Dominion => Dominion Online at Shuffle iT => Dominion General Discussion => Goko Dominion Online => Topic started by: theory on August 23, 2012, 06:01:32 pm
Title: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: theory on August 23, 2012, 06:01:32 pm
If you have additional questions, please ask them here. I'll try to filter through and pick out some additional followup questions to ask.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 23, 2012, 06:04:09 pm
The list in the other topic did not have any questions regarding offline play - how far off the radar is it, if it is on the radar at all?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: 1wheel on August 23, 2012, 06:09:02 pm
I asked on the question thread but I didn't get included in the compilation. Do you have any response to othiym23's comments about Goko's businesses model?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Rabid on August 23, 2012, 06:12:18 pm
That rating answer sounded very much like True Skill. I think the intention of the question was to get some real numbers. For example starting ratings for new players? Does rating decay over time?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 23, 2012, 06:12:32 pm
Will there be a leader board? And will be be able to filter players by name, rating, expansions owned, date registered, etc.? Note: example filters.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: LastFootnote on August 23, 2012, 06:15:44 pm
Will there be a way to buy Gokoins without giving Goko my credit card information, e.g. PayPal?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: philosophyguy on August 23, 2012, 06:17:33 pm
I'm still very concerned about the security issues, especially in light of Trisha's answer. Saying "we've fixed it—trust us!" is pretty inadequate considering how massive and amateurish some of these issues were. I mean, storing passwords in plaintext is a development 101 no-no.
Maybe the follow-up needs to be: how did these mistakes get through the first time, and what has changed so that other mistakes won't occur?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 23, 2012, 06:21:28 pm
How do you get Promo cards?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 23, 2012, 06:25:43 pm
Reflecting on this failed launch, what do you feel were the biggest mistakes?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 23, 2012, 06:29:38 pm
UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH.
Offline play answer was so vague and non-committal.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Rhombus on August 23, 2012, 06:33:39 pm
Did we learn anything except "These are things we may or may not due at some flexible time point in the future." ?
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Captain_Frisk on August 23, 2012, 06:34:24 pm
Did we learn anything except "These are things we may or may not due at some flexible time point in the future." ?
Not really. The only thing that stood out in my mind was her canned response to the first security question - which was to claim that they were only in the beta and didn't impact the production system.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: theory on August 23, 2012, 06:35:38 pm
The questions I asked:
1) I think security is one of the top concerns right now. During the time the production server was up, all of the bugs identified (javascript injection, plaintext password) were identified in the production server. So how do you plan to rebuild user trust in the platform? (i.e. transparent security policy, changing processes, independent security audit)
2) Can you describe FunSockets' primary intended market for its games? How do you balance the wants of the various communities?
3) Offline play is a hugely requested feature. Are there actual plans and timeframes to put it up, or is it just up in the air for now?
4) Can you describe the pricing plan you have in mind for Dominion and other games? How would you justify it by comparison to other online games?
5) How do you plan to improve communication between FunSockets and the boardgaming community in the future? One of the primary community complaints has been that there was very little communication from FunSockets on its workings.
6) Other than Dominion, Catan, RFTG, what are some of the other 150 games you've signed up to develop?
I wanted to slip in "Ambassador/Silver/Ambassador or Ambassador/Ambassador/Silver?" at the end but it got lost in the internet :(
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Qvist on August 23, 2012, 06:37:35 pm
Did we learn anything except "These are things we may or may not due at some flexible time point in the future." ?
What did you expect? A answer like "All your wishes and wanted features will be granted not later than V2.1 of Dominion Online which will be released on the 23rd of May 2013"? Just joking, but I kinda expected that. Thus I asked the question if the can release/publish some sort of timeline? But it seems they won't do that.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 23, 2012, 06:39:04 pm
I learned that I no longer care about this implementation. I guess I'll be sticking to the cards until a real company gets a hold of this.
Trisha, I would run screaming from Goko. They are leaving you out there high and dry. It's so obvious that this company is failing that it's spilling out the sides of your video. Your reputation can only be bolstered by leaving now and going anywhere else.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 23, 2012, 06:41:27 pm
Well I have to say I like her as a person but Goko as an overall company currently seems a little off to me. I liked the answer that everyone played Dominion but I wonder whether or not her answer that basically was 'we just want you to have fun with our games!' will carry through to the actual product.
@pinky you registered to ask questions without well structured grammar at the last minute and then when you were granted an answer... this? ???
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: jsh357 on August 23, 2012, 06:50:34 pm
The audio kind of flubbed at this part, but did she say there was an ios version, win 8 and facebook on the way but no Android? Seems strange.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Captain_Frisk on August 23, 2012, 06:51:49 pm
Did we learn anything except "These are things we may or may not due at some flexible time point in the future." ?
What did you expect? A answer like "All your wishes and wanted features will be granted not later than V2.1 of Dominion Online which will be released on the 23rd of May 2013"? Just joking, but I kinda expected that. Thus I asked the question if the can release/publish some sort of timeline? But it seems they won't do that.
Um so I haven't even seen the interview yet, but here's roughly the sort of answer content I'd hope for (although don't really expect):
1) Obviously they should have thought about security already, or that is a big red flag, right? So tell us what they think. Is it a concern to them? Would they hold up a launch in order to fix security issues?
2) Well, who is their market? Pretty simple, and they must have some idea. People who play Dominion online already? People who have only played Dominion in real life? People who don't play board games but play lighter-weight web games and are looking to move to something more interesting?
3) Surely they have discussed internally whether they intend to support offline play or not. This question isn't just important for Dominion, but also for their developer SDK. So, how important do they think offline play is? If they think it is important, why did they choose to leave it out for the launch?
4) Simple enough: what will it cost, and what's up with Gokoins? I can't see how Gokoins are intended as anything other than customer disrespect, but if there's some justification, now is the time to give it.
5) For this, instead of plans, the content that would be interesting is: what's their communication strategy? For a long time, the strategy was to keep everything hush-hush, and as a result you have people generally mistrusting Goko and dreading the launch, rather than the normal situation for games where people are hyped about the launch. If that isn't important to them, why not?
6) This is maybe secret so I wouldn't expect much.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Ozle on August 23, 2012, 07:11:50 pm
@pinky you registered to ask questions without well structured grammar at the last minute and then when you were granted an answer... this? ???
To be fair to pinky, he's a beta tester and very active on those forums.
As far as the Q&A, it doesn't sound like there was anything interested/noteworthy? Other than a lie (hopefully not intentional) about the flaws not being in the launch version.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: AJD on August 23, 2012, 07:38:08 pm
The following is the best thing ever:
At the beginning of that video, Trisha tells Theory or whoever she's talking to that she'll begin the Q&A at 3:10—meaning, presumably, ten minutes past three o'clock.
Then she sits around for a few minutes, waiting for the appointed time to roll around.
Then she starts the Q&A at exactly 3:10—i.e., three minutes and ten seconds into the video.
So the "I'll start at 3:10" is just as useful for people watching it as a recording after the fact and wanting to know when it starts as it was for people watching in real time earlier today wanting to know when the Q&A would start. Now that's dedication.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 23, 2012, 08:00:48 pm
Well I have to say I like her as a person but Goko as an overall company currently seems a little off to me. I liked the answer that everyone played Dominion but I wonder whether or not her answer that basically was 'we just want you to have fun with our games!' will carry through to the actual product.
@pinky you registered to ask questions without well structured grammar at the last minute and then when you were granted an answer... this? ???
I'm plenty active in the BGG and goko beta testing forums. Excuse my grammar, please, I do not think it is the norm for my posts to have substandard grammar.
But yes, this.
Goko has been infuriating me the past month or so. I'm venting everywhere I can. Dominion is a great game, but the Goko implementation is far from great. I want it to be excellent and I'm not seeing it.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 23, 2012, 08:38:33 pm
Well I have to say I like her as a person but Goko as an overall company currently seems a little off to me. I liked the answer that everyone played Dominion but I wonder whether or not her answer that basically was 'we just want you to have fun with our games!' will carry through to the actual product.
@pinky you registered to ask questions without well structured grammar at the last minute and then when you were granted an answer... this? ???
I'm plenty active in the BGG and goko beta testing forums. Excuse my grammar, please, I do not think it is the norm for my posts to have substandard grammar.
But yes, this.
Goko has been infuriating me the past month or so. I'm venting everywhere I can. Dominion is a great game, but the Goko implementation is far from great. I want it to be excellent and I'm not seeing it.
Why vent everywhere you can? People are venting enough and if Goko is smart, they will take the constructive criticism and ignore the vents for the most part, just like any other company/star/etc.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 23, 2012, 08:45:04 pm
Well I have to say I like her as a person but Goko as an overall company currently seems a little off to me. I liked the answer that everyone played Dominion but I wonder whether or not her answer that basically was 'we just want you to have fun with our games!' will carry through to the actual product.
@pinky you registered to ask questions without well structured grammar at the last minute and then when you were granted an answer... this? ???
I'm plenty active in the BGG and goko beta testing forums. Excuse my grammar, please, I do not think it is the norm for my posts to have substandard grammar.
But yes, this.
Goko has been infuriating me the past month or so. I'm venting everywhere I can. Dominion is a great game, but the Goko implementation is far from great. I want it to be excellent and I'm not seeing it.
Why vent everywhere you can? People are venting enough and if Goko is smart, they will take the constructive criticism and ignore the vents for the most part, just like any other company/star/etc.
Mark my words, this company's goal is to be bought. It doesn't matter what they do with the criticism. They can stick it in their ears and play board games all day every day for all I care. What is important is that they gobbled up licenses with very little intention of delivering a good product, solely so that someone else can come in and buy the company for the licenses.
Also, it's important that people know what's going on. They need to be very wary of this company. I was one of, if not the first to break NDA with the security flaws. For some reason they haven't kicked me out of the beta yet. I think it's because it's completely unimportant how much bad press they get as they are just sitting around waiting for someone to buy them.
It's been pointed out that their top management has a list of companies they've started and sold over the past 10 years at a little under a company a year. History repeating and all that junk...
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: blueblimp on August 23, 2012, 08:59:32 pm
Well I have to say I like her as a person but Goko as an overall company currently seems a little off to me. I liked the answer that everyone played Dominion but I wonder whether or not her answer that basically was 'we just want you to have fun with our games!' will carry through to the actual product.
@pinky you registered to ask questions without well structured grammar at the last minute and then when you were granted an answer... this? ???
I'm plenty active in the BGG and goko beta testing forums. Excuse my grammar, please, I do not think it is the norm for my posts to have substandard grammar.
But yes, this.
Goko has been infuriating me the past month or so. I'm venting everywhere I can. Dominion is a great game, but the Goko implementation is far from great. I want it to be excellent and I'm not seeing it.
Why vent everywhere you can? People are venting enough and if Goko is smart, they will take the constructive criticism and ignore the vents for the most part, just like any other company/star/etc.
Mark my words, this company's goal is to be bought. It doesn't matter what they do with the criticism. They can stick it in their ears and play board games all day every day for all I care. What is important is that they gobbled up licenses with very little intention of delivering a good product, solely so that someone else can come in and buy the company for the licenses.
Also, it's important that people know what's going on. They need to be very wary of this company. I was one of, if not the first to break NDA with the security flaws. For some reason they haven't kicked me out of the beta yet. I think it's because it's completely unimportant how much bad press they get as they are just sitting around waiting for someone to buy them.
It's been pointed out that their top management has a list of companies they've started and sold over the past 10 years at a little under a company a year. History repeating and all that junk...
1. You are making an awful lot of assumptions here. "Very little intention of delivering a good product"? There's every sign that they wanted to make a good product, but of course intentions are not enough. The following saying applies here: "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence".
2. There was and is no NDA. An NDA is a legal agreement that you sign. As far as the beta goes, there was just a request to refrain from discussing it on public forums. Nobody signed anything (as far as I know).
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 23, 2012, 09:17:31 pm
I think the biggest problem Goko had from launch was that they are being over-ambitious. They have acquired too many licenses and already have a few big names to them like Catan and Dominion which means their resources are spread thin. I bet the people who work there are overworked. Goko is a new company and sometimes new companies get a little over their heads.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Kirian on August 23, 2012, 09:24:09 pm
The following saying applies here: "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence".
Indeed. Lots of incompetence here. If there's any malice, it can likely be ascribed to the VCs involved. And let's face it, they're pretty much known for malice (VCs in general that is).
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 23, 2012, 09:33:30 pm
1. You are making an awful lot of assumptions here. "Very little intention of delivering a good product"? There's every sign that they wanted to make a good product, but of course intentions are not enough. The following saying applies here: "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence".
2. There was and is no NDA. An NDA is a legal agreement that you sign. As far as the beta goes, there was just a request to refrain from discussing it on public forums. Nobody signed anything (as far as I know).
No, I use NDA loosely, as it's much simpler than saying that Goko reserved the right to eliminate our access to the beta for speaking publicly on any flaws/bugs/features/lack thereof/etc. (not quoted, but similar to email we all received).
I am making assumptions. I am assuming that the incompetence is because the competence of the development staff did not matter to upper management. I think we've all been shown enough examples of that incompetence to know it's true. You all have dodged saying it, attributed my posts to me being rude, but deep down you are all agreeing. I simply am holding them to the same standard that the card game lives up to. A game as excellent as Dominion deserves an electronic implementation at least as good as the mediocre game that is Ascension.
You all want a better product than the one being delivered. A lot better.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: 1wheel on August 23, 2012, 09:40:12 pm
"None of the security issues were on live, only the beta"
Which just doesn't seem plausible. Why would they not load test server side validation of client data? Why would their beta account system store passwords in plain text while their live system didn't?
I'm thankful that Trisha and theory set up this Q&A, but it really hasn't alleviated any my concerns.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Captain_Frisk on August 23, 2012, 10:28:11 pm
"None of the security issues were on live, only the beta"
Which just doesn't seem plausible. Why would they not load test server side validation of client data? Why would their beta account system store passwords in plain text while their live system didn't?
I'm thankful that Trisha and theory set up this Q&A, but it really hasn't alleviated any my concerns.
Seconded. I'm pretty sure that I executed a javascript popup on launch day on the production server (Galzria might have been in the lobby) - and the plaintext password thing was discovered by the folks in the bgg thread.
I suspect that Trisha was given talking points, possibly from someone in marketing / sales who in the best case didn't know / was willing to say whatever... and in the worst case explicitly lied. I mean - Ted even posted a note on the official forums that said "yep thanks for pointing it out - it will be fixed this afternoon. Since they "launched" in the morning - obviously someone knew it was launching with the holes in place.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 23, 2012, 10:31:56 pm
"None of the security issues were on live, only the beta"
Which just doesn't seem plausible. Why would they not load test server side validation of client data? Why would their beta account system store passwords in plain text while their live system didn't?
I'm thankful that Trisha and theory set up this Q&A, but it really hasn't alleviated any my concerns.
Seconded. I'm pretty sure that I executed a javascript popup on launch day on the production server (Galzria might have been in the lobby) - and the plaintext password thing was discovered by the folks in the bgg thread.
I suspect that Trisha was given talking points, possibly from someone in marketing / sales who in the best case didn't know / was willing to say whatever... and in the worst case explicitly lied. I mean - Ted even posted a note on the official forums that said "yep thanks for pointing it out - it will be fixed this afternoon. Since they "launched" in the morning - obviously someone knew it was launching with the holes in place.
It's even worse that these security issues were discovered and pointed out before the launch.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Kirian on August 23, 2012, 10:45:30 pm
14:05 so demeaning has definitely been the primary purpose of work
That doesn't sound like a healthy work environment.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 23, 2012, 11:28:53 pm
14:01 love dominion and that's one reason she really you know wanted to bring it 14:05 so demeaning has definitely been the primary purpose of work
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: greatexpectations on August 24, 2012, 01:29:46 am
the auto-transcript was put up, so i copy/pasted it and edited it as i listened through the video. google's caption service really nailed whole sections of it, and fantastically garbled some others. still impressive that it can do it though, i say.
i cut out a lot of the filler before and after the meat of the questions. and i did the best i could in editing the text. im sure there are a few mistakes or missing words throughout, so don't take this as 100% gospel.
i have tried to match up the answers to the questions presented here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4080.msg95195#msg95195) over in this (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4321.msg95643#msg95643) post.
Goko Q&A 3:15 i am trisha 3:17 uh... from goko 3:21 and just to let you know that uh... Ed from 3:27 uh... also known as theory from 3:30 dominion strategy is going to be my moderator today so he is going to be the one is going to be 3:33 bringing in the questions and all that fun stuff 3:36 so 3:38 if you don't get your question answered 3:42 uh... any questions that i don't answer online today i will try to get to you 3:47 as soon as i can 3:49 um... 3:52 at the boards 3:55 so 3:58 first i'd like to introduce a couple of people uh... i don't know if you guys can see 4:02 them uh... but 4:05 ted who's kind of 4:07 uh... 4:08 blacked out right now as well as a couple of the other people here 4:14 and then i'm gonna go ahead and delve right into your questions 4:20 so these are questions that were brought together by greatexpectations 4:23 and i really appreciate him doing that for us that was really awesome, thank you 4:28 uh... so the first question 4:30 that seems most popular right now is "will you be implementing the ability to 4:35 rejoin a game in the event of a disconnect" 4:38 so the answer is yes 4:41 which is great 4:42 uh... though that is going to have to be implemented after the site is up 4:47 and the games are stable so you might not see it right away but 4:51 we're definitely on the path 4:53 and you should see that very soon 4:57 and the next question is 4:59 there've been reports of some security holes in your app 5:02 even if they're fixed, how can i be confident that other flaws are not 5:06 compromising my user information 5:09 so 5:13 the security issues that we had 5:15 uh... were in our beta program and 5:18 we're really sorry about that but they have been addressed 5:21 in our production systems 5:24 none of the the issues that we have in the beta were actually in our production so 5:29 i just wanna make that clear that 5:31 things were safe 5:32 uh... we have fixed the javascript and password in plain text issues 5:37 and were definitely reviewing the security practices 5:41 uh... to make sure that they are over and above the industry standards so 5:46 we are 5:46 addressing that and um... things are safe 5:51 so, the next question, do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves 5:56 what is your your policy regarding third-party extensions including but not 6:00 limited to point counters 6:02 are custom AI's on the horizon? 6:04 if so, how will they work 6:07 so 6:08 well i will try to answer all those questions 6:11 so 6:13 one of things that we do here at gokoe 6:15 is that we're very excited about our platform as well as 6:20 the games 6:22 so 6:24 we're really happy to be able to produce the tools that are going to allow people 6:29 to make 6:30 uh... extensions such as the point counter 6:34 so we'd ourselves are not actually going to do this but we arer very happy to 6:38 work with people who do 6:40 uh... so 6:42 people will be able to make 6:44 their own custom AI's 6:45 uh... as well as things like the point counter 6:49 we don't have this of course right 6:51 now but it should be very soon 6:56 alright, so next question 6:58 alright here's a long answer to the question "so how are ratings calculated" 7:03 so i'm actually just going to read the answers given from um... 7:07 jack who does our 7:09 uh... ratings system 7:11 so i'm going to join us there 7:13 if you have specific questions regarding anything in the point counter 7:19 go ahead and let me know on the boards and i will 7:23 forward those to jack and see if we can 7:26 get those questions answered as soon as possible 7:29 so how the ratings are calculated 7:32 so each player gets a rating between zero and ten thousand 7:36 all registered players are rated 7:38 the same way including the bots 7:42 the system for calculating ratings is 7:45 pretty complicated and dependent on quite a few factors so im going to kind of go 7:49 through some of those factors 7:52 first the ratings are just based on what place you came in rather than how many 7:55 victory points 7:57 you won by 7:58 and if the game is resigned its viewed as a loss 8:05 so if you came in second or third 8:07 it doesn't matter if you came in at a hundred points 8:10 or two points its all rated the same 8:13 ratings are also adjusted based on the ratings of your opponents 8:17 beating a higher rated opponent 8:19 will help 8:20 ratings much more than beating a lower rated opponent 8:25 the system is 8:26 conservative in it's calculations 8:30 so it is reasonably sure you deserve the rating work before it awards it 8:33 so 8:35 in other words your rating may be low when you haven't played many games 8:41 and uh rise as the system gains more confidence that you deserve the higher rating 8:47 your rating will fluctuate 8:48 more when the system has little data about how skillful you are so you know 8:52 the first couple games you play your ratings are going to be all over the place 8:58 uh... 8:59 as you play more games your rating is only going to slowly 9:04 move up and down 9:11 unexpected results such as a win over a higher rated opponent 9:14 affects the rating most 9:18 so play someone that's much better than you and you win 9:20 your rating might go pretty high 9:23 so that your rating will fluctuate more with results against players with more established ratings so pretty much the more you play, the more established your rating is going to get, and playing against the other players with established ratings is going to be the best way to improve your score 9:43 alright, so again if you have specific questions 9:45 let me know on the boards 9:46 and i will forward those to jeff 9:49 ok 9:50 next question 9:52 would it be possible to get a relative timetable of when the expansions will be 9:56 released on goko 9:59 so 10:00 right now all our focus is uh... on fixing the back end 10:05 and um... the issues in getting the games up and working 10:09 so once were done with that we're going to put 10:13 all our efforts back on things like 10:15 the expansions 10:17 so right now i can't give you a 10:20 really good 10:22 uh... timetable 10:24 uh... but as soon as we kind of 10:27 fix everything and we're back on track 10:29 uh... i'll start letting people know as we get close when those are going to 10:33 be available 10:36 alright, next question 10:38 do you want to see the testers to continue beta testing 10:42 if so what version should we be using 10:45 what where should we posts 10:47 feedback thoughts 10:50 i definitely 10:52 we want people to continue beta testing 10:55 uh... 10:56 we will be sending out invites to our 10:59 current beta testers 11:02 to move you 11:03 onto our 11:05 new system 11:06 that we're going to be using 11:08 which is going to expand a lot of things we aregoing to be testing 11:13 and a lot of new features 11:16 so uh 11:18 you'll find out more in an email that i should be sending within the next couple 11:22 of days 11:23 about the 11:24 information im going to need to transfer you over ok 11:30 and uh... and as far as what 11:33 where to post feedback and -?- continue both emails on the forums 11:37 and uh... not on get satisfaction -?- 11:40 we're gonna be using that 11:41 for the live site once we go live uh... but not for the 11:44 beta testing right now 11:47 so next question expression 11:49 how many work at funsockets? or as we're known....goko 11:52 -garbled- 12:00 so we have about 12:02 thirty people here 12:05 that actually work in the office 12:08 so we're creating 12:09 several different things uh... 12:11 not only are we creating games like dominion 12:13 but we also have a gaming platform 12:16 and also a kind of 12:17 developer ecosystem that we're trying to work on arm so its a lot 12:21 for thirty people on then of course not all of us are our programmers 12:26 so we are also bringing in a lot of outside help 12:30 and as a lot of you who have seen the site know we 12:33 will be putting out race for the galaxy soon 12:35 and we brought actually keldon in to help us with that alright 12:41 so the next question 12:42 any plans for allowing players to tweak how the cards are laid out on the screen 12:48 so right now 12:49 we don't have any plans to allow people to tweak 12:53 however 12:54 like most features uh... if you ask for it and enough people ask for it 12:59 we will definitely look at it for future things down the road 13:09 so next question 13:12 i'm also interested in the familiarity the developers had with dominion before 13:16 starting their work 13:18 given that goko is simulataneously developing at least four games games 13:22 how much attention is it really getting? 13:24 are the best guys on it? 13:25 well updates be frequent? 13:28 so 13:29 to give you an overall of like 13:31 the people that work here as you can see we 13:34 have quite a few collection of games 13:36 uh... 13:37 pretty much everyone here 13:39 plays board games in one way or another 13:42 uh... you know we not 13:43 all like the same games but we definitely are 13:48 a company 13:48 that focuses 13:50 on gaming as a hobby 13:53 so many of us 13:54 owned and played dominion long before we came here 13:57 uh... 13:58 our ceo ted 14:01 loved dominion and that's one reason he really you know wanted to bring it in 14:05 so dominion has definitely been the primary focus of 14:09 our company and it definitely is right now 14:13 we have the other games but a lot of the other games that we are developing were 14:17 developed by external people unlike dominion that we brought in 14:21 and really 14:21 it's all internal and we have focused on making it 14:26 as good as we can 14:28 uh... you know at the point of course 14:31 we're still in development so it's not 14:33 perfect yet 14:36 but we also, along with 14:38 ourselves, internally, have been working with donald x 14:43 who is the developer of dominion 14:46 so that we're getting it right from that angle too 14:55 so let me see if i answered that question 14:57 so as far as our best guys on it, yep 15:00 we definitely have you know some of the best people we have here working 15:04 on dominion 15:06 right, so next question 15:08 will there be a package deal to purchase all the current 15:12 expansions in one go? 15:17 so we will have a package deal 15:20 where you will 15:21 be able to purchase 15:23 all the current extensions that we have so far uh... and we will continually put 15:27 out package deals as we have the 15:30 expansions available 15:36 so next question 15:39 are any translations, especially into german, planned in the near future? 15:44 and will you publish a road map of upcoming features? 15:47 so 15:48 german is the next language that we really want to put, especially dominion, out in 15:52 and as we know it's pretty popular 15:55 i dont have 15:57 the timing for that right now just because there are 15:59 lots of factors 16:01 involved in that 16:02 uh... as far as a roadmap um... one of the few things that i can tell you 16:06 that's going on right now is that we are working really hard on getting 16:09 an iOS app 16:11 for the iPad and iPhone out there 16:13 uh... 16:15 also we are hoping to integrate with -?- 16:19 so something like this that you'd be able to play to your friend 16:23 uh... and talk to them while you are playing dominion 16:26 the thing after that, a couple things after that are working on uh... facebook 16:31 and windows 8 versions 16:33 uh... we're going to 16:35 do our best to 16:37 make sure that we keep the community informed on what we're working on 16:41 and how 16:42 uh... and what we're trying to 16:44 to do with the 16:45 near future 16:48 so next question 16:50 how do you feel about comparisons between your company and zynga in the 16:54 mainstream press 16:58 so we feel like 16:59 that 17:01 the type of games that we're trying to do are very different than zynga 17:05 uh... were very different in the way we're trying to approach 17:09 games 17:10 we want games that are at their core are really fun 17:14 and that's one of the reasons that we started with dominion because it's 17:17 already proven to be fun 17:20 and so we 17:22 wanted to continue to build on that we never want to take that away and make it 17:26 into something that it's not 17:28 so we definitely are very different in the way that we're approaching 17:31 uh... things here 17:34 so not only are we trying to have 17:36 games that are really fun 17:38 uh... but we're also 17:40 doing something that's very different in that 17:42 we are providing the tools to make those games 17:45 so even if you know 17:47 of course everyone here likes dominion 17:50 for those that are 17:53 um... looking to make their own games as well 17:55 we will have a platform 17:58 for you to make the type of game that you want to make 18:02 alright, so next question 18:04 will automatch be implemented? 18:07 can i filter opponents based on ranking? 18:10 so 18:11 yes we're going to be implementing 18:14 automatch 18:16 so the original way we tried to implement it, some of the very early beta 18:19 testers might 18:20 kind of remember this 18:23 uh we 18:25 it didn't quite work out just because of the 18:27 number of people we had in and 18:29 it doesn't feel right so we went ahead and took that out 18:32 and now we are 18:35 going to try to make something that is a quick match play in the game 18:39 so we're still working on the UI and the -?- for that 18:43 so once we get that right we're hoping to turn that on again and have a better 18:48 quick-match program 18:51 but that so 18:52 hopefully 18:53 you know before too long we will have that 18:58 alright, so next question 19:00 will there be any deal for getting 19:03 price cuts by buying physical copies of existing or future expansions 19:08 so right now we can't do that just because it's hard to keep track of 19:13 who bought what and things like that because we really aren't 19:17 rio grande so it's hard to 19:20 do that. the one thing we do have of course is that im sure some of you have seen 19:24 little cards that came in the base set and came in dark ages 19:28 so you will be able to use those touch cards very soon and that will get you a nice 19:32 little sampler pack 19:35 uh... that you can redeem but as far as getting a discount on the type of things 19:39 we uh cant do that right now 19:43 next question 19:44 what kind of achievements will there be 19:47 can you tell us more about the campaign mode 19:50 or any possibility of a 19:51 fast lightweight mode of play 19:55 for players that don't want the graphics-?- 19:59 ok so these are kind of three separate questions so i will answer them one at a time 20:04 uh... the first question 20:06 uh... about achievements is 20:08 that a lot of the achievements we are going to be implementing were actually designed by 20:12 donald x himself 20:14 so we're really excited about that uh...a lot of them will be 20:18 per card 20:19 so you may have a special achievement for doing something 20:24 like play a certain number of villages or something like that so 20:27 exactly what those are i cant say yet 20:30 but they'll be up there 20:32 um... 20:35 so the campaign mode is going to be called adventures 20:41 so there will be for each full set there will be three different 20:43 adventures that 20:47 you can play through 20:50 so 20:51 each one of them will have the type of 20:52 kingdom cards it will be 20:56 kind of like what you are used to 20:58 but the differences will be the starting hands uh... as well as just some other you know 21:02 little tweaks. there will be a storyline through it so we are really excited about that and hoping that 21:08 it 21:08 will be interesting to people 21:11 just to be something different than what 21:14 people are playing with now 21:16 but will complement 21:17 the fact that you can still play 21:19 just a plain game with your friends 21:21 or with the bots 21:23 so the last part of the question was about the fancy graphics 21:26 is kind of like some of the other stuff 21:28 uh... we don't have 21:32 it in our plans to make a lightweight mode but 21:36 if a lot of people ask for it 21:37 who knows down the road 21:40 so um... 21:42 next question 21:44 what is the peak number of unique users 21:48 who have attempted to access the server 21:51 how many did you 21:53 performance test for?l 21:55 so this question is essentially what happened 21:59 so 22:00 when we opened on the first day of GenCon 22:03 our service 22:05 really started exhibiting some 22:07 uh... 22:08 unknown networking issues and some of 22:11 these issues hadn't really can't see on our beta machines before 22:17 um... and 22:18 not really during our loading tests either 22:22 so we were uh 22:24 pretty surprised by what happened so at some point 22:27 you know we 22:29 pretty much worked 22:31 two days straight 22:32 uh... 22:33 some of the engineers were left here to try and fix it 22:36 and we finally realized its best that we 22:42 stand back 22:43 pullout and 22:45 re-evaluate 22:46 what's going on instead of trying to put a bandaid on it 22:49 so we know that was super painful for everyone in the community because everybody 22:54 wants to play 22:55 and 22:56 we all felt 22:57 horrible about that and you know 23:00 we're really sorry 23:02 we wanted to do 23:04 the best thing for the players at the time as well 23:06 so we're kind of standing back 23:08 fixing the thing that really needs to be fixed 23:11 and then 23:12 going for it 23:13 again 23:14 and hopefully during this time we are also making 23:17 some good changes to dominion to really improve the user experience 23:23 so 23:25 next question 23:26 then i hereby clamor at the top of my lungs not only for a simple point 23:30 counter but also for an official full deckcounter at least as extensive as doctor held's point counter 23:39 so uh we would love to work with dr held 23:44 so if he wants to contact us you can contact us through 23:48 help@goko.com and we'll see what we can do and maybe we can 23:53 work with him to use that same one through some things 24:00 so next question 24:01 how will will be able to get the base cards with new art? will we have to pay for it to unlock it? 24:07 uh... so there is probably going to be two ways to get the base 24:10 card set, one through 24:12 uh... what we called victory tokens 24:14 which you can earn in the campaigns 24:16 as well as some 24:18 there will be some various other ways to earn 24:22 or you can also just purchase them so those are the two ways you are going to get the base cards with new art 24:31 ok next question 24:32 how can i download a batch of play logs for analysis? 24:36 so i will go ahead and put this address out there but i will 24:40 say it as well 24:41 it's going to be dominionlogs.goko.com 24:45 so they are organized 24:47 by day 24:50 so if you'd like to go ahead and take a look you can 24:53 look through all the logs for analysis 24:57 okay so that's all the questions i have here 25:01 and if theory would be kind enough to give me the 25:05 next question 25:12 oh boy, alright, so here we go 25:15 so the question is i think security is one of the top concerns right now 25:19 during 25:20 the time the production server was up all the bugs identified 25:24 uh... javascript injection plain text -?- were identified in the production server 25:28 so how do you plan to rebuild user trust in the platform 25:33 so arm 25:35 we are looking into 25:37 quite a few different 25:41 processes 25:43 and other things so i can't really give you a great answer for all the 25:48 things that we're doing 25:50 to do that right now 25:52 i will answer this question once i have that list so 26:02 number two 26:05 can you describe funsockets primary 26:08 intended market for its games. how do you balance the wants of the various communities? 26:14 so i think to start 26:17 what we're really trying to do with 26:18 especially 26:20 well it really depends on the game but with dominion we are 26:23 really trying to focus on people that already play the game 26:26 people 26:27 who 26:30 enjoy dominion 26:34 uh and 26:35 while, once we get it strong for those people 26:38 we know that we can then 26:40 open it up team people who 26:42 haven't been introduced yet 26:44 so 26:45 along with you know, starting to have a good -?- 26:47 for our game for the people who play it the most, 26:51 then we're adding things like tutorials 26:54 and other how-to's 26:57 and other strategy guides for people 27:01 who don't play it as often 27:03 so we're doing our best first to get it strong for the people there who will 27:07 play it the most 27:09 and then bring in the people who 27:11 are also wanting to 27:12 learn it and might become huge fans 27:20 so next question 27:21 offline play is a hugely requested feature 27:24 are there actualplans and timeframes to put it up 27:29 or is it just up in the air for now 27:32 so, we don't have actual time lines on 27:35 this right now 27:38 we're quite aware that it's a hugely requested feature and we're definitely 27:41 looking in to, you know, 27:43 different ways to implement something like this 27:48 uh... though i'm really not sure exactly when that is going to happen 27:57 so question number four 28:00 can you describe the best 28:01 pricing plan you have in mind for dominion and other games 28:05 how would you justify the pricing when compared to other online games 28:13 so as far as pricing, um... 28:15 you know there's a lot of things being discussed on how to make it 28:19 the best thing for the players 28:22 so i 28:23 can't answer 28:25 you know justification for anything right now because 28:28 uh... there are a lot of things that are still being developed behind the scenes 28:33 so hold on, 28:35 we will have more information on pricing 28:42 so number five 28:45 how do you plan to improve communication between funsockets and the board gaming community in the future 28:50 one of the primary community 28:51 complaints is that there has been very little communication from 28:54 funsockets on -?- 28:57 so 28:58 uh... we're definitely trying to improve communication i think the problem 29:04 of course, 29:05 with a community as big as this is there's lots of places where people are 29:09 and its hard to 29:11 get to all those places and inform people of what we're doing and some of 29:16 that is definitely my fault as community manager and i'm gonna do my best to 29:21 make sure that the 29:23 communing knows the direction we're going 29:27 and decisions we make and and why we are making them because like you said 29:31 communication is such an important thing and we really do know that it it's 29:35 really important for you guys to know what we're doing um... because 29:40 it helps you know 29:44 both the exciting things that we are having and to keep the expectations right 29:49 so uh... i definitely will continue to try to have things like this video that 29:55 hopefully will improve communication on what we're trying to do it 30:00 ok so question number 6 30:06 other than dominion 30:08 catan, and RFTD, what are some of the other 150 games who signed up to the -?- 30:13 unfortunately i can't quite say right now which games we have 30:19 we have some exciting ones and i wish i could. so i'm going to kind of hold off on that question. i'm going to ask what games i can talk about, and so i will probably answer that question by text later.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: greatexpectations on August 24, 2012, 01:44:51 am
FunSockets Q&A A direct response to this (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4080.msg95195#msg95195) post. All answers pulled from the Q&A transcript recorded here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4321.msg95639#msg95639). Wording may not be exact. Edited for easier reading. If you have any advice on formatting this better please let me know.
Will you be implementing the ability to rejoin a game in the event of a disconnection? - So, the answer is yes, which is great. Though that is going to have to be implemented after the site is up and the games are stable so you might not see it right away. But we're definitely on the path and you should see that very soon.
There have been reports of many security holes in your app. // Even if they are fixed, how can I be confident that other flaws aren't compromising my user information? - So the security issues that we had were in our beta program, and we're really sorry about that but they have been addressed in our production systems. None of the the issues that we have in the beta were actually in our production so I just wanna make that clear that things were safe. We have fixed the javascript and password in plain text issues and we're definitely reviewing the security practices to make sure that they are over and above the industry standards. So we are addressing that and things are safe.
Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? - Well, I will try to answer all those questions. So, one of things that we do here at Goko is that we're very excited about our platform as well as the games. So we're really happy to be able to produce the tools that are going to allow people to make extensions such as the point counter. We ourselves are not actually going to do this but we are very happy to work with people who do. People will be able to make their own custom AI's as well as things like the point counter. We don't have this right now but it should be very soon.
How are ratings calculated? - Each player gets a rating between zero and ten thousand. All registered players are rated the same way, including the bots. The system for calculating ratings is pretty complicated and dependent on quite a few factors, so I'm going to kind of go through some of those factors. First the ratings are just based on what place you came in rather than how many victory points you won by. If the game is resigned it's viewed as a loss. It doesn't matter if you came in at a hundred points or two points, its all rated the same. Ratings are also adjusted based on the ratings of your opponents, so beating a higher rated opponent will help ratings much more than beating a lower rated opponent. The system is conservative in it's calculations, so it is reasonably sure you deserve the rating work before it awards it. In other words, your rating may be low when you haven't played many games and rise as the system gains more confidence that you deserve the higher rating. Your rating will fluctuate more when the system has little data about how skillful you are. So the first couple games you play your ratings are going to be all over the place. As you play more games your rating is only going to slowly move up and down. Unexpected results, such as a win over a higher rated opponent, affects the rating most, so play someone that's much better than you and win and your rating might go pretty high. Your rating will fluctuate more with results against players with more established ratings. So pretty much the more you play, the more established your rating is going to get, and playing against the other players with established ratings is going to be the best way to improve your score.
Would it be possible to get a relative timetable of when the expansions will be released on Goko? - Right now all our focus is on fixing the back end issues and in getting the games up and working. So once were done with that we're going to put all our efforts back on things like the expansions. Right now I can't give you a really good timetable but as soon as we kind of fix everything and we're back on track I'll start letting people know as we get close when those are going to be available.
Do you want us beta testers to continue beta testing? If so, what version should we be using? Where should we post feedback/bugs? - I definitely want people to continue beta testing. We will be sending out invites to our current beta testers to move you onto our new system that we're going to be using which is going to expand a lot of things we are going to be testing and a lot of new features. You'll find out more in an email that I should be sending within the next couple of days about the information I'm going to need to transfer you over. As far as where to post feedback and (-?-), continue both emails on the forums and not on (get satisfaction -?-). We're gonna be using that for the live site once we go live but not for the beta testing right now.
How many people work on funsockets? - So we have about thirty people here that actually work in the office. We're creating several different things. Not only are we creating games like dominion but we also have a gaming platform and also a kind of developer ecosystem that we're trying to work on. So it's a lot for thirty people to work on. Then of course not all of us are our programmers, so we are also bringing in a lot of outside help. As a lot of you who have seen the site know, we will be putting out Race For The Gallaxy soon, and we actually brought Keldon in to help us with that.
Any plans of allowing players to tweak how the cards are laid out on screen? - We don't have any plans to allow people to tweak, however, like most features if you ask for it and enough people ask for it we will definitely look at it for future things down the road.
I'm also interested in the familiarity the developers had with Dominion before starting their work. // Given that Goko is simultaneously developing at least 4 games ...how much attention is it really getting? Are the "best guys" on it? Will updates be frequent? - To give you an overall of the people that work here...As you can see we have quite a few collection of games. pretty much everyone here plays board games in one way or another. You know we dont all like the same games but we definitely are a company that focuses on gaming as a hobby. So, many of us owned and played dominion long before we came here. Our CEO ted loved dominion and that's one reason he really you know wanted to bring it in. So dominion has definitely been the primary focus of our company and it definitely is right now. We have the other games but a lot of the other games that we are developing were developed by external people, unlike dominion that we brought in. And really it's all internal and we have focused on making it as good as we can. you know at the point of course, we're still in development so it's not perfect yet. But we also, internally, have been working with Donald X, who is the developer of Dominion, so that we're getting it right from that angle too. So let me see if I answered that question. As far as our best guys on it, yep. We definitely have some of the best people we have here working on dominion.
Will there be a package deal to purchase all of the current and coming expansions in one go? - So we will have a package deal where you will be able to purchase all the current extensions that we have so far. And we will continually put out package deals as we have the expansions available.
Are any translations (especially into German) planned in the near future? Will you publish a roadmap of upcoming features? - German is the next language that we really want to put out as we know it's pretty popular. I don't have the timing for that right now just because there are lots of factors involved in that. As far as a road map, one of the few things that i can tell you that's going on right now is that we are working really hard on getting an iOS app for the iPad and iPhone out there. Also we are hoping to integrate with (-?-) something like this that you'd be able to play to your friend and talk to them while you are playing Dominion. A couple things after that are working on...Facebook and Windows 8 versions. We're going to do our best to make sure that we keep the community informed on what we're working on and what we're trying to do with the near future.
How do you feel about comparisons between your company and Zynga in the mainstream press? - So we feel that the type of games that we're trying to do are very different than Zynga. We're very different in the way we're trying to approach games. We want games that are at their core are really fun, and that's one of the reasons that we started with Dominion, because it's already proven to be fun. And so we wanted to continue to build on that. We never want to take that away and make it into something that it's not. So we definitely are very different in the way that we're approaching things here. Not only are we trying to have games that are really fun, but we're also doing something that's very different in that we are providing the tools to make those games. So for those that are looking to make their own games as well, we will have a platform for you to make the type of game that you want to make.
Will automatch be implemented? Can I filter opponents based on rating? - Yes, we're going to be implementing automatch. So the original way we tried to implement it, some of the very early beta testers might kind of remember this. We didn't quite work out just because of the number of people we had in. And it doesn't feel right so we went ahead and took that out and now we are going to try to make something that is a quick match play in the game. We're still working on the UI and the -?- for that. So once we get that right we're hoping to turn that on again and have a better quick-match program. Hopefully you know before too long we will have that.
Will there be any deal for getting price-cuts by buying physical copies of existing/future expansions? - Right now we can't do that just because it's hard to keep track of who bought what and things like that because we really aren't Rio Grande so it's hard to do that. The one thing we do have of course, that I'm sure some of you have seen, is the little cards that came in the Base set and came in Dark Ages. So you will be able to use those touch cards very soon and that will get you a nice little sampler pack that you can redeem. But as far as getting a discount on the type of things, we can't do that right now.
What kind of achievements will there be? Can you tell us more about this campaign mode? Any possibility of a fast, lightweight mod of play for player that do not want fancy graphics? - Ok, so these are kind of three separate questions so I will answer them one at a time. The first question, about achievements, is that a lot of the achievements we are going to be implementing were actually designed by Donald X himself. So we're really excited about that. A lot of them will be per card, so you may have a special achievement for doing something like playing a certain number of Villages or something like that. Exactly what those are I cant say yet. But they'll be up there. The campaign mode is going to be called Adventures. so there will be for each full set there will be three different adventures that you can play through. It will be kind of like what you are used to but the differences will be the starting hands, as well as just some other little tweaks. There will be a storyline through it so we are really excited about that and hoping that it will be interesting to people. Just to be something different than what people are playing with now but will complement the fact that you can still play just a plain game with your friends or with the bots. So the last part of the question was about the fancy graphics is kind of like some of the other stuff. We don't have it in our plans to make a lightweight mode but if a lot of people ask for it who knows down the road.
What is the peak number of unique users who are attempting to access the servers. How many did you performance test for? - This question is essentially "What happened when we opened on the first day of GenCon?" Our service really started exhibiting some unknown networking issues and some of these issues hadn't really been seen on our beta machines before, and not really during our loading tests either. So we were pretty surprised by what happened. At some point we pretty much worked two days straight. Some of the engineers were left here to try and fix it, and we finally realized its best that we stand back, pullout, and re-evaluate what's going on instead of trying to put a band-aid on it. We know that was super painful for everyone in the community because everybody wants to play and we all felt horrible about that. You know, we're really sorry. We wanted to do the best thing for the players at the time as well. So we're kind of standing back, fixing the thing that really needs to be fixed and then going for it again. And hopefully during this time we are also making some good changes to dominion to really improve the user experience.
Then I hereby clamor at the top of my lungs not only for a simple point counter, but also for an official full deck counter at least as extensive as Dr Held's Chrome extension. - So we would love to work with Dr. Held. If he wants to contact us you can contact us through help@goko.com and we'll see what we can do. Maybe we can work with him to use that same one.
How will we be able to get the Base Cards with new art? Will we have to pay for it? Unlock it? - There is probably going to be two ways to get the base card set. One, through what we called victory tokens, which you can earn in the campaigns, as well as some various other ways to earn. Or you can also just purchase them.
How can I download a batch of play logs for analysis? - So, I will go ahead and put this address out there but i will say it as well. it's going to be dominionlogs.goko.com. so they are organized by day. If you'd like to go ahead and take a look you can look through all the logs for analysis. (missing a line)
I think security is one of the top concerns right now. During the time the production server was up all the bugs identified were identified in the production server. So how do you plan to rebuild user trust in the platform? - We are looking into quite a few different processes and other things. I can't really give you a great answer for all the things that we're doing to do that right now. I will answer this question once i have that list.
Can you describe funsockets primary intended market for its games? How do you balance the wants of the various communities? - I think to start, what we're really trying to do with...well it really depends on the game. But with Dominion we are really trying to focus on people that already play the game, people who enjoy Dominion. Once we get it strong for those people we know that we can then open it up to people who haven't been introduced yet. So, along with you know, starting to have a good -?- for our game for the people who play it the most. Then we're adding things like tutorials, How-To's, and other strategy guides for people who don't play it as often. Wwe're doing our best first to get it strong for the people there who will play it the most and then bring in the people who are also wanting to learn it and might become huge fans.
Offline play is a hugely requested feature. are there actual plans and timeframes to put it up, or is it just up in the air for now? - We don't have actual time lines on this right now. We're quite aware that it's a hugely requested feature and we're definitely looking in to different ways to implement something like this. Though I'm really not sure exactly when that is going to happen.
Can you describe the best pricing plan you have in mind for dominion and other games? How would you justify the pricing when compared to other online games? - As far as pricing, you know there's a lot of things being discussed on how to make it the best thing for the players. So I can't answer, you know justification for anything right now because there are a lot of things that are still being developed behind the scenes. So hold on, we will have more information on pricing.
How do you plan to improve communication between FunSockets and the board gaming community in the future? One of the primary community complaints is that there has been very little communication from Funsockets. - We're definitely trying to improve communication. I think the problem, of course, with a community as big as this is there's lots of places where people are and its hard to get to all those places and inform people of what we're doing. Some of that is definitely my fault as community manager and I'm gonna do my best to make sure that the community knows the direction we're going and decisions we make and and why we are making them. Because like you said, communication is such an important thing and we really do know that it it's really important for you guys to know what we're doing. It helps, you know, both the exciting things that we are having and to keep the expectations right. So I definitely will continue to try to have things like this video that hopefully will improve communication on what we're trying to do it.
Other than Dominion, Catan, and RFTG, what are some of the other 150 games who signed up to develop? - Unfortunately i can't quite say right now which games we have. We have some exciting ones and I wish I could. So I'm going to kind of hold off on that question. I'm going to ask what games I can talk about, and so I will probably answer that question by text later.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 24, 2012, 02:07:51 am
Nice...job... *curses at himself for choosing to go to sleep instead of doing this himself... just to end up not being able to sleep well ._.*
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Kirian on August 24, 2012, 02:14:59 am
Quote
14:31 we're still in development so it's not 14:33 perfect yet
And yet, you tried to release for GenCon... Yay for inept management.
Yeah, skimming the transcript, 90% of it is "maybe that will be implemented, and we don't have a timeline for anything right now." So having this was a pointless waste of time for everyone involved; it could have been done better by just answering the questions via text, or just taking a huge block of the questions and answering "Well, we don't know. Maybe? Someday?"
I mean, really:
*Will you be implementing the ability to rejoin a game in the event of a disconnection? *Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? *What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? *Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? *Would it be possible to get a relative timetable of when the expansions will be released on Goko? *Any plans of allowing players to tweak how the cards are laid out on screen? *Are any translations (especially into German) planned in the near future? Will you publish a roadmap of upcoming features? *How far off the radar is offline play?
They could have stacked all these questions together and said "Maybe someday," and cut out like 15 minutes.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 24, 2012, 02:28:05 am
14:31 we're still in development so it's not 14:33 perfect yet
And yet, you tried to release for GenCon... Yay for inept management.
Yeah, skimming the transcript, 90% of it is "maybe that will be implemented, and we don't have a timeline for anything right now." So having this was a pointless waste of time for everyone involved; it could have been done better by just answering the questions via text, or just taking a huge block of the questions and answering "Well, we don't know. Maybe? Someday?"
I mean, really:
*Will you be implementing the ability to rejoin a game in the event of a disconnection? *Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? *What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? *Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? *Would it be possible to get a relative timetable of when the expansions will be released on Goko? *Any plans of allowing players to tweak how the cards are laid out on screen? *Are any translations (especially into German) planned in the near future? Will you publish a roadmap of upcoming features? *How far off the radar is offline play?
They could have stacked all these questions together and said "Maybe someday," and cut out like 15 minutes.
Umm, they actually gave the go-ahead for us to make a 3rd-party extension point counter and talk to them about it. But, yah, most of that stuff was a maybe, perhaps sometime in the future.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 24, 2012, 02:35:57 am
how do you plan to improve communication between funsockets and the board gaming community in the future? one of the primary community complaints is that there has been very little communication from funsockets. - so, we're definitely trying to improve communication. i think the problem, of course, with a community as big as this is there's lots of places where people are and its hard to get to all those places and inform people of what we're doing. some of that is definitely my fault as community manager and i'm gonna do my best to make sure that the community knows the direction we're going and decisions we make and and why we are making them. because like you said, communication is such an important thing and we really do know that it it's really important for you guys to know what we're doing. because it helps, you know, both the exciting things that we are having and to keep the expectations right. so i definitely will continue to try to have things like this video that hopefully will improve communication on what we're trying to do it
There is a very simple answer to this regarding keeping a good line of communication with the gaming community. Have a blog on your website that you update on a regular basis. Duh! And, also post your blog to your Twitter. Twitter each day. It really isn't that hard.
Perhaps someone should suggest my idea to them.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 24, 2012, 02:55:17 am
You realize she has an account here right? =/
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: blueblimp on August 24, 2012, 03:47:08 am
Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? - Well, I will try to answer all those questions. So, one of things that we do here at Goko is that we're very excited about our platform as well as the games. So we're really happy to be able to produce the tools that are going to allow people to make extensions such as the point counter. We ourselves are not actually going to do this but we are very happy to work with people who do. People will be able to make their own custom AI's as well as things like the point counter. We don't have this right now but it should be very soon.
This is sort of good, although it makes it sound like an integrated point counter will need to wait for some sort of full-blown extension API, which seems distant.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: DStu on August 24, 2012, 03:48:33 am
Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? - Well, I will try to answer all those questions. So, one of things that we do here at Goko is that we're very excited about our platform as well as the games. So we're really happy to be able to produce the tools that are going to allow people to make extensions such as the point counter. We ourselves are not actually going to do this but we are very happy to work with people who do. People will be able to make their own custom AI's as well as things like the point counter. We don't have this right now but it should be very soon.
This is sort of good, although it makes it sound like an integrated point counter will need to wait for some sort of full-blown extension API, which seems distant.
And, it makes it sort of unlikely that there will be games where you can really enforce "no counter".
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: blueblimp on August 24, 2012, 03:52:10 am
Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? - Well, I will try to answer all those questions. So, one of things that we do here at Goko is that we're very excited about our platform as well as the games. So we're really happy to be able to produce the tools that are going to allow people to make extensions such as the point counter. We ourselves are not actually going to do this but we are very happy to work with people who do. People will be able to make their own custom AI's as well as things like the point counter. We don't have this right now but it should be very soon.
This is sort of good, although it makes it sound like an integrated point counter will need to wait for some sort of full-blown extension API, which seems distant.
And, it makes it sort of unlikely that there will be games where you can really enforce "no counter".
And conversely, maybe no way to match up two players who both want to play with point counting.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Kirian on August 24, 2012, 08:16:49 am
Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? - Well, I will try to answer all those questions. So, one of things that we do here at Goko is that we're very excited about our platform as well as the games. So we're really happy to be able to produce the tools that are going to allow people to make extensions such as the point counter. We ourselves are not actually going to do this but we are very happy to work with people who do. People will be able to make their own custom AI's as well as things like the point counter. We don't have this right now but it should be very soon.
This is sort of good, although it makes it sound like an integrated point counter will need to wait for some sort of full-blown extension API, which seems distant.
And, it makes it sort of unlikely that there will be games where you can really enforce "no counter".
And conversely, maybe no way to match up two players who both want to play with point counting.
Wonderful.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on August 24, 2012, 11:09:51 am
I applaud the efforts of those who organized this, and appreciate Trisha doing this; also kudos to greatexpectations for editing/revising the transcript.
But.... the signal to noise ratio on this thing was abysmally low.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: greatexpectations on August 24, 2012, 11:22:11 am
But.... the signal to noise ratio on this thing was abysmally low.
i've seen this kind of sentiment a bunch and i figured id offer my comments quick. first off, trisha kind of had to be vague on some things. it is a combination of her not being a programmer and her not being allowed to comment on some things. though it would have been nice to see her pass off some of the questions to one of the other employees, or at least get a scripted response beforehand like she did for how the rating system worked.
that being said, i think there were still a few good takeaways...
the goko platform will apparently allow others to develop things ranging from point counter extensions all the way up to their own brand new games.
she mentioned multiple times that if people clamor for certain features they will gladly work on adding to it. if there is something you want to see, make a respectful and somewhat organized effort to garner support for it and you might get results.
the rating system seems very similar to the TrueSkill rating Isotropic used.
they seem interested in catering to the hardcore dominion players first, operating with the assumption that if they can get us behind it we will help spread the word for them. (naturally, the opposite is true as well)
they do seem genuinely interested in interacting with us. this video and trisha lurking the forums is a good start on that.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: () | (_) ^/ on August 24, 2012, 11:29:12 am
But.... the signal to noise ratio on this thing was abysmally low.
[WALL]
I think he was talking about the audio quality? Could be wrong, though...
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: LastFootnote on August 24, 2012, 11:32:22 am
I understand the need for some answers to be vague, but the answer to the security question (the only question I really cared about) was the final nail in the coffin for me. First of all, it was a falsehood. From everything else I've heard the security problems were still present in production during the failed launch. Trisha telling us they weren't was a bit insulting and hard to watch. Furthermore, even if what she said had been true, and the issues were only in the beta, that didn't make our computers/passwords any less vulnerable.
If they're going to earn my trust back, they're going to have to be explicit about exactly what security measures and policies are being put in place and who they're hiring to audit their systems. Just claiming that their policies will be "over and above the industry standards" is NEVER going to be enough. They've already lost my trust.
As of now, I plan to tell my family and friends to stay away from Goko. It's not a safe platform.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: kn1tt3r on August 24, 2012, 11:46:07 am
This whole Q&A is all nice and fine, and the answers overall seem somewhat reasonable, but I'm slightly shocked that there seems to be no project schedule or something. It's just like, we're doing what's most urgent at the moment, everything else we're going to do some time in the future, and we have no idea how long this whole development will ultimately last. There seem to be no milestones or something, barring the one last week they've blown.
That doesn't sound like a serious project management, but rather something like "let's get it done... some time...".
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Drab Emordnilap on August 24, 2012, 11:48:38 am
If they're going to earn my trust back, they're going to have to be explicit about exactly what security measures and policies are being put in place and who they're hiring to audit their systems. Just claiming that their policies will be "over and above the industry standards" is NEVER going to be enough. They've already lost my trust.
How about this -- you give me your login information, and I'll write it down on this sheet of paper here. Anytime you want to log in, just let me know, and I'll type it in for you. Also, I promise not to show the piece of paper to anyone, or tell anyone else that I keep it on my computer desk (for convenience, you know). That way, no one else will have access to your personal information, which is definitely above the industry standard.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: pinkymadigan on August 24, 2012, 11:50:30 am
This whole Q&A is all nice and fine, and the answers overall seem somewhat reasonable, but I'm slightly shocked that there seems to be no project schedule or something. It's just like, we're doing what's most urgent at the moment, everything else we're going to do some time in the future, and we have no idea how long this whole development will ultimately last. There seem to be no milestones or something, barring the one last week they've blown.
That doesn't sound like a serious project management, but rather something like "let's get it done... some time...".
I kind of get the feeling that they are serious when they say they play games. A little too serious about playing, and not making them, though. It's great to have a corporate culture that encourages after work activities, but I kind of imagine the goko staff sitting around playing games all day waiting for a buyer to come through or the 8 million to dry up.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on August 24, 2012, 12:10:30 pm
But.... the signal to noise ratio on this thing was abysmally low.
[WALL]
I think he was talking about the audio quality? Could be wrong, though...
No, I was definitely talking about the content vs. fluff ratio. Audio quality was fine.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Elysium on August 24, 2012, 01:56:36 pm
It's nice that they answered my question (about the developers familiarity with Dominion), and maybe this wasn't clear, but I really did want to know who thought the "deck builder" was a good idea. Like I wanted her to say "oh, that was Bob's idea, he's never played Dominion before, clearly the deck builder is a stupid idea and we will just be implementing simple kingdom picking controls for the future." Or something to that effect...
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: michaeljb on August 24, 2012, 07:44:02 pm
It's nice that they answered my question (about the developers familiarity with Dominion), and maybe this wasn't clear, but I really did want to know who thought the "deck builder" was a good idea. Like I wanted her to say "oh, that was Bob's idea, he's never played Dominion before, clearly the deck builder is a stupid idea and we will just be implementing simple kingdom picking controls for the future." Or something to that effect...
While I probably won't use the deck builder much (except to test for bugs with specific card interactions, like I have done in the beta), I think the existence of dominiondeck.com (http://www.dominiondeck.com/) is evidence enough that the deck builder isn't a horrible idea.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: DG on August 24, 2012, 07:56:51 pm
I was quite worried about her responses to point counters and card tracking through third party software. It seems as if Goko have heard the voices asking for point counters without considering the full implications of giving some players access to information that is not available to others, and even encouraging this data collection by anyone who wants to find an advantage by this method. Perhaps someone should send Goko some quotes from the blow-out on data collection before they walk blindly into this.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: ^_^_^_^ on August 24, 2012, 08:01:15 pm
It's nice that they answered my question (about the developers familiarity with Dominion), and maybe this wasn't clear, but I really did want to know who thought the "deck builder" was a good idea. Like I wanted her to say "oh, that was Bob's idea, he's never played Dominion before, clearly the deck builder is a stupid idea and we will just be implementing simple kingdom picking controls for the future." Or something to that effect...
That actually sounded like exactly what my question asked, not yours >:O
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 24, 2012, 08:13:14 pm
It's nice that they answered my question (about the developers familiarity with Dominion), and maybe this wasn't clear, but I really did want to know who thought the "deck builder" was a good idea. Like I wanted her to say "oh, that was Bob's idea, he's never played Dominion before, clearly the deck builder is a stupid idea and we will just be implementing simple kingdom picking controls for the future." Or something to that effect...
While I probably won't use the deck builder much (except to test for bugs with specific card interactions, like I have done in the beta), I think the existence of dominiondeck.com (http://www.dominiondeck.com/) is evidence enough that the deck builder isn't a horrible idea.
No, the deck builder in the beta is a bit different. They have a random thing, but if you want, you can create your own deck and it saves automatically, but it is a huge pain to go through. I made one deck on it and played it once and that's it.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: polonkus on August 24, 2012, 08:14:52 pm
I was quite worried about her responses to point counters and card tracking through third party software. It seems as if Goko have heard the voices asking for point counters without considering the full implications of giving some players access to information that is not available to others, and even encouraging this data collection by anyone who wants to find an advantage by this method. Perhaps someone should send Goko some quotes from the blow-out on data collection before they walk blindly into this.
Bolded is untrue. Maybe they are just bowing to the reality that this can and will be done, whether you like it or not. Viva la point counter!
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: michaeljb on August 24, 2012, 08:22:28 pm
It's nice that they answered my question (about the developers familiarity with Dominion), and maybe this wasn't clear, but I really did want to know who thought the "deck builder" was a good idea. Like I wanted her to say "oh, that was Bob's idea, he's never played Dominion before, clearly the deck builder is a stupid idea and we will just be implementing simple kingdom picking controls for the future." Or something to that effect...
While I probably won't use the deck builder much (except to test for bugs with specific card interactions, like I have done in the beta), I think the existence of dominiondeck.com (http://www.dominiondeck.com/) is evidence enough that the deck builder isn't a horrible idea.
No, the deck builder in the beta is a bit different. They have a random thing, but if you want, you can create your own deck and it saves automatically, but it is a huge pain to go through. I made one deck on it and played it once and that's it.
I mean, people on dominiondeck.com save the created sets of 10, I'm pretty sure this site's blog has used it for annotated games/the custom-made sets for the DominionStrategy tournament...
I know that in the beta there is a button to generate a random set before you play, but that's not what I was talking about, and it sounded more like Elysium was saying that the deck builder in general was a bad idea, not that it was poorly implemented.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: blueblimp on August 24, 2012, 09:05:51 pm
The included deck builder does not seem to allow sharing though (unless you're actually playing in the game).
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Elysium on August 25, 2012, 12:29:59 am
I mean, people on dominiondeck.com save the created sets of 10, I'm pretty sure this site's blog has used it for annotated games/the custom-made sets for the DominionStrategy tournament...
I know that in the beta there is a button to generate a random set before you play, but that's not what I was talking about, and it sounded more like Elysium was saying that the deck builder in general was a bad idea, not that it was poorly implemented.
Dominiondeck, not having any way to actually play the game, serves some function for people who are playing the game IRL. Maybe they just use it as a much more convenient alternative to the randomizer cards, or maybe they just like to browse the cards/think about potential sets for their game session later that night when they are at work. Also, it allows people to share and talk about certain combos and decks, in their forums or on here or whatever. Even considering that, there are only 1600 saved decks for 477 users, which is a little over 3 saved decks per user (not very many), and most of those were probably only saved to show to someone else (or the forum) one time, not so they could remember it and come back to playing it for the 10th time.
When you are playing Goko, you can play a random set, but to get any specific card (other than hitting random until it appears) you HAVE to create a deck in the deck builder. You have to go into the deck builder, build your deck, give it a name, save it, then load a game and load your deck. The vast majority of people will never play their saved deck again, and will probably have to delete it later at some point. You don't need the deck builder as a randomizer because the game will do that anyway, and you don't need it to share sets with your friends because you can't do that. The game does not need a "deck builder." You don't really need to save decks for later. What you need is an easy and quick way to start games with whatever cards you want, and a way to randomize with controls for sets/attacks/villages/etc.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 25, 2012, 01:48:29 am
I mean, people on dominiondeck.com save the created sets of 10, I'm pretty sure this site's blog has used it for annotated games/the custom-made sets for the DominionStrategy tournament...
I know that in the beta there is a button to generate a random set before you play, but that's not what I was talking about, and it sounded more like Elysium was saying that the deck builder in general was a bad idea, not that it was poorly implemented.
Dominiondeck, not having any way to actually play the game, serves some function for people who are playing the game IRL. Maybe they just use it as a much more convenient alternative to the randomizer cards, or maybe they just like to browse the cards/think about potential sets for their game session later that night when they are at work. Also, it allows people to share and talk about certain combos and decks, in their forums or on here or whatever. Even considering that, there are only 1600 saved decks for 477 users, which is a little over 3 saved decks per user (not very many), and most of those were probably only saved to show to someone else (or the forum) one time, not so they could remember it and come back to playing it for the 10th time.
When you are playing Goko, you can play a random set, but to get any specific card (other than hitting random until it appears) you HAVE to create a deck in the deck builder. You have to go into the deck builder, build your deck, give it a name, save it, then load a game and load your deck. The vast majority of people will never play their saved deck again, and will probably have to delete it later at some point. You don't need the deck builder as a randomizer because the game will do that anyway, and you don't need it to share sets with your friends because you can't do that. The game does not need a "deck builder." You don't really need to save decks for later. What you need is an easy and quick way to start games with whatever cards you want, and a way to randomize with controls for sets/attacks/villages/etc.
I agree with everything you said.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: Polk5440 on August 25, 2012, 09:14:12 am
I understand the need for some answers to be vague, but the answer to the security question (the only question I really cared about) was the final nail in the coffin for me. First of all, it was a falsehood. From everything else I've heard the security problems were still present in production during the failed launch. Trisha telling us they weren't was a bit insulting and hard to watch. Furthermore, even if what she said had been true, and the issues were only in the beta, that didn't make our computers/passwords any less vulnerable.
If they're going to earn my trust back, they're going to have to be explicit about exactly what security measures and policies are being put in place and who they're hiring to audit their systems. Just claiming that their policies will be "over and above the industry standards" is NEVER going to be enough. They've already lost my trust.
As of now, I plan to tell my family and friends to stay away from Goko. It's not a safe platform.
Is it possible that you are misinterpreting what she said? To me it seems like what she was trying to convey is that any password/account data that you may have had on the beta platform weren't transferred directly to the launch platform. So there wasn't a big leak of beta passwords to the general public. I don't think she or the company is denying that there were security issues in the launch -- they did pull the thing, so they know there's problems!
How could they possibly have convinced you with a verbal few sentence answer, anyway? All they can say is they care about security and to trust them. Believing the platform is secure relies on trust and an established record. Goko will simply have to build that from scratch and can't do it by answering your question.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: philosophyguy on August 25, 2012, 10:08:51 am
Goko will simply have to build that from scratch and can't do it by answering your question.
I agree with the first part and disagree with the second. At this point, all we've heard is that they're going to fix it and they care about security. Their actions and the fact that mistakes of this caliber made it through to a beta machine (let alone a production server) provide a good reason to think that security has not, in fact, been a huge priority thus far. I don't personally have the skill to audit code, and I highly doubt Goko is planning on opening their code for us to inspect anyway. So, the best way I see for them to regain that trust is to answer LastFootnote's questions. They need to tell us what procedures they have in place, concretely, to inspect and verify their code, since we can't trust their programmers to do it on their own. If they have an external auditor—and at this point they should—they should tell us that too. Basically, we need to know how their development process incorporates security.
Here's the kicker, for me. Having a process to ensure security is something that any non-fly-by-night programming operation does, already. We're just asking Goko to follow security practices that are commonly accepted. The only difference is that, because Goko hasn't followed those practices thus far, we are asking for the details of how they implement those practices. I think that's a pretty easy bar to clear, and if that's a contentious point for Goko, then I am running as fast as I can.
Title: Re: FunSockets Livestream
Post by: suncoursing on August 27, 2012, 04:30:59 am
As of now, I plan to tell my family and friends to stay away from Goko. It's not a safe platform.
How could they possibly have convinced you with a verbal few sentence answer, anyway? All they can say is they care about security and to trust them. Believing the platform is secure relies on trust and an established record. Goko will simply have to build that from scratch and can't do it by answering your question.
That's simple. They could have said we're hiring a reputable security company (e.g., iSEC, Matasano, etc.) to do a security audit. Instead, it appears that they expect people to trust them while blatantly lying about whether or the XSS bug was fixed in the public version.
They've shown that they employ programmers who leak security bugs that might be acceptable, in a middle school programming project, but certainly not in a high school programming project, let alone something from a professional company. I have a hard time seeing how they can organically build trust after that. The good news, for them, is that most people don't care about security, so the issue will go away if they just keep lying. Like acquiring licenses to 150 popular games, it's a good strategy, even if I don't like the implementation.