Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion Online at Shuffle iT => Dominion General Discussion => Goko Dominion Online => Topic started by: Kirian on December 22, 2012, 10:29:24 pm
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So, it's 22:15 EST.
On Isotropic, there are 145 games running (over 300 people playing) with about 50-60 people in the lobby. About 360 people total online.
On Goko, there are 15 games running (just over 30 playing) and not quite 30 in the lobby. About 60 people total online.
Now, I know why I'm not playing on Goko--though as more sets appear there, the problem of missing cards starts to be less of a problem than the almost total inability to find games. But I'm interested to know what's preventing other people from going over to Goko, and what the tipping point is.
So, post your thoughts, if you like. I think I've set this up to allow multiple choices.
Edit: Clarification as per Donald below: There are a lot of people, apparently, playing solo; the question then becomes, why aren't you playing multiplayer?
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On Goko, there are 15 games running (just over 30 playing) and not quite 30 in the lobby. About 60 people total online.
And how many playing campaigns?
I am told that more people are playing outside of the lobby than in it.
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I do play on goko, but mostly adventures/vs bots. I keep meaning to start playing vs people, but never really get around to it.
Lack of matchmaking mostly. I want a single "find me a game" click, and hopefully to find one matched to me by skill, so I'm not beating up on newbs (or stressing out about losing ranking if a newb opens Mountebank/Chapel on me). And so I don't have to create a game and wait for someone to join. I want
1) An automatch
2) preferably, an automatch that automatically looks for somebody close to you in ranking.
Missing cards isn't an issue anymore - as someone pointed out recently, Goko now has as many cards as Isotropic does. (Missing 2/3 of hinterlands and alchemy, whereas Iso is missing Dark Ages, which is huge. And I like Dark Ages more than Hinterlands and Alchemy anyway.) I did recently buy all the goko sets.
Also, my last memory of playing-someone-on-Goko was playing a few games with someone a bit back and having it freeze on me. That just kills interest. I think they've fixed that particular freezing bug (it was with Watchtower) but the bug reports tell me there are other ones which crop up. Yeah, it's a beta, it's ok, but still, it doesn't fill me with a desire to start playing lots of games vs humans if they'll randomly crash on me. It's ok against a computer, I just refresh and try again... but it is true that basically whenever I play the campaigns, the day will end with some sort of crash or freeze or game-becomes-slow and I'll be like okay, I guess that's my signal to stop Dominioning for the moment.
Oh, and it gets slower after a bunch games on firefox... they say it's better in firefox 18 beta, but I'm not installing a new web browser manually for them, especially not a beta. I'm lazy, I'll wind up on firefox 18 when ubuntu automatically upgrades me, probably a bit after it leaves beta :/
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Yeah, I have been playing Adventure mode a lot personally. The newer ones that are less zap-intensive have been a lot of fun.
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On Goko, there are 15 games running (just over 30 playing) and not quite 30 in the lobby. About 60 people total online.
And how many playing campaigns?
I am told that more people are playing outside of the lobby than in it.
An interesting point, though one could reasonably suggest that these are two different populations anyway--people who are playing vs. bots aren't going to hang around Isotropic anyway.
Perhaps this should instead read "Why aren't you playing *multiplayer* Dominion on Goko?"
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I'm done with adventures for now. I have two promos, so I am happy. I am glad that most the adventures are less zap intensive now. If I do get around to the Seaside and Prosperity adventures, I will probably load up on zaps and give myself hands with a bunch of silvers. I did take their advice and upgraded my browser to Chrome 24 beta. That was worked tremendously better for me. I can now play game after game after game without it slowing down which amazes me because of the lag problems in the past.
For me, the biggest issue I have are the minor bugs, interface which makes accidental misclicks too easy, and some interface issues like Young Witch games having one kingdom card on another screen. Also, making promos really hard to get is an issue for me. It was a grind getting Governor and Envoy.
Goko is getting better. And, now, I am quite pleased with the card selection. We are missing half of Hinterlands and Alchemy, but that isn't that big of deal in exchange to have DA in its place.
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Security awareness and concern. Rather, lack thereof.
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I actually have been playing on Goko. <.<
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All cept first and last.
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Oh right, card bugs. Just had a game with rats and market square, and I think Goko doesn't let you choose the order of on-trash abilities right? I *think* you're allowed to discard market square before or after you get +1 card for trashing rats? But goko didn't let me.
It was against a bot, so I didn't care, but that would be super-frustrating against somebody...
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For a while, I avoided playing with the Dark Ages cards online because I wanted to play them IRL first. I haven't had as much opportunity to try them IRL as I thought I would, so I'm not sure whether that's still true.
So maybe the real reason is inertia. I don't play much on iso anymore, so once that's gone I'm as likely to quit online Dominion as I am to switch to Goko. If Goko were awesome, the situation might be different.
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Surprised that "Broke/Cheapskate and not that into Base Set Only or Begging" isn't an option! That is 95% my reason.
The other 5% is that I don't use Chrome or Firefox Betas, so it's laggy for me.
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Surprised that "Broke/Cheapskate and not that into Base Set Only or Begging" isn't an option! That is 95% my reason.
The other 5% is that I don't use Chrome or Firefox Betas, so it's laggy for me.
You can always buy in increments. You can buy half a set for 40 Gokoins and you can purchase 20 Gokoins each for $2. So, if you want, you can invest $4 a month and gradually build up your collection that way.
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I'm on a break from internet play atm, that includes Goko.
But I have no ill feelings toward it, at least they're working on making it better.
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Security awareness and concern. Rather, lack thereof.
this
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An interesting point, though one could reasonably suggest that these are two different populations anyway--people who are playing vs. bots aren't going to hang around Isotropic anyway.
I am playing single player on Goko quite a lot. I have 143 multiplayer games on Isotropic. On the other hand, I have played one solo game on Iso (doing a solo challenge puzzle) and three multiplayer games on Goko.
When I started playing online I used Goko with base set only, buying Prosperity+Seaside+Intrigue soon after. I knew about Iso as I've already been registered here, but chose Goko because of solo play - I wanted to learn the cards and have time to think whenever I wanted.
I started playing on Iso when I knew all the cards Goko had at that time and wanted to learn Hinterlands, Cornucopia and Alchemy. This was also because I had to learn the interface because I wanted to play in the tournament. Since then I think my playing is 50/50. I choose Iso when I'm on a slower computer, when I want a human opponent, when I want an opponent stronger than me (Goko bots are not an easy opponent for me now, but I definitely win against them more often than not), when I want to practice using Potion-cost cards. I choose Goko when I want a relaxed game where I can stop for a while whenever I want, when I want to look at original card art which is way better than Iso pictures, when I want Dark Ages cards.
The problem of Goko multiplayer is simple - no automatch. You can find an opponent (all three times when I started a table someone asked to join in a few seconds, Iso automatch sometimes makes me wait longer), but I have no idea if the opponent's skill level will be similar to mine (that's why I prefer the bots, they are weaker than me but strong enough to give me an interesting game and win if I make mistakes).
Security awareness and concern. Rather, lack thereof.
What are the current security problems at Goko? I don't even see any place where their security awareness could affect me in any way - I log in via Gmail and pay them via a Polish internet payment company I used many times before. I know there were multiple problems in August during the failed launch, but do any of them still exist?
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I hadn't been playing on Goko because it was 'down for routine maintenance' since about Thursday. But after seeing this thread I realised, no, I just needed to clear the cookies and cache for it.
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personaly it's because finding a game with expansions is hard,i could start one on my own but playing base set is horribly boring....
it would be cool if they implemented a queue system,like "notify me when a game with hinterlands open up" or something like that
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Sort of a combination of I'm broke and it's still a beta, which is to say, I don't want to spend money on a beta when I'm broke. And I don't really want to pay for one small expansion and then another small one later when I know I could have bundled them together and had it cost less in the long run...
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Stability. Still aven't been able to finish a session without it crashing/freezing on me in Adventure mode (Safari).
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Security awareness and concern. Rather, lack thereof.
What are the current security problems at Goko? I don't even see any place where their security awareness could affect me in any way - I log in via Gmail and pay them via a Polish internet payment company I used many times before. I know there were multiple problems in August during the failed launch, but do any of them still exist?
Well,, it's not so much that I think there is some huge gaping hole in their security right now, it's tat I don't think they would know if there was one, and that they don't have this in mind when they're doing things.
I mean, obvious problems aren't really the ones you are concerned about, it's the tricky nefarious ones.
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Isotropic is still up???? In all seriousness, as long as I can continue to play on isotropic I will continue to not make any sort of effort to switch.
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Surprised that "Broke/Cheapskate and not that into Base Set Only or Begging" isn't an option! That is 95% my reason.
The other 5% is that I don't use Chrome or Firefox Betas, so it's laggy for me.
This too.
It's partly that I AM broke and other one is that I do not see giving my money yet (beta, dunno how well it will take, etc).
Isotropic is still up???? In all seriousness, as long as I can continue to play on isotropic I will continue to not make any sort of effort to switch.
This too.
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Surprised that "Broke/Cheapskate and not that into Base Set Only or Begging" isn't an option! That is 95% my reason.
The other 5% is that I don't use Chrome or Firefox Betas, so it's laggy for me.
You can always buy in increments. You can buy half a set for 40 Gokoins and you can purchase 20 Gokoins each for $2. So, if you want, you can invest $4 a month and gradually build up your collection that way.
Even if I buy in increments, the cost will still be the same.
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It turns out the answer is "ingrained prejudice". In response to this topic I've just given multiplayer Goko a whirl, and it's OK. I'd still prefer a less garish log-centric interface, but it plays well enough. Finding games isn't as easy as on Isotropic, but in part that's due to me waiting for someone with all the sets to create a game as I haven't bought anything myself.
If I can eventually get everything for £30, that's probably a reasonable investment to keep playing Dominion with my scattered gaming group once Isotropic disappears completely.
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Surprised that "Broke/Cheapskate and not that into Base Set Only or Begging" isn't an option! That is 95% my reason.
The other 5% is that I don't use Chrome or Firefox Betas, so it's laggy for me.
You can always buy in increments. You can buy half a set for 40 Gokoins and you can purchase 20 Gokoins each for $2. So, if you want, you can invest $4 a month and gradually build up your collection that way.
Even if I buy in increments, the cost will still be the same.
More, actually. Well unless you buy Dark Ages/Super Pack 1/Super Pack 2 in increments and say screw the small coin and Zaps bonus of the Mega Bundle.
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The problem with Goko isn't this or that minor bug, but that a priori an interface with animations and lots of unnecessary pictures makes the game tedious.
Would I think this if isotropic never had existed? Maybe, since I didn't like Brettspielwelt for this exact reason. And even if not, this isn't relevant, you cannot pretend isotropic never existed. Simply put isotropic is the best implementation of a card/board game I've seen online, and going from 5-6 min avg game to 10-12 min (or more?) isn't really an option.
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The problem with Goko isn't this or that minor bug, but that a priori an interface with animations and lots of unnecessary pictures makes the game tedious.
Would I think this if isotropic never had existed? Maybe, since I didn't like Brettspielwelt for this exact reason. And even if not, this isn't relevant, you cannot pretend isotropic never existed. Simply put isotropic is the best implementation of a card/board game I've seen online, and going from 5-6 min avg game to 10-12 min (or more?) isn't really an option.
Best implementation... for you. I like the pretty pictures, and most casual players (who, being the vast majority, are the intended market) do, too. If I'm playing a card game online, I expect to see the cards. Would you play Solitaire with just little icons?
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No text mode, no point counter, no veto mode. Slower, doesn't feel as competitive. Also I hear it crashes and has bugs. Haven't played a single game there yet, and I won't as long as I don't have to.
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No text mode, no point counter, no veto mode.
So the problem is that it's more like actual Dominion. Gotcha.
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So the problem is that it's more like actual Dominion. Gotcha.
that's cute but it isn't constructive at all. playing IRL many people engage in some form of veto mode for constructing sets. some people will keep track of points as they go, and text mode isn't really relevant at all. so i'm not sure what the point you are trying to make is.
and of course we can flip this on it's head rather easily. real life dominion doesn't have 1p mode and AI, elaborate animations, zaps, or music so does that make isotropic more like actual dominion? the snide comments about goko get old but some of the responses i've seen defending goko now aren't much better.
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No text mode, no point counter, no veto mode.
So the problem is that it's more like actual Dominion. Gotcha.
Well veto mode is just as much like actual Dominion as full random. (edge case: you tricked your opponent into playing veto mode)
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Isotropic is still up???? In all seriousness, as long as I can continue to play on isotropic I will continue to not make any sort of effort to switch.
It turns out the answer is "ingrained prejudice". In response to this topic I've just given multiplayer Goko a whirl, and it's OK.
This is an interesting set of posts to come one shortly after the other!
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
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The bug where people can somehow quit a game and it doesn't adversely affect their rating or credit me for a win is a huge turnoff.
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
I find it hilarious that you find what is essentially bug-testing software to be superior to an actual finished product.
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
I find it hilarious that you find what is essentially bug-testing software to be superior to an actual finished product.
What's so hilarious about it? My GF and I will hang out, we will both be right there, with all IRL dominion expansions, and yet usually choose to just play against each other on isotropic as opposed to with real cards. Why? There's no time spent taking out all the cards or putting them back. There's no time spent shuffling. There's far less downtime. When we play with Dark Ages now and I've successfully built an engine and she hasn't (or vice versa) and her turns are 5 seconds and my turns are 90 seconds every time, it gets boring for the other person. That doesn't happen to nearly the same extent online.
Dominion is especially the type of game that works well online, for many reasons, but two of the main ones are:
1) It has a lot of downtime IRL
2) Not every game is particularly interesting. IRL, if you have a game that ends up being uninteresting, you can either just quit in the middle or spend the next 20 - 40 minutes playing it through. Online, you get through the boring game in 5 - 10 minutes.
I much prefer playing online to playing with real cards (though I like playing with real cards too) and I don't really understand why that's funny.
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
I find it hilarious that you find what is essentially bug-testing software to be superior to an actual finished product.
It can be reasonably called superior for certain values of "superior."
It's superior for a tournament setting. Any reasonably competitive player would prefer to play a tournament on Iso, and any tournament director should prefer Iso, for two reasons. First, it's much faster. A single IRL Dominion game, including setup time, can take as much as 30 minutes or longer even for 2P; in the time it takes to unbox and set up one game of IRL Dominion, you can play two Iso games if they're fast boards, or one on a slow board. Second, this speed allows for best-of-N formats, which are superior in determining the "better" player--ostensibly the intent of a tournament.
Iso is superior for people who want to study the game of Dominion--which is ostensibly the intent of this blog and forum. Sure, you could log an IRL game to look at the log afterward, but it's going to be an order of magnitude harder than logging, say, a game of chess.
Iso is superior for those who want to play a lot of games, due to its speed.
But IRL Dominion is superior in other ways. Iso is not exactly a wonderful place for actual social interaction; even chats during and after games tend to be quite perfunctory, even nonexistent. (Goko will have this same problem, if not worse.)
IRL Dominion is also superior if you prefer to play a variety of games. My gaming group gets together for about 4 hours every second Friday; maybe that means a game of Dominion, then one of Power Grid, then one of something new we haven't tried before, or whatever. Iso is great for... Dominion only.
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Given that this discussion forum is for people who like to play a lot of games, and like to analyze their (and others') play, it's not at all surprising that people hanging out here would feel that Iso is better than IRL Dominion.
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Point tracker and equalizing starting hands needed. And sidebar for tracking turns / what's happened, rather than a pull-up menu I have to put back down. Small annoyance: Moneylender doesn't automatically trash.
It's mainly who plays. Isotropic also makes my weak wifi less sad. I like Roguelikes, so I'm also very partial to minimalism - I wish Goko's interface was... less lavish and more functional. But it now appears to work well, for the most part.
I'm impressed by Campaign. I just got beat hard by Conquer Bot. Are the strats coded in to be actually the close-to-optimal ones?
Edit: Nvm, just had a bot ignore Chapel.
Edit2: Huh. I love the campaign. These are the kinds of mechanics I've wanted to practice, but are too dull for anyone to agree to practice with me. And the bots are really good at their basics.
Edit3:
There are two major style issues for Goko that I find really hurt me as a Dominion player.
1. The sidebar which tracks each turn and
a) does not forget really far back turns, and so gives more information than is reasonable.
b) cannot be on 100% of the time.
2) There is no way I am aware to see what cards I have played this turn. This is critical in a Goons game, for instance, or if I want to know the odds of drawing a Smithy with this village, or draw some terminals dead.
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No text mode, no point counter, no veto mode.
So the problem is that it's more like actual Dominion. Gotcha.
i haven't played a single game of irl dominion after I found iso. to me the 'actual' non-variant dominion is considerably less enjoyable than the variant iso so awesomely offers me.
edit: or what others said better already!
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
I find it hilarious that you find what is essentially bug-testing software to be superior to an actual finished product.
This is not surprising to me at all. Often I find the 'basic' version of a program to be superior, because I get really irritated with unnecessary bells and whistles.
I still wish I could go back to Word 97, rather than the monstrosity that is the newest version of Microsoft Office, for example.
IRL Dominion is fun with your friends at a game night. Actually holding the cards in your hand is a tactile pleasure that Iso can't replicate. But Goko is just a poor imitation of the benefits you can get from real life, without capitalizing on the ways in which Dominion can be IMPROVED on the computer.
I'm sure some people prefer Goko. I don't think they're lying to us or something. But I emphatically do not prefer Goko. And maybe it was a smart business decision to appeal to new players who would be turned off by an Iso-style interface. But they have to understand that it comes at the cost of seriously turning off people like me.
You can't please everyone, of course.
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I still wish I could go back to Word 97, rather than the monstrosity that is the newest version of Microsoft Office, for example.
OMG yes. I just use OpenOffice nowadays though.
Actually holding the cards in your hand is a tactile pleasure that Iso can't replicate. But Goko is just a poor imitation of the benefits you can get from real life, without capitalizing on the ways in which Dominion can be IMPROVED on the computer.
There's definitely some of this. It tries to replicate the "feel" without actually doing so.
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I find it harder to play the actual game on goko. Well I like to play really fast. Maybe too fast. But more games is better than fewer for me. And all the cool animations and things flying around get old fast so I play on very fast on goko. But then, it's so hard to follow what my opponent does. And the logs are very hard to read. And they aren't always on the screen. So overall, it's a less enjoyable experience.
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
I find it hilarious that you find what is essentially bug-testing software to be superior to an actual finished product.
And I find it hilarious that you are paying a company to essentially bug-test their unfinished software.
Glad we're all in good humour here.
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I hate the interface. That's about it.
For those who say 'it's more like IRL Dominion,' I agree. But IRL Dominion is the inferior version of the game. And for those who say 'it's more appealing to the common fan,' I'm not sure I agree. But regardless, I'm not the common fan, and I happen to hate it.
I can't really imagine spending money to play it that way, even with Dominion being my favorite game. We'll see if that changes once Iso finally goes, but...to me it's just a completely different (and far worse) game.
I find it hilarious that you find what is essentially bug-testing software to be superior to an actual finished product.
And I find it hilarious that you are paying a company to essentially bug-test their unfinished software.
Glad we're all in good humour here.
The only bug I've really seen in portions I've actually paid for is Band of Misfits being invisible. And bugs exist even in completed products - just look at any Blizzard game: they get patches, patches and more patches. Same with MineCraft.
This is not surprising to me at all. Often I find the 'basic' version of a program to be superior, because I get really irritated with unnecessary bells and whistles.
I still wish I could go back to Word 97, rather than the monstrosity that is the newest version of Microsoft Office, for example.
If you were to play StarCraft, would you prefer it to just be a white background with little chess pieces moving across it, or would even that be too ostentatious for you?
Graphics are important for a commercial game. It has to look nice.
Now, knowing that Goko is here to stay (its userbase continues to grow), and Iso will inevitably be shut down, wouldn't it be more constructive to post your ideas on their getsatisfaction, and try to steer the design into something you'd find at least palatable?
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This is not surprising to me at all. Often I find the 'basic' version of a program to be superior, because I get really irritated with unnecessary bells and whistles.
I still wish I could go back to Word 97, rather than the monstrosity that is the newest version of Microsoft Office, for example.
If you were to play StarCraft, would you prefer it to just be a white background with little chess pieces moving across it, or would even that be too ostentatious for you?
Graphics are important for a commercial game. It has to look nice.
Now, knowing that Goko is here to stay (its userbase continues to grow), and Iso will inevitably be shut down, wouldn't it be more constructive to post your ideas on their getsatisfaction, and try to steer the design into something you'd find at least palatable?
I don't play Starcraft, in part because I get very bored by games for which 'graphics are important.'
I like Dominion 99.9% because the mechanics of the game are great and 0.1% because the pictures are neat. And even there, I have a lot more affection for the Isotropic pictures than the 'real' ones. Goko makes the mechanics of the game WAY more cumbersome, thus eating substantially into my enjoyment of the game.
As for biting the bullet and making contributions to improving Goko, I don't know what to tell you. I have a basic dislike for the whole structure of the game they have built. I don't have very many minor-level concerns (and I *did* post most of those back in the first Beta). I just don't like the essence of their product.
Again, maybe my opinions will change once Isotropic is actually gone and I have no other way to play Dominion. But I genuinely think I'll just...stop playing Dominion online rather than playing on Goko.
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I think that talking about which is "more similar to IRL" is a sort of a fools' game.
Both are similar in that the decisions you have to make, in-game, are the same as in an equivalent IRL game of Dominion.
But other than that, they both have very little similarities to IRL play. Goko has the card art, but other than that... Goko's attempts to make your hand be displayed like a little fanned-out hand of cards doesn't actually make it *play* like holding an IRL hand of cards. The interface is still pictures on a screen, just like iso. The details of that don't really make it more like IRL play no matter how much you fiddle with them. If you make pretty pictures at the expense of having some cards not be visible on-screen, well...
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I don't play Starcraft, in part because I get very bored by games for which 'graphics are important.'
Wow. Never play Myst, then.
This is probably not really relevant to Dominion, but there is a lot to be said for games for which graphics are important - it creates an atmosphere that allows you to just be absorbed by the game. Games like Skyrim or Amnesia work largely in part due to their graphics. Hell, the graphics are sort of the whole point of Amnesia. Graphics are half the point of the Myst games. And the graphics, gameplay and music of both Braid and Shadow of the Colossus combine to create what could be considered real works of art.
And if I'm going to play a game on a computer, which has the capability to make a game look nice, I'd prefer it to look nice.
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I don't play Starcraft, in part because I get very bored by games for which 'graphics are important.'
Wow. Never play Myst, then.
This is probably not really relevant to Dominion, but there is a lot to be said for games for which graphics are important - it creates an atmosphere that allows you to just be absorbed by the game. Games like Skyrim or Amnesia work largely in part due to their graphics. Hell, the graphics are sort of the whole point of Amnesia. Graphics are half the point of the Myst games. And the graphics, gameplay and music of both Braid and Shadow of the Colossus combine to create what could be considered real works of art.
And if I'm going to play a game on a computer, which has the capability to make a game look nice, I'd prefer it to look nice.
I get that other people like graphics. I'm just saying that I personally don't. And that's why Goko annoys me.
Basically: if I'm going to play a game on a computer, which has the capability to automate repetitive tasks, massively speed up boring elements of the game, and present information in a clean and clear way, I'd prefer that it do that.
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Graphics aren't that important to me. I enjoy 8-bit games just as much as the newfangled ones that are coming out today.
With that said, I do like that Goko cards look like real Dominion. That is a plus. However, animations and music, I can do without.
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I gave it a shot, tried to be optimistic, but I was very let down and I haven't been back since. I imagine that if there was positive feedback to it around here I would have went back on there and gave it another go.
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Tried it, just didnt really like it to be honest.
Just wasn't a 'fun' experience to me
Although i hardly play on Iso any more these days, but usually crack out the Cards when mates over.
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I recently tried Goko out for a day after buying Dark Ages.
Was disappointed by how expensive everything is, especially only getting 3 cards (that weren't even from DA!) after shelling out for the expansion, but I'll put that aside and talk exclusively about gameplay.
For someone who owns all the expansions, I quickly got bored with campaign. I can see its usefulness for new players, but what really bugged me is how little variation there was in the cards at the beginning (not even the full base set!) half of what I love about dominion is the variation, so that kind of put me off.
I like some of the ideas, like the handicapping the computer or giving them an advantage by messing with the starting set. thats an interesting idea.
For multiplayer, the single greatest thing that killed it for me was the lack of an automatch, and especially the small sizes of the game rooms. This isn't the 90's people! I think that by itself was the deal breaker for me.
I don't mind the interface, it'd be nice to turn off the background, and its awkward to see what people did previously (even the text information drowns out important info with periods and extra stuff you don't need to know, and it all being white on brown makes it hard to distinguish things) and the position of the VP count (for counters) is awkward as well.
Not having a points counter and not having veto mode or an equivalent is a downer, but not a deal-breaker for me.
Also, the "Your Deck" feature must have been designed by someone who hadn't played the game much, as almost no one I know specifically picks ten, rather they pick in sets (mix of prosperity and hinterlands or something) or specific cards (I want rats and chapel and 8 other randoms for fun) and let the rest random. This would be way better than a stupid pick 10 specific cards or full random as the only two choices. That is also a bit of a downer. At least you can *not* use it.
So yeah, I'm not convinced I should spend time on Goko at all as of yet, and especially not convinced I need to shell out $20-30 for it.
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I voted "Other" because I just don't find myself devoting a length of consistent time to playing an online game. Not as much as before, anyway.
And if I do get in the mood to still in front of a screen for a couple of hours, I usually choose more action-oriented games like Team Fortress. I'm fortunate enough to have a good pool of players to pull from when I am in a Dominion mood, so I just don't have enough interest in playing online. That could change in the future, though. Who knows?
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I've wanted to buy an official Dominion online game for a while now, and since I began playing Dominion over two years ago, I've filled that want with various Dominion-like products, including the iPhone Gundabad game that is a direct rip-off, the rough fan version with only the Base set, and Ascension. I participated in the beta, and enjoyed it as much as the substitutes I'd been sampling, but I'm not willing to pay the amount being asked for the product being delivered. Here are my fundamental problems:
1. Too Expensive: This is an arbitrary issue - one person's expensive is another's good bargain - but I just can't justify paying so much to play Dominion. I logged on for the first time in months yesterday, and noted that there's now a bundle that includes all of the coded expansions, the released expansions that have not been implemented online, and Dark Ages for a not completely unreasonable price (~$40, IIRC). I came close to buying that, but ultimately didn't pull the trigger. In large part, that decision was because getting $40 worth of owl coins required spending $50 in cash. I realize there are a lot of virtual markets in which you can't purchase products for cash, and instead need to purchase an intermediate currency (e.g., Xbox live), but if I have to play games with exchange rates, and discounts for purchasing intermediate currency in bulk, I'm more likely to not bother and walk away.
2. Inability to Sculpt the Board: The largest value of Goko to me has been the ability to play single player games. It's not as competitive as playing against a human, but the computer also doesn't mind if you put the game down for 10 minutes to deal with feuding children. Sometimes, I want to play with a particlar set to get a feel for it, or a particular handful of cards to test a combo. For whatever reason, I can't make that choice. Similarly, I can't even put constraints on the random card selection as is the case in Isotropic. This is an important feature for me, and not having it makes me less excited about the game generally.
Neither of these is an insurmountable problem, but my current view is that the cost of the product is well in excess of similar products and that it fails to offer an experience of sufficient quality to justify that price. If Goko had been released a year ago, being a graphics based, official Dominion game might've been sufficient for me to buy it. But these days, the bar is set higher (particularly when the price charged is so high), and the ability to play a graphics based, official Dominion game, without much else and at a fairly high price, just isn't enough to justify the purchase. On top of that, the high price plus the lack of a sophisticated ranking/data system as is available in Isotropic means that the player base is thin and significantly diminishes the value of the multiplayer online.
I really want to like Goko, I really want to play Dominion online, but I think I'm going to have to pass for now. My expectations have moved since I started playing, and a product that I would've embraced a year ago is no longer in the ballpark of what I will purchase.
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In large part, that decision was because getting $40 worth of owl coins required spending $50 in cash.
It doesn't. You can pay $20 twice, each time getting 230 owl coins, which is enough to buy the full package.
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In large part, that decision was because getting $40 worth of owl coins required spending $50 in cash.
It doesn't. You can pay $20 twice, each time getting 230 owl coins, which is enough to buy the full package.
Thank you!
What can I say, I'm impatient and bad at math. If something costs $40, I want to just pay $40 and be done with it. Adding an additional level of purchasing decision, in which I need to figure out what constellation of online currency gets me to $40, annoys me and creates a disincentive to complete the transaction.
Thunderstone has received a stupid number of dollars from me due to the fact that I can purchase cards at an inflated price using the App Store. (Though partly, that's because I also kept believing the game would become good/fun if only I had a few more cards - so far, this has not been true).
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Maybe Goko just likes knapsacks?
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Relevant:
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/04/24
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/02
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I don't play on it because I own the games irl. I don't want to buy something that I've already bought. I play on isotropic with the cards I own (I haven't gotten all the expansions yet), but not ones I don't have. (I voted other on the poll)
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For me, I actually think $40 is a reasonable price to pay for every expansion minus Guilds. I can see how their currency system makes things complicated though.
Goko has its pros and cons, but it is getting better.
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For me, I actually think $40 is a reasonable price to pay for every expansion minus Guilds. I can see how their currency system makes things complicated though.
Goko has its pros and cons, but it is getting better.
I will admit that even as a major Goko detractor, these points are both true. I could understand the complaints about price point when it looked like the price point was going to be $100 for all sets. $45? Seriously, that's the retail price of the base set! That's a serious value for a good game. I don't want to pay it in beta, but that's a separate point; the price point itself is not expensive at all.
And yes, Goko's getting better. I really didn't intend this as a Goko-bashing thread--I hope it didn't come across that way! I hop that the local Goko staffers are watching this thread, as it might offer them some insight.
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For me, I actually think $40 is a reasonable price to pay for every expansion minus Guilds. I can see how their currency system makes things complicated though.
Goko has its pros and cons, but it is getting better.
I will admit that even as a major Goko detractor, these points are both true. I could understand the complaints about price point when it looked like the price point was going to be $100 for all sets. $45? Seriously, that's the retail price of the base set! That's a serious value for a good game. I don't want to pay it in beta, but that's a separate point; the price point itself is not expensive at all.
And yes, Goko's getting better. I really didn't intend this as a Goko-bashing thread--I hope it didn't come across that way! I hop that the local Goko staffers are watching this thread, as it might offer them some insight.
If you really want, I will forward this thread to them. You are right. I think there are some good points for them to takeaway here.
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For me, I actually think $40 is a reasonable price to pay for every expansion minus Guilds. I can see how their currency system makes things complicated though.
Goko has its pros and cons, but it is getting better.
I will admit that even as a major Goko detractor, these points are both true. I could understand the complaints about price point when it looked like the price point was going to be $100 for all sets. $45? Seriously, that's the retail price of the base set! That's a serious value for a good game. I don't want to pay it in beta, but that's a separate point; the price point itself is not expensive at all.
And yes, Goko's getting better. I really didn't intend this as a Goko-bashing thread--I hope it didn't come across that way! I hop that the local Goko staffers are watching this thread, as it might offer them some insight.
If you really want, I will forward this thread to them. You are right. I think there are some good points for them to takeaway here.
Although I fear that the point they might take away is that a lot more players would play there if only Isotropic was shut down...
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iPad. You can't play on it, and it's my primary online device.
And I don't mean there's no native app. I mean it doesn't work in Safari or Chrome on the iPad.
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I will admit that even as a major Goko detractor, these points are both true. I could understand the complaints about price point when it looked like the price point was going to be $100 for all sets. $45? Seriously, that's the retail price of the base set! That's a serious value for a good game. I don't want to pay it in beta, but that's a separate point; the price point itself is not expensive at all.
the trouble with the pricing is that (to me) it doesn't seem to make sense with what their intended market is. with all of the graphics and animations and all goko seems clearly catered towards the more casual gamer. you are right, to me $40 seems reasonable. but i am a more serious dominion fan, and i seriously doubt that the more casual fans out there are going to be willing to spend $40 for all of dominion like this. that demographic will likely want a cheap and easy implementation, and i think that the current price point will be a turn off.
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iPad. You can't play on it, and it's my primary online device.
And I don't mean there's no native app. I mean it doesn't work in Safari or Chrome on the iPad.
Normally it's the opposite problem. There are a few games that are exclusive to the iPad that I'd love to play, but there's no PC version.
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the trouble with the pricing is that (to me) it doesn't seem to make sense with what their intended market is. with all of the graphics and animations and all goko seems clearly catered towards the more casual gamer. you are right, to me $40 seems reasonable. but i am a more serious dominion fan, and i seriously doubt that the more casual fans out there are going to be willing to spend $40 for all of dominion like this. that demographic will likely want a cheap and easy implementation, and i think that the current price point will be a turn off.
I'm no online marketing guru, so take my speculation with a grain of salt.
Hopefully, the casual gamer will see the small sets and be interested in paying only a few dollars to try something out. Maybe after completing the base adventure, the casual gamer will be intrigued in seeing the adventurer for Cornucopia or some such. After a few months of doing this, he might not even be aware that he's spent over $40. Obviously, the discerning Dominion fan knows that the package deal is pretty sweet, but this allows someone to dip his toes into the game and slowly submerge himself into our geekdom.
For that reason, I'm actually thinking that the store should not start off with the mega-value pack. That might scare away the casual gamer. Instead, start off with the cheaper sets and include some teasers. "Purchase this set to see the alluring Harem: It gives you 2 coins and is worth 2 Victory Points!" "Import more goods with the Wharf; you draw cards now and then again next turn!" There could a link for "Buy multiple sets and save!" This takes you to a page where you can buy the value packs.
I know that when playing Thunderstone online, I've paid more for cards than they're worth. A $2.50 transaction doesn't seem like a lot in the moment. I'm sure that online Dominion can get its fair share of those impulse buys.
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Because for 4 days they are undergoing routine maintainance.
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Because for 4 days they are undergoing routine maintainance.
Clear your cache.
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Because for 4 days they are undergoing routine maintainance.
Clear your cache.
This is actually one thing that gets me. Never in the last ten years (likely more) have I had a website tell me to clear my browser cache to make their website work.
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I don't mean to sound cheap - if you asked me in the abstract if I would pay $40 for electronic dominion, I probably would say yes. But, goko is just so...I think half-assed is the best descriptor I can manage. It still feels incomplete, and I don't have a lot of faith that they will still be around in twelve months. It's not as if I'm buying a program that I can use irrespective of their continued existence. I'm purchasing access to a website, and that access only has value for so long as the website is up. That value is further reduced by the fact that much of the sets aren't available yet. If $40 got me access to the whole shebang at the moment of purchase, I would've purchased. But right now, $40 gets me access to the beta stuff and buys me a promise that I'll have access to the additional sets once they are finished being coded. I don't know how much stock I put in that promise, and the fact that there's so much left to code just to get all the expansions released leads me to believe that the simple tools for board sculpting and better match-ups are even further away.
Heck, if I could pay $40 and get permanent access to the beta sets, that might even be enough. But as long as my purchase is locked into a company that hasn't demonstrated a strong grasp of the product they are selling* and could go away at anytime, I have a hard time justifying the purchase at that price.
Edit:
*For example, they seem to have spent a great deal of time and effort on the horrible looking avatars. They clearly didn't understand how the game was played when they created that deck tool, and the fact that they wasted time programming something that wasn't relevant to the game and then publicly released it leads me to believe that they are not being careful or thoughtful in how they implement the game. This is part of why I describe them as being half-assed - so much of the website feels like they handed the game off to a handful of offshore programmers, and then posted what they wrote without reviewing and revising to conform to the actual game they were trying to implement.
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Well, can't really fault you for staying within your comfort level when it comes to spending money. Nobody wants to just piss money away. I've made my fair share of mistakes in the past, some of which are considerably more than $40. But I don't like the idea of losing even $10 unnecessarily.
For some, the risk is not worth it. For others, the risk is negligible for the price. Hell, how many board games did I buy for more than $40 that I only played once (if that often)? I at least can get more value out of Goko for that. Of course, the main solution is that I should stop spending over $40 on board games I won't play. I have a problem.
Some are more prone to risks. Kickstarter is a good indication of this. Some products would never have gotten off the ground if there weren't people who said, "You know, this may cost me $20, but I think it'll be a benefit in the long run." And when the Kickstarter project succeeds, the more conservative consumers can benefit from their wait-and-see attitude. Businesses need both types. Well, businesses probably prefer more risk-takers, but not everyone is going to be comfortable with that idea.
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I'm probably more on the fence than my posts indicate, but I'm still surprised at my reluctance to pony up $40 for the game I love so much and am trying to understand it myself. Goko doesn't inspire me, and I don't find it to be significantly better than the free third party Dominion app that only includes the base set. They aren't adding value to my Dominion experience, and they don't seem focused on implementing the features that I would value.
I imagine I'll probably plunk down the cash eventually, but a year or so ago, I would've bought it without blinking an eye. I'm not certain what has changed, and am trying to articulate that.
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thanks,you have my eternal gratitude.
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That value is further reduced by the fact that much of the sets aren't available yet.
I don't know if you've been keeping up (and it's cool if you haven't), but Goko has everything except half of Hinterlands, Alchemy, and two of the promos implemented and playable right now. There are a few bugs, but most only matter in obscure corner cases, and I have faith that even those will be fixed. Goko's been pretty responsive when it comes to fixing bugs and implementing features.
I understand that the main thrust of your post is that you don't want to pay for a service that may not be around in a year, but the irony is that if you buy into it, it's that much more likely to be around. For what it's worth, I play all my online Dominion there and enjoy it immensely. I haven't logged onto isotropic for months.
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Thanks! I wasn't aware of that. And I do appreciate the irony that by not buying, I contribute to the risk that Goko won't be around for the long haul. :-)
Having access to Cornucopia may be the last nudge needed to get me over the line between purchasing and not.
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And hey, even if Goko does go away in a year (for the sake of RGG, I hope not), is a $40 expenditure for a year of entertainment a worthy endeavor?
For $40, I can see three or four first-run movies, depending if I splurge on 3D or IMAX. If I go cheap, I can see eight matinees (not manatees).
And yeah, it's true that Goko needs our support to keep their servers running. Relying on people to play the base game won't be enough for them. And we all know how much the aborted release in August hurt their credibility.
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That value is further reduced by the fact that much of the sets aren't available yet.
I don't know if you've been keeping up (and it's cool if you haven't), but Goko has everything except half of Hinterlands, Alchemy, and two of the promos implemented and playable right now. There are a few bugs, but most only matter in obscure corner cases, and I have faith that even those will be fixed. Goko's been pretty responsive when it comes to fixing bugs and implementing features.
I understand that the main thrust of your post is that you don't want to pay for a service that may not be around in a year, but the irony is that if you buy into it, it's that much more likely to be around. For what it's worth, I play all my online Dominion there and enjoy it immensely. I haven't logged onto isotropic for months.
Hear hear. I noticed yesterday they fixed one of the Diadem bugs - the top numbers now show how much coin Diadem is producing for you this turn. However, it's still listed as a Treasure, instead of a Treasure-Prize.
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Because for 4 days they are undergoing routine maintainance.
Clear your cache.
This is actually one thing that gets me. Never in the last ten years (likely more) have I had a website tell me to clear my browser cache to make their website work.
You have clrealy never had to phone up a tech support line then...
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That's the first thing we tell our customers, if there is a problem that one user is having, but nobody else is. The bosses don't always like it, but it works most of the time. :)
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Because for 4 days they are undergoing routine maintainance.
Clear your cache.
This is actually one thing that gets me. Never in the last ten years (likely more) have I had a website tell me to clear my browser cache to make their website work.
You have clrealy never had to phone up a tech support line then...
Not for a website, no. Actually very rarely, and then almost always for hardware.
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For $40, I can see three or four first-run movies, depending if I splurge on 3D or IMAX. If I go cheap, I can see eight matinees (not manatees).
Do note that 40$ is not the same in US and elsewhere.
for 40$, I can see 10 movies, or 8 in 3D, for example. (Counting evening, new movie, good cinema). If I go cheap I can see.. 14 I guess.
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For $40, I can see three or four first-run movies, depending if I splurge on 3D or IMAX. If I go cheap, I can see eight matinees (not manatees).
Do note that 40$ is not the same in US and elsewhere.
for 40$, I can see 10 movies, or 8 in 3D, for example. (Counting evening, new movie, good cinema). If I go cheap I can see.. 14 I guess.
Where the hell are you, Cambodia? $40 in the USA would almost buy 4 movies, but not quite.
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40$ would buy you less than 3 non-3D movies in Finland.
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For $40, I can see three or four first-run movies, depending if I splurge on 3D or IMAX. If I go cheap, I can see eight matinees (not manatees).
Do note that 40$ is not the same in US and elsewhere.
for 40$, I can see 10 movies, or 8 in 3D, for example. (Counting evening, new movie, good cinema). If I go cheap I can see.. 14 I guess.
Where the hell are you, Cambodia? $40 in the USA would almost buy 4 movies, but not quite.
IIRC, he is in Slovakia. Or Slovenia? I feel terrible getting them mixed up because the people, places, and languages are nothing alike. Then again, it's possible Europeans wouldn't understand the difference between an Iowan and an Ohioan...
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I live in California and non 3D ticket prices are around $12 each but their is a cheap theater where I can see matinees for $5. I spend anywhere from $5 to $18 to see a movie. What determines the amount I spend is whether or not I am that interested in it. If I am not that interested in it, I will see it in the cheap theater. If it is something I'm really looking forward to like I was The Dark Knight Rises then I will pay big bucks and see it in IMAX for $18. So, essentially two IMAX tickets pays for the cost of all the Dominion expansions online, at least where I live.
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I'm in Portland Oregon and saw the Hobbit the other day for $5.
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I'm in Portland Oregon and saw the Hobbit the other day for $5.
I was able to watch the Hobbit for $5 also. Matinees for the win!
But anyway, my point is that if Goko does go under in a year, then $40 for a year's worth of entertainment is not terrible. And if we can keep Goko afloat, then the entertainment dollar goes even farther.
Of course, the flipside is that if Goko folds in a month, then you're kind of shafted there.
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Hear hear. I noticed yesterday they fixed one of the Diadem bugs - the top numbers now show how much coin Diadem is producing for you this turn. However, it's still listed as a Treasure, instead of a Treasure-Prize.
Wait, how can you gain Diadem with Tournament, if it's not a Prize? Did they really just hard code the list of names for Tournament, instead of making use of the subtype?
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You fine folks convinced me to stop being a cheapskate, and I bought the mega pack last night. Good times, though I'm still annoyed that I have extra owl coins.
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You fine folks convinced me to stop being a cheapskate, and I bought the mega pack last night. Good times, though I'm still annoyed that I have extra owl coins.
You'll need em for Guilds
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I'm in Portland Oregon and saw the Hobbit the other day for $5.
I was able to watch the Hobbit for $5 also. Matinees for the win!
And I can play all the Goko sets for free -- if I wait in the multiplayer lobby for someone who has purchased all of them to set up a game to join.
You can get stuff cheap if you are willing to be inconvenienced....
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Haven't replied here, but I *AM* playing on Goko I haven't played on ISO at all since Goko had all of dark ages except for DS champs (and a few games before the champs to get a level)
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Ugh, case in point. I decided to finally play some more multiplayer on goko.
First game, it's nearing the endgame, and the game crashes saying "Unknown has quit" and it counts as a loss for me and I lose rating points. I was winning, too...
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Ugh, case in point. I decided to finally play some more multiplayer on goko.
First game, it's nearing the endgame, and the game crashes saying "Unknown has quit" and it counts as a loss for me and I lose rating points. I was winning, too...
The "unknown has quit" is to the best of my knowledge caused by people trying to enter a game in progress that was not set to "request to join." However, losing points to a match that has crashed is a new concept because before no one's rating would be affected. Even though it sucks to have lost points, this is actually a move in the right direction for Goko because it probably means people can no longer take advantage of refershing their browsers to crash the game and not having it count as a game loss. Obviously, the system is still not perfect, but it seems like a step in the right direction.
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So Tanya has replied to one of the threads on getsatisfaction.
Priorities are:
-Rest of Hinterlands and Alchemy
-Card randomizer
-Meeting room redesign
-Adventures
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-Meeting room redesign
I really hope they remove the 50-player cap on the rooms... given that that cap includes people who are playing games, and not just those waiting.
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What would be nice is if they had ranked meeting rooms for Pro play, and unranked rooms for Casual play, and then just rooms where you can meet friends. So, say, King's Court, Embassy and Counting House could all be three tiers of Pro play, and then you could have Hovel, Poor House and Tunnel for Casual play, and then Oasis, Inn, and Secret Chamber for meeting friends in.
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I just started playing on Goko, and holy shit is there a massive memory leak. I thought it was bad when a Goko tab exploded Firefox's RAM usage by 400MB... then I switched to Chrome, where it quickly hit 800... and an extra 800 in the empty tab that had never visited Goko.
1.6 GB of RAM for A SINGLE WEB INTERFACE. I have never seen another webpage (or even program!) use that much memory.
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Hm, I thought the memory leak issues had been fixed. I certainly haven't noticed anything unusual recently.
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Surprised that "Broke/Cheapskate and not that into Base Set Only or Begging" isn't an option! That is 95% my reason.
The other 5% is that I don't use Chrome or Firefox Betas, so it's laggy for me.
That is about my reason too. "I already bought every single Dominion expansion." Ok, I did not buy the promo cards.
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I'm not playing on Goko because I don't enjoy playing online synchronous games against real people. I was really hoping for an app that had an offline mode versus bots. As it is, I have to play Duels of the Planeswalkers instead. And having come to MTG way later than I came to dominion, I'm not a huge fan - mana screw, seeing 1 card at a time, etc. etc.
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I'm not playing on Goko because I don't enjoy playing online synchronous games against real people. I was really hoping for an app that had an offline mode versus bots. As it is, I have to play Duels of the Planeswalkers instead. And having come to MTG way later than I came to dominion, I'm not a huge fan - mana screw, seeing 1 card at a time, etc. etc.
I guess you're not playing on iso, then, either.
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No. If this is a conversation of "why are you playing on Iso, but not on Goko", then my response was startlingly irrelevant.
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I'd like to put my answer in the form of an analogy:
Let's say you've discovered a really great pizza place that makes pizza that maybe wasn't really fancy looking but that swerved this grease-loving, fairly hardcore pizza fan really well. The chef, god bless him, was handing out slices for free -- for free! -- but you liked it so much you stuck what would have been retail price in his tip jar.
Then Pizza (tm) comes to town, holding its license, saying that rando pizza chefs must shut their doors. Okay, well, that's the way it goes...but Pizza (tm) is serving blando, generic frozen grocery store pizza. No matter how much they solicit your opinion or lower the price or promise that future pizzas will be up to snuff, you don't want to buy their stuff. Not because the other thing was free, but because the other thing was great and really puts Pizza (tm) to shame.
That's why.
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I played for a few hours, and the interface is something that I found I could not get around. I won't try Goko again unless I hear about a significant UI update.
It's been discussed already, but the interface is...incredibly poorly thought out. Especially given that many of these issues were already resolved on Isotropic. And that's not to say that Isotropic has all of the perfect UI answers, just that there are a lot of things that were ironed out that the Goko developers appear to have ignored.
An example is creating/looking for a game. Looking for a game on Isotropic is a little buggy (selected parameters seems to reset sometimes) and I really don't like that the chat window makes the checkboxes a moving target, but most of the options I want are there. Goko needs to add at least some of these options, so people can play the kind of games they want, versus the type of opponents they want.
And even just setting the number of players for a game in Goko is kludgy. There are 5 blank tiles, and you click on the tile before the last unselected tile to toggle it as available/unavailable? I'm trying to be nice here but really, who's idea was that?
And then having the cards display graphically as a fan was poorly thought out. It forces the player to click on a sliver of a card, especially in big draw engines, and then, even with the animations on the fastest speed, you have to be careful to wait until the anim has completed before attempting to select the next card, as it moves to a new location as the cards adjust to fit the new hand size after a card is played. I've already trashed cards, passed cards, played cards I did not want to, and that is just not fun.
I could go on and list the details of numerous issues like this that I encountered in just a few hours, but I normally get paid to do that, so not today. Anyway, I'm not playing on Goko due to the sheer number of UI annoyances that make the experience not worthwhile.
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I played for a few hours, and the interface is something that I found I could not get around. I won't try Goko again unless I hear about a significant UI update.
It's been discussed already, but the interface is...incredibly poorly thought out. Especially given that many of these issues were already resolved on Isotropic. And that's not to say that Isotropic has all of the perfect UI answers, just that there are a lot of things that were ironed out that the Goko developers appear to have ignored.
An example is creating/looking for a game. Looking for a game on Isotropic is a little buggy (selected parameters seems to reset sometimes) and I really don't like that the chat window makes the checkboxes a moving target, but most of the options I want are there. Goko needs to add at least some of these options, so people can play the kind of games they want, versus the type of opponents they want.
And even just setting the number of players for a game in Goko is kludgy. There are 5 blank tiles, and you click on the tile before the last unselected tile to toggle it as available/unavailable? I'm trying to be nice here but really, who's idea was that?
And then having the cards display graphically as a fan was poorly thought out. It forces the player to click on a sliver of a card, especially in big draw engines, and then, even with the animations on the fastest speed, you have to be careful to wait until the anim has completed before attempting to select the next card, as it moves to a new location as the cards adjust to fit the new hand size after a card is played. I've already trashed cards, passed cards, played cards I did not want to, and that is just not fun.
I could go on and list the details of numerous issues like this that I encountered in just a few hours, but I normally get paid to do that, so not today. Anyway, I'm not playing on Goko due to the sheer number of UI annoyances that make the experience not worthwhile.
They're revamping the meeting room, and I think matches will be much easier to find.
As for the hand of cards, I think it's great as-is. When your hand gets large, it groups together identical cards. You're complaining that the cards move after you play one, but do you have a solution for that? The cards should move to fill in the gaps left by the cards you've played.
Sounds like your machine/browser can't really handle the game, which I agree is a problem. Have you tried using Chrome?
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I must be one of the few players that does not play Dominion online at warp factor 7. I'll admit that in the beginning I trashed a couple cards I didn't mean to, but Goko has worked on that with the red outlines and such. But I take a little time with each of my Actions and whatnot and think about what I'm going to do before doing it. Keeping the animations on normal is perfectly fast enough for me.
EDIT: I like to savor my Dominion games. Sure, I could play a game in 5 minutes and play 30 in a day, but I'd rather take my time and enjoy each game thoroughly.
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Just wanted to pop back in and say thanks to those who changed my mind. Goko has improved since the days of the beta (particularly the way the prompt is now customized for the card action, rather than the cryptic "done" or whatever it used to say), and I'm happy with my purchase.
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As for the hand of cards, I think it's great as-is. When your hand gets large, it groups together identical cards. You're complaining that the cards move after you play one, but do you have a solution for that?
Yep, easy. Isotropic solved that, by laying out the cards side by side, and then adding an interface for selecting a card that needs to be discarded, trashed, etc.
In addition, Goko needs to add an option to completely eliminate the animations, sounds, and play a stripped down version that only gives you what you need to play, much like the text version on Isotropic.
Although some people like the animations, without the option to get rid of them, many others aren't going to play. And of those many others, my guess is that that group contains a disproportionate number of people who are the better players (that's not me btw ;P), who would be likely to play tournaments on Goko, and who you need in your user-base to keep the community going.
What's crazy, is I only listed a couple issues. Goko has made so many UI missteps, it's borderline insane, given that most of the solutions have already been come up with, or are incredibly easy to figure out and implement.
It's also possible I'm a bit of a UI snob, so how bad the experience at Goko is for an average user is certainly not as bad as I make it out to be. That being said, the UI makes it not worth playing for me, and it seems like enough people are turned off by enough of these issues, that Goko Dominion is not getting nearly the traction it should for being such a great game.
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I never played MTGO because it -seemed- dumb to pay for cards twice. I probably will never play Goko for the same reason.
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In addition, Goko needs to add an option to completely eliminate the animations, sounds, and play a stripped down version that only gives you what you need to play, much like the text version on Isotropic.
Has anybody had any luck scripting anything at all to do with Goko? As a modest project I looked into getting the log to display permanently on-screen, but couldn't make any progress. I hadn't worked with HTML5 before, and hoped I could just find the log in the DOM and copy it somewhere more easily available, but it doesn't seem to work like that (I couldn't view the generated DOM at all).
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In addition, Goko needs to add an option to completely eliminate the animations, sounds, and play a stripped down version that only gives you what you need to play, much like the text version on Isotropic.
Has anybody had any luck scripting anything at all to do with Goko? As a modest project I looked into getting the log to display permanently on-screen, but couldn't make any progress. I hadn't worked with HTML5 before, and hoped I could just find the log in the DOM and copy it somewhere more easily available, but it doesn't seem to work like that (I couldn't view the generated DOM at all).
Last time I worked with it (months ago), there were two methods that both worked to get data out of the Goko client:
- Poke through the internal data structures of the client. This can get you access to the log. drheld was developing a point counter using this method. It was nearly finished, but I don't know whether he ever released it.
- Intercept the websocket traffic. The transmitted data structures are simple enough that this tells you pretty much everything you want, provided you track it. Also, you can send fake messages through the websocket to insert messages into chat. I was experimenting with this method but didn't develop any useful plug-in because of lack of interest in Goko. :P
Last time I experimented with the client, the client knew some information the player shouldn't (e.g. the contents of your opponent's hand). I vaguely recall some Goko interview suggesting that might not be true anymore, but I haven't checked.
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Each of the following would have to be fixed before I'd try it:
1. Security. A coworker who I introduced to Dominion did some basic cyber-security snooping (all legal) on Goko, needless to say I shan't be giving them a real email account nor access to any credit card or other personal information until they get serious about being a serious web business.
2. The UI is garbage. Yeah, I'm the weird guy who has been known to run major stuff through cmd rather than deal with a crap-ton clickety-click; but still the last time I saw Goko's interface it was still buggy and beta. Most of the animations are useless if turns are short, if they are long I'm rarely able to get the information I want, so yes assuming your customers are literate and having a primary log explaining things would be much better. Couple this with few internal checks and a lot of stuff I want to auto-play not working ... it just seems like an ass-backwards implementation I don't want to waste time learning.
3. I don't own a smartphone (most days I'm not allowed to carry a phone anyways), so it is fiendishly annoying to play on a system designed for a microscopic display. Yeah, I would like a monitor based UI (again they might have implemented this, but who knows).
4. Your own private currency. I'm sorry, whatever in hell makes you think that is a good idea? I understand that having this sort of thing can pad your profits by allowing you to overcharge without the customers getting wise ... and it makes it easier to hand out freebies instead of just giving us "$2 off" or whatever ... but seriously? You expect me to think you are a reliable company with whom I should trust my information and purchase things on the promise that you won't be gone next month?
5. Pricing. Not so much for me, but let's be honest once this get this stuff coded, and assuming they did a good job of it, there is very little additional per unit cost and right now they are pricing this for gamers like me ... not to get a decent population of players where I can get a quick game without too much trouble.
In all, I just don't trust Goko. They behave like amateurs and I don't buy from amateurs.
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inb4 someone comments how a small detail of one of your points has been addressed already and ignores the rest.
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I never played MTGO because it -seemed- dumb to pay for cards twice. I probably will never play Goko for the same reason.
You know, I still don't understand this reasoning. Not paying because it's still a beta, or for other reasons--I get that, because I'm one of those people. But the final cost, when everything's included (about $45), will be the same as the cost of the original game, and somewhat less than a video game, for potentially hundreds of hours of entertainment. I mean, I've easily spent 500 hours on Isotropic. I can't say that I've gotten 500 hours of entertainment from any single game in my collection other than World of Warcraft, and that only because I've been playing WOW for 8+ years.
1. Security. A coworker who I introduced to Dominion did some basic cyber-security snooping (all legal) on Goko, needless to say I shan't be giving them a real email account nor access to any credit card or other personal information until they get serious about being a serious web business.
Any chance you can give us more details on this? No sarcasm, I'd very much like to know.
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"Security. A coworker who I introduced to Dominion did some basic cyber-security snooping (all legal) on Goko, needless to say I shan't be giving them a real email account nor access to any credit card or other personal information until they get serious about being a serious web business. "
Is this recent or from many, many months ago? Please enlighten us.
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"Security. A coworker who I introduced to Dominion did some basic cyber-security snooping (all legal) on Goko, needless to say I shan't be giving them a real email account nor access to any credit card or other personal information until they get serious about being a serious web business. "
Is this recent or from many, many months ago? Please enlighten us.
See, I don't think this really matters, because the big point is that security is not on their priority list. It's not something they're thinking about when they are designing their stuff. And that's very very bad.
I mean, some pretty serious issues were pointed out with their system, and they fixed them, that's true, BUT what they said about it was 'oh, that was minor, and it's fixed now, so you don't have to worry about it. You can trust us'. Well, gee, that makes me really really feel like I can't.
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Another example:
https://getsatisfaction.com/goko/topics/ie9_tells_sec7111_https_security_is_compromised_by_http_www_goko_com_dominion_lib_fs_resultscreen_js
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"Security. A coworker who I introduced to Dominion did some basic cyber-security snooping (all legal) on Goko, needless to say I shan't be giving them a real email account nor access to any credit card or other personal information until they get serious about being a serious web business. "
Is this recent or from many, many months ago? Please enlighten us.
This was a few months back, but after they had started charging. No, I don't know the details - not my area of expertise, but I trust a professional to tell me when a web business is safe and legit and more importantly if they give off the vibe that "Hey we're professionals who know how to do security and if things go south WE will take care of it." It is a LOT easier to build a good security conscious platform from the ground up than to kludge security in on top ... and the latter ain't exactly good practice for dealing with an ever evolving security threat space.
My security needs are a bit more stringent than the normal person, so take it for what you will. I am one of the guys who has to use Ironkeys, air-gapped computers, and the like - so I'm payed to be paranoid and I don't want to give financial information nor run software from someone who still looks like their security is fly-by-night.
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On the security issue: is there anything other than financial information that anyone is really worried about here? I know there were problems with transmission of, well, the other player's deck state, which makes tournaments problematic, but that can't harm anyone personally/directly. And as far as payments, they accept PayPal, which should be secure enough, right?
As far as giving them a real email... I'm not certain that, say, this forum is any more secure than Goko is.
Can't believe I'm defending them, but I really want to know what the security issues are and so far all the complaints are nebulous, and the financial information complaint is circumvented by PayPal.
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On the security issue: is there anything other than financial information that anyone is really worried about here? I know there were problems with transmission of, well, the other player's deck state, which makes tournaments problematic, but that can't harm anyone personally/directly. And as far as payments, they accept PayPal, which should be secure enough, right?
As far as giving them a real email... I'm not certain that, say, this forum is any more secure than Goko is.
Can't believe I'm defending them, but I really want to know what the security issues are and so far all the complaints are nebulous, and the financial information complaint is circumvented by PayPal.
Sure.
One thing is personal information - they ask for some of it (name anyway) - and I don't trust them with it. I am protective of my identity.
But more than that, I am not confident that other people can't run code on my machine via their site. Viruses, worms, what have you. I am not a computer security guy, but they do not inspire confidence here.
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On the security issue: is there anything other than financial information that anyone is really worried about here? I know there were problems with transmission of, well, the other player's deck state, which makes tournaments problematic, but that can't harm anyone personally/directly. And as far as payments, they accept PayPal, which should be secure enough, right?
As far as giving them a real email... I'm not certain that, say, this forum is any more secure than Goko is.
Can't believe I'm defending them, but I really want to know what the security issues are and so far all the complaints are nebulous, and the financial information complaint is circumvented by PayPal.
I agree with this. You won't find too many folks more critical of Goko so far than me but.... the security issues as described here are too nebulous to serve as the basis for action (or inaction for that matter).
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Hi everyone,
There's some really good feedback in here for us so, first of all, thanks for everyone chipping in regardless of whether the feedback is "no way" or "maybe" or "hey, it's getting better!" From our perspective it looks like the discussion you guys are having has been pretty fair.
A couple of specific points, because I didn't see any specific responses to these:
- Memory Leak -- we use a lot of 2d canvases in HTML5 and version 23 of Chrome had a memory leak bug (Google acknowledged this) where they weren't cleaning these up properly. We were not the only company effected, nor even the company yelling the loudest. Google fixed this issue in Chrome 24 beta, which is why we were recommending it. As of a few days ago Chrome 24 is now out of beta and is the standard release, so that 's good. In a future release we're also modifying the way we handle canvases to use less memory in any event.
- Firefox 17 slowness -- same deal here. Mozilla released Firefox 17 and we saw performance take a big hit (again, not only us). Firefox 18 is now released and it's really fast, so we're happy to be past Firefox 17.
- Card bugs -- we fix these as fast as we hear about them. We test fairly extensively with Donald X., then with the AI's, then on beta.goko.com, then we release. Sorry for not catching them all first time around but we're definitely trying to!
- Expansions -- Hinterlands: Faraway Lands is out to the people that pre-purchased. I expect we'll release in general in a day or two. We're testing Alchemy right now (but we still have a little work to do on Possession).
- Reconnect -- Also in a few days we'll be releasing a reconnect feature so that if someone loses their connection, it will reconnect seamlessly (note: this isn't re-join.... just reconnect). Obviously, there are *lots* of edge cases around this and some of them won't be covered but the majority cases will. As with any new feature like this there will be some hiccups but we'll be working to get those smoothed out asap.
- UI -- well, we even have disagreements internally about different pieces but overall the response has been positive. I get where the detractors are coming from but this tends to be a subjective topic. The UI of the game won't change much until the mobile version... the tablet version will be relatively the same.
On a larger topic -- Security. There were two major items we saw at launch back in August that we addressed shortly thereafter. In addition there were also a few of the "the client knows something it shouldn't about the other player's cards" that we addressed as well. These were definitely "Oh, s***" moments for us, we pulled back into closed beta, and we deservedly fell on our swords several times for not spotting these before launch. If you know of any security issues that weren't addressed since we opened up again, we would absolutely want to hear about them so email us directly at help@goko.com. As for "what's different than before" in this regard, the responsible parties were let go about a week after launch and we refocused our efforts after that.
As many of you know, to enable us to let players play cross-platform we needed to build our own platform (think Apple's GameCenter). In addition, we have built several games (including Dominion) and we built some developer modules to make creating a game easier (like the meeting room and a few other common items). The platform is the thing that handles transactions like buying stuff, who owns what cards, logging in, achievements, ratings, leaderboards, etc. The security issues that we saw on launch day in August were generally in the developer modules (which send information from the client to our servers) as opposed to our platform (which lives on our servers). The developer modules were created by a 3rd party under our direct supervision, so ultimately our responsibility no doubt and we've addressed this.
One item the platform did have an issue with on launch day was some lower level networking stuff that didn't show up in the type of load tests we were doing leading up to launch. That caused the unavailability on launch day and we addressed that and developed other types of load tests since then. Not to say we won't get overloaded again at some point but we're trying to ramp up in a manageable way.
To answer one person directly, the platform was definitely built from the ground up with security in mind, including security penetration tests by 3rd parties, and so far so good but email us directly if you have any questions or doubts about this and I'll answer the best I can. I also think I saw one person post about IE9 complaining about insecure content. We force IE9 over into HTTPS mode and if any links we include are not in HTTPS mode (like "http://www.goko.com/go-get-a-file") then IE9 complains that the overall page is not secure because that one link being included is not in HTTPS mode. To be honest, I personally have made that mistake a few times when patching something but generally it's just IE9 just trying to make sure everything matches.
As for payments, we don't see or save any credit card or paypal info... never have, never will. That all happens via 3rd party payment providers and we're not in the path at all (as is the case with most internet sites). Again, we've had security penetration testing on the interactions we do have with that 3rd party but we don't see any of that personal/credit card info.
For personal info, we do save the email addresses you give us when you register using an email address... and we use those both for login (obviously) and to send you information about the games, like I did the other day when telling people who had pre-bought Hinterlands: Faraway Lands that it was available to them early.
Ok, that was longer than I intended it to be but I hope I addressed most of the questions out there.
August was a very difficult time for us and there wasn't a lot of sleep to be found but the last few months are starting to see things come around, as people have pointed out. As we launch on Facebook and then iOS/Android we'll probably have some more long nights but we're very committed to deliver on the original vision and give everyone a great online game.
Thanks,
John Q.
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Hi everyone,
There's some really good feedback in here for us so, first of all, thanks for everyone chipping in regardless of whether the feedback is "no way" or "maybe" or "hey, it's getting better!" From our perspective it looks like the discussion you guys are having has been pretty fair.
A couple of specific points, because I didn't see any specific responses to these:
- Memory Leak -- we use a lot of 2d canvases in HTML5 and version 23 of Chrome had a memory leak bug (Google acknowledged this) where they weren't cleaning these up properly. We were not the only company effected, nor even the company yelling the loudest. Google fixed this issue in Chrome 24 beta, which is why we were recommending it. As of a few days ago Chrome 24 is now out of beta and is the standard release, so that 's good. In a future release we're also modifying the way we handle canvases to use less memory in any event.
- Firefox 17 slowness -- same deal here. Mozilla released Firefox 17 and we saw performance take a big hit (again, not only us). Firefox 18 is now released and it's really fast, so we're happy to be past Firefox 17.
- Card bugs -- we fix these as fast as we hear about them. We test fairly extensively with Donald X., then with the AI's, then on beta.goko.com, then we release. Sorry for not catching them all first time around but we're definitely trying to!
- Expansions -- Hinterlands: Faraway Lands is out to the people that pre-purchased. I expect we'll release in general in a day or two. We're testing Alchemy right now (but we still have a little work to do on Possession).
- Reconnect -- Also in a few days we'll be releasing a reconnect feature so that if someone loses their connection, it will reconnect seamlessly (note: this isn't re-join.... just reconnect). Obviously, there are *lots* of edge cases around this and some of them won't be covered but the majority cases will. As with any new feature like this there will be some hiccups but we'll be working to get those smoothed out asap.
- UI -- well, we even have disagreements internally about different pieces but overall the response has been positive. I get where the detractors are coming from but this tends to be a subjective topic. The UI of the game won't change much until the mobile version... the tablet version will be relatively the same.
On a larger topic -- Security. There were two major items we saw at launch back in August that we addressed shortly thereafter. In addition there were also a few of the "the client knows something it shouldn't about the other player's cards" that we addressed as well. These were definitely "Oh, s***" moments for us, we pulled back into closed beta, and we deservedly fell on our swords several times for not spotting these before launch. If you know of any security issues that weren't addressed since we opened up again, we would absolutely want to hear about them so email us directly at help@goko.com. As for "what's different than before" in this regard, the responsible parties were let go about a week after launch and we refocused our efforts after that.
As many of you know, to enable us to let players play cross-platform we needed to build our own platform (think Apple's GameCenter). In addition, we have built several games (including Dominion) and we built some developer modules to make creating a game easier (like the meeting room and a few other common items). The platform is the thing that handles transactions like buying stuff, who owns what cards, logging in, achievements, ratings, leaderboards, etc. The security issues that we saw on launch day in August were generally in the developer modules (which send information from the client to our servers) as opposed to our platform (which lives on our servers). The developer modules were created by a 3rd party under our direct supervision, so ultimately our responsibility no doubt and we've addressed this.
One item the platform did have an issue with on launch day was some lower level networking stuff that didn't show up in the type of load tests we were doing leading up to launch. That caused the unavailability on launch day and we addressed that and developed other types of load tests since then. Not to say we won't get overloaded again at some point but we're trying to ramp up in a manageable way.
To answer one person directly, the platform was definitely built from the ground up with security in mind, including security penetration tests by 3rd parties, and so far so good but email us directly if you have any questions or doubts about this and I'll answer the best I can. I also think I saw one person post about IE9 complaining about insecure content. We force IE9 over into HTTPS mode and if any links we include are not in HTTPS mode (like "http://www.goko.com/go-get-a-file") then IE9 complains that the overall page is not secure because that one link being included is not in HTTPS mode. To be honest, I personally have made that mistake a few times when patching something but generally it's just IE9 just trying to make sure everything matches.
As for payments, we don't see or save any credit card or paypal info... never have, never will. That all happens via 3rd party payment providers and we're not in the path at all (as is the case with most internet sites). Again, we've had security penetration testing on the interactions we do have with that 3rd party but we don't see any of that personal/credit card info.
For personal info, we do save the email addresses you give us when you register using an email address... and we use those both for login (obviously) and to send you information about the games, like I did the other day when telling people who had pre-bought Hinterlands: Faraway Lands that it was available to them early.
Ok, that was longer than I intended it to be but I hope I addressed most of the questions out there.
August was a very difficult time for us and there wasn't a lot of sleep to be found but the last few months are starting to see things come around, as people have pointed out. As we launch on Facebook and then iOS/Android we'll probably have some more long nights but we're very committed to deliver on the original vision and give everyone a great online game.
Thanks,
John Q.
Thanks John Q. for your post. It is very much appreciated.
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Seconded! Thanks for taking the time to explain all that!
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Ok, that was longer than I intended it to be but I hope I addressed most of the questions out there.
Thanks for posting, I think one of the reasons I'm not on goko is that I have not seen posts like this before...
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Regarding this reconnect feature - well, there seems to be such a thing, but it has never worked for me. Since yesterday LOTS of disconnects (and therefore exits from the running games) happened, so I've got some experience with it.
Btw, how are disconnects handled regarding ranking? Who lost the running game? Noone?
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Ok, that was longer than I intended it to be but I hope I addressed most of the questions out there.
Thanks for posting, I think one of the reasons I'm not on goko is that I have not seen posts like this before...
I agree. Thanks for detailed and considered response. Direct and detailed information = increased confidence.
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Regarding this reconnect feature - well, there seems to be such a thing, but it has never worked for me. Since yesterday LOTS of disconnects (and therefore exits from the running games) happened, so I've got some experience with it.
Btw, how are disconnects handled regarding ranking? Who lost the running game? Noone?
That is correct. No ones score is affected. However, as a result, the leaderboard can easily be gamed because if you are about to lose, all you have to do is refresh your browser and that causes a disconnect. You don't lose points and you're opponent who was about to win doesn't gain any ranking points. However, Goko has acknowledged this, and they claim that soon they will fix this problem.
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On a larger topic -- Security. There were two major items we saw at launch back in August that we addressed shortly thereafter. In addition there were also a few of the "the client knows something it shouldn't about the other player's cards" that we addressed as well. These were definitely "Oh, s***" moments for us, we pulled back into closed beta, and we deservedly fell on our swords several times for not spotting these before launch. If you know of any security issues that weren't addressed since we opened up again, we would absolutely want to hear about them so email us directly at help@goko.com. As for "what's different than before" in this regard, the responsible parties were let go about a week after launch and we refocused our efforts after that.
First of all, I would like to thank you deeply for posting all of this information here. Communication is really important, and hearing something is always and definitely helpful.
Let me try to explain why I find this explanation unsatisfactory. "The responsible parties were let go about a week after launch." This is actually indicative of the problem to me. This seems to imply that there are a few guys who are responsible for security, and since there was a security problem, they got the ax. But security should be a concern for *everyone*. If you are working at a summer camp, you shouldn't have one or two or ten guys whose responsibility is the kids' safety. EVERYONE's first responsibility is the kids' safety. Similarly, in every workplace (well, every one I have ever known), the number one responsibility is the safety of everyone. It should be the same way here - security is everyone's concern. Now, I am not suggesting you should fire everyone. Heck, I don't care if you got rid of *anyone*. I just want it to get done right. And much as I'd just like to take your word for it that things are safe, we unfortunately don't live in the kind of world where that is a practical decision to make. It really sucks that this is the case, but if we DID live in that kind of world, then of course we wouldn't need security measures at all. It doesn't help that you've had the big security issues in the past.
Ultimately, I'm not so concerned about the specific security problems you had. You've fixed those, that's fine. It's about the process, the process by which you didn't find them, or by which you knew about them and didn't communicate that to whoever made the decision to launch, or by which you did communicate and the guy making the launch decision launched anyway. Because I don't see indications that this is any less likely to happen on a problem in the future, and even if you have everything covered right now (certainly possible), new threats are coming out all the time.
It's analogous to going to a restaurant and being served chicken that, when you cut into it, is raw. This is a problem of any of a number of people, who didn't cook the thing properly, and who didn't get it checked properly. Now, you might say, I am pretty likely to be fine going there and getting chicken again later on, if this is just one incident anyway, so what's the problem? Well, why am I comfortable doing that? Well, there are a couple reasons. Number one is that it's really obvious whenever chicken is raw, and that is something I can't duplicate with these e-security issues. That would be more like using mold food, wiping it off and using it, I guess. But the real reason I can feel safe is that there are health inspectors. Basically, what I would like to see here, and what most tech companies do, is hire someone, someone independent of themselves, someone reputable, who from time to time basically does an audit on your system, from a security standpoint. You get this, and you have them give you a clean bill of health, I'll be fine with security, and I'll buy your product. Even if they show the occasional issue, that's okay, so long as they're minor enough anyway - you aren't going to get 100% coverage, and I realize that. I just want someone independent to look over things.
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Let me try to explain why I find this explanation unsatisfactory. "The responsible parties were let go about a week after launch." This is actually indicative of the problem to me. This seems to imply that there are a few guys who are responsible for security, and since there was a security problem, they got the ax. But security should be a concern for *everyone*. If you are working at a summer camp, you shouldn't have one or two or ten guys whose responsibility is the kids' safety. EVERYONE's first responsibility is the kids' safety.
I agree with most of your post, but this analogy is pretty bad. What you seem to be implying is that every single person at the company should review every single piece of code to make sure it doesn't create security holes. That's just not practical. I don't think the people fired were 'responsible for security'. I think they were responsible for coding the bits that had security holes.
If three kids die at a summer camp while they were doing activities under Bill and Ted's care, Bill and Ted are going to get fired due to negligence.
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Let me try to explain why I find this explanation unsatisfactory. "The responsible parties were let go about a week after launch." This is actually indicative of the problem to me. This seems to imply that there are a few guys who are responsible for security, and since there was a security problem, they got the ax. But security should be a concern for *everyone*. If you are working at a summer camp, you shouldn't have one or two or ten guys whose responsibility is the kids' safety. EVERYONE's first responsibility is the kids' safety.
I agree with most of your post, but this analogy is pretty bad. What you seem to be implying is that every single person at the company should review every single piece of code to make sure it doesn't create security holes. That's just not practical. I don't think the people fired were 'responsible for security'. I think they were responsible for coding the bits that had security holes.
If three kids die at a summer camp while they were doing activities under Bill and Ted's care, Bill and Ted are going to get fired due to negligence.
I don't mean this, which is why I say later on that I wouldn't care if nobody were fired. Obviously not every person reviews every piece of code. More I mean, security is more of a positive thing than a negative thing. It shouldn't be person X's job to 'go and program security everywhere'. There's no way he can do it all, and if he didn't write the code somewhere, it's going to be difficult for him. And maybe the responsibility here was that people X and Y say that problem Z is fixed and are just lying, in which case what they did is fine. But the structure they ought to have is that there are programmers on different things, probably you want more than one programmer on different things but whatever, the big issue is that you should have the people programming it who should catch it, but you should also have people who are checking these kinds of things, multiple people checking these kinds of things, who should also catch it. Now, maybe they fired ALL these people, which seems like it would be an awful lot to me, but maybe they did. Anyway, you want redundancy. You don't need everyone to look at every piece, no, but you kneed more than one person looking at every piece, and everyone needs to be concerned about it. Everyone should be asking questions. And many probably were.
And if they did actually get rid of SO many people, then it eats into my confidence in their ability to hire qualified people, especially without them telling me that they have specifically people X or more likely and preferably company Y who is overseeing or at least testing things.
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I've recently played a couple of games on Goko for the first time in quite a while (using my default browser, Safari).
Several things substantially improved - game play was quite brisk and the interface didn't seem too buggy (last time I played I wasn't able to see the art or text on a number of the cards and that is definitely fixed now).
However it crashed once straight after my first game and then again half way through my second - I probably need to get around to downloading another browser I guess.
There is a whole bunch of things about Goko that I still don't like but I can probably live with most of them - but if the game crashes twice in one and a half games it is still not ready to pay real money for IMO.
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Goko is running very smoothly for me under Chrome 24. Now Chrome isn't changing the color of links I've already clicked on, but well nothing to do with Goko.
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I tried Goko again today. Goko does not lag for me with Firefox 18 like it did with 17. So I am happy the performance issues were taken care of there. It still crashed once when I was playing Adventures (out of 5 games) and once when loading a multiplayer game (out of 2 games), though.
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Played 12 games of the adventure mode last night (still using safari). No crashes, no lag.... if it performs like that in multiplayer I might be able to get away without downloading chrome (nothing in particular against chrome, I'm just a bit of a minimalist).
Only weird thing I noticed in the whole 12 games was the name of one of the cards (woodcutter I think it was) had a black bar across it so you couldn't read the name of the card. Apart from that it worked very well.... definitely a big improvement over the last time I played.
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They are getting better, and we are seeing results much faster these days.
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I have a new reason not to play - there's no way to force the other player to resign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI)
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I have a new reason not to play - there's no way to force the other player to resign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI)
Oh wow. That's pretty bad.
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I have a new reason not to play - there's no way to force the other player to resign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI)
Oh wow. That's pretty bad.
There are several users using this to game the leaderboard, apparently. If you close the tab or something (I'm not precisely sure how) you can exit with no penalty and leave your opponent hanging.
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I have a new reason not to play - there's no way to force the other player to resign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2chTK9lZI)
Oh wow. That's pretty bad.
There are several users using this to game the leaderboard, apparently. If you close the tab or something (I'm not precisely sure how) you can exit with no penalty and leave your opponent hanging.
Actually, all you have to do is refresh your browser and you are exited from the game and don't gain a loss. Although, Goko says it is on their radar of things to take care of soon.
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We needed re-connect first before penalizing people for quitting... otherwise we could be dinging people who just got disconnected. Reconnect should be released shortly... then we can address a rating hit for quitting.
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UI -- well, we even have disagreements internally about different pieces but overall the response has been positive. I get where the detractors are coming from but this tends to be a subjective topic. The UI of the game won't change much until the mobile version... the tablet version will be relatively the same.
The only real absolute stopper on the UI side (at least in my opinion) is the inability to display a text log inside the game window. Are there any plans to implement some form of this?
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UI -- well, we even have disagreements internally about different pieces but overall the response has been positive. I get where the detractors are coming from but this tends to be a subjective topic. The UI of the game won't change much until the mobile version... the tablet version will be relatively the same.
The only real absolute stopper on the UI side (at least in my opinion) is the inability to display a text log inside the game window. Are there any plans to implement some form of this?
+1 to that.
It would be so convenient.
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We needed re-connect first before penalizing people for quitting... otherwise we could be dinging people who just got disconnected. Reconnect should be released shortly... then we can address a rating hit for quitting.
I don't care about a penalty - I really just want a way to make someone resign if they're taking 10 minutes to do something.
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We needed re-connect first before penalizing people for quitting... otherwise we could be dinging people who just got disconnected. Reconnect should be released shortly... then we can address a rating hit for quitting.
I don't care about a penalty - I really just want a way to make someone resign if they're taking 10 minutes to do something.
I think there needs to be both a penalty and a way to make them resign, and well before 10 minutes, 5 minutes at most.
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We needed re-connect first before penalizing people for quitting... otherwise we could be dinging people who just got disconnected. Reconnect should be released shortly... then we can address a rating hit for quitting.
This is why it's great that you guys are actively interacting with the community now--this is strong logic and I'm looking forward to seeing those improvements get rolled out.
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Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question: On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.? Thanks for any help here.
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Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question: On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.? Thanks for any help here.
None of the above; the rooms are arbitrary. This and the lack of auto-match are one of the reasons many people don't play there...
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I think the biggest reason I don't play on goko is the interface. On my turn, I pretty much know what's going on. However, on my opponents turn (especially against AI) all I see is a lots of cards moving around the board and then its my turn again. I look at the log to figure out what my opponent did, and it takes me a full minute to learn that my opponent played an ironmonger and a witch and bought a gold. The logs really need some formatting.
Additionally, whenever some plays militia, I always thinks it's my turn so I try to play my witch. That ends badly. Maybe a warning should be implemented if you're discarding something besides victory cards, curses, or coppers.
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Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question: On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.? Thanks for any help here.
If you're wondering how to tell which games are pro and which are casual, I think there's either a star (casual) or a trophy (pro) symbol on the game's entry in the lobby. I've not played there for a while though, and that was never any more than guesswork.
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Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question: On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.? Thanks for any help here.
If you're wondering how to tell which games are pro and which are casual, I think there's either a star (casual) or a trophy (pro) symbol on the game's entry in the lobby. I've not played there for a while though, and that was never any more than guesswork.
This is correct.
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They really should have seperate lobbies for pro games and casual games.
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They should really have an automatch for pro games. Better than a lobby.
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I'm not playing on Goko because...
1. Issues with Chrome/Firefox on my laptop
2. Issues with IE on my Xbox
3. Issues with Safari on my iPod (1st Gen)
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I haven't played much on Iso, but it is quickly growing on me.
Here's the thing with Goko (for me): I love about 90% of the interface. It looks good. The music is good for the first handful of games, but I shut it off now. But some of the buttons are too close together. so many times I've clicked end turn when i didn't mean to, or played cards in the wrong order. It gets really irritating. I can play several games on Goko in just a short period of time (but see below), which is good for me, lots of practice. It lets me try out a few things and learn whether or not they are good to try for games against real players (if a particular strategy fails regularly against the bots, it probably won't work if I try it against someone else).
But Goko has a lot of problems, too.
First, there's the pay to play aspect. I can play for free, but against bots, I'm stuck with basic dominion. I'm led to understand I can play the expansions if I play against someone who has them, but I haven't seen that for myself yet. The thing is, I have base set, and what this tells me is that they expect me to pay twice for each box. Once at anywhere between $25 and $60, depending on where I buy it to get the box to my house, and then again to be able to use those cards on Goko. I understand that not all players have the cards at home. Paying extra makes sense for people who don't want the cards taking up space, or who just prefer an online game to a RL game. Not that I have any suggestions for how to fix that problem...
Then, as someone else mentioned, it's really hard to keep track of what the bots do. You can see your turn, but they the bots go, the card bounce around the screen, some pretty lights flicker, and then it's your turn. Wait, what? More than once I'll totally caught off-guard by a card I didn't ever see my opponent buy. And then to try and figure out how it happened...
Now that I know how to see the log, this is alleviated a bit. And as far as the log goes, I don't have a huge problem with reading it.
But my biggest beef with Goko is it's unreliability. Sometimes I can play 5 or 6 games in a row with no problems. But then there are all of those times when, for no apparent reason, it just stalls. Completely frozen. It almost always does it during some animation. Then it clears, the game resumes, you click on a card, only to find it froze again. Over and over and over again. Then you'll finally get a game finished, and it won't launch the next game. Guess it's time to go find something else to do...
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First, there's the pay to play aspect.
Online Dominion and physical cards Dominion are inherently different products. Goko doesn't make any money off of the actual cards, so they shouldn't be expected to let you use all of the expansions even if you've bought them IRL.
I'm led to understand I can play the expansions if I play against someone who has them, but I haven't seen that for myself yet.
Whenever I make a game, I name it "All Expansions." I know not everyone does this, but that's something you could look out for.
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Online Dominion and physical cards Dominion are inherently different products. Goko doesn't make any money off of the actual cards, so they shouldn't be expected to let you use all of the expansions even if you've bought them IRL.
I understand that. But it still would require me to pay twice over, and I'm not keen on doing that.
This is simply why "I" won't pay, not a reason for them to not do it at all.
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Online Dominion and physical cards Dominion are inherently different products. Goko doesn't make any money off of the actual cards, so they shouldn't be expected to let you use all of the expansions even if you've bought them IRL.
I understand that. But it still would require me to pay twice over, and I'm not keen on doing that.
This is simply why "I" won't pay, not a reason for them to not do it at all.
You know it's only $40 for all the cards, right? I'd say that's a hell of a deal, personally. For the price of one physical set, you get 187 Kingdom cards online.
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I do play online, but only solo games against the bots. I enjoy the game but I`m not very good at it. I don`t play multiplayer dominion for the same reason I don`t play multiplayer anything; elitism.
There`s a lot of it, particularly in a game like this.
When I see posts along the lines of "Then he played a village, can you believe that n00b? Lolz facepalm", or threads encouraging players to mock other players (I believe there`s such a thread here somewhere), then it`s a "no thanks" from me.
So:
1. Bots are patient. There`ll be no comments if I take more than 3 seconds to play a card.
2. Bots don`t mock.
3. And for me, the bots provide enough of a challenge for the mediocre players such as me.
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Which thread are you referring to? I don't doubt you, but I haven't thought of this community as one that mocks beginners. Obviously I'm biased, but the whole point of this website was originally to help beginners :).
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I do play online, but only solo games against the bots. I enjoy the game but I`m not very good at it. I don`t play multiplayer dominion for the same reason I don`t play multiplayer anything; elitism.
There`s a lot of it, particularly in a game like this.
When I see posts along the lines of "Then he played a village, can you believe that n00b? Lolz facepalm", or threads encouraging players to mock other players (I believe there`s such a thread here somewhere), then it`s a "no thanks" from me.
So:
1. Bots are patient. There`ll be no comments if I take more than 3 seconds to play a card.
2. Bots don`t mock.
3. And for me, the bots provide enough of a challenge for the mediocre players such as me.
We were all beginners at some point, except maybe -Stef- I used to ovebuy villages, grabbing as many as I could before buying a single Silver. I would put tons and tons of terminal actions in my deck with no villages. I thought Chapel was the worse card and saw no use for it. But, you are right, there is also a certain level of competiveness that comes with Dominion. Anyway, my suggestion is to play against players of a similiar skill level to you. Currently, Goko does not have good matchmaking, but you can click on a persons avatar and see what their level is and whether or not they are close to you in level.
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Which thread are you referring to? I don't doubt you, but I haven't thought of this community as one that mocks beginners. Obviously I'm biased, but the whole point of this website was originally to help beginners :).
Well, I think it's fair to say that the term "village idiot" in Dominion can be construed by a newbie as a hostile term.
We joke about it and all, but I could see how someone reads a post on how a newbie plays 5 villages in a row and succeeds in only buying another village. In fact, I know there's a sig out there that highlights that. It's hilarious, sure, even though I used to be a village idiot, but not everyone can appreciate that kind of humor, especially if it pokes fun at their mistake.
I'll still poke fun at it, but I hope that the person realizes that I've made similar mistakes.
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When I see posts along the lines of "Then he played a village, can you believe that n00b? Lolz facepalm", or threads encouraging players to mock other players (I believe there`s such a thread here somewhere), then it`s a "no thanks" from me.
Obviously, none of us here would make that comment. (This is because playing a Village is nearly always a good move; it's buying the Village in the first place that may not be great.)
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it's really hard to keep track of what the bots do. You can see your turn, but they the bots go, the card bounce around the screen, some pretty lights flicker, and then it's your turn.
Set the animation speed to a slower setting. I use "normal" when I want to know what the opponent is doing, if that's still too fast for you there's still the "slow" setting.
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Which thread are you referring to? I don't doubt you, but I haven't thought of this community as one that mocks beginners. Obviously I'm biased, but the whole point of this website was originally to help beginners :).
Maybe it also the "Dear my opponent, I'm sorry", which from times to times turns from "Dear my opponent, I'm sorry I had so much luck" to "Dear my opponent, I'm sorry I'm so much better than you".
Anyway, I think on isotropic itself you don't experience that much elitism, you experience random idiots on the internetz. I don't think many of the people playing reasonable well behave like that, but you just meet people on all skill ranges that does not know how to behave, independently of if they can play the game or not.
There are enough people that have complained about my noob-deck build up to long and l2p and I only got lucky in the end because they couldn't double Province unluckily (with the fact that they don't have $16 in the deck having no influence to that at all). But that's not the majority, and I don't think it's elitism, it's just idiots. [Or I don't fully know the meaning of the word, which can as well be. But for me elitism includes at least a certain level of skill, and not only the (wrong) assumption that you have some.]
And these people that complain and even spam you are too slow, I think everybody agrees that this is nonsense, this is not a RTS, and sometimes it takes time to figure out which strategy to go, remember your deck or decide which card to buy…
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First, there's the pay to play aspect. I can play for free, but against bots, I'm stuck with basic dominion. I'm led to understand I can play the expansions if I play against someone who has them, but I haven't seen that for myself yet. The thing is, I have base set, and what this tells me is that they expect me to pay twice for each box. Once at anywhere between $25 and $60, depending on where I buy it to get the box to my house, and then again to be able to use those cards on Goko. I understand that not all players have the cards at home. Paying extra makes sense for people who don't want the cards taking up space, or who just prefer an online game to a RL game. Not that I have any suggestions for how to fix that problem...
When I started this thread, I had no clue that this complaint would come up so many separate times. I understand that people don't want to pay. I mean, I understand that. But expecting to play for free online just because you own all the cards at home is a bit ridiculous. These are two separate products, and expecting to play with the cards you already have at home is the same as expecting Goko to make no money.
Isotropic Dominion was done in Doug's spare time (in a cave! with spare parts!) He did it without expectation of payment. Which is great! It makes him even more awesome than the chicken thing did. But we shouldn't expect the same from everyone. I can't understand this attitude. Not wanting to pay for a beta product, that I get. Not wanting to pay for a product at all... what the hell?
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When I started this thread, I had no clue that this complaint would come up so many separate times. I understand that people don't want to pay. I mean, I understand that. But expecting to play for free online just because you own all the cards at home is a bit ridiculous. These are two separate products, and expecting to play with the cards you already have at home is the same as expecting Goko to make no money.
I love being misunderstood. Especially when it happens more than once.
At no point did I say that I thought Goko should be free or that they should make no money. All I said was that I've already paid once, and do not want to pay again. Which means for me, I will only be able to play basic set most of the time. Yes, they should make money. No, there is no way for them to know if I have the cards, or that it should even matter.
It's a matter of budgeting. Do I spend the money to pay for something I already bought so I can play against strangers around the world (which is not a bad thing), or spend the money so I can play with my friends every Saturday? For me, I'm gonna go with the physical copy.
The question was why am I not playing Goko? I don't want to pay again, with Iso doing more for me. And that's likely why Iso dominion will eventually go away, it makes them no money and steals players from them.
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It makes him even more awesome than the chicken thing did. But we shouldn't expect the same from everyone.
I don't know. There are tons of people putting stuff for free on the internet, but I haven't seen another chicken talk...
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When I started this thread, I had no clue that this complaint would come up so many separate times. I understand that people don't want to pay. I mean, I understand that. But expecting to play for free online just because you own all the cards at home is a bit ridiculous. These are two separate products, and expecting to play with the cards you already have at home is the same as expecting Goko to make no money.
I love being misunderstood. Especially when it happens more than once.
At no point did I say that I thought Goko should be free or that they should make no money. All I said was that I've already paid once, and do not want to pay again. Which means for me, I will only be able to play basic set most of the time. Yes, they should make money. No, there is no way for them to know if I have the cards, or that it should even matter.
It's a matter of budgeting. Do I spend the money to pay for something I already bought so I can play against strangers around the world (which is not a bad thing), or spend the money so I can play with my friends every Saturday? For me, I'm gonna go with the physical copy.
The question was why am I not playing Goko? I don't want to pay again, with Iso doing more for me. And that's likely why Iso dominion will eventually go away, it makes them no money and steals players from them.
So what I'm hearing you say is that playing Dominion online is not valuable to you, or at least not worth as much to you as Goko is charging. That's fine.
You're being "misunderstood" because what you've said (repeatedly) is that you're not keen on paying for things twice. What we're trying to tell you is that you're not paying for anything twice because the physical product and the digital product are two different products. They're similar, but you're not paying "twice" for anything. Get it?
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I can understand the "paying twice" comments because I prefer to play against friends in person. So for me playing online is the same people and same cards as I play offline.
I do appreciate the adverures concept, though I am discouraged by the handicap system they decided to use.
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Man, Goko is depressing. Around a month ago I decided to stop playing on Iso and start playing on Goko. Going to have to start playing on Goko if I want to play Dominion online, right? Spend some of that hard earned income tax refund on the full game, right?
I ended up basically not playing for a month. I got back on Iso a few days ago, weary and homesick.
The competition feels crazy weak. It feels a lot like I'm just *wasting* time on Goko. I'm not saying this to be cocky or whatever. I'm bad at Dominion. I don't feel like I'm going to get any better playing people on Goko.
The interface is not fun to use. It's really graphically oriented, but not in any sort of elegant or useful way. The interface just uses a lot pictures. This waxes from mundane/annoying (Why is the game lobby filled with games I can't even interact with, awesome), to the infuriating (cards stacking due to draw effects/ cards shifting during discarding which leads to misclicks)
To me, it feels awfully stupid to make an avatar just to represent you in the lobby. I'm sure that people love that or whatever, but when asked to create an avatar just so I have picture next to my face it makes me feel stupid (even if it is a pirate). That's the kind of person I am I guess.
Also ads. I'd imagine these go away somehow?
Finding a game is way harder than it should be. Both the matchmaking/vetting process, actually having an opponent to occupy the other side of the board.
For my playing experience, Adventures could basically not exist. In fact the only times I played Adventures was when I couldn't find a game but still wanted that sweet Dominion fix.
Why can't I block people?
Still excited for Guilds.
It's (possibly) worth noting that all of this changes a lot if some sort of structured tournament is happening.
tl;dr Product not designed for my preferred method of usage/style of play. Not worth price (for me); will elect to stop playing Dominion online after Iso goes down barring major interface changes/tournament availability. Still excited for Guilds.
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So depressing.
I keep getting encouraged by what others are saying about how much better Goko is now (and to be honest when I can get it to work it does seem that a bunch of the annoyances have been ironed out).... but.... but.... it keeps on bugging out on me.
Tried to play two games on Goko tonight. First one froze up completely about 3/4 of the way through the game and wouldn't unfreeze. Second game when I went into it the screen was mostly black with just one or two cards visible (and nothing clickable). Then this bizarre little mini version of the game started in what looked like a half sized dialog box.... I managed to play three coppers and then freeze again....
So depressing. I want to like. I want it to work. I can't. It won't.
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Just tried going over to Goko.
I quit, reasons.:
-No automatch, finding a game is a pain in the ass - the biggest problem for sure.
-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
-No misclick protection - this makes game so much more frustrating.
-No point counter, I'm too used to that thing.
-Fast mode too slow, very fast too fast. Biggest issue here is not being able to see opponent's moves and choices. This leads to being forced to open log every damn turn.
-UI still wonky - manly cause of ill positioned buttons on top right which makes things too slow/misclicks too easy to do.
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Re: the first two: I'll play with you sometime if you don't mind my recording it.
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Just tried going over to Goko.
I quit, reasons.:
-No automatch, finding a game is a pain in the ass - the biggest problem for sure.
-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
-No misclick protection - this makes game so much more frustrating.
-No point counter, I'm too used to that thing.
-Fast mode too slow, very fast too fast. Biggest issue here is not being able to see opponent's moves and choices. This leads to being forced to open log every damn turn.
-UI still wonky - manly cause of ill positioned buttons on top right which makes things too slow/misclicks too easy to do.
I agree with you on automatch. And, being someone who does own all the sets, I agree, they should make it easy to tell who owns what cards. And, I do agree with you on the misclick preventation. It isn't the end of the world, but annoying. Also, I would like a point counter. You should PM Dr. Held (is that right, or is his name Keld?) Last I heard, he was working on a point counter extension that works on Goko. And, I do agree about the whole log issue. I can usually track what is happening on super fast, but I sometimes miss something. I usually bring up the log once or twice each game.
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Just tried going over to Goko.
I quit, reasons.:
-No automatch, finding a game is a pain in the ass - the biggest problem for sure.
-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
-No misclick protection - this makes game so much more frustrating.
-No point counter, I'm too used to that thing.
-Fast mode too slow, very fast too fast. Biggest issue here is not being able to see opponent's moves and choices. This leads to being forced to open log every damn turn.
-UI still wonky - manly cause of ill positioned buttons on top right which makes things too slow/misclicks too easy to do.
I agree with you on automatch. And, being someone who does own all the sets, I agree, they should make it easy to tell who owns what cards. And, I do agree with you on the misclick preventation. It isn't the end of the world, but annoying. Also, I would like a point counter. You should PM Dr. Held (is that right, or is his name Keld?) Last I heard, he was working on a point counter extension that works on Goko. And, I do agree about the whole log issue. I can usually track what is happening on super fast, but I sometimes miss something. I usually bring up the log once or twice each game.
Log thing is probably cause I'm not used to it.
And dividing players in "rooms" sure doesn't help finding a match..
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It's not merely that Goko costs money. It's that it costs money to buy something worse than what I already get for free at iso. Lack of automatch is the main problem; the amount of time it takes to get a game is another big factor. (I like the interface, except sometimes it's hard to figure out what my opponents did.) I am a grad student and I don't have much cash laying around to spend on games.
I don't know how much it's just a question of being used to iso and disliking goko merely for being different, but the textyness of iso makes it easier to follow the game.
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Dr Held is on a 3 month tour of Asia. So I doubt he is going to be hacking on much.
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Just tried going over to Goko.
I quit, reasons.:
-No automatch, finding a game is a pain in the ass - the biggest problem for sure.
-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
-No misclick protection - this makes game so much more frustrating.
-No point counter, I'm too used to that thing.
-Fast mode too slow, very fast too fast. Biggest issue here is not being able to see opponent's moves and choices. This leads to being forced to open log every damn turn.
-UI still wonky - manly cause of ill positioned buttons on top right which makes things too slow/misclicks too easy to do.
I agree with you on automatch. And, being someone who does own all the sets, I agree, they should make it easy to tell who owns what cards. And, I do agree with you on the misclick preventation. It isn't the end of the world, but annoying. Also, I would like a point counter. You should PM Dr. Held (is that right, or is his name Keld?) Last I heard, he was working on a point counter extension that works on Goko. And, I do agree about the whole log issue. I can usually track what is happening on super fast, but I sometimes miss something. I usually bring up the log once or twice each game.
Log thing is probably cause I'm not used to it.
And dividing players in "rooms" sure doesn't help finding a match..
I agree that the room divisions are a problem. What I wish is that there is a room (or rooms) reserved for pro matches. That way at least you don't have to wait through a bunch of non-pro games to get someone playing a pro game. Of course, auto match would solve this, especially if it is not limited to matching you with players in the same room.
As for the problem of base only games, there are two solutions. One is simply to live with it, the other is to buy the cards yourself and start your own games.
However, my experience is that the majority of the time I join someone elses pro game, I get more than just the basic set, so I can accept the occasional basic game as the price of playing free.
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I think the biggest reason I don't play on goko is the interface. On my turn, I pretty much know what's going on. However, on my opponents turn (especially against AI) all I see is a lots of cards moving around the board and then its my turn again. I look at the log to figure out what my opponent did, and it takes me a full minute to learn that my opponent played an ironmonger and a witch and bought a gold. The logs really need some formatting.
Additionally, whenever some plays militia, I always thinks it's my turn so I try to play my witch. That ends badly. Maybe a warning should be implemented if you're discarding something besides victory cards, curses, or coppers.
These are also my problems with it. It's all UI.
I have animations on fast, because I don't want to waste time and be annoyed by watching the animations. But that means I have to open and close the log every damn turn. I think you'd have to have animations on slow and pay super-close attention to avoid that. Or just not care about what the other players do on your turn. I'm sure lots of casual players don't care, but I play competitively.
That log is way more difficult to read than on isotropic. It's just a wall of text with no color or formating, and lots of unnecessary repetition. Talk about a non-graphical interface! Scrolling up is also incredibly wonky. I find myself using the scroll wheel on my mouse, which doesn't work of course. So you have to grab that scrollbar. But it seems when you first click the scrollbar, you're stuck dragging it, even the next time you open the log? I think you have to click again to un-grab?? Something non-intuitive anyway. Really really annoying stuff.
When you have to click several cards, after each card, the others get a little "activation animation", which is NOT any faster when you set animation to fast. Selecting several cards should be just that: selecting - like on iso. You check the cards, THEN do the thing, discard or whatever. This would be much more convenient, and would save you from accidentally discarding your Witch to a Militia attack because you think it's your turn. Also, trashing each card in turn (with e.g. Chapel) is wrong rules-wise: You trash them all at once. Even if this works correctly on Goko now, it gives the wrong impression to the player: It seems each card is trashed after the other.
More about selecing cards: I played with Schemes (lots of them), and a more-or-less self-drawing deck. With lots of cards in play, I had to select those card slivers. They were not grouped at all. It was impossible to see what I was selecting: the only thing that identified them was a sliver of the card art at the side. When actually selecting a card to Scheme, it moved to the front of the huge line of cards for some reason, but was otherwise not marked. If I wanted to look at a card sliver (to see what card i was), I could do that by pulling it out I think. This did not Scheme it (which is good), but it DID move to the front of the line! So which cards had I actually Schemed? Impossible to tell. A nightmare. Isotropic does this well.
Intuitiveness and chat: When opening the chat window, I find myself clicking in the textbox to start typing there. This works horribly, as I could easily click on a card below the textbox. So even if this is HTML-based, they are using "proprietary" textboxes that work differently than everybody is used to on the web. You can't use Home or End or arrow keys to edit what you write. A typing mistake at the beginning means you have to delete everything you wrote and start over, or just post it anyway. Why..??
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I HATE the chat system they use right now. I can't even paste a link. I was going to copy+paste the link to the PPR blog post to help someone but then I realized something... I CAN NOT PASTE! T.T
I also dislike the fact that I can't ignore/mute someone and if they decide to be a jerk well then... I have to put up with it until the game ends.
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I gave Goko a try today.
It was fun to play one duel of dark ages. I couldn't the card so I lost it badly but it worked fine.
Second game, I tried to play a three handed game. I played a rat and didn't draw any cards. The other persons started to become annoyed in the chat. I couldn't respond even though i could read the chat. Refreshing the page made me come back to the login screen. Kind of disappointed that they can't handle disconnections.
Stefan
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I gave Goko a try today.
It was fun to play one duel of dark ages. I couldn't the card so I lost it badly but it worked fine.
Second game, I tried to play a three handed game. I played a rat and didn't draw any cards. The other persons started to become annoyed in the chat. I couldn't respond even though i could read the chat. Refreshing the page made me come back to the login screen. Kind of disappointed that they can't handle disconnections.
Stefan
The update in a few days has diconnects/reconnects handled.
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I gave Goko a try today.
It was fun to play one duel of dark ages. I couldn't the card so I lost it badly but it worked fine.
Second game, I tried to play a three handed game. I played a rat and didn't draw any cards. The other persons started to become annoyed in the chat. I couldn't respond even though i could read the chat. Refreshing the page made me come back to the login screen. Kind of disappointed that they can't handle disconnections.
Stefan
The update in a few days has diconnects/reconnects handled.
Awesome. Where did you found this info?
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I gave Goko a try today.
It was fun to play one duel of dark ages. I couldn't the card so I lost it badly but it worked fine.
Second game, I tried to play a three handed game. I played a rat and didn't draw any cards. The other persons started to become annoyed in the chat. I couldn't respond even though i could read the chat. Refreshing the page made me come back to the login screen. Kind of disappointed that they can't handle disconnections.
Stefan
The update in a few days has diconnects/reconnects handled.
Awesome. Where did you found this info?
The private beta with alchemy has it. And has for about a month
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I gave Goko a try today.
It was fun to play one duel of dark ages. I couldn't the card so I lost it badly but it worked fine.
Second game, I tried to play a three handed game. I played a rat and didn't draw any cards. The other persons started to become annoyed in the chat. I couldn't respond even though i could read the chat. Refreshing the page made me come back to the login screen. Kind of disappointed that they can't handle disconnections.
Stefan
The update in a few days has diconnects/reconnects handled.
Awesome. Where did you found this info?
The private beta with alchemy has it. And has for about a month
It also has a much better store layout.
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These are also my problems with it. It's all UI.
I have animations on fast, because I don't want to waste time and be annoyed by watching the animations. But that means I have to open and close the log every damn turn. I think you'd have to have animations on slow and pay super-close attention to avoid that. Or just not care about what the other players do on your turn. I'm sure lots of casual players don't care, but I play competitively.
That log is way more difficult to read than on isotropic. It's just a wall of text with no color or formating, and lots of unnecessary repetition. Talk about a non-graphical interface! Scrolling up is also incredibly wonky. I find myself using the scroll wheel on my mouse, which doesn't work of course. So you have to grab that scrollbar. But it seems when you first click the scrollbar, you're stuck dragging it, even the next time you open the log? I think you have to click again to un-grab?? Something non-intuitive anyway. Really really annoying stuff.
I'm not doing justice to your list, but you're pretty exhaustive, and with each new paragraph I just wonder how this is every going to work if Goko's strategy is to have the player base ask them to fix each and every one of these. These are the kinds of things that make me think when Isotropic goes down I'll just stop playing.
A question to software people...Does anybody have any insight into why Goko has gotten so many of these small things wrong when Isotropic was designed, well, by a guy in a cave with spare parts, etc.? As a non-software-guy, I just don't get how Goko could be biffing so badly when DougZ did it in his spare time.
Honestly, any insights would be fascinating.
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These are also my problems with it. It's all UI.
I have animations on fast, because I don't want to waste time and be annoyed by watching the animations. But that means I have to open and close the log every damn turn. I think you'd have to have animations on slow and pay super-close attention to avoid that. Or just not care about what the other players do on your turn. I'm sure lots of casual players don't care, but I play competitively.
That log is way more difficult to read than on isotropic. It's just a wall of text with no color or formating, and lots of unnecessary repetition. Talk about a non-graphical interface! Scrolling up is also incredibly wonky. I find myself using the scroll wheel on my mouse, which doesn't work of course. So you have to grab that scrollbar. But it seems when you first click the scrollbar, you're stuck dragging it, even the next time you open the log? I think you have to click again to un-grab?? Something non-intuitive anyway. Really really annoying stuff.
I'm not doing justice to your list, but you're pretty exhaustive, and with each new paragraph I just wonder how this is every going to work if Goko's strategy is to have the player base ask them to fix each and every one of these. These are the kinds of things that make me think when Isotropic goes down I'll just stop playing.
A question to software people...Does anybody have any insight into why Goko has gotten so many of these small things wrong when Isotropic was designed, well, by a guy in a cave with spare parts, etc.? As a non-software-guy, I just don't get how Goko could be biffing so badly when DougZ did it in his spare time.
Honestly, any insights would be fascinating.
My thinking is talent level. 10 entry level programmers are not the same as 1 good programmer. I doubt Goko is using entry level, but all the same, I think if you are going to be breaking new ground (building an HTML5 gaming platform) you really need a high caliber team.
As for the simple things that they miss on, that's definitely an experience thing, in my opinion. You can get a great coder to work on your UI, but if he's not a UI guy, he's probably going to make some pretty obvious mistakes.
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These are also my problems with it. It's all UI.
I have animations on fast, because I don't want to waste time and be annoyed by watching the animations. But that means I have to open and close the log every damn turn. I think you'd have to have animations on slow and pay super-close attention to avoid that. Or just not care about what the other players do on your turn. I'm sure lots of casual players don't care, but I play competitively.
That log is way more difficult to read than on isotropic. It's just a wall of text with no color or formating, and lots of unnecessary repetition. Talk about a non-graphical interface! Scrolling up is also incredibly wonky. I find myself using the scroll wheel on my mouse, which doesn't work of course. So you have to grab that scrollbar. But it seems when you first click the scrollbar, you're stuck dragging it, even the next time you open the log? I think you have to click again to un-grab?? Something non-intuitive anyway. Really really annoying stuff.
I'm not doing justice to your list, but you're pretty exhaustive, and with each new paragraph I just wonder how this is every going to work if Goko's strategy is to have the player base ask them to fix each and every one of these. These are the kinds of things that make me think when Isotropic goes down I'll just stop playing.
A question to software people...Does anybody have any insight into why Goko has gotten so many of these small things wrong when Isotropic was designed, well, by a guy in a cave with spare parts, etc.? As a non-software-guy, I just don't get how Goko could be biffing so badly when DougZ did it in his spare time.
Honestly, any insights would be fascinating.
My thinking is talent level. 10 entry level programmers are not the same as 1 good programmer. I doubt Goko is using entry level, but all the same, I think if you are going to be breaking new ground (building an HTML5 gaming platform) you really need a high caliber team.
As for the simple things that they miss on, that's definitely an experience thing, in my opinion. You can get a great coder to work on your UI, but if he's not a UI guy, he's probably going to make some pretty obvious mistakes.
It also helps that DougZ was very familiar with the game.
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Also, Isotropic doesnt have to deal with any of the fancy graphics and UI and AI and all those things.
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Also, many current users of Isotropic would not tolerate playing on the first public version of Isotropic. I started playing on Iso in summer 2010, there was no levels/rank of any kind, no automatch, limited to like 20 players on the server, no image mode, no point tracker, no veto mode, no status in the lobby, pretty sure there was no identical starting hands mode, only one lobby, and no game logs.
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Also, many current users of Isotropic would not tolerate playing on the first public version of Isotropic. I started playing on Iso in summer 2010, there was no levels/rank of any kind, no automatch, limited to like 20 players on the server, no image mode, no point tracker, no veto mode, no status in the lobby, pretty sure there was no identical starting hands mode, only one lobby, and no game logs.
I played on isotropic when all of these things weren't there yet, except image mode. I remember I thought it was several magnitudes better than BSW. And I'm certain I would think it was better than Goko too.
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I liked it a lot more than BSW too. My point was that there are a decent number of things people want to see in Goko that weren't in Iso from the start; it takes time to get in all the things people want, and Goko's been working at that.
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At the time I started playing on Iso, the main thing Iso had over BSW was the cards. BSW had something like 8 cards from some (not all) of the expansions. Iso had them all. Now, of course, Iso has a ton of things that are better... many of which Goko are now (theoretically) working on.
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Also, Isotropic doesnt have to deal with any of the fancy graphics and UI and AI and all those things.
That's a poor excuse. The graphics are NOT fancy or difficult to code. These are very routine things to deal with. 2D UI is pretty well established as to how it should work, and how you are supposed to put things together programming wise.
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I tried Goko again today. Goko does not lag for me with Firefox 18 like it did with 17. So I am happy the performance issues were taken care of there. It still crashed once when I was playing Adventures (out of 5 games) and once when loading a multiplayer game (out of 2 games), though.
All the cards are released, I have not had any major problems lately, and I have enjoyed the experience enough to finally make the $40 purchase (using PayPal).
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I tried Goko again today. Goko does not lag for me with Firefox 18 like it did with 17. So I am happy the performance issues were taken care of there. It still crashed once when I was playing Adventures (out of 5 games) and once when loading a multiplayer game (out of 2 games), though.
All the cards are released, I have not had any major problems lately, and I have enjoyed the experience enough to finally make the $40 purchase (using PayPal).
Are the Alchemy cards available now to non-early-adopters?
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I tried Goko again today. Goko does not lag for me with Firefox 18 like it did with 17. So I am happy the performance issues were taken care of there. It still crashed once when I was playing Adventures (out of 5 games) and once when loading a multiplayer game (out of 2 games), though.
All the cards are released, I have not had any major problems lately, and I have enjoyed the experience enough to finally make the $40 purchase (using PayPal).
Are the Alchemy cards available now to non-early-adopters?
yes
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-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
I wonder if they could program in next to the picture of the person hosting a game a little letter for each of the expansions you might be playing with. "D" for base set, "S" for seaside, etc... This would help to avoid those base only games that many of us don't like playing.
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-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
I wonder if they could program in next to the picture of the person hosting a game a little letter for each of the expansions you might be playing with. "D" for base set, "S" for seaside, etc... This would help to avoid those base only games that many of us don't like playing.
It also makes it easier for us who do own all the expansions.
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Goko now has all current sets, with Alchemy just gone public. So for those using that as their reason, it is no longer valid.
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Goko now has all current sets, with Alchemy just gone public. So for those using that as their reason, it is no longer valid.
Yup. I've been trying to have a mostly-working weekend, so I haven't had the chance to buy and play. But my boycott is at an end, not that many people will actually care. :)
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Goko now has all current sets, with Alchemy just gone public. So for those using that as their reason, it is no longer valid.
Yeah, and $45 for everything is a steal. I like your videos by the way.
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-If you want "pro" leaderboard, you cannot see what expansions are included in the game, and you most likely end up in a base only game, which you don't want to play.
I wonder if they could program in next to the picture of the person hosting a game a little letter for each of the expansions you might be playing with. "D" for base set, "S" for seaside, etc... This would help to avoid those base only games that many of us don't like playing.
I think "D" would probably be Dark Ages, but I like your idea. If the letters just indicated which sets the game's creator owns, you wouldn't even need a letter for the base set.
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Goko now has all current sets, with Alchemy just gone public. So for those using that as their reason, it is no longer valid.
Yeah, and $45 for everything is a steal. I like your videos by the way.
Thank you very much!
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I tried Goko again today. Goko does not lag for me with Firefox 18 like it did with 17. So I am happy the performance issues were taken care of there. It still crashed once when I was playing Adventures (out of 5 games) and once when loading a multiplayer game (out of 2 games), though.
All the cards are released, I have not had any major problems lately, and I have enjoyed the experience enough to finally make the $40 purchase (using PayPal).
Are the Alchemy cards available now to non-early-adopters?
Yes
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Here are my reasons at the moment (not particularly in any order):
1. Cards - I have access to all the cards prior to DA on Isotropic for free. All things considered $45 for all the cards is a pretty good deal (particularly as I haven't bought them IRL yet), but for now Isotropic is a better option as I am learning the game.
2. More game options - I am still pretty new to Dominion so I am still working on learning the different cards and how to play them in different situations. On Isotropic I can limit or bias automatch selections based on expansion and so far this isn't an option on Goko. So when I played some Goko I would be thrown into a few games full of Dark Ages cards and/or with a lot of cards I'm unfamiliar with, which would make the games a lot harder for me and I can't really ease my way into the different decks like I can on Isotropic. I don't really choose to use the point tracker or veto on Isotropic (I usually automatch with don't care on both settings, so I'm willing to play with them, but don't by default) and some options like this would be nice to have available on Goko.
3. No automatch / smaller userbase - This is obviously a common complaint. Often there aren't many open games at any one point and even if you create one there isn't really any assurance that the player you play will be around your skill level (though of course you can kick them out, it just seems a bit inefficient). The userbase will obviously increase once Goko leaves the beta phase and Isotropic is ended, but everyone will not necessarily migrate over, the amount of cards people have will be variable rather than unified, and there still is not an effective way to match similar-skilled players.
4. User Interface - First, one of my main problems is the in-game chat log. I personally don't really go back and look at my game logs, but that also seems to be an issue. However, I do want to know what is happening in the game and sometimes its really hard to get that on Goko. I want to be able to see what my opponent played and did and sometimes its difficult to tell with the animations either being too fast or too slow. The Goko Log parser looks like its great, though I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but I do to some extent still have a problem that some people may have access to that while others might not, giving the group using it an advantage (even if its the same information), and how its something that should really be implemented into the game itself. Second, it would be nice to have some sort of safety against misclicks like Isotropic has. Sometimes I get impatient and wind up misclicking, I have been Militia'd and thinking it was my turn I have accidently discarded a Witch (secondary complaint, though there are color differences in the aura around the cards from attacks and your turn, it still is somewhat subtle and easy to misclick with) which could be helped by some sort of confirmation quickly, and the other cases that Isotropic seems to defend against. Thirdly, hand organization. Fourth, those avatars?
5. Unreliability - I haven't played Goko as much recently and I have heard that it has been getting better and more reliable (though there are still some complaints of crashing), but I had some trouble with crashing if I had more than a few other windows open in Chrome other than Goko. I saw that there now is rejoining upon disconnecting, but I haven't tested it yet. I see that as a positive step though.
6. Rankings - The rankings on Isotropic seem much more straightforward and there has seemed to be less variation for me in the rankings on Isotropic than on Goko, though part of that may be that Iso is updated daily rather than after every game like Goko. Though the systems are supposed to be similar I feel like sometimes there are ridiculous point swings for me on Goko. I think that I've had some games on Goko that I have won yet lost points (or maybe gained a very, very small amount of points) and I am no expert in the game, just okay and sometimes playing the only game I can really get, which goes back to the smaller userbase and lack of automatch. Its also much harder to understand really where I stand with the rankings. Yes, there is a leaderboard, but thats a lot more relative and the levels on Isotropic, though not all-encompassing, give a more discrete idea of position.
7. Distrust of the company - There have been a lot of complaints about Goko's communication and relation to the community, and though I haven't been around for a lot of it, that is what I have seen so far. The failed beta launch being the premier example. Past that, there seems to often be a lack of communication by Goko with the community and I don't feel totally confident in the extent that they are listening to our concerns. This has been particularly prescient following the departure of a few staff from the company, particularly trisha, who seemed to be more involved in the community. To be fair, they have held some Q&A's and seem to be working on some of the things that this community has looked at. I also in principle dislike secondary currency units instead of just paying in straight dollars (both here on Goko and even things like Xbox live marketplace) and don't like how they just recently upped some of the prices as Alchemy came out, though they do have the right to set prices where they see fit. Some of the problems hurt my confidence in general about the product and my willingness to put down the money for the cards in a virtual format when the platform may or may not be there in the future.
Overall, I do plan to play more on Goko and make a switch when it leaves beta. However, I still have some misgivings and right now I feel like isotropic is simpler and preferable to me at the moment. I will probably wait a bit, but will likely try and buy all the cards at some point, maybe once I gain more confidence in Goko overall.
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I think for learning the game Goko is actually better than Iso - mostly because there are bots. Bots are patient, if you want to take 5 minutes to think midgame, they won't be annoyed.
To avoid getting overwhelmed by cards, I think it's best to go in 3 steps:
- learn basics playing Base,
- get Big Pack of Intrigue, Seaside, Prosperity which will keep you busy for some time and learn you a lot as those sets contain many interesting cards,
- get everything else and play the full game.
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Two main reasons:
1 - I dislike the interface a LOT. To the point where I wouldn't play it even if it was completely free. If I'm playing a board game online, I want it to cut out the cruft that necessarily comes with IRL play (physically moving cards around the screen, noises, annoying colours and animations etc etc etc), not add to it. I really, REALLY like the stripped-down, nonsense implementation of Iso; I'm here because I enjoy the mechanics of the game, not the look of it. Iso puts those foremost, goko does not.
2 - Security concerns. I've heard enough problems with Goko's security that I just don't trust them with my $$$ (well, specifically with my card details, but whatever).
Add to that a whole host of minor issues, mostly to do with gameplay, speed of play, and the implementation of a number of features, and my general preference for Iso, and my having gotten a little bored with Dominion in general recently, and you get me not being remotely interested in Goko.
When Iso dies, so will my online play of Dominion. But it's OK, I have Through The Ages.
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Two main reasons:
2 - Security concerns. I've heard enough problems with Goko's security that I just don't trust them with my $$$ (well, specifically with my card details, but whatever).
I guess i'll be the first to remind you (and anyone else that lists this as a concern) that Goko never sees your card info, you pay through paypal, which is secure enough.
I'm not trying to convince you to play on goko, your other concerns are valid enough to keep you away if you want to, you just don't need to list security (when it comes to money) as a reason to stay away.
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Also, many current users of Isotropic would not tolerate playing on the first public version of Isotropic. I started playing on Iso in summer 2010, there was no levels/rank of any kind, no automatch, limited to like 20 players on the server, no image mode, no point tracker, no veto mode, no status in the lobby, pretty sure there was no identical starting hands mode, only one lobby, and no game logs.
Imagine how Isotropic would be today if all these incremental improvements had continued! Naturally they more or less stopped after Goko it was clear that Isotopic will disappear soonish anyway.
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Honestly I think the reason I'm not playing on Goko currently is that I can't decide whether to attach my Google account to it (for Walled Village). And if I choose wrongly, then I've spent a bunch of money to attach cards to an account I don't want.
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Also, many current users of Isotropic would not tolerate playing on the first public version of Isotropic. I started playing on Iso in summer 2010, there was no levels/rank of any kind, no automatch, limited to like 20 players on the server, no image mode, no point tracker, no veto mode, no status in the lobby, pretty sure there was no identical starting hands mode, only one lobby, and no game logs.
Imagine how Isotropic would be today if all these incremental improvements had continued! Naturally they more or less stopped after Goko it was clear that Isotopic will disappear soonish anyway.
Except that Isotropic did continue incremental improvements. For the last two years.
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Honestly I think the reason I'm not playing on Goko currently is that I can't decide whether to attach my Google account to it (for Walled Village). And if I choose wrongly, then I've spent a bunch of money to attach cards to an account I don't want.
I thought they'd sorted that out, and that anyone could get Walled Village now. At least I've picked that impression up from somewhere (whether here or Goko I couldn't say).
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Honestly I think the reason I'm not playing on Goko currently is that I can't decide whether to attach my Google account to it (for Walled Village). And if I choose wrongly, then I've spent a bunch of money to attach cards to an account I don't want.
I thought they'd sorted that out, and that anyone could get Walled Village now. At least I've picked that impression up from somewhere (whether here or Goko I couldn't say).
For some time Walled Village was obviously free for everyone to get (and I got it during that timeslot), but this probably was a mistake and it was recently returned to the only-Google-state.
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Imagine how Isotropic would be today if all these incremental improvements had continued! Naturally they more or less stopped after Goko it was clear that Isotopic will disappear soonish anyway.
Except that Isotropic did continue incremental improvements. For the last two years.
I'm talking about since last summer. When dougz explained the recent Dark Ages mishap he wrote that he hadn't updated the public server since July until that small recent change which accidentally made him roll out the Dark Ages changes he checked in in August. Isotropic is already excellent as it is, but with "normal" (as earlier) improvements during this time as well it would be even more awesome. That's all.
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You know, for all your complaining, how many of you have actually played on Goko, and are not just going by what you've heard?
As only one person has complained in this thread, I will just answer this to make it two and justify the plural.
I have played beta till the first "release". I was not at all satisfied on how this beta has taken place, felt like a little low communication on what their goal is, what they are planning, someone posted something on the forums, and nobody knows if they will fix it, if it is a bug or a feature, if maybe they don't have the resources now and will do it later etc. pp.
Then there was the morning with the severe security reports and the "fine, we will fix this later; now we launch" post, the failed launch and something like $80 for the full product, where I decided to not play there unless something great happens.
And from what I have seen since then, there was nothing that convinced me. Seeing the videos there is still not a really smooth interface, it's all been posted often enough, speed is not really good (sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow), matchmaking is still not there, there's been some other don'ttrusttheclientbug after the mess at the launch. Reaction on feedback on the getsatisfaction seems to be as plentiful as in the beta. Price is still higher than an AAA game which did not have it's rules already financed by a boardgame version. Or higher than Wasteland2 and DoubleFine adventure combined. The problem with the logs had to be "solved" by an browserplugin hacking into their Javascript, the point counter will take the same route, which is not good neither if you want to have an official one nor if you don't want to have a point counter. I don't have the feeling to be the target audience, I actually don't have the impression they have a target audience. I mean, I could accept something like: "We don't have this or thus feature because target is mass market, there, X,Y and Z are more important", but to really go viral it's too expensive. I mean, I am not a marketing or internet-startup expert, but $45 is not the marginal cost that they have to let me play all cards over other cards, it's probably more like $0. So if the aim would be to really go viral, either the price would more at $0 than at $45, or (more common), you crossfinance many people that play for $0 by some people that play for $45. In which case you should have target in mind that pays $45 and polish the product such that this target is pleased. Which I don't see done, at least not see assuming I'm in this target.
/rant
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You know, for all your complaining, how many of you have actually played on Goko, and are not just going by what you've heard?
As only one person has complained in this thread, I will just answer this to make it two and justify the plural.
I have played beta till the first "release". I was not at all satisfied on how this beta has taken place, felt like a little low communication on what their goal is, what they are planning, someone posted something on the forums, and nobody knows if they will fix it, if it is a bug or a feature, if maybe they don't have the resources now and will do it later etc. pp.
Then there was the morning with the severe security reports and the "fine, we will fix this later; now we launch" post, the failed launch and something like $80 for the full product, where I decided to not play there unless something great happens.
And from what I have seen since then, there was nothing that convinced me. Seeing the videos there is still not a really smooth interface, it's all been posted often enough, speed is not really good (sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow), matchmaking is still not there, there's been some other don'ttrusttheclientbug after the mess at the launch. Reaction on feedback on the getsatisfaction seems to be as plentiful as in the beta. Price is still higher than an AAA game which did not have it's rules already financed by a boardgame version. Or higher than Wasteland2 and DoubleFine adventure combined. The problem with the logs had to be "solved" by an browserplugin hacking into their Javascript, the point counter will take the same route, which is not good neither if you want to have an official one nor if you don't want to have a point counter. I don't have the feeling to be the target audience, I actually don't have the impression they have a target audience. I mean, I could accept something like: "We don't have this or thus feature because target is mass market, there, X,Y and Z are more important", but to really go viral it's too expensive. I mean, I am not a marketing or internet-startup expert, but $45 is not the marginal cost that they have to let me play all cards over other cards, it's probably more like $0. So if the aim would be to really go viral, either the price would more at $0 than at $45, or (more common), you crossfinance many people that play for $0 by some people that play for $45. In which case you should have target in mind that pays $45 and polish the product such that this target is pleased. Which I don't see done, at least not see assuming I'm in this target.
/rant
But, the cost is $0 for the base game, and lots of people new to Dominion will play with Base first and probably gradually buy the expansions at $4 and $7. The $45 price tag is more for those of us who have played on iso for a long time and want everything at once.
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The problem with the logs had to be "solved" by an browserplugin hacking into their Javascript, the point counter will take the same route, which is not good neither if you want to have an official one nor if you don't want to have a point counter.
I don't think there's a way to prevent point counter plugins, and I certainly don't think there should be a point counter built into the game itself. We've been through all of this before, and if you're playing Dominion (rather than a variant), using a point counter other than your brain is cheating.
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The problem with the logs had to be "solved" by an browserplugin hacking into their Javascript, the point counter will take the same route, which is not good neither if you want to have an official one nor if you don't want to have a point counter.
I don't think there's a way to prevent point counter plugins, and I certainly don't think there should be a point counter built into the game itself. We've been through all of this before, and if you're playing Dominion (rather than a variant), using a point counter other than your brain is cheating.
I'm not strictly against that variant though. It has some baggage that comes with it - matchmaking that takes into account whether or not people are okay with the point counter or demand it or demand not to have it. I don't know if they will add one but it's not out of the question. And as has been pointed out, if they don't someone else will.
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But, the cost is $0 for the base game, and lots of people new to Dominion will play with Base first and probably gradually buy the expansions at $4 and $7. The $45 price tag is more for those of us who have played on iso for a long time and want everything at once.
But the game is 5 years old. How many people do you really have that are "new to Dominion" against at least the ones that are familiar with it? And also for the newbies, maybe I'm wrong, but I can't really see people paying $4 for 10 times and every time just thinking "let's play $4 to improve the game". Either you are hooked, maybe you try one expansion for $7, but after that, either you are really interested in which case you want to have the whole thing, or you are not, in which case you just stay with your base+one expansion+leaching from other players.
Maybe I'm wrong, after all they are the one with the CEO of monetarization, but I can't imagine this gradually "let's pay $4 for it again" really happen very often.
I don't think there's a way to prevent point counter plugins, and I certainly don't think there should be a point counter built into the game itself. We've been through all of this before, and if you're playing Dominion (rather than a variant), using a point counter other than your brain is cheating.
Yeah, we had this before, my opinion still is that the only way to prevent a point counter in this environment is to have the option for one already in the game, but Donald also said he can imagine Ray not liking this; and now that most of the work (finding the right code that deals with the log) is already done for the log, it would have happend anyway unless the build-in counter tells you everything.
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But the game is 5 years old. How many people do you really have that are "new to Dominion" against at least the ones that are familiar with it?
Going by sales of the physical main set, there continue to be plenty of new players.
And also for the newbies, maybe I'm wrong, but I can't really see people paying $4 for 10 times and every time just thinking "let's play $4 to improve the game". Either you are hooked, maybe you try one expansion for $7, but after that, either you are really interested in which case you want to have the whole thing, or you are not, in which case you just stay with your base+one expansion+leaching from other players.
I don't have all the data here, but I think people are leaning heavily towards buying packages rather than individual sets or halves.
Yeah, we had this before, my opinion still is that the only way to prevent a point counter in this environment is to have the option for one already in the game, but Donald also said he can imagine Ray not liking this; and now that most of the work (finding the right code that deals with the log) is already done for the log, it would have happend anyway unless the build-in counter tells you everything.
It's Jay.
I don't like the general argument some make that "if you can't stop X you should encourage it," but for sure people will have a point counter one way or another. It would be better to include it so that matchmaking can use it. Matchmaking could potentially cover it without including it but I don't see that happening.
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It's Jay.
/shame
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It's Jay.
/shame
It's not a shame, it's a fine name. It's just not "Ray."
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It's Jay.
/shame
It's not a shame, it's a fine name. It's just not "Ray."
It's a Shame About Ray...
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Re: "how many new players will there be":
A lot more people play computer games than board games. Goko will reach a far larger audience than the physical game ever could.
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Is that chat any better?
I find it so hard to get people to actually talk in the lobby's on ISO!
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Well, yeah. Talking in a lobby of 100 people gets silly if there are even 3 conversations going on. Better to talk in the game.
I do hate how I can't chat on Goko when using the iPad, though. It won't bring the keyboard up. I feel bad when my opponent tries to talk to me and I can't respond.
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Hardly anybody has a conversation when I am there though, no matter how much opening I give them!
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I'm not playing on Goko coz it demands my full attention.
I play -heavily- on Iso because I can multitask. The interface is as stripped down as I could possibly hope for. The "Your Turn" flashing browser tab is immensely helpful. I love to play fast and get into games fast without any appreciable loading time. No loading bar on Iso! The simplicity of Iso is what makes it perfect.
Also:
I hate that I cannot be "Discard Duchesses - Acquire Platinums" on Goko due to the name length constraint. I am also going to miss the entertaining (unmoderated) usernames on Iso.
I HAAAATE the overly friendly, inoffensive, generic, bland 'characters' used as avatars on Goko - they are soooooo lame. At the very least much cooler art could've been made that compliments the style of the art in the physical game.
Overall it is just so clunky and bloated for what it needs to be. Iso is the opposite - and it is perfect. If I learn that I can play on Goko using an interface that is as close as possible to Iso's fast click, no-load implementation, I'll give it another try. Hell, I'll prolly play on Goko from time to time - but they wont be getting any money from me. Much rather spend it on physical card sets - or on a sub to continue playing on Iso, for that matter.
I am an actual video game designer - for 15 years now, and I've been through my own set of catastrophes, seeing developers utter fail to understand their market. I think RGG dropped the ball here, big time. Listen to your fans. PLEASE.
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The problem with the logs had to be "solved" by an browserplugin hacking into their Javascript, the point counter will take the same route, which is not good neither if you want to have an official one nor if you don't want to have a point counter.
I don't think there's a way to prevent point counter plugins, and I certainly don't think there should be a point counter built into the game itself. We've been through all of this before, and if you're playing Dominion (rather than a variant), using a point counter other than your brain is cheating.
I'm not strictly against that variant though. It has some baggage that comes with it - matchmaking that takes into account whether or not people are okay with the point counter or demand it or demand not to have it. I don't know if they will add one but it's not out of the question. And as has been pointed out, if they don't someone else will.
drheld actually created a working goko point tracker several months ago: https://github.com/drheld/goko_dominion_extension
I used some of his code in the chrome log extension but did not include the point tracker since there isn't a way for it to communicate with the (non-existent) matchmaking process. It wouldn't be fair to players without the extension and might cause goko to make reading the logs during the game more difficult.
I would be very surprised if goko ever integrated a point tracker or log viewer; there isn't room for one on smaller devices and the whole point of their platform is its ability to run anywhere.
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I would be very surprised if goko ever integrated a point tracker or log viewer; there isn't room for one on smaller devices and the whole point of their platform is its ability to run anywhere.
I'm not sure I follow you. They implemented a log viewer; you click a button and see a log. Obv., worst case, you can stick the current score in the log. And I certainly hope they will add a buttonless log & chat for people on computers.
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Also: This (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7228.msg203421#msg203421)
I mean, this is so symptomatic of what I think about Goko. I mean, not everybody programming or giving feedback on a game have to be an ace in math or probability. But if you use an approximation to calculate something, you should
a) realize you are using an approximation
b) if this approximation gives some strange result, you should
1) realize it's a strange result (I mean come on, 3 out of 1000, why are they even in the box?)
2) apply some check to your result. You could do a sim, you could look at councilroom data, you could talk to someone else in your company.
3) At least after you got told that you made a mistake an why, you should somehow realize it
c) If you yourself don't do this, someone working with you should have done this.
This result really doesn't stand one second of critical thinking about it, neither is it plausible, nor is the approximation any bit sane, but nevertheless this is now live for I don't know how many days, and the reasoning is on the net 2 times for 10 days and both times called wrong. How can I expect anything to work in an environment that lets something like this happen, especially given the evidence that a lot of things didn't work at first?
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What is that I dont even... (regarding that probability logic)
To be fair there isn't a lot of probability knowledge that goes into programming things like this beyond realizing theres a problem that needs troubleshooting.
itd be helpfull in certain types of ai programing too I guess.
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I am an isotropic refugee who tried Goku for the first time yesterday. I tried to approach it with an open mind because it's human nature to want to avoid change, and isotropic has set a very high standard.
The good news is that the interface is polished and reflects the home game well. The graphics are beautiful and the layout pretty straightforward. I didn't experience any crashes and although there were times I suspected bugs (eg, I could swear it let me trash > 4 cards with Chapel), it may very well have been user error. Coding a clean UI is not easy no matter how many webkits there are available these days and I think the team here did a good job.
The bad news is that there are some very fundamental things missing here and, in my opinion, this is not ready for primetime until they are addressed. The most glaring problem to me is the lack of a middle ground in the UI, where one can see what's going on in the game without having to be bombarded with animations (which I'm quite certain any users who play this for any reasonable length of time are going to want to disable). The animations annoyed me after about two games so I turned my settings to "very fast" to disable them. But in this mode, the game is basically unplayable because it requires consulting the log every turn to figure out what you or your opponent did. Things like crossroad reveals and jester attacks are very cumbersome with the animations disabled (and, in fact, even in "fast" mode they don't provide enough time for old fogies like myself). I was playing one game and ended up buying three curses because I thought that they were the copper targets for my swindler. I have no idea how this managed to pass testing. Fortunately, the solution is very simple. There is plenty of space underneath the cards, and there needs to be an option (which I'd default to "on") to display text there, similar to what is written to the log. So when something is swindled, it can say "You swindled a copper..." and so forth.
The other major problem is the matching setup. First off, separating players into rooms is completely unintuitive and awkward. There is no real technical reason why the lobby can't support a huge amount of players (even if the games get hosted on different machines on the backend). Furthermore, there is no logical filtering of the games in play. I don't care about games that are in progress (which is 99% of the games at any one moment). I just want to see what's available. Ideally I could say "show me 'pro' games". More ideally, "show me 'pro' games with dark ages sets". Even more ideally "just automatch me into a 'pro' game with a dark age set". Is there any reason why everything is done manually here? All I'm doing is bouncing from room to room in search of that elusive 'pro' game that might appear, and most of the time I'm switching too late, just as if I were changing lanes in traffic only to see my original lane speed up.
Overall, I think this thing is close, but at the same time these very fundamental concepts need to be addressed before I'll be buying in. And I suspect others feel the same. And I'm hardly a "hard core" player-- this is just common sense stuff. While staying true to the board game is great, one of the advantages of a computer version is to improve on those parts that are more readily accessible (the lack of shuffling being the obvious one, but other things like text feedback of events rather than having to squint at small cards). Isotropic was an example of a system that did this in a very minimalist fashion. There's no reason Goku can't do the same while still keeping their impressive glitz factor.
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I've played goko. Here are my thoughts.
Why is this taking forever to load. Why do I have to pick an avatar? Why are these animations taking so long. Why is diving into a game taking forty minutes? What is the deal with the overblown music?
The problem probably everyone is having is not that the graphics are ugly, they're just unnecessary. They just add an extra step between you and the creamy centre of dominion. And with each additional step that comes in, the experience gets worse.
It's the difference between just sitting down at the table to play dominion IRL, vs showing up at your friends' house, introducing yourself as though you'd never met anyone, having to use his card holders to hold the cards, having to wear a pair of gloves to handle the cards, etc etc etc. Everything about goko gets in the way of the game it's supposed to be promoting.
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I think the biggest thing missing is the always-visible turn log. It is impossible to look away without missing something. Playing in real life you usually can just ask the person to either wait, or to describe their turn. On Goko it is extremely difficult to follow opponents' turns.
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Tried playing today, so difficult to find a match.
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Tried playing today, so difficult to find a match.
Give me a time, and I'll play you.
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I don't play at specific times. I just want to log in and play.
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I don't play at specific times. I just want to log in and play.
If you have all the expansions, I guarantee you'll find a game within 5 minutes or less.
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I don't like the general argument some make that "if you can't stop X you should encourage it," but for sure people will have a point counter one way or another. It would be better to include it so that matchmaking can use it. Matchmaking could potentially cover it without including it but I don't see that happening.
It only takes a couple hours to make an android app that loads their webpage full screen in landscape mode... why haven't they made one? Why was it a higher priority to develop mediocre music and 500 ugly avatars? I thought they got the job precisely because they were the "any platform" bid.
Most of my major concerns that actually stopped me playing on Goko are gone now but a few of the minor annoying ones remain.... the avatars is one of the most annoying. I would have thought the whole point of having avatars was to help differentiate people (and to let people put a bit of their own personality into how they are represented on line).... so doesn't it defeat the whole point of having avatars if you basically make them all look exactly the same...?
I mean look at the way BGG have implemented avatars to see it done right. Lots of people have put lots of though into their avatars on BGG. Goko could even have turned it into the alternative revenue stream they seem so desperate to have.... people could pay an extra dollar or two to have an animated avatar instead of a static one. Badges for people who win tournaments or other achievements.... the avatars as they exist at the moment are 1/ not in keeping with the predominant art style of dominion and 2/ such a wasted opportunity.
End of rant. Now I'm off to cross post this on Get Satisfaction.
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If you have all the expansions, I guarantee you'll find a game within 5 minutes or less.
Assuming that upper bound if not extremely loose, that's also a terribly long time. You could often play a full game in five minutes, so already 1-2 minutes of waiting will mean that a terribly big share of the total time is spent just waiting. Since I usually log in to play just 1-2 games, I also cannot take advantage of repeated games against the same opponent, but instead really have to suffer through the waiting time every time I play. I definitely would not want to spend some 10-30% of the precious online gaming time waiting for a game to start.
In Isotropic I literally always get an opponent in at most tens of seconds (I usually do not use restrictions for player level).
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Start of new rant:
The flavour text in Adventure Mode. I know I know, minor, not important. I'm still playing plenty of games on Goko and enjoying them.... but the adventure mode scripts are so awful....
When I think the Donald's witty and surreal flavour text for the original game.... and compare it to the flavour text for Goko's Adventure Mode....
The flavour text for Goko's Adventure Mode is so uninspired it makes me want to go and drink myself to death in Paris.
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If you have all the expansions, I guarantee you'll find a game within 5 minutes or less.
Assuming that upper bound if not extremely loose, that's also a terribly long time. You could often play a full game in five minutes, so already 1-2 minutes of waiting will mean that a terribly big share of the total time is spent just waiting. Since I usually log in to play just 1-2 games, I also cannot take advantage of repeated games against the same opponent, but instead really have to suffer through the waiting time every time I play. I definitely would not want to spend some 10-30% of the precious online gaming time waiting for a game to start.
In Isotropic I literally always get an opponent in at most tens of seconds (I usually do not use restrictions for player level).
It is extremely loose. If you have all the expansions and put "all cards" in the name of your game, you will can have a 2 or 3 player game going quickly; usually <10 seconds.
I have seen no difference in average match times between Goko and Iso. I don't think I've waited any longer than 1 minute since I've owned the cards. Even waiting a minute or two beats waiting for your automatch partner on Iso to accept and then seeing "X has declined (by timing out)" or being automatched with the same person over and over again and keep getting declined, which happened more and more often the higher ranked I got. When Goko implements automatch, I really hope it's better than Iso's.
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Having it better than Iso is simple: DO NOT LEAK ANY INFORMATION WHATSOEVER BEFORE THE GAME BEGINS (shouting for the hope Goko is listening: If you have some mathematical proof that some other method is better: It's wrong!)
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I think the biggest thing missing is the always-visible turn log. It is impossible to look away without missing something. Playing in real life you usually can just ask the person to either wait, or to describe their turn. On Goko it is extremely difficult to follow opponents' turns.
This is available here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=6788.0
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Having it better than Iso is simple: DO NOT LEAK ANY INFORMATION WHATSOEVER BEFORE THE GAME BEGINS (shouting for the hope Goko is listening: If you have some mathematical proof that some other method is better: It's wrong!)
The good thing about Goko that I do like is that you don't see what cards are coming up in pro games. I actually see that as an improvement over iso where you would see the kingdom in advance unless playing veto. While I am at it, I am also glad they don't have a veto mode.
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I like Dominion, but do not have all expansions yet. And if I have the money, I think I would by them in real life first.
I also thought that computer games do not need to be as realistic as real life, I actually think that some simple game is funner than those realistic shooter. Especially when Dominion is a abstract game anyway. Those dramatic UI actually make me dizzy. I would rather have a simple text UI that can present the game well.
And Isotropic Dominion isn't embargoed yet, when Guko is not something that is strictly better than Iso Dominion because of lacking some features such as auto match I would not be playing it now.