I read what you're saying and I read what Goko is saying and they seem to be at odds. While I certainly consider you the more credible source and I want to believe you, I worry that there's a disconnect somewhere and that Goko fully intends on creating their own content.Worry all you want dude. I'm not worried.
At this point whose permission would they need to introduce their own promo cards? Jay's? Donald's? No one's? That's my question, I guess.I'm not interested in in-depth analysis of legalities. They aren't making any new cards unless I'm okay with it. I'm not. I might at some point agree to an online-only card that I designed, provided it was something that couldn't be done on a card irl.
How do you feel about comparisons between your company and Zynga in the mainstream press?From that article:
Example: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-08/20/goko-launch-problemsQuoteThe elaborate printed expansions for the Dominion card game run between $30 and $45 (£19-£29) at retail -- for their digital equivalents Goko is asking around $15 (£9.50) apiece in their "Gokoins" currency, and special individual cards exclusive to Goko are planned as additional purchases.
O rly?
I'm hoping that this is incorrect based on what DXV has stated this weekend.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-08/20/goko-launch-problems
One tidbit I hadn't seen yet: DXV confirmed Goko has a 5-year exclusive contract to Dominion.
I would call isotropic cross platform because you can use it on any computer. I would even call something which ran on only windows and Macintosh cross platform, even though I use LInux. I guess it might be reasonable to say this is not a standard definition now.I agree that they are using a weird meaning of cross-platform. But isn't it obvious that they mean "both runs on desktop browsers and is optimized for mobile browsers"? That isn't a completely ridiculous thing to mean by "cross-platform".
Since Wikipedia is the ultimate judge of truth, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform agrees with me.
They haven't actually optimized for mobile browsers though (straight from goko:
https://getsatisfaction.com/goko/topics/can_dominion_be_played_with_an_iphone)
They have a 1 size fits all that is optimized for ipad 1 screen resolution, and everyone else just gets that.
Now playing on an ipad 1....
Being willing to launch your product with a known security hole that is trivial to exploit is just irresponsible.
Weird. Reasonable enough, but what if somebody uses promo cards to get just KC, Goons, Masquerade, and then plays with just those and base?
I have 200 microsoft point sitting in my xbox live account that I'll never be able to spend.
The exchange rate was $1=80 points, presumably because they wanted to make it harder to figure out how much games cost. But that's fine, I can do math, who cares about that.
The real "screw you" was that most downloadable games on xbox arcade cost $5 or $10 (i.e. 400 or 800 points) while, originally, you could only buy points in 1000-point increments. So one day I wanted to buy a game for 800 points, but I had to pay $12.50 for 1000 points because I didn't have a choice. That left me with 200 points sitting in my account.
Now, lots of people complained about this, and microsoft eventually capitulated, changing the purchase bundles to $5 increments instead of 1000-point increments. Now, whenever I buy a game, I can just buy 800 points for $10 (or 400 points for $5) and spend them immediately.
Of course, that means I still have those 200 points. Just sitting there, laughing at me. They'll never get spent as long as designers price games as multiples of 400 points. I consider it the price of doing business with assholes.
They wanted campaigns. What could they do, besides having different sets of 10 cards? I said, you could vary starting decks. They said sweet."In a new online adventure mode designed by Goko & Donald X, created to challenge you and improve your skills"
http://dominion.isotropic.org/
I demand a secret history of adventure mode!
They made campaigns. One day Wei-Hwa sent me some lists of sets of ten cards for the campaign levels. I complained that they introduced new cards too slowly - when I play a Prosperity campaign I want to see lots of Prosperity cards. Wei-Hwa said, I don't remember what he said. I said I could make the lists. I made the lists. So most of the sets-of-10 are mine, but not the main set ones, or some of the later ones in the first few expansions.
I still have to send them the Hinterlands lists. Other than that I am out of that picture.
"In a new online adventure mode designed by Goko & Donald X, created to challenge you and improve your skills"
http://dominion.isotropic.org/
Jeez... I've been hard on Goko, but I'm really not seeing $70-80 as a problematic price point, guys. Slightly steep perhaps, and the "Gokoins" thing is annoying, but it's not in the realm of ridiculous. Remember: That price is for seven games. Not one, seven. Ten bucks a game really isn't that terrible.
Then I hereby clamor at the top of my lungs not only for a simple point counter, but also for an official full deck counter at least as extensive as Dr Held's Chrome extension. (It could be more extensive in also tracking discarded cards which I would welcome a lot.)A full deck counter seems very unlikely.
We've made the decision to roll our games and game site back into beta for testing.
We will go live again when it's ready. We’d love to say that will happen tomorrow or
next week, but that’s not the right way to proceed.
"Shut down" is the wrong phrase. What I actually did was crash it. People have been discussing how you can run javascript on the opponents computer. It's not that hard to write some code that just crashes.
The part about "translating into plaintext" didn't make much sense either. I suspect what we have here is the Goko debacle's first fan fiction.
I'm not personally upset or offended since I will almost certainly buy it no matter what.
My fear is that through a combination of Goko's bumbling and bad press, the online version will be unpopular so I won't be able to play as many games vs. other humans, or that the lack of popularity will also mean Goko won't spend any resources perfecting it.
Yeah, I was assuming I was going to be buying it all no matter what right up until today....
Why would you not now? It's back into beta so all of the issues will, hopefully, be fixed
Stash is actually pretty easy coding wise. Remove it from he deck, shuffle the deck, insert it back in. That's how I handle the card irl.
It's not the coding that's difficult, it's the UI. How do you implement a way for users to choose where to put the card? How do you show where it is at any given point (i.e. simulating the different card back)? isotropic had a rather awkward way of doing it.
Well, text logs are pretty trivial and also a pretty useful debugging tool, I don't see any reason not to put them in.But of course the people paying me want to know exactly how long it's going to take so they know how much it's going to cost. Unfortunately I am not a painter who can just multiply the number of square feet by the time it takes him to paint a square foot.And the flip-side is, if there is a specific date you want to meet, you may need to sacrifice something to make it. If it's not features, then it's quality.
I feel like Goko had more ambition for this launch than they could actually manage. There are a lot of non-essential features that could have been delayed until after launch, including some things requested here. Text logs, for example, maybe should have been left for later; what good are they if people can't play at all?
This ridiculous adventure mode could certainly have been scrapped though.
What is it about this game that attracts so many programmers?
I got it. I wonder how the other 140ish game licensees are feeling today?
What do they care? They have their money.
Depends on the amount of money - and how much they care about their customers.
And the structure of the commercial arrangement. DXV has hinted that he doesn't know whether or not he'll see any money from online dominion. That kindof implies that its a revenue / profit sharing model - rather than an upfront 1 time license.
I got it. I wonder how the other 140ish game licensees are feeling today?
Here's a question: are they authorized under your relationship with them to release their own expansion content? Could they release "Goko Market: +2 coin, +2 card, +2action, +2buy", cost: 8 for example?They can't do that, and wouldn't try to get it past me anyway.
I don't have a contract with them at all. They have a contract with RGG and RGG has a contract with me.
I have not made any online-only promos. I'm sure they would like one. I don't know if it will ever happen.Rare cards...Don't forget Stash!
Are we just talking about Gov / Envoy / Black market / walled village?
To my knowledge, it's just the normal promos, unless DXV made additional ones for Goko too. It is confirmed that campaign mode is one way to unlock the promos we're familiar with.
Here's a question: are they authorized under your relationship with them to release their own expansion content? Could they release "Goko Market: +2 coin, +2 card, +2action, +2buy", cost: 8 for example?
