When I last played ASL, ROAR had only been up and running for a couple years, so that's where we reported plays. Now that there are two different spots, what do most reporters do? (If you don't report plays, great, I'm looking for info from guys who do.) Do you report plays to both sites, or just one?
I report to both sites as 'standard operating procedure'.
ROAR is the older site and still has more recorded playings, so if you are looking for the win/loss record and the most broad report on the 'Excitement Rating' (from 1-9 at ROAR), this is my choice.
The ASL Scenario Archive as a whole has a
lot more to offer than ROAR. There are some people who in a titanic effort feed it with more information every day: Details on the number of units, general type of VC, a general map view being the most prevalent ones.
Players can rate from 1-10 in the 'Archive', they can leave comments to their games. You can upload VASL setup-files (PLEASE respect copyright and do not include VC, SSR!), VASL log-files, pictures, maps, map-pictures. So the information you can potentially draw from the 'Archive' is vastly superior overall.
And, as aforementioned, the 'Archive' keeps a graphic win-loss record of your games over the years. You can also display a win/loss record of your games against a particular opponent. And the recored gives percentages for wins on the offence and defence. Nice stuff. ROAR does not provide any of that.
It also maintains a player-ranking list based on your entries. Dave has once explained to me the mechanics behind it (similar to chess tournaments). My personal experience is that winning or losing a single game may vastly affect your rating upwards or downwards. IMHO, the player rating kept by the 'Archive' can only give a very general clue about one's performance. I think on the number 1 spot is a Russian player that I have never heard of. And on that list, me, the lowly Oberst von Marwitz, was ranked above Steven Pleva for a week or two - which is, of course, absolutely ridiculous.
Basically, anyone can report games. With regard to player ranking, the most meaningful list is now maintained on the website vasl.info It has taken over the legacy of the old AREA ratings which had been defunct for a couple of years. The AREA ranking was based
solely on tournament games reported by Tournament Directors. I think, the same is true for vasl.info to which many tournament results of the past years - while AREA was defunct - have been added. In my personal experience, AREA and now the player rankings of vasl.info give a much more realistic picture of a player's performance compared to the 'Archive's' list. If you want to use a player ranking for seeding at tournaments, IMHO vasl.info is by far the best choice.
Nevertheless, IMHO the 'ASL Scenario Archive' has developed into one of the prime ASL resources in the net. And it is getting better by the day with a continuous inflow of more people registering to the site. Without doubt it ranks #1 for scenario information and scenario resources in one single spot.
ROAR is still and will probably remain for quite some time #1 for win/loss records of a scenario and its 'Excitement Rating'.
vasl.info following the legacy of AREA is the #1 for player rankings.
IMHO it does make very good sense and is a service to the community to report to all three websites (with vasl.info only open for reporting by Tournament Directors).
What I usually report in detail is the following:
To ROAR:
Scenario played, players involved, win/loss, Excitement rating.
To the ASL Scenario Archive:
a) before play:
I upload a .jpg of my vasl map with all units offboard, Turn Counter, Turn Track, Points of entry, etc. I do NOT include in this .jpg the VC nor the SSR nor photos of the given scenario to respect copyright. As my vasl setups are done in great detail, these maps should give a pretty good impression of what to expect.
For recent scenarios I prepared, I also upload a ready made vasl setup file WITHOUT VC, SSR, pictures to respect copyright, providing version information in the file-name (i.e. ASL192 Shoot-N-Scoot No VC No SSR, No Pics v661.vsav). So you can tell, the .vsav has been created with VASL v661. Use such a file for VASL and you are set up in a wink.
b) after play:
I report the scenario played, the opponents, win/loss, excitement rating. Usually, I provide a short comment on my playing which - in recent times - gives a link to a thread in GameSquad forum (i.e this forum here) where a full detailed AAR with pictures can be found.
von Marwitz
