Something I've been thinking about for a while now are ways do encourage people to keep and build their accounts over time.

Whilst we have the obvious most wins and tourney wins categorys, there aren't any real longer term achievemants for a new user to work on.

One idea I like is an "awards" section on member profiles. Where we could award a "medal" or suchlike for most wins per year, most tourney wins per year, etc.

I've seen a few other ideas recently which could be adapted like this, but would like to see others opinions and thoughts before flooding the thread!

I like it very much, but what happends when you have most of the awards over a number of years?, wont it just end up like tornament win's ? or highest ranking ?

Its very difficult as anything like the 'medals, 'awards' that you mention will still presumably just tot up on your profile meaning that new players can still never really hope to top such tables in the future as they will always be playing catch-up to members who have been around longer.

The 'season' idea that was discussed a couple of years ago would be the best solution. Keeping all your existing 'all-time' stats but having a season's stats running alongside so that it should show you which are those players currently doing the best in each area. It would create a level playing field at the start of each season giving everyone an equal chance of topping each and every achievement table, allbeit for maybe only the one season.

At the end of the season those get reset and it starts all over again. For players missing the start of a season the next one would start in, say 3 months, or however long providing another opportunity to compete.

This doesnt necessarily encourage players to build an account over time like spinner would like but it would provide a new level of competetiveness I think.

Edited at 11:30 Fri 25/09/09 (BST)

I love spinners idea - but as mentioned by chris, the top players would grab all of these medals and the average player like me who has been here for two years or longer now would still only have a couple to my name.

I am more in favor of the 'season' as well. Then players can go for things like the best win percentage, the best tournament win percentage - really open it up with best newbie stats and so on...and then we can have medals off that.

Of course, we would have to have a minimum game count so people dont play one game and have the 100% game win and walk away.

SO I think that if we mixed spinner's idea in with the old season idea, we could come up with a highly unique system from any other site that I am aware of as far as achievements are concerned.

Most of the existing tables do favour active players hence why the 'problem' exists that new players can never realistically hope to top those tables. Quite severe reductions for non-active players ought to address any that dont, along with minimum games required in order to qualify. It wouldnt matter how severe they were as they would apply to everybody.

Yep these all sound good idea's, like the idea of chris's 3 month season, then medals/awards could be handed out for that season to show on your profile, awards could be handed out for everything really, most run outs in 9ball, most 8ball tourny wins, most games played, reaching highest rank in straight etc......... in that particular season.

but just having the most of things - run outs tournaments etc means that the top players will always top that list.

thats why i think its important for things based on percentage as well as the most _____ wins or what ever.

Yeah agree mate, I just put a few examples down, but said have one for everything, so yeah top win% in each but only after say 100 games or more have been played.
The more awards the better, so not all will only got to a handfull of players

To be fair you really want the top players, at that moment in time, topping the lists. Thats the reward for being a top player. At the moment though a 'new' top player can never realistically top anything other than the 'high score' tables.

Win percentages are easily manipulated, for example by playing friendlies with guests.

Yeah I have seen a few players playing guest's in friendlies which does suggest they are playing to get their %'s up.

Now this quote annoys me.

There are zillions of possible explanations for playing guests. I play guests because I don't play ranked and the amount of registered players playing friendlies is close to 0.

Also, people play guests as it doesn't affect their stats if they have to leave for tournies etc. People play guests because they are warming up. People play guests because they haven't played on the site for 3 months or so...

It's sooo annoying to think that anyone who plays guests are merely there to boost their stats!

/end rant


BOT ~ The season idea is currently the best one. The early stages of the season would generate a lot of competition to get the early lead etc, and encourage a lot of players to play more

The season idea is a good one and could do more than you think towards creating long term appeal.

There is a huge difference in trying to be the top guy every 3 months compared to trying to catch squeezy in the most UK most wins table for example.

The main reson being if you don't make it that time, you can try again next time.

HOWEVER - I suggest that season stats should only begin being recorded for accounts which have been live a set time. By that I mean newly created or reset accounts should not be able to enter immediately.

Believe me Spinner, I KNOW how much this will create to the long term appeal... ... I play an MMORTS game where they have "Top 10 weekly tables" (for about 25,000 daily active players). The competition to get onto them is absolutely insane! I imagine it to fairly similar, if on a smaller scale here.

And I fully agree with the last statement as well. Fake newbies will be stopped, and it will also deter people from picking on "true" newbies to get up there.

Great idea Dave, really hope Nick gets time for this at some point....

After leagues of course