I hate leavers, so obnoxious.  TDA rules work great.  As long as their is an organization or group of somekind that can maintain order outside the public sphere, I'll be happy.  Otherwise, I wouldn't mind having a DC count registered to people's accounts.

I hate leavers sooo much, but banlists are massively flawed, im currently banned on a banlist because they had their banlist on auto, so when i left when the crystal was on like 1/4 health, the game had about 5 secs left, i got banned. I left because its way quicker, otherwise you have to wait for the scores and then it takes longer to quit after that.

I've also got a friend who was banned because his dad DCed the internet, he went back on and appologised to the host and the host still banned him. It's not even like he was feeding he had a 6/2 score.

Enough ranting, Impulse isn't the client, i cant remember what they called it but they have a deferent system that the just made. I hope they use your first option, that solves many problems.

Hopefully all of this will be on Impulse.  If it isn't then GPG needs a very simple (read idiot-proof), very polished multiplayer hub which includes optional router-tunneling and transparent stat tracking, per above.  No need to reinvent the wheel - it has to work really well from day one. 

Having AI replace quitting players is certainly better than a sharp stick in the eye, but allowing options before the game starts is always preferable. 

   Well, I never liked the idea of people punishing leaving to be honest. Some people feel that they've already lost, and do not desire to waste their time finishing out a match to its fullest duration. Instead of punishing people who leave, like most games do, I feel a game should instead take into account that people just desire to Give Up a match. I haven't played an online RTS that just allows the other team to Surrender completed. And Surrender is a part of war, not everyone fights to the bitter end.

   If someone wants to leave, by all means let people leave. If in a team game, allow people to Vote for Surrender, and if not allow AI to take over (and good AI too). There are times when even I desire to leave a match, but there is no real way to do it without gaving a stupid RTS game add a drop out percentage to my record. Inform players on what the penalties are, and no matter what the circumstance (disconnect or un-plug) - allow players of the team who lost the player to vote for surrender. And any form of leaving in a 1on1 match is just automatic Surrender, period.

I do like the idea of a surrender option, but it definitely needs to require a majority of the team voting to do so, rather than just giving individuals another way to leave.  The problem with quitters is far less often an issue of the other team dragging out a victory (though that does occur) and far more often a matter of one individual bailing out because he or she dies a couple of times early in the game.  That puts their team down a player, which is a serious handicap, and makes the next quitter more likely. 

I understand the concerns around punishing people, which is why I'm in favor of Option 1. It's not punishing to show the percentage of times they've quit games - it just prevents them from punishing other players.  If you leave 5% of the time because the other team drags it out, and 5% of the time because the phone rings, etc. etc., you're still going to have a decent completion percentage.  Over time, rarer instances like leaving because the other team dragged out a victory get overwhelmed by the number of completed games, and players will tend to settle on reasonable completion averages (90%, etc., etc.).  Odds are pretty good that similar circumstances will prevail for most players - if someone leaves 4x as often as the norm, that's a problem with the player, not the other team. 

I do like the basic idea of a scoring system (and numbers put forward by Trig seem reasonable), but it does need to be simple and transparent. I also wonder if players will feel more "punished" by score penalties vs. just displaying the percentage of completed games.  Also, using a raw number of occurences is problematic because it doesn't account for the frequency of play.  Someone could complete 90% of their games, but if they play 10 times as often as someone who leaves every single game, the two would have the same basic number of departures. 

What about rewarding team surrenders?  It's still a loss of points, but it's fractionally less damaging to your ranking than a full loss or drop.  This has two functions -

1.  It rewards good sportsmanship, since a player who would in other games just drop or take the loss would in this case stick it out and vote for surrender

2.  It makes games faster on a voluntary basis, which competitive communities can always use. 

lol, right, I saw that and then apparently forgot it. 

I'm half-idiot on my 2nd mother's side, so please forgive....

I think this is a good idea.

One of the nice things about the Tournament mode of the game is that the game code is all server based so we can keep updating it without having to update the actual game EXE.  I agree with you and we will do what we can to have the multiplayer matchmaking evolve with as many criteria as possible.