Oh boy...look guys, I'm never going to get back to the output I had in the old days. If I play again I just play for fun - there's no way I'm going to cram hundreds of games. So...you'd probably be recruiting a LEMON! But hey...it's nice to be asked...

The Force is with you. Join the Jedi ...

LOL You know you want to go out in number one

Going out in number one doesnt mean you'r number 1, or any better at what you do. All that matters is having fun and enjoying yourself playing your games and being in an empire you want to be in LOL

I play for the love of the game , Fun , and the Glory of my Empire...

Yeah, yeah. So, why all the recruiting? LOL

what others to join me in the fun...

and the Glory of the EMPIRE....

I thought that was obvous.... LOL

Ok, I had to talk this one over with Brad because I wasn't sure what our official position was on this. 

First of all, it does say on the metaverse registration page "You can only have 1 player name registered at a time," although this is refering to the player alias that you submit under rather than a Stardock.net account set up with another alias and the same serial number.

I have, as someone mentioned, given out directions on how to have multiple accounts in the metaverse.  I believe that it was through e-mail and was either in the case of someone retiring their old account or so that their children wouldn't be submitting poor scores to their account and bringing down their total.  Others have used it so that they can test mods they are working on without affecting their active account. 

I didn't, however, realize that it could be used to inflate your empire's scores, and that can be considered cheating, and for consistency's sake, we will probably have to prevent all multiple accounts in the future.  I will have to talk to Pat about checking during registration to see if the serial number is already being used and if we can combine current multiple accounts. 

[Message Edited]

You should be able to retire a player and start over.

No one was doing what was suggested, as far as I know.

The way the scoring works if you miss any length of time you never recover and there is know point playing the player.

Uh oh...I'm with Druid then - you should have a mechanism to retire a player and start from scratch...

Well, you can register a new player (under the same galciv account) and use it.

But is that not what Cari just said we cannot do any more.

But there is no way to unregistar a player is there.
:notsure:
[Message Edited]

No. This is a bummer when it comes to attracting older players back to the game, and will become more of an issue with GC2. I just renewed my TotalGaming.net sub, thinking I would start a new player and be ready to participate in the beta testing. Of course, I can still do that as Wild Wombat, but if the GC2 Metaverse is simply an extension of the existing one with the same player identity, then I am going to be dragging the baggage of a couple of hundred two-year-old games through that whole process and cant get really excited about Metaverse contests, which was a big motivation for me to play in the first place. I think it acts as a disincentive to older players - and I suspect there are a number out there who are waiting for GC2 to become active in the community again. I think players should at least be given the right to zero their scores, wipe their games and start again if they cant have new aliases. Buying another copy of the game (and another TG.net sub to access the beta) just to start again is asking a lot, even for a long term member of the community.

I'm sure the new meta will only be games for GC2 and won't even be out tell the end of the beta testing.

You would not get much interest in Meta with some guy named Tech starting out 4 million points ahead.
LOL
[Message Edited]

I'd like to agree - but there's just no way of knowing what Stardock are thinking at the moment. At least CariElf is looking at this thread and we've brought it to her attention as an issue to think about...

wombie, i think you should just go ahead and enjoy yourself....stardock may take ages to come up with a solution

LOL Good point Roy, proceed with your plan, Wombat and let the dice fall where they may. It's all about you having fun. I don't think this is going to be to high a priority at Stardock or if they'll be a quick fix.
[Message Edited]

I find it intesting that all of a sudden there is an interest in eliminating anyting that might "inflate" empire scores. The long standing bug of non-recal never caused a ripple in the Startdock world and that inflated empire accounts more than anything the dual or multiple personalities would do. If the game is really that importnat (the game being the metaverse) that the only focus is on the score and not on the fun that people get out of playing with multiple personalities, then it is proably time to quit the Metaverse altogether. Leave it to those who are only interested in where their empire score is. who cares, really!

PB: it definately was NOT my intention to make any suggestion or inference regarding cheating, and I do not think anyone in the Metaverse is using multiple aliases for this purpose. I had a specific issue - a whole stack of older games and an old identity with an inactive empire that I wished to leave behind, to start fresh elsewhere - and I thought the polite thing was to ask the community of players what they thought about the whole deal.

I've seen your aliases quoted in posts on this topic and I suspect this is just because you have two high scoring aliases and provide a good example of the situation. I have no doubt that you play the game in good faith.

It IS interesting that CariElf picked up on it though, and as I said in an earlier post, it's probably better we talk about it NOW and iron any hiccups out - if only we could do so calmly and without heat.

I "care" simply in the sense that I want to do the right thing by the playing group, having been around for a couple of years now. I take Roy/Druid's point and will now think about whether just to push on - I'm just not sure whether I'm going to pay some kind of price with scores later on if Stardock decide to recombine all aliases.

The Metaverse "game" keeps everyone interested, so it's worth sorting out. As I said, I still think old plaers should have the change to zero and get a clean start if they wish.

I wasn't concerned about your post, WW. You asked a good question in good faith. CariElf reponded to a particular complaint from JT Querk that people were inflating their empire scores. I deflated mine when I started my new character to cause a recalc. I could have left it there and inflated the empire score until just recently - i.e. over 4 mounths of inflation that Stardock did nothing about. Greldon "inflated " the empire score for an even longer period of time. Yes people complained about their scores not dropping, but not about the inflation of the empire scores.

I had personally asked CariElf to combine my two personalites and she told me she did not have time to do that now. did not seem to be a big issue with her a few weeks ago.



I agree.

Wombat and Retired players should not be affected... only the Miltiple Active persona's

Why something like this has to be in place is that even though no one is abusing it now... in time there will be ... and you can't just say you and you can have multiple accounts and you and you can't... its best nipped in the bud now rather than later (it would have been better earlier)

As Cari has stated she has helped players setup multiple accounts in the passed to try and fix problems or test mods... However She never intended them to be ongoing active scorring accounts... she thought that that the scores didn't get applied the way they do on multiple accounts...

This problem Had to be fixed... as its potential was devistating to how stardock wanted the metaverse to run
(as is stated in the player registration screen)

below is a text capture of Cari's and my chat after they at Stardock made a descision



As you can see... I don't just report the problems / bugs... I also suggest ways to fix things... I havn't seen anyone else in the GalCiv chat room talking to Cari about this discussion since it started... only me... If you have sugegestions and or see bugs loopholes then Report them to Cari via email or IRC ...thats why sahe's here ... to help the metaverse... and she is doing a fantastic job... she won't bite your head off for nicely talking about problems with the game ot the metaverse

PS: if we don't get loopholes fixed in this metaverse or at least recognised by stardock then they can't fix them for GalCiv2's metaverse which apparently is going to be a complete re-write...
and about the catching up business... if you are away for any length of time... I've done it twice now .... 2 periods of over 30 days without submitting... Sure its a hard slog... butat least now if you let your blocks age fully prior to submitting under that player (I believe its 4 * 30day blocks) then your score won't drop anymore... and your scores will increase as normal just with your old score as a base...

Well, the games won't age if they are 291 days older or more.

Now, for people that don't paly during a month and came back after, they must know that there is a rollercoaster effect as long a the empty submission periode can hit a 30 days block. The rollercoaster effect is greatly reduced when the empty month enter a 70 days block.. There are 5 30 days block, 2 70 days block and the last block where all games end.

thanks peace... my memory isn't good at remembering the exact block break ups

No. I said that you can't have two Stardock.net accounts submitting scores. But if you want to start over from zero, you can just change the name that you submit with and register that one as the name that you're using.  Your old scores would still be there but they would not calculate with your new one.

I don't know yet what is going to happen to the metaverse when GC2 is released, and there won't be a metaverse for GC2 until later in the betas.  I also haven't had a chance to talk with Pat about blocking the creation of multiple accounts with the same serial.  So for now, I will merge people's accounts at their request only.

[email protected]

 

 

Well I cannot believe how little disagreement there actually was here. LOL

I totally misunderstood. I thought we were discussing stoping the registration of a 2nd player, period. So what Wombat wants to do is totally acceptable. Same with all the other people who started over again.

Is there anything that you do differently when changing your name, as apposed to setting up a 2nd player. I thought it was the same procedure.
:notsure: