Medals

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The Purple Panzer
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Medals

Post by The Purple Panzer »

This would be an enhancement to personal profiles, perhaps available in the game or through the profiles associated with this bboard system.

I thought of this while stuck in an airport lounge, and had some fun with it - I post it here as much for people to chuckle at as as a serious suggestion. It does have some merit, though - it might provide a better picture of a player, and do so fairly concisely. It might also act as a spur to greater participation, and as a slightly humorous way to encourage certain behaviors. It also might seem karma-like in some ways.

The basic idea is to allow people to receive medals, and allow these to be displayed in one's profile (mainly in this bboard system, but possibly also via BZFlag client in some way). Ideally, clicking on a medal's image would bring up info of how/when/why that medal was awarded.

Medals would be awarded to people in different categories: players, admins, developers, map designers, maybe even for ideas that make it into the game. In general, bronze medals would be for basic participation at some minimal level (and would possibly be self-awarded), silver would be for a higher level and/or longer participation, and gold would be peer awarded.

So here are some possibilites:

1. For players, a small rectangle with raised edges, with either a "100" or "300" in the rectangle, also raised - for reaching 100 kills in a game (bronze) or 300 kills in a game (silver); these might be self-awarded. A similar gold medal, perhaps with the BZFlag logo in the center, would be awarded by consensus of some number of other players for overall excellence.

2. For players, a "Camper Killer" medal in 3rd, 2nd, and 1st classes, based on the number of campers killed (maybe just GM's and Lasers killed to keep the total simple). This could be a pin with some sort of mobile home ("camper") on it, perhaps with a "do not" circle and crossbar over it.

2b. For each flag, maybe a "<flagname> Master" award, perhaps in a larger rectangle (in which all such awards would appear). That is, when filled, it would be a large rectangle with raised "ST", "SB", "GM", etc. in a matrix inside. This admittedly could be at too fine a level of detail, but would encourage players to work with all of the flags, not just stick to favorites (which I find myself doing sometimes).

2c. A "tactical excellence" medal, rewarding careful planning and thought in play, as distinguished from rewarding mouse manipulation skills (which are often responsible for kills).

3. For players, a CTF Team Player medal, based on the number of times one has stolen the enemy's flag and the number of times one has deposited it at one's base (come to think of it, this could be based on the number of team flag pick ups and voluntary drop-offs, provided that the latter are on one's own base). Could have bronze, silver, and gold varieties, based on numbers and peer recommendation.

4. For admins, one medal representing server-days one has admin'd (perhaps called the "Suffering Bastard"), another for adminning in classy ways (recommended by players) - perhaps to be termed the "Benign Dictator" award.

5. For developers, a bronze screwdriver for making any contribution to the BZflag code, a silver one based on length or quality of service, and a gold one based on acclamation of peers. This needs some thought, so that no one gets offended via oversight/misundertanding - but the basic idea is to let people (regular players) see which people are developers, and at what level, quickly.

6. For map designers, this sort of thing almost exists now, as the gold/silver stars in the last map contest show. Awards could focus on map novelty, quality of play, aesthetics, or server hours one's maps have actually been used. Say a bronze shovel for having built a map that has run on a public server, a silver shovel for having designed some number of such maps, and a gold shovel based on peer recommendation.

7. For bzbb list participants, we sort of have the ranks, but one might also allow for "post of the day" awards (based on readers' recommendations), sort of like hashmarks.

8. An "education" award, for those who've helped others start playing the game, or helped people play the game better, or answered questions in the fora, etc.

Finally, there might be one overall "BZFlag Cross", basically the symbol on the game's flags, and awarded based on the set of other medals one has received - that is, a sort of summary, likely implemented by some sort of point system. This medal might appear in the game, possibly on the side of one's tank.

All medals would of course just be images, maybe with ribbons (which might represent team color, or year, or BZFlag version).

The harder problem will be managing the awards of all of these, but a number of them could be self-awarded, relying on personal honesty and the likelihood of immediate notice by the community of abuses. Others could be done by poll, when appropriate (mainly the gold's, which should be peer awarded). Perhaps some small set of people (possibly anonymous, and possibly randomly chosen for each issue) would have to act as a medals committee to resolve any remaining issues.

I'm sure I've just touched on the possibilities, and it would probably take some time and effort to get going (which not surprisingly are in short supply). The art to doing it in reality would be to keep it simple and automatic enough that it wouldn't require a lot of ongoing effort to keep up-to-date and accurate. It could quite possibly be done entirely by self-award, which would keep it very simple.

In any event, I had some fun imagining what the medals might look like (including some not mentioned), and thought others might too.
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Post by trepan »

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The Purple Panzer
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Washington

Post by The Purple Panzer »

I don't remember reading that Washington was on the Purple team,
so the medal you posted probably doesn't make as much sense as it otherwise might. And they had limited computational power back then, using water valves and such, it must have been version .0001 or something of BZFlag, probably with some sort of crop-based display.

Computation and history are interesting. Did you know, for example, that the Roman Empire fell because they had no symbol for zero, and therefore couldn't terminate their C programs?
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Post by BIYA »

I got an idea but I doubt it would work. How about those badges or medals you were talking about but they would be placed on your tank?
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RPG
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Post by RPG »

Those medals are pretty cool to give a better picture of that person's playing abilities.
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Re: Medals

Post by Guest »

The idea is all in all great.

My English would fail me again, did I try to criticize the individual medals, you suggested. In general, I laugh a lot during a good bzflag game... and when there are too many players who try to organize their team in a military way, I leave.

If we could transform those medals into rewards for increasing the fun of the game, I would be one of your fiercest supporters. This is difficult and the reasoning behind your medals or the consequences of that new kind of contest in the game should also not be underestimated.

I hope that wasn't all too abstract...
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