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[Geronimoo]

Is there a chat function?

[GendoIkari]

I haven't said it increases my amount of worry. I learned about it a few minutes before I made my first post, then following your latest couple posts I guess the amount I worry has either stayed the same or decreased slightly.

Well, until this latest post, which I guess does increase the amount I worry. The only way of finding out what an opponent gains with Workshop being to follow the action at all times or risk missing it sounds like a really bad decision which I hope is reconsidered before launch. I'm glad you're reading this and other feedback and (obviously) care about the quality of the program though, so I'm definitely still hoping for the best.

I think what the game tries to do is to be as close as possible to real life play. And there you don't have logs, and you've got to pay attention to what your opponents do in real time.

Probably we all should try to get rid of the thought the official version will be anything like isotropic. It version will probably rather be something like the BSW thing, but with all (or most) of its disadvantages eliminated.

The difference with real-life play is that if you happened to have been turning around to look at something while your opponent grabbed a card with Workshop, you say "hey, what card did you just gain?" and he answers you. If he says something like "sorry, you should have been paying more attention" then it's unlikely he's the type of person you would be willing to play with in a real-life game. Not as sure about how tournaments and such work, but in general real-life Dominion is played in a friendly atmosphere among friends.

Online Dominion is different. Opponents may or may not ever talk to each other. We don't even know if there will be a way to talk to each other. And even if there is, an opponent might just not answer your question, or at the least be more likely to not tell you, because people on the internet aren't as friendly as people in real life in general, and you are just playing with a random stranger who you might not be thinking of as an actual person.

The overall point is that having a quick animation be the only way to see what a player did seems like a bad idea in general online. Perhaps a quick-fix could just be adding a "replay" button that replays all the animations from your opponent's last turn.

[Grujah]

In that particular case you can just look at the top of his discards. 

[GendoIkari]

In that particular case you can just look at the top of his discards. 

What if he Throne Room'd that Workshop?

[olneyce]

Yeah, count me as agreeing with both 'sides' of the conversation here.  I really really think it's important to have a record of the last turn or two for online play.  Because frankly, a lot of people take forever (myself included - I am a very slow player!) and it's simply not reasonable to expect someone to sit through an entire Scrying Pool turn just to figure out what they gained with their Workshop in the middle of it.  So my impulse is to say that I don't like this policy.

That said, I am pretty sure the final product is going to be good.  It will not be exactly what I want.  But I don't expect any deviations from Isotropic to be simply random.  If they make changes, they will have reasons for those changes.  I'll probably like some and dislike others.  Given the market it will be targeted at, it will certainly include features that I consider superfluous or annoying. 

OTOH, given the level of commitment the people involved with Dominion have shown to interacting with us here, the extent to which they bend over backwards to engage with the big fans, I have a feeling that the concerns of this audience will be seriously considered and not merely tossed aside.

Threads like this, when they involve making constructive statements about what we would like to get out of the game, are fine.  But pure speculation and complaints based on the anticipation of poor implementation, not so much.  Especially when Donald says 'it'll be okay,' I am 100% willing to take his word for it until we actually get the product.  At that point, if I don't like it, I will certainly be willing to say so.  But for now, I'll be cautiously optimistic.  And thanks again Donald for stopping by here so regularly to let us know what you can.

[Kirian]

I think the developers have other things on their mind than adding logs. This app has the potential to be downloaded Xmillion times. We isotropic players probably make up less than 1% of the target audience.

I'm willing to bet that 1% is a significant underestimate.  Consider that Ascension in iOS has seen 1MM games played in 9 months (link goes to their press release).  Isotropic sees that many games every two months or so.  Now assume that Dominion (online) is ten times as popular as Ascension (online).  A new Dominion app could expect a million games in a bit under a month--about twice as many plays as Iso gets.

Now I'll grant that RGG will be marketing their app, which Iso doesn't have, obviously.  But I would be surprised if the new app gets more than 10x the play of Isotropic.

The more casual players will be happiest if they get to play their Village, have it slide into the play area, have a cool sound effect of a bunch of Villagers shouting, play their Smithy (with the sliding and the sound effect of a hammer hitting metal) and do it all over again.

I threw up in my mouth a little reading that.

OTOH, given the level of commitment the people involved with Dominion have shown to interacting with us here, the extent to which they bend over backwards to engage with the big fans, I have a feeling that the concerns of this audience will be seriously considered and not merely tossed aside.

I will say this is one thing that makes me optimistic.  I hope it will result in a better program.

[LastFootnote]

Speaking as someone who's been extremely pessimistic about this app during the great Period of Silence, I'm very optimistic now that I've seen the development screenshot and read what Donald has had to say about it. It makes me wonder even more why there was no flow of information for so long.

[Insomniac]

so BGG has beta codes for the website, any chance dominion strategy might score some?

[Donald X.]

so BGG has beta codes for the website, any chance dominion strategy might score some?

I suspect that the set of people here who end up in the beta will closely resemble the set of people here who want to be in the beta. And obv. that will be a good time to say, wtf, where is my free internet pizza.

I do not expect any kind of replay feature to make it out initially. You could take a screenshot when you tab away and then compare.

There is no in-game chat now, as previously reported, but it seems important to have, as previously noted.

[ftl]

You're making me hungry. I want a free IRL pizza...

[Kirian]

so BGG has beta codes for the website, any chance dominion strategy might score some?

I suspect that the set of people here who end up in the beta will closely resemble the set of people here who want to be in the beta. And obv. that will be a good time to say, wtf, where is my free internet pizza.

Oh man, that just screams "server stress test."  Which isn't a bad thing, it's definitely needed!

[Young Nick]

I guess I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I'll be damned if anyone assumed that I didn't want to be in the beta.

[Kirian]

I guess I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I'll be damned if anyone assumed that I didn't want to be in the beta.

Donald is implying that {f.ds people who want in the beta} === {f.ds people in the beta}

[Insomniac]

I guess I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I'll be damned if anyone assumed that I didn't want to be in the beta.

Donald is implying that {f.ds people who want in the beta} === {f.ds people in the beta}

Roughly

[Captain_Frisk]

I guess I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I'll be damned if anyone assumed that I didn't want to be in the beta.

Donald is implying that {f.ds people who want in the beta} === {f.ds people in the beta}

Roughly

FunSockets overlords, I would like to make it explicitly clear that I would like to be involved in the beta.

[shark_bait]

I guess I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I'll be damned if anyone assumed that I didn't want to be in the beta.

Donald is implying that {f.ds people who want in the beta} === {f.ds people in the beta}

Roughly

FunSockets overlords, I would like to make it explicitly clear that I would like to be involved in the beta.

I fully support this notion of yours, and share similar interests, but perhaps this should be forked into a different thread as to keep the focus of this thread on the content of the website.  I get the feeling that this thread has the potential to explode with people expressing the same thing over and over again.

[jonts26]

Maybe an email would work better? We don't know how closely they are following this board if at all.

[LastFootnote]

I fully support this notion of yours, and share similar interests, but perhaps this should be forked into a different thread as to keep the focus of this thread on the content of the website.  I get the feeling that this thread has the potential to explode with people expressing the same thing over and over again.

Yes, I was considering making such an unofficial 'signup' thread, but figured that I probably lacked the authority to do so.

[Varsinor]

Great that you take part here, Donald!

I would like to voice my strongest preference for the new game (which sounds to not have been implemented so far - correct me if I'm wrong!):

I think it absolutely should have a card counter like the Chrome app for Isotropic which tells me everything I could know about the ongoing game as if I took perfect notes (meaning the exact composition of each deck with the exception of "Masquerade uncertainty" in multi player games).
I want to play quick games and spend the remaining "thinking time" on strategy. I don't want to play a game of Memory and suffer a disadvantage compared to the guy who types the points in his Excel spreadsheet.

If for some reason the game doesn't get the Chrome app functionality, at least include a simple point counter. Pleeease!

I am not intending to be negative here by any means, I am just voicing my preferences for the new game which are very strong regarding this. I'll be really disappointed if the new game gets neither of these things and on top of that not even an in-game log or an in-game replay function.

One of the things I disliked most about playing on BSW (before I switched to Isotropic) is that it forced me to ceaselessly stare at the screen to for instance not miss if it was a Gold or a Province my opponent remodeled into a Province. (In BSW, one can't even see what's in the trash.)

I'd totally be willing to pay for Isotropic just the way it is - *because* there is that awesome Chrome app which tells me everything about the decks and because there are nice logs about what the opponents did on their turns. To be honest I'm not sure how much I'll be willing to pay for a game which has neither of these very nice features... I'll certainly consider it vastly inferior to Isotropic. And yes, I can tell that without having seen the new game in action. I just love the Chrome app and the "gaming concept" it stands for too much (no game of Memory, but of strategy and tactics).

[Varsinor]

I think the developers have other things on their mind than adding logs. This app has the potential to be downloaded Xmillion times. We isotropic players probably make up less than 1% of the target audience.

I'm willing to bet that 1% is a significant underestimate.

Decidedly seconded! Plus, of the percentage not playing on Isotropic so far many people would probably really like a log as well.

[Rhombus]

*Interested in the beta as well, for the record.

[Grujah]

Question to those who know:
Is there an option to spectate a game?


Also interested in beta, of course!

[Donald X.]

Question to those who know:
Is there an option to spectate a game?

I think there's one planned. There was an eye you could click on in the version at Origins, but it didn't do anything.

[yuma]

I suspect that the set of people here who end up in the beta will closely resemble the set of people here who want to be in the beta. And obv. that will be a good time to say, wtf, where is my free internet pizza.

I would be interested. Why wouldn't I be?

[chogg]

I would even expect that they have one themselves. Not much point in making some sequence of zeros and ones public without a method to read them.
I read this announcement (or plan) as that the logs are ALSO machine readable, like some XML or JSON or whatever, in contrast to isotropic where you have to parse the text to get it into the database.

No my best guess is it will be text. They considered trying to match the isotropic logs.

I hope they exceed the isotropic logs.  We need to be able to recreate the game state to have replays; we can't do that with isotropic logs.