Proposal 1 -

Meh. I don't really enjoy long talks about organization... it reminds me too much of my day job. I see no real reason in breaking up slots for empires and non-active members. I see no reason for non-active members to have input. If all the reps for the MVC came from the same empire, what would it hurt? How does over-representation for one empire really matter if the people involved are focused on the task at hand?

Proposal 2 -

A good idea, but I'm especially partial to expanding the number of tournaments run. To the best of my knowledge I ran the first two tournaments ever for Dark Avatar, perhaps for GC2 overall. Inter-empire tournaments support the empire infrasturcture, although, again, it seems fine to me to just allow individuals to compete.

Proposal 3 -

Not a bad idea, if Stardock agrees. They are the ones in charge of such things.

Proposal 4 -

I don't think the active MVC members ever really lost site of these goals...

Proposal 5 -

Again, I'm fine with it. I've never been a huge fan of the Core. I wasn't an MVC member when the smoke filled back rooms were being used a lot though, so maybe there was a time when this is necessary? This is the sort of thing where I would defer to Mumblefratz' judgment on the value/necessity of continued secrecy.

My input,
~ Wyndstar

thanks for the input Wyndstar!

Proposal 1 was basically a continuation and modification to the way the Council was set up before (with its members culled from the active empires).

A more inclusive Council to me would be:

No minimum or maximum seats but any person seeking to be a Representative must 1)have the support of some minimum amount of other players. I suggest at least five personally. 2) Have at least one submitted MV game and 3) be willing to work, good attitude, all that fun stuff.

Council selects amongst itself a Council President, just to keep things organized.

Basically, I'm thinking of a setup more reminiscent of how the MVL is arranged. You have your more vocal members but all in the MVL are in equal standing.


As for Proposal 2: I haven't done any tournaments, so that's your expertise not mine. Its something I would like to look into and expand upon though.

As for Proposal 3: Making the thread is easy enough. Getting it stickied is just asking really really nicely. And sending cookies.

As for Proposal 4: I didn't mean to imply that they had, only that the MVC has been...quiet...for a while.

As for Proposal 5: I'm a BIG fan of openness in government. I also like when the average player feels that something like the MVC is accessible and easy to bring ideas to.

I'm not sure there's any necessity to revive the MVC per se nor is it necessary or even beneficial to have a formal organization with democratic elections, at large members, dedicated empire representatives or presidents.

The point of the MVC was to accomplish a goal. While we did actually accomplish the stated goal for which it was formed we quickly became overburdened by the tedium of keeping it together.

Basically I came to the conclusion that organizations do not accomplish anything, only individuals that are willing to do the work and willing to keep on pushing until a particular goal is achieved will ever accomplish any goal.

The only potential benefit of a formal organization is that it confers some legitimacy and implies a broader base of acceptance beyond the few people that actually participate.

Basically none of this really matters. If there are specific goals then the way to accomplish them is to simply do them and not try to define some bureaucracy with a set of vaguely defined goals and assume that this will magically accomplish the task.

The task will only get done if firstly it is well defined, does not require any grandiose intervention from God (or in this case Stardock) and most importantly a few set of motivated people are actually willing to do all the work necessary to accomplish said goal. A bureaucracy only gets in the way of accomplishing something.

Anyway, I am all for supporting endeavors that attempt to increase popularity and participation within the metaverse it's just that in my old age I've become far less enamored with formal councils, senates of other fictions of legitimacy.

Basically we get our authority by willing to speak up and be counted and for being willing to put forth the required effort to accomplish a goal. No one really needs more elective authority than that.

Hmm let me mull this over and get back to you. I really like the idea of bringing tournaments up again.

I'm inclined to agree with Mumble. Tournaments sound good as Neilo pointed out but I'm not really feeling a new organization. If one is desired so be it but I primarily here for gaming and a little friendly banter.

Vuk-

Tournaments are a great idea.

A group of people interested in organizing and participating in tournaments however they may be structured is a great idea. Having tournaments and incorporating them into the AltMeta is an even better idea.

However I think tournaments would be best handled directly by the people wishing to participate in them rather than indirectly by some general purpose, formally structured MVC clone.

The way we're handling the MVL is a perfect model. There's no need for at-large representatives or empire representatives or for a general purpose council that today is worried about tournaments but tommorow is onto the next thing.

What structure the MVL currently has simply evolved from the group of folks that decided to participate. There have been elections and will be future elections but the only charter so to speak that the MVL has is the organization of the league itself. Certainly there will be folks that will be interested in multiple things however not everyone will be interested in everything and to make something work you can't have half of your group be uninterested in the next activity. You just simply form a new group of those that are interested in the new thing.

The reason the MVC broke up was because some councilors threw themselves into the MVL while others didn't. You have to realize that there is only so much activity that you can support. While I love the idea of tournaments I find that the MVL takes up all the time that I used to spend on the MVC. If I were to now throw myself into the definition and startup of some new organization focused on tournaments I would have to chose between that and the MVL. At this point I still prefer the MVL.

I suggest that those that wish to start tournaments simply get together and do so. I'm also sure there are those that perhaps have the time to be in the MVL and to participate in tournaments as well. However I gaurantee that there are many that would have to choose between the two. Are you willing to lose participation within the MVL because of this new endeavor?

In any case I believe an organization for a single isolated purpose can succeed, however a general purpose organization must eventually fail if only because the issue/function that caused its formation interests the set of people that initially formed it but once that's done and it's time to move on to another function you find out that half of the folks that formed your initial group aren't interested in the new thing.

This is what really happened to the MVC. People were selected and were initially gung ho and participated in defining the AltMeta. However once that was complete and the next thing that came along was the MVL about half of the MVC councilors were interested enough to participate and the other half weren't. Those that were stayed with the MVL and those that weren't drifted off elsewhere. Those in the MVL no longer had the time to dedicate to the MVC since that was now taken up by the MVL. So today we have the MVL but no MVC.

Like I said before, none of this really matters. Most folks here are well known to each other by now and instead of any formal generic structure people can form whatever structure that naturally grows from the specific activity at the time and when another thing comes along whatever structure grows should be from the group of people that support that activity. To say now that we will define the structure that will apply to all future activity is foolish and simply won't work.

It seems that so far, the responses lean towards not having a structured MVC. I can see Mumble's points about why a highly organized entity eventually failed, and I'm no fan of bureaucracy myself. But I do think that having some sort of association would be useful, and would have its uses. Perhaps something more informal, without elections and structured hierarchy would be best. As to the specific proposals:

1. I think less formality would be good. I think a loose association of players, who can participate or not on any specific issue might be the best route. Some issues will be irrelevant to people and others will be highly important. This would help avoid what happened to the MVC. Silver, you could just say you are the creator and nominal leader of this new organization, without any elections, if it was an informal affair.

2. I wasnt around/aware of the tournaments when they were going on, but I'm interested in trying it out.

3. Definitely a great idea. I know you have a similar thread, "Why Should I join an Empire". And it would be nice to have one thread to taunt everyone in.

4. Agreed. Especially would like to try to change Stardock's mind about not having a Metaverse for GalCiv3.

5. I very strongly support this. It's very important to be visible and accessible to as much of the GalCiv community as possible.

Sentient species taste better...

If the new code & current community can support it, I'd be interested in some tournaments for long-game players (and/or "grownups" who might take 10-12 weeks to finish a game--my AltMeta score is melting as I type...).

Re reviving the MVC pseudo-bureacuracy, I'm inclined to agree with the folks who think we'd do OK with ad hoc efforts. I got too involved in that stuff b/c I've read far too much bureaucratic and democratic theory.

Following Proposal 1, the MVC already had those things. They weren't well publisized, but we tried our best to include as many people as we needed to reprsent the community. I personally think that another Council wouldn't accomplish anything new, and would just take another 1-2 months debating how to set itself up(as we did). Sure some of the organization did help us, but in the end it also lead to us slowing down. The Council needed maintanance to keep itself opperational, and eventually there wasn't anyone left for such a task.

I think that if we move to have the MVL become a public forum for discussion and voting it would be as ligitamate as any Council. The MVL houses the more active members of the community, and I believe that they have the most vested in building up a good community. As such they would have the most initiative to participate and help accomplish new goal.

Now as to the other Proposals, I think those would be great starting goals. But they so far are just goals. We would need to revive quite a few resource to accomplish revival in such things, espicially those that involve the AltMeta and the ModMeta seeing as they are run by two people who aren't around the forums as much as they used to be.

All in all, at least discussion is happening, and it is clear that there is a drive for so form of community get together, but not necessarily a formal Council.

Don't dismiss us oddballs so easily. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one posting MV games (yes, I know I'm "behind," but RL is demanding just now...) who isn't into the MVL.

I'm sure we're a small minority, but I don't see the point in trying to section off "the community" to identify some sort of elite. This forum is "the community," and it seems OK at self-policing and "civic pride" stuff.

I'm not talking about some new organization. The MVL won't be a representation of the community, but it will be a public forum for the community to discuss new undertaking.

I mean anyone can post in the MVL thread to suggest things or whatever else. There will be no restrictions.

@Everyone: Cool, well, like TGE said, at least we have discussion going. An ad hoc system wouldn't be too bad.

@Wyndstar: What are some obstacles to look at/for in the tournament system?

@Mumblefratz: Is there anything we can do to help you in preparing the write up on getting the MVL into the AltMeta? Are you aware of other things that have been brought up to implement in the AltMeta but just hasn't been done yet? Things like that.

The biggest problem with tournaments is the level playing field. How long do you keep a tournament open? How many submissions can one person submit? Do the game setting appease enough people's play styles?

And the general honor code stuff we already have in the MVL: Dummy enemies, ARC, etc.

Now, in the tournament options in TA, most of that is taken care of. At that point, the problems are I suppose that there is no official "subset" of games to pull, so someone would have to sort the metaverse high score list by both date and game type, and then filter it for people who were competing in the tournament at the time. If all that makes sense.

It kind of depends on where you want to go with the tournament. Immense galaxies? Medium Galaxies? A TA pre-set tournament? Your own settings (and related honor code problems). Advertising so that interested players know you are doing it. All are hurdles that need to be (and can be) crossed.

In my first tournaments I just had races fight, with any settings allowed... as long as they were metaverse games. Others can chime in, but as the administrator of those tournaments I think that system worked well. Probably the biggest complaint I got was that each tournament ran for too short a period (1 month). For my play style, that seemed an eternity to leave the tournament open though.

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

Actually it's just been life getting in the way. First off I lost 6 weeks of effort when I had a gigantic game that wouldn't submit. Then just last week I lost my current boot image to a virus/trojan that I got from Imageshack which was very strange since I otherwise never had an issue there before. However they can be hacked just like anyone else and with all the ads on their site who knows what could creep in there. Anyway I've lost a couple of weeks to that and although I'm just about recovered I still haven't been able to start my MVL game for this month.

As far as help the only thing anyone could do would be to do the same kind of write up themselves. Certainly there's nothing that precludes anyone from doing this. I have no special insight that others may not have and if someone else has the time and inclination then they're certainly welcome to do this.

Basically the idea is to be able to present Kyro with a relatively short and concise document that describes how the MVL should operate within the context of the AltMeta. However given that the rule thread plus many other discussions and conversations that we've had over the course of the last 8 months all go into such a document it's not totally clear how concise such a writeup would be. Then of course realizing that such a writeup is only one person’s opinion and is only the starting point that needs to find consensus from the rest of the league.


I basically envisioned the AltMeta as the single one stop shopping site for everything CG2 metaverse related, after these forums of course. So basically that would cover the AltMeta in general as it corresponds to the metaverse and then add to that the MVL, tournaments and even a Mod metaverse component.

There are a number of things I see that differentiates tournaments from what we have in the MVL. The primary thing would be that it's individual based. Of course being on a team is one of the prime benefits of the MVL but it also is a detriment as well because it's not wanting to let down your teammates that makes participation in *every* month important. Some people can't deal with this commitment and as long as tournaments are individually based then folks can participate or not from one month to the next without the negative effects of a non-submission.

Secondly this come and go as you please also opens up the possibility of larger scale games that would attract those that just don't care for the smaller games. All in all tournaments would be far less formal than the MVL and far more variable in the kinds (and length) of games to be played. However this still leaves a major lack in tournaments that is fulfilled by the MVL and that is the team element, the camaraderie and the ability to learn from more experienced teammates. I think this is a good thing that allows both the MVL and tournaments to coexist and perhaps overlap a bit but still satisfy more folks between the two of them than could ever be satisfied by either one independently.

Finally getting the Mod folks somehow intimately engaged with the AltMeta is just another source of diverse membership whose needs have never really been addressed by the "real" metaverse.

I think what we have in the AltMeta is a good start but the more people that we can get to visit the AltMeta regularly the better it is.

Remember, my hope would be that even should Stardock follow through with the idea that no future games would have a metaverse that the AltMeta could continue on and actually replace the metaverse and possibly be a model for other TBS games. The major lack at this point for that to happen is some kind of direct submission method that doesn't depend on the current metaverse. This is a major issue but I think it is possible to handle it.

The thing I see is that the AltMeta could actually become a legitimate commercial product that could possibly be of interest to any TBS game. Do you think an AltMeta that provides some element of competition, the support of tournaments, the support of league competitions and the support of a Mod community could have enhanced the life and popularity of any TBS game like Civ4 or MOO2 or many other games?

I think there's the potential of an actual commercial product lurking within confines of the AltMeta and if Stardock doesn't see it by eliminating the real metaverse for future games then perhaps some enterprising young man might see the potential and make something of it (hint, hint).

how about creating some role playing for empires? If you ever been on nationstates you would know what I mean, look at their site and you can get a lot of ideas from them.