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« on: March 09, 2013, 12:02:09 pm »
Before I started playing on Goko, I was looking here for Reviews but cant find a thread where they are collected. So here is a copy from my beta feedback post, please feel invited to add other Reviews.
i played the last year tons of games at isotropic and i really loved it. after realizing that iso will not exist any more, i gave goko a chance and played the last week the whole time there. and was really surprised, its really not that bad. but there are some things goko has to change to make it a real fun for all players, experienced and unexperienced. The potencial for it is definately there. So here is a point of view of an experienced player whats good and what bad (just the main points)and should to be fixed.
This is bad at Goko right now:
- The missing Undo Button. How often Goko tricked me out when i discarded cards, which i wanted to play in that turn (e.g. with Storeroom, forgot to to click "Done Discarded"). Without the undo button(much better than the doubleclick red button on isotropic) the playability and the fun factor suffers really enormously. Please fix that
- The Chat. I had a lot of really nice strategy discussions (and as well discussions about Goko) during the games and was always angry the chat window lies over my handcards. So i just can barely see them while i chat and can just chat or play. So i have to make a move and open and close the chat the whole time, that really sucked. put that window somewhere else or make it smaller, but that open/close of the window the whole time was really unfunny. Also the chat in the lobby doesnt move on when the window is filled, so its no wonder the people dont talk to each other
- The 50 max lobbyrooms While 20 people hanging around being afk, and 25 are playing, i have just 4 potential opponents with 3 guests. While there are 3 other full rooms with players i cant play. There is no automatching option, i cant see who is playing and who is not and the player overview doenst deserve to be called overview. All that totally impact the fun factor for me, cause its really hard to find players i want to play with. There are some buddys i want to play with, are they online or somewhere in the other rooms. i dont know. if i know they are in a certain room and that is full, i cant play with them. i am a level 44 player on iso and played mostly +/- 15. It took 30 sec to start a game i want. here it takes a couple of minutes( with changing the rooms, suck) to start such a game.
- The system-stability The games with lagging and freezing (so that you cant play the game on) are way to often. That really sucks, but i am optimistic that it will get better. Another point is the quitting in 3+ matches. Why dont replace with bots? The AI isnt that bad. Who wants to play 4 player games when you know that every 3rd doent come to an end. It also will give players the chance to resign from game in an e.g. 4-player when they know they will have no chance (e.g. being 4th player in a curser game with bad draws on the first 2-3 shuffles) to win the game and have to sit another 20 minutes around there.
- The adventure mode Good idea and nice to have one, but its totally boring. Its always the same. Who wants to spend days to play all adventures that way?
Sure, there are bugs and other weaknesses (like showing just 10 kindom cards, spoilers and ruins on a second page as well as the 11th kingdom card with bane) , but i want to concentrate on the things that really hurt my fun factor.
So whats good at Goko? First of all: a lot
- The graphics I really loved isotropic interface, it had its own charme. I thought, its good like it is, i dont need all the graphics. And as an experienced player, thats true, but with the original graphics on Goko i must say, its much more fun. Much more board game feeling, I really love it.
- Noobie friendliness Goko is inviting for new players. Through the graphics, bots, adventures and the possibility to play all cards (if you join a game) new players are motivated to play Dominion. And the more players play it, the better imho, because its the game i love and who knows, maybe Donald X cant resist to create a few more expansinos than planned, if Goko massively successes. To be honest, the big my love for isotropic was, the big were the hurdles there for Newbies. I played a lot on Brettspielwelt.de, but when i moved to iso it took its time to be familiar with that site and i can imagine there where bunches of unexpierienced players who tried iso once and then never again
- Price Fairness I think Goko prices are really fair for the hours, days and weeks of fun you get. Compare that to the newest computergames. For me its ok to pay that fee for Dominion online. And if you dont want to pay, you dont have to. You can join to games and play with all cards, it just takes a bit more time to find that games.
- Rating system i read here a lot of the bad rating systems. My experience after that short time is, it works fine. Its also more challanging for me to play against weaker players because you know you can lose a lot of ranking points
- The Pro mode You play 10 cards and you and your opponent dont know them. At first I thought, no veto mode? Thats bad. But I must say, for me its much more fun, more challenging and more original if you play without veto mode or seeing the cards like in isotropic before. That are the original rules and by time its real fun to deal with the Kings Court or Possesion. Yes the game is over when they fall good, but they are still skillcards and its my job to maximize the chance they fall good.
So far a short review after 1 week Extrem-Gokoing of an experienced player.
Greetz
hvb
