More Metaverse Wonk

Hey! The same thing happened to me! I just thought I was crazy!
Anyone else?

It seems that the games earlier than June 2003 do not count anymore, because the blocks end at 270 days. Best as we can tell, they drop off at that date. For another example, check Ray the Wanderer's profile, or Arcilite's profile.

Mine still seem to score..... A block 8 (290+days) seems to be required for my score to compute....

Alex


~SDC~

Statbot says I played 240 games 208 on the Metaverse.

Still doesn't explain what happened. I have 23 games June 2003 or later so that idea is wrong, at least for me. Also, doesn't explain why submitting a game dropped the count by 5.

I gave up on the metaverse ever being anything more than a funsy thing a long time ago, but it's stuff like this that really points out how absolutely meaningless it is, how hard is it to show the games entered correctly?

Err... Alex, you don't have any games prior to June 2003.

I've been looking into this, been monitoring one or two profiles with game losses, and have come to the conclusion that games have a maximum life of 331 days in the metaverse.

However, when and where they are dropped seems to differ for those still submitting games compared to those who aren't. For example... Ray the Wanderer lost one game today, which fits in nicely with the 331 day rule as he lost the game submitted on 5th June 2003. Code Monkey however, this morning had games dating back to 28th May 2003 in his profile. Only when he submitted today, did all games up to 5th June get dropped (after his last submission on 22nd April had dropped all games up to 26th May - 331 days apart again).

So, if your still submitting, the meta only re-calcs when you submit. From what I can gather, once you have a 30 day period without submitting, a recalc occurs there and then (which also ages all scores down one block). I think that there is then an automatic daily recalc to see if games drop off altogether, and an "aging" recalc every 30 days.

If these are all correct observations and assumptions, then Monday should see Ray the Wanderer (59 games) drop to 57, and Jaws (126 games, 1069564 pts) drop to 125 and take a 5% score hit due to aging... :notsure:

Time will tell...

Tech, if I'm right, and you submit your next game today or tomorrow, then you will still have 208 games.

If you submit your next game on Monday, you will have 207 games.

Why do games disappear? I can understand not having them included in the calculation, but having them disppear altogether?

I was using the Metaverse as a personal "high score table".

Therein lies the problem. If you play at the exact same rate, and get the score max for a time, after a time, you'll never increase your score again since in theory, the games are dropping off at the same rate you're adding new. In that case, there's no incentive to keep playing other than to stay where you are. Kind of Sux.

At one point the floor was going to be 20% (80%degraded) But It appears as if it's going to be zero.

Fsk, if you click on your own name, your games still appear in your profile beyond the 331 days. They just don't appear in the game count on the high score table.

True, but your 'games played' should also show the total number. I don't care what games are and aren't used to calc (although the dropping off completely was something that was promised *not* to happen but that's a whole 'nother issue). As has been said, the metaverse should be a record of our playing.

As an example: look at my games submitted bars, stuck at 3 blue bars although I should by all rights be up all 5 blue bars.
[Message Edited]

Browsing the Metaverse it looks like any game submited in May 2003 do not count.

Since that's one whole game for me, want to try and explain the wonk again?

They've done something very stupid in the variables used. Date of submission should have nothing to do with number of games played or submitted. If they are using the same variables for calculations as they are for medals and records than someone got very lazy on the programming.

Oh well, no biggie, I'm off to play Shadow Magic with what little free time I have until the next build is released.

double post
[Message Edited]

Ray is down to 57 games today. Jaws is down to 125, and his score dropped by 37,000 - not quite 5%, but the difference is probably explained by scores moving into different blocks....

Makes it kind of silly to play doesn't it.

Work hard over a year just to find out if you continue all you are doing is maintaince.

Play a game you say great 200 games are submitted but the next day you lose a game and go back to 199.

Happened with me.

The Metaverse and Game Scoring problems as I see them.

The metaverse is a great feature for the game and community. Stardock's support for the game and community is to be commended and other developers should take a page out of their book.

The game scoring system is very lopsided and that games are only being kept for 331 days is frustrating. These two things are very frustrating for players that play the game and the Metaverse game.

Seeing how I am complaining about the scoring systems, here are my proposed fixes.

The game difficulty levels should have a cap on the scores. Map size withing the difficulty levels may affect score as well.

Cake Walk 0-500
Easy 0-1000
Simple 0-2000
Beginner 0-5000
Normal 0-10000
Challenging 0-15000
Tough 0-20000
Painful 0-30000
Crippling 0-45000
Masochistic 0-no cap allow scores to be high.

The scores should be attainable at these levels and they should be able to be maxed out. A maxed out score at challenging could be an indication to the player that it is time to move to the next game level.

The metaverse scoring system should be scrapped and allow the gamers to submit their real game scores.

Games played and the associated scores should not be removed ever from a players contribution. Gamers worked hard for these scores no matter how many games have been submitted.

I invite all to submit criticism constructively or with ridicule. My skin is thick.

I don't know if I agree on the cap on scores from levels lower than maso. If you can get a large score from playing a good game at a lower level, you should be able to keep it. I do strongly agree that the aging process needs fixed, and soon before the veterans all leave because their games don't count anymore.

I second that. Even if they age to only 10-20%. I hate know that I'll start losing value (albiet in a few moths, but still..)

If I had a vote, I would vote to limit the aging of games to 10%. A game no matter how old should never have no contribution towards your total metaverse scores.

The catch with aging to 10% is it kills you. It actually reaches a point that you'd have to accelerate your playing to hold your score. You will actually drop faster than with them axing the scores altogehter. They originally were going to age to 20% and I did a bunch of number crunching showing how bad that was for the longterm player and the implication was that they were going to up the final aging to 30% which still causes your score increase to drop to a very mild upward slope after about 10 months but it does at least increase instead of dropping which is what happens with any basement lower than 30%.

However, they didn't listen and implemented this system which will piss off anybody who plays the game on and off over a long period, piss off the old timers, and still leave the newbies (if there is such a thing for a game this "old") totally intimidated by the 1 million+ scorers out there.

I do not think at the stage of the game any major work will be done on the Metaverse.



I think they did listen Maso players were louder than most players, like me. I say like me because at the time I was "Easy" games. Remember in theory you could not win on a Maso level.

I only started playing Maso because my score was dropping me out of the Top 100. Guess what Maso level if you follow a few simple rules posted all over the place is easy to beat. Many of my older wins were much harder but counted for nothing as far a the Metaverse was concerned.

Any new players submit a game or two see anything they submit does not matter.

Veterans like me either have to act like a mouse on a wheel submit just to stay in place.

Who is left a few player that know all the Maso exploits and just play for the points?

There are. I've been here a little over two months. Major Dallas just started playing last month. There (we hope) should be more with AP going gold. That's why fixing the perceived problems with the Metaverse is something that should be looked at.

Agreed, but I don't think it's something they have much intention of doing. I believe the Stardock perception is that not that many people use the metaverse anyhow. I believe that the persistent flaws from day 1 in the metaverse are why people don't use it as much as they might otherwise.