Note: This page is not valid anymore; the 3DO Community has disapeared, trashing in the process all the leveling system. There is no more level system, but for personal information this page remains as a memorial.

Levelling Theory

Introduction

Most of you that have been on the 3DO Community boards have asked this question: "How can I level up?". You can of course read the help of the 3DO Community that stipulates some points:

• Being a regular participant.
• Following the rules.
• Contribute to the boards in a positive manner.
• It is not based solely on how many times you post.
• Do not spam the boards.

New profiles will always starts at level 1 and you will level up to 100 maximum. If you see someone with a level higher, e.g. 105, 200 or more, then you have meet or seen a special person. This can be Moderators, Official Posters or the Webmaster.

Simple Explanation

The levelling is relatively simple. If you follow the rules and come on the board on daily bases you can level up at the best following speed:

This supposes you post 5 to 10 messages a day on whatever board it is.

Algorithm

I tried to figure out how the levelling system worked. For this I have a pseudo algorithm. I do not pretend this is how it really is but this can give some clues.

Let's call the min number of day to level up the "mark". If the "mark" is reached you get up a level. The "levelPoint" is a counter that says if you are eligible for a level up or not, if the "levelPoint" equals the "mark" you level up. The "mark" value is computed according to your current level with this function:

   mark= (level - level%10)/10 + 1;

Each time you do something on the board you get some XP. If you have enough XP you get an extra "levelPoint". Several actions can give you XPs:

• Post several messages. If your level is bellow 10, 2 posts or more must be enough, otherwise you need 5 to 10 posts at least.
• Reply to a message gives some XP to the message owner to whom you reply.
• Login and lurk only.

Additional options such as c-mail, links and images in posts, have no effect on the getting XPs. Even the Parental filter seems to have no effect.

My algorithm is like this:

1. Each post / reply / login gives you some XP (fixed amount each).
2. Each day at 23:55 the system will check your XP. If your XP is above a certain level the "levelPoint" counter will be incremented. In this case your XP variable will be reset to zero or decreased from a certain fixed amount.
3. If "levelPoint " is equals to the "mark" then "levelPoint " is reset to zero and your level goes up 1 level.
4. Reevaluate the "mark" value according to the level. See above for the mark level evaluation function.

The step 4 is only checked if point 3 is true. I could observe this with some of the board member that got there level modified by Hooloovoo (in bad or good manner).

Side effects

In this example I do not take in account the effects of using aliases. Aliases can affect you main character or the alias. Actually I'm not 100% fixed on how it works. If you use an alias and after that login with that alias the XP repartition seems to be very strange.

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Levelling Awards

Apart from getting levels, the awards from levelling are varied. As mentioned above you will start your avatar at level 1 and can level up to a maximum of 100. As you go up in levels you get new titles and features.

Titles

The title given to you is highly depended of the class you choose and the level you are. Each class has titles and titles changes according to their own lather. If you want to know what are the titles for each level and each class the best.

There are some levels that will for sure give you a new title. These levels are the breakpoints where new features will be given to you.

Features

Features are new functionality you get when your level reaches some breakpoints. Reach one of these breakpoints will also give you a new title. So these are the new functions you get:

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Levelling Calculator

If you really want to know how long it takes in the best conditions to level to a certain point, here is a tool you need. You can choose between the number of days you need to level up to the point you want or compute the theoretic level you should have if you spend a certain amount of days on the boards.

For the one interested in the algorithm to compute the number of days out of a level this is a code written in JavaScript:

function levelToDays (level)
{
   n= (level - level%10)/10 + 1;
   return (n*(n + 1)*5) - ((n*10 - level)*n);
}

And of course the counterpart, the algorithm to compute level out of the number of days spend on the boards:

function daysToLevel (days)
{
  conDays= 0;
  cnt= 0;

  while (conDays < days)
  {
    cnt++;
    conDays= conDays + (cnt - cnt%10)/10 + 1;
  }
  return cnt;
}

If you have more questions about levelling you can contact me.

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