The common player and site user knows that we urgently need an anti-quitting measure on this site. Reputation tracking is a great idea, but it must be implemented correctly. The good news is that it's very easy to implement it correctly. No significant effort on the programmers' part is needed to fix this urgently needed feature. Please see the 3 items below for details.
eighteenholes:I had two drop out on me before we reached the first green.
That is a common experience.
WGTalex: We appreciate the feedback, and would like to hear more about how you think the feature can evolve to make everyone happy.
OK, here goes... We said it all before in this thread, and we said it before the product update. Unfortunately, WGT did not take our remarks into account. Here is my attempt to summarize the 3 main points. If WGT employs them, I'm certain that reputation tracking can be restored to reflect what it was originally intended to mean.
- At the moment when a player is left alone on the course by everyone else, please automatically convert the former multi-player round into a single-player round. In other words, disregard that round for the player's reputation ranking. In fact, when this happens over in TWO – they have lots of quitters, too – a dialog window pops up, explicitly asking the player (quoting from memory): "Your opponent in this match disconnected. Do you wish to continue this round in single-player mode?" The player then clicks a button and can (but doesn't have to) continue the round. That's a nice, clear-cut division between what are multi-player and single-player rounds.
- If someone abandons someone else in a multi-player game, no matter for what reason (real-life emergency, software problems, willfulness, whatever), when that player attempts to launch a new round, pop up a window for him, saying: "You dropped out of your most recent multi-player round. Do you wish to finish this round in single-player mode? If not, your Reputation ranking will be affected." This is a fair requirement to make on anyone who prematurely abandons a multi-player round. For those who are not habitual quitters, this will occur infrequently, so that they'll be able to afford to forfeit the round even at the expense of their otherwise high reputation, or they will simply finish that round in single-play mode, which will be no strain because it will happen infrequently for them. The real quitters, though, will feel the full impact of this rule, which is exactly what we're after.
- If all players in a multi-player round disconnect within 30 seconds, do not change the reputation ranking for any of the players. This is because, if everyone disconnects within the same time-frame, this will suggest it happened either by mutual agreement (for example, it was a sudden-death shootout), or everyone experienced some sort of software bug, the game froze, etc. As soon as someone prematurely disconnects from a game, make a dialog box pop up for all the remaining players, with a clock counting down 30 seconds. The dialog might say: "It appears your opponent in this match, X, disconnected prematurely. In order to force X to finish the round later on or receive a penalty, please do not disconnect within the next 30 seconds. You may also continue playing your round immediately." The clock would be counting down the 30 seconds, say in the top right corner of the screen, and once the 30 seconds are over, the player who had disconnected would be required to finish that round later on in single-player mode, or see his reputation drop.
Alex, that is all. Only 3 points. But if you implement these 3 points, the reputation ranking will faithfully and fairly reflect the players' completion rate in multi-player matches. No one will ever be unjustly penalized, no matter what may have caused a disconnection. The 3 items, as described above, may appear more complicated than they really are. They are actually extremely simple, all 3 of them. I'll be happy to explain this further, if anything in the 3 items above is unclear.
Thanks again to you and WGT developers for giving this a thought.