I have gathered my thoughts on what to improve to make VSK even better. I suppose many of the points have allready been discused, before I was internalized in this fine Club.
Remember, its a brainstorm
RANKING
Its my opinion, that an effective and visible rankingsystem will improve motivation and participation. It is very important to make it trustworthy. A good ranking system creates loyalty. Those of you, who knows the ranking system of Yahoo Games, will agree with me in, that its very effective. They are best in class, and should be studied. A negative effect for yahoo has been, that there has been people, creating ranking-boosters, small programs, that cheat up the rank. I see this as a sign of how effective and prestigous the ranking is, and furthermore how big jerks people can be.
Mainpoints are from Yahoo are:
-Everyone starts at 1200 pts
-The more points you have, the harder it is to get more points
-The less points you have, the more points you get for a victory. (progressive downwards and degressiv upwards)
-This gives a high density in every "group"
-There is a trackrecord for "unfinished" games i.e. drop-outs, loss of connection, quiting...
-All ranking figures are visible for everyone. When showing the name, you show the ranking.
More suggestions to Ranking:
-Separate ranking for Matchrace and Fleetrace
-Ability to race "unranked" races - not-counting races
Community
Definitly a need for more and better community features.
-A chat in the "game-creation" lobby
-Ability to create and invite to private rooms
-Click on a green player, and chat directly
Allowing audience in a race, by creating a "watch" function with separate closed/chat (this could eventually be from a Jury-boat point of view)
RACEMANAGEMENT
-One name (not as today with boatname and playername)
-Ability to start a new race with same players ("restart" or "continue series")
-Ability to exclude/boot players
-12 windforces instead of 5 ( to create unpredictability)
-A lenght between Long and Very long
RACING
Precoded messages (ie. F9="Room!")
2 minute startprocedure (1 is too short and 3 too long)
Gate at leeward mark (two marks)
max 30 players pr race (remember, in brainstorming everything is allowed
Wind shadow (must be more graduated)
Mirror winds (pressure on speed and direction for windward boat in close positions)
Faster Zoom in/out on keypads 7/8
Picture / Film recording by pressing one button
Thats it... now there is F3 in my brain again - no more brainstorm
Apart from that, Im sure that "we have a winner" in VSK3... reserve a copy for me
AndersDK