GCII Website Backup??

Bump for a Stardockian to see (hopefully)

DITTO what DG said in his "Rant". What is going on? I'm pretty new here, (only had the game for about 2 weeks"), and I am already getting "put off" by the lack of REAL support. So if any of the Stardockians are watching, (if they really exist), for the love of the game, please fix these issues and pay more attention to the needs of the people playing this game! Just my .02 cents.


Spaced Cadet
Ensign

This is a bunch of nonsense Stardock makes programs, and Games to serve there customers. All this is, is a demand for something that Stardock dosen't intend to make better just fo your or someone elses liking.

The Metaverse scoring is backward yes we know that. The Forums are screwed up we know that, this is just a undignified rant about something that is not a major aspect of why they did the game. They made the game for your enjoyment and for you to have fun.

They are working all the time to make sure that things come out right for the expansion. All this crap on the forums makes me think that they would rather hire moderators to monitor the forums more than to make an expansion to the game to make it better.

"Beggers are not Choosers"

DarthGriffin, please check your email. Also, are you speaking of trouble changing your nickname in the metaverse for a character (ie, character name) or in the 'my account' page?

Hello Everyone.  Unfortanately I was not aware of all these issues. Let me go over a few here and see if we can get them address...

Forum Medals: GCI T-Man goes out of his way to bring the community into the game by adding some new medals that users get to design. Here the damn medals don't even display correctly and your response to this... Silence!

I'm not aware of any problems with the medals displaying incorrectly.  Could you please give me an example of what is wrong.

Library: GCI we kept the library updated and new submissions were processed in hours normally. Here we can wait for over a week for approval and even then people don't know which ones they can use in a MV game as there is no way of telling. PLEASE use the Stardock Approved logo to indicate MV compatible mods.

I can't speak for how fast submissions are processed but from my Understanding with GCII all Mods are not Metaverse Safe.  The only mods that can be played with the Metaverse are mods that are compiled into the game itself.  But this really is a question for Cari or Brad as they would know for sure.

User Images: Broken, reported and still not fixed!!

Sorry I was not aware of this problem.  I have corrected a problem with our script that copies the files to the image server which is what I believe the problem was.  However, anyone who has a broken image will need to re-upload it.  My apologies for this one.

Nicknames: Tried to alter your nickname recently? DON'T! another error!

I cannot reproduce this problem.  Can you please provide the URL you are  using and the exact error message you are receiving.

I mean come on please you cant even get the moderator powers sorted out.

To my knowledge this was fixed awhile ago but I will look into it.

The Metaverse scoring is backward yes we know that.

I believe you are refering to the calculation of dimishing scores.  If so then no.  I have discussed the scoring system with the powers that be (Brad) and it was explained that the GC1 Metaverse scoring system was technically incorrect and the GC2 Metaverse scoring system is working properly. 

 

andrew_ email received and reply sent. Many thanks for your time.

---

El Conqwest, the reason behind the 'moan' is more aimed at the lack of response, at times, on any errors found here than at the company as a whole. If you take the time to use the other forums Stardock have (ie the wincustomize site) you will see that there are not the same issues present there as here. All i am asking for is the same consistency we have come to find in the othere sites.

Hi T-Man nice to see you

Here are some examples of the problems faced (please note that these may not be issues but there exists no post/document explaining the way things are worked out): -

Medals: -
1. https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=348&AID=120595 - post 2. Image for Altarians displaying as Arcean and vice-verse (see your own for demo of this)
2. http://metaverse.galciv2.com/index.aspx?g=sdnetaccount&acid=707283 - 4 Normal wins but still showing as Beginner. This applies to most levels of play as frequently reported in IRC.

Library: -
What i was referring to is the lack of an easy to see identifier that shows users that a specific mod is MV safe (ie a lot of the image ones are perfectly safe to use). Could the approved logo, or one similar be used to show this? As we did in th e GCI library

Images: -
Thanks, its a small thing but was broken none the less

Nicknames: -
Go to http: //www.galciv2.com /myaccount.aspx? p=4(spaces for display only) and then 'personal info'. if you enter a new nickname there to alter your main username you get the following error:

Microsoft Cursor Engine error '80004005' Key column information is insufficient or incorrect. Too many rows were affected by update. /action.asp, line 186

Thanks for taking the time to reply and assist
As i said to Andrew in the email i sent him it has just felt like any issue reported via IRC has just been ignored recently. Compared to the other forums on the Stardock websites this one has just seemed unsupported...

By the way if anybody took offence to my original post then i apologize, reading back i should have been more diplomatic with the way it was written and kept the language down. My apologies to any minors here for the language used.

DG

As for the MV scoring.. Well we cant win them all i guess There have been a lot of posts complaining that the recount seems to have been 'selective' in who it recalculated the points for. However seen as i dont know the ins and outs of the process i cant really comment too much on that.

T-Man if the difficulty medals are showing correctly and the way of calculating it has changed since GCI, could you please explain how the difficulty medals are calculated. In GCI it was just done via the majority of game levels i believe, ie 3@normal & 4@Maso = maso medal or middle medal if the jump was too high.

i think all we need is a bit more info in how the medals are calculated please.

the legendary DG az spoken. keep up the good work.

Hi Roy! Good to see you

likewise DG. you iz doing a sterling job. i iz watchin' yer rear

T-Man if the difficulty medals are showing correctly and the way of calculating it has changed since GCI, could you please explain how the difficulty medals are calculated. In GCI it was just done via the majority of game levels i believe, ie 3@normal & 4@Maso = maso medal or middle medal if the jump was too high.

I was using a SQL average function. DifficultLevel = Avg(Difficulty).  However, it appears that SQL's AVG function rounds down.  Your difficulty was 3.66 and it was return a value of 3.  I did some hacking and was able to get it to round up if the average is above .5. I also applied this fix to the Morality as well.

Nicknames: - Go to http: //www.galciv2.com /myaccount.aspx? p=4(spaces for display only) and then 'personal info'. if you enter a new nickname there to alter your main username you get the following error:

That was working for my account but after other testing I was able to locate the problem and correct it.

 

Medals: - 1. Link - post 2. Image for Altarians displaying as Arcean and vice-verse (see your own for demo of this) 2. Link - 4 Normal wins but still showing as Beginner. This applies to most levels of play as frequently reported in IRC.

Should be all set now.  The Altarian/Arcean mix up was caused by an old copy of our image server that had to be restored when one of our servers died. In the old copy the images were reversed.  And the Difficulty should be correct now.

 

Hey, T-Man!  I alerted Dark-Star to an annoying glitch with Firefox and displaying the "Average Difficulty" medal...

see screenshot here: http://www.mavx.net/temp.jpg

BTW, to anybody following closely with the Mods & Metaverse conversation, here's a direct quote from Cari...

[11:21]

GC2 website "theme" integration issues  (i.e, missing CSS)

https://www.galciv2.com/MyAccount.aspx?p=3

AND

https://www.galciv2.com/MyAccount.aspx?p=4

Also, that last one does absolutely nothing for me, except assure me that me eyes can indeed be pained by colors.

(no errors, but clicking the button results in no action)

Link Also, that last one does absolutely nothing for me, except assure me that me eyes can indeed be pained by colors.

 

It opens up in a new window. If you have other Browser windows already open it could be opening up in one of those instead of a new window.  And Dark-Star will look into that firefox issue as soon as he gets a chance.

Holy crap, I had just noticed that it opened a new window (which appeared behind the main browser so I never even noticed..) 

Usually I get these sort of things trapped in a new tab... 

My apologies.

Thanks T-Man

GalCiv III will probably need to do what other games do which is point to third party forums since we don't seem to get any credit for doing what we already do. 

Mods are not designed to be used with the metaverse. I believe mods are actually disabled when you play a Metaverse game.

We are trying to set things up so that volunteers can go through and moderate the library. Right now, I am th eone who usually moderates them and I am stretche dthin on time.  Again though, these are not features you rae paying for.  The minute users begin taking the attitude that these bonuses are entitlements is the minute we get rid of them. 

Given that these extras are now resulting in negative PR, the question is whether we should have them at all becomes the issue.  There is a reason why other games do not include a mods library or often even have forums or other niceties we attempt to have.

It is never a good idea to assume that we read every post on the forums or that we experience every forum or website issue you run into. For me, the medals show up fine, the user pics show up correctly, the metaverse scoring seems reasonable other than the 1.1 betas still not being recalc'd.

If fans are unhappy with how the website is handled they should do what fans of other games do - set up their own sites and go there.  Seriously, we're game developers, we have put up this website which we feel is pretty decent (i.e. doesn't "suck") and does the job. But players should never pretend that the website is somehow part of the purchase, it's not. It's just something we put together on top of things. 

 

Actually Frogboy the post would not have been necessary if requests *off line* had been resolved. It was a lack of this happening that lead to the post!

if you take the time to check back through your records you will see that i have been a devout follower of Stardock and always praised all aspects of the company. Strange that for the last 3 years i have had nothing but praise and since the issues here have been rectified i have once again helped and backed-up Stardock. So you think there might be a reason i felt that the only recourse was to post here in the vain hope you guys might actually do something about the minor errors in the forum, and not just a flame thread!!

But i guess if it means losing my mod power to get this place working for all the other members to use fully then i am a happy person. A small sacrifice on my part as i no longer have to read all the posts and help others (heck why would i want to do that eh?) and the users get a working forum...

Shame it had to come to this in the first place if *off line* communications Had rectified the issues. You actually want some idea of my thoughts on Stardock i suggest you ask Cari and Andrew for some of the recent communiques we have had!

This is DG SIGHning out

We have the moderate forum. That would have been a good place to post. I certainly received no emails about this.

This incident sours me on the whole forum/metaverse/web community concept for the game.  We can either put money into the game or we can put it into the site or split it between the two.

We have, thus far, chosen to put our resources into the game.  The issues discussed here I certainly wasn't aware or experiencing other than what I mentioned previously.

I am going to review whehter galciv2.com should exist in its present form or whether to point the forum to the Galciv2 forum on Civfanatics.com which is what Civilization4.com does. If I had to decide right now, I would say that this forum has outlived its usefulness. I see no benefit in it, just complaints and an increasing sense of entitlement (I mean a rant that medals weren't showing up for you in your forum posts? Come on).

A littany of, in my opinion, minor web complaints that end up making a percentage of users unhappy with their game experience -as a whole- makes a strong case that we shouldn't have a web community system in the first place.

I just don't see the rationale for having a forum at all that is part of galciv2.com or any of the other thing syou mentioned. They have nothing to do with the game and as you correctly point out, just result in a lot of pain and frustration for users.

Speaking as someone from Stardock, I can honestly say that we do care. Really! Truly! We just no longer seem to have the time to make great games and provide great forum interaction at the same time. We may have to choose one, and that is always going to be making great games.

This is a bad excuse, and it's one I dislike having to use, but it's true. We cannot be everywhere at once, or solve every problem, even if the problem has been around for a while. You've already talked to Cari and andrew, the two people most able to make changes in the game and forums respectively. If they cannot make changes that satisfy you, I am not sure that anyone will be able to, in the short term at least.

The essential reason for this is that they both have too much on their plates. Cari is responsible for making a lot of of the changes that are released in the updates and for ensuring (in part) that the expansion getting out on time, while andrew has to deal with making the forum system work right on multiple sites, under all the browsers that the skinning and gaming communities use (and let me tell you, that makes for some interesting test cases). As for Brad, he has so much to do I am amazed he gets time to sleep, let alone read email or the forums (he didn't mention it, but he's been replying to you from the airport while waiting in line for a flight to get back here to work some more . . .) - and he'll soon have another member of the family to deal with, too. None of them has all the time that they would like to hang out on the forums or fix things.

That is the unfortunate reason why minor problems stick around, and will probably stick around in the future - because they are minor, and there is always something more important to do in the limited time that we have. GC2 has (at a guess) maybe five times the users that GC1 had, in a shorter period of time, with effectively the same number of people trying to manage it (more people were involved overall, but most had other projects to return to after GalCiv II's release). We can no longer devote as much time talking to users and fixing their problems as we used to.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel, though. The fact that was do have more users means that we can safely hire more people to help them. We have recently hired someone specifically to get out there and be our forum representative - not just on our forums, but elsewhere as well. He will be starting work in the middle of next month, and hopefully you will get to know him as well as you have the dev team.

I am sorry that things have changed from how you may remember them to be. We cannot alter how much work there is to do, but we will be trying to ensure that you don't feel like nobody's listening to you, here or elsewhere. And, if you ever do feel frustrated, drop me a line. I'm not on the game team, or the web team, but I can usually take a bit of time to look into a problem with the appropriate peopl, even if I can't promise a solution.

The main thing that's changed is that back when Cari and myself and other Stardockians were basically living on the forums was because we were, literally, working around 70 hours per week (or more). 

But that's not sustainable.  At some point, the team had to get back to having normal lives and so we've relied more heavily on moderators reporting problems through the moderator forum.

I check the forums every day but even then I had no idea about most of the issues that were described.  But that's not the real issue, it's that how many resources can be devoted *away* from the game and into making sure that little medals show up in posts on every single forum revision or having an IT person checking on the tons of custom code running on the site to make sure that other things are going well.

I don't think some people realize how unusual galciv2.com is in having what we have. That a lot of time and effort was spent to create what we have here and that many game companies have nothing like it (certainly not for a $40 game).

So we have to figure out a long-term sustainable way of interacting with the community.

The minute users begin taking the attitude that these bonuses are entitlements is the minute we get rid of them.

But players should never pretend that the website is somehow part of the purchase, it's not. It's just something we put together on top of things.

Bah, I could go along pulling all kinds of quotes out of those 2 post. I know in the scheme of things I'm just a nobody but I can say that I felt that StarDock provided some of the best customer service I'd ever seen. Then out of the blue we get the above post.

In the manual that came with the game I purchased on page 6 near the middle of the page in nice bold letters is Playing on the Metaverse. Then on page 59, also in big bold lettering is Getting the most out of the game. On this page this just happens to be a url that points to https://www.galciv2.com/forums.aspx. Now, I wonder why us ungrates would feel that the Metaverse and forums are part of the game experience? Sorry we upset you by asking questions about a part of the game we enjoy and only want to see get better. In these forums you have a strong group of supporters, a means of getting input from known customers that probably would purchase a galciv3 but you are willing to just piss it away to a third party? I just as well cancel my preorder of the XP as you might put out a halfass programed game since they did with Civ4. Why even talk to us to begin with? It is appears that you feel you are one of the big gaming companies now since you are basically telling your paying customers that if they don't like it they can do what every other fan does and create their own site. I may just have to do that as I spread the news that SD created a great game, but after making it "big" decided to screw the folks that got them there. Hmm...all of a sudden names such as EA, Ubisoft, and Atari come to mind...

Wow! I know you do not know me from Adam and could probably care less what I have to say. Just know that I really enjoy GalCiv2 and I've told more people than I can count about this great little company called StarDock. I've told them how StarDock seems to listen to and take care of their customers. Damn, don't I feel like a fool now! Ironically there are many folks around here that would volunteer to help keep GC2 a success and keep folks interested in the XP but since it seems you have fired SD because he basically ask the same questions many have been asking, you must not need any help from the community which is nothing more than a strain on you.

it's a shame DG got demoted. when i read his 'cry for help', i wished he'd posted it in the council, but he hadn't. i made supportive noises because he was clearly trying to do his job, albeit a little undiplomatically.

i thought the metaverse in GC1 was a great success - it extended the life of the game, was great fun, and presumably helped commercially. When GC2 was announced, it was on the back of an expanded metaverse, so there was, in me at least, an expectation of 'greater things to come'.

perhaps, in hindsight, GC1 was easier to manage because the empires were more active, and moderated themselves via the in-built system of emperors and senators? might encouraging this be the way to go?

i do think it would be shame to lose the forum, but it is SD's call, of course.

all the best to one and all, and hoping DG gets his job back.

evil