Ranks After Green

[nahfackler]

This is just something to add, but it isn't necessary.
I've heard quite a few times that while some people at minimum want some recognition for a challenge, colors and stars in the chat would get confusing and ugly. I've been there: There's a server which thought it was a great idea to have 24 Roman numeral ranks. This was a typical convo:
[XIII]Bleh: So how are you guys?
[XXIV]Bleh2: Good
[IV]Bleh3: Very good
[CO-OWNER] [Finished]Bleh4: meh.
I wish I was joking.
Anyways, I though it would be a good idea to have an /awards command, so you could have a list of challenges and their completion status. While it isn't perfect, it wouldn't chunk up chat. Also, this puts strain on our already hardworking mods and admins.

Ok, now that is a good idea, one big problem though.... What achievements can we come up with?

 

[Alphaesia]

Ok, now that is a good idea, one big problem though.... What achievements can we come up with?

Current Challenge Suggestions

Vurture City [Special Criteria: None] [Requirements: None]
Lapiz Plaza [Adventure | Parkour & Maze]
'Napped [Parkour]

The Christmas Adventure [Special Criteria: None] [Requirements: Nov: 16 - Jan 1]
Winter's Fun [Parkour]
Teddy's Xmas [Adventure | Parkour, Maze & Other Stuff]
Winter's Tide [Parkour | Maze]
XMas Parkour [Parkour]

The Slow Race [Special Criteria: No Sprint] [Requirements: None]
J's Jumpcourse [Parkour]
Mob Parkour [Parkour | Maze & Guess]
Parkour Level 2 [Parkour]
Mine Co. [Parkour | Maze]

Welcome to Hell [Special Criteria: No Food; No Checkpoints] [Requirements: 400+ Points]
The Aquarium [Maze]
Planets [Parkour | Maze]
Cake Quake [Parkour | Maze]
Aqueous [Parkour | Maze]

Thats my list.

 

[Zatharel]

The awards thing would be quite cool.

However, given the fact that we still haven't planned out the "challenges" well enough, I recommend we start with just adding a /checkpoint awards that simply includes TAR, NW, TGR Race etc placements. Instead of (or together with) the stars/titles ops give to winning players of these competitions (as said, they do make chat a bit silly), it could just be limited to a permanent addition in the player's /checkpoint awards. It would work the same way /checkpoint ffa does now, except without the FFA code and times.

 

[nahfackler]

Ok, here's a suggestion that I will layout on the table..

What if we give them Maze points for the achievements that they complete? Like 1 maze point for easy to high points for really hard challenges

We can use Creeper's ideas for challenges

It's simple, but yet rewarding, a plug in could keep track of the achievements people have done that way they only have to check for achievements that they haven't done.

I think my suggestion will not create ranks, but yet it gives everyone a nice set of challenges.

 

[Zatharel]

Ok, here's a suggestion that I will layout on the table..

What if we give them Maze points for the achievements that they complete? Like 1 maze point for easy to high points for really hard challenges

We can use Creeper's ideas for challenges

It's simple, but yet rewarding, a plug in could keep track of the achievements people have done that way they only have to check for achievements that they haven't done.

I think my suggestion will not create ranks, but yet it gives everyone a nice set of challenges.

The problem I'm having with this is that it gives an unfair advantage to greens+ in the current points system, ie greens+ would have access to more points than other players. Not entirely sure I like that idea.

 

[Srentiln]

I would say no to maze point awards. Those should be kept exclusively to the completion of the courses, not the completion of challenges.

 

[MeisterXehanort]

Tbh, I think it would be completely fine to award points for challenges, as long as they vary enough from just beating x maps (e.g.: they're harder, as in, have people run through copies of the maps without checkpoints, or alter something that theres lava on the floor or idk).

I don't know if I'm picturing this wrong, but I think Sren is right if challenges are only intended to work with the original, unaltered maps.

 

[Srentiln]

freak, my opposition stems from the fact that it would give people who are very familiar with a single map to squeeze more points out of it than we have already deemed it is worth. Even a slightly altered version of the map is too easy of a way to get additional points without any true added difficulty. It's like giving enemy NPC's in a shooter higher accuracy and calling it a higher difficulty: no real additional challenge was added, just something that psychs the player out a little more.

 

[dz98]

I don't really see a need for more ranks as for now. I do also have an idea about the ranks in-general and their appearance. What if each person had the name of their rank beside their name -- a lot of other servers have this. I do think hat it would give the player a better understanding of what rank the player is. I have created some commands in a single player game for what I think the appearance of the ranks could look like:

http://imgur.com/vinQMy7

Mainly everyone's IGN would be in yellow instead of white, but I do not know if this will ruin the "whitie" aspect as a whole. If you do not like this idea, I do not care. I felt like I wanted to throw this out there.

 

[rickyboy320]

Isn't it just easier to color code things - also makes it more overviewable.

 

[Srentiln]

Adding the rank as a prefix adds unneccesary text in my opinion. Color coding is a lot faster for reading. Also, having mods the same color as greens is useful for catching people when they think no staff is on

 

[Zatharel]

I don't really see a need for more ranks as for now. I do also have an idea about the ranks in-general and their appearance. What if each person had the name of their rank beside their name -- a lot of other servers have this. I do think hat it would give the player a better understanding of what rank the player is. I have created some commands in a single player game for what I think the appearance of the ranks could look like:

http://imgur.com/vinQMy7

Mainly everyone's IGN would be in yellow instead of white, but I do not know if this will ruin the "whitie" aspect as a whole. If you do not like this idea, I do not care. I felt like I wanted to throw this out there.

Dear God no. I'd be unable to understand chat anymore. That, and as sren said it ruins the whole mods being green thing.

 

[rebplane]

i dont like purple

 

[MeisterXehanort]

i dont like purple

extremely bad taste.

 

[Drahmee]

Maybe we could create a Green Valley and put part of the original rotation from when I left in there: SkyTop, Scions Old Level 2, Lava Parkour, Mob Parkour, and Jigabot's Clay Maze. Something harder, and with NO CHECKPOINTS. The old lineup was hard, but there were also three maps in there which are hard to die in. I always wanted to do Sky Parkour, Lava Parkour, Mob Parkour, Aquarium, and Heaven and Hell as a five-parter with no checkpoints. <~~~~Not joking...

 

[Srentiln]

We'd need to find a way to fix Heaven and Hell, we dropped FalseBook completely a few updates back to reduce the time it takes us to update

 

[Zombie]

OK.
Time for me to make a point to change this thing compleatly...

Going back to the start of the thread, extra ranks past green has the potential to make the chat confusing. I've seen servers with 10-25+ different ranks, and it makes the chat ugly and difficult to follow. Over my time here I remember discussions on whether or not to merge admins back into the green color, as well as whether or not to give mods their own color.

There have been discussions (Not sure where anymore, it could have been the older forums) on extra prefixes (similar to TAR/NW stars) based on FFA points, but the similar issue of a cluttered chat arises. To a certain extent, the stars have the potential to make the chat look unorganized. Full titles like the "Ninja_Warrior" from the most recent tournament made this even worse.

In a similar line of thinking, I have toyed around with the idea of additional perks/activities unlocked after earning X amount of FFA points, but the ability to implement that would require a plugin update to the checkpoint signs to check for points, and only allow a teleport when a player's points is greater than a threshold, which is something that I never have had the opportunity to look into as an update until the switch (@rickyboy320 , something to consider for 1.9?). If we were to follow this route though, I'm not sure what all we could offer as perks (without taking away things that greens already have).

Other misc Ideas I have considered but never worked on:
--Mini-TAR style hunts that would lead to the location of a rare material's resource parkour (Too easy to share solutions).
--Cosmetic stars based on 100x points, or if you held the #1/2/3 spot on a map's speedrun (Clutter issue again).

Edit- Fixed typos.

First starting with @Ajdj
Chats with 10-25 ranks are hard to follow, but ur point is arbitrary to the fact that this would mean having only 5 ranks. It doesnt even have to change color. Say ~Zombiekiler~
Tbh that doesnt even clutter chat. And adding a sign to the FAQ sayintg:
~'s around a green name means this: (What ever it means)
I have a picture of a server i play on (Cube Krowd with 10 or so ranks), and the chat in that server is perfectly fine.
A minr chat with 5 ranks:

Guy1: Can a blue TP me to HC?
CoolGuy: lol no XD
Guy1: oh ok
Greenmaster999: joined the game
Greenmaster999: HEYO PPL!!!!
CoolGuy: no caps plz
~Zombie~: Yeah thats annoying
ImBluelol: Someone give me answer to HC NOW before i kill someone.
~Greenie3~: No
CoolGuy: Banned ImBLuelol (No HC cheating)

As you can see, it looks the same..

Moving on..

The problem is: what does this new rank offer, what makes it "worth" getting towards this "point".
It's true that sometimes things get a little dull. Back when I was green, and eventually mod, I had many moments MINR didn't really "interest" me anymore, and it was tough to come up with (doable&enjoyable) projects. Obviously many community members have suggested "community builds", or other things to do together, but that never seems to actually get pulled off.

Events require quite a lot of work, and planning. And obviously, as we've seen with MinrMafia, the more such event gets done in a short amount of time, the less 'hype' and appeal it has. Thus, if we would implement something that's new and fresh, it would get dull in a few months.

A few months ago I was toying around with some type of HC+ for greens, which pretty much is a super-hard-hardcore with a special way of progression (don't want to spoil too much ). However I threw that idea in the garbage bin as I had no idea what it would give the players.

Also, coming back to the "Challenges" that CreepahShadowz suggested, http://forums.minr.org/threads/challenges.1602/. I have never actually started this yet, because:
A) I had no idea what to do with rewards
B) How to exactly implement it into our current FFA system
C) It would require a lot of work

However, Aj's post has given me a new idea.

Say, we limit the entrance to the "Challenge" center to players that have at least 100 (as a random amount, could be more, 400? ) points, the challenges open for them. This allows them to play the challenges as described in the thread above. After completing such challenge, they would be awarded with a star in their FFA history, indicating they've played that map in a 'challenge'. Color of the star then clarifies which type of challenge. (yellow = no food, red = no cp's or something similar)

While that gives some extra replayability to some maps, it might not give the exact 'victory' MT described. And I'd preferably have these things open for everyone, because why would we only limit such thing to people with X+ points.

Stars, or more colors in chat would indeed clutter it up a little bit (stars being less cluttery than colors), so at most I'd give a player a temporary star. (Because say player "A" has a star from beating HC+, a star for getting 100 points, and a star for TAR & NW, this player A will be shown in chat as:
****A

With names like "rickyboy320":
****rickyboy320
So, that will make our chat very rainbowy, and unclear for many players on what that player actually accomplished.

I think that having the top time on a map already gives enough acknowledgement when entering a map.

I wouldn't mind giving you guys more features, and more things to do, but the hard thing is WHAT.

Ricky,
I get your point, but no one is asking for 7 more ranks.
Why have a rank with no prize?
It is the satistfaction of pride and the joy of promotion.
In the picture i showed, the only rand that prizes u is M, where you get to build in SU (Survival).
Let me give you several examples of this in the real world.

>Game leaderboards
>Tycoon games
>Boy scout/girl scout ranks
>Employee of the month
>Rock and roll hall of fame
>Trophies
>Grammies/emmies
>Aging

Not only is there no prize (Well some of these have prizes like money), but all of these are for astetics in the real world. A trophy is a trophy, a plastic trophy is a trophy, a color is a color. Its the joy of having people praise yyou for what you have done. That is the true pull factor, the attraction if you will, of a rank.

Personally, I don't see the need for arbitrary ranks. If it weren't for HC requiring aquireing ffa points to enter, blue would be a rediculous addition to have.

Time for the old-man-sren story

Back when I gained green, zero was a survival server with an innovative way to keep griefers out. There were three distinguishable ranks: white, green, and red. Now, we have added ffa and ffa+, we have added blue to the list of ranks, and the focus has shifted from survival to the courses that were originally a way to agoid having to use a white-list. At the current time, we have no real reason to be adding a new rank.

If a player isn't interested in building, then gaining green is about as useful to them as gaining that "opened 1 million containers" achievement while saving the world from whatever threat the latest game revolves around. Sure, you completed a difficult task, but it is purely aesthetic and loses its appeal quickly. For these players, a new rank to achieve is just anouther completionist thing that won't change the fact that they've done it all and are just checking in for new challenges (kind of like me with quests in runescape).

For those who are builders, unless that rank has some significant meaning to it, it doesn't change how interested in building they are.

Basically, it's best to focus on the question of "is there something significant we can add to zero?" rather than the question of "should we add a new rank for greens to go after?"

And for Sren, read what i said above.
its not the prize of money in a grammy, is the prize of prasing or having people look up to you in awe becuase of a color.
Thank you
-Zombie

 

[skyerzz]

As i also said in-game, while im not in favor of adding a new rank, I do like to make new challenges for both blues and greens.

As some other thread (may have been in the mods/greens section, i really cant recall) said as well, We could introduce achievements, and combine them with Chinatown to make that alive again.
While this may take a lot of tought still, I believe achievements is a thing we can do anyways. It gives that extra challenge to people, and almost everyone likes achievements