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426
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: May 07, 2016, 05:54:57 pm »
Ditto with Thief.  Many people miss that targeted Treasures go into the Trash, whereas then the player who played the Thief then gets to decide if he wants to gain those cards or not.  I'll mention it once that this is how it works, but be more up front about it when it does directly matter, like the targeted players now getting to resolve a Market Square.

SCSN will not miss that detail, because missing that means gaining Coppers, and we all know how much SCSN hates treasures.
Many digital implementations I've seen have been good about that.  I even forget from time to time, wondering why there's a "blip" in the Trash pile, only to remember that yeah, that is how that works.

427
Since Scouting Party gives you +1 Buy, you can use it multiple times so long as you have the coins.  If you miss a Tunnel the first time, you're more likely to be able to hit a Tunnel, or more of them the 2nd time in-a-row

428
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: May 07, 2016, 04:57:27 pm »
A gain is simply getting a card into your deck in whatever way it happens*, whether Ironworks, buying a card, or even gaining a Curse from an opponent's Witch. Maybe explaining it that way would help.
*Except for having it passed to you by Masquerade, or exchanging a Traveller, or when you trash a Fortress and it gets returned to your hand.

Okay, getting a new card into your deck then. Travellers are simply the same card evolving in a real sense, and Masquerade is passing old cards. Fortress is already in your deck.

When Fortress is trashed, it is briefly no longer in your deck.  If you don't consider Fortress a new card from the trash, then what about when you gain from the trash via Graverobber or Rogue?  Those cards aren't "new" either then.

Ditto with Thief.  Many people miss that targeted Treasures go into the Trash, whereas then the player who played the Thief then gets to decide if he wants to gain those cards or not.  I'll mention it once that this is how it works, but be more up front about it when it does directly matter, like the targeted players now getting to resolve a Market Square.

429
Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Teasers!
« on: May 07, 2016, 04:33:00 am »
$14 Event!

Man, that's expensive.

I'm curious how this bidding card works.

I'll give you $10 for it.

That's called Haggling, and we already have a card for that ;)

430
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Alchemy Cards: Potion
« on: May 06, 2016, 07:27:18 pm »
I was going to say that adding more potion cards would mean there'd be a chance of an all potion-cost kingdom, when I realized there are enough of them for that to happen already.
FWIW, in more cases than not, it seems if the Potions are gone and you wanted one, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference by then anyways.

431
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Expand superfluous?
« on: May 06, 2016, 07:24:03 pm »
I stand by what I said. Not saying you don't want Forge if you have to go and get it, but man, it's just never fun.
While having fun is important, winning is what makes it fun for some.
Reiner Knizia — 'When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.'
Not to be outdone by his other quote...

Go for the monopolies :D

432
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Expand superfluous?
« on: May 06, 2016, 07:22:27 pm »
I stand by what I said. Not saying you don't want Forge if you have to go and get it, but man, it's just never fun.
While having fun is important, winning is what makes it fun for some.
Reiner Knizia — 'When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.'

Problem is, I've played with some Dom players who found it less fun when folks just go for Gold rather than "something fancy".  Well... the goal of Dom. is to have the most points.  If you want a game where folks experiment with combos, then you'd need to make your parameters known ahead of time.

433
Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Teasers!
« on: May 06, 2016, 05:10:02 pm »
Dominion: Empires has:

- 76 pieces of card art.
- 60 VP symbols.
- 16 red hexagons.
- 10 uses of "Setup."
- 2 Duration cards.
- 2 ways to trash cards from the Supply.
- An Action-Treasure card.
- An Event costing $14.
- A way to double your money.
- A way to bid.
Oddly enough, the Duration cards still stand out more than anything else on this list!!!


PLEASE OH PLEASE let there be more Alayna Lemmer art. I love her stuff so much.
Can you list some specific cards that stand out that Alayna Lemmer did the art for?

EDIT: clarification

434
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Expand superfluous?
« on: May 05, 2016, 12:30:08 am »
I stand by what I said. Not saying you don't want Forge if you have to go and get it, but man, it's just never fun.
While having fun is important, winning is what makes it fun for some.

435
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: May 05, 2016, 12:21:12 am »
It's actually 36k/millennium, which is a terrific deal if you take inflation into account. But those reluctant to take advantage of this great opportunity can just pay for whatever month they want to pay.

Your current model is obviously biased towards faster playing users, as they can play more games within a given month.  There should be an alternative pay-per-game model to accommodate slower-playing users.
The solution to that of course would be to play longer and fewer games that'll derive you more enjoyment.

436
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: May 02, 2016, 01:42:40 am »
Wow I have never seen such ridiculous terms of service. "You buy virtual goods for $90, but we have the right to 'eliminate' them at our sole discretion without refund"? That's like iTunes saying "We may delete any music you have bought whenever we want". These terms are clearly invalid under unfair contract term laws.

Um... this sort of thing is common in every online game I've ever played.  Botting in Hearthstone?  Banned, all your stuff is gone.  Selling gold in WOW (or similar currency in other MMOs)?  Banned, all your stuff is gone.  Being such a complete asshole in DOTA that you get reported multiple times per game?  Banned, all your stuff is gone.
Not to mention the occasions where Amazon removed ebooks from people's Kindles, in one instance because they discovered that the person selling 1984 didn't actually have an appropriate licence for it, and in another when they claimed the person's account was somehow associated with an abuse of their rules so they wiped everything.
Did they at least refund those purchases?

437
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: May 01, 2016, 06:02:33 pm »
So I paid $90 for all the expansions 1 month ago. The value of 1 year of online plus all the expansions offline under the new model will be $36+around $50 = approximately $90. Then surely those of us who have bought everything could at least get both 1 year of online and permanent offline? Why would we only get one of those?

I think the reason is that SCSN and Stef have to eat.
Frankly, I was surprised that they even offered that much to begin with to the MF customers, as giving away even that much seems to be a strain on their operations (remember that we'd like this to be a sustainable one?).  Any $$ users paid to MF sure as heck isn't going to SCCN and Stef.  Nor Donald X, nor RGG.

438
So on your turn, you'd need to remember that you played Moat when HW was played, and shouldn't put unplayed cards from hand back on top of your deck if you made a buy?
Yes. And we didn't find this to be an issue.

I disagreed with this at first.  It just seems "inelegant" to have to have a memory aspect.  Note that the memory aspect here is to PLAY the game.  WINNING the game is another thing entirely.  And yeah, you'd want to be keeping track of as much stuff as possible anyways (e.g. did I already use Gold for this shuffle?  How many Provinces does each player have?  Did my opponent already play that attack card, so I'm safe from it and can do something else instead?)

However, I do recall that Smugglers does force you to remember what a player before you gained.  And some turns, you have a whole mess of +actions and +coins to worry about, so it's not like you'd always be able to get around that.

In short, I digress!

439
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's discuss Alchemy cards: University
« on: May 01, 2016, 05:34:41 pm »
I used to go gaga over this card.  And yes, this was even when we were NOT using it to gain Duchies (it seems more than one group has missed that you can only gain ACTION cards that cost up to $5).  Chalk this up as another card that's really not THAT good.  A card that costs Potion no less

Does work to buff up Vineyards.  Not uncommon to have Vineyards worth 6 to 9 pts per due to this.

Quote
Which $5 cards is it best with?
I'd say it'd be nice to get Great Halls with this, but I'd like to think they'll be gone by the time you can get that many, if any at all with a Uni.

Cards you'd like to have a lot of.  Already covered by ced... Minoin, Lab, Highway.  I'd also add Lost City and Treasury to the mix.

Quote
When is it a trap?
Otherwise, to get $5 cards, they should be easier and quicker to get without Uni., unless there are cards that bog decks down (like Militia).

Quote
How awesome is the combo with Watchtower?
Pretty.  Play a Uni., top deck a $5 or useful action card, and then you'll be guaranteed to get it AND have the action to play that one action card.

440
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Alchemy Cards: Potion
« on: May 01, 2016, 04:50:36 pm »
When you go for Potion-cost action cards, do you always open Potion?
When do you buy more than 1 Potion?
Only if there are Potion cards worth going after.  E.g. Familiar with no good defense against it

If you're going to be heavily vested in where they matter... to buy Vineyards more quickly, especially with +Buys.  Alchemists so you can trigger the "recycling" of them.

If I want to have more Potion-cost cards, having 2 helps with that.  Otherwise, if I just want a small quantity of Potion-cost cards, I stick with just 1 Potion.

Is the variance Potion adds to the game good or bad for Dominion as a whole?
Have you ever resigned after drawing 1P?
Do you want to see Potions utilized in future expansions?
I like it.  We already have cards on the higher variance side, with one extreme being Treasure Map.

No to $1, 1p.  Supposedly, my next hand will be kickass, even if it's without a Potion.  But still, it is a bit dejecting.  No different than getting the "dreaded 7".

Yes.  Moar potions please!

441
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: May 01, 2016, 03:28:18 am »
I haven't read all of the other replies but I have to admit that I also find this entire ordeal really annoying. I payed the equivalent of $90, so I can occasionally play Dominion at my free leisure. Recently I had troubles in my life and didn't really have time for anything and I still don't and now you're telling me that my purchase will basically be just a waste? Making my purchase the equivalent of a service of about $36 is not a good reimbursement, come on. I'd rather prefer MF to still hold the contract at this time even though it is far from perfect and made me use SCSNs mod to make it more bearable.

I'd rather pay a steep price once than pay a little each month and feel like I wasted money if I don't play at least once this month. I am disillusioned at how poor structered the new pay model is and how everyone is so ecstatic about these news.

I think that most people understand that ongoing services have a cost.  Some places use donation models to keep things going (BGA, Yucata, Kingdom of Loathing).  Some use pay-to-win or pay-for-hats to keep things going (Prismata, Hearthstone, and *shudder* mobile freemium).  And others use subscriptions.

Making Fun had an unsustainable business model.  They were going to get less and less revenue each month at some point, and server costs were going to eat them.

The thing about subscriptions is, you don't have to pay every month!  Shit hit the fan IRL?  Cancel for the next few months, bam, done.  You could request/suggest that the free year be allowed to be taken as 12 months, I suppose.

And yes, you could argue that a donation model might work.  But how many people will donate to server costs?  Would they need a yearly donation drive like BGG or Wikipedia?  How quickly would that start to hurt?  I personally would rather have a sustainable service, and $3 a month is an incredible price point.

Both groups have a point.

MakingFun's model was a bad one. But that didn't stop Rio Grand from making the deal with them. So there is some responsibility there.

The "contract" MF made with players was "buy this product and get to use it online forever". Note that the price they charged was VERY VERY high. Normal online games are nowhere close to $90 for the "full service". Also note that server costs are low and getting cheaper everyday. Most costs for an online service are one-time fixed costs. So the one time charge is less crazy than it sounds (more bad from a revenue perspective than due to cost structure)

I think people who paid $90 for a specific thing are right to be pissed off that those contracts are being thrown away and replaced with a vastly weaker product: Either less than half the functionality or only one year of service (and still less functionality).

I honestly think RG is setting themselves up for s class action lawsuit.

I think there best options at this point are:

1- Offer full refunds to original buyers
2- Offer free lifetime service to original buyers (expansions purchased)

If they were willing to take more risks they could offer the $90 as credit on the new platform (likely after getting people to sign a contract promising not to sue). But even that is a little risky.

What they are doing now counts on a court saying that all liability lies with MakingFun. It's possible but I wouldn't count on that if I was Jay.

Ed

Here is the Mf policy:

Virtual Currencies and Goods

The Service may include a virtual, in-game currency (“Virtual Currency”) including, but not limited to coins, cash, or points that may be purchased for actual money if you are a legal adult in your country of residence. Examples of Virtual Currency include, but are not limited to, “Ducats” in Dominion, “Tickets” in Hidden Express, “Gems” in Mage and Minions, and “Gold” in BloodRealm. The Service may also include virtual, in-game digital items (“Virtual Goods”) that may be purchased from Making Fun for actual money or for Virtual Currency. Regardless of the terminology used, Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods may never be redeemed for actual money, goods or other items of monetary value from Making Fun or any other party.

Other than a limited, personal, revocable, non-transferable, non-sublicenseable and non-exclusive license to use the Virtual Goods or Virtual Currency within the Service, you have no right or title in or to any such Virtual Goods or Virtual Currency appearing or originating within the Service, or any other attributes associated with use of the Service or stored within the Service.

Making Fun has the absolute right, but not the obligation, to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate such Virtual Currency or Virtual Goods as it sees fit in its sole discretion, and Making Fun shall have no liability to you or any third party for the exercise of such rights.

Transfers of Virtual Currencies and Virtual Goods are strictly prohibited except where explicitly authorized within the Service. Outside of the game, you may not buy or sell any Virtual Currency or Virtual Goods for “real world” money or other items of value. Any attempt to do so is in violation of these Terms and may result in a lifetime ban from the Service and possible legal action.

You agree that all sales of Virtual Goods and Virtual Currencies are final. No refunds will be given, except in our sole and absolute discretion. All Virtual Goods and Virtual Currencies are forfeited if your Account is terminated or suspended for any reason, in Making Fun’s sole and absolute discretion, or if Making Fun discontinues providing the Service or the Game where the Virtual Goods or Virtual Currencies were obtained.


I am no lawyer, but this looks pretty clear to me. They never promised you anything of that sort, and you're not even entitled to the first year of online Dominion.

Wow I have never seen such ridiculous terms of service. "You buy virtual goods for $90, but we have the right to 'eliminate' them at our sole discretion without refund"? That's like iTunes saying "We may delete any music you have bought whenever we want". These terms are clearly invalid under unfair contract term laws.
I believe that's already the deal with apps... if the developer closes shop, Apple pulls their apps from the iOS AppStore.  If you didn't keep a backup copy of it, then you won't ever be able to DL it again... even if you spent $$ to buy it in the first place.

442
MOOOOAT!  Actually, given that the effect hits you in later turns, I'd imagine it doesn't work.

???

If you reveal a Moat when Haunted Woods is played, you will be unaffected by it.
So on your turn, you'd need to remember that you played Moat when HW was played, and shouldn't put unplayed cards from hand back on top of your deck if you made a buy?

443
The one con about Distant Lands is (and correct me if I'm wrong) that since each player's Tavern mat is public info and these go on the mat face up, other players have knowledge about how many points you have from these.  That wouldn't stop me from getting this and onto my Tavern, but still something that could be used against you.

If your opponent is smart, he's going to track how many points you get anyways. You know, besides Silk Roads and Gardens...
But there's the memory aspect which is still a hurdle to some. 

I've met some folks (far and few though) who either knew exactly how many points their 3 other opponents had, or at least track Provinces.  Short of tourney games, even many Dominion fans I play with don't go to such extremes.  In fact, even though they're fans of Dom, have multitudes of expansions, and sleeve their cards, even they'd consider it hard core to be scouring Dominion Strategy articles, charts, graphs, and analyzing simulator results.

444
That's what I've been doing.  Transmogrify itself is a $4 card, so by way events, there will always be something to Transmogrify from.  If you have 2 of these in hand with a Silver, you can double Transmogrify the Silver into a Distant Lands.

In either case, getting a Distant Lands in this fashion is a guaranteed 4pts since it goes in your hand, and you'll have at least one action to use it.  I wouldn't mind using this early on either, as the Distant Lands that gets Reserved stays out of your deck.

If you have two Transmogrifies in hand, you can not use them in the same turn.
I meant to say in Tavern.  Corrected!

445
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Caravan Guard
« on: April 30, 2016, 05:36:42 pm »
If nothing else, Caravan Guards can be used to get you Peddlers easier.

446
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Haunted Woods
« on: April 30, 2016, 05:26:46 pm »
MOOOOAT!  Actually, given that the effect hits you in later turns, I'd imagine it doesn't work.

Barring that, there's also calling a Guide.  A Scout would be useful if you can top deck Victory cards

447
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Quest
« on: April 30, 2016, 05:14:52 pm »
I'm already thinking up of scenarios where you could get +2 Buys, 12 cards in hand, and want to do this twice over whatever your lousy hand of 12 cards is at that Buy phase!  :o

Build engine
Buy two curses
...
Profit
In practice, won't you fail to get the 2 Curses together half the time?  It's like trying to get 2 Treasure Maps to collide.  In fact, I'm thinking you may want to get a 3rd or 4th Curse to better ensure this works, but by then, those Curses would undo whatever advantage you get from the Gold!  At least the Treasure Maps are self trashing.

Gold. Why do people complain about Gold? They can't all be the best $6 card ever.

Yeah. At least Quest doesn't give you Adventurers.
If anything, it should consume them ;)

448
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: April 30, 2016, 04:49:55 pm »
Just wanted to say that I'm very excited about this news.  My only concern, which was voiced above, is that 2 very dedicated Dominion players may not understand the casual player, and I hope that person will be kept in mind.  But I think it's great that two people who love the game are going to be working on it and can't wait for the first day of a real implementation.
To be fair, does anybody really understand the casual player?  I'm not sure anybody here (on a site called Dominion Strategy) would classify as "casual", but if there were, I'd reckon there wouldn't be that many such folks.

AFAIK, they play a free version online or offline.  If they never want to bother paying for anything, they either get bored and move on to something else, or continue playing the base game.  I presume the server costs for such folks wouldn't go up by THAT much.  I do wonder how many folks will end up converting to paid models, to get access to expansions.  It sounds like some of these casual gamers aren't even "real board gamers", so that's another layer to get through.

449
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Distant Lands
« on: April 30, 2016, 04:39:09 pm »
The one con about Distant Lands is (and correct me if I'm wrong) that since each player's Tavern mat is public info and these go on the mat face up, other players have knowledge about how many points you have from these.  That wouldn't stop me from getting this and onto my Tavern, but still something that could be used against you.


This gives me another thing to do with Transmogrify... Transmogrify a $4 card (which at the minimum, can be another Transmogrify) to get a DL in your hand, and since that's a non-terminal, you'll be able to use at least 1 DL in this fashion.  A bit more extreme, but if you have 2 Transmogrify's, then turn a Silver into a Reserved DL, while continuing to hold onto all of your Transmogrify.

450
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chapel
« on: April 30, 2016, 04:27:17 pm »
Chapel?  Never heard of this card.  Is it useful?  Was this in one of the expansions? ;D

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