As far as the karma is concerned, would it be possible to save in-game chat to a logfile, and have a way to submit a given chat log to Stardock, via impulse? I don't know if you have the spare manpower for it, but perhaps it could added into the overlay somehow.

Each game, would record and save the chat log, and would be overwritten at the start of the next game. This way we don't have to rely on trying to "prove" bad behavior through screenshots and video, which as we all know can be easily doctored.

This probably won't work given that matchmaking (may) be using karma to match players.  New or bad players may end up with vets, which could lead to some imbalances.

Dont track Karma, just track how many times a user has disconnected before the game ended. Allow a threshold at game start and then start counting from there onwards. Dawn of War 2 does this where you can see how often someone has disconnected from a game.

I agree, karma should not be used the endless concession debate.  This may be too big of an idea to try to tackle, but what about a playstyle chart instead of just a karma chart.  You always said that you wanted the match making system to be like eharmony for gaming.  Here is the idea:

People have 6-8 categories they can fit into.  Two of these categories are diametrically opposed.  So basically you have the personality/job chart from high school (social psychology), but this one is for gamers.  When you log in you put what kind of player you are and what type you like to be matched with.  So for example (on a scale of 0-10):

Would you say in game you are:

Quiet and Silent<---------->Talkative

What kind of teammates do you like:

Quiet and Silent<---------->Talkative

Do you like to:

Taunt/Trash Talk<---------->Help others

Do you like teammates who:

Taunt/Trash Talk<---------->Help others

Do you prefer to:

Win<---------->Have Fun

Do you prefer teammates who play to:

Win<---------->Have Fun

This system rates you and places you in a quadrant and tries to match you with people in the quadrant you prefer to play with and who prefer to play with people in your quadrant.  The other advantage to this is competitive players will not try to join the groups where "people play to have fun" or they will also have teammates with this style.  This really gives a new dimension to the game.

Then post game you have the opportunity to rate people as like or dislike or nothing.  The key to this is that if you rate someone as like or dislike, a box pops up asking why.  This gives you the familar choices:  they were quiet, talkative, taunted, helped, fun, or focused on winning.  This is the key.  You do not change their karma but add a variable to their personality profile.  By giving your input you slightly affect their impulse gamer personality.  Also, and here is the other key, you also affect your "wants" or "desires".  So the questions you answered about who you want to play are slightly affected, as well.  This further refines your profile.  Interestingly, this also does not assign a judgement such a good or bad, but rather your perception (like or dislike) of an experience (their playstyle).

I am a med student who has created several studies and one I spent a lot of time on was a personality study.  This is also a variant of the simple personality/occupational job profile that is standard fare for social psychologists.  I know this is hugely abitious, but it is also extremely sound.  This is very doable from a study design idea and seems fairly easy to program as well.  What are all your thoughts on it?

Hi, after reading this forum for a while and playing a lot lately i came up with some ideas (that most people i guess already had)

So here is a little summary of what i have in mind right now (this doesn't cover, bug fixing).

Before Game

• Skirmish : Sort people by level, connection quality and Karma (or any other method to sort well mannered players from raging savages, i'll come back to this issue later on)
• Custom Games : set a color code or points (or levels or .... and so on ...) to help people decide if they want to play against each other or not (this guy is too good/bad/leaver ....), also the presentation of the connection information tab should be an array of that shape :

Let players X Y Z and ME (ME being ...  well ... you got it)

X                         Y                        Z                    ME

ME   connected             connected            waiting to

X                                connected            connected       connected

Y     connected                                       connected       attempting

Z     connected             connected                                 connected

(You can replace the "connected" with a check or a smiley or anything you feel like)

• Pantheon : give a button to check "Disable AI in game" for the player to be able to choose if he wants his pantheon game to be with or without AI (IMO pantheon should be AI free (but that's my opinion only, to be discussed)). Also everybody agrees that AI should be enhanced, So please buy a beer to the guy who found the idea of AI moding (letting the players do their own AI is FREAKING GENIUS !!!).

In Game

1. Let players 10s in the beginning of the game to buy their items before being able to move their demigod.
2. Like in most Strategy games have an attack button to make the demigod go to a location and attack anything close on the path
3. Have a Stop or a hold position button
4. Add a button to Stack actions (if it already exist please let me know !) (like the shift button in many other games)
5. When i click on an ennemy (grunt or demigod) and this ennemy dies, my demigod will stop moving, it would be nice if instead my demigod would automatically go to the location of this ennemy (ennemy's corpse to be accurate)
   
6. Add a vote surrender option (many people already asked for it)
7. add replays (but as i read it's already planned, cheers)
   
8. About Leavers : most of us now had to endure at least once the problem of somebody getting killed and leaving due to emotions, leading the game to ruin by different ways (everybody leaving / the game being easily won as AI is most of the time not as competent as a real player (not always true, i won several games 3v1 for instance (not trying to brag) and so on ....)
   1. First, let players the possibility to switch side (3v1 becomming 2v2 for instance) or in a more general way if the game is not balanced due to level difference in players ability, a good player could switch with a more challenged one in order to even things
   2. Most of the time when a player rage quits, we are able to feel it (never 100% sure) but still we are more or less pretty confident about our guess, when a player dies twice in the first 5 minutes and quits ... well he might be a rage quitter, and when a player leaves while being on a 6 kill streak and no death ... well ... i personnally will think he most likely had a connection problem.

The point being that if a human can guess it, so can an algorithm (i am currently a student in computer science in the field of research in computer science (meaning that i eat algorithms on a daily basis) (if you have jobs opening i am interested )) 

Little Example layer A just left at 5min32 while having a score of 0-2, leaving 8 seconds after his second death

well it's not to hard to write a little piece of code recognising it and giving this player a -x score on his karma score, where x would be for example the probability of the player rage quitting (here x would be pretty high), this way the algorithm if written cleverly could really make a difference (writen cleverly means take in account lots and lots of parameters)

Once again this is based on probabilities so it's by construction not 100% accurate, but it's FAR better than nothing.

After Game

Ranking and stat accuracy is i guess very important for many people, it's also important to sort people by Level, So why not add a ranking summary at the end of each game ?

Also first favor item should be free ... to make favor points reset less painful.

Well, that's it folks, i guess i am out of ideas for now, if you liked this post i am glad ; if not please make it better.

--

D

oddly, mine have started saving again.

I do not like the idea of a karma system because it is easily exploitable by people that just want to be jerks. Then for the people who can't get enough, they will have jerks kicking them. I think the in game "personal ban list" is where we should leave this type of thing at. You can get the job done and it doesnt publicly display biased or misconstrued opinions.

Karma: treat it like they do in LBP (Little Big Planet) .. although in LBP you have the hearting, could have a similar thing however for rating .. after a match would be cool to have a small window with the players, their scores, their ranks, and some stars to rate them ..

Overall: I think heaps more info is needed.. However, I think you should stop putting these things into these overlay popups .. Or make a better popups .. Honestly i dont recall ever NOT hitting the connection info window, would be ncie for it to be open by default ... but then I ask myself why doesnt this stuff get integrated into the lobby? and for panth games, a lobby should be added.

IMHO I think the popup technique for all this stuff is a little sketchy .. Most of this info should be easier to get, currently its like I always have to repeat my steps just to see the standard info

-move around some boxes since they all popup most of the itme on top of eachother

-click the windows to expand their info

-resize the conenction info so it actually shows more then 4 players

-move the IRC chat since it overalays diff windows at diff times ...

Just seems like a chore .. would be sweet if we had even just some persistant windows .. why not make room in the HUD for the IRC window to sit all the time.. or the connection info

I am wondering. If karma's aim is to give a value to enjoyement of playing Demigod with a given person, why not to give negative Karma to disconnecting people (but less than to quitters)?

Don't put karma!!! Terrible terrible idea. To each his own. If you don't want to play against someone then just leave the game or have him leave the game.

i am living in germany and got a good connection with 16mbit down and 1mbit up. thats 100kb upload per second. i know that in other countries there are way higher down- and uploadrates, but in germany my connection is one of the better ones.

altough i have 100kb upload i get dropped out of games but at the same time i am able to perfectly play battlefield 2 with 64 people... or any other game. i know, your game is special, somehow.... with synchronized people... i dont understand it, but if you say so...

i really think you should optimize the netcode, cause you will exclude a lot of people this way.

at speedtest.net germany is ranked 37th at upload speed with an incredible 0.86 Mb/s i think germany will not be able to play demigod for the most part

i really like your game and i´ve got no regrets having bought it, but its very frustrating that i cant play it right even though i have a good (and expensive) connection (in relation to germany).

Here is why a karma system would never work:

I think most people quit a game early because they think the outcome has already been decided. It is not fun to play a strategy game if you think there is no strategy that will win you the game, so people quit. 

Now you want to motivate these people to do something that is not fun (stay in the game) to get some reward (getting favor points, avoid punishment etc).  There is a word for doing something you don't neccessary want to do, in exchange for a reward: Work. And from my experience, if you force people to work in order to avoid punishment, they will not play along.

  Here is what I think will happen:

• Players will stay in the Game, but leave their computer. They are going to read a book or something while their character is sitting in their base, doing nothing. Other people will still play, but not seriously. A: "Grab that flag, buddy", B:"Why, the game is over anyway"
  

• No matter if all players continue to play the game or not: If the game has already been decided, both the winning and the losing side will play a game that is not fun. 

• Many players will not know what 'karma' is.

• Many players will not care about Karma.

• The few people who do care about Karma (I imagine this minority of demigod players makes the majority of people who read or post on these forums) will go crazy on the boards because they somehow lost karma and think they do not "deserve" it.

• Some griefers will find some way to trick players into losing karma.

I think it is wiser  to concentrate on how to improve the game _after_ a player has quit the game as well as to increase hope of a comeback. 

• Distribute gold/experience in relation to the number of your teammates and your enemies. 
  
• Give gold and experience on demigod kills in relation to skill difference between the two players (good player kill bot => almost no exp/gold etc. ). 
  
• Allow surrender.  
• In pantheon OR in skirmish games, I would even think about random events (like in galciv2). Please not the OR in the previous sentence!

Is it cool if I just join a game and go afk til my team loses?