About Us Update log

Purpose

Longshanks is the primary worldwide Guild Ball ranking and event management system. It includes a number of data reporting features that can be used to assess player performance and gaming trends as well as several game tools designed specifically for Guild Ball.

Our aim is to enhance the overall Guild Ball experience for both players and event organizers.

Contact us

Before contacting us, read through this page - you may find the answer to your question here!

The best ways to cantact us about any questions or requests are by email, on Twitter, or at our Facebook page.

Acknowledgements

Ben Redmond

Ben created the first Guild Ball ranking system and was a significant inspiration for Longshanks.

Kevin Stewart

Kevin has been instrumental in providing feedback on the functionality of the Longshanks system. He has also provided a number of ideas and suggestions that have been crucial to the site's success.

Special contributors

Players marked with the red star badge contribute to Longshanks in a variety of ways, including testing and troubleshooting new features. Their help is greatly appreciated!

2021-01-05

The Digital Duelist award has been increased from 15 to 30 online games.
- Awards already earned at the previous level will be retained in a player's award history.
The Torch award has been removed due to technical difficulties and lack of interest.
UI improvements to the Ranking page and to event standings.
The name and nickname policies have been updated.
- Display names are no longer required to match your IRL name.
- Display names may now include digits.
- Subscriber only Nicknames may now include certain letter-like special characters (@, $, €, £, ¥, and µ).
- Display names now include the player ID to ensure positive identification.

2020-12-04

Layout and content changes to the Statistics page to reflect lower game counts due to COVID-19 and the cancellation of the game by SFG.

2020-06-29

Subscriber only Added the Matchup Analyzer to the Statistics page.
Rearranged the Help page.

See the full update log

Ranking system Awards & badges

By default, Longshanks uses tournament events in the past year when calculating and reporting data. You can use the "data filters" option at the top of most pages to adjust which events and games are included.

RPI

Player ranking is based on the rating percentage index (RPI). OR and OOR are also used as the first and second tie-breaker values during tournaments according to the Guild Ball Organised Play Document.

R	=	win/loss record
OR	=	average opponents' R
OOR	=	average opponents' OR

Rating

To reward players not just for winning, but for playing and winning often, RPI is manipulated to favor more games being played.

The reduction of player rating by this adjustment is large at 10 games played (50%), small at 20 games (3.4%), and almost non-existant at 30 games (0.1%).

e	=	Euler's number
n	=	number of games played

Awards

Awards are for achievments in gameplay within the last year. Current awards appear on the ranking page and historical awards appear on a player's profile.
* These awards appear on player profiles but do not appear on the ranking page.

	World champion
	Past world champion
	World championship qualifier
	The winner of the last chance qualifying event for the most recent world championship.
	National champion
	The winner of each regional or national championship event.
	Guild Leader
	The most highly-rated player in each guild.
	Win streak *
	Get 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 consecutive wins.

	Guild Purist
	Play your last 30 tournament games with a single guild.
	Multi-Guild Master
	Play 5 tournament games each with 5 different guilds.
	Guild Ball Guru
	Play 5 tournament games each with 10 different guilds.
	Digital Duelist
	Play 30 online tournament games.
	Centurion
	Play 100 tournament games.
	People's Champion *
	Build the GB community by either - hosting 6 events with 4 players each - hosting 2 events with 50 total attendees combined.
	Veteran *
	Have a Longshanks profile for more than 1, 2, or 3 years. OG Ballers have profiles from November 2017 or earlier.

Badges

Badges mark factors outside the game and appear next to a player's name.

	Newbies
	Player profiles created in the last 90 days.
	Steamforged Games
	These are the wonderful folks behind the design & development of Guild Ball.

	Subscribers
	Supporters of all levels help keep this site running and get access to advanced features.
	Windy City Game Lab
	Site administrators and special contributors.

Player profiles Messaging & privacy

Player profiles

Accessing your account

If you have ever attended an organized play event, you probably already have a player profile. Search the player list to find your player profile, then Follow the instructions on your profile page to claim it.

Player profiles that haven't been claimed can be registered for events by an event organizer, but you must claim your profile to register for events yourself, host events, or change your player information.

Creating a new account

If you have never played in an organized play event or can't find your player profile and want to set one up, you can:

Ask an event organizer to create a profile for you when you register for an event.
Create your own profile by visiting the player list.

Editing player information

Once you have claimed your account and logged in, you can edit and update your name, home region, password, and other profile information using your control panel.

ID number

Each player in the system has an ID number. This number is unique, so it can always be used to identify a player even if that player changes their name or other profile information.

Names & nicknames

Display name

Display names are used by event organizers to register players and by players to find their opponents. To avoid confusion and ensure that games are linked to the correct profile, you should be easily identified both online and in physical space by your display name.

While not required, it is highly recommended that you use the name you are referred to in real life as your display name.
Your display name may not contain special characters.
Your display name may not contain profanity.

Nicknames

Subscribers may choose to use a nickname. These appear as a higlighted section within or instead of your display name.

Your nickname may not contain special characters except @, $, €, £, ¥, and µ.
Your nickname may not contain profanity.

Policies

You may modify your profile information as necessary to correct errors or reflect changes.
Names or nicknames that receive complaints or are deemed inappropriate may be removed or modified by the administration without warning and the offending profile may be locked.

Abuses of these policies are NOT tolerated.

Direct messages

Players and event organizers may send direct messages (DMs) to one another. Direct messaging is disabled by default and must be enabled on your control panel. If you enable direct messaging, any player may send you a DM at any time by visiting your player profile.

Your email address is never shown to a DM recipient. Recipients must follow a link in the message to reply.
If you send a DM, the recipient will be able to reply even if you have DMs disabled.
All DMs are visible to administrators for diagnostic and security purposes.

Event announcements

Event organizers may send announcement messages to all event attendees, even if any attendees have DMs disabled.

Any player may send DMs to any event organizer, even if that organizer has DMs disabled.

Security & privacy

Your password is never stored as plain text. However, it is still recommended that you use a different password here than you use for any other online accounts.

Your email address is never shared with other users or with any other business entity for any reason.

Hidden players

A player may hide their profile if they wish to be anonymous. Hidden players:

Appear as an ID number rather than a name.
Cannot send or receive direct messages.
Do not appear in the ranking.
Cannot earn most badges.
Cannot host events.

If you wish to have your profile removed from the player list entirely, contact us.

Events Hosting an event

Attending an event

The registration section on each event allows you to manage your registration for that event before it begins and drop from the event after it has begun.

To register for a locked event or team tournament, contact the event organizer.

Once you are registered for an event, you will appear on the event page. You can also see and enter the results of your current game on your control panel.

Local opponents

You may add up to five other players to a list of your regular local opponents. Event organizers may avoid matches between mutually-recognized local opponents in the first round of a tournament.

Modify your local opponents list from your control panel.

Event types

Standard tournament

Follows the standard procedures outlined in the Organised Play Document.

Team tournament

Events using the three-player team format found in the Mob Football document. Can be hosted by subscribers only

Friendly tournament

Convention side events, alternate game modes, product release events, Big Leagues, etc.

Event status

Open

Players may register for or withdraw from the event, change their registered guild, and enter game results.

Locked

Players may withdraw from the event and change their registered guild. Event organizers may register and remove players, change registered guilds, enter game results.

Full

Additional players may not be registered except by the event organizer.

or

Finished

Registration may not be modified and game results may not be entered.

Registering players

You may register players for your events either by ID number or by name. Hidden players must be registered by ID number.

Player capacity

If you set a player capacity for your event, players will not be able to register for the event once it reaches capacity. An event's organizer can always add or remove players, even after the event reaches capacity.

Creating new player profiles

You can create new player profiles for players who don't already have one. Avoid duplicate entries by confirming that players don't already have profiles and by checking the spelling of names before creating new profiles.

To avoid filling the player database with false entries, do not create imaginary players, even when running test events.

Pairings

Game pairings are determined according to the Guild Ball Organised Play Document. Each player is paired at random against another player with the same number of wins. In some cases, players may be paired up or down to a player with a different number of wins if necessary.

You may adjust pairings manually if you wish. If you set a round and discover an error, simply delete the round and redo the pairings.

Pairing errors

Rematches and pairings between mutually-recognized local opponents are highlighted when setting the pairings for a new round. It is recommended that you manually change a rematch if one appears.

You have the option of automatically avoiding pairings between local opponents in the first round of a tournament.

Byes

If your event has an odd number of players, one player will need to sit out each round. The player who gets the bye is determined randomly from among the players with the least number of wins.

This process is automatic, but you may manually change which player receives the bye if you wish.

Finished events

Once a single undefeated player has been found, adding additional game rounds is not recommended. You may ignore this warning if you wish to continue the event anyway.

When your event is complete, use the buttons provided to end the event. Until an event is finished this way, it will not be included in the site-wide ranking, rating, or statistical calculations.

Practice & test events

When you create a new event, it will automatically be hidden. Keep events hidden to practice using the event management system and run test events. Change an event's status to Open or Locked to make it publicly visible.

User permissions Legal

Users without one of the elevated or restricted permission levels shown here are in good standing and may use all the normal Longshanks features. Your current permission level is shown on your control panel.

Elevated

Administrator

Administrators can modify player profiles, games, and events created by other users.

Special contributor

Special contributors test out and offer feedback on new features of the site before they become public.

Restricted

Warning

Users may receive a warning for certain behaviors that are not acceptable. These users retain all standard permissions, but are flagged so that administrators can monitor their activity.

Locked

The profiles of users that receive multiple warnings or exhibit extreme unacceptable behavior will be locked. These users can attend events as normal, but cannot host events, enter casual games, or modify their own profiles.

The following is a general description of the Longshanks policies related to data collection laws. Every effort is being made to be in complance with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. If you have any questions about these or any of our other policies, please contact us.

Data privacy

This system functions through the public sharing of information.

Some information is collected and submitted by users about other people. This typically happens when registering players for an event or adding a casual game.

This is limited to name, home region, events attended, and match results.
Event organizers are required to obtain consent from a player to collect and display this information online before registering that player for an event.

Some information is entered by users for their own account.

This information includes nickname, email address, and password.
Email addresses are never given out to anyone for any reason.
- System administrators may occasionally use email addresses to contact users about their accounts.
- The direct messaging system uses email, but the address of one user is never visible to another user.
Passwords are never stored as plain text. No one, even the site administrator, ever sees or has access to your password.
Users may make their player profile anonymous and hidden at will.

If a user would like their personal information removed from the system, contact us.

Data usage

Unauthorized duplication or reuse of the data presented on Longshanks, either in whole or in part, is prohibited.

This requirement is to allow us to comply with the GDPR's data removal policies. We are unable to delete unauthorized copies of data, therefore they are not allowed.