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AltMeta Class Beta

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AltMeta Class Beta

from GalCiv2 Forums
AltMeta Class Beta

The Metaverse Council (MVC) takes great pleasure in announcing the Beta of Kryo’s new AltMeta. The new AltMeta implements Class Rankings, Data Charts and provides a whole new way of looking at the Metaverse.

The usual disclaimers apply. The AltMeta is Kryo’s, solely owned, personal project that is neither endorsed or supported by Stardock in any way. The primary participation of the MVC in this process has been to snipe from the sidelines and complain about how long it’s been taking, however, through no fault of our own an occasional good idea may have inadvertently been supplied by the MVC, to which the MVC and it’s individual members retain no right. No warranties expressed or implied. Your mileage may vary. This offer not valid with any other coupon. Check your local listings. Management reserves the right to substitute prizes of equal or greater value.

All joking aside, I want to stress that this is preliminary and subject to change but most of the anticipated changes are complete and functional. There may be changes desired by the community and we are still open to suggestion. There may also be issues uncovered by it's wider usage. These are to be expected and will be dealt with as well. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta and problems are bound to occur. Also keep in mind that Kryo will provide support but this is a part time project and while his support may at times be immediate, at other times it may lag due to real work or real life. Certainly post any problems with the new AltMeta either here or in the Metaverse Forum at the Core but please be patient, all issues will be addressed sooner or later.

There is a fair amount of additional explanation that goes along with this. In the interests of keeping this post as short as reasonably possible I’ve included links to a minimal subset of supporting information. It will certainly reduce the number of questions and answers required if people follow these links and read the information therein. I also want to point out that some of the information in these links is as preliminary as the AltMeta Classes themselves (or even more so) and your comments and opinions on these explanations are welcomed as well.

AltMeta Score Calculation

AltMeta Class Criteria

AltMeta Top Ten Lists

AltMeta Character Details

AltMeta Data Chart

So without further ado here is the AltMeta Class Beta.

One final note about the AltMeta is that for technical reasons only characters that are in an empire that’s in one of the top 100 official metaverse empires are included in the AltMeta. Most current unaligned players that wish to participate could simply form their own empire of one. Currently to be in the top 100 metaverse empires requires a little over 31K.




metaverse
36,453 views 57 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another hopefully easy thing to provoke some additional interest in the classes will be the addition of class specific banners. Currently we only have banners that are based on the overall (i.e. All Universal) score and rank, but we certainly intend to add more options based on ranks in different classes. Stay tuned for announcements.


Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It looks like Wyndstar needs some competition


What what what? I just got three new catagories to compete in. Isn't that competition?? And playing in them drags down my metaverse average.

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What what what?


I'm still working on a gig/all abundant, so your leads safe for now(at least from me)   

Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here's a small suggestion: have a link for the 'manual' on the AltMeta Beta site. Then people that don't know to go looking for it in the Galactic Core forums can still get to it.

Other than that, well, I'm leading one of the charts. Bring on the #1 medals!   

Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have one small suggestion as well. Show the individuals character/player name on the page somewhere when you are looking at an individuals stats. This is most noticeable when you click on a banner to go to an individuals stats page.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Show the individuals character


The character's name (and empire) are both listed as links on the left side of the header (opposite the search/forum/about links). The player who owns the character is unfortunately not available on the RSS feeds that the altmeta reads for its data.

They're missing on yours and anyone else's who is in the top 10 empires at the moment because apparently the update script failed to load the empire rankings again (that part is still dependant on the old altmeta--replacing that with a new more robust system not so prone to such problems is still on the to-do list).
Reply #32 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Kryo,

How often does the AltMetaBeta actually update? In your about page you say every six hours. It isn't updating that often though. The games I posted yesterday don't show up still, and it has been more than 24 hours. Will it update every six hours when it leaves beta?

Thanks.
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It does indeed update every six hours, but looking at the log there's apparently been some significant server issues during the past several updates. I'll have to investigate it.
Reply #34 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks Kryo...Both for the reply and for the work on the AltMetaBeta.
Reply #35 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not suggesting that anyone is being a pest or is impatient, but I think we all need to take a bit of care that we don't turn the support of the AltMeta into a full time job for Kryo.

I'm sure the community agrees with me on this. We all know that this is Kryo's personal part time (stress part time) project. I'm sure no one wants this to become a pain for him.

I'm not suggesting this is currently the case but if we're not careful it could be. I would like to take steps to make sure this never happens.

I suggest we make a sticky thread where all AltMeta questions and problems can be listed. I think most of the MVC councilors can keep patrol of the thread and answer most questions so that Kryo doesn't have to. Of course Kryo will need to address the problems and I'm sure he will, but I would prefer that he deal with them on his own timetable with no undue pressure from the peanut gallery.

Of course we'll probably cut some slack to noobs that don't know any better, but anyone that does know better runs the risk of being shunned by the community.

I know how a post like this can sometimes be taken so I want to repeat, please, please, no one take this personally. No one has been impatient. No one has done anything with the slightest suggestion of impropriety. It's just that there are hundreds of us and only one Kryo. I'm sure that everyone sees the potential for problems and that no one wants this to become a problem for Kryo.   
Reply #36 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I also wonder that if the Altmeta does get bigger and more active if we might as well look for some people to help Kryo to keep the whole thing running.

Any volunteers?
Reply #37 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I also wonder that if the Altmeta does get bigger and more active if we might as well look for some people to help Kryo to keep the whole thing running.

That's really up to Kryo. As has been mentioned the AltMeta is Kryo's personal part time project, certainly folks that wish to help can volunteer to do so but it's totally up to Kryo to decide if he wishes this. But don't forget the thing about the number of cooks and the spoilage of broth.

In any case, keeping the burden of the support of the AltMeta as light as possible is something we should all strive for.
Reply #38 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not suggesting that anyone is being a pest or is impatient


Actually, I'm starting to get impatient. The new Beta is really cool, but it hasn't updated once since it was revealed. Hard to know how you are doing in the different catagories when all we have is a snapshot from the end of April.

I see the potential it has though.
Reply #39 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, I'm starting to get impatient.


So am I. It's looking like the issues it's having are the fault of the core's host--even *my* machine can update faster and error free, and my local copy of the altmeta data is a month out of date, as opposed to just three days. Seems I'm going to have to get some new hosting sooner than I'd hoped.
Reply #40 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yep. The online copy updated one third as many character records in twice as long (and failed several times) compared to my copy. Time to move.
Reply #41 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I still have no idea why it just plain wouldn't update the game data the past few days though--it actually seems unrelated to the errors it was having for the most part. And the script I used to force it to go is identical to the automatic one it normally uses.
Reply #42 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, hope the move won't be too hard on you. You are basically providing we metaverse players with a cool new toy for free.

Thanks for letting us know an update on what is going on though. I appreciate it.

  
Reply #43 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmmm, well parts of it updated, and parts of it didn't. Is that related to the errors you are getting I wonder?

For instance, I recently finished about a half dozen "solar civ" level games. These now show up in my personal graph. However, my solar civ score and rank was not changed.

My universal score, however, WAS changed by my new civ entries. It also seems to have updated my military submissions correctly. My number of games was also updated correctly.

Again, I know, this thread really isn't for AltMeta tech support. I'm just giving feedback in case you didn't realize it had this problem.

Hopefully you get all the wrinkles ironed out without getting too many gray hairs. I know what debugging can be like.

Reply #44 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Should be all sorted now. The 'force update' script didn't have the newaltmeta stuff tacked on the end.
Reply #45 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
New host is up. Links in OP have been updated with it. Any links, bookmarks, and forum sigs going to the old beta site will automatically forward.
Reply #46 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cool, thanks kryo
Reply #47 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Th AltMeta is updating with a quickness now. Everything but the sig banner was updated within about an hour of submitting my game. Good stuff, I'm up in the top fifteen on the Universal/All class  
Reply #49 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Everything but the sig banner was updated within about an hour of submitting my game.


I dropped the old altmeta update code when I moved it, so I'll have to update the sigs to use the new ranking code.
Reply #50 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The AltMeta doesn't seem to be tracking resubmitted games properly.


It does not due to database load concerns, though if I can find a way to optimize the process sufficiently it is a possiblity.