Who wants to play OTTD in a competitive way?

[Mucht]

Hello forums,

most of you probably know our community of cooperative players called #openttdcoop. Now, we developed a new gamestyle to bring competitive games on a standardized levels, so there can be a ranking, ladder or table one time.

Of course, our idea was to combine cooperative and competitive gameplay - and there it is: the "coopetition". The idea:

• * Two players vs. Two players
  * Random map, 256x256
  * 8 game years (~2 hours)
  * Predefined server settings
  * In the end, the train income counts
  * Voicecom is crucial (TS server of #openttdcoop may be used (subchannel))

We only played one "real" coopetition by now, which is was summarized here

You want to take the challenge? You want to train coopetition and need a server? You maybe want to take part in a league/ladder system? All you need is a team of two and - which is recommended but not a "must have" - a common mother tongue within the team to ease the communication. Last but not least: a headset is a pretty good start (costs around 7 Euros at Amazon).

Take care: the game is very fast, very challenging and very exhausting as well. If you want to try it, apply with your teammate at #openttdcoop: join in at our IRC-channel or PM me here in the forums! More information at our dedicated wiki page.

Mucht[/url]

[graphics_master]

I would play, but I need a partner.

Have you got the ladder system running yet?

[Mucht]

I would play, but I need a partner.

Maybe someone from the forums will join your "team".

Have you got the ladder system running yet?

Osai has started the coding. We are also working on a better "ratio" of the performance of the teams which includes more aspects than just the income of trains.

btw: no road vehicles, planes or ships are allowed - only trains are more challenging...

[gkirilov]

IF you ask me the most challenging is to play only with RVs .

Anyway, If I have the time I also would like to join. I've read the #coop wiki several times and it seem interesting. Just make sure that the "score" takes into account several factors like overall profit, income per year, transported cargo and some others from the statistics part.

[Bad Hair Day]

I like the sound of this, something I'd like to take part in, but what do I need a headset for?

Excuse my idiocy, but that confused me.

edit:Realised it's for better comunication. Msn would do for this right?

[Dave]

You don't even need a headset... Speakers and a mic will do.

[Mucht]

Yeah you need it to coordinate your efforts - I don't think you can win a game without coordination. You can use whatever you like to communicate - its up to you. If you're fine with MS, move on. Every team has the possibility to use our Teamspeak-server.

On the "ratio" that calculates the winner of a game: I created a simple formula:
([Train Income] - [# Trains w. pos. Income]*20.000 - [# Trains w. neg. Income]*40.000) / [ (Income your company + Income other company) /2 ]

Which means:
- You are encouraged to make trains which yield at least 20.000 Euros.
- You are encouraged to manage trains and build efficient routes, because trains with negative income are really pulling you down.
- You get a percentage which is a nice figure, in the end

Btw: the percentages are not comparable over games, because it depends on both teams' play. Therefore, we are working on a ladder system which gives or substracts you points.

But for now, our aim is to play some games to get into it and therefore, we really need teams to play with

[akwibroe]

Just should make some kind of ladder-system like clanbase.com

...or you could simply ask clanbase to make an openttd league.

And i'm up for some coopetitive openttd, where do i sign up?

[XeryusTC]

Osai and me are going to make a ladder system ourselves. We are just about to discuss things in private .

And you can sign up in this topic or in #openttdcoop on irc.oftc.net (or here, note that you should read some rules before joining there).
You should keep in mind that signing up isn't possible yet as the ladder system isn't done yet. You will get notified in this thread when it is done .

[MeusH]

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system
You may combine its results with your formula to get a nice and reasonable rating system.

I'm interested in playing, but I don't have a partner yet and my net connection is sometimes slow... and I'm not sure about overloading it with teamspeak

[osai]

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system
You may combine its results with your formula to get a nice and reasonable rating system.

I'm interested in playing, but I don't have a partner yet and my net connection is sometimes slow... and I'm not sure about overloading it with teamspeak

We applied the ELO System, as it is very-well-known and quite fair for players!
Teamspeak isnt neccesary, but quite useful!! We could change the quality of teamspeak to a lower level. It should work even with a modem connection then! 1kb/s for Ottd and maybe 3-4kb/s for Teamspeak if you talk depending on the bitrate!

[MGSteve]

It would be nice to see a ladder system integreated into the game, so results are logged automatically and perhaps there is a dedicated co-op game mode where there is a chat window permantently on the screen, so you can do without a mic/speakers if you want to play on the quiet.

A bit like how Command and Conquer has a built in ladder system when you loose or win a game online. (I know other games have a similar system, but I'm familiary with the C&C one).

[XeryusTC]

We've done quite some talk about the ladder system, although we're far from done yet. We've also got a few scripts running, but they aren't to be shown to the public yet . They are really basic now.

I'm interested in playing, but I don't have a partner yet

We're going to have a system where everybody can join a random team, but the founder of the team must accept the join request. This way you could start your own team and possibly post an advertisement for your team on a dedicated page .
And there is possibly someone out there with the same nationality/native language as you that also wants a team.

[MeusH]

I'm interested in playing, but I don't have a partner yet

We're going to have a system where everybody can join a random team, but the founder of the team must accept the join request. This way you could start your own team and possibly post an advertisement for your team on a dedicated page .
And there is possibly someone out there with the same nationality/native language as you that also wants a team.

That's great! And how about a completly random assignement, so even number of users get randomly assigned to other users? This wouldn't require user's confirmation - hence truely random match.
Of course, things like "spoken lanugage" and "preferred language" may be considered...

[Mucht]

I'm interested in playing, but I don't have a partner yet

We're going to have a system where everybody can join a random team, but the founder of the team must accept the join request. This way you could start your own team and possibly post an advertisement for your team on a dedicated page .
And there is possibly someone out there with the same nationality/native language as you that also wants a team.

That's great! And how about a completly random assignement, so even number of users get randomly assigned to other users? This wouldn't require user's confirmation - hence truely random match.
Of course, things like "spoken lanugage" and "preferred language" may be considered...

Sounds interesting - for a tournament or maybe a "special weekend" or so. But for the long run I prefer fixed teams because its also fun to exercise your strategies together with one certain partner and bringt your gamestyle to a higher level.

This week, Osai and I exercised on one evening and played a full coopetition game tonight. The interesting thing is that you can't train a competitive game without haveing a real challenger - so coopetition is always new, in every game, even with the same partner

[XeryusTC]

I was just thinking about a random team tournament too, just a quick setup with everybody that signs up for it. You'll be assigned to a random person and you have to fight your way through a knock-out tournament with your partner.

And we've (mostly I) have some script running already, they only need to be put in the HTML template so they look nice and you can start to create an account at our ladder. We've got a small team viewer too but it isn't possible to join/create one yet . Osai and me should really get working tomorrow .
Our current setup also allows teams bigger then 2 players, so we could get 3vs3 up to 5vs5 ladders too. I can't promise that we will do this though.

And tonight's game was really weird to see, the red team (hylje and guru3) stopped building after 3 years so it was very easy for Osai and Mucht (the yellow team) to win. It was A LOT harder for them to find opponents than to win, maybe you guys should have announced the game here .

[Mucht]

Our ladder system is currently under heavy development. A short overview on the upcoming functionality can be found here.

[XeryusTC]

You can always join #coopetition on irc.oftc.net to share your ideas (and visions) about the ladder.

[peach]

I have a question:

On your wikipage (http://openttdcoop.ppcis.org/wiki/index.php/Coopetition) you state that:
# The playing time is limited to 8 years (~2 hours). The game will take place from 1959 - 1967 to make upgrading of locos necessary.

# In the end, the train income and running costs matters. At the beginning of year 1968 the game will be paused and a screenshot of the budgets will be taken. The net income, calculated by train income minus train running costs will be the key figure.

Yes 1967-1959 = 8 years. But since you play from jan 59 -> jan 68 (where you stop the game and takes the end screenshot you end up playing 9 years.

So what is wrong? Should you play 8 or 9 years?

[Mucht]

Thats a very good point

In the first coopetition games it has shown that the game becomes quite consistant in the last two years. We will very likely cutt year 1968 off the timeline and shorten the gamlength for some 12-13 minutes.