Petition for Help

from Stardock Forums
Here's the story:

I had to get a new serial number for GalCiv because I was having problems with some of Stardocks features. Once I did this and was able to get everything working correctly, I noticed that my score is no longer there. I checked with the Stardock support desk and her was the answer -
"Unfortunately, doing this is not an option at this time because the way this information is organized in our database. This may be an option we might make available to our customers sometime in the near future."

Now please don't get me wrong, the support was great and extremely helpful. I petition is this - to change the Database in a way where your information is not stored by your CD Key. Maybe there would be a way to index your user by your "Stardock.net ID" or by "Player ID".

All support would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Nick - philopoemen
[Message Edited]
268 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
philopoemen,

The reason (I think) is because the CD key is Stardock's method of encouraging people to purchase their own copy of the software. You see, if someone were to loan his or her GalCiv CD to a friend then this friend could load the game on his PC and then return the disk. He could then play GalCiv all he wants (without ever paying for it) because you don't need the CD to play (like most games require). This is software piracy. The software pirate would be unable to submit games to the metaverse, however, because that particular CD key is already registered to another person.

If Stardock were to stop using the CD key as a control measure, then they would be giving up their only tool to fight piracy.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, and I may be wrong about this, but I don't think that they will change their metaverse player index.

Perhaps you could petition them to simply credit your new metaverse account with your old score. Surely this would be a simple thing for them, just update a number in a database somewhere.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Please don't get me wrong in thinking I stole this game. I actually (probably a drunken stupor) bought this game from Amazon.com. I thought I bought a new copy, unfortunetly I got a used copy.

I will try and ask about having my score credited back.

Thanks LifeWish
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Uhmm one thing, typically pre ver 1.05 scores are quite low, so they actually drag down your total score quite a bit. You may be better off just showing your 'new' scores, your overall score will be alot higher. Those of us who have played since version 1.0 are pretty much sunk, there is little we can do to actually boost our score, and the scores decay all the time....soo...my $0.02
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
philopoemen,
I didn't mean to imply that you had a pirated copy. Best of luck getting your score restored... If you want to start a petetion thread, I'd be glad to post to it on your behalf!
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Gibbie99,

How do old scores make our totals lower? You mean they count as negative scores? I don't understand. :p
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
a single game at 20,000 is worth 20,000 overall

two games, one at 20,000 and one at 500 is
worth 14496, signifigantly less then the 20,000
score by itself.

The formula for this is the sum of the scores
divided by the sqrt of the number of scores.

In this case 20500/sqrt(2) or 205000/1.4142136

This is not really an issue so long as the range of
scores stay fairly consistant, but with the extreme
differences that exist between 1.05 and previous versions
older scores are dragging many players overall score
down. They would be better off without them.



[Message Edited]
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Most of my games are from 1.05 and they were fairly consistant. Around the 4 to 6 thousand area for each one, 9 games in total.