TS centralised website (turbosliders.com) - Features Request

Post by **Badeend** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 10:34 am

If you need a webdesigner (XHTML, PHP, MySQL etc etc, and maybe some designing tasks), i would love to build some things for this TS-website

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:46 am

dede wrote:Yeah mikko, something like that it's already on our to-do list. In order to avoid cheating we are thinking to dedicate a server to record hunting (few laps, ghost, car not fixed, not many tracks)..

How about a server similar to the current DIT server but with the track changing in random every day?

Post by **dede** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:01 am

mikko wrote:
dede wrote:Yeah mikko, something like that it's already on our to-do list. In order to avoid cheating we are thinking to dedicate a server to record hunting (few laps, ghost, car not fixed, not many tracks)..
How about a server similar to the current DIT server but with the track changing in random every day?

Nope, a server like the current DIT server, but with 20-30 tracks in it. This will provide to generate a new OFFICIAL NOT CHEATED ranking! No lapwanking offline, no times uploads etc..

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:53 pm

dede wrote:Nope, a server like the current DIT server, but with 20-30 tracks in it. This will provide to generate a new OFFICIAL NOT CHEATED ranking! No lapwanking offline, no times uploads etc..

Yes, the record server should become obsolete due to possibility for cheating and, in particular, due to the unbearable fact the some people actually utilize this option.

Your plan sounds good. However, I would consider having more than 20-30 tracks to be counted in the ranking. That would not require increasing the number of tracks in the server. Instead, there could be a larger database of critically selected tracks from which 20-30 are selected to the server in random each time the server restarts. Perhaps it would be sufficient if just one track would be replaced at each restart. In the long run there is a danger that people get fed up with wanking only 20-30 tracks notwhitstanding the wanking taking place online. As far as I have understood, this is why there is no more server for standard tracks only.

Post by **dede** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:58 pm

The idea is to start with 20-30 *new* tracks and after some months add 1 track/month.

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:03 pm

OK, that is a good idea.

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:54 pm

In addition to the fastest lap in the (hopefully) forthcoming ranking system, it would be interesting to get some information concerning consistency. Average of 10 fastest times of each driver, for example, could be given some weight. Or alternatively the best total times of 15 laps or whatever the number of laps shall be. Or both.

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:35 pm

It would be interesting, I think, to classify the tracks on the basis of their properties. Some obvious classifications would be as follows:

1. Length of the track (short/medium/long)
2. Speed of the track (slow/medium/fast), which could be measured by dividing the length of the track by lap time.
3. Hardness of track (easy/medium/hard), perhaps measured by standard deviation of lap times.
4. Popularity of the track, based on the frequency it is driven (rarely/occasionally/frequently)
5. Best car for the track. Not necessarily based solely on the best lap times but also on how hard the car is to drive there. This could be determined in combination of best lap times and their standard deviations.

There might be many more interesting classifications but none else in my head at the moment of writing.

Considering the hopefully forthcoming new ranking system, the classifications could provide subcategories for the rankings (in addition to the car-specific rankings).

Post by **dede** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:43 pm

Ok, I see that there aren't new requests, so I can publish the list of features.

ABOUT TURBOSLIDERS.COM
-Videos, infos about the full game, game history, hall of fame, demo ranking etc -> to increase demo players' number
-New statistics' system (like TheDude's one) for races & mods (i.e. PunaBall)
-Online record-hunting with a dedicated server -> records have to be done online in order to avoid cheating and to populate online servers
-New ranking system based on points (different rankings, based on online races -> lapwanking ranking for lapwanking server; race points for race server; punaball matches...)
-Possibility to assign a server to cup's organizers for limited hours/days (service managed through server's script & ts centralised website)
-Cup report system & tools that help players organising a cup + Cups&Tournaments' calendar
-Tutorials and guides about trackmacking, skillful driving, pb tacticts...)
Track/Demo Player/Full Player/Car/Tool of the day/week or random
-Reviews about tracks/players/cars/tools (managed by ts-community)
-Players' Interviews
-Online help for newbies ("ask and get an answer"-column / chat / forum / online IRC help -> #turbosliders)
-Server with 20-30 tracks in it, 15 laps per track, ghost, cars not fixed -> This will provide to generate a new OFFICIAL NOT CHEATED ranking! No lapwanking offline, no times uploads etc.. (after 1 year, we can add 1 track/month)

ABOUT THE GAME:
-New demo mode (features)
-Centralised profiles system (in-game login system/accounts..)
-In-game space for cups & tournaments
-In-game ranking accessibility

I've also a bad news for TS Community (but not for me

): I signed a new contract with a WebAgency and I will be working for them for the whole summer and maybe for 2007 too (it is linked to what i decide to do next year -> study or work?), so I will have no-time for personal web-projects at least for this summer. This means that I can't invest time programming turbosliders.com, but I will be available for leading this project and a team of programmers, if we find them. At the moment there are some: Jarno, Hengari, Lzan (not sure), Badeend, Tijny (not programmer), xzeal (not programmer). But I'm not sure if they can dedicate time for the project. If someone is available, please contact me or someone of the team.

And, last but not least, I am going on holiday next Wednesday, I will be home in August. I hope you'll enjoy your holidays too

wazaari · Post by **wazaari** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:58 pm

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benzinfurz · Post by **benzinfurz** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 6:55 am

Well , i dont know much about this project now cause i havent read more than the first half page, so i dont know if these things were already mentioned
the thing directly came to my mind with a centralized website is a

track uploading (like on jazzys webpage was/is)
track rating of uploaded tracks

track rating thoughts :

in the track rating everybody who wants and who is logged in can give lets say 1-5 points for each track and so tracks are rated
the voters should be logged in for some reasons:

noone should vote a track more than on time cause that would destroy the voting result
no guest should vote because that would also give the possibility to multivote
by the way the author shouldnt vote to but thats quite unimportant

there is the possibility to show the top 10 rated tracks on the main page of the website so that everyone can see which tracks are voted well

PS: i just read the thread by mikko about classifiing tracks
this classifiing like:

1. Length of the track (short/medium/long)
2. Speed of the track (slow/medium/fast), which could be measured by dividing the length of the track by lap time.
3. Hardness of track (easy/medium/hard), perhaps measured by standard deviation of lap times.
4. Popularity of the track, based on the frequency it is driven (rarely/occasionally/frequently)
5. Best car for the track. Not necessarily based solely on the best lap times but also on how hard the car is to drive there. This could be determined in combination of best lap times and their standard deviations.

could be done by the author of track so that players know which track they download

1. length could be done by the time you need for one lap like 30seconds
2. speed i dont really understand what is meant and it seems to me a weird idea

4. popularity can also be measured through the rating system and the amount of driving and downloading

well these are the first thought dede and others maybe there will come some more soon, sry that ive written that late through not being in the forum for months

Hengari · Post by **Hengari** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:07 pm

benzinfurz wrote:Well , i dont know much about this project now cause i havent read more than the first half page, so i dont know if these things were already mentioned

Actually I'm planning/doing that kind of track database which you can vote/download tracks and classified like mikko suggested combined with the track review -style.

Just a bit lazy time now so it needs still a lot more work before finished.

benzinfurz · Post by **benzinfurz** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:50 pm

Actually I'm planning/doing that kind of track database which you can vote/download tracks

yeah hengari, i knew that u do this and your page was in my mind when i wrote the post, so dede look at it

just the problem on your site, hengari, is that there are only your tracks and thats what i want changed for the centralized page that really everyone can upload his track and get them voted

Hengari · Post by **Hengari** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 4:01 pm

benzinfurz wrote:
Actually I'm planning/doing that kind of track database which you can vote/download tracks
just the problem on your site, hengari, is that there are only your tracks and thats what i want changed for the centralized page that really everyone can upload his track and get them voted

I meant that I'm planning that kind of system for all the tracks.

benzinfurz · Post by **benzinfurz** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:42 pm

thats nice

senseless post plz delete soon

Limp-pu · Post by **Limp-pu** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:50 pm

About the Track-database, which Hengari is working on.
It would be good if one could vote the track for every car seperately. Then for example slider-players would find the tracks they like. and a good slider-track wouldnt get low points from anti-drivers. And other way too.

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 4:50 pm

benzinfurz wrote:2. speed i dont really understand what is meant and it seems to me a weird idea

Well, with speed I mean velocity, which is distance divided by time (v=d/t). So one would need to know the length of the track in meters (or in pixels). There might be some correlation between velocity and easiness of the track. Just consider arena, for example.

Limp-pu wrote:About the Track-database, which Hengari is working on.
It would be good if one could vote the track for every car seperately. Then for example slider-players would find the tracks they like. and a good slider-track wouldnt get low points from anti-drivers. And other way too.

Yeah, this is a good idea. A track which is a pleasure to drive with spinner might be a pain in the ass with speeder and vice versa.

Post by **dede** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:40 am

I just came back from holidays. I've a couple days in which I'm free, so I'm planning to realize the most important feature TS needs: the records' system. I don't know yet if PTX can give us a server for record hunting (10-15 laps/track), but I don't see any problem in doing that (I think that we can convert one between Racing or Fun tracks' server into this record hunting server -> Maybe we can also apply a script to vote the type of the cup people want to drive "Vote Fun" or "Vote Racing" -> Less tracks, more cups -> 8-10 tracks).
About the ranking's features:
- both times&points' ranking
- 5 default cars + brasilian default cars if they agree and they can build a server for record hunting
- online wanking + video uploading (via browser)
- DIT tracks + new tracks + 1 more track every month (DIT)

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:27 pm

Dede, this is starting to sound very good. For sure, there is no need for the separate racing and fun servers, haven't ever seen both crowded simultaneously. So that would make the record-hunting server.

About video uploading, have you figured out how to parse the lap times from the video file?

DIT tracks being the ones to be added after each month is great, simply great. That's exactly the way it should be in my opinion. Let's just hope ippon remains as strong and dedicated as it currently appears to be.

Jarno · Post by **Jarno** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:10 pm

I dont like that DIT track idea. Because i would like to have there best tracks. Like in DIT3 the track wasn't so good for my opinion. Best way would be that when we have voting system in turbosliders.com and we can see top50 tracks for example, those would be automatically in wanker servers tracks.

I would like also that there is only a default cars. Because other cars sucks and lap times aren't comparable to default cars.

That video recording system wanking thing sound too complicated. It is simple to have only online lap times without possibility to send times in server.

The biggest problem is here that if we remove fun or racing server it would mean that it is even more difficult to choose tracks in server. Now we have about ~100 tracks in both servers. And it isnt good to raise number of tracks. So it would mean that there would be best tracks and then some new trackmakers cant see own tracks in servers because there is lot so much better tracks. So this record server should be third server. Other way it makes all things too complicated.

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:55 pm

Jarno wrote:I dont like that DIT track idea. Because i would like to have there best tracks. Like in DIT3 the track wasn't so good for my opinion. Best way would be that when we have voting system in turbosliders.com and we can see top50 tracks for example, those would be automatically in wanker servers tracks.

In my opinion the first two DIT tracks were excellent and I didn't find the DIT3 track bad either even though it had one major drawback of having invisible grass on the road every here and there. Anyway, the DITs should be only run on very good tracks thus suitable for the record hunting system.

Jarno wrote:The biggest problem is here that if we remove fun or racing server it would mean that it is even more difficult to choose tracks in server. Now we have about ~100 tracks in both servers. And it isnt good to raise number of tracks. So it would mean that there would be best tracks and then some new trackmakers cant see own tracks in servers because there is lot so much better tracks. So this record server should be third server. Other way it makes all things too complicated.

I think the number of tracks in the PTX servers is way too large, many of them much worse than any of the three DIT tracks. If the three-server strategy is to be followed, I would select the following distribution:

1. Record-hunting server
2. Racing/Fun server with 20-30 of the very best tracks of both categories. Perhaps some maximum number of tracks from each trackmaker would help the selection. Addition of a new track to the server would require another track of the maker to be downgraded to server 3.
3. All other good tracks not meeting the highest criteria to be included in server 2.

If a two-server strategy is to be followed, then server 3 would be dropped.

Post by **dede** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:09 pm

mikko wrote:For sure, there is no need for the separate racing and fun servers, haven't ever seen both crowded simultaneously.

Yes, this is because I think 2 servers like that aren't useful.

mikko wrote:About video uploading, have you figured out how to parse the lap times from the video file?

There are two different ways: manual or automatic. In order to avoid cheating I would prefer using the manual one (videos validated by me or admins). The automatic system would require some help also by Ande.

mikko wrote:DIT tracks being the ones to be added after each month is great, simply great.

Well, it's not required that tracks are from DIT, but DIT would provide "semi-fast" laptimes each month.

Jarno wrote:I would like also that there is only a default cars. Because other cars sucks and lap times aren't comparable to default cars.

5 default cars + brazilian default cars -> I think it's a good idea in order to have also brazilian players in the ranking. It's a pity excluding them all only because they use 2/3 different cars. We can put all together. TurboSliders.com & its services have to consider that the brazilian community is something like 50% of the whole TS community.
Of course, in this case only *IF THEY ARE INTERESTED IN LAPWANKING*.

Jarno wrote:That video recording system wanking thing sound too complicated. It is simple to have only online lap times without possibility to send times in server.

If we want an automatic video-validating system, then it's actually very hard to build that. In the new ranking system there won't be AT ALL the possibility to UPLOAD the records' files, so the only way to proove a laptime obtained offline or in another server would be the video system, also if manually managed.

Jarno wrote:So this record server should be third server.

I don't care about second or third server. The lapwanking's server will be needed when the system will be ready. And PTX are the best european servers, this is why I thought about it. Like mikko said, Racing & Fun tracks aren't used both in the same time, so if PTX isn't able to give us another server, I think that one of them could be replaced with the lapwanking server. But this will be discussed directly with PTX guys & the TS Community later (when the script will be ready).

Post by **dede** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:11 pm

mikko wrote:1. Record-hunting server
2. Racing/Fun server with 20-30 of the very best tracks of both categories. Perhaps some maximum number of tracks from each trackmaker would help the selection. Addition of a new track to the server would require another track of the maker to be downgraded to server 3.
3. All other good tracks not meeting the highest criteria to be included in server 2.

If a two-server strategy is to be followed, then server 3 would be dropped.

Are you able to read my mind? Sometimes I think so.

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:18 pm

dede wrote:Are you able to read my mind? Sometimes I think so.

Yeah, of course. I have some experience with telepathy.

Jarno · Post by **Jarno** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:53 pm

Well there have to be many tracks because those who drive a lot in servers (like 3h/day) doesnt get bored. So this number is good. I think if we should banish somebody we should banish those who doesnt race so much...