Are you playing Vietcong 2, looking forward to be promoted from private up to general, but nothing seems to happen? You are right ... it doesn't work. At least for now...
One of the interesting features in Vietcong 2 was the system of ranks in the multiplayer game. When you play Vietcong 2 online, the points based on the time spent in the multiplayer game in combination of your score accumulate and determine what rank you have.
Some people noticed that no-one has higher rank than PVT and because nobody knows the rules for promoting to higher rank, there could have been some speculations.
Since I know the reason of this situation, I feel I should say something about the ranking system, because there isn't any game review that deals with it.
In some previews there was mentioned that the rank will be stored on a central server like in Battlefield 2 game.
Everyone who is familiar with the Battlefield 2 game knows, that in this game there are stored very comprehensive game statistics to the central server (not the rank only). You can easily see how efficient soldier you are, how good you are with handling the various guns or even how useful you are to your team. Moreover you can compare your game results with other players results - it is a feature which everyone simply loves.
.... But nobody knows that similiar (and I dare to say that more sophisicated) feature is also built-in in Vietcong 2 game from the very begining. The ranking system is one of the many things tracked by the in-game statistics.
Are you wondering why nobody knows about it and why players aren't allowed to view their statistics?
The answer is simple: the ranking system is integrated into the game but it wasn't started.
However the reason for not starting it is bizarre: The publisher of the game (2K games) wanted this system from the game developers and verified all the scripts, but he didn't rent the GameSpy hosting that would be responsible for generating the output statistics. And that is the reason why all the current game results data is discarded instead of to be used for the game statistics system and also for the ranking system.
Because of this reason, there is no chance to meet anyone in the game with higher rank than PVT. I would say it is sad, that the entire system was finished and verified few weeks before the game was released, and from that moment we wait only for the last step from the side of the game producer ... which is still not about to come.
Actually it is possible to say that the customer who buys this game title, gets it incomplete (against the will of the game developers) .
I think it would be nice to show this hidden game feature to players because I feel there is only very little chance for the system to be activated.
Since I am the author of the algorithms that generate all the statistics data so I believe I have the right to do it - even if I might break the NDA.
I try to bring you a close view to the scope of the statistics system which has been created for Vietcong 2 game:
The idea was to allow player to view his record and see his ability to handle individual weapons, his real map, game mode or game class preferences.
It may surprise you that this system tracks for every player some 9000 values and this number is more than doubled when generating web interface. It is clean that this huge amount of data has to be divided into several categories to not overload player with info he cannot orientate in.
The web site presenting the results is divided onto two mayor sections - one shows overal info about all players, the other focuses on an individual players.
Description of the created statistics system:
Part one - statistics for a player as an invidual:
Since the ammount of data recorded to each player is enormous, the statistics has been split to the following categories:
1) Overall info about player: The first thing player sees is the info about his last game session - when, where (server), what (map and game mode) and how long did he play, what was his score, kills, deaths, teamkills and points recieved for building a rank.
Great attention is dedicated to player's weapon accuracy - number of rounds fired, number of rounds that hit enemy or how many rounds was needed to kill an enemy.
There is also a summary of the distances player covered while playing. And it is so detailled so he can see the distance he walked, ran, crouched, crawled or with the sights up or down.
Moreover all of these data can be displayed in 5 different periods of time: overall, last month, last week, last day and the actual day.
2) Information regarding player results for each map and game type played This section is similiar in some aspects as the previous one, but this one deals with individual maps. The particular game results are related to every single map played by the player in the particular period of time. You can find then, on which maps is the player successful and eventually you can compare the results with other players.
Since every map contains more game types with different game style making also different game results, this section offers also information related only to the particular game types played by the player on each map. These detailed information are available in the separated subsection.
3) Information regarding weapons Vietcong 2 is able to track detailed statistics of using particular weapons. There are two subsections.
The first one shows list of weapons player has used in the selected period of time and how long he spent with in his arms. In fact, this subsection shows which weapons the player really prefers.
The second subsection displays player's accuracy with each weapon. You can find how many rounds the player fired, how many hits the player made. You can also compare the achived the player fire efficiency for each weapon used. You can even see the results for both aiming the weapon with sights up and down.
4) Information regarding character classes This section is dedicated to tracking statistics of using the particular character classes in the game. Because there is unlocking option for game classes in the server settings, this section is divided itno two (one for unlocking servers, other for servers with full list of classes available fro the start).
5) List of results in 10 most recent sessions Basic info about 10 most recent game sessions is available here - which game servers, which maps and game types, time played, player score, kills, deaths or other simplified game statistics like fire efficiency etc.
6) Comparing results with the best players Generally it is very difficult to compare players if there are so many statistics parameters tracked for each player. In order to make it easier this section offers comparison between the chosen player and the best players in the following categories: total and maximum score, total and maximum number of kills, total game time and rank points.
This section has a couple of detail levels - you can see the comparison for the whole game or only for the particular maps, even the game types. The comparison is available for all 5 time periods. To make the comparsion easier, the results are expressed in a form of the bar graphs.
7) Player profile The main goal is to show the progress in the ranking system so the player can view how many points hee needs for promotion to the higher rank. The current player carrier status is showen on the bar graph for better visualization.
This category shows also some less important information like the game version player uses or when he played it for the first and for the last time.
As the small bonus you can even see heads of the characters which the player currently uses in the game - both for US and VC side.
Part two - global statistics (from all players):
The global statistics are split to the following categories:
1) Ladders of top 100 players in particular categories I mentioned that it is difficult to determine criteria to judge the best player so it is divided into following sections: ranking points, total score, total kills, maximal score in one session, maximal kills in one session, total time played.
Ladders of 100 best players in these categories can be viewed in five time scales.
2) Popularity of maps and game modes
Many players are often discussing which map or game mode is the best and most played of all. This section shows every map and game mode and the time it was played and compares it with the map where players spent the longest time. Popularity of game modes is represented by a pie chart.
As the small bonus there is a table with a name of the player who achieved the best score or best kills on the particular map and game type
Although the system has only the original maps in evidence, it is able to track some 50 bonus or user-made maps.
There is also a subcategory for each map containing ladders of 10 best players in total score, total kills, maximal score in one session, maximal kills in one session, total time played and ranking points categories. All ladders are available also for each game type and can be viewed in five time scales.
3) Popularity of character classes This is similiar to the individual player section. The best about this statistics is the insight into the game class preferences due to the big data sample.
4) Weapon preference and efficiency It is also similiar to the individual player section and because of numerous statistical sample it shows how easy is to use particular weapon or how popular are the particular weapons among all players.
5) Last week game activity charts This shows the game attendance depending on time of day. The first graph shows activity during the actual day. The resolution is set to 10 minutes intervals.
The following graphs record the number of players in 30 minutes intervals. The monthly, eventually yearly activity charts are scheduled.
This was the last category that ends the preview of Vietcong 2 statistics..
It is trendy to make a multiplayer game statistics, however mayority of games manage with tracking some basic data. The goal of authors of Vietcong 2 statistics was to maximize the data collected from the multiplayer game (and they achieved it).
It is really sad to reduce the potential of this game and to not give to players the ability to see their progress in the game. It is even more sad because it is the publisher of the game who should make the best of the game.
I feel sorry for my and Pterodon's people time because we could use the time spent on the statistics system in another way.
I'd like to mention all the people responsible for the this statistical system:
- SKID - backend script, stats website
- Erik - implementation of the stats system into the game
- CyberKiller - web graphics
- Latimerius - implementation into game net code
- and of course another people from Pterodon
SKID
Original article translated by Katoga
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