i understand that but i wasnt banking on just a purely halo themed system. i was going for something with symbols as basic as that while having a ranking system that was slightly complicated in an attempt to make it small but with plenty of room for competition.

for example you have a level progression like this...
1) buttersticks(black)
2) arrows(green)
3) circle(blue)
4) stars(gold/yellow)
5) special things(redish/multicolored)

each level has its own color therefore i highly doubt that anyone could get confused.

and by spliting up the playing field like i mentioned into "beginners," everyone else, and the top players that keeps the amount of people in each major category fairly low. i would say that beginners makes up about 30ish(maybe more) percent of the website and the you have about a whopping 5 percent for the top players and the rest would fit into the middle(group 2, 3, and 4) section.

That way you should have roughly an even 10 percent, hypothetically, in the first three levels.
The middle section would have 9 levels therefore it should be around 7.2 percent per level.
The last section is adjustible: i have it set at a reasonable 20-10-1 but you can increase the section amount according to number of people playing.

i just think that by making smaller chunks and having those individual chunks with their own competition you make every part of the system competitive(not like the game itself isnt already).

Like I said, I agree with the divisions and subdivisions and I think we can implement something like that.

But as kestas mentioned, they need to be clearly distinguishable. The problem with buttersticks, arrows, circles and stars is that none of them are intuitively "higher" than the other. We'd be sort of relying on military ranks to deduct each symbols context...which I think is something we'd want to avoid.

I'm working on a few other variations that I will post soon.

I'd like to see daggers next to our names. The more you have the more you need to be feared...

Okay, here's a couple more (with all five versions together for easy comparison). I like the daggers idea flashman, but just adding daggers would clutter up the icon...so I themed "medals 5" (my personal favorite so far) with sharp, pointy edges. :)

http://i416.photobucket.com/albums/pp248/nsdarwin/DipRankMedals3.jpg

4 and 5 may be a bit too intricate though...these are only samples as I'd like to see what ideas Churchill has too.

hmmm...and what about space bc some people would have lines of daggers or even pages?

i think that the buttersticks(bars), arrows, stars, and top medals are all okay, its just that group 3 is tricky to find something for.
i went ahead with the circles bc you could say that the arrows are being "molded" into stars. (pretty creative stuff if i do say so myself)

ok first off
how do you make those?
and second
how do you post them as such?

you know it takes 33 page downs for me to reach the text box?

wait 35 sorry

I made them using Adobe Illustrator...I saved them as a jpg and uploaded them to photobucket and provided the link.

thats not a cheap hobby

:) It's not a hobby...I work in Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver just about everyday.

not trying to get off topic or anything but what do you do for a living...

Graphics, Marketing and Web Design...I'm trying to teach myself php, but I haven't gotten very far due to lack of time.

Ok... what exactly are we working towards here because I was under the impression that we wanted a lot of ranks... but now people want less... and I'm just confused.

Liking Medals 4 and 5 Darwyn.

well i still consider my suggestion as a solution to satisfying both groups of people(those for more ranks and those for less). The only thing is that each level has to be given a title and apparently better insignias than the ones i defaulted to

Well, let's say there's 12 ranks...we could then subdivide those 12 into either 3 groups of four (beginner, intermediate, advanced) or 4 groups of three...

12 ranks isn't terribly high and it's not small either...whatcha think? Kestas?

I like 4 and 5 too, Churchill...but they might be too intricate for a small icon. I can test them out at the appropriate size and tweak them accordingly.

Have you got any more ideas?

that would be good but the only difference between out ideas is that i made a group at the very top that only consists of the tippity top players
for example the top 20
top 10 and the number one person

I like group 4 the most, and 5 is a close second. the one thing is that for some reason group 4 reminds me a lot of a communist symbol, must be the red and the stars

You may have a small icon to be set behind (or front) of the name in the game listings & bigger medal which is visible in the player info

Darwyn, I think that this discussion has gotten very, very diluted. We need to get a smaller group (kestas, you, me, others) discussing this and coming to an agreement on what we want for the community. Feel free to email me (address in my profile).