes with five different colours of meeple for a reason. I argued that the results of weekly games were relevant to the Order of the Meeple and should count as achievements at some levels because we don't currently have any other way of tracking how players perform against more than one opponent. I agree that the influence of luck increases with number of players and as such it isn't a direct indicator of player skill. But in all games I've taken part in, everyone is playing to win and the tactics are different enough in these games as to make them worth recognising in my opinion.
I'm aware that this doesn't help with the time zone problem for those of us outside of Europe, and I don't really have an answer to that at the moment. I'm sure we will be able to find a solution that suits everyone though, so please don't let this be a barrier for you.
Third, The points differential requirements should be excluded or at least greatly altered. This is purely about style of play and strategy. Speaking for myself, there is a strategy of play in attempting to keep scoring completely muted. Each, or any, game is not necessarily a race to some high score. It's a struggle to score more than the other player. There are different methods for achieving this that straight point differential recognition does not take into account. Requiring a game to be won by X points in order to achieve a particular level is no less arbitrary than requiring one to be won by less than 5 say.
I agree with what you've explained here. But if you strip out some of the little extras that have been contested by various forum members, what you're left with is a very short list of criteria at each level which revolves predominantly around finishing position in various tournaments. This might be fine for some people, but what we wanted to do was to provide a range of different goals and targets for people to aim for. For example, I might have missed my chance of finishing in the top half of whichever tournament but with two matches left I might still have a chance of finishing the tournament with a score differential of 100 points or more so there's still everything to play for.
With this in mind, and considering that we wanted the Order of the Meeple to be something that could be enjoyed by as many players as possible, with a wide range of skills, the fun is supposed to stem from the variety of achievements and the fact that they encourage players to become well-rounded rather than simply someone who can finish consistently well. In short, it isn't purely about how "good" a player is. You're one of this forums top players and there can be no arguing with that. But if achieving some of the higher levels requires experimenting with different tactics or styles of play in order to satisfy some of the criteria from time to time then is that really so bad? I don't think it is, hopefully you don't either.
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May I suggest a threshold for points differential? I have in mind minus 200. Such threshold would be some sort of safety net that would prevent some of our dear participants to fall into the abyss and still have a fair chance to come back and kick our arses. :)
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May I suggest a threshold for points differential? I have in mind minus 200. Such threshold would be some sort of safety net that would prevent some of our dear participants to fall into the abyss and still have a fair chance to come back and kick our arses. :)
Can you elaborate on this Jere? What is meant by a threshold of minus 200?
But if achieving some of the higher levels requires experimenting with different tactics or styles of play in order to satisfy some of the criteria from time to time then is that really so bad? I don't think it is, hopefully you don't either.
Haha - I knew your position Dan. I knew you would suggest this ;) That's why I suggested preemptively that requiring someone to win by say 50 points is as arbitrary as requiring someone to win by less than 5 points - neither of which is necessarily a criteria demonstrating a high level of play. If it's about altering our play style to demonstrate we have what it takes to successfully implement various tactics and play styles, we all aught to be comfortable with either scenario...and perhaps others. A straight points differential (high or low) is not necessarily a good indicator of anything.
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May I suggest a threshold for points differential? I have in mind minus 200. Such threshold would be some sort of safety net that would prevent some of our dear participants to fall into the abyss and still have a fair chance to come back and kick our arses. :)
Can you elaborate on this Jere? What is meant by a threshold of minus 200?
It simply means that one cannot go lower than -200 for the score differential (ie. Final score diff. calculated at the end of a league/tournament) . I think it is low enough...
If you reach -200 then I suggest to stop counting which means you can only improve yourself in the next tournament or league. If your score differential is again negative then you stay at -200.
I guess we don't need a maximum.
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It simply means that one cannot go lower than -200 for the score differential (ie. Final score diff. calculated at the end of a league/tournament) . I think it is low enough...
If you reach -200 then I suggest to stop counting which means you can only improve yourself in the next tournament or league. If your score differential is again negative then you stay at -200.
I guess we don't need a maximum.
I see, so that proposal would eliminate the upper end "goal" requirement, but require a minimum threshold which is needed to qualify, that is somewhere below zero? That could work.
So in application - let's say your in a league scenario and you've lost a couple of matches by a moderate margin, but won the majority of your matches. This proposal would have established a min. target that you would need to bring your point differential up to in order to qualify, even if it was still negative. It would still give you a target level of performance for your final matches, but at the same time not require you to maintain some high positive point differential. I think that's more equitable...I might have to think on it more.
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It simply means that one cannot go lower than -200 for the score differential (ie. Final score diff. calculated at the end of a league/tournament) . I think it is low enough...
If you reach -200 then I suggest to stop counting which means you can only improve yourself in the next tournament or league. If your score differential is again negative then you stay at -200.
I guess we don't need a maximum.
I see, so that proposal would eliminate the upper end "goal" requirement, but require a minimum threshold which is needed to qualify, that is somewhere below zero? That could work.
Unless I am misunderstanding you (Carcking), I don't think this is what Jéré meant. He means that your differential can't go below -200. So if your actual differential is -400, it still counts as -200. That way, you can't dig yourself so big a hole that it's impossible to climb out of. This would solve the problem of having a player start off quite poorly in a tournament or two and accumulate a massive negative points differential, whereby it would be very hard to get this back to a positive number, let alone the target numbers for red and black.
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But if achieving some of the higher levels requires experimenting with different tactics or styles of play in order to satisfy some of the criteria from time to time then is that really so bad? I don't think it is, hopefully you don't either.
Haha - I knew your position Dan. I knew you would suggest this ;) That's why I suggested preemptively that requiring someone to win by say 50 points is as arbitrary as requiring someone to win by less than 5 points - neither of which is necessarily a criteria demonstrating a high level of play. If it's about altering our play style to demonstrate we have what it takes to successfully implement various tactics and play styles, we all aught to be comfortable with either scenario...and perhaps others. A straight points differential (high or low) is not necessarily a good indicator of anything.
I take your point about this and quite like the idea of an achievement based on winning by only a very small margin purely because it represents a high level of control over the game in order to succeed in that. I do feel that further explanation in general is necessary though...
One thing that has surprised me a little bit about this thread has been the number of ways that people have interpreted it. All of them equally valid, but not always in the same way as it was originally intended. This is my fault as it's since become apparent that there were a number of things I wasn't clear on when I initially set it out, but I think these are gradually being disambiguated one by one.
So please allow me to just say that what the Order of the Meeple isn't, is a long-winded, elaborate way of saying that someone is better than someone else at playing Carcassonne. A list of scores and statistics could provide some indication of this, but that isn't a lot of fun, nor is it particularly engaging for those who like to take part regularly.
So what is the Order about? Well, first and foremost it's supposed to be fun, and it's supposed to be something that everyone can take part in. It isn't designed so that those at the higher levels can look down on those at the lower levels and the last thing I want is for anyone to feel offended by it because they feel that they might not be able to reach the top rank, or that they are in any way inferior to anyone else because of where they end up. I genuinely believe that with perseverance, anyone should be able to reach any level and I look forward to celebrating each step of their journey with them, regardless of whether it takes them 6 months or 5 years to get there.
So whilst some of the required achievements at some of the higher levels aren't necessarily a direct measure of skill or performance, what they do provide is a goal; something to aim for. Getting 7 meeples onto the same farm won't necessarily win you a game of Carcassonne but I'm sure we've all tried it at least once just for the sake of saying that we did it! The challenges get increasingly intense towards the higher levels, but this is to be expected as the players who are going for them have already proved what they're capable of thus far. However, as I believe MrNumbers pointed out in an earlier post, specific achievements (such as Carcking's win in the World Cup) can be reused as many times as necessary. They aren't "used up" once you've submitted them against some criteria, and they remain available to be used again at subsequent level wherever they're valid.
I apologise that this has turned into a bit of a rambly reply, and that I haven't really answered any questions in the process! I guess I'm just surprised that more people aren't as excited about this as I am, and so am keen to explain it in as much detail as possible if this helps to get more people on board. :)
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It simply means that one cannot go lower than -200 for the score differential (ie. Final score diff. calculated at the end of a league/tournament) . I think it is low enough...
If you reach -200 then I suggest to stop counting which means you can only improve yourself in the next tournament or league. If your score differential is again negative then you stay at -200.
I guess we don't need a maximum.
I see, so that proposal would eliminate the upper end "goal" requirement, but require a minimum threshold which is needed to qualify, that is somewhere below zero? That could work.
Unless I am misunderstanding you (Carcking), I don't think this is what Jéré meant. He means that your differential can't go below -200. So if your actual differential is -400, it still counts as -200. That way, you can't dig yourself so big a hole that it's impossible to climb out of. This would solve the problem of having a player start off quite poorly in a tournament or two and accumulate a massive negative points differential, whereby it would be very hard to get this back to a positive number, let alone the target numbers for red and black.
This was my understanding of Jere's post too. I took it that his suggestion was that -200 is the lowest anyone's Career Score Differential can reach. This seems like a good idea.
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Yes, this is what I meant. Jungleboy and Dan understood it. "Career Score Differential" is the term I should have used to avoid confusion. Sorry about that.
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Second, It seems odd to lump in the weekly online games with any recognition system. Putting aside the logistics and time zone issues of putting those games together, the nature of them is more casual than league play, and so subjective in outcome and player fancy that it would seem to preclude any measure of sheer ability.
I'm aware that this doesn't help with the time zone problem for those of us outside of Europe, and I don't really have an answer to that at the moment. I'm sure we will be able to find a solution that suits everyone though, so please don't let this be a barrier for you.
Since we are now offering a Sunday (evening European time) game, this could be more accessible to the North American players than the Thursday game, if they happen to have a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do. Of course, the other option is that several of the North American players could try to arrange a regular game in a good time slot for them. And maybe that time slot could suit Andrew the Ambo or other players in different time zones as well.
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Yes as unfortunately a Sunday night game is Monday morning here and I wonder what my boss would say about me playing online during work hours.
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Yes as unfortunately a Sunday night game is Monday morning here and I wonder what my boss would say about me playing online during work hours.
If he knew how great a game Carcassonne is, I'm sure he would be fine with it. Why don't you introduce him to it? :)
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Hi guys.
First, I must apologize for my outburst. I was expecting something else and got this instead it caught me by surprise.
Second, I want no record of me to be kept for this Order.
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Yes as unfortunately a Sunday night game is Monday morning here and I wonder what my boss would say about me playing online during work hours.
If he knew how great a game Carcassonne is, I'm sure he would be fine with it. Why don't you introduce him to it? :)
Exactly! Doesn’t your boss know how important it is to make sure his employees are happy at work? :)
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First, I must apologize for my outburst. I was expecting something else and got this instead it caught me by surprise.
Apology accepted. Apologies to you too if I ever gave the impression that this was going to be anything else. I can’t think that I did, but that’s not to say I didn’t.
Second, I want no record of me to be kept for this Order.
That’s disappointing, but if it’s what you want I will certainly respect your wishes.
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Can i suggest something else ?
If we add weekly games in it can it weight heavier?
If i look at the yellow meeple then you can see that you have to do 1 weekly game and participate in 2 leagues but leagues mostly take like 4-8 weeks with a pause of 2 weeks, making it a total of 10-18weeks with lets say 12 games, while weekly game only is 1!
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Yes, this is what I meant. Jungleboy and Dan understood it. "Career Score Differential" is the term I should have used to avoid confusion. Sorry about that.
Oops. My mistake. I was trying to interpret your idea as a possible solution or alternative to a positive point differential requirement.
In any case, in the big picture, and because it's all in good fun, as long as we're not talking about this being tagged to the profile or avatar display or being displayed in any public way I don't have a grand problem with whatever the requirements might be as long as there is a consensus. You could say "you must win a game by 1 point, while babysitting your granddaughter on a Wednesday, while your opponent plays using your favorite color on a Thursday, with mismatched socks", for example...and I would be ok with that. 8)
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Danisthirty, do you plan to have a leaderboard list for the Order? If players don't have their ranks changed much, I could see if it would be difficult to show a special rank badge below their name? It would be alot of work though if it changed every week.
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Hi gantry, thanks for the offer but I think we all agreed not to have a special badge for the Order, because it only takes into account one aspect of participation at Carcassonne Central (i.e. competitive rank). So we don't want those who don't wish to play online games and competitions to feel they are missing out on a site badge.