Ladder Site Online...

[Lizard]

Are you on Vista? that wouold explain an empty saves folder.
C:\Users\3vil\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Wesnoth\userdata\saves

[eyerouge]

Yogi

Hmm, i see.

If i understand it correct, it solves the issue of players disagreeing about the fact that they were playing a ladder game at all. Which is indeed a good thing.

Correct, and I think so to.

What it does not solve is the problem of players disagreeing about the outcome of a ladder game (unless one of them provides a replay that shows that the opponent's leader is killed).

Yeah, and that is also 100% unsolvable if you want to offer a 100% certainty/guarantee that the truth is reported. At least it is if the game hasn't got that kind of stuff built in, which it hasn't (and will not in the near future). With other words there's no coding skill on the planet that I, mr russ, Admiral or chains or anyone else for that matter can offer to fix that part since it's not on our end.

Notice that the new ladder admins will probably have some kind of solution to it with rulings, something I have tried to avoid myself for reasons that are already stated in the FAQ.

3evil

He did state at this time that he waited 5 minutes.
I counter that there is no way to establish a time of dc and I am reconnected in a reasonable time.
He states that it is now up to me to contact admin to get the game removed.
I offer to reload the game, he declines.

Now I am in a real crappy position I have to contest a game that it was obvious to me I would have won,
my only apparent recourse is to bother admin to remove this game from the records.
Now i must continue with a blemish on my record because a player chooses to unilaterally act and not be reasonable?
Does this happen often in ladder matches?

In short, (s)he won the game since you didn't return in time, unless your "reasonable time" is <= 5 minutes. The rules state:

In cases where one of the players get disconnected and/or disconnects the other player must a) wait 5 minutes for b) the disconnecter to return to the game or server lobby and c) state his/her intention to continue the game. If the disconnecter does all this then the game must be loaded by the non-disconnecter and continued from the most recent save. If the non-disconnector lacks the save game it may be created/loaded by the disconnecter instead. If a player disconnects and fails to return to the game or server lobby within 5 minutes he/she loses the game. If a player disconnects and returns to the game or server lobby within time but doesn't explicitly state that he/she wishes to continue the game he/she loses the game. Everything in this paragraph can be handled in another way if the players all agree on it.

Furthermore, he would know when you disconnected. It shows ingame. From that point in time you have 5 min to reconnect or at least show up in lobby and contact him. After those 5 min he has the right report it as win according to the current rules. In most cases those 5 min are enough, and no, your situation is the first of it's kind I hear of, so my guess is that it isn't common that people get disconnected, are clueless about it, and therefore fail to reconnect within time. I also know of many players that wouldn't care much if you happened to be 1 - 2 minutes late and that wouldn't report it as victory that fast, however, that's just them being friendly and not something which the rules require.

When it comes to the obvious that you would win-part: It isn't, nor will it ever be obvious that anyone would win the game in Wesnoth. Any veteran player would agree, even if we all can talk about probability none of us can foretell the outcome with certainty. Please keep probability and certainty (guaranteed truth, always) apart as they're not logically equal.

If I were you I wouldn't worry much, really. I understand it's boring to lose that way (if you indeed was to late to reconnect), but hey - blame technology. If you were really winning by far, according to you, then you are confident you are better than him anyway and would probably win in a rematch if he ever played one with you. In any case, losing one game doesn't sabotage your statistics. You can play thousands of games if you want to, that one loss will hardly effect your stats in any way. Lastly, they're just numbers - take it easy, play because it's fun and use the numbers as a reference, not as a goal in them self.

Oh, and no - according to everything you wrote you shouldn't contest the game at all - he won it (unless you reconnected within 5 minutes from the time you got disconnected on his end). You have no reason to contest it. Only time you'd contest a game is if his report is false for some reason. One such case could of course be one where you do return within time and he still claims it as victory. In reality one thing happened - you either came back in time or you didn't. No complicated the least.

wintermute

I am not sure if sportsmanship ratings apply if the game is thrown out though.

Currently sportsmanship does not count in any stats anywhere if the game is somehow revoked. I actually looked into that some days ago and I begin to get the feeling sportsmanship in revoked games should indeed count, especially if we put in place the challenge/acceptance system I suggest som posts above. (Without such a system it would only take some spam to make anyones sportsmanship rating turn to 1, hence it works as it does currently.)

[ElvenKing]

Furthermore, he would know when you disconnected. It shows ingame. From that point in time you have 5 min to reconnect or at least show up in lobby and contact him. After those 5 min he has the right report it as win according to the current rules. In most cases those 5 min are enough, and no, your situation is the first of it's kind I hear of, so my guess is that it isn't common that people get disconnected, are clueless about it, and therefore fail to reconnect within time.

It's more common then you think. That kind of disconnect happened to me a quite a few times when I played. Most people will tend to wait till their opponents timer would of run out before they start asking if they are disconnected, so if they use the standard ladder timer and disconnect at the start of their opponents turn; the five minutes could quite possibly be up by the time they realise and get back. This maybe indicates that the amount of time that passes for a disconnect win should be increased to ten minutes.

[3vil]

Wow,
Thanks Elvenking.
Vista is really kinda nuts, it hides some of these functions and took a lot of work to find the appdata tree.
I think I got it now.

The problem with this 5 minute dc rule is two fold.
1-you must assume total honesty and accuracy from the party claiming 5 minutes
2-when you dc in this manner it is not apparent, you wait till the timer ticks and then your opponent still has not moved.
You then query opponent and obersvers to establish if you are truly dc'd.

In this case I am not so sure i exceeded the 5 minutes in any case, I think my opponent saw an opportunity to claim a victory from a loss and took it.....

I dont think it would be fair to charge me with the loss in any case.

[ElvenKing]

Wow,
Thanks Elvenking.
Vista is really kinda nuts, it hides some of these functions and took a lot of work to find the appdata tree.
I think I got it now.

Umm, that wasn't me that was Lizard.

1-you must assume total honesty and accuracy from the party claiming 5 minutes
2-when you dc in this manner it is not apparent, you wait till the timer ticks and then your opponent still has not moved.
You then query opponent and obersvers to establish if you are truly dc'd.

Well, it will always require honesty and good sportsmanship. That is unavoidable, but (2) can be mostly fixed be increasing the time required to win by disconnect; 5 minutes is simply to close to the standard ladder timer.

[3vil]

Lizard,
sorry thanks go to you!

[Soliton]

In this case I am not so sure i exceeded the 5 minutes in any case, I think my opponent saw an opportunity to claim a victory from a loss and took it.....

Code: Select all

20081029 04:20:52     3vil has left game:  "3vil's (ladder)vs Draconis" (70071) and disconnected.
20081029 04:25:43 Draconis ended game:     "3vil's (ladder)vs Draconis" (70071) at turn: 9 with reason: 'aborted'.
20081029 04:27:27     3vil has logged on.

[eyerouge]

The problem with this 5 minute dc rule is two fold.
1-you must assume total honesty and accuracy from the party claiming 5 minutes

Yes, the requirement of honesty is a part of any open system that isn't integrated into the game, by necessity. The only way to deal with unhonest reports is to challenge their result with the push of a button.

2-when you dc in this manner it is not apparent, you wait till the timer ticks and then your opponent still has not moved. You then query opponent and obersvers to establish if you are truly dc'd.

In most cases it would be apparent for the opponent, with the good exception that ElvenKing brought up, which I agree with. I've played 59 ladder games and it still hasn't happened to me even once. I do however understand that that doesn't prove much as we all have different systems and ISP:s etc, and I don't question that what you say happened really happened. It's just that this is the first time I have seen anyone take it up with us for discussion, and totally there have been over 5000 ladder games played, hence I concluded it isn't a common problem.

In this case I am not so sure i exceeded the 5 minutes in any case, I think my opponent saw an opportunity to claim a victory from a loss and took it.....I dont think it would be fair to charge me with the loss in any case.

Since you didn't even know yourself when you got dc:d the best source for info would be your opponent unless he got dc:d at the same time. Sure, if you play an idiot that deceives and lies you can't trust him. Most of the players don't do that, and they'd be fair. The rest you could avoid by looking at their sportsmanship and reading some random comments on their games.

This is really a technical issue with wesnoth/internet/protocols(?) and how it makes people aware that something has gone wrong with he connection. Whatever we do as far as it comes to the ladder it will in the end always build on trust due to technical reasons.

I also fail to follow how it can't be fair to charge you for the loss in "any" case since it's 100% correct to do so if you came back to late - it says so in the rules both you and he accepted when you signed up. If you didn't, then it's another story.

Conclusion
Because of ElevenKings valid point of the 5 minutes being to close to standard ladder time I will change those 5 minutes into 10 instead.

[Wintermute]

In most cases it would be apparent for the opponent, with the good exception that ElvenKing brought up, which I agree with. I've played 59 ladder games and it still hasn't happened to me even once. I do however understand that that doesn't prove much as we all have different systems and ISP:s etc, and I don't question that what you say happened really happened. It's just that this is the first time I have seen anyone take it up with us for discussion, and totally there have been over 5000 ladder games played, hence I concluded it isn't a common problem.

Conclusion
Because of ElevenKings valid point of the 5 minutes being to close to standard ladder time I will change those 5 minutes into 10 instead.

I agree with Elvenking on this point. This has happened before to me as well, but the key difference is it has always happened with opponents that are quite sporting about it - so it is not "reported". I have waited for players, players have waited for me. I had a game where my power went out (for 3 days) in the middle of a ladder match. When I finally was able to email my opponent about continuing or a rematch, we decided not to continue the game. If my opponent had claimed a win after 5-10 minutes then I would be posting about that incident - or others where one side could have claimed victory on some technicality. I had a game with Becephalus (at the hight of the server problems) where we reloaded the game with D/C and various problems about 8-10 times in a two hour span before throwing the game out.

I guess my point is that I feel *most* players on the ladder are good sportsmen so these problems are just resolved peacefully.

I agree that changing the D/C limit to 10 (or 15 even) minutes is a good idea. If both players wait for 5 or more minutes, and there is a computer crash involved even 10 is a bit low IMHO. IN any case, I think players should be urged to use sportsmanship first and claiming a win on rules as a last resort (granted, the rules are needed).

[3vil]

Good discussion,
This lends much clarity to what happened.
I will contact Draconis and discuss it more with him,
Obviously I agree with an extended time for the dc rule,
the nature of the dc's I get are almost always in this manner and unless
I am constantly spamming(or having my opponent spam post) I will in the future
have this happen many times.
In essence for players with connection issues like I have,it necessitates an extended rule or
just to play with people that are going to understand and be flexible.
I want to play with many people and have a fun time, I am also a highly competitive person
and want an accurate ranking.
That is why I am starting to participate in the ladder, otherwise I would just play non ladder....

To Draconis:
I apologize for assuming you were just trying to grab a win,from my point of view there was only a short
time between dc and reconnect. I reconnected as soon as I did realize I was dc'd.
I now have a better understanding of how this dc issue appears on BOTH sides.

Thx to all for the responses

[svek]

Just adding my view of dc:s...
Changing the expected waiting time to 10 mins is probably a good idea, but any higher is more than I think anyone should be expected to idle around.
It would probably be a good idea to state that it's common and/or nice not to report a dc as a win unless you think it was an obvious attempt to avoid losing.

[Fosprey]

it would be nice if it's stated on the front page of the ladder, that the map that count for the ladder right now are the updated version of the maps that can be downloaded on the add on server.

[eyerouge]

it would be nice if it's stated on the front page of the ladder, that the map that count for the ladder right now are the updated version of the maps that can be downloaded on the add on server.

Done.

[Evil Tony]

it would be nice if it's stated on the front page of the ladder, that the map that count for the ladder right now are the updated version of the maps that can be downloaded on the add on server.

Done.

It seems some people are looking at that announcement on the site and reading it as an optional thing. You might want to clarify one way or the other.

[eyerouge]

It seems some people are looking at that announcement on the site and reading it as an optional thing. You might want to clarify one way or the other.

The site says:

we hereby announce that the latest version of the official maps should be used for ladder games.

There's nothing that even indicates that it is an optional thing. It is even announced as a rule change in the title. Whetever confusion there is must in such a case come from the fact that I haven't changed the rules them self (on the FAQ page) yet. I'll do that once I get back to my real computer in 2-3 days, I lack access from here.