Smurfs have been around since forever, and have a lot of culture accompanying them. Remember the ICCUP Who is Who? threads--curated by the penetrating knowledge of the savant roMAD?
Well, I hope to bring some of that back--and maybe more. I've begun developing a tool called vroMAD (virtual roMAD), which extracts hotkey information from replays and uses this to calculate the similarity between the hotkey setups of players in different replays. This tool relies heavily on the sc2reader library, so I owe ShadesofGray and the sc2reader contributors many thanks.
How does it work? First, to analyze a replay with unknown players, vroMAD needs a repository or folder containing reference replays containing players with known identities. It extracts hotkey information using sc2reader, and quantifies the hotkey setup of each player in every replay. It then uses the information "learned" from each of the players in the reference replays to compute a similarity score against the players in the unknown replay. Note that each reference replay contributes at least two players to the reference set. So, for say around 100 reference replays, there will be around 200 reference players to be compared against.
Update 2013/09/23 I'm currently in the process of migrating computer setups, and my internet access has been spotty for the last couple of days. I hope to have everything sorted out by the end of the week so that I can continue building binaries on my Windows machine.
If you wish to run the Python source directly, the latest development version is on github. https://github.com/eqy/vroMAD
There is a Python2 branch if you only have Python2. This branch will run fine in the Python2 interpreter, but won't compile to a distributable binary.
See the following video for a quick 1-minute demo of how it's used.
Note that I'm testing it with known replays to highlight how the similarity measure works. Also note that your loading times will vary: it will probably take around two minutes to load 100 replays.
The most important thing to suggest a player's identity is the first few entries in the similarity ranking: if the ranking is dominated by a single name in the first few spots AND the score is quite high (> 0.96/0.97), there's a good chance you've found the player
There are still issues with some replays recently uncovered that seem to be malformed. There are a couple of these that will crash sc2reader+vroMAD from the Group 1 and Group 2 folder of the Dreamhack summer pack. There's a battle.net forum thread about this: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/10014611448
If you encounter any errors, please respond with either a post in this thread, going into as much detail as possible about the exception so that I may be able to replicate it. Malformed replays, as mentioned earlier, should trigger an exception pop-up. If that's the case, a screenshot of the popup should give enough information.
Github issues are also acceptable.
If you have a replay that crashes the program, sharing it would be great, but I understand that some replays are sensitive (this is why this is a desktop application and not a binary, so professionals don't have to distribute replays they don't want to).
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
I remember the Who is Who thread. And i have been longing for a similar thread to pop up. And how awesome isn't it that this time it is automated! Very nicely done!
I want to test the program, but it seems it isn't compatible with 32 bit windows?
On September 20 2013 08:21 Megashira wrote: I remember the Who is Who thread. And i have been longing for a similar thread to pop up. And how awesome isn't it that this time it is automated! Very nicely done!
I want to test the program, but it seems it isn't compatible with 32 bit windows?
Right now the build is x86_64, I'll see if I can have a 32-bit version up soon.
I have nothing else to say about the program itself that hasn't already been said, so as far as it goes, it's neat, yes.
Have you considered, however, should this program prove very accurate, that it may have negative effects for the pro scene as a whole? I believe that everyone has a right to practice anonymously, even on the ladder.
On September 20 2013 23:57 shadymmj wrote: I have nothing else to say about the program itself that hasn't already been said, so as far as it goes, it's neat, yes.
Have you considered, however, should this program prove very accurate, that it may have negative effects for the pro scene as a whole? I believe that everyone has a right to practice anonymously, even on the ladder.
On the other hand, it can easily catch people maphacking while smurfing. Looking at the preview of Jaedong, it doesn't give you 100% identification, just probability, which is good.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
I'm sure the pros already know who most of the different barcodes at the top of the ladder are. They run in to eachother and practise together enough that it's not possible to keep it sevret from eachother. This is just for curious TLers who love to speculate and discuss SC2.
With WCS now releasing replays and other tournaments like Dreamhack periodically releasing theirs, there should be a ton of good replays with identified players to be used in this program. I'm really interested to see what comes up from this.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
I'm sure the pros already know who most of the different barcodes at the top of the ladder are. They run in to eachother and practise together enough that it's not possible to keep it sevret from eachother. This is just for curious TLers who love to speculate and discuss SC2.
Watch last Meta.
On September 21 2013 01:52 Brian333 wrote: What are those gun-like sensor things they use at stores to read barcodes called? That should be the name of this program.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
My buddy had this idea before.. I think he didn't bother with it because of laziness.. and I didn't pursue it because it seems like something that simply hurts the obvious need for anonymity for ||||||||| players =\
On September 21 2013 01:37 Hollandrock wrote: This is an awesome feature! It would certainly be very interesting if we could see who some of the players are likely to be.
I feel that team-shared accounts and name changes might make this quite confusing, though.
Right now the currently simplicity in implementation makes it very flexible to these kinds of situations. It only considers individual players from individual replays, so the question becomes modified:
It's not "what's the real, fixed identity of that barcode I just played?" Rather, it's "who does the barcode, in this replay specifically," match most closely?
On September 21 2013 02:35 Yellow-Snow wrote: HAHAHA My idea came true!!!!
I used to spam this link all over the streams to get more help but noone really wanted to.
This isn't exactly the implementation I'm using at the moment, but I may be add an option to use a similar one in the future (see the blog post about the techniques being used). The main issue with something like that is that I'm not sure exactly how to group things together. I have a good idea for Terran, but I'm not sure what units inform well on hotkey setups.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
Little uncalled for here.
I see what you're getting at, HK, but the simple answer is to separate the two actions. Practice standard play on ladder, and save specific builds and new tactics in games set aside for intense theory crafting play. It takes a little more effort to schedule things I'm sure, but it seems possible and useful.
I understand the desire to have build orders and such removed from a score screen, and realistically that's a concern pros have been asking for forever so there's no reason that shouldn't be possible. However, if you're practicing a new build out on ladder, if it's any good then the moment you do it against a competent opponent it's already out there, and they've got a replay showing how you did it. I guess I just don't see how that's less of a concern than hiding ladder information.
On September 20 2013 23:32 a176 wrote: you should tweet this out to progamers and/or reddit it
I think most progamers already know which barcode is which players simply by playing against them a lot at analyzing their styles. TLO's concern in meta was actually that barcode basically suggests heavily that they want to stay anonymous. So even if you know who it is, do you really message him with his name?
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
Little uncalled for here.
I see what you're getting at, HK, but the simple answer is to separate the two actions. Practice standard play on ladder, and save specific builds and new tactics in games set aside for intense theory crafting play. It takes a little more effort to schedule things I'm sure, but it seems possible and useful.
I understand the desire to have build orders and such removed from a score screen, and realistically that's a concern pros have been asking for forever so there's no reason that shouldn't be possible. However, if you're practicing a new build out on ladder, if it's any good then the moment you do it against a competent opponent it's already out there, and they've got a replay showing how you did it. I guess I just don't see how that's less of a concern than hiding ladder information.
They could probably also have a second option that disallows your information in a replay from being shown, like your vision and your production so that you can only watch the replay from the raw perspective of the player who played against you.
But I mean, to allow that kind of privacy would be a godsend for pros utilizing ladder, the end of catching any hackers, and a huge knife in the back to the community trying to get better at the game. I too agree, that the best solution is our current reality: pros should separate their secret builds from their general ladder play.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
Little uncalled for here.
I see what you're getting at, HK, but the simple answer is to separate the two actions. Practice standard play on ladder, and save specific builds and new tactics in games set aside for intense theory crafting play. It takes a little more effort to schedule things I'm sure, but it seems possible and useful.
I understand the desire to have build orders and such removed from a score screen, and realistically that's a concern pros have been asking for forever so there's no reason that shouldn't be possible. However, if you're practicing a new build out on ladder, if it's any good then the moment you do it against a competent opponent it's already out there, and they've got a replay showing how you did it. I guess I just don't see how that's less of a concern than hiding ladder information.
They could probably also have a second option that disallows your information in a replay from being shown, like your vision and your production so that you can only watch the replay from the raw perspective of the player who played against you.
But I mean, to allow that kind of privacy would be a godsend for pros utilizing ladder, the end of catching any hackers, and a huge knife in the back to the community trying to get better at the game. I too agree, that the best solution is our current reality: pros should separate their secret builds from their general ladder play.
I'd rage hard over not being able to see my opponent's information in a replay, lol. I think it'd be a great idea for pros like you said, but would be absolutely garbage for those of us who aren't pros and want to get better.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
Little uncalled for here.
I see what you're getting at, HK, but the simple answer is to separate the two actions. Practice standard play on ladder, and save specific builds and new tactics in games set aside for intense theory crafting play. It takes a little more effort to schedule things I'm sure, but it seems possible and useful.
I understand the desire to have build orders and such removed from a score screen, and realistically that's a concern pros have been asking for forever so there's no reason that shouldn't be possible. However, if you're practicing a new build out on ladder, if it's any good then the moment you do it against a competent opponent it's already out there, and they've got a replay showing how you did it. I guess I just don't see how that's less of a concern than hiding ladder information.
They could probably also have a second option that disallows your information in a replay from being shown, like your vision and your production so that you can only watch the replay from the raw perspective of the player who played against you.
But I mean, to allow that kind of privacy would be a godsend for pros utilizing ladder, the end of catching any hackers, and a huge knife in the back to the community trying to get better at the game. I too agree, that the best solution is our current reality: pros should separate their secret builds from their general ladder play.
I'd rage hard over not being able to see my opponent's information in a replay, lol. I think it'd be a great idea for pros like you said, but would be absolutely garbage for those of us who aren't pros and want to get better.
I think you should be able to see every information in every game that YOU played in. I mean you are getting those replays anyways. But it would be good if not everybody else could see it.
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
Little uncalled for here.
I see what you're getting at, HK, but the simple answer is to separate the two actions. Practice standard play on ladder, and save specific builds and new tactics in games set aside for intense theory crafting play. It takes a little more effort to schedule things I'm sure, but it seems possible and useful.
I understand the desire to have build orders and such removed from a score screen, and realistically that's a concern pros have been asking for forever so there's no reason that shouldn't be possible. However, if you're practicing a new build out on ladder, if it's any good then the moment you do it against a competent opponent it's already out there, and they've got a replay showing how you did it. I guess I just don't see how that's less of a concern than hiding ladder information.
They could probably also have a second option that disallows your information in a replay from being shown, like your vision and your production so that you can only watch the replay from the raw perspective of the player who played against you.
But I mean, to allow that kind of privacy would be a godsend for pros utilizing ladder, the end of catching any hackers, and a huge knife in the back to the community trying to get better at the game. I too agree, that the best solution is our current reality: pros should separate their secret builds from their general ladder play.
I'd rage hard over not being able to see my opponent's information in a replay, lol. I think it'd be a great idea for pros like you said, but would be absolutely garbage for those of us who aren't pros and want to get better.
I think you should be able to see every information in every game that YOU played in. I mean you are getting those replays anyways. But it would be good if not everybody else could see it.
No, it'd be terrible. Not just pros would enable such a feature, a lot of people would. Which just makes it harder for the average player to get better, and would make it impossible to catch hackers outside of warden. The ladder wasn't designed for pros to practice, it was made for the community to be shared.
On September 21 2013 04:12 Greenei wrote: Someone needs to publish a real ladder with all barcodes linked to the names of the actual players.
Is that even possible? you would have to somehow update it in real time to account for changing positions and, like the OP said, this isn't a code saying "your playing lucifron" its saying "well, according to hot keys, there is a 86.42424 chance your playing lucifron, a 58.2323 chance your playing happy, etc.
On September 21 2013 04:12 Greenei wrote: Someone needs to publish a real ladder with all barcodes linked to the names of the actual players.
Is that even possible? you would have to somehow update it in real time to account for changing positions and, like the OP said, this isn't a code saying "your playing lucifron" its saying "well, according to hot keys, there is a 86.42424 chance your playing lucifron, a 58.2323 chance your playing happy, etc.
That's not quite it. A similarity measure isn't the same thing as chance. Think of it as the "distance between hotkey setups." That is, a similarity close to 1 means that two setups are very close given the total set of reference replays, and a similarity close to 0 means that two setups are very far apart given the total set of reference replays.
Publishing a real, definitively correct ladder would be difficult, but services such as sc2ranks that associate replays with players in ladder make informed predictions possible. But this has existed before, again in the form of those ICCUP who is who threads.
On September 24 2013 08:28 Amandil wrote: Sc2ranks already gives barcodes unique identifiers, all you have to do is slowly match the sc2ranks barcode names to pros and link it that way.
Barcodes have always had unique identifiers: their battle.net profile numbers, not to mention unique barcode+character id. The issue here is that barcode replays are not really acessible, sc2ranks has many barcodes with 0 replays associated with them, and most with replays associated have just one or two replays. That's not really good enough to put out a "ground truth" ladder with all identies revealed. Additionally, it's hard to get likely candidates for barcodes in general. While a tournament replay pack will give you a good number of replays, it's far from representative for all progamers or even a particular region.
Because of how replays are usually distributed, I think it currently makes sense for this to be used by individuals who likely have a replays of said barcode in both anonymous and identifiable form (progamers). Believe me, the demo video was originally going to be tested with a bar code, but I had such a hard time finding a barcode that I knew was in the reference set (Dreamhack) that I scrapped that idea.
maybe i'm a huge idiot, but for the people saying to "ban barcodes" - what exactly is preventing pro gamers from just making accounts called inuyashadude420 and xXxDevilSatan666xXx instead of barcodes? are you also suggesting that multiple accounts be banned? or banned only for pro gamers? then who defines who is or is not a "pro gamer"?
On September 21 2013 00:51 mechengineer123 wrote: I wish people would just let pro's practice anonymously.
There's no real way to practice anonymously unless you're talking about in-house team games, which again, isn't very anonymous.
Realistically the only people who are going to utilize this to any value are other pros anyway. I think it's important, especially for foreign pros, to be able to say "Ya know, I haven't really had any tournaments I could excel in, but I've beaten IM Yoda 3 times this week when previously I'd never beaten him." It's another way to show improvement, and I'm all for more legitimate ways to show improvement.
I think the barcode/smurf nonsense is ridiculous, personally. Especially for the top of the top. They have plenty of available practice partners already at the top that they don't have to ladder for anything but mechanical practice. There's no reason they need to be anonymous to practice mechanics. I'm sure it might be useful, but it's simply not necessary and they're not hurt when someone knows who they are.
the problem is as a pro gamer it's hard to not have people look at your match history, in meta yesterday the pros were asking blizzard if they could have that Erased or an option to not have it show. it really messes up your game if you have special build orders you want to try out on ladder and end up getting it stolen.
oh and, the practice partners we generally have... we do run into each other in competitions and things get awkward.
Do not exactly need to go through your match history to see which failed all in into ragequit you did.
in all seriousness barcodes should be prohibited, and there should be an option to remove games from showing in your match history. IMO barcodes are a pretty big factor in sc2 losing interest.
Little uncalled for here.
I see what you're getting at, HK, but the simple answer is to separate the two actions. Practice standard play on ladder, and save specific builds and new tactics in games set aside for intense theory crafting play. It takes a little more effort to schedule things I'm sure, but it seems possible and useful.
I understand the desire to have build orders and such removed from a score screen, and realistically that's a concern pros have been asking for forever so there's no reason that shouldn't be possible. However, if you're practicing a new build out on ladder, if it's any good then the moment you do it against a competent opponent it's already out there, and they've got a replay showing how you did it. I guess I just don't see how that's less of a concern than hiding ladder information.
They could probably also have a second option that disallows your information in a replay from being shown, like your vision and your production so that you can only watch the replay from the raw perspective of the player who played against you.
But I mean, to allow that kind of privacy would be a godsend for pros utilizing ladder, the end of catching any hackers, and a huge knife in the back to the community trying to get better at the game. I too agree, that the best solution is our current reality: pros should separate their secret builds from their general ladder play.
I'd rage hard over not being able to see my opponent's information in a replay, lol. I think it'd be a great idea for pros like you said, but would be absolutely garbage for those of us who aren't pros and want to get better.
I think you should be able to see every information in every game that YOU played in. I mean you are getting those replays anyways. But it would be good if not everybody else could see it.
No, it'd be terrible. Not just pros would enable such a feature, a lot of people would. Which just makes it harder for the average player to get better, and would make it impossible to catch hackers outside of warden. The ladder wasn't designed for pros to practice, it was made for the community to be shared.
Why? It makes no sense what you are saying. YOU can view all the information that YOU created. Why is it important to see information about ladder games of some random scrubs in which you didn't even participate in? And wtf does it have to do with catching hackers???
It's only good for pros that want to prepare a big match against someone in particular, and want to check their replays if they have some against them.
My idea against barcodes would be a program that runs in real time and lets you write a word or 2 about a player. Like if you know who this barcode is or you think you know, you can write it down as a note and next time it will pop at the loading screen and hint you who you thought he was. This could also work for anyone not pro because you could write this guy cheesed me twice in a row or something like that.
Also barcodes shouldn't be promoted to GM it's stupid from Blizzard because GM is about letting everyone check famous people's profiles. Barcodes should remain in master. GM is already being filled by hand btw, some famous players sometimes get in GM despite their negative ratio.
This isn't so true below high master/GM mmr, but how I see it is that laddering is like posting a comment on TL. If I cheese every game I play on ladder, I gain a reputation for that. If I do unusual builds, then I gain a reputation for that. When you ladder under an identifiable name, you build a reputation. When you ladder under a barcode, you actually make ladder less interesting and do not contribute to the culture of the ladder. Remember that if there is no more anonymity, this disadvantage affects everyone equally and actually adds more levels of depth to tournament play and ladder. Also, can anyone tell me that looking at the GM rankings wouldn't be more compelling if barcodes didn't exist?
On September 24 2013 09:54 chuky500 wrote: It's only good for pros that want to prepare a big match against someone in particular, and want to check their replays if they have some against them.
My idea against barcodes would be a program that runs in real time and lets you write a word or 2 about a player. Like if you know who this barcode is or you think you know, you can write it down as a note and next time it will pop at the loading screen and hint you who you thought he was. This could also work for anyone not pro because you could write this guy cheesed me twice in a row or something like that.
Also barcodes shouldn't be promoted to GM it's stupid from Blizzard because GM is about letting everyone check famous people's profiles. Barcodes should remain in master. GM is already being filled by hand btw, some famous players sometimes get in GM despite their negative ratio.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dIa5Rlp.png)
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Barcode-scanner.jpg)
