Adder,

I'd be happy to help with this. How can Ibe of assistance?

well i think we will go with Mumbles idea first. We should present first to the bigger empires and get their aproval. After that we can start thinking about getting more people. Dont start anything big yet, but send a general message to maybe the Top 30 Empires(by top i mean active, dont just go by score). If they respond great, if not then well just hope the world of mouth thing works.

Now i already see problems with representing people who are unalligned. If you look theres quite a few that arent. A lot of them are inactive, but a good precentage are. So they shouldnt have a max on their representation(they are the majority). But, there should be other limits to make sure other problems dont come up. To make themselves heard a lot of players aligned with empires might just quit and therefore get more representation being unaligned. To remidy this i think that the "Freemen" should be repressented with a smaller ration, and the representatives choosen should also be cross checked for activity on the forums(not the Metaverse). This should root out some problems.

The actual numbers of reps shall be settled once we have a general census of the peoples opinion. We will just have to wait and see now. If any help is need Deth, i could lend a hand. But, it will have to wait, i have finals in about 5 days so im studying like crazy.

Great! I thought I was going a little over the top after rereading my post, but this is how I've handled similar situations getting commitees together and that.

I need to take a closer look at the altmeta and meta data to see which is easier to get recent activity data from and such. Just can't use the altmeta for unaligned players. I'll try to get the draft together, if everyone still feels the letter campaign is feasable. Once I post it for inspection, we can get coordinated on the how and who of it all.

Thanks for the help   I have to be hitting the sack now, I'll check back in the morning and see how this thread has evolved. Hell, people may have come up with a totally different way to handle it by then.   People think the world of computers moves fast, they haven't seen a forum thread around here before.  

I bid you all a Goodnight and a fruitful tomorrow.

What the hell is that anyway, Mary Poppins?

Ha ha - it's pretty much the diametric opposite of good old Mary Poppins. Edward Gorey has been my favorite illustrator since I can remember having a favorite. That one is from the Gashly Crum Tinies, most of which you can find online these days if you're so inclined. It was time for old Sean Connery to go, even if I don't keep this one.

Back to the topic at hand: Would it be worth starting a brand new thread here as a recruiting tool? I can see the value of sending individual emails to the top two or three players in an empire, but if they are no longer using their given address or have left the community, it might be good to supplement our effort with a thread that clearly states our goal.

Now I have a couple of quesations regarding this. If I use the straight up email option here, who does it show the sender as and return email? If it's mine then I'll just change mine to the response email account, which I would also give you access to, since your the lead on this. If a council comes to light they can just take over the account for whatever purpose.I will also put the response email in the letter to make sure.

The response email is indeed the senders email as it currently appears in your stardock account. You can certainly change this to another email address if the current one listed isn't one that you want to spread around.   

---

I'm all for getting eveyone possible involved but not everyone will be interested. I'm happy if we all do what we can to get the word out. But I don't feel it's necessary to dig folks up out of the ground to accomplish this. I'm also a little bit worried that too much formality and waiting for someone else's approval will stiffle this in the bud.

Everyone should keep in mind that this isn't the US senate split at 51-49 with one of the 51 on his death bed and a vice president with a bad heart waiting to break a tie. This is a group of folks interested in improving something that they enjoy. If we stand on formality and wait action on so and so emperor's approval or so and so senator's approval then nothing will come of this. Not everyone will be on board with this and if so then I say so what.

Not every empire will be perfectly represented and again I say, so what. As long as most folks are reasonably represented we'll be doing what most folks approve of. If we let this devolve into a pissing contest about how many reps this empire gets versus that one gets then it's doomed to failure and we shouldn't even bother.

We need to enter into this with a spirit of cooperation, without worrying about dotting every little i and crossing every little t. If you see something that you think can help then do it, don't ask for my or anyone else's permission. Basically, I'm hoping to get a few folks together that can strap on a pair of balls and make a decision.

Ha ha - it's pretty much the diametric opposite of good old Mary Poppins

That's why I put in the thing about Mystery Theatre. It is vaguely ghoulish.   

Would it be worth starting a brand new thread here as a recruiting tool?

Yes. I think so. The biggest problem will be in reaching unaligned players since the AltMeta shows the most data about peoples game submissions and that at this point the AltMeta only has data on people that are in the top 50 empires. Maybe this will be one of the things we will want to change.

The biggest tool to communicate with like minded folks are these forums. I suspect that pretty much every active player checks out these forums and if they don't well then maybe we miss a few folks. As I said it will be impossible to do a perfect job but we shouldn't let that keep us from doing a reasonable job. Word of mouth is bound to reach everyone that hasn't given up the game sooner or later. I would guess that we're probably talking about 500 active players at most, maybe only half that.

Let's shake the trees a bit and see how many folks turn up.

On the manage Characters screen I click "Add Player"
Then the Add Character screen comes up with two required fields:
Character Name:
Serial Number:

I typed in a name with no serial number and it said invalid character NAME?
My name was entered simply as "Squibit". No special characters or spaces etc.?

Any ideas?

Then the Add Character screen comes up with two required fields: Character Name: Serial Number:

You need to provide your game serial, i.e., the same one you registered with. The CE (GC2-) serial is only used for Collector's Edition goodies and nothing else.

I typed in a name with no serial number and it said invalid character NAME? My name was entered simply as "Squibit". No special characters or spaces etc.?

I guess you do need a serial number then. If you have a CD its the one with 28 letters/numbers and no dashes, *not* the one that begins with GC2. If you downloaded the game it should have been in your confirmation email. There are two sticky threads related to serial numbers and account activation, if you have problems you should check these out as well.

Can't activate or register the game? See here first!

Can't find account info HELP IN HERE!

If all else fails you should email [email protected] and they'll help you out.

[edit] opps. Kryo already answered. If it took me less than ten minutes to compose a response I would have noticed.   [/edit]

OK. Back to the discussion at hand.

I ran through the AltMeta2 data. This is the information that's easily extracted. By digging into each individual's data in each empire you could get a better idea of how many of these are 1 month old versus 6 months old, but that would take quite a bit of time.

I would tend to think that this data grossly overestimates the number of players that are actually active. These are listed in AltMeta2 score rank order which differs somewhat from the metaverse ranking.

I had difficulty posting this, I assume because of the length, so I split the data into the following post.

The Qourth Empire, The Galactic Empire, The Browncoats and The Overmind seem to be the biggest potential source of active players. My apologies to any empire still alive and kicking that I haven't listed here. But if you're out there please let us know.

The other aspect of the AltMeta is that it doesn't list players that aren't in an empire or in an empire beyond the top 50.

The Galactic Diplomats, 108 total members, 51 members submitted in the last 6 months, 283 total 6 month submissions.

B.C. Space Orcas, 71 total members, 50 members submitted in the last 6 months, 403 total 6 month submissions.

The High Command Hegemony, 107 total members, 96 members submitted in the last 6 months, 673 total 6 month submissions.

Qourth Empire, 86 total members, 50 members submitted in the last 6 months, 457 total 6 month submissions.

Arrakis Imperium, 14 total members, 13 members submitted in the last 6 months, 77 total 6 month submissions.

The Galactic Empire, 28 total members, 24 members submitted in the last 6 months, 137 total 6 month submissions.

The Browncoats, 127 total members, 30 members submitted in the last 6 months, 92 total 6 month submissions.

The Overmind, 117 total members, 29 members submitted in the last 6 months, 164 total 6 month submissions.

Clan Blah, 1 total member, 1 member submitted in the last 6 months, 16 total 6 month submissions.

The Colonial Fleet, 66 total members, 19 members submitted in the last 6 months, 48 total 6 month submissions.

Lords of Chaos, 20 total members, 10 members submitted in the last 6 months, 52 total 6 month submissions.

It was time for old Sean Connery to go,

I'm glad you brought back the old icon, although it doesn't really look like Sean Connery to me, it looks more like MarshallONeil.

I agree we cant let this de-evelove into a beurocracy. We will debate, but in the end we wont let the formalities keep us back from our goal. Still we do need some kind of structured system with leaders and normal members ect. Though the leaders wont have any special powers, they will be picked to act as a balancing responsible force. Although we might not want to do son, we will probably draw some of the less agreeable individuals in this community, so these "leaders" would act as moderators, their say wont have anymore worth than anyone elses. And their 'powers' will be difined by how much respect they from the members they will represent.

Now, i guess its back to our empires to see what they say. Best of luck to all of you.

I agree we cant let this de-evelove into a beurocracy. We will debate, but in the end we wont let the formalities keep us back from our goal. Still we do need some kind of structured system with leaders and normal members ect. Though the leaders wont have any special powers, they will be picked to act as a balancing responsible force. Although we might not want to do son, we will probably draw some of the less agreeable individuals in this community, so these "leaders" would act as moderators, their say wont have anymore worth than anyone elses. And their 'powers' will be difined by how much respect they from the members they will represent.

Amen.

TheGreatEmperor, how did you get the quote into your player profile? I've not been able to figure out how to do it, nor have I seen anyone else have a quote in their profile. What's your secret?

Hehehehe...

Those of the dark side, posses great powers.

**hint**
Okay, so it kind of difficult. I dont think you can do it through this forum. I was looking through my profile using the Sins of A Solar Empire Forum. And i noticed this space labeled "Motto", so i put something in(one of my fovirite quotes/words). And since all of Stardocks forums are linked it showed up here too. Nice coincidence in my opinion.

I really like what I am reading here. So many good ideas. These discussions are making me much more interested in the Meta, and if things get worked out, I will start posting there. (But only when DA is released, as I haven't played a single game of DL since it did.) The things that stand out in this thread are: the advice to keep things simple. Whatever works for the most players. And, rework the scoring system. This one thing alone would be enough to bring me in.

What's with all the new icons.

That guy was a little too creepy. He did give clues as to who I am though. (Chef de Cuisine who at one time was quite fond of the Greatful Dead) This one more accurately reflects my philosophy of gameplay. (and doesn't scare small children)

Hi guys. I see you've been busy Mumble. That's some helpful data. Can cross off ones already responding. Didn't realize some were still as active as they are. Was going to do a simple message to try to get some of the others in here, but you can't email from the meta info page like you can here. If I can't find posts by them is there another way to email them? Most choose not to have their email show, so if they haven't posted in a long while I'm not sure how to get ahold of them. Also checking for empire websites, but most don't have one. Would seem like any that post games regularly would be at least browsing the forums occasionally. I have seen quite a few that I don't remember ever seeing post here. I will be doing what I can. At least this thread is already making an impact with the responses from both senators and emperors of the more active empires. Just a matter of getting the rest onboard or at the very least let everyone know if they want to get involved or not.

btw under my account personal info is a place that says "My Motto", maybe that is the equivalent of The Great Emperor's Motto.

GreatEmperor, thanks for the tip, it's kind of amazing the complexity involved with the loose association of Stardocks website's. You learn something new everyday. I bet even Kryo didn't know that.    But now he does!

Mistralok, anything related to the Grateful Dead was cool. But I do prefer your new icon. Kind of remind's me of Data although it's obviously not Data.

There is a benefit to these grainy, ill defined icons. It allows everyone to fill in the blanks with their own imagination. In the end you do *become* the icon at least in the minds of others. When you change icons it does mess folks up, but in your case perhaps this is a better choice. For me, I'll just stick with good old, reliable, dependable, Martin Luther. And if you believe that I have a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.   

Can cross off ones already responding. Didn't realize some were still as active as they are.

Do you have ones already responding besides Orca's, Diplo's, HCH and Arrakis? I don't believe there are any others that have much life regardless of what the AltMeta2 data indicates. My guess at this point is we have about 250 active MV players. We may shake some more out of the woodwork but I wouldn't be too hopeful. This is why I'm concerned and want to make the metaverse more attractive to the average player.

It is harder than I thought to chase some of these folks down. I'm glad it's you that volunteered instead of me.    You can click on the emperor and various senators in each empire within the metaverse, but you can't seem to email from there. It seems that you have to take the name and search for posts or replies before you can get the Email User link. I took a look at the emperor of the Overmind who is Dark-Star. He's a Stardock employee, though I'm not totally sure of his funcion. I'm sure he's reachable, but whether or not he knows the state of his own empire is unclear at this point. Perhaps you can find that out for starters.   

BTW you're right, the motto is in the profile data from the GalCiv2 forum. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there before. Perhaps it's part of the ongoing work that's recently been done on these forums.

Dark-Star. He's a Stardock employee, though I'm not totally sure of his funcion

He's on the web team--did the design for this site, IIRC.

He's on the web team--did the design for this site, IIRC.

You do have to read every stupid little post that goes by here, don't you. I can't imagine that they pay you enough to listen to this drivel all day every day.    [edit] But I am glad that you are here.    [/edit]

I think we all are.

well I'm running into issue after issue.   I'm still trying to find posts by any of the Qourth. I am also trying to email Dark-Star and getting an error saying the email is missing critical information. This leads me to believe his email has either changed or been removed since the only info I can put in is subject and body, which I did. your right Mumble, this is begining to be quite the task, but I won't be thwarted that easily. As an employee I'm sure I can find Dark-Star's email, but the others may be tougher nuts to crack. I'll keep trying, plus I still have several other empires to try as well. I also want to get a couple hours in on my current game tonight. This game is going to take me 3 weeks at my current rate, but it will hopefully be a new high for me when posted. So I'll let you guys know when I get more solid results.

Edit: I see your watching as well Kryo. I know it's your job, but as a large contributor to this community I'm sure any thoughts you have about what you see here would be greatly appreciated also.

Edit: I see your watching as well Kryo. I know it's your job, but as a large contributor to this community I'm sure any thoughts you have about what you see here would be greatly appreciated also.

Excellent point.

Also I had the email missing critical information problem and Kryo said to report it to [email protected] which I did. The error did clear up and I assumed the issue was fixed but perhaps not.

I would report this to [email protected]. Since Kryo mentioned that Dark-Star is on the web design team this advice is perfectly fitting. Make sure you mention the user that you're trying to contact.   

I wouldn't worry too much about any one potential contact. If one doesn't pan out move on the next. As I've said before we're not going to get everyone, but we do at least have to try.