Good morning Diplomat. Haven't seen you at the Core recently Mumble, good to see you here.

I've been checking in now and then. My first v1.31 game is keeping me real busy, at first I thought I had no chance but it's gradually turning around, it may be my best game ever by the time I'm done with it.

I do have some useful data that I've been trying to post at the core. It's mainly in pdf's. I could post them in the open attachment area. But I think this stuff should go in the private area but I haven't managed to figure out how to post attachments there.

I basically have three things. A tech tree showing the modules and the modules effect for each tech, a list of all the abilities and each races free abilities, and a list of all buildings and starbase components in the game, what they do and what techs they require.

But in regards to this alternate MV. It could be anything at all if it doesn't replace the current MV. But I think the desire for an alternate MV is a reflection that the current MV is broken. It's not right that people need to start over or reset characters that they've spent a large amount of time developing because they only get 25% or even less of any new score posted.

I don't think you can have any kind of MV without at least some implied form of ranking. If it's high scores of a particular type that's listed, that's not really fair to the folks that post large quantities of medium scoring games. As far as new vs. old players, I don't think that a new player should instantly be able to compete with more established players, but if there's no hope of ever catching up what motivation does a new player have to participate?

The method I proposed doesn't penalize the older player based on the number of games played. It also doesn't penalize the player that submits large quantities of medium scoring games and it doesn't prohibit a new player from rising in the ranks. It basically gives everyone a sliding window of the last 6 months of games to determine rankings. I can't think of any other system that would be as fair.

I really think that it's the real MV that's broken and should in some way be fixed. I know that's a more difficult thing than just setting up an alternate MV, but I think it would be the better way to go.

The altmeta in GC1 was run more as a short term comparison between players & empires, rather than a long term cumulative representation of score. There were monthly competitions between players and empires that used the data from the altmeta, and in at least one case even inter-faction competition within an empire.

This was certainly appealing to me, as a late-comer to GC1 who saw very little hope of ever reaching the dizzy heights of the real meta (although I did eventually reach 3rd place before realising that Technician was an unstoppable force). I am sure that something similar would encourage newer players (such as those that will arrive courtesy of DA) to join in the community more, as opposed to looking at their 10-15k early scores - then looking at the existing meta and thinking "what's the point"?

Yes, it would be great to "fix" the existing metaverse - but how? You are never going to please everyone, and numerous or regular recalcs just annoy many long term players rather than balance things for the newcomers. Better to just provide an alternative way - if there is the interest within the community to support such an idea and make it worthwhile for the effort involved (which I'm not convinced there is at this moment in time - most empires appear to be dormant).

I guess I was just getting a bit nostalgic with the whole idea - as we did have 8-10 very active empires at the time, and the "empires" section of the forums was the busiest - remember our 19,000+ post "Raven's Claw" thread.   

Yes, it would be great to "fix" the existing metaverse - but how? You are never going to please everyone, and numerous or regular recalcs just annoy many long term players rather than balance things for the newcomers

I thought my proposal was a reasonable "how". But you're right about numerous and regular recalcs, you don't want to be making constant changes. I think that would annoy both short and long term players. And if there's no general agreement on how to fix the MV, it probally is better left alone.

As far as the dormancy of the empires I think you're right there as well, it just seems like it's mostly us and the Orca's. I'm all for everything that generates more interest in the game and the MV. I know there are some very high caliber players that simply don't bother posting games to the MV. Whether they used to post to the MV and just got burned out or whatever their reason is I don't know, but it would be nice to generate some interest from folks in this category. But in the end you can lead a horse to drink but you can't make him water (or something like that).

The current MV is not that bad but it is unfortunate that long term characters must either restart or face getting "credit" for a smaller and smaller percentage of their games.

Got some basic statbot functionality set up, but right now it just covers individual characters in the top 50 empires (there's no easy way to grab unaligned players as yet).

There's no index at the moment so if you want your stats, you'll need to change the id=### on the end of the url to be your character's number (just go to your character's page on the MV, and it'll be at the end of that url).

Example page: http://altmeta2.thegalacticcore.com/charstats.php?id=6898

Right now I have it set to decay the "altmeta" scores at a rate of 16.66% per month with no other modifiers.

Top man Kryo!   

That was fast - and is a very nice, easy to view snapshot of games played aswell.

OK folks, time to think seriously how we can use this to liven up the community a bit. I've a couple of ideas that need a bit more thinking through - and then I'll post something over at The Core for feedback / comments / general derision.   

Got some basic statbot functionality set up

If that's basic functionality, what will complete functionality do? Make your breakfast and shine your shoes? Wow!   

Great, Kyro.   

If that's basic functionality, what will complete functionality do?

Well for one, I can't gather any race data aside from whether or not the game used a custom race, due to a bug in the RSS feeds (which won't be fixed for some time since the wbe team is buy with Wincustomize 2k7).

BTW, all the graphs only cover the last six months (only two of them actually say that, but they all are that way since I'm setting the Altmeta scores to degrade by 1/6 per month).

great stuff Kryo. Game completed. 102K to be sumitted later.

Heat index was 124 today. Flight deck temp was over 140. At least my office has AC.

Hello Diplomats.

I'm not quite halfway through my first v1.31 gigantic suicidal. It's been something else. It's definitely been the most exciting game I've had so far and I still don't know whether or not I'm going to win. To give you an idea of what I've been up to for the last three weeks or so, I wrote up a bit of an AAR on the game so far. I put it in the Description of Games played thread in the GalCiv II forum at the Galactic Core. Have a look if you get the chance.

BTW the GalCiv II forum at the Core is accessible to anyone, just follow the link below.

The Galactic Core GalCiv II forum

Morning Diplomats. *yawn* Time for bed.

Good night FC. Leave the AC on

Good morning Diplomats. I must be doing something wrong that I did not use to do. I keep being attacked early before I have much even available.

Great to see you around FC. If you're unable to access the Core while underway, please feel free to say hi here. Hope all is going well for you and congrats on the next edition to the "soon to be logged" list.

Did somebody say "Statbot"!!! WTG Kryo!!!

Yes Mag, the Claw was definetly the mother of "Threadzilla". Eventually, I couldn't even get in there because it would time out (even on DSL!).

BTW the GalCiv II forum at the Core is accessible to anyone, just follow the link below.

Indeed it is. But it's meant to be that way.

Good to hear from you FC.

Morning Diplomats

Nice going on the alt meta Kryo

Good morning Diplomats. Off to prepare a lesson for Sunday School.

Morning. Back out to sea today.

Thought of the Day.

Drunken Chiefs should not ride camels.

ROFL

Yeah FC, it's a long fall from the top of a camel...not to mention a bumpy ride!

Good morning Diplomats. Submitted a 69K game today under 1.41 the game ended with nary a wimper from the AI. Just all of a suddent the planets all flipped and game over. Seems like a bug to me, but I no longer believe that irrationalities in the game are bugs, but features put there to annoy the player.  

Thanks everyone for your generous support..
Having had a couple of games nulled for "cheating" I can now post scores with no problem.
Updating to V 1.31 was a help but I think the major problem was that I was trying to play with a custom race which the MET would not allow.Only after updating to 1.31did the MET tell me that I had a game setup that was unacceptable.
Now I have posted two rubbish scores but at least I know it works!    
I look foreward to posting something worthwhile soon.  
Happy hunting Diplos ; and thanks again for the advice.

Good morning Diplos. Glad you are up and running, Cardassian. Go whop some. ... what do they call them?  

Blimey;blimey, It can be so easy !!
Shame GCII ain't the same eh!?!