igge at 2011-06-28 04:13:47

I think freezing all records would be a terrible solution. There's absolutely no need to do so, since there still is at least one way to update the table with confirmed legit times.

I don't think allowing all times would be a good solution either though. The fact that it's so easy to cheat nowadays makes it not only so that people could easily upload cheated times, but worse, I fear that some times would not be trusted by the other players. This would be a horrible scenario. Imagine if someone hoyls a level for a really long time to get a good run or finish a nice style, and then no one believes it's a legit time. That would suck even more than not being able to upload the new time at all.

I'd have to vote for the last or second to last option. It sucks that people who prefer to play offline, including me, wouldn't be able to do so anymore, but it still beats having doubts about other people's times, or not being able to upload new ones at all. I honestly think the best solution would be to only allow times that are verified on EOL, however I feel this kinda makes Kopasite almost redundant, as you'd have all the times in EOL anyway.

Adding a "confirmed" mark to every eol-verified time would be a nice idea I think, but that still means people can cheat new best times. It's almost like nowadays recs aren't the proof of a time, but EOL is. If someone made a new best time offline, they'd almost have to show it to the others in EOL to confirm it by letting them spy the person in order to prove that they can actually drive it.

All options have their good and bad sides, but I'm torn between option 3 and 4. I think at gunpoint I would have to go with 4, because at least that one can't backfire - as in there's no way people could find some way to cheat anyway if we went with option 4. But yeah, I'd be happy with both 3 and 4. Let's see what the others have got to say.

Orcc at 2011-06-28 04:29:16

I'd go for options number 3 and 4 as well. Seeing that even publishing the replay doesn't verify its legitness, I think accepting only EOL times would be the best solution. After all you can höyl the levs with yourself hidden and practically everyone has access to EOL.

Jarkko [NK] at 2011-06-28 05:04:53

Option 4 seems to be best solution. In 3 you can still cheat without legal mark.

Blaztek [CMR] at 2011-06-28 09:29:05

I think 4th would been the only good
selution right now... Then again maybe I
hoyl for hours, then on my very best run
i lose connection. (it has happend
before)

Also I think most of good players that
plays in scene right now can be trusted,
but for the new, and "less skilled"
players it might be to tempting to
cheat...

How about ppl like Thanatos who always
play offline ?

Gaah it all sucks :(

sla at 2011-06-28 09:39:36

I was going to write something about this before watching this new.
I definately think that the unique and best solution, nowdays, is to accept only new times driven in EOL. Sure, its a bad thing to all who plays offline/wants to play offline or cant be online in their homes etc, but we can be sure that there are no cheated times. We dont want cheated or sl times, that sucks. I know that its cool to sl and make good runs in a few minuts, but thats isnt Elma!
I am thinking on making a new level pack and i dont want sl records on this great page.

Oddman at 2011-06-28 10:05:53

Ah, so the crisis over at moposite has
finally trickled down and reared its
ugly head over here - this, the last
haven for a player like me who has been
playing this game for more than 10 years
(and Across before that), but not very
into the whole community thing. Very
sporadic, but always having a good time.
It is saddening in a way, but
unsurprising considering recent events.

This is probably it for me, as I assume
option 4 will be chosen. But I'd like to
thank Kopaka for making (and
maintaining) this website, good job!

But who knowns, maybe I'll join you guys
online some day and rediscover for the
tenth time or so how much fun this game
is. I truly love it, for some reason -
just can't seem part from it for good.

Oddman out.

Kazan at 2011-06-28 20:52:53

- Accept only new times that can be verified in EOL

Mawane [SV] at 2011-06-29 05:02:21

Make a "legal" mark next to times that can be verified in EOL and make another mark for times driven before June 17th 2011.

Alma [LaMe] at 2011-06-29 10:59:41

- Accept only new times that can be
verified in EOL

ThanaTos at 2011-06-29 13:39:43

I understand the concerns of the scene about this newfangled tool, and the negative consequences thereof. As BlaZtek pointed out, I'm never online. This stems from my inability to set up and configure EOL, and my router, the right way. As long as I've had the contest on kopasite, that hasn't bothered me enough to try to figure it out, although I do miss some good balleing. Anyway, I do agree that the scenes entire integrity and well being needs trust and therefor I do support making EOL a requirement. Maybe that will give me an incentive to get on the online part of EOL.

Alma [LaMe] at 2011-06-30 01:24:25

@Thanatos

Send me a PM on lauta and describe what is
wrong and i can help you set up your
router very easily :)

Markku at 2011-06-30 09:08:53

I agree that 3 and 4 seem to be the only reasonable options. Unfortunately the EOL server is not completely reliable at this point, which means that there is a [i]non[/i]-negligible chance of the server crashing during your run, or otherwise not being able to catch your time. Also, some people prefer, or due to various circumstances are forced, to play offline, so with option 4 they don't have much choice if they want to keep competing with others. Of course the issue is the same when you're driving internals, according to the new Moposite policy (although it is not clear if it only applies to WRs, or if there is a plan to extend this to all personal records and such for consistency).

For instance, I prefer to play skintatious offline (I have not been very active here on Kopasite lately), as then I won't be distracted by battles, chatting and such. Playing battles online is, for me, in another realm in the sense that it is less about efficient results and more about the social aspect, hanging out and having semi-relaxed competition. To be fair, it is of course possible to simply turn off the chat and battle notifications, so I don't think enforcing option 4 would be as major a hurdle from that perspective, as it would be for those who don't have a chance to play online.

The strictness of option 4 is the thing that gives some credibility to option 3. However, the downside of option 3 is that people may begin to think less of the non-verified times, even if they were completely legal but just driven offline for reason or another. On the other hand, this would probably motivate more people to come play online, if they have just not bothered before. Combined with Mawane's suggestion about marking times driven before the leak as (very likely) legit (either with the same verification mark as the ones to be driven online in the future, or with a different one), I think this is one of the best options, if not the best.

Long story short: It is hard to decide between 3 and 4, but if I had to choose, I feel that I would be ever so slightly more attracted to 3, especially considering the fact that most people would then probably drive online anyway in order to give their times as much credibility as possible, but it would not render times driven offline completely useless.

ThanaTos at 2011-07-01 11:37:32

Alma, thank you for the offer. I may take you up on it, after my vaccation. Cheers!

Kopaka [LaMe] at 2011-07-04 12:57:13

Okay, it seems we are going towards some sort of verification of times. One adjustment to option 4 I've thought of is that when uploading a time that can't be verified in EOL it will still be saved but hidden in a way that I can accept it manually. For example if someone has driven 142 of 143 VSK times online there's a good chance that during the 143rd he lost his connection and it's still legal. So this would make it less fatal when the server crashes during a run ect.

Doing the verification might mean the loss of a few players but not doing it might mean the loss of everyone, so I guess it's the lesser of two evils. As I also added to the news post I will recommend everyone to start playing online from now on.

Technically the Kopasite code and database is structured really badly which means simply adding these things is pretty complicated, just looking at the code nowadays make's me wanna kill myself. However it is structured in a way that it will be fairly easy to remove times driven after June 17th 2011 that can't be verified online. So this means this change won't happen right away and that some times _migth_ be removed.

@Oddman is there some specific reason why you don't just start playing online? It's not like you have to take part in battles, chat ect. and as Markku says you can turn those things off so it's practically like playing offline.

@Thanatos you didn't have playing rights, which means you can't connect, I have given you those now.

Oddman at 2011-07-06 14:25:47

Well I've been playing on a crappy
netbook with tiny arrow keys, using a 3G
internet connection which turns itself
off
every 5 minutes or so. Long story short;
with my current setup, EOL would simply
be unthinkable.

On the other hand, I decided to upgrade
today. 100mbit internet connection and a
brand new PROPER computer will be
ordered tomorrow. So I suppose I'll be
back sooner than I thought!

Blaztek [CMR] at 2011-07-06 15:09:22

Good news Oddman :)

Jeppe at 2011-07-08 00:52:13

i think the same as markku -,- best post i ever read.

ThanaTos at 2011-07-10 15:37:05

Kopaka, that does explain some things. Maybe I'm not that big a computer noob after all :) thanks!

Oddman at 2011-07-11 10:05:32

So I have to buy the game to be able to
play online?

I mean, I assumed that the original
website had been abandoned for years.
But you're telling me that if I buy Elma
from www.elastomania.com/order, I'll get
an original copy? With a unique serial
or something?

Kopaka [LaMe] at 2011-07-12 02:27:37

I think you can still buy it from there yes, but that's not needed for EOL, for no serials or the like.
Simply update to 1.2 if you haven't http://zworqy.com/elmawiki/index.php/Updating_Elma
And then update to EOL and set it up http://zworqy.com/elmawiki/index.php/Installing_EOL

Oddman at 2011-07-13 12:37:23

Thanks Kopaka, I'll give it a try
sometime soon.

However, I tried to register at
elmaonline.net , but it says my e-mail
isn't confirmed when I try to log in.
Perhaps I entered the wrong e-mail
address and therefore never received an
activation link or something?

Ves [UHF] at 2011-07-15 08:31:33

The only thing that doesn't fit my needs in EOL is that it publishes my time :)

[b]Markku[/b], you can turn almost everything off in EOL. I always play without chat, with all notifications disabled and I see only "battle over, press F6", "winner rec uploaded, press F11" from time to time, dunno if they can be turned off.

Kopaka [LaMe] at 2011-07-22 02:05:33

@Oddman I can see you registered with same mail as you have here, so it's hotmail nab filter or sach. Anyway I manually confirmed you.

Oddman at 2011-07-23 17:30:25

@Kopaka Thanks, most likely it's me
being a stupid asshole again. Thanks for
registering me manually though!

For some absurd reason I cannot alovolt
the way I used to on my new computer?
Yes, in Elma 1.2 I can assign a key for
this, but it just feels wrong. Is there
any way I can alo 'the old fashion way'?
:(

Kopaka [LaMe] at 2011-07-25 05:09:51

Do you mean alotvolt by pressing left and right arrow at same time? If so then it's very likely that a new computer makes it harder/impossible. Back in the day before alovolt button it was very different from person to person who could and who could not make alovolt (as in a supervolt without a normal volt first), which is part of the reason the alovolt button was made in the first place. http://zworqy.com/elmawiki/index.php/Alovolt

LOL [Random] at 2011-08-11 15:08:48

Omg, what about me?