At long last there will be a way to express what you are thinking about the maps in Warlight. Not only that, it'll probably give Fizzer enough intel to make decisions about the seasonal ladder, maybe 3vs3 ladder in the future. If we get enough votes in (no surprise, Europe is highest rated for now), maybe the 3vs3 ladder topic will come back :)

just saw this my self! I LIKE.....I LIKE A LOT!

Two points. (1) Control: Map makers can change or retire a map. Europe is Troll's. Medium Earth is Fizzer's. If Europe had a ladder and Troll decided to retire the map, then what? All the games stop? (2) Intellectual property: Warlight is a business. Ladders are for paying customers. The map used could be thought of as the product being sold. Running a business by selling somebody else's product without legal guarantees is risky.

I doubt the ladders will be anything but Fizzer Map #1. So enjoy Europe in your private games while the mythology of Medium Earth ("Player X is rated #1 on the Medium Earth 1v1 ladder, s/he must be the best player on all maps, in all formats, with all settings, with any number of teammates or enemies") continues to evolve.

There is absolutely no copyright infringement to warlight maps. Also the retirement problem is easily solved by making an exact copy of Europe and calling it Europe Ladder Map for example, one that Fizzer could control.

Also providing the ladder had hardly any in common with providing games, every member ca do it. Providing ladder means providing an automated rating system that works. Since everyone can make a game with Europe map, I don't see how that could be a problem for the ladder games. Nevertheless it'd be nice to hear from Fizzer on that topic someday.

I didn't work out the details, so there might be some catches and snares, but I think there are enough tools for someone to set up their own ladder; the API let's you create and query games and Fizzer even made the ELO tool available if I remember correctly. (Of course, you need a membership to access the API, but that's only required for the person running the ladder; once set-up, non-members could participate as well).

Also, map makers knowingly and willingly submit maps, it's not like they were copied over from another WL-like game without permission or anything (they couldn't have been; the format is custom). So how exactly is it a problem to use them in games; the way I see it the creator either implicitly or explicitly (I never created a map myself, so I lack first-hand experience with the publishing process) agree to their map being used by WL...

Fantastic update! Thanks Fizzer

Well, I've thought about all the reasons why there is no 3v3 Europe ladder, and this is the only thing that makes sense.

RvW, correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere in the wiki for the API that you could only use it to invite other members, not non-members. I could have read that wrong, but I went over it a few times when creating my team's ladder, and that's what I got out of it, so I decided to just make them manually instead of auto-games. (I'll look it up again and post a link as well as the quote if I can find it)

Link to API Page:

http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Create_game_API

Link to the API code:

http://warlight.net/API/CreateGame.aspx

Member-only clause:

Please use this API responsibly, as it can consume significant amounts of server resources if called excessively. This API can only be used by members and can only invite other members to games.

I've just rated every map I played on. Great update Fizzer!