GuildProgress Closes Its Doors
What makes people competitive? What makes people want to put their reputation on the line and be compared and judged by others?
At the conclusion of any sports event, one team experiences the euphoria of victory while the other is left asking themselves where they went wrong with their offensive or defensive strategies and what they could do better. But while sports are the obvious example, competition can be found everywhere. In academics. In Barbecue. In growing the largest tomato. People will make fools of themselves on national TV just for the chance to win a few bucks. So it’s not unexpected that pockets of competition would develop even within the humble Massively Multiplayer Online game.
This week saw the closure of GuildProgress, a third party website which tracked the progress of raid guilds in defeating specific raid targets. This was x2 and x4 raid bosses in instances, contested zones, as well as contested enemies out in the world such as avatars.
Because SOE has yet to provide specific enough data through its Data Feeds API to track specific kills to specific guilds, GuildProgress was an entirely user-submitted operation. Were everyone as honest and forthcoming as Lance Armstrong, this wouldn’t be a problem. However due to less-than-savory individuals, the operator of GuildProgress faced an onslaught of e-mails filled with claims and counterclaims challenging the legitimacy of even the most straightforward kills.
EQ2’s Achievements system allows for the identification of which characters have killed a specific enemy (when those Achievements are not bugged) but it doesn’t tell you what guild that person was a member of at the time. Item Discoveries can’t easily be tied to which zone the player was in at the time the item was discovered. At this point, there really there is no way to automate such a service.
Players trying to access GuildProgress (either his EQ2, WoW, or Blog sites) received the above message.
People have asked if EQ2Wire has plans to develop such a site. I’ve hesitated because I would face the issues that GuildProgress did. For all its faults as a website, the owner likely did the best he could. With how easy the Skyshrine and Chains of Eternity raid content has been compared to Drunder, is there really a need for a Progression website?
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Comments (40)
Electri
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My hats off to the creator and care-taker of Guild Progress for trying to do a great thing for raiding guilds, and for hanging in there so long. I cannot imagine the tedious, mind-numbing, frustrating task of sifting through all that crap every day.
Thank you!!
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Demoneque
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I wonder if the owner would be willing to supply the code/database to someone who would be willing to host GuildProgress on their own.
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Charn
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I guess he just saw one e-peen too many . . .
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Pikiel
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Well, it’s a great loss to our community.
I think EQ2 progress was mostly very accurate, but I can imagine how many hot-heads can ruin even perfect idea.
Anyway, GP was great at one thing – it was great motivation site for all raiders. We are now forced to take 3-4 years step back and use eq2flames boards to track progress again.
GP guy, should at least leave site up for a while, in read only mode. There are 4 years of data provided that represent some of the greatest history of some guilds.
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Fayteth
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Maybe he didn’t take it down, and people found a way to post enough disputes on the website itself that it was removed.
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Feldon
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You think people filed DMCA legal takedown notices cause of inaccurate info on GuildProgress? Really?
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zerigo
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Ya, it sucks that guild progress went down. It will be missed.
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din
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Im always amazed how some people spend huge amount of time doing unpaid work that helps people they will never meet for a hobby. i don’t raid, so I never went to guild progress, but I can see how useful it was in allowing people to compare themselves against others. You appreciate the sites that are still around even more after a site goes
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Lempo of Everfrost
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@Feldon
Pretty sure he meant kill disputes. If a guild posted that they had killed a mob it could be disputed, enough disputes got the kill removed.
Originally it had a thumbs up/thumbs down rating for the kill. After he revamped the site and made it where you could register as a member he modified the dispute system.
Would be nice if the data feeds provided the info required for u.eq2wire to automate something but that will probably never happen. They can’t get the achievements right to begin with sadly.
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Gash
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I’ve raided competitively since lvl 50 content (although not always at the WW level). We got along just fine for YEARS without guildprogress, and I dont see a problem with doing so again now. Word gets out when a high-level guild kills something new, and for the more mid-range guilds progression threads are available to track things (although mid-range tends to be less competitive by its very nature).
Progression threads like the ones on EQ2flames.com are more than sufficient, imo.
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Valarnin
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Here’s my idea as to how to track guild progress automatically via the data feeds:
-User registers a guild. They must be the guild leader to register their guild.
-User specifies at least 6 players from their guild who are considered ‘on the roster’.
-In order for a kill to count, at least the previous tier of raid force has to have the achievement (6 players for x2, 12 for x3, 18 for x4).
-User can manually specify a kill and link to a supporting video of the kill with that user in the raid force, to cover things like raiding alliances.
Any comments on this? I may start writing it this weekend.
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Cynister
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+1 Din! Much love Feldon, Dethdlr and the folks at ZAM.
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Benj
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Darn. Just started using Guild Progress a few weeks ago for my guild 🙁
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Valarnin's Peanut Butter Covered Lover
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Valarnin, don’t you do enough coding? Stawp it!
<3 Jae
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Landiin
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What would signify a guild killing a mob? If you guild occupied 51% of the raid force that killed the mob else no credit would be given? That would be the only fair way IMO but I know there would be other that disagreed. So I really don’t see SOE adding something like this to their feed.
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Nessari
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There was much drama over that question, Landiin. I’m a noob to the game (March ’12) and even I’ve seen that argument flare up in world chat more than once.
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badcat
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We post pictures of our kills on our website, we also post the act readouts for each kill every week. So we had proof of all our kills each and every one.
The problem was folks were saying the took out drinial, even when he has been missing for weeks. We been vexed by that as it is the only kill that eludes us in HE, not because we cant kill it, but because soe pulled the raid mob. However there have been folks posting they killed him even when he has been missing.
Too bad that site is gone not sure how we are going to check to see where we are, compared to other guilds. Not being an officer its not my job, but it was nice to see how we stacked against other guilds on guk.
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Malade
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Wish he/she had shared the code/database with someone if they were tired of dealing.
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Tazany
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Not going to video record raids myself. That is just stupid imo. Guild progress was a good site but you had guilds like osanpo and knights of something another posting that they cleared all content in one day or posting different kill dates for the same mob they submitted before. As for the jerks disputing kills some would dispute because the script was bugged and shouldn’t of counted or well you did it before us so I’m gonna dispute it. Then there was the honest people who posted the kills and got disputed and kill removed. With guild progress it use to be that enough verifications of the kill prevented it from auto leaving as a valid kill if 1 person disputed it but his revamp made it to where a single person could dispute the kill this in turn was weighted by if they user was premium 5x weight or non premium 1x weight. However the kill could just be resubmitted no matter what weight of the person submitting had. So for example player1 5x submits kill but player2 1x disputes it still removed kill and vice versa it didn’t work as he intended I don’t think because if a 5x weight was given to a kill then it should take 5 disputes before auto removing. but if a 5x disputed a 1x claim it should take 5 1x’s to make the kill valid.
Anyway the site was good but only for honest players. There was a ton of dishonest players tooting e-peens claiming a kill they hadn’t got these are the type who change the rules to monopoly to fit them winning. 🙂
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Tazany
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We post pictures of our kills on our website, we also post the act readouts for each kill every week. So we had proof of all our kills each and every one.
Yes thats an idea right there. Submit a kill (don’t add it right away) person maintaining said progress looks for a simple line in the parse or even just a screenshot of the dead mob.
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Zhouyu
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How are terrible guilds going to pretend to be good at EQ2 now without GP awarding them points for EM kills? oh No! 🙁
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baarbossa
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I feel without guild tracking it kinda breaks raiding. The point for me to raid is to compete….without a tracking system you can’t truly compete.
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Alphonsus
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Suprised he took it down just because of EQ2 players. The other games seem to have had no issues. If you looked up WoW, SWtoR, LoTR, EQ1, not a single dispute on any of those pages last time I looked. Anyway I would gladly make a site if SOE added Guild Achievements to the game. Using the characters alone to track information would not work if those players ever moved to another guild, it would throw everything off. Also SOE would have to fix achievements in the first place, getting kills for completely different zones/mobs, not getting credit for an achievement even though you killed it, and my favorite is the Flawless achievement even though half the raid wiped. Lastly I can’t recall xpac released with mobs revised so many times.
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Valarnin's Peanut Butter Covered Lover
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Valarnin can not see my post and that makes me /sadface
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Daalilama
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For all its problems GP was as iconic with the game as is the crappy coding from SoE….gonna miss it as a bar of how my guild and others stand world wide.
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Shavargo
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As a Web Developer, I have the ability to host and take care of guild progress if I was supplied the code/database.
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Feldon
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The web hosting and database is a piece of cake. It would take me 5 minutes to set it up here at EQ2Wire. It’s the hours every day of dealing with people contesting kills and bullsh*t that would be… unrewarding to say the least.
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Adal
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I’ve been talking to a few people….couldn’t you write a small app, that records the kills in your logs or some such, and have it linked to the database and auto update? Guild leaders and officers could download the app, run it in the background like Act or GC, and it just does its own thing…..
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Tazany
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I have actually emailed him requesting the eq2 portions but no reply. I know theres a few people working on such a site. Won’t mention names but once developes another eq2 utility so am sure hes capable of developing something simimlar or better than gp.
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Tazany
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bah why have I yet to get this quote stuff to work lol
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Alphonsus
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Now that I think about it, I don’t see why a dispute on the old site can’t be combined with data feeds. If someone disputes it, all you have to do is check the guildmembers for the kill. Say if at least 18+ show the same achievement then you timestamp it as verified. (again assuming SOE fixed achievements.)
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Feldon
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You’re assuming a lot. 😉 I don’t think there are Achievements for every EM and HM raid target in Chains of Eternity.
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Alphonsus
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As far as CoE is concerned, only the new Avatar’s have no achievements (Rodcet, Marr, Tunare). All the rest have achievements, except the Zek avatar’s achievements are by name (Tallon, Sullon, Vallon) not by script (Conquest, Pestilence, Death). So there is one for every instanced name both EM and HM and supposedly the Drinal achievements were fixed today. We’ll see… 🙂
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CSGRaffix
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I too am sad to see GP close it’s doors and want to thank those who spend time and effort on these third-party sites like GP & Flames & ofcourse EQ2Wire!
I think a place to track WW guild Rankings is certainly good for the game as a whole. It gives guilds motivation for excellence and sets goals. Which brings people back to the game and maintains interest.
Are Game Logs/ACT are not 100% reliable? It’s just a text file so I assume if someone was hell-bent on cheating, they could just modify their logs and re-import them into ACT couldn’t they? It would certainly be slow and difficult but not impossible. A screenshot however does seem like a reasonable proof of a kill, but not specifically a time. Video would even be better but then would mean that top guilds would be forced to share their strats; which seems anti-competitive. Either way it is sad that that we as a community were not able to act maturely enough to maintain a site like guild progress until the game shuts down. R.I.P GP
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Olivet
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There is another issue I haven’t seen talked about here. That is if a kill is legitimate if the kill is on one of SOE’s broken mobs.?
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Knightman007
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Seems to me, if anyone were to continue or start up a guild ranking website, they would have to be someone familiar to all listed zones progressed. New content would be a source of disputed information until the website admin was part of a kill of that mob themselves. So having someone from the top 3-5 guilds would be a plus to cut down on disputed claims.
Taking a picture of the kill with raid hub up or some form of player identification would also help with verifying a kill. double checking with EQ2wire on achievements is too much for one person to collaborate imo. and as mentioned earlier, Sony needs to make it possible to obtain mob kill info. Until then, pictures or taking someone’s word for it has to do.
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Thal
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Guildprogress may not have been perfect but it was a good measuring stick. It will be missed.
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Feldon
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Stay tuned. 🙂
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Adal
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Still staying tuned?
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Defi aka Aunry
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Guild progression could be tracked by achievements if SOE would get off their butts and do something about it. In most legitimate raiding guilds, the majority of raiders are from that one certain guild. If a percentage amount of the raiders in that guild got the achievement, that would more than likely indicate a new kill in a raid zone for that said guild.
I’m really surprised that SOE actually have not come up with something like this already for the raiders.
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