Well looks like another game ruined for Clans that own their own server boxes... You have to have won the lottery to rent boxes from some of these providers...its a total joke!
The guys over at PlanetQuakeWars.net have posted up a new interview with Stephen ‘Malarky’ Gaffney about the issue of ranked servers in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Take a look:
PlanetQuakeWars.net - How do ranked servers work in Enemy Territory Quake Wars (ETQW)?
Stephen Gaffney: ETQW has two types of server: ‘Ranked’ and ‘Unranked’:A Ranked server is a trusted server with a locked configuration, guaranteed to be playing the most up-to-date pure version of the game, hosted by a trusted provider, which collects detailed player stats and reports them to our persistent database. Players can go to our website and view their stats, see what achievement badges and military rank they’ve earned, compare their stats with those of other players and decide how to focus their efforts in future games.An Unranked server is completely open. It still authenticates ETQW user accounts for the purpose of copyright protection, but doesn't report player stats. Unranked servers can be run by anyone, for free.
PlanetQuakeWars.net - Will a Ranked server only be available for authorized Game Server Providers (GSPs), or is there a way to get a ranked server certificate on your own server?
Stephen Gaffney: We're going to work with a select number of GSPs for the launch of the game. We’re happy to announce they’ll be providing a large number of free, public Ranked servers along with rentable Ranked servers for clans. You will not have to pay to play ETQW, although clans may well choose to pay a GSP for the services they provide.We're limiting Ranked servers to GSPs for a couple of reasons. The first is quality of service. We simply want to make sure that Ranked servers meet a certain quality standard, so that when people go to play on a ranked ETQW server, they can be sure that it's fast, secure, and well-managed. To that end, we're working closely with dozens of GSPs worldwide to ensure that the servers they provide meet our requirements and offer a great experience to our players. The other main advantage of providing Ranked servers via trusted hosts is that you can be more confident that the statistics they collect are accurate and free of exploits. If we allowed any server to report statistics, this would make the system exploitable and ultimately result in players losing confidence in it. With our Ranked servers, we’re doing our best to make sure that all the statistics they report are based on the same set of ground rules.We may eventually increase the number of GSPs that are authorized for Ranked servers, but for the initial game launch we're focusing on select high-quality GSPs to make sure all of our criteria are met. We think players will also be pleased to hear that neither Activision nor id Software nor Splash Damage will receive any revenue from trusted providers for the servers they rent to players. Our only concern here is to guarantee quality of gameplay experience and integrity of the persistent stats. As there are no other costs to pass on, the player will pay only for the costs associated with the hardware provided by the trusted provider.
PlanetQuakeWars.net - How do ranked servers work in Enemy Territory Quake Wars (ETQW)?
Stephen Gaffney: ETQW has two types of server: ‘Ranked’ and ‘Unranked’:A Ranked server is a trusted server with a locked configuration, guaranteed to be playing the most up-to-date pure version of the game, hosted by a trusted provider, which collects detailed player stats and reports them to our persistent database. Players can go to our website and view their stats, see what achievement badges and military rank they’ve earned, compare their stats with those of other players and decide how to focus their efforts in future games.An Unranked server is completely open. It still authenticates ETQW user accounts for the purpose of copyright protection, but doesn't report player stats. Unranked servers can be run by anyone, for free.
PlanetQuakeWars.net - Will a Ranked server only be available for authorized Game Server Providers (GSPs), or is there a way to get a ranked server certificate on your own server?
Stephen Gaffney: We're going to work with a select number of GSPs for the launch of the game. We’re happy to announce they’ll be providing a large number of free, public Ranked servers along with rentable Ranked servers for clans. You will not have to pay to play ETQW, although clans may well choose to pay a GSP for the services they provide.We're limiting Ranked servers to GSPs for a couple of reasons. The first is quality of service. We simply want to make sure that Ranked servers meet a certain quality standard, so that when people go to play on a ranked ETQW server, they can be sure that it's fast, secure, and well-managed. To that end, we're working closely with dozens of GSPs worldwide to ensure that the servers they provide meet our requirements and offer a great experience to our players. The other main advantage of providing Ranked servers via trusted hosts is that you can be more confident that the statistics they collect are accurate and free of exploits. If we allowed any server to report statistics, this would make the system exploitable and ultimately result in players losing confidence in it. With our Ranked servers, we’re doing our best to make sure that all the statistics they report are based on the same set of ground rules.We may eventually increase the number of GSPs that are authorized for Ranked servers, but for the initial game launch we're focusing on select high-quality GSPs to make sure all of our criteria are met. We think players will also be pleased to hear that neither Activision nor id Software nor Splash Damage will receive any revenue from trusted providers for the servers they rent to players. Our only concern here is to guarantee quality of gameplay experience and integrity of the persistent stats. As there are no other costs to pass on, the player will pay only for the costs associated with the hardware provided by the trusted provider.

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