i read FB's message to mean: what is settled is that we can use the AM to track our scoring, select our submission, etc., not necessarily what method we would use.



ah, i see. that is pretty cool, in itself.

i was under the impression that the AM also offered different scoring schema, and that that was something we were interested in for the sake of the ability to add new rule variants per round (or in general) above and beyond the score/time/submission/victory rules for bonus points we have now.

With the above said, although the submission issue is by no means settled it is now bounded into a decision between two reasonably well defined choices. Therefore while which way we go on this issue is yet to be decided it is reasonable to move on to discussing the next aspect of this. However addressing the issue of how to do scoring within the AltMeta is probably the most changable issue we have and therefore probably the last thing that we should discuss. There are a wide range of options for scoring going from completely administrator defined to totally automatic and everything in between. However before we discuss this I think we should discuss exactly how the MVL results will be displayed.

Clearly the results of each round need to be displayed independently, however we will also want to be able to display the results of all previous rounds to date. These results in either on a individual round by round basis or as a sequence of the X number of most recent rounds also needs to be displayed fromt the point of view of the league as a whole, from the point of view of an individual team and then down to the details of each individual member.

For the AltMeta Classes we spent a fair amount of time defining all of these formats. In that case it was an easier problem because there were a fixed number of classes that we implemented (i.e. 6) and that then determined the format of the various screens. In this case it's different because we have a variable number of teams. We started with 4 and are currently at 5, hopefully we will do better at attracting new members (the AlMeta will hpefully help us do this) and we will have many new teams in th future.

This is where a few pictures drawn up by some clever members can start to give folks a true idea of what this will look like. I have a few ideas of my own but at the moment don't have time to draw them up. Perhaps some others could come up with something here. Marshall was instrumental in coming up with the initial AltMeta Classes display format perhaps he might come up with something here.

Two questions:

1. Does Altmeta also record our past/present (rounds 1-4)?
2. Are there any problems with the different scoring system (like with reposting games) that are relevant for us?

The AltMeta basically ages games differently than the real Metaverse. I think in our case there will be no cumulative month to month score but each month is merely a snapshot in time. Clearly we want to be able to look back on previous performance but I see no need to have any aging of scores since that don't accumulate month to month.

But yes we should be able to add and change scoring rules over time like we have done so already, however this really isn't an AltMeta function it's a function of the new software that we are currently defining.

Basically the way I see it is that this is really a totally separate thing form the AltMeta. It perhaps shares hosting with the AltMeta. It perhaps may share location so that people that visit the AltMeta for the AltMeta sake would be able to see MVL results if they so choose and vice versa. Also I would hope that some of the graphing features of the AltMeta would be available to use to display MVL league results. Also the AltMeta would be the source from which game data is extracted. However we are really talking about an entirely new entity and as such we are free to define scoring criteria that is free to change over time.

I just want to emphasize that this is essentially a brand new thing that we should feel free to model after the AltMeta but we are by no means required to do things just because the AltMeta did something similar in a certain way.

One point is that I think we need a name for this brand new entity. So far I've simply called it the MVL AltMeta but would be open to any other catchy name that would indicate that it is based on the ALtMeta but is something new and different for purposes of displaying, recording and scoring the MVL. Once this becomes our standard it will essentially *be* the MVL however in the meantime I'll go with MVL AltMeta pending any better suggestion.

1. Possibly once the MVL AltMeta is defined and implemented then we could go in and reconstruct the earlier rounds. After all most of the game data is there in the AltMeta anyway all we have to do is select the right games in retrospect (and define the scoring criteria that were in play for that round as well). However, I don't know if we want to go to all this trouble. It may be some time until we have this hammered out and then implemented. I would expect that in the most favorable case that the earliest we could have this in play would be round 6 and probably later than that.

2. Reposting games could be a problem. Basically the Metaverse allows you to come back later a repost a game for example a higher score. I'm not sure this is something that the AltMeta picks up. If not then it's no issue. If it does then this could possibly change past results dependent how the league software is implemented. In this case then I think we should prohibit the resubmission of MVL games to the Metaverse. As far as anyting else the only differences relate to how games age and as I mentioned previously I see no reason to age MVL submissions because there will be no overall cumulative total. However should we decide to add some kind of month to month score accumulation then we would need to revisit this.

Fraking hell!!!

This is what sucks about being on the other side of the world, this whole thread exploded whilst i was asleep and now after reading it all i have forgotten it all!!!

Here goes,



I vote for this, the individual way. It allows a little more freedom as it does not rely on each captain being around to facilitate submissions. This would be a concern as people come and go often with no rhyme or reason. It has happened before..(round 1)

Just so there is no confusion as to my vote,


Further on this, as is the nature of our threads, we are getting away from this issue again. Mumble if you haven't already, please set up a poll at the core outlining the choices. I don't expect a great deal of participation but the people in this thread will respond and we all seem to be the ones who are doing the hard yards. The rest of the players are happy enough playing within the confines of what we (us in this thread) work out. Let's live with that and between us just decide, Individual or Captains.



On top of what Mumble already outlined as advantages of being the AltMVL and he did touch on this a bit, but it also gives us a sense of legitimacy. It no longer looks like a side project put together by a few players, but now has had some real involvement from Kryo, which gives us a stamp of approval if you will. A dedicated AltMV style page just for the league will be a huge attraction for players who cringe at our thread based way...nothing flashy or official about that, but the AltMeta provides the flashy interface, the (somewhat) automated submissions, the history of our rounds and that sense of being an official entity. Now where are not trying to convince ourselves or anyone else that Stardock is involved in anyway, but people know that Kryo set up the AltMeta and that we could not have done this without him.....People will make that connection.



Yes! We will need a name that reflects our new standing, otherwise many people may not know that anything has changed. Also perhaps we need to advertise the AltMeta itself a bit more. It has not been the center of any front page threads for some time and a bit of exposure sure would help us too. Perhaps that is something for the MVC, it has slept for too long....
As for some names......"MVL powered by the AltMeta" "AVL - AltMetaverse League"

On a final note, and mainly out of curiosity, Kryo, has the MVL made any noise in the Stardock offices, not counting seeing MVL all over the forums? Just wondering if anyone has taken any notice of it at all?

I think i had more to say but i will come back after reading all the posts again.

I did think we would want this to percolated a bit first. Also I would like to advertise this and hopefully avoid the lack of attendence that the first vote suffered. However, as you say we can simply leave it up to those that are interested enough to vote. I think this may be selling our members a little short because I think they can and will respond if given the proper motivation but we could do this in the interest of at least getting the first step accomplished.

But are we even sure that the majority of MVL members even want to bother with the AltMeta at all? At the outset I mentioned having a vote simply on whether or not we should pursue this. I think it's a no brainer but I don't want force my opinion on others.

I really think we should vote on both of these issues but I'm not in favor of having a big rush to judgement without having an informed electorate. I mean if the concensus is to take an immediate vote than so be it but I do think it behooves us to encourage our friends and teammates to get on the bandwagon.

How about this for a proposal. We will have two votes, one on whether or not to pursue getting the MVL incorporated into the AltMeta and the other about whether to have individual submissions to the MVL (which would require everyone be registered on Kryo's forum) or we have all submissions handled by team captains.

I further propose that we hold both of these votes concurrently at the Core and hold the polls open for one week from 11/30 to 12/7. That gives us a week to "get the word out" about these votes and convince folks that being part of a more professional setup like the AltMeta and that having good league wide participation are both very good things for the League.


Well said. I absolutely agree with this. This is the attitude that we need to spread around a bit. Sure, not everyone will participate but, I think that explaining it like this to most people would make them far more willing to join in.


[edit] As you say we are starting to get away from one thing before totally finishing it up but I think this is OK. As I mentioned we do seem to at least have the submission issue boiled down to a decision between two well defined choices. I do think we need to vote on this and that we need to allow resaonable time to do that.

I don't want to get *too* far ahead of ourselves but I also don't want to stop the momentum we are starting to pick up. We have a clear set of things to vote on, I feel it's OK to proceed with the display aspect of this, mainly because this has still been nothing but words and until you start talking about things that people can actually look at a lot of folks still won't really know what it is we're getting at. [/edit]

sweet. Kudos to you, as always, Mumble for tackling our collective chaos

Also, thank you Kryo for all your help and input so far; no matter what direction we decide to take it, is very highly appreciated.

I'm all ready to get the word out to see where this goes.

I am not able to outline precise quotes, so please bear with me.

With captains just submitting should be fine because they can give the password to the rest of the team. So everyone should be able to submit individually. (I remember rnd 3, I submitted right after you)

But before I vote, I just want to make sure that Captains can pass out the password, and everyone if need be, be able to submit themselves.

How about "AltMeta League"? But selecting a new name should be the least of our worries right now.



Its like inter-school soccer. i.e. girls are allowed to play but not many actually do.



This is how I envision the AltMeta League to look like once its finished. Its a bit simila to the current way the AM displays scores except for colour and other things. Its a quick rough diagram of sorts. Don't laugh.

I'm not sure about this. It looks like you're looking for the best of both worlds where no one has to specifically register at a site but all members of the team could access the teams submission page and could conceptually make submissions for everyone on the team.

I took a look back into Kryo's posts and it wasn't mentioned whether or not it would be OK to share the password with the team. I'm not sure what problem (if any) this would cause. Clearly if teams changed up then the password would have to change but if the teams changed up I would assume that the team selection page would have to change anyway and so the password change would be no big deal.

I would also assume that each of these passwords would only give access to that teams selection page only and there wouldn't be anything else that someone could inadvertently mess up.

This way if someone wanted then they could submit or if push came to shove the captain could submit for them. The only possible issue that I see is still one of communication. For example you may be ready to submit your blockbuster score 1 hour before the end of the round but your captain got worried you wouldn't submit and posted an earlier game of yours before you could post the game you just finished.

All in all this could be the best solution so I guess this has to be a question for Kryo. If we went with a single password for each individual teams selection page could that password be shared with everyone on the team? Are there any downsides to doing this that we perhaps aren't anticipating?

[edit] I want to address the picture that FB drew up but I want to wait a bit because I don't want to bury this question to Kryo. It may perhaps be the ideal solution to the submission question. [edit]

The individual player could by accident make the wrong submission for another player. And you can't resubmit...

No real reason why not, aside from needing to change it if the teams get rearranged.



That alone's not such a big deal--as I edited into an earlier post as you were replying (so it wasn't in your quote, not sure if you saw it), I don't see any real reason to not leave selection open for a day or something after games are no longer being accepted, so it's easy to pick last minute postings if need be.

Do you have that too? I can't post normal replies anymore.
I MUST use advanced mode!
The only thing I am wondering about: Was the computer trying to tell me to shut up or was it trying to complement me by stressing that all my replies are advanced?

Don't answer this. I was just ruminating and I do not want to spoil the working atmosphere in here.

On topic:

I find both methods intriguing. I kind of like the idea that the captain can screw it up for his team. Being there for one another is what team sports are about. If we do this I strongly advocate that a new captain can only be put into place between rounds.
Yes this makes the league more dangerous. But let us listen to an 18th century philosopher on these ideas:

"Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling."

Let's hand the power to the captain. Let's make this game emotinional, interesting - sublime!


PS: Maybe quoting Burke was a bad idea after all. He also said:

a woman is but an animal; and an animal not of the highest order.

the issue at hand is that we have a rule against double posts. personally i don't think it's a problem. if a team cannot remain in open communications, it's their own fault. still, i wouldn't want anyone to feel put off by this possiblility.

let's take a step back and consider this in light of the (newly implemented) average team submission bonus. as i understand it, this bonus was designed to:

1) provide something to teams whose players submit official games early in the round;
2) complicate "score scouting," (that is, waiting until other players have submitted games in order to give yourself a concrete goal to beat);
3) provide an additional type of bonus point to take some focus off score and game speed as the primary means to earn bonus points (especially since earning the correct victory type seems to be a no-brainer at this point in the league's development).
4) create a bonus point where the team strategy and communication are the primary substance behind the point--that is, the bonus point is not awarded based on submission to the metaverse, but official confirmation with the MVL, so as not to reward players with fewer RL commitments but rather teams who are willing to risk less competative scores and speeds in order to secure earlier submission confirmation.

did i miss anything?

as i see it, the question of whether individual players or team captains have to execute the official submission bears most directly on how each team is managed. comapring my experiences on team A in round 3 and team C in round 4, the captains had very different team management styles. FB sorta reminded me of a drill sargeant at first (no offense intended FB ) whereas DA seemed more a hands-off type of leader. this isn't to say one style is better than another, not by any means. i would want to encourage diverse leadership style as much as anything else.

looking back on precident, individual players have had to submit their own games. all things being equal, it seems to me that we should continue this paradigm: i think it would be least disruptive to how things already work. giving captains primary submission responsibility, i think, could leave players feeling a little robbed. i think for many of us, posting our scores into the round submission thread it one of the most enjoyable parts of each round--even when our game stats are nothing special.

still, the points raised about players going incognito mid-round are worth consideration. i'll describe now what i think is the best solution to these considerations--kryo, please tell me if something i propose is impossible or more work than it's worth.

1) each (Alt)MVL character (such as mine, "The Blind Bandito") is assigned a password, and under normal circumstances, each player will have to "log in" to the league space on the AltMeta when they wish to confirm a submission that round.

2) after selecting a game within the correct time frame for the round, they'll go to a confirmation screen; it'd be lovely if this screen could warn them if they, say, picked a game with the incorrect victory type.

3) in the event a player goes missing inexlicably, that team's captain may select a qualifying game for that player, but only at the end of the round. this will disfavor anyone who suddenly and totally loses internet access, but personally, i really dislike the idea of a captain lording over his/her team's scores and calling all the shots. this should be cooperative, and in that spirit i think power and responsiblity should be more spread out, not less.

4) if the captain's passwords could be set up such that they could submit on behalf of another player at the end of the round, without losing the ability to identify that someone else is submitting on behalf of a player, it would be great.

4.5) (i'm assuming there would be some sort of tracking screen for the round in progress, where players and teams could turn to see who's submitted what so far and on what team. it'd be nice if the new software or whatever we'll use could correlate the password used to submit a game to something of the identity, so if i confirm my submission for "The Blind Bandito" with my personal password, it could display "Submitted by: player" but if i broke my face and FB had to do it as team captain, it would display "Submitted by: team captain".)

5) co-captains could be assigned for each 'season,' and they can take over captains' responsibilities in the event a captain goes missing.

6) should a player have some means to electronically contact his team captain to say something like "i can't submit to the alt meta because my dog's on fire, could you pick one of my games for me?" the captain or co-captain may submit on that player's behalf immediately rather than at the end of the round, but only after forwarding or showing the message to neilo, FB, Silver or Mumble--some member of the league-wide leadership.

...okay, sorry for the rediculously long post. perhaps it will spark a more lively discussion from the league as a whole.

I both like & dislike the idea of the captain submitting for all the members of the team. One one hand, it would make being a captain more interesting, and lend the position some actual functional control. On the other hand, it could make team-members feel like they have lost some control, and that they are less important. I think though, that with a capable captain, these things wouldnt be an issue. Personally, I would discuss strategy and what games to submit with my team members before doing anything...unless someone was AWOL for some reason, and a decision had to be made without them. I havent decided how I would vote on this issue yet. The idea of designating a "2nd in-command", just in case the captain is missing is a good idea too.

Sentient species taste better...

Good summary and interesting 6 step proposal on game submissions.

Two points in response. I totally agree with dystopic's summary about the submission bonus except for one subtle point that I think is very important to make.

I agree that the 2 point base score for a victory of the correct type has become a no-brainer but I want to caution folks about taking this for granted. IMHO there are a number of goals of the league. Game improvement, camaraderie, competition, taunting and the list goes on. However, don't forget that everyone in the League is commiting to play a game of randomly selected settings, which are most likely not settings that they would normally choose, and commiting to play those settings to a randomly selected victory condition that also may not be of their prefered type, while all other conditions are enabled. Let's not lose sight of this fact because I truly see each victory as exactly that, a credible victory worthy of merit. The point of having the bulk of a teams score consist of base score with a few, small bonuses that can be added is to highlight the worth of the basic victory of the correct type. This is the true victory. The fast games, the high scoring games or whatever future criteria we may add for bonus are just gravy. The true victory is the simple win with specified settings and victory type.

It's clear that dystopic was by no means belittling the simple victory by calling it a no-brainer, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to make what I think is a very important point.

As far as dystopic's 6 step plan it certainly seems well thought out and also is basically an attempt to merge the best parts of both plans. In this case it's based on the individual plan that then allows captain oversight. The other case of captain password access shared with the team is predominately the captain plan that allows individual participation. Both have merit, however it seems to me that the simpler of the two is certainly a single password that grants access to a teams submission page with that password being shared among the team.

This plan (shared captains access) is both flexible and simple, and allows different teams to treat it in different manners. If a team wants the captain to deal with all the submissions then they can do so. If a team wants to do it individually then they can do it that way as well. They would simply have a rule that no one should submit for anyone else. Actually the flexibility is pretty complete because if one member wants to submit his own scores and another member doesn't want to bother then this method accomodates both.

One point I would make regarding this is to make the point that there is nothing magic about any one person being the captain. A person is captain only because his team allows him to be captain. If a team doesn't like a captain's style then they are certainly within their rights to replace him. Basically the point is that the League itself did not choose the team captains, each team choose their own captain and the true power resides with the team, *not* with the captain. As Neilo can attest, being in a position of authority is more like being a servant than it is like being a king, at least if it's done correctly.

Anyway with all of that said I truly do like the idea of a per team password that grants access to only that teams submission page with the password sent via PM to the team captain which is then shared with any member of the team that wants it. This is what I think is the best of all worlds. It gives individual access to those that want it and captains access to the degree that the team desires.

Another couple of notes. One is that KzintiPatriarch's idea of having a designated 2nd in command is an excellent idea, it pays to be prepared for everything.

The other point is I don't think we need to be too worried about having the captain perform an "emergency" submission. I do think we should have an automatic submission policy implemented by software in play. Clearly if a single game that fits the criteria has been sumitted within the round's timeframe and the round ends then that should be the submission. I think there's little to argue about this.

The real question comes up about what to do with multiple games that fit all the criteria. Kryo has suggested that software could automatically figure out which game would be optimal for the team to submit but this is bad for a couple of important reasons. One is that people could simply play a fast game and a high scoring game, or multiple of each game types and then submit none allowing the software to maximize the result. I think this defeats the concept of submitting early and encourages no one to submit until the end. It also bypasses an important part of team strategy that should rightfully be left up to the players. Finally, this software would actually be quite complex because which game would be best to submit depends on other teams score which in turn may include the automatic selection of games as well. This is because one team may get a bonus dependent on which of another teams games are selected and vice versa. Anyway I feel any automatic selection that attempts to optimize a teams score is a very bad thing to do.

I suggest a very simple way to choose which game to use. Simply use the last game submitted that fits the criteria. Clearly if the player were satisfied with an earlier game then they would have submitted it and be done with it. This is simple, prevents against inadvertant non-submissions and does not attempt to optimize a teams score. This also eliminates the biggest reason for a captain to do a last minute submission simply because he didn't know the player had a blockbuster that he just finished up.

I think that would be a very bad idea, for all the same reasons you stated...the loss of the ability to strategize on which to submit being the worst aspect.




There could be problems with this too, as a player may find that a previous game was better for whatever strategy the team is pursuing. I hope that we will have the ability to choose which game counts towards the round.

Sentient species taste better...

I want to highlight two proposals out of my post above. Note that these are not actual quotes, I surround them in quote tags merely to highlight them.

The first is how I now propose we should deal with submitting games to the MVL AltMeta.


The second proposal is how software should automatically select a game for submission.


NOTE: We still have a good handful of things that can be done in advance of an anticipated non-submission or even with "spare" games in the case of a non-anticipated non-submission. How these play into MVL AltMeta software are yet to be discussed. The above simply defines an "automatic" submission *not* how non-submissions are treated.

I think everyone in the League would agree that this is the wrong thing to do. I was addressing this because Kryo had suggested it as a way to deal with all submissions and I was merely trying to explain to him why it was a bad idea.


The only purpose of this is if someone totally fails to make a selection. Certainly everyone should select their own game but just in case they didn't for whatever reason this is a failsafe submission that doesn't involve any selection based on team score optimization.

i personally think the only time software should make a selection is if there is only 1 qualifying game. if a team member plays through 5 games for a round, and then disappears for some reason, i think the team should still be allowed to pick which game will be the official submission. having no submission until the last second for one player is already a bit of a penalty, as it will negatively affect average team submission time bonus. yanking the ability to shoot for higher score or faster win time -- not to mention the possibility of an accidental win of the wrong type -- that seems draconian.

i mean, i think we're really talking about a very rare occurance. my sense is that most of the players are involved enough to at least warn of an impending disappearance. i also think most players would prefer their teammates pick a game at the last second over having a set of software use whatever was their last submission.



indeed, and very good of your to raise the point--it is a pretty big accomplishment--thanks!

The point I was making was that *software* shouldn't make an automatic selection that in some way optimizes a teams score.

Allowing the team to pick which of multiple submissions is a little different but still has similar issues of being able to cherry pick the precise game that benefits the most after being able to know what all of your competition has done. Your point is that it's very unlikely to happen and if it does it's even much more unlikely to happen just so that a team can get a better score.

I understand and agree with your point but I still am a bit leery about the "after the fact" selection. I'm not sure which way I would vote if it came to such at this point. I'd like to hear how others think about this.

My point with the last game was that it is the most likely to be the intended game and if not then by simply having it set as the default there can be no concern about the selection having the unfair advantage of being based on knowledge of how everyone else did.

Another point in regard to the automatic submission of any game came up in another thread and I want to repeat it here.

---

In regard to the current AltMetaMVL discussion this is probably how this case would be treated however I do want to point out a slight concern here. A game "fits the criteria" simply by being the correct size within the proper dates and the proper win. In the case of a All Victory round all wins are proper. Basically what this means is that very few of the defined settings can really be verified. We all know this and this is fine. We all trust in the honor system and no that no one would intentionally submit something with different settings except for the occasional mistake in missing one of the settings.

However, if we are to allow the automatic submission of a game that "obviously fits the criteria" then we should encourage members to not submit games under their MVL character that could be mistaken for a league game. I do remember FireBender played a test game at suicidal during a round that he scored a very impressive 0 year victory. Certainly there was nothing wrong with this and he had made no attempt to submit the game that was done under different settings then the current round but the size was the same and it could have been mistaken as a game that "fits the criteria" if no one knew any better. I think that in the future if we allow the submission of a game that "fits the criteria" then people should also take care to not submit games with setting that differ from the current rounds if they could be confused with a game with the current rounds settings.

I'll add this comment to the AltMetaMVL thread as well but I thought I would mention this here as well.

---

Basically I want to point out that we previously made no restriction on any non-MVL league games that may happen to be played under your MVL character. If we want to have the possibility of "automatic submission" then we should prohibit non-MVL games that could be confused for the current rounds game. By this it would mean that in a single victory round people should not submit a game of the same galaxy size and same victory conditions as the MVL game unless of course it fits all of the defined settings. In an All Victory round then people should not submit *any* game of the same galaxy size, unless again it fits all of the defined settings.

I don't see this a big problem and I think the value of having the safety net of automatic submissons is worth this inconvenience, but I'd like to hear what others think on this as well.

Just checking in and letting you guys know that ia reading and following this thread and i have not abandoned the cause.