FFArena

[F10EX]

Why is it so dead?
Why nobody even though they have admin rights, just boycots the bot?
if the bot stays inactive for 1 week, its an avalanche effect, and it gets worse and worse, the same can be said in the opposite direction.

Why doesn't anybody want to try and make some efforts to make it alive again?
Wouldn't it be more fun to play vs thousands of players instead of the same 5?

[FML|WorpeX]

I never can find games for it. Then again, I'm really not all that sure how it works. I'm used to Ugri's bot which continuously hosted games.

[Ugrilainen]

I could write an essay about why it is sadly not working well :(

I tried to help Yosh fix it in November, I thought it would be all good but issues are still there.

1- The map pool on which I insisted sooo much for years to preserve activity is too messed up (too many custom maps, not viewable on bnet). I remember when Seksi or Hayder made riots to make me change my mind and let the community chose the map pool : you see what would have happened!

2- There is not an easy place to see game names (here / playffa.net before)

3- admin team did not get along at the start of the project (not blaming anyone here)

4- there is no ladder, the stats registration is not on the same system I used to make. Mine was not perfect but worked quite fine

5- Yosh is busy with w3arena, no spare time to spend on ffarena. playffa was time consuming so I understand

6- Bots are not monitored and can stay down for a while before anyone noticing

7- Bots are not linked to as many servers as I used to link them

8- No community place for players to meet

9- No events organized (playffa cup / weekly events)

10- No streaming (Seksi among others for example used to gather a lot of attention for playffa bots by streaming live -> viewers thought it was fun -> where can I play?

Those are the major flaws.

Sometimes I think "eh that's  sad, I should fix it". But it would be a lot of work that I could not do alone. W3arena owns the bots now. The players here do not seems to miss it that much (symposium games and skype groups solve the lack of bot activity) except maybe Seksi/Qwest who loved the ladder.

The russians speakers who were representing 40% of the players now play on a russian hosted garena bot (probably on rubattle.net too). They have a ladder of some sort. Qwest posted the link once. It would be a rude competitor to the installment of a new "playffa type" project. That is what I told Qwest in November when we discussed the matter.

[F10EX]

I figured most of those flaws, I think at least half of them could be accomplished, also with your expertise and Yosh willingness it could be done.

I've made contact with Yosh before, we go back, I could try to arrange for some things to be done. But as this thread shows, the lack of interest by everyone is sad.

Sad you let the project go to waste.

[Ugrilainen]

I tried to transfer it. Myself I could not keep it up : time consuming, had a very bad internet (could not even join games most of the time) and my timezone made it hardcore to manage anything (I live in China now).

The lack of interest by the community became obvious to me when I stopped, most players here lost interest in the ladder (many newbs playing stupid, some felt unfairly teamed, some did not like it, some hackers would ruin games too etc...). When I stopped, most known players did not really like the bot, and chose to play private games from skype like it is done now.

Just asked Qwest the link to the russian bot :
http://stats.onligamez.ru/

It is hosted on rubattle.net, northrend and kalimdor. They have 6 maps in rotation, including one random heroes.

Bot name to look for would be : Melee FFA
replays should be there : http://stats.onligamez.ru/?st=3&games=

That is where the russians went

[Ugrilainen]

All right just letting you know, I have been discussing with Yosh, Ponty and Seksi.

I am trying to upgrade ffarena this weekend, twitching it so it get closer to what playffa was in term of configuration. I will extend the number of realm connections as well as some other things. This is to try to increase activity.

2nd step will be to get deeper and make it possible to organize a working ladder. For that I will need more access so I will discuss with Yosh further.

Ultimately if all goes well, you could have a working ladder. I would not manage it, Ponty will. He will need some admins to help out, like I used to : you will figure this out!

Cheers

~Ugri

[Seksi]

Woot!

[Ugrilainen]

UPDATES HERE

1- hosted on :

- rubattle.neT 
- eurobattle.net 
- gamers.host 
- warcraft3.eu 
- a Georgian server... 
- an American one... 
- a Finnish one... 

2- Map changes

- Removed unpopular maps (Garden of War, Flood Plains, Battleground, Thunder Lake)
- All maps start with 4 players
- Rotation is : Market, Sanctuary, Deathrose, Silverpine, Northshire, Twilight Ruins, Deadlock, Gold Rush

3- Other changes

- kicking ping limit set to 270 from 230
- removed CGArena official maps in rotation, so it does not compete with ffarena bot for visibility on bnet

[Hudkraem]

Well not much to say except, Ugri Rank #1. Would love to see him back among us a bit more often

[Ugrilainen]

I compared a little further ffarena and onlinegamez.ru

Ladder games per day

ffarena ~15-20
onlinegamez.ru ~30-35

Connections

ffarena : just updated, added rubattle.net, eurobattle.net and some others. Only real bonus is having w3arena.

onlinegamez.ru : links the whole russian community ( Russian garena rooms, rubattle.net, an active server I dont know yet Iccup, eurobattle.net)

I think the cleverest solution would be to merge the two to have a real working and active ladder. Now I highly doubt that this is possible. It would be cool at least to talk to onlinegamez.ru admins and see what they think about it.

I will try to link Iccup as well if it is possible.

Garena is not free. As I just realized, playffa.net was banned from 4/5 garena rooms, despite payment.  So i could try to link ffarena there and get banned anyway. I am not sure who handles those bans but maybe they only allow russian bots in their channels.

Those garena rooms are quite interesting since you have 800 players there at low hours, much more than on w3arena itself.

(ty Hudkraem)

 
Any Russian speakers who knows onlinegamez.ru admins?

[F10EX]

Good job ugri, I knew you could make things turn again.

Further studies for you, and if you want my help just say, Ive been playing on the russian bot, 95% of the gamers there are Garena.

Why russian bot > ffarena:
Stats are perfectly recorded ( even records heros killed vs deaths)
Names are completely anonymous ( in ffarena you say some commands and a list of players comes)
Even though russian bot has a super confusing name it gets more people and the games fill very fast. I think it comes from Garena, because those channels have very few other games.

Edit: If a game doesn't start in 10 minutes its rehosted another map ( This is the dealbreaker, if a12 map isnt filling, it just rehosts another and another till it finds one that fills.

[FML|WorpeX]

GJ ugri. Anyway you can get the script working again so I can place the current hosted maps on FML?

[Ugrilainen]

Good job ugri, I knew you could make things turn again.

Further studies for you, and if you want my help just say, Ive been playing on the russian bot, 95% of the gamers there are Garena.

Why russian bot > ffarena:
Stats are perfectly recorded ( even records heros killed vs deaths)
Names are completely anonymous ( in ffarena you say some commands and a list of players comes)
Even though russian bot has a super confusing name it gets more people and the games fill very fast. I think it comes from Garena, because those channels have very few other games.

Edit: If a game doesn't start in 10 minutes its rehosted another map ( This is the dealbreaker, if a12 map isnt filling, it just rehosts another and another till it finds one that fills.

it is very helpful as again, i cannot join a game on both bots. All these can be fixed or done, except for the hero death counting thing. I'm actually looking for help and for players reporting issues with the bot, playing on it!

 

GJ ugri. Anyway you can get the script working again so I can place the current hosted maps on FML?

this will be possible when/if Yosh gives me access to his ftp. I am waiting to hear back from him soon

(thks f10 and worpex)

[Ugrilainen]

update : Yosh has no access to the ftp, potentially due to the messy Keno/Yosh transition (but i do not know), will try to get it from lunaghost if they agree to consider me as a legitimate partner which is more than doubtful.

Yosh really wants a working ladder so garena hosting is planned. I contacted Iccup for hosting there as well. I managed to create an account but could not get a bot to log on.

Keep you posted!