Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 26, 2015, 11:56:01 pm »

That sounds great!  But why is it that it has taken this long for David the David to understand what We all want for a better Dominion experience?  I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but this just seems like it has taken a little longer(a lot) than its needed to.  Can we please get something close to what we are asking so we can get the Adventures expansion soon?  Thank you

Because two dozen different people are shouting slightly different variants of the same thing at him at once, and MF has made him responsible for juggling all of these nuanced complaints and communicating them to the developers with enough of a sense of urgency that the issues get addressed. You have to admit it's not an easy job.

David: Would it be helpful if people compiled video clips, etc. showing the delay in question? Highlighting the pauses that shouldn't be there? I figure if people need time between animations to digest things, they'll just make the animations longer.

It certainly wouldn't hurt. Probably brief clips to demonstrate it would be the most digestible. I wouldn't ask anyone to spend time splicing and editing, but maybe a 1 or 2 minute clip with "See animations starting at :20 and 1:15 and 1:47" that kind of thing? Would that work and be simple for people?

2

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 26, 2015, 10:00:16 am »

By better AI, I just mean using something like Warlord Bot instead of Serf Bot.

So I think three things concerning animations, yes?
First, by animations, we agree that this includes treasure, actions, buys, and curses? Any sfx other than glowing borders?

Then:
1. remove/reduce delay between animations
2. option to disable animations
3. remove animations that don't communicate information, which Donald X. has commented on elsewhere a few times

Is that accurate?

3

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 26, 2015, 12:33:39 am »

For me, the animations aren't an issue , though as my Alchemy campaign battles stacked up with curses, cards to trash the curses, Golems to bypass the curses, cards to draw cards, and so on and so forth, I can see how someone who is happy to scan the log for results might like play sans animations and just nigh instant results, so in the vein of keeping the game appealing to all players and that some players (most likely expert players, I'd wager) dislike the animations, what solutions might there be? I mean, beyond the obvious "turn off animations." Keep in mind that the goal right now, as Jeff explained in our announcements section, is feature parity with 1.0, so any new features such as we might generate are down the road. He really has kept the door open to future ideas and features fwiw.

Good God, man! Remove the delay between the animations! REMOVE THE DELAY BETWEEN THE ANIMATIONS! I guarantee that it would solve all these problems. If you'd just REMOVE THE DELAY BETWEEN THE ANIMATIONS, the fastest setting will be fast enough for experts. The delay between animations isn't helping new players, either! Removing them will make the experience better for everybody!

The 1.0 version doesn't have delays between animations. If you're priority is feature parity with 1.0, YOU NEED TO REMOVE THE DELAY BETWEEN ANIMATIONS!

I'm not sure I understand. 

I can ask them to look at that. Perhaps it's a limitation of Unity, or perhaps not. Don't really know, but sure, I'll raise the topic.

4

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 25, 2015, 11:55:57 pm »

And I'm in the 2.0 queue if someone wants to pound on me proper like. 

5

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 25, 2015, 11:53:43 pm »

Choose your own adventure!
1) Reply, "No, you just don't get it!" Proceed to page 134 [I die in a black pit, alone].
2) Reply, "You obviously didn't read what I wrote!" Proceed to page 134 [I die in a black pit, alone].
3) Quote my quoted quotes Inception style. Proceed to page 67, turn to page 178, then 67, repeat. [We make horrible, communal text gif].
4) Forego internet gotcha. [read below]

Sorry, couldn't resist.     

Still forgoing internet gotcha games, I've been thinking about (part of) this thread as I've been working through the Alchemy campaign.

For me, the animations aren't an issue , though as my Alchemy campaign battles stacked up with curses, cards to trash the curses, Golems to bypass the curses, cards to draw cards, and so on and so forth, I can see how someone who is happy to scan the log for results might like play sans animations and just nigh instant results, so in the vein of keeping the game appealing to all players and that some players (most likely expert players, I'd wager) dislike the animations, what solutions might there be? I mean, beyond the obvious "turn off animations." Keep in mind that the goal right now, as Jeff explained in our announcements section, is feature parity with 1.0, so any new features such as we might generate are down the road. He really has kept the door open to future ideas and features fwiw.

So what would an "Expert Mode" entail? Just brainstorming here:

• animations are off, cards just layer out in sequence
• all reactions are manual (because of oddball circumstances such as Donald X. mentions in this post).
• Or discriminate certain reactions? Or have a first time option to determine all subsequent reactions of a type
• stack multiples always on?
• more difficult campaign builds and/or AI opponents - relevant to just those matches of course

I dunno, what else?

I remember when Memoir '44 came out online. I haven't played it in a long time, but expert mode was "computer handles nothing, players do it all." That seems extreme and neglects the benefit of the server avoiding human errors. But there's an idea fwiw.

6

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 24, 2015, 01:51:07 pm »

You don't have any idea whether people who dislike the animations have played a lot or a little on the most recent client versions. I've played dozens of games on the new client in the last couple of weeks and the animations still bother me, you shouldn't just dismiss these concerns out of hand. And "you'll get used to this thing you don't like eventually" is a terrible terrible approach to designing the client, even though it's 100% true for people who are invested enough in the game to keep using a client they find obnoxious.

I was responding to opinions voiced in this thread, not generalizing beyond that, and certainly not generalizing to some hypothetical broader class or silent majority or some such.

You don't seem to get it. I don't care about some silent majority, your post misrepresents my behavior, but you have literally zero information about it. You don't have any idea about how much the people in this thread have played with the newest clients, but are still prepared to say "I see a lot of hasty judgment being passed by people who formed an opinion and revisit the game only long enough to reinforce that opinion" and "If you only play a little and have the same reaction to the animations, of course your opinion doesn't change". I've played hundreds of games on the new client, and dozens in the most recent weeks.

In my experience, this statement precedes an immediate failure in any continued discourse. Instead of playing internet gotcha, I'll leave things as they are, which apparently is nowhere in particular to anyone's satisfaction. But that's fine...most of what I've read here has been an echo chamber of predetermined opinion.

You can interpret it how you will--that seems to be your wont. I tend to play when watching television or hopping browser tabs or some such.

Sure, some people won't care about the horrendously disruptive animations—those who don't take the game too seriously and watch TV while playing chief among them—but that shouldn't be a reason not to care about the people who find them vexing in the extreme. Especially not when it's your job to care about your customers.

The glowing borders are helpful to me.

The glowing borders aren't what people talk about when they talk about animations (even though I'd love to turn them off as well). The animations that are problematic are those that actively take up gameplay time during which you can't do anything else. E.g. assume you have enough money and buys to empty the Estates. The process of emptying them should take at most 2 seconds (8 mouseclicks), yet on the new client it takes an endless eternity because after every single Estate purchase we are forced to sit through your submission for next year's Oscars. Not to mention much more extreme Hollywood ambitions like playing a bunch of Hunting Parties in a row. Too bad there's no Academy Award for best horror.

In general there should be zero perceptible delay between "clicking a card to do something" and "being able to click the next card to do something else" for users who decide to turn off animations. Sure, they'll miss out some immediate information, but that's why there's a log on the side.

And no, I won't get used to these awful disruptions because I haven't gotten used to them on Goko either (which is already terrible but you guys somehow made the new client even worse), and I only endure the great pain of playing on Goko because there's no alternative and I love this game too much to quit.

I didn't have a hand in design. Feel free to ask those questions on our forums if you like. I'm in no position to answer them with any insight.

I already made a feature request for an option to disable all this nonsense 3.5 months ago. You put it on some sort of list. Is something ever going to come from it?

Henceforth, I shall dutifully play only when my full attention can be given the game. I shall exercise diligence, attentiveness, and full cognitive capacity. Please tell me how I should be playing so that I can meet your expectations. See, this isn't really going anywhere, and there's no good to come from me engaging in this kind of banter. As before, you're welcome to come and provide your feedback. It was welcome before, and it still is. Hopefully, it can be something positive to move the game in a positive direction, especially for the diehards that tend to frequent this forum.

7

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 23, 2015, 09:12:27 pm »

If you only play a little and have the same reaction to the animations, of course your opinion doesn't change. I've played enough now that I don't notice them. When the game first went into public beta, the animations were harsh, and they're better now. I see a lot of hasty judgment being passed by people who formed an opinion and revisit the game only long enough to reinforce that opinion. Look at where we've gone in the 10 weeks since the game went into public beta.

You don't have any idea whether people who dislike the animations have played a lot or a little on the most recent client versions. I've played dozens of games on the new client in the last couple of weeks and the animations still bother me, you shouldn't just dismiss these concerns out of hand. And "you'll get used to this thing you don't like eventually" is a terrible terrible approach to designing the client, even though it's 100% true for people who are invested enough in the game to keep using a client they find obnoxious.

I was responding to opinions voiced in this thread, not generalizing beyond that, and certainly not generalizing to some hypothetical broader class or silent majority or some such.

8

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 23, 2015, 09:10:11 pm »

If you only play a little and have the same reaction to the animations, of course your opinion doesn't change. I've played enough now that I don't notice them. When the game first went into public beta, the animations were harsh, and they're better now. I see a lot of hasty judgment being passed by people who formed an opinion and revisit the game only long enough to reinforce that opinion. Look at where we've gone in the 10 weeks since the game went into public beta.

Your response to disillusioned customers is "increase your exposure to our terrible product and you might grow numb to its flaws"? Come on, you can't be serious...

And fwiw, I played over 8k games on the webversion and my hatred of the slow and unintuitive UI has only grown fiercer with time.

If you only play a little and have the same reaction to the animations, of course your opinion doesn't change. I've played enough now that I don't notice them. When the game first went into public beta, the animations were harsh, and they're better now.

They still slow down the game by an unacceptable amount. Just give us the option to turn them off.

You can interpret it how you will--that seems to be your wont. I tend to play when watching television or hopping browser tabs or some such. The glowing borders are helpful to me. I've played enough that I got past my first reaction which was, "Whoa, what's happening" to "This is fine" to "This is helpful to me."

I didn't have a hand in design. Feel free to ask those questions on our forums if you like. I'm in no position to answer them with any insight.

9

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Down For Maintenance

« on: August 23, 2015, 05:29:36 pm »

I like the new client.  It's an improvement over the old one for me, and a vast improvement over the old one for new players.  Perhaps some people are still having performance issues.  What are the other outstanding problems?

The old Goko client is a very low standard to compare to. MF said they were going for a redesign from scratch, yet their new client shares most of the design flaws of Goko's version. Even if it is an improvement, it's the completely wrong approach. It's not worth it trying to repair Goko's design.

MF did not written everything from scratch.
Some of that is still Goko code.

My understanding is that only the AI remains intact from 1.0. Everything is was rewritten.

It's illogical to claim that the number of people still playing on 1.0 is consequent to their (presumed) opinion on 2.0. This forum hosts of number of devotees and diehards that I would speculate is not representative of the many casual players, people with whom I primarily interact via email when they need support. They tend not to frequent forums in my experience. Many casual players will stay on 1.0 out of habit and the convenience of web play which is certainly friendlier to casual and new players.

If you only play a little and have the same reaction to the animations, of course your opinion doesn't change. I've played enough now that I don't notice them. When the game first went into public beta, the animations were harsh, and they're better now. I see a lot of hasty judgment being passed by people who formed an opinion and revisit the game only long enough to reinforce that opinion. Look at where we've gone in the 10 weeks since the game went into public beta.

Leaderboard is being worked on now. The Kingdom builder has been very thoroughly scoped, and work will start on it soon, if it hasn't already. Tablet and web builds are also being worked on. Hopefully, we'll win over the skeptics from the devoted fanbase that this sort of forum represents. For now, I hope you'll consider what has been accomplished with 2.0 to date.

10

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: August 21, 2015, 08:13:13 pm »

Computer specs don't seem related. I mean, they must be somehow, but just from my non-engineer view, having a top of the line computer doesn't mean you'll avoid the issue. One of the developers has a powerful laptop but has no problem. I have one with a measley 1.67 ghz processor, and I don't have the problem. I see reports from people who have really robust machines who do have the high cpu usage and overheating. Then others don't. My laptop has some "coolsense" technology, so maybe that's what works for me? Webgl is in the works, so I'm hoping that helps some people with this issue. Unity's webgl export is in beta itself, and that's slowing the web build project down.

11

Goko Dominion Online / Re: How to use expansions from beta version in the old browser version?

« on: August 14, 2015, 07:49:51 pm »

Yes, PM me on the forums, and I'll do that for you.

12

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Strange behaviour

« on: August 11, 2015, 08:39:13 pm »

Did he resign? I've had instances where people thought there were abrupt endings, when it was actually a resignation.

13

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Logsearch and 2.0

« on: July 31, 2015, 08:45:12 pm »

Well at least there's a ticket for it...

All the ticketz are belong to .... oh well...

Failed joking aside, Jeff is really on top of those tickets. It's Jira for Agile software development. For the different games that I've done CS with, I haven't seen a lead handle them anywhere as well as he does. He also likes having a pool of ideas from users to look at once the game is out of beta. The tickets must flow, and they flow through Jeff. Yikes, bad joke to start and bad allusion to end. 

14

Goko Dominion Online / Re: 2-0-36

« on: July 31, 2015, 06:38:22 pm »

Resolution-related and windowing oddities on OSX have been an issue. I don't know the details other than it's been hardier to remedy there than on Windows.

15

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 24, 2015, 08:29:17 pm »

Tables, we intend to get past the weekly updates. I mentioned download fatigue to the team in my last CS Report. Those downloads will become less frequent. Mobile will be nice in that updates are more seamless and less clicky. Many of you already know this, I'm sure, but with Chrome dropping its Unity plugin, Unity is producing a webGL exporter, which is in beta. I use my Chromebook a lot, and I was a bit surprised how many emails I got early on in the 2.0 release from other Chromebook users. Obviously, we want the game as broadly available as possible. Anyhow, I'm rambling: the web version will obviate download fatigue, and be a more welcoming environment to new players epecially. Some updates are server side, but that's essentially inconsequential as it's not user-facing, nor ever was so it doesn't really calculate in.

16

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 24, 2015, 07:57:25 pm »

One thing I'm still wondering, is why do I have to download a 100MB file every time I want to update? Is that really the best way to do it?

No it isn't, but this is Goko/Making Fun, you can't expect them to be efficient. You should build a workable product, with not too many defects/risk of problems before releasing it. Trust me, I'm a software tester.

Goko is not involved in this effort. I think we're already doing significantly better than Goko did.

17

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 24, 2015, 04:25:42 pm »

A mandatory update this time. 

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?7335-Release-Notes-v-2-0-35&p=37375#post37375

18

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 22, 2015, 02:45:28 pm »

As for the size of the installed app, it doesn't bother me at all. It doesn't even seem that large by today's standards. I've got much bigger apps than that installed on my phone.

*Pulls out cane and belt-onion*

Back in my day, entire video games came on cartridges with 4 kB of space!  Games on floppy disks with 1.44 MB total size were luxurious!

I loaded some of my first games from a tape player. Hit play, walk away for 15 minutes, come back, enjoy a game.

19

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 18, 2015, 03:26:33 pm »

Again, thanks for the work you guys have been putting in, and a special thanks for you for taking the brunt of the community ire when things aren't right.

My question is: how far away are we from MF saying, "OK guys this is good enough. Scrap the old version, this is what it is now!"  I'm worried they will do this before it is where it needs to be. That's kinda how it went with the transition from isotopic to goko and it left a really sour taste in people's mouths.

Is the company's expected timeline available for public knowledge?

The honest is that I don't know. I just asked for a community update, so I think that Jeff and John are crafting a statement to tell us where we're at and what's in the near future.

Just my own opinion here, but I want to see the friend finder in place before 1.0 is shuttered.

20

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 17, 2015, 10:45:27 pm »

The log is a massive improvement.  I would recommend giving players the option to change the colors (white background is much easier to read) but make no mistake, I am grateful for this change.

My laptop is still overheating to the point where I am afraid of playing the game, though.

Those are the optimizations I mentioned. It is actively being worked on, meaning it has been prioritized.

21

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: July 17, 2015, 08:53:18 pm »

2.0.34 is out.

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?7288-Release-Notes-v-2-0-34

Inaccurate deck count is being looked at still. I know, I know. 

Some optimizations have been made for CPU usage, but one important one is still being worked on. That work will continue into next week. Those optimizations are not in 2.0.34.

Sidebar game log in this version.

I have asked for a general update to the player community, and now that 2.0.34 is out, I'll raise that again.

22

Goko Dominion Online / Re: v2.0.33

« on: July 12, 2015, 11:46:24 pm »

Re: deck count issues, reproducing the issue has been a stumbling block. Why that's so, I can't say, especially as it's been reported quite a bit. I think the issue is probably responsible for cards not being drawn on plays like Market and the shuffling sound continuing when the deck is apparently empty. Credit to, I think, Jonah42 for connecting the dots about the card draw issue.

If you want to lend a hand, what would help the developers out are reports that included the end of game logs, any observations about when it happens (only in campaign, only vs AI, only vs human, all of the above), observations like what turn it might have started.

Feel free to post here, but using the contact support button in game sends an email to our CRM software that I can then forward to the developers and easily track replies with.

Sorry for the ongoing issue. I've let them know that it's one of the more vexing problems in regards to player sentiment.

I've been posting kingdoms it's happening in for me here:

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?6979-Advisor-or-Deck-size-bug

What information am I not including to make this issue reproducible?

I failed to add that to the ticket on the issue. I've done so now. Thanks. *hangface*

23

Goko Dominion Online / Re: v2.0.33

« on: July 12, 2015, 05:08:38 pm »

Re: deck count issues, reproducing the issue has been a stumbling block. Why that's so, I can't say, especially as it's been reported quite a bit. I think the issue is probably responsible for cards not being drawn on plays like Market and the shuffling sound continuing when the deck is apparently empty. Credit to, I think, Jonah42 for connecting the dots about the card draw issue.

If you want to lend a hand, what would help the developers out are reports that included the end of game logs, any observations about when it happens (only in campaign, only vs AI, only vs human, all of the above), observations like what turn it might have started.

Feel free to post here, but using the contact support button in game sends an email to our CRM software that I can then forward to the developers and easily track replies with.

Sorry for the ongoing issue. I've let them know that it's one of the more vexing problems in regards to player sentiment.

24

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: June 30, 2015, 08:39:35 pm »

Level with me: what's the chance that the client will eventually run without making my computer's fans work overtime?

It seems to be very idiosyncratic. I've been adding specs of people who report it to the ticket on the issue. If you want to send me that, I'm happy to do the same.

25

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Latest Release

« on: June 30, 2015, 04:58:45 pm »

2.0.32 out

Release notes at http://forum.makingfun.com/forumdisplay.php?98-Release-Notes.

Updating is optional this time (although recommended). You can download the new version from beta.playdominion.com

Changes since 2.0.31:

CLIENT FIXES

• Spoils and Ruins could appear in the same location in the kingdom (1247)
  
• Adds encryption to locally stored passwords (1177, 1195)
  
• Bridge wasn't reducing the displayed cost of the Knights (1265)
• If 2 clients log in with the same username, avoid endless cycle of kicking each other out (1200)
• Fix for a couple of special characters in usernames (692)
• Highlight the Appropriate Ducats Package in the store (1190)
• Removed some resolution options that a graphics card might support, but we don't

BACKEND FIXES

• Unchecking "Allow Cards I Don't Own" didn't work (1246)
  
• Memory leak in game server causing it to eventually become unstable (1203)
  
• Error blocking completion of some purchases (1210)
• Campaigns: One level gave "Unrecognized bot name: Barnabas" (1249)
• Campaigns: The second boss fight of the Guilds campaign was on the wrong level (1256)
• Temporary login problem for some users (1257)
• Fix upper/lower-case of email issue preventing some signups (1245)
• Other  (592, 1064, 1211, 1225, 1245, 1250, 1251, 1263)

You'll get the backend fixes even if you don't upgrade.