Metaverse Games with 1.2 Beta 1

There is a bug in v1.2 Beta 1 where data is not being correctly loaded from save games, causing a condition that sets the cheater flag.

If you saved a game that you loaded, the cheater flag would then be saved in the save game, ruining it for the metaverse.

However, if you never have to save and reload, your game should still be submissable.

I just found out today that games with the cheater flag do not count towards your overall score, so you don't need to have them removed.

I have fixed the bug here and it will be in our next update.

15,500 views 30 replies
Reply #1 Top
OK, but will it still be possible to patch current 1.2 beta 1 metaverse games with the upcoming beta 2 and then perhaps be able to submit them without being flagged?
Reply #2 Top
Where does one download 1.2 beta from? I'm either toally thick or I just can't navigate this site very well. Look in downloads and find nothing relating to it?
Reply #3 Top
You can d/l it from SDC. just remember to refreah the XML data if you havent done so in a while.
Reply #4 Top

Master Marcus,

No, it won't be able to fix games currently marked as cheater.

Reply #6 Top
You can d/l it from SDC. just remember to refreah the XML data if you havent done so in a while.


You will also need to have the "Show Pre-Release versions" check box checked in order to see it.

Reply #8 Top
I'm not cheating, I just select starting conditions which give me some advantage over the AI! Sparse maps with very few habitable planets, and now I even picked the Terrans, Thalans and Altarians as opponents (info says they have weak military). Such a nice game, lost half a night of sleep on it last night, and yet it got flagged as cheater because of this. It would have doubled my score on the Metaverse so far. (So ok, I only have three games in there now, but still.)
Reply #9 Top


There is a bug in v1.2 Beta 1 where data is not being correctly loaded from save games, causing a condition that sets the cheater flag.

If you saved a game that you loaded, the cheater flag would then be saved in the save game, ruining it for the metaverse.

However, if you never have to save and reload, your game should still be submissable.

I just found out today that games with the cheater flag do not count towards your overall score, so you don't need to have them removed.


I have fixed the bug here and it will be in our next update.

Reply

[Ensign] [Human] [Chaotic Evil] [Challenging] Why would we want to remove the game? We did not cheat. It is impossible to not save and reload a game that takes a week to play. The cheater flag should be removed and the score should count. Thank-you
Reply #10 Top
I think you should make the metaverse a higher priority then it is now. I dont think you realize that the metaverse is a major factor in keeping people interested in your game. The recalc has not been finished. The betas were not recalculated. Now we are told that games that took us anywhere from 3 days to a week to play are not going to count on our meteverse total as they were falsely labelled as cheats. Each time something like this happens you lose more and more interest in the meteverse. Thank-you
Reply #11 Top
Guys whilst i understand the annoyance at losing a game posted to the Metaverse, please remember that you are playing a BETA version of the update! if you do not wish for things like this to happen then please wait for a couple of weeks for the full release of v1.2. Running a BETA usually incurs some form of error etc and to be honest i am amazed at how few bugs we are seeing for a first release beta!

Grats to the Stardockies for getting it this good.

Cari/CodeCritter will the new political parties be avail in MV game use as it would be nice to see that happen for people like myself that only play MV games?

Looking forward to the next update and i am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the 'Set Homeworld' issue will be resolved for this release (final 1.2)
Reply #12 Top
Personally, I have been posting scores on this 'verse since it was allowed here.

So, my question is.

Now that I have totally deleted (uninstalled from SDC) totally deleted mygame subdirectory, than reinstalled the entire 1.2 beta..

Can I start posting valid scores again with games that I will be starting tonight and saving? Or will it be more like this last weekend.

"Suralle, could you run to the Farm Fresh and get more of that Terran Ale we love so much!" shouted the Lady Che-Rene.
"Sure dear, just let me save this game." I shouted back, muttering under my breath about having 4 hours into it and only needing another few hours to kick the other alien scums backsides from here to the Vesta system.

... Later that same evening...

"Dear are you finished with that game yet?" asked the lovely Lady Che-Rene, resplendant in her new party dress.
"Yes, submitting the score now to this new, upgraded metaverse, whats this... a cheat score???" answered dourly by Lord Suralle.

Informed later, oh... now back to my question. Now that I have deleted everything and reloaded beta 1.2.009 can I submit a valid score or should I not bother until final version is done?

Tell ya what, I will try again tonight and if someone has not answered by than, I will find out myself!

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

Reply #13 Top
Darth Griffin is right: You have to be aware that you take a risk when playing a beta version, including posting a score to the Metaverse. I ran into the same problem, but now I accepted it and will probably never post a beta score again.
But I also agree with Thebestaintyou that the Metaverse could really need some more attention. It has been a disappointing experience lately.

Cari, are you really sure that anomalous scores don't count at all? I don't think so: My score went down from roughly 305K to 295K when I posted the anomalous 1.2-Beta game, so it certainly had an effect for me.
Reply #14 Top
Since there is an indicator that the score is anomolus and the version of the game is posted, seems to be to be relatively trivial (not necessarily easy, but trivial) to write a script to remove cheat code and then in the periodic recalc it would count. Of course, I am not sure the the recalc sthat started some time ago is even complete
Reply #15 Top
Hey guys, chill.....

Thats life on the bleeding cutting edge with a Beta, man........

But, I gotta say, I had a hell of a lot of fun with it, and even if the metaverse submission got flagged, it caught a lot of us, so were all even OK?

Hey, next time wait until you're playing a non beta patch to post if it botheres ya so.

I just thoght this current 1.12.009 Beta was a heckova upgrade and I had a lot moer fun playing games under it than i would of under 1.11.

Carielf is trying, she knows how important it is , she'll get it right.

IMHO

OK ,,,,,fanboy out
Reply #16 Top
Glad I saw this before I bothered to continue my most recent MV game. And yeah come on cut them some slack here. Bugs do crop up from time to time especially with BETAs. No need to rip on Cari about it. At least she was nice enough to post the fact that it is a known issue that has been fixed. And for the arm chair programmers out there who think everything should be *easy* get over yourselves. Unless you've seen the actual code you have no idea what is *easy* and what isn't. I'm inclined to think that SD has reasons as to why they won't blanket change cheat flagged games possibly because there isn't a way for them to actually determine what cheat was used. So instead of opening that can of worms they just refuse to change anything flagged as cheat to legit.

Inconvience? Well sure. But no need to get all bent out of shape about it.

Ok... now... where did I put that Nano Ripper?!??
Reply #17 Top
Carielf is trying, she knows how important it is , she'll get it right.

She's not primarily responsible for the Metaverse as far as I know.

We're not beating on the Metaverse or the devs here, by the way, we only made some well-founded criticism as far as I can tell.
Reply #18 Top
What I don't understand is why you can't change games flagged as cheater. I know you can change metaverse scroing and kill games at will, are you telling me it is impossible to do the opposite?

Sure, I expect crashes and the game not working 100% correctly in a beta version, but I also expect the company to help out the people who are beta testing their game ***for free*** (or you can easily argue that they paid ~$50 US to beta test it)

Yet another example of Stardocks bad support.

And no I'm not whining because I lost a few metaverse games, I don't care about that at all.
Reply #19 Top
Yet another example of Stardocks bad support.

And no I'm not whining


Versus the approximately ,,,,,,,,,291,426 (and counting) ............more examples of Stardock EXCELLENT support!

ROFL
Reply #20 Top
Fluke:
Wait so let me get this straight. You don't care about the metaverse games or even have any posted and yet you are complaining about the fact that you don't understand why they won't change cheat flagged games. I hate to say it but SD does not owe you or anyone else an explanation as to why they make the decisions they do. And the fact that at times they do give us a peek behind the scenes is actually rather nice of them.

Bad support? Wow. You know SD doesn't have to allow us the chance to sneak peek BETAs. They could just do all the testing internally and then release the final patch. It's people overracting to things like this that make me fearful that they may decide the headache just isn't worth it and close BETAs.

Now I will grant you that I've had the game crash on me exactly once and that was early in the last BETA for v1.1. So I have not had to deal directly with SD support. But from what I've read the majority of people are happy and there are just a few that are not happy unless they can pile onto the latest gripe. You my friend apparently fall into the latter.
Reply #21 Top

Cari/CodeCritter will the new political parties be avail in MV game use as it would be nice to see that happen for people like myself that only play MV games?

Umm...I don't think so.  They're pretty game imbalancing.

Cari, are you really sure that anomalous scores don't count at all? I don't think so: My score went down from roughly 305K to 295K when I posted the anomalous 1.2-Beta game, so it certainly had an effect for me.

I can't be positive because I don't actually have anything to do with that code, but when I was talking to our main web developer, he checked the code and said that they weren't counted. If they are actually being counted, I will see if we can wipe them out when we put up the update.

Reply #22 Top

. Now that I have deleted everything and reloaded beta 1.2.009 can I submit a valid score or should I not bother until final version is done?

The bug is actually in the loading code, so don't you probably won't want to try to start another metaverse game until after we get the next update up. 

Reply #23 Top
@CariElf:
So If I have added a cheat-marked Metaverse Score, I don't see a chance to delete that one game score from my players score, because there is only an option to delete _all_ scores of a player.
Am I right here or did I oversee the possibility to delete one given score?

@all:
The discussion about using a BETA and complaining if it doesn't work: Nobody should complain about a beta game crashing, bugs etc. But a cheat-marked character for all your games, that is not fair! In the end a lot of beta testing is done by the customers. It's a win-win situation normally (players are anxious to try the new feature, SD gets more bug reports). But here your normal scores earned before - in no-BETA games - are affected, because your player has that cheat flaw now.
Reply #24 Top
Yeah I was excited to finish my first metaverse game on the winning side, and it's flagged as a cheat
Reply #25 Top
Kosty and cyberj914, go away you worthless fanboys you didn't even read my post. I see bad support from Stardaock and people praise their support so much I point it out that Stardock support is *no better* than most other companies. You can fanboy all you fanboy want at your fanboy house in fanboy land. Go away.

post by CariElf in #21

Umm...I don't think so. They're pretty game imbalancing.


Please, more bad suport, how about the other 100 things that are horribly imbalanced that made it past metaverse, please did you even play with a custom race in a metaverse game?

Flagging legit players games as cheating and killing 100% legit players metaverse accounts while letting thousands of cheating games go by the metaverse is a 100% copyrighted Blizzard move and has been committed by Stardock, just pointing it out and expressing my feedback on Stardock's '"great support"