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Author Topic: Petition for the return of Isotropic  (Read 92545 times)

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SCSN

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Petition for the return of Isotropic
« on: January 05, 2014, 03:56:45 pm »
+5

With the crumbling of their brittle server under a bit of unanticipated traffic as the latest installment in Goko's serial display of inconceivable ineptitude, they've exhausted all doubts of which a reasonable person might grant them the benefit.

I neither know nor care for the particulars of the agreement between dougz and DXV, but with the latter outing his dissatisfaction with whoever is (not) running Goko in such explicit terms as

Quote from: Donald X.
If you do end up needing to contact Goko, most people simply wait until they're the one in charge of the company; everyone gets a turn eventually. Then just remind yourself about whatever your problem was and try not to push it onto whoever comes after you.

one could imagine that he wouldn't have much of a problem with Isotropic's (temporary) return.

So what I propose is this:

1. The immediate return of Isotropic.

2. Informing Goko by means of a friendly Facebook pm (highest likelihood of being read) of (1) and promising them to voluntarily take down Isotropic again once they successfully complete a set of tough challenges, the exact content of which is up for debate, but example elements might be:

- Two consecutive months of 99%+ uptime.
- One month without games hanging or not loading at all.
- Two weeks without serious lagging, like the 10 seconds of suspenseful anticipation between playing a Mining Village and receiving into my hand the Curse that was top-decked by my opponent's Sea Hag.
- People bringing up critical issues on Getsatisfaction like non-loading games or non-functioning account-activation receiving a response within a reasonable time-frame (let's say less than 3 weeks).
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achmed_sender

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2014, 04:05:01 pm »
+5

There's missing the option "Yes" for the poll.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2014, 04:10:09 pm »
+7

dougz probably won't do this. If I had to guess.
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DG

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2014, 04:19:00 pm »
+5

I wouldn't drag Donald X. into this. He's a game designer, I'm guessing he doesn't like politics and commercial stuff, and the Goko contract is presumably with Rio Grande. Even though Goko is a lame duck it could still be better from Rio Grande's point of view to keep a revenue stream from Goko than have a fight with them over the rights. For all we know, RGG might have better partners waiting in the wings if Goko goes bust.
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GeoLib

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2014, 04:22:21 pm »
+2

Has anyone tried contacting Rio Grande and pointing out that Goko has numerous problems XYZ? They might actually still listen to people.
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SCSN

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2014, 04:41:18 pm »
0

dougz probably won't do this. If I had to guess.

I love placing tiny bets on low-probability events with massive pay-offs.

I wouldn't drag Donald X. into this. He's a game designer, I'm guessing he doesn't like politics and commercial stuff, and the Goko contract is presumably with Rio Grande. Even though Goko is a lame duck it could still be better from Rio Grande's point of view to keep a revenue stream from Goko than have a fight with them over the rights. For all we know, RGG might have better partners waiting in the wings if Goko goes bust.

I'm open to any and all explicit suggestions for modification of the OP and/or the course of action to be taken. As it is your post sounds too vague to be useful and reeks too much of "let's just wait and see, maybe our problems will just magically go away," which is an attitude for which I have nothing but the utmost contempt.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2014, 04:56:12 pm »
+5

SCSN, I admire your gumption, but it's not impossible to alienate the people you want to do things for you by making demands on them (I'm not referring to Goko here, screw Goko).
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Kirian

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2014, 05:02:45 pm »
+5

I neither know nor care for the particulars of the agreement between dougz and DXV, but with the latter outing his dissatisfaction with whoever is (not) running Goko in such explicit terms as

Quote from: Donald X.
If you do end up needing to contact Goko, most people simply wait until they're the one in charge of the company; everyone gets a turn eventually. Then just remind yourself about whatever your problem was and try not to push it onto whoever comes after you.

one could imagine that he wouldn't have much of a problem with Isotropic's (temporary) return.

While I generally agree with your sentiment, I think you're far too optimistic about this going anywhere:

1.  Just because Donald has expressed his displeasure with Goko doesn't mean he has the ability to renegotiate RGG's contracts with Goko.  There is, as far as I know, no direct business relationship between Donald X and Goko.

2.  The gentlemen's agreement between DougZ and Donald X is a pretty strong one, as I understand it, but even if it weren't, DougZ has exactly nothing to gain and a lot to lose from re-opening Iso Dominion.  RGG, Donald, and DougZ could lose actual money to a lawsuit here.  Not going to happen.

3.  That said, I don't think Goko will do a damned thing about someone else coding up their own Iso-style Dominion.  There won't be enough to gain from trying to shut such a thing down, because they already have most of the money they're going to make from us!  How many people are going to buy into Goko based on TB's video?  Approximately none, given the immediate failure of Goko to handle the slightly increased load.

This last is especially true if the code is open-source and multiple people are willing to mirror it.
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Kirian

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2014, 05:06:18 pm »
+1

I'm open to any and all explicit suggestions for modification of the OP and/or the course of action to be taken. As it is your post sounds too vague to be useful and reeks too much of "let's just wait and see, maybe our problems will just magically go away," which is an attitude for which I have nothing but the utmost contempt.

Explicit suggestion:

(1) Code your own Dominion site, or find someone who can.
(2) Host the code, or find a place to host it.
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SCSN

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2014, 05:42:24 pm »
0

SCSN, I admire your gumption, but it's not impossible to alienate the people you want to do things for you by making demands on them (I'm not referring to Goko here, screw Goko).

That's a risk I'm willing to take; I play to win, not to not lose.

Also, I'm not an idiot, I don't plan to make demands on anyone (well, except Goko, but they can suck my... no, wait, that would probably be highly unpleasant). I'm going to contact dougz with this suggestion and let him make the call, and I'm happy with whatever he'll decide. I considered writing to him without any backing from the community, but I figured that with a bunch of people supporting the idea he'd be at least slightly more willing to consider it.
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markusin

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2014, 05:52:22 pm »
0

At the time of writing this post, SCSN had over 4000 pro games played on Goko according to drunkensailor stats, so he definitely gave Goko a shot.

I don't think we should pressure DougZ to reopen iso Dominion unless Goko actually announces a prolonged or permanent shutdown. It would likely break whatever gentleman's agreement he's made with RGG and Donald X., or at least go against his code of ethics. Even if Goko does shut down, there's no guarantee he'd be willing to put the site back up.

Having a community maintained Online Implementation waiting in the wings sounds like it could be a neat idea (personally, I doubt that I have enough experience with web applications to contribute meaningfully to such a project).
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SCSN

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2014, 06:26:37 pm »
0

While I generally agree with your sentiment, I think you're far too optimistic about this going anywhere:

1.  Just because Donald has expressed his displeasure with Goko doesn't mean he has the ability to renegotiate RGG's contracts with Goko.  There is, as far as I know, no direct business relationship between Donald X and Goko.

2.  The gentlemen's agreement between DougZ and Donald X is a pretty strong one, as I understand it, but even if it weren't [...] RGG, Donald, and DougZ could lose actual money to a lawsuit here.  Not going to happen.

These are indeed serious objections. At this point I'm reluctant to say more than that I have considered them, and that I'll address them in my message to dougz.

Quote
DougZ has exactly nothing to gain from re-opening Iso Dominion

This is simply false. It's far more satisfying to have the fruits of hundreds of hours of coding flourish in the wild than to have them rust away on an eroding hard drive.

Explicit suggestion:

(1) Code your own Dominion site, or find someone who can.
(2) Host the code, or find a place to host it.

It's an idea I'm toying with, but I won't be able to pull it off on my own. In any case, before I might consider reinventing the wheel, I want to try my luck with the existing manufacturers. The absolute best of them sounds like a great place to start :)
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ftl

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2014, 06:40:38 pm »
+8

Huh. I'm surprised by how much I'm in the minority, given those poll options.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2014, 06:59:51 pm »
+1

I don't know much about contract law, but I would imagine that sufficient incompetence on Goko's part would at least permit an opportunity to terminate the contract.  Whether RGG would bother making that effort is less clear though.  SCSN, if you choose to contact doug or Donald, I would ask them to support you (us) in a statement to Jay at RGG, rather than making a request for them to act unilaterally.

It is really sad.  The official online Dominion should have been better than iso.  RGG, Donald, and the community all deserved better.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2014, 07:03:12 pm »
+3

Another point worth considering.  While we would mostly be happy with Goko shutting down and iso returning, there are a lot of customers who have spent real money on Goko expansions who probably would not like iso's barebones text-based interface.  I'm not sure that RGG wants to anger those customers.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2014, 11:23:13 pm »
+7

SCSN, I admire your gumption, but it's not impossible to alienate the people you want to do things for you by making demands on them (I'm not referring to Goko here, screw Goko).

That's a risk I'm willing to take; I play to win, not to not lose.

Also, I'm not an idiot, I don't plan to make demands on anyone (well, except Goko, but they can suck my... no, wait, that would probably be highly unpleasant). I'm going to contact dougz with this suggestion and let him make the call, and I'm happy with whatever he'll decide. I considered writing to him without any backing from the community, but I figured that with a bunch of people supporting the idea he'd be at least slightly more willing to consider it.

Dude. The point of a petition is to show that a request has the backing of a community. Do you think there is even a tiny chance that Dougz doesn't ALREADY KNOW that the f.DS community wants isotropic Dominion back? Trust me. He knows. Not only will your petition do no good, it may actually do harm.

Even if Rio Grande doesn't renew their contract with Goko and Goko Dominion eventually goes down, I wouldn't expect isotropic to come back up. Why? Because of us and our whiny bullshit. Let's say Goko does go down and Rio Grande contracts with another company to do another web or PC-based version of Dominion. Bringing isotropic back up during the interim is just inviting another round of whining when it eventually comes down. I don't presume to speak for Donald, but I would be shocked if he found that idea appealing after experiencing the backlash from the first shutdown.

I think the only way we're going to see isotropic Dominion again is if Goko shuts down (or their Dominion contract isn't renewed) and Rio Grande either A) decides not to partner with anybody to create another official digital version or B) partners with someone just to create iOS and/or Android versions for mobile devices. Either way, there would be no official PC version for isotropic to be competition for.
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SCSN

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2014, 11:48:07 pm »
0

I'm not sure what your point is.

If you're just saying that you think it won't work, then I completely agree with you, but I think it's at least worth a try because it takes me very little effort and the potential pay-off is huge (if it has even a 0.001% chance of working that's enough for me, and I certainly believe it's at least that, if you don't that's fine, let's just agree to disagree).

If you're actually trying to persuade me to take it down you should present some compelling reasons because right now I'm not seeing any.
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Gherald

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2014, 11:53:43 pm »
0

RGG wishes Goko had a viable product, and are disappointed with it being such a dismal failure.   If they find an alternative, they will explore it.  Isotropic does not register except as an unofficial fan creation that would have prevented a product like Goko from getting critical mass/attention to begin with.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2014, 11:56:09 pm »
+5

I'm not sure what your point is.

If you're just saying that you think it won't work, then I completely agree with you, but I think it's at least worth a try because it takes me very little effort and the potential pay-off is huge (if it has even a 0.001% chance of working that's enough for me, and I certainly believe it's at least that, if you don't that's fine, let's just agree to disagree).

If you're actually trying to persuade me to take it down you should present some compelling reasons because right now I'm not seeing any.

Because your incessant complaining is doing further harm to this community's reputation. I doubt you'll find that reason "compelling" in your current mindset, but there it is.
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SCSN

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #19 on: January 06, 2014, 12:19:45 am »
+1

Okay, I appreciate your contribution.
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Eevee

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #20 on: January 06, 2014, 12:52:55 am »
0

Another point worth considering.  While we would mostly be happy with Goko shutting down and iso returning, there are a lot of customers who have spent real money on Goko expansions who probably would not like iso's barebones text-based interface.  I'm not sure that RGG wants to anger those customers.
If those people exist, how is iso being open as an alternative any worse for them? They can (can't) still play on goko if they so desire.

If dougz was willing to give the code to someone else to host, would that be another possibility? I would even pay goko  again to have the cards in iso if that was somehow possible.

It's a bizarre situation, people are willing to pay for a free alternative but aren't allowed because a strictly inferior commercial alternative won't let them, even if the commercial alternative likely has drained all the income it can (we already have the cards, it's not like we'd be paying goko any more money), costs money to run and isn't even running.

There should be a solution for this, there really should. I wholeheartedly agree with SCSN, sitting idle isn't our best option.
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Eevee

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #21 on: January 06, 2014, 12:57:10 am »
0

Our tone probably shouldn't be bitter and angry at goko, as I too don't see much hope in going rogue against existing contracts. I think a compromise of some sort is more likely.

"We love the game of dominion. It's become clear goko isn't capable of providing a sufficient platform to play it, and we know for a fact dougz was. Goko costs money to run, likely isn't generating much more income. How can we find a solution goko is okay with that lets us play dominion?"

Sigh, somehow getting in touch with a goko representative would be great I guess.
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serakfalcon

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #22 on: January 06, 2014, 01:10:50 am »
+1


It's a bizarre situation, people are willing to pay for a free alternative but aren't allowed because a strictly inferior commercial alternative won't let them, even if the commercial alternative likely has drained all the income it can (we already have the cards, it's not like we'd be paying goko any more money), costs money to run and isn't even running.

Yay capitalism!
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #23 on: January 06, 2014, 01:51:00 am »
+1

Asking someone to do something for you because it's what you want isn't going to go anywhere.

However, asking someone to do something for you because it's in their economic interest is much more likely to get their attention.  If you can gather a large enough mass of people who say "I would be willing to pay $x for Isotropic if it came back", arranging the deal between RGG, DXV, dougz, and Goko, has a lot more potential.  Goko isn't making much money right now, but maybe they could be if they had some of the income from a paid Isotropic.  I have literally no idea how much money/how many people would need to agree to make that kind of deal (or whether it's politically possible anyway), but I think the next step would be do put up a poll asking people at f.ds how much they would be willing to pay for Iso if it were brought back.  If RGG/Goko see that people are willing to give them money to bring back Iso, and dougz gets a share of the profit from it, I think everyone comes out ahead.

Of course, that's all assuming that enough people would be willing to pay for Iso, presumably in addition to what they have already paid for Goko.  Again, I have no idea whether that's even reasonably within reach.
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dondon151

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Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic
« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2014, 01:56:48 am »
+5

I know that Iso isn't going to return, but I agree with the OP's point number 2, which is that there needs to be some impetus to coerce Goko into providing better service.
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