NFS World Leaderboards - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Posted: 06 Jun 2012, 12:00
NFSUnlimited.net World Leaderboards
Frequently Asked Questions
Hey there! Thanks for checking out these frequently asked questions about our Need For Speed World Leaderboards system. We sure get a lot of the same questions asked over and over, so here are the most popular, with answers!
Cheers, GT
How do I...?
Q: How do I connect my NFS World account to my NFSUnlimited account?
A: Go here and enter your NFS World driver name.
Q: How do I add a screenshot or video to my time?
A: Click the "Edit" link at the right of the time and enter the info there. You can do this from the leaderboards or from your profile page.
Q: How do I join a team?
A: It depends on the team. The owner of a team can set it to public entry and allow anyone to join, or they can set it to private, where you must apply to join. Check the team page. If you find a Join Team button, click it and you're now a member! If there's no Join button available, leave a request in the team's shoutbox or send a private message (PM) to the owner of the team asking if you can join. Be sure to give them some info about your kewl elite skills and so on!
Q: How do I create my own team?
A: Go here. Fill out the form as you wish, then click the Save Team button.
How does it work...?
Q: How do you get the World leaderboards onto your site?
A; We subscribe to a data service provided by Electronic Arts called "SpeedAPI". We connect to SpeedAPI and query the data it offers, then copy the data into our own databases for display on NFSUnlimited. For the technically-minded, the SpeedAPI documentation can be found here.
Q: How are the leaderboard points calculated?
A: It's a simple formula where your top time's rank on every track is subtracted from the total number of times on that track. Sum up all tracks and you'll get your total score.
Q: How are team average scores calculated?
A: All the total scores of competing team members are summed up and divided by the number of competing members in that team.
Why..?
Q: Why haven't my times appeared on the leaderboards?
A: There might be a number of reasons:
A: Those are tracks that you haven't registered a time for yet. They don't count toward your rank or score.
Can you...?
Q: Can you manually update my times?
A: No. The update process is automatic and there's no way for admins to do a manual update.
Q: Can you validate my time?
A: We need to see a video of your run before we can validate the time. You can record a video using a number programs like Bandicam, Hypercam, FRAPS and so on, or even use a camcorder or your phone! Next, upload the video to a video sharing site and then use the Edit link on the time to add the video info. Once an admin can confirm that no cheats or bugs were exploited, they can validate your time. Note that it's best to talk to one of the special Leaderboard Admins about this.
Q: Can you remove my bugged time from the leaderboards?
A: Yes! Please provide the track name, your driver name, the car and the time to a friendly NFSUnlimited admin. They will remove the time once they confirm that the driver is yours.
Q: Can you remove the cheat time I found track XYZ?
A: Possibly, if it's clearly a cheat/bugged time. Contact an Admin and they will take appropriate action.
Q: My NFSUnlimited account was banned. Can you unban me please, or unlink the World driver from the account?
A. Sorry, no. NFSUnlimited bans are permanent. You're welcome to start again with a new World driver.
My question isn't listed...!!
Well, aren't you the special one!
Seriously, if you have questions that aren't answered here, you can post them in a reply below, find a friendly admin in site chat or send a PM (private message) to the "NFSUnlimited Staff" group.
Q: Ok, cool. But how do I find an admin??
A: Admins have red name tags all across the site. You can also check the Staff List. If you want to talk to the head honcho, that's Bojan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Hey there! Thanks for checking out these frequently asked questions about our Need For Speed World Leaderboards system. We sure get a lot of the same questions asked over and over, so here are the most popular, with answers!
Cheers, GT
How do I...?
Q: How do I connect my NFS World account to my NFSUnlimited account?
A: Go here and enter your NFS World driver name.
Q: How do I add a screenshot or video to my time?
A: Click the "Edit" link at the right of the time and enter the info there. You can do this from the leaderboards or from your profile page.
Q: How do I join a team?
A: It depends on the team. The owner of a team can set it to public entry and allow anyone to join, or they can set it to private, where you must apply to join. Check the team page. If you find a Join Team button, click it and you're now a member! If there's no Join button available, leave a request in the team's shoutbox or send a private message (PM) to the owner of the team asking if you can join. Be sure to give them some info about your kewl elite skills and so on!
Q: How do I create my own team?
A: Go here. Fill out the form as you wish, then click the Save Team button.
How does it work...?
Q: How do you get the World leaderboards onto your site?
A; We subscribe to a data service provided by Electronic Arts called "SpeedAPI". We connect to SpeedAPI and query the data it offers, then copy the data into our own databases for display on NFSUnlimited. For the technically-minded, the SpeedAPI documentation can be found here.
Q: How are the leaderboard points calculated?
A: It's a simple formula where your top time's rank on every track is subtracted from the total number of times on that track. Sum up all tracks and you'll get your total score.
Q: How are team average scores calculated?
A: All the total scores of competing team members are summed up and divided by the number of competing members in that team.
Why..?
Q: Why haven't my times appeared on the leaderboards?
A: There might be a number of reasons:
- Hourly updates. Times are not updated instantly. We check EA's SpeedAPI data service once every hour for new times to add to the leaderboards.
- Not your fastest time. We only record the fastest time for each car at each track. For example, if you run a slower time than your best GT3 time at Camden Tunnel, the time will not be loaded.
- SpeedAPI delays. Some times can be delayed before they appear in SpeedAPI for several hours or even days. This is out of our control. If a time is delayed too long, it will be missed because SpeedAPI only publishes times that were made since midnight.
- SpeedAPI changes. EA sometimes change things in SpeedAPI which prevent times from uploading. They seem to change the carnames quite often. If our system doesn't recognise a carname, the time cannot be uploaded.
- SpeedAPI outage. If SpeedAPI is down, we can't retrieve any data from it.
A: Those are tracks that you haven't registered a time for yet. They don't count toward your rank or score.
Can you...?
Q: Can you manually update my times?
A: No. The update process is automatic and there's no way for admins to do a manual update.
Q: Can you validate my time?
A: We need to see a video of your run before we can validate the time. You can record a video using a number programs like Bandicam, Hypercam, FRAPS and so on, or even use a camcorder or your phone! Next, upload the video to a video sharing site and then use the Edit link on the time to add the video info. Once an admin can confirm that no cheats or bugs were exploited, they can validate your time. Note that it's best to talk to one of the special Leaderboard Admins about this.
Q: Can you remove my bugged time from the leaderboards?
A: Yes! Please provide the track name, your driver name, the car and the time to a friendly NFSUnlimited admin. They will remove the time once they confirm that the driver is yours.
Q: Can you remove the cheat time I found track XYZ?
A: Possibly, if it's clearly a cheat/bugged time. Contact an Admin and they will take appropriate action.
Q: My NFSUnlimited account was banned. Can you unban me please, or unlink the World driver from the account?
A. Sorry, no. NFSUnlimited bans are permanent. You're welcome to start again with a new World driver.
My question isn't listed...!!
Well, aren't you the special one!
Seriously, if you have questions that aren't answered here, you can post them in a reply below, find a friendly admin in site chat or send a PM (private message) to the "NFSUnlimited Staff" group. Q: Ok, cool. But how do I find an admin??
A: Admins have red name tags all across the site. You can also check the Staff List. If you want to talk to the head honcho, that's Bojan.