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[GeoLib]

Unfortunately, it's actually not in goko's interest to let us leave, even if there were more money in it for them because having fewer people on their site decreases the ease with which others can get a game and therefore the value of their implementation. I do think that it might be worth it to point out to RGG, politely, that goko has clearly demonstrated an inability to deliver a functional product and that perhaps this would be grounds to break the contract.

[liopoil]

having fewer people on their site decreases the ease with which others can get a game and therefore the value of their implementation

on the other hand, having the people who have already payed for cards leave allows there to be more room on the site for people who haven't payed for cards yet to play without the site crashing.

Also, I find it pretty funny that the first option was selected over twice as many times as the second.

[greatexpectations]

Why? Because of us and our whiny bullshit.

is it really so offensive that a community dedicated to dominion would be upset with a clearly substandard dominion implementation? i am a little confused by your antagonism. where else should dominion enthusiasts discuss (and yes, complain about) goko? a bug in a new apple product would be near national news, but we are apparently not allowed to complain about a crappy dominion product? come on now. perhaps if goko actually responded to issues in their own forums it wouldn't spill over to here so regularly. could some of the criticism here be a bit more tactful? sure. but i also don't understand the seeming 'untouchable' status goko has for many users.

fwiw, grumblings have brought change in the past. i would remind people that when it was first released goko cost quite a bit more for all sets than it does now.

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.

the backlash was not because isotropic shut down. the backlash was because goko sucks and it was the only legal alternative. if the official implentation was quality you wouldn't hear much of a peep about isotropic.

[jsh357]

Like GE, I think it's fine to be vocal about our concerns with Goko.  There's no reason to suffer with a bad product when it's entirely possible to change things.  I applaud SCSN in being willing to try and take action. That said, I think I also agree that contacting RGG and voicing concerns is better than setting up a Pirate Radio Isotropic. For one, I don't think dragging dougz in to this is a good plan; he's the one with something to lose if he brings back the site, and it's awfully entitled of us to say he should run the servers from his basement at his own personal risk. If he wants to, great, but that should be his own decision.

[sudgy]

We can't decide if Iso is coming back or not, that's Dougz doing it.

But, I think petitioning RGG or making another site might work.  If I could, I would be fine making the site (I can't though).

[greatexpectations]

For one, I don't think dragging dougz in to this is a good plan; he's the one with something to lose if he brings back the site, and it's awfully entitled of us to say he should run the servers from his basement at his own personal risk. If he wants to, great, but that should be his own decision.

i would agree that pressuring dougz to reimplement isotropic is probably a poor move. but i think you could make a case that contacting him is not an inherently bad idea. he is seemingly familiar with and on friendly terms with all involved parties (this community, DXV, RGG, and Goko) and likely has better ways of directly contacting the other parties. asking him to start up pirate isotropic is a heavy request, but for him to forward a message or ask a question is not (to me) unreasonable.

[markusin]

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.

What if DougZ refuses to take our money? Seriously, he made Isotropic with the intention that it would be free and he might object to taking money from it. Sounds strange, but people can be like that (or is it just me). Someone would need to be prepared to take over Iso Dominion if it became a paid venture.

I don't expect Iso Dominion to return, or at least not in its current form. it would be cool if it did, but the cahnces look really bleak right now. That said, the threat of the official online implementation becoming non-functional appears very real now. Naturally, we should be voicing our concerns and dissatisfaction with such a scenario. If that results in a better product in the end, then yay!

[Kirian]

For one, I don't think dragging dougz in to this is a good plan; he's the one with something to lose if he brings back the site, and it's awfully entitled of us to say he should run the servers from his basement at his own personal risk. If he wants to, great, but that should be his own decision.

i would agree that pressuring dougz to reimplement isotropic is probably a poor move. but i think you could make a case that contacting him is not an inherently bad idea. he is seemingly familiar with and on friendly terms with all involved parties (this community, DXV, RGG, and Goko) and likely has better ways of directly contacting the other parties. asking him to start up pirate isotropic is a heavy request, but for him to forward a message or ask a question is not (to me) unreasonable.

But such a message could just as well go to Donald X, or even Jay, via BGG messages.  I just don't see the use in asking DougZ to be any part of this at all--not even open-sourcing his code.

--------

I do agree, however, that we need to hold Goko accountable in some fashion.  How do we hold their feet to the fire?  Well, a boycott is meaningless at this; they already have our money.  Stop playing there?  Well, that just frees up their server for others to play without lag and/or breakdown!  So that's useless.  Setting up a Radio Free Dominion would certainly get their attention, but that's going to take several weeks of dedicated work by someone who is able and willing.

So I have a different idea:  A sit-in.

We pick a time/date... ideally some sort of peak time on a weekend.  We all log in, fill up the lobbies as much as we can... and sit.  Not playing games, not playing adventures, not doing anything other than sitting in the lobby and chatting in their horrendous chat system.  We'd need a critical mass of 100 or more people, with the intent of filling the first two or more lobbies with non-players, eventually causing the games being played in those lobbies to drop to zero.  Ideally, organize people so there are normally 49 sitters in each lobby, so that people coming in will have the chance to see what's going on and wonder why no games are happening.

Obviously, we'll need to tell them what we're doing.

It does little more than send a message.  But perhaps that sort of message is the best we can do.

[LastFootnote]

Why? Because of us and our whiny bullshit.

is it really so offensive that a community dedicated to dominion would be upset with a clearly substandard dominion implementation? i am a little confused by your antagonism. where else should dominion enthusiasts discuss (and yes, complain about) goko? a bug in a new apple product would be near national news, but we are apparently not allowed to complain about a crappy dominion product? come on now. perhaps if goko actually responded to issues in their own forums it wouldn't spill over to here so regularly. could some of the criticism here be a bit more tactful? sure. but i also don't understand the seeming 'untouchable' status goko has for many users.

fwiw, grumblings have brought change in the past. i would remind people that when it was first released goko cost quite a bit more for all sets than it does now.

I don't think Goko is strictly worse than isotropic. When it's running and free of lag and I'm running the extension, I prefer it to isotropic. Visual appeal isn't everything, but it's something and I like Goko's look and most (but not all) of its interface. But, yeah, that's a lot of caveats. Do we have the right to complain? Of course. Complain as much as you want. But know that the sheer volume and venom of the complaining makes isotropic less likely to come back, not more.

Isotropic is not coming back while Goko still has a contract with Rio Grande Games. Period. Furthermore, everybody involved already knows that Goko has failed. Sending a message asking dougz to bring back isotropic is not just pointless, it's annoying. I suppose there is a chance that Goko has somehow already violated their contract with Rio Grande and Jay is choosing to do nothing about it. In that case, it might be worth sending a very polite request to Rio Grande Games asking whether Goko is holding up their end of the contract and if not, could something be done about it. But that's almost certainly not what's going on. Like it says in this article, Goko doesn't have any obligation to even create a semi-working implementation for its contracted properties. Those other hundred licenses they bought? They're just sitting around waiting to expire.

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.

the backlash was not because isotropic shut down. the backlash was because goko sucks and it was the only legal alternative. if the official implentation was quality you wouldn't hear much of a peep about isotropic.

False. There are lots of people who complained about having to pay for the virtual game when they'd bought the physical one, those who complained about the loss of the text-based interface (which no professional company is going to allow), etc. Even if Goko hadn't had all these issues, there would have been plenty of complaining. Less, certainly, but still plenty.

So I have a different idea:  A sit-in.

We pick a time/date... ideally some sort of peak time on a weekend.  We all log in, fill up the lobbies as much as we can... and sit.  Not playing games, not playing adventures, not doing anything other than sitting in the lobby and chatting in their horrendous chat system.  We'd need a critical mass of 100 or more people, with the intent of filling the first two or more lobbies with non-players, eventually causing the games being played in those lobbies to drop to zero.  Ideally, organize people so there are normally 49 sitters in each lobby, so that people coming in will have the chance to see what's going on and wonder why no games are happening.

Obviously, we'll need to tell them what we're doing.

It does little more than send a message.  But perhaps that sort of message is the best we can do.

This could work, but wouldn't it use up more of their resources if we actually kept playing Dominion during the sit-in?

Like GE, I think it's fine to be vocal about our concerns with Goko.  There's no reason to suffer with a bad product when it's entirely possible to change things.  I applaud SCSN in being willing to try and take action. That said, I think I also agree that contacting RGG and voicing concerns is better than setting up a Pirate Radio Isotropic. For one, I don't think dragging dougz in to this is a good plan; he's the one with something to lose if he brings back the site, and it's awfully entitled of us to say he should run the servers from his basement at his own personal risk. If he wants to, great, but that should be his own decision.

I strongly agree.

[greatexpectations]

False. There are lots of people who complained about having to pay for the virtual game when they'd bought the physical one, those who complained about the loss of the text-based interface (which no professional company is going to allow), etc. Even if Goko hadn't had all these issues, there would have been plenty of complaining. Less, certainly, but still plenty.

how exactly does that make what i said false? i never said that was the only reason for the backlash. i listed the chief reason for the backlash, one that encompasses a host of issues. if that was somehow unclear to you i will gladly edit the post.

and if the only issue was people complaining about double paying it wouldn't be a "backlash" so much as a handful of people complaining. and even those concerns would be alleviated with a competitive price for a quality product.

[Ozle]

How come this thread is getting so much more attention than mine about the Return of Betamax!!

[Stealth Tomato]

Honestly, this is a crappy way to address the current problem (Goko is failing to live up to their agreement) because it conflates it with another problem (we want Isotropic back). The latter has already been shown to be unattainable, whereas the former is very much a reasonable expectation.

The focus needs to be that Goko is an unacceptable system for reasons X, Y, and Z, and we the players need help from RGG to use whatever leverage their contract with Goko contains to press them into delivering a usable product with sufficient uptime and player capacity.

[dondon151]

Careful, now, we don't want to drive away yet another Dominion creator from this forum.

[ashersky]

Possibly only tangentially relevant, but sufficient to tag the thread:

I would prefer a Base-only Iso to all cards Goko.

I don't know if Goko sees me as a customer at all, given I haven't bought their cards (although during a moment of weakness, I tried; hilariously, their payment system wouldn't accept a credit card or paypal, both used without issue hundreds of times at well-run sites like amazon and eBay), and now, given their woes, I never will.

RGG should have had us players pay them directly, a monthly subscription, for Iso, and been done with it.  Moot now, though.

[dondon151]

I would prefer a Base-only Iso to all cards Goko.

Japanese online Dominion also has Intrigue!

[Stealth Tomato]

Possibly only tangentially relevant, but sufficient to tag the thread:

I would prefer a Base-only Iso to all cards Goko.

I wouldn't.

RGG should have had us players pay them directly, a monthly subscription, for Iso, and been done with it.  Moot now, though.

An option of that sort was floated.. It is not RGG's fault that it didn't happen. They don't control DougZ's decisions.

[ashersky]

RGG should have had us players pay them directly, a monthly subscription, for Iso, and been done with it.  Moot now, though.

An option of that sort was floated.. It is not RGG's fault that it didn't happen. They don't control DougZ's decisions.

I'm pretty sure DougZ has no control over whether RGG collects money from Dominion players.  If RGG had started up a subscription service and just told DougZ they didn't care if he kept Iso up (all pre-Goko, obviously), I'm sure it would have worked out fine for RGG and better for the majority of f.ds players.  Even the Goko lovers wouldn't complain, because there never would have been a Goko.

2400+ members of f.ds.  If 50% paid $10 a month, that's $144,000 a year for RGG.  No clue what they earn from the Goko contract...

But you are right, and as I mentioned, this is all moot.  It is irrelevant, useless dreaming.  But there's nothing wrong with dreaming.

[rrenaud]

What about having the community buy back the license from Goko?  Let the investors recoup some money.

[sudgy]

What about having the community buy back the license from Goko?  Let the investors recoup some money.

And, uh, how much money is that?

[rrenaud]

No idea.

[jsh357]

We should deliver the payment in unused Dominion expansion boxes that are collecting dust in our attics.  Maybe they'll think about that storage solution some more; kill two birds with one stone.

[Kirian]

What about having the community buy back the license from Goko?  Let the investors recoup some money.

This idea has been floated a few times in various places.  I wonder what the cost would be.  One imagines that given $8M seed money, and they claimed to have bought up ~150 licenses (all but one of which are languishing), the max they paid for any one game must have been at the $50k level, especially if they actually paid any of their staff.

So, f.DS people.  What do you think?  Can we raise $50k?

[ashersky]

So, f.DS people.  What do you think?  Can we raise $50k?

Easy.  Again, with 1200 people, at 50 bucks a pop, that's $60k.  $50 to own a piece of Dominion?  Pretty cool.

[sudgy]

So, f.DS people.  What do you think?  Can we raise $50k?

Easy.  Again, with 1200 people, at 50 bucks a pop, that's $60k.  $50 to own a piece of Dominion?  Pretty cool.

I think a lot of people registered wouldn't see it though.  And not everyone could pay for it.

[Ozle]

So, f.DS people.  What do you think?  Can we raise $50k?

Easy.  Again, with 1200 people, at 50 bucks a pop, that's $60k.  $50 to own a piece of Dominion?  Pretty cool.

You'd get 10-20 people max paying 50 dollars....i would wager a forum donation campaign wouldnt raise over 2k...

And what would happen when ,'we' did own it?
If theres one thing that is the same every thread on FDS its that nothing is simple

And would people who pay more have more of a say?

What happens if you dont like the direction somebody takes the licence in...can you get your money back?

Sure, iso was cool, ice cool (in the words of the peas), but nothings going to happen until the licence expires with Goko.