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26

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Payment models

« on: June 15, 2015, 01:59:28 am »

under my theoretical model, you're still permitted to play X number of games over Y period of time without paying

I didn't really examine your model that closely, but if you only pay once you reach a certain capped number of games most casual gamers will simply stop playing when they reach that cap.
There is something quite off-putting about a model that was free yesterday, free today, then oops... you're over an arbitrary cap and now we want you to pay.
Even though it can be quite generous and you are getting a lot for nothing, it really feels like you're being tricked or swindled into paying for something that, until that point, you were used to getting for free.

I have to confess I don't really know much about the economics of online games or things of this nature, but it just doesn't seem to make sense that the only time you pay is when you pay for the sets and then that's it, for the rest of your life, even though they're running servers and sussing out bugs and whatnot.  Your post implies, given the model you've laid out, that this is like any other game, you play it for a while, and then you stop, probably, and you move on to something else.  I just don't think of this game that way.

Well, the issue is that whilst it isn't like buying a single-player game, it's not anything like buying an MMO either.

Have a look at the list of all the multiplayer games available on Steam.
Apart from any MMOs, how many require you to pay a monthly subscription?
What do you think would happen to the player base if Blizzard announced that you have to start paying a monthly subscription to continue playing Star Craft 2 online?

People have been willing to pay monthly subscriptions for games like WoW largely because there is an understanding that server costs are high, but also because new content is released on an ongoing basis.
Server costs for an online card game should be relatively low (especially once they sort out using local storage for game artifacts) and, like I said, new content is going to be pretty damn scarce for Dominion.
And, ultimately, fewer and fewer people are willing to pay monthly fees for even games like WoW as, for better or worse, more and more of these games move to a F2P model.

Doubling the prices for the game seems like a bad idea, but who knows, lots of things I think are bad ideas work.

The current lowest price for all the expansions is $45.
So, putting it on Steam for $20 is not doubling the price.

My point is that if they can get the game out to a larger audience via Steam, they can charge a fraction of what they currently charge and still make a lot more money.
But the game needs to work first.

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: June 15, 2015, 01:41:19 am »

1-0-99 vs 0-100-0 is clearly an unhelpfully unrealistic example.

What you're really saying is that you think someone with a record of 10-0-20 is a better player than someone with a record of 9-21-0, which I think is fundamentally wrong and completely devalues the concept that second place is better than third.

28

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: June 15, 2015, 12:48:37 am »

Ideally, you would want someone with 1 first, 0 seconds, and 99 thirds to be rated better than someone with 0 firsts, 100 seconds, and 0 thirds; while someone with 99 firsts, 1 second, and 0 thirds is rated better than someone with 99 firsts, 0 seconds, and 1 third.

Look, I know this is just going to be one of those agree-to-disagree type deals, but I feel I have to say something to this lest you think that this is a universally accepted truth.
I think this way of looking at things is fundamentally wrong.

To me, it is really obvious that someone with 1st-2nd-3rd results of 1-0-99 is a much worse player than someone with 0-100-0.
In terms of demonstration of skill, being consistently at the second-place level is a much better indicator of a decent player than being consistently third with a single win.
I would dismiss that single win as a fluke, as would any sort of statistical analysis of those datasets.

For a real world demonstration, have a look at how international tennis rankings work.
To keep it simple, we'll pretend that those are all wins, runners-up and semi-finalist results at the Grand Slam level (and ignore the loss of points over time).
1-0-99 gives 73,280 points, 0-100-0 gives 120,000 points.

Golf is similar.
The winner gets 100% of the tournament's ranking value, second place gets 60%, third gets 40% and so on.

So, really, it is absolutely contrary to standard thinking to say that 1st is "infinitely better" than 2nd which is "infinitely better" than 3rd.

Don't get me wrong, I feel very strongly that you should play as if this is the case, and I am fairly sure that professional athletes would also.
You should always strive to come first and if that's not possible you should try just as hard to come second.
But if the rankings are so heavily weighted in favour of wins that a single win outweighs 100 second-places, where is the incentive to keep trying once the win is impossible?

TL;DR Yes, first is better than second, but consistency is more important than fluking a win.
Also, sorry that this has gotten so far off-topic.

29

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Payment models

« on: June 15, 2015, 12:24:53 am »

I think the problem with any kind of subscription model is that it's very hard to avoid an expectation of new content.
The issue is that there comes a point at which you have paid more than you would have paid if there was instead a single up-front cost.

Okay, if they charge only $1/month you don't reach that point for about 4 years (based on current prices).
However, if the current model isn't sustainable, charging nothing up front and only $1/month is not going to save it.

So, instead I'm paying, say, $3 a month to play Dominion online.
In a little over a year I have paid more than I would have paid if I had just bought all the cards up front.
Except I don't get anything more for my money because Donald X. isn't spending his day coming up with new cards.

At what point do you think I become angry that I have to make a recurring payment just to keep playing a game that has no new content on any foreseeable horizon?
Is it after I have paid $50?
$100?
When do I decide that my money is better spent on new games or on a subscription game that actually brings out new content on a regular basis?

Honestly, the best way to improve revenue is to get the game working and then get it up on Steam for $20.

30

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How do you feel about Champion?

« on: June 14, 2015, 10:26:30 pm »

I don't know if it's the infinite actions or the infinite moat - or the combination - but I feel that Champion is like Tournament or Rebuild or Possession. You can't NOT go for it, and the first person to get there has a significant advantage

I don't think there's anything inherently bad about a must-have card, or a powerful card.
I don't know about Possession, but the issue with Rebuild (and to a lesser-extent Tournament) is that it becomes the entirety of the strategy.

Almost any game with Rebuild in it involves buying Rebuilds, buying Duchies and not a whole lot else.

Any game with Page in it may very well involve a race to upgrade to Champion, but that alone is not going to win you the game.
So, unlike with Rebuild, you still have a huge number of strategic options to explore.

I mean, sure, there's Warrior for terminal draw and treasures from Hero for payload, but their availability is severely limited.
What else are you going to play to turn your infinite actions into VPs?
It's not a question with only a single answer, so there's a lot of space for plenty of interesting and varied Page games.

31

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: June 14, 2015, 09:53:47 pm »

it works if you only go by the ranking system that BSW uses, which is what is done there.  people would be far more receptive to your argument if the site gave you points for finishing 2nd or 3rd, but literally the only thing it tracks is who finished 1st.

And that's basically an artificially imposed version of the mindset that a lot of player's have, which is win-at-all-costs because second place is just the first of the losers.
It's not a mindset that I share, and it's one that I feel is not particularly conducive to actually having fun.

Given that it causes players who can no longer get first place to essentially stop playing, that seems like prima facie proof that it's a mindset that ruins fun.

But it doesn't cause them to stop playing.  You even said it yourself, "second place is the first of the losers"; that means if you can't get first, then go for second at all costs.  You're still playing and (in most games) your new win con is still well-defined.  It's just different from what it was before.

I think that's actually not what funkdoc is describing though anyway.

At least idiomatically, the phrase "second place is first of the losers" doesn't mean "strive to be better than the other losers" it means "nothing matters except first place" (which is perhaps what I should have said to keep my meaning clear).

Funkdoc is describing a scenario in which a game's online ranking system ignores anything other than first place finishes and this has the (intended or unintended) effect that anyone who cannot reach first place stops playing competitively.
I am saying that I think this scenario is the death of fun.

The worst thing about it, IMO, is that it presents a huge barrier to entry.
If you've never played a (well-established) game before, it's likely that you aren't going to start winning right out of the gates.
But here you have a scenario where you don't get to watch your ranking improve incrementally as your fourth-places turn into thirds, then seconds, then eventually firsts.
You get to sit dead last on zero points until you eke out your first win (likely giving up in frustration before that point).
Just awful, awful, awful.

32

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 14, 2015, 09:44:17 pm »

33

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: June 14, 2015, 07:54:42 pm »

it works if you only go by the ranking system that BSW uses, which is what is done there.  people would be far more receptive to your argument if the site gave you points for finishing 2nd or 3rd, but literally the only thing it tracks is who finished 1st.

And that's basically an artificially imposed version of the mindset that a lot of player's have, which is win-at-all-costs because second place is just the first of the losers.
It's not a mindset that I share, and it's one that I feel is not particularly conducive to actually having fun.

Given that it causes players who can no longer get first place to essentially stop playing, that seems like prima facie proof that it's a mindset that ruins fun.

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 14, 2015, 07:13:53 pm »

35

Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Re: Official Dominion Merchandise

« on: June 11, 2015, 11:27:23 pm »

There's this container of mints that Donald mentioned in the interview thread.

...a container of mints.

I'm going to skip making the Mine/Mint joke because I'm too curious about the story behind this.

There isn't much of a story. It's a small container of mints. HiG must have decided it was a good promotion. You press on the middle of the lid to open it, press on the edges to close it. That's kind of neat. I keep mine in the little wooden chest.

http://boardgamegeek.com/image/860208/dominion

36

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 11, 2015, 11:03:18 pm »

WARNING! This thread will self-destruct in 39 posts and counting.

Is there a reason why going over 5000 posts breaks the thread?

Threads just don't get any bigger than this.

37

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Flavor Synergy

« on: June 04, 2015, 01:40:37 am »

Meanwhile, Peasant Teacher is stoned out of his mind when the recruiters show up.

Am not.

38

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Flavor Synergy

« on: June 03, 2015, 09:58:48 pm »

why is hero not called heroine when its card art is female?

Hero is widely accepted as a gender-neutral term. This is part of a larger trend of gender-specific language falling out of fashion as it comes to be seen as sexist.
A similar example is that many people now use "actor" to refer to both male and female, doing away with the word "actress" altogether.
The word "authoress" is virtually unheard of these days.

Or, if you prefer, it's not actually her title but her name.

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Flavor Synergy

« on: June 03, 2015, 02:07:59 am »

Someone mentioned in another thread that Inheritance/Estate are (deliberately?) thematic names because an estate is something you inherit.
Although that is really an entirely different definition of the word estate.

40

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards you hate!

« on: June 03, 2015, 01:25:21 am »

Curse.

41

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 02, 2015, 08:18:02 pm »

42

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 02, 2015, 07:32:29 pm »

With Scrying Pool it works, there are probably other combinations that work, but edge cases don't invalidate the general rule.
The point is that 99 times out of 100 trashing Rats with Ratcatcher is a losing strategy.
Arguing about whether there is a worse losing strategy than this losing strategy is pointless semantics.

43

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 02, 2015, 07:03:05 pm »

I guess that depends on how wide a range "worst" encompasses.  You could also say Young Witch is one of the worst attacks, since there are better attacks.

Buy Rats.
Turn all your junk into Rats.
Buy Ratcatcher.
Slowly trash all your Rats with Ratcatcher.
Find yourself many turns behind where you would have been if you had just trashed your junk with Ratcatcher.

Yeah, I'd say that's about the strategic equivalent of buying Young Witch.

44

Other Games / Re: board game suggestions?

« on: May 27, 2015, 12:04:55 am »

I'm open to anything, including card based games with no board I guess

I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or not.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest you check out a game called Dominion.

45

Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Re: Event cards have all been put in the Kingdom cards category

« on: May 26, 2015, 11:33:00 pm »

Yeah, I tried editing the Alms page, but there doesn't seem to be any way to remove it from a category.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: May 26, 2015, 07:14:57 pm »

No, games that do not require head-to-head play can take any number of players--this covers (most) racing, golf, and some others.  But I can only think of one game/sport that is routinely watched by spectators that doesn't fall into one of these categories, which is poker--and even a ton of that is now played head-to-head.

You're not out of the running in poker until you are eliminated though.
The manner in which you are eliminated can certainly have an impact on the remaining players, but it's not really kingmaking unless you deliberately lose.

47

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: May 26, 2015, 07:09:49 pm »

I don't mind when people correctly answer questions for me. On BGG I tip people who nail the answer; they are saving me time.

What are we doing on this forum? We could be making coin!
_{Well, GeekGold.}

48

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: May 26, 2015, 09:45:21 am »

- don't break any of these rules even if it will get you second place instead of last.

This sounds strange to me. So if you don't have a shot at winning, you essentially switch into dummy mode? Might as well leave the game and have an algorithm play your last moves?

Yeah, I find this rather patronising.
Didn't get first, so stop trying to play competitively?

And, as others have mentioned, this is still a form of kingmaking.
If I don't win because another player didn't play competitively (like allowing another player to get a resource that they otherwise wouldn't get) I am going to be far more annoyed than if I don't win because another player played fiercely to claw into second place.

49

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: May 25, 2015, 09:14:47 pm »

The Silver Test! Those were the days...

Remember kids, always buy a Province when you have $8+.
Always.

50

Goko Dominion Online / Re: 2.0 Closed Beta Begins

« on: May 25, 2015, 09:01:30 pm »

No, because--ignoring, for the moment, console-focused publishers--PC-game and online game publishers are having somewhat open alpha phases, and many are even allowing buy-in during the "closed" beta.  Making Fun is much closer in scale to, say, Kerbal Space Program or Prismata than to Blizzard.

But it's not even about scale. Those games are using a fully open public alpha/beta model as a way to launch new games.
It's more to do with marketing than testing.

MF are running a closed beta to test a new version of a currently available game.
It would run completely counter to their marketing aims to make an unpolished version widely available.

Though SFS's reply to this above is also correct, my point earlier was that they should not have made the existence of the beta public until it was sufficiently awesome for the beta testers to actually discuss it.

I can't really get behind the concept that no info is better than some info.
I agree that it's frustrating that we don't know more, but I'm still happy that we know that the project has at least progressed as far as it has.