Also needed is a guide on how to use the site. What is Good Match? What are Familiar Cards? etc. etc. etc.
Chris is me has written a great unofficial guide on all of these topics, but unfortunately it is not linked anywhere from the client itself, and similarly detailed information is not provided. Chris's guide is here: http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=1100.0
I didn't make my post because I needed help myself, and I was already familiar with Chris is me's excellent FAQ (although I'm glad you mentioned it because it got me to go and see his recent major update
). Click psychology being what it is I do think something needs to be linked from the client itself -- maybe putting "Site guide" above where they currently have "Need help?". I just remember how frustrating it was in January to be "thrown into the deep end" without instructions and how much nicer it would've been if only there was an organized site usage description like... I can imagine it now... (cue the dream sequence music and video fade to our alternate reality...)
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Welcome to Shuffle iT's Dominion Online. Here's everything you need to know about how our website works:
Our site contains a number of pages used to guide your Dominion experience, some of which lead you into games. There are a number of page buttons at the top of each page. The page you are currently on is highlighted in blue. To go to another page click on its button. Let's explain each page:
Matching: This is the default page, where you first land when you log in (once your account setup is complete). It is also the easiest and quickest place to find a 2-player game of Dominion. Here you will see a row of 3 buttons:
Quick Match: Click this to enter into a 2-player game with the first available person who also clicked this. Both of your Familiar Cards lists will be respected (see Familiar Cards section).
Good Match: Clicking this will match you with someone whose skill level/ranking* and Familiar Cards lists are both similar to yours. Sometimes there will be a wait to find a compatible opponent, but you can always cancel if the wait is too long.
*Ranking current games is yet to be implemented but should be soon. For now rankings are based on games played in previous years on prior platforms and can be found here:
http://gokosalvager.com/leaderboard/?full=True&sortkey=level. Rankings have a theoretical range of 100 to -100, with 0 being average. If you have a username not on this list your current ranking is 0.
Bot Match: Click this to enter a game against our Bot/AI Lord Rattington. Your Familiar Cards list will be respected.
Below these buttons is the number of Total Users in Queue, i.e. waiting for games, which can give you an idea of how long it might take to get a Quick or Good Match.
Below that is a table with columns labelled Friend and Activity. This allows you to see which of your friends is currently logged in. If there is an opening at their table to play or spectate, next to their activity (for example "at table") there will be a small white button labelled "join". Clicking that will take you directly to their table where you can chat with them, play a game, etc. Note that you or anyone can choose for their activity to not be seen -- see Options page for more. See Friends List page for more on becoming on-site friends.
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New Table: This page is where you go to create a more customizable playing environment, aka "table" (think of a table as the digital equivalent of a table you would sit down to IRL to play a game with friends). Here you can fully customize the number of players and/or bots in your game, specific cards used and/or expansions randomly chosen from, etc. In the middle of the page there are selectors for the minimum/maximum # of players allowed at your table (although these can again be adjusted after clicking Create Table). Below these there are 2 buttons, Create Table and Load Old Game.
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OK, I don't want to spend any more time on this, at least for now, but you get the idea of what I think would be a great thing to have on the site.
and just seems like a huge waste of time. I can't imagine that most of those who don't want to "wait for animations" wouldn't want this eliminated - I'm on the other side, and I sure do. I don't need end-of-turn animations at all, but if they're there moving hand/played cards quickly into a single pile then quickly to the discard pile at least makes some visual sense. OTOH, for those wanting to be able to follow the action w/o constant log referencing, a simple slider bar, say above a player's info box, to control animation speed of cards played seems an obvious choice. Wouldn't this be simple to program? I assume there's a parameter for current animation speed with a set value (OK, maybe 2 for wait v don't wait) which could easily be made into a variable.
).