High score server

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filbo
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Re: High score server

Post by filbo »

Holger wrote:
filbo wrote:That is: have a passworded (or whatever -- 2FA?) login to the server, and their uploads are tagged to that server username.
And here things would start being complicated, and for two reasons: First of all, it would require some sort of "real" account system (to prevent others using your account), rather than just tagging your score with an arbitrary string that happens to be your username in R'n'D. Then, it would raise the GDPR issues again, as such an account would be PII, which that arbitrary string is not.
If I create an account on a 'service', giving it only a pseudonymous username and a password, is that PII? Is my forum account here on artsoft.org PII? -- I see that I can set a birthday on the account (but not, amusingly, a real name!). And a bunch of other fields like occupation & interests. But, having left all of that blank (and presumably the RnD score server wouldn't even have fields for such things) -- is it PII? I don't see it. But nor am I steeped in GDPR...
Holger wrote:
filbo wrote:For instance, what if some of them were done with lots of 'cheating' and others weren't, and I made a personal decision that I only wanted to upload tapes which were done 'naturally'?
If you are able to distinguish your own tapes regarding such aspects, just upload those tapes you want. R'n'D will offer a command line option to upload arbitrary existing tapes to the server.
Sure. That was in a context of supposing that RnD would offer to upload one's tapes, first time one ran a version of RnD supporting the server. (Note: any such first-startup dialog must also be reachable by the user from GUI actions! e.g. if I were asked something like that, I would almost certainly say no; then after having explored the service and decided it was benign, I might want to go back and say 'yes'!)
Holger wrote:
filbo wrote:SO, I think when one first runs the new 'upload tapes' edition of RnD, it should survey existing tapes and dialog with the user about whether to upload those.
This would be the perfect solution, but would require some new "extended dialog" (that would also be useful for other things where the current "door dialog" is too small).

My idea was to just add a setup option "upload all my tapes" (that might disappear after it was used). :-)
No, please don't disappear it after use. OK to label it e.g. '(already done)', but if I say to do it again, it should. Maybe I copied in some tapes from my account on the next machine in my house. Who knows.
Holger wrote:
filbo wrote:Uploads could be tagged with metadata anonymously indicating who uploaded them. That is: generate a UUID the first time the game with these features is played.
The problem with this could be people playing R'n'D with the same user name on different devices, which would then get different UUIDs. :-/
That's a problem, but a small problem :)

Suppose I anonymously upload my tapes from machines A & B, where I have UUID-A and UUID-B. Later I decide to 'own' those uploads. I run RnD on machine A and login as 'filbo' to the server. The server notes that UUID-A may now be associated with 'filbo'. The game dialogs with me, along the lines of: The score server has 5432 tapes attributed to this instance of Rocks'n'Diamonds; attach these to account 'filbo'? What it's really asking is 2 different things: 'Is this your own personal machine where you have built up these tapes?' (as opposed to, for instance, I am logging into the server from my friend's machine); and 'Given that these are yours, do you actually want to attach to them?'

If I say yes, the server associates UUID-A with account 'filbo'.

And then I play on machine B, login to the server as 'filbo', go through the same dialog. If I again say yes, now there are 2 UUIDs associated with 'filbo'. No big deal.
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RAP
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Re: High score server

Post by RAP »

Oh hey, so I see that one of the traditions of the Emerald Mine Club and their levelsets in which score attacking these countless levels is now being brought into fruition, Rocks'n'Diamonds edition; and I say this because of reading countless messages of the level creator or the level creator group having to clear out fake scores and stuff while playing these levelsets. Is there going to be keeping track of another type of hiscore, speedrunning individual levels? Speedrunning is also a thing to keep in mind. I mean if this is going to be a thing, you could use my submitted tapes from my Emerald Mine Club level completion progress topic, though I only uploaded the tapes of completed levelsets.
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Holger
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Re: High score server

Post by Holger »

Uploads could be tagged with metadata anonymously indicating who uploaded them. That is: generate a UUID the first time the game with these features is played.
filbo, I've just added this feature you proposed. This also has the advantage that it is possible to later change your player name for all your uploaded tapes, as the score server can just change the player name for that UUID. (This is not implemented yet.)
you could use my submitted tapes from my Emerald Mine Club level completion progress topic, though I only uploaded the tapes of completed levelsets
RAP, that's cool! So your tapes and scores will be among the first the new high score server will return for many of the EMC levels! :-)
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RAP
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Re: High score server

Post by RAP »

You know, this high score server talk made me remember that I used to play BD4, which is a Emerald Mine clone (which differs from an Emerald Mine-like) that you can see the whole level, which in hindsight was something Rocks'n'Diamonds didn't feature until later but with custom graphics (and the older DX Boulderdash almost did it completely). Of course, I lost those accounts since it doesn't appear to have a feature for resending the password or resetting the password to the associated e-mail address. Speaking of that game, the website's still up: http://bd4.amristar.com.au/ - more or less unchanged; I'm a bit sad there's no new levelsets or even new game elements, but that's for a different topic.

Of course, when playing those levels, there's a ranking system, and the creator or maintainer of the game has either been 1st or 2nd in the leaderboard on their website, since they made the original BD4 levelset and complied levels from the Emerald Mine Club, since it turns out that some of the levels that were pulled from the Emerald Mine Club were modified, which may also mean the scoring system may be different from how score is done during the original games.

I'm pondering whether to make yet another account and try to go top 10 or top 3 hardcore this time, although that has it's own set of problems. Say, Holger, or anyone else reading this, have you played BD4 before? Saying it because of the online high score ranking system as part of the discussion here.
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Holger
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Re: High score server

Post by Holger »

Regarding BD4, yes, I remember that this was an EM clone with apparently a quite active community to compete against each others in high score lists! Never played it for myself, though, and that web site seems to be a bit inactive now...
I'm pondering whether to make yet another account and try to go top 10 or top 3 hardcore this time, although that has it's own set of problems. Say, Holger, or anyone else reading this, have you played BD4 before? Saying it because of the online high score ranking system as part of the discussion here.
Maybe it's worth having a closer look at this site again, as some features may be also nice or useful for R'n'D's high score server. For example, showing from which country the users in the score ranking come from might be nice (and can be done via the IP address of the uploaded score tapes in most cases).

Regarding accounts and lost passwords, to make things as simple as possible in the R'n'D high score server variant, I decided to not use such an approach at all and just throw in the name which the player entered in R'n'D. After some suggestions from filbo to be able to assign "real users" to player names (and to be able to detect if different players used the same name, maybe even by accident), I added an individual UUID that is sent along with the player name, which would even make it possible to later change the player name for all scores already submitted.

I hope that I manage it to release a "release candidate" version before the end of this month... :)
Dirkimops
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Re: High score server

Post by Dirkimops »

Yes, I was one of those who played BD4 for quite some time on http://bd4.amristar.com.au/ some years ago. Indeed there's not so much going on there anymore, but maybe if some of you started to compete there this might get noticed. Anyway it seems the "newer" levelsets (Tropical, Reef, Fruity, Forest, Mountains, Jungle) were best ofs of Emerald Mine levels - sorted by topics or level of difficulty.
Coming back to the topic "High Score Server": I had also played RnD some time ago, and when my sun asked me to reinstall it on our new laptop I noticed that the High Score Server feature was added. This led to some new motivation on my side. :D
Just an additional idea: Maybe a total ranking per levelset could be added - like on the BD4 site.
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