Ladder Site Online...

[Rigor]

Hi everyone !

Now as you all well know this rule is breached by most ladder players.

i hope this sentence goes like this: from all rules, this one is most often breached, and when it happens, then by very few players. that cause an epidemic because they know about the rather meek consequences.

I only see two possibilities remove the rule or enforce it.

the ladder was not intended to be a inquisition revival festival. the current system allows no other punishment than labeling the person for everybody to see in beautiful red letters. since everybody knows each other, this will lead to questions that not everybody is willing to give every time he wants to play a game.

It is unfair for your competitors to fight for points, while you use your loser-eh i mean, i-dont-care-too-much-account. sorry to say, but that is just bad behaviour. i really dont think u earned your points, leo. thinking back that i played your "multitasking-account" 3 times, where i won 2 times, and then trying your "real" account leocrotta - you were always so extremely busy that i could just play 1 game that you won. thats a big difference i would say. also i would rather toss your other, real account down some points than an alibi-crap-account that is also just there. happened only one time?

tbs:

5 games in total vs leocrotta, 9 games vs demo.

neki:

11 vs leocrotta, 23 vs demo.

i believe leocrotta was there first, chronologically i mean.

then you had some opponents which were easier to beat, obviously, so you just needed your point-harvester-account (dont want to hurt anybody with a loser-list here). sometimes you didnt play against others with your point-gatherer account, but of course with the doesnt-matter-much-account, like

Pionsix, 2 losses out of 2

never even trying your high-score alias, thats pretty lame.

like i said, i dont want to analyze every player you checked out in ladder mode (others can, if they want, just sort the number of games played with account 1 and compare with account 2, and use different priorities to sort the victories and losses, yawn.), but the thing is - when you play with aliases, you try to protect your other, more important alias.

that is not the intention of the ladder, and in order to keep everything fair and square, it will not be tolerated. why should the others who played with honor see that you can elapse the proper punishment, could u or anybody else explain this to me?

and why do you have to reveal yourself stupidly just when i am on holidays, so i have to reply to your accusations that were so general due to your funny brackets, that if i didnt react, everybody would think that the current admin is a cheater like you are? this really upsets me.

[nani]

you were always so extremely busy that i could just play 1 game that you won

That's a statement you would complain about yourself ... always ... extreeeeeeemely busy -> plain exaggeration.
I really can't remember we talked about playing each other too often.

could u or anybody else explain this to me?

Yeah, get them all on your side. That's a good try.

point-harvester-account

Awesome comment as well, [irony_on]as you can see I'm the one in the higher ranks who only plays noobs.[irony_off].

and why do you have to reveal yourself stupidly just when i am on holidays, so i have to reply to your accusations that were so general due to your funny brackets, that if i didnt react, everybody would think that the current admin is a cheater like you are?

As if I would wait until you're on holidays, how should I know this.
At first, it's no cheating, if it's something, it could be abusing an elo-system, but I believe it's not even that. Anyways it really sounded strong, ending with the "cheater like you are?".
Second, I never said you are THE admin, I said there were many I believe.
Third, the example you're making, should be on the admin I mentioned and his 2nd account, not on me.
Not that it matters, you can for sure "punish" me by labeling me in red letters, though I wished you could delete all accounts I have.
I (in person) won't play ladder ever again, don't you worry, I give you my word.
You know what upsets me? Being pilloried as the one who reveals this, whilst I should be granted a reprieve.

Summing up: Not too maturely spoken for an admin, but somehow you hit the spot, especially you're living up to your name.

p.s.: I don't care about all of this, many others feel the same, but I seem to be the only one talking from the inside.
p.p.s: @aliases: Let me be your martyr!

[Doc Paterson]

To nani's accusers: Let's chill out a bit here. I don't think that aliases matter much at all in the grand scheme of the ladder. Think about it: Leocrotta/nani/Demo/species 8472 is, according to the ladder, the best player out there (by a narrow margin over Dauntless, against whom he is 7-5 in individual play).

Did the ladder fail you in this? Who is the best, if nani is not?

It's not as though he's creating "weapon accounts," like playing and beating top players with a 10-40 alias).

Some people (like myself) just have a more casual attitude towards the ladder. That does not mean that these people are evil cheaters who should be tarred and feathered. I feel that the thousands of games that occur iron out any significant influence from multiple accounts, and nani's ranking is the perfect example.

Anyways, practically speaking- I don't know how you can possibly prevent people from making more than one account. You only found out about this one because he straight-up told you.

Is the policy just going to be "If you confess, you will be punished?"

[Cackfiend]

i dont see the big deal with nani. if anything hes just hurt his main record by winning so many games on an alias. calling him a cheater is way out of line

a lot of good players have aliases, i will never have one though.

[nebula955]

.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Its surprising that multiple accounts can be a cause of so many emotions . Cmon did any of you thought that putting message 'U cAn HaVe OnlY One AccOUnt oN LaDDEr!!!!111!' will stop ppl from registering them ... I for example have ~10 differend ladder nicks , and I'm proud of all of them .

So instead of getting excited about that u better update and fix RMP addon as its a bit broken and outdated .

[Faello]

Guys...

Did anybody hear about Kramnik, Kasparov or Karpov playing under different names in the chess tournaments?

No.

Ladder was meant to provide OBJECTIVE ranking of the players. Now, if you've more than 1 account there and you're using it, you're FALSIFYING this ranking, and you're doing it VOLUNTAIRLY (the fact that you "just want to train", "it's not a serious account", "I've casual attitude to the ladder" etc.) DOESN"T matter.

You're doing it and you want to do it.

I find it amusing that instead of accepting the fact that many of you do the wrong thing, you try to find multiple more or less immature explanations why the thing that you do did isn't as bad as it is ("Because OTHERS do it too!" ; "I was just following orders" )

Just cut the crap and send Rigor your second accounts to delete & don't do it ever again.

[cookie]

Just cut the crap and send Rigor your second accounts to delete & don't do it ever again.

Yeah! Whenever I try to get him to, he doesn't do anything. SO..... awesome

[Oook]

Firstly, for the record, I have only ever had the one ladder account.

I don't have a problem with multiple accounts being used in this way. I don't think there's any suggestion that nani was deliberately losing matches, or trying to switch points between the two. Nani has explained (freely, not in response to anyone discovering that both accounts were his) when each was used.

In effect, Leo measures his elo when he is fully concentrating on the game, no distractions. Demo measures his elo when multitasking. If anything, this helps with accurate rankings in the ladder, since both rankings will be more accurate and consistent for the circumstances in which they are used. So if you play Demo, you're playing a weaker version of nani (due to distractions), if you play Leo, you're playing the stronger one. You could see this as 'protecting' the stronger one, but I think it makes more sense to see it as allowing nani to feel he can play ladder games when he otherwise wouldn't have time. I enjoyed my games against Demo, and would much rather play him than not get a game against a player of that level. I think most strong ladder players would agree with that.

I play Go online as well, and it is common for strong players there to have multiple accounts, e.g. one for when they're playing tired / drunk, one for fast games etc. There's no suggestion this unbalances things. Trying to remove either (let alone both :/) accounts will simply reduce the quality of play on the ladder, by removing high class, entertaining games, that would still contribute accurately to the ratings.

Rigor - with regards to the relative stats of each account against various players, I don't see any particular abnormalities. Sure, Demo has played some players more often than Leo, but that's probably due to Demo being more active recently, due to nani having more distractions. And pulling up stats like 2 games with Demo, 0 with Leo - that's statistically insignificant, especially as they will be active at different times. I don't really see what your point with all that was? It's also worth noting that Leo has played a significant number of strong players in his recent games, which is not true of all the top players.

Faello :

Did anybody hear about Kramnik, Kasparov or Karpov playing under different names in the chess tournaments?

Equally, they didn't tend to play in tournaments whilst multitasking. You could say that nani should simply choose not to play ladder when he can't concentrate 100% on the game, but I don't really see how that benefits the ladder. Given the two accounts are rated for different circumstances, they will not unbalance the rating system, since they each have a rating which accurately reflects the level they are played at.

Rigor :

that is not the intention of the ladder, and in order to keep everything fair and square, it will not be tolerated. why should the others who played with honor see that you can elapse the proper punishment, could u or anybody else explain this to me?

Firstly, as I've said above, I don't really see that nani is 'protecting' the Leo account unfairly, he's just not using it when he can't concentrate 100% on games. As for tolerating aliases etc: I get the impression that a blind eye has been turned to them up until now, even ones that are commonly known to be aliases. Given that a discussion has just started on the use of aliases, and that most of the top players seem happy with how they've been used so far (a lot have publicly stated that, whereas from the top group only you have said you're unhappy), can I suggest any banning / blocking etc is put on hold / undone, at least until this discussion reaches a conclusion? I don't see any advantage to the ladder in removing the strongest player, when he hasn't done anything to damage the accuracy of the ratings, and the top players (the ones most affected by this), are mostly fine with what he's done.

[Velensk]

There's no reason why he cannot simply play non-ladder games when he's not in top condition. That should both accomplish his objective and not raise any kind of problem with the rules.

[Faello]

Faello :

Did anybody hear about Kramnik, Kasparov or Karpov playing under different names in the chess tournaments?

Equally, they didn't tend to play in tournaments whilst multitasking. You could say that nani should simply choose not to play ladder when he can't concentrate 100% on the game, but I don't really see how that benefits the ladder. Given the two accounts are rated for different circumstances, they will not unbalance the rating system, since they each have a rating which accurately reflects the level they are played at.

Seriously? Is anybody forced to multitask while playing ladder games?

If you want to multitask, play one ladder game and the other non-ladder. Does the second game has to be ladder game?

Again, I find this argument totally invalid. If two different accounts allegedly don't make the difference, why not to obey the rules (there's a rule about having only one account, you know about it, don't you?) and use one account only, so all of the player games are rated under one account.

I'm totally going over the fact here that ELO points from playing the same game are different from each won/lost game per differently rated players since it's (or at least I thought it should be...) obvious.

There's no reason why he cannot simply play non-ladder games when he's not in top condition. That should both accomplish his objective and not raise any kind of problem with the rules.

Exacly.

[Madlok]

What I want to say is quite complicated so I will probably make some grammatical errors.

I have no idea why complicate your life by using of many nicknames, but, ok... whatever.
Nani didn't play with himself so he used his accounts in a moral manner.
It would be immoral if he had been farming on their own accounts.
Players from the top are in the spotlight, so if they are farming (not only on their own accounts, but also on new players) it can be easily detected, and this will result in ostracism.

[Oook]

Please note, I'm not arguing that having multiple aliases is valid under the current ladder rules as stated on the site. I'm simply questioning the purpose and effectiveness of the rule, and the limited way it's being enforced. So I'd ask that any replies focus on justifications beyond 'it's against the ladder rules', since what we're really debating are the pros / cons of the current rules.

In response to Velensk's point: as to why nani would want to play ladder when multitasking - it can be a lot easier to find good opponents for ladder games, more likely to complete games etc. But it also benefits the ladder to have nani playing these games there! It provides a greater number of high level games, for a start.

Faello: could you respond to my point about the two accounts being accurately rated for the circumstances they're used in? I feel that is a crucial point. If nani plays to a different level when playing as Leo and as Demo, surely it is good for other ladder players that these games are separated? This way, when playing Leo, you're playing a stronger player, with a higher rating, Demo doesn't play quite as well, has a lower rating, which is as it should be. . The elo simply measures the level at which the two accounts play. As TBS said earlier in this thread, how is this different to having two strong players in the ladder, one (consitstently!) a bit better than the other?

So again, it benefits the ladder to have the Demo games played as ladder games, as it provides extra ratings calibration at from the top end.

As I mentioned, on Go servers, it's common for strong players to have different accounts, which they use for different circumstances. This doesn't cause problems. Likewise, I don't see why allowing different accounts in this way here would cause problems. Players using extra accounts to feed points / sandbag should obviously have be banned, but that's clearly not what's happening here.

The above is why I think the current rules are problematic. On a separate point, I think that even under the current rules, it's a very odd choice to take action against nani here. As I said, a blind eye has been turned to other aliases for so long now, that it seems very harsh to suddenly take action against one player, just because they chose to reveal themselves. Given that rigor admits there is no effective way to police the situation, and given that other known aliases are left untouched, it looks very much like this is a punishment for the honesty of announcing his accounts.

[peace]

Hi all,

Oh, I forgot the one that motivated this post after watching him slaughter Zorro's loyalists with orcs.

peace: 1807, 9 games 8 wins

It seems I "started" some argument here, I'm really sorry about that.

Concerning what has already been said I second Oook. ELO ranking only works when you assume players are playing at a constant level. Some time ago there was a ladder player who played most games with only one unit type, some games with normal recruits and in some games he'd just hide his skeleton leader in deep water. Although this behaviour is allowed by ladder rules it defeats the purpose of an ELO ranking system, because some players will get (too many) free points whereas some other players lose way too many points when the inconstant player decides to play serious. Contrary to that, what nani did is prohibited by ladder rules, but aids the system.

There's no reason why he cannot simply play non-ladder games when he's not in top condition. That should both accomplish his objective and not raise any kind of problem with the rules.

Have you tried to play a non-ladder 1vs1 game on the server lately? And if you did what skill did the players you found for this game have on average? In fact nowadays it almost impossible to get a good 1vs1 outside of ladder without specific asking people you know for a game. (and oftentimes ladder players simply refuse to play a non-ladder game). I can very well understand why someone who gets to rank 5 on ladder when playing distracted, doesn't feel like playing only these random people joining some 1vs1 (and iirc there were periods when nani did only play distracted/as Demogorgon).

If you have some demand for skill level in your 1vs1 you have to play ladder - and I really don't like that fact . It even holds if you are not serious about the game. And after all that's what it still is
a game.

[Doc Paterson]

Faello, I don't think you could be more wrong. Kindly chill on the self-righteous tirades.

Guys...

Did anybody hear about Kramnik, Kasparov or Karpov playing under different names in the chess tournaments?

No.

A horrible example, for reasons that Oook already stated. Ladder games are not world-class tournament matches, nor is Wesnoth itself much like chess.

Ladder was meant to provide OBJECTIVE ranking of the players. (the fact that you "just want to train", "it's not a serious account", "I've casual attitude to the ladder" etc.) DOESN"T matter.

Guess what: You don't decide what is wrong and right in relation to how other people want to use the ladder, nor do the admins when it really comes down to it. The players are free to interpret what is moral and what is not, and making an alias for fun or training or casual play or whatever, is not inherently wrong, just because some people in charge say that it is.

I find it amusing that instead of accepting the fact that many of you do the wrong thing, you try to find multiple more or less immature explanations why the thing that you do did isn't as bad as it is ("Because OTHERS do it too!" ; "I was just following orders" )

See above.

And to those who say that someone should just play non-ladder games when multitasking, tired, drunk, etc., I will point out an undeniable reality. Like it or not, the state of things on the server is such that any attempt to play a non-ladder 1v1 will, about 90-95 percent of the time, leave you playing with a very weak player, who will often just disconnect when things start to go badly for them. Now, listen: I do not like this, but most of the good players nowadays want to use the time they have for 1v1s to play ranked games, and will pass on requests for non-ladder. The "just play non-ladder games" argument is not valid, if the player in question wants even the slightest challenge. Yes, there are a few good players out there who will accept a non-ladder request, but there's a general momentum to have the vast majority of top tier matches be ladder.

Just cut the crap and send Rigor your second accounts to delete & don't do it ever again.