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[shraeye]

Here's a possibly controversial viewpoint.  I don't like Isotropic and am excited to see what FunSockets can do. I hear some bad points now, and hope a portion of them are cleared up before launch.  But another portion of these issues people are having sound ridiculous to me.  Please hear out an opinion from someone who is really into Dominion and yet has only played 70 games on iso.

Iso layout is confusing, and very difficult to learn.  There are no tutorials so you learn by making your first opponent furious at really stupid questions (this happened to me).  It is really hard to figure out what cards do, and I only play isotropic on a PC with mouse and full range of keyboard shortcuts for zooming pages, controlling new tabs, etc.  I feel really sorry for the person who has to learn Isotropic Dominion on any sort of tablet/phone.  The mouseover delay is really hard for people who aren't encyclopedically familiar with the cards.  I've heard my share of zzzzzzz's in chat while the opponent waits for me to read all of the cards.  The popout page is not a good solution to this problem because there are no pictures there, and the card delineation boxes actually make it harder to figure out what's going on instead of breaking the cards up into easily read chunks, and there is absolutely no reasonable sorting of those popout cards.

The fact that the cards don't have the official artwork is a shame (an understandable shame, but that makes it no less of a shame).  I've played IRL games of Dominion where I realized part-way through that a "new card" was actually one I'd played before on Isotropic.  It's really hard to follow an opponent's mega-turn in Iso until you've seen a lot of them.  The game log is very text-heavy and there are most definitely times when I have no idea what's going on.  Think about how you play a first game (or should play one) with newbies.  You play super slowly, you say "ok, now is the part where I can play one action, but I don't have any in my hand.  So I skip to my buy phase and play these 4 coppers.  4 coppers lets me by a smithy, which goes into my discard pile.  Now I clean up all cards played and those still in my hand and draw 5 new cards."  I can teach dominion in 5 minutes tops if the first game is played at this explanatory pace, I can even speed up to regular turns after about 5-6 turns from the newbie.  But if I throw down all starting cards as I sometimes do with my experienced friends on obvious boards and say "I open Smithy/Silver" this will make any newer player say "hold up and stop using words, because you are making negative amounts of sense."

Isotropic is not friendly in the least to players who aren't ready for it; I have many dominion playing friends who will always say "one more game?" in real life, even if we just played 10 games, but do not in any way at all like or appreciate Isotropic. 

It really frustrates me when people post reasons for disliking/boycotting FunSockets Dominion that sound like "this sucks because it's not Isotropic", or only marginally better is when people say "this sucks because it doesn't do things like Isotropic does."  That, I hope, is their goal.  To do things better than Isotropic.  Allow me to venture that the reason the new implementation is "not as good as Isotropic" is because you are too used to Isotropic.  I want, I really want this to be not as good as Isotropic, I want it to be better than Isotropic.  No insult meant to Dougz in the slightest, Isotropic is insanely good at what it does, and it has led me to a great community of pro-Dominion people.  It is a 100% functional implementation of Dominion.  But it is a maximum 40% good implementation of the game I love to play against real-life opponents.  I would not pay for isotropic, and just this night two friends unconditionally agreed with me on this without hearing any explanation from me, they already felt the exact same way (and these are fiendishly dominion-crazy friends of mine; also one has played 60 games on Iso and the other has played 94—these aren’t uninformed opinions).

I'm not supporting Goko over Isotropic, but also not supporting Isotropic over FunSockets; in fact, I have no first-hand experience with FunSockets.  I just really want people to try their best to compare FunSockets with real-life dominion, rewrite the whole book on online dominion, and end up with an even better implementation.  It would make me quite sad if strong voices from this community make FunSockets into as close as an Isotropic knockoff as possible.

[ftl]

Yeah, some people don't like it but I think FunSockets will be okay despite them

One thing they have is playing against bots, it's an easy way to get into the game. They still need to automatch guests with easy bots first, but I think they'll get there. And they'll have some sort of "adventure mode". It's definitely one of the things I think FunSockets has the potential to do way better than iso, help new players get into the game instead of just jumping in the shark tank and playing full random from everything.

Following an opponents turn doesn't get much easier on FunSockets though, none of it is text-based but that doesn't make it easier I think.

[bozzball]

Iso layout is confusing, and very difficult to learn.

This. I am a big dominion fan, and play it in real life almost every opportunity I get. However, I am online quite a lot, and barely ever (87 games total) play on iso. I have played androminion a bit, as I can play it while I am on the underground - but I also think it has a terrible layout and implementation. I can't wait to get hold of Dark Ages (although I will have to, as I am in London and will be waiting until it arrives at Orc's Nest). I also am excited to try the Goko (why are we calling it that?) adaptation, as it looks like how dominion works in my head - which is similar to how it works IRL.

[yudantaiteki]

In my opinion, there are only two current ways that Goko is clearly worse than isotropic -- (1) Goko lacks some expansions, and (2) the animation speed is too slow even on the fastest setting.  We've been told they're aware of 2 and are going to fix it, and obviously they intend to put in all the sets eventually.  (The only other major red-flag problem I see with Goko is that it's not always clear what you're doing when you click a "done" button or trash/discard; this is true to a certain extent on isotropic as well until you're used to it.)

I prefer isotropic's minimalist interface, but I definitely understand them going with a more graphical, easy to understand layout for the official implementation.

[dondon151]

Iso layout is confusing, and very difficult to learn... I feel really sorry for the person who has to learn Isotropic Dominion on any sort of tablet/phone.

Think about how you play a first game (or should play one) with newbies.  You play super slowly, you say "ok, now is the part where I can play one action, but I don't have any in my hand.  So I skip to my buy phase and play these 4 coppers.  4 coppers lets me by a smithy, which goes into my discard pile.  Now I clean up all cards played and those still in my hand and draw 5 new cards."  I can teach dominion in 5 minutes tops if the first game is played at this explanatory pace, I can even speed up to regular turns after about 5-6 turns from the newbie.  But if I throw down all starting cards as I sometimes do with my experienced friends on obvious boards and say "I open Smithy/Silver" this will make any newer player say "hold up and stop using words, because you are making negative amounts of sense."

Hold on a second. Isotropic does not advertise itself to be a tool for teaching new players how to play Dominion. If you had to teach one Dominion from absolutely zero base knowledge, I'd bet that Isotropic would be just as confusing as Goko or the real cards.

Most of your complaints seem to be along the lines of Isotropic not having a sufficiently intuitive interface. For a player who wants to play on Iso, it takes about 5 minutes to get used to the interface. Not a huge problem. For a player just starting out, he shouldn't be playing on Iso if he doesn't even have a full grasp of the game. No matter if you're on Goko or on Iso, if you need to take a couple minutes to read the card text before playing, then your opponents are going to "zzz" you regardless.

You also mentioned megaturns being difficult to track on Iso. Well (I'm pretty sure they fixed this recently), they used to be even harder to track on Goko, because there wasn't a text log that showed what had gone on. Just cards moving around. I'm fairly sure that there's still the current problem where megaturns are hard to play out on Goko because the cards in your hand couldn't fit on the screen. Clearly, it's not easier there...

[engineer]

You know, although I learned the dominion mechanics IRL, I learned 90% of the cards on iso, and I never got complaints.  I would start every game saying "hi, gimme a sec to read the cards."  I invariably got back "sure, take your time," or no response at all, but nobody whined at me for taking a couple minutes.

That being said, I don't really get the point of your initial thread.  First of all, iso was a barebones implementation because it was done (as far as I know) by a single guy in his spare time, just for fun.  I doubt he was particularly worried about usability, and considering that, I think he actually did a pretty good job.  That being said, I don't imagine any rational person will argue that the funsockets site will be more complex or harder to use than iso. 

Indeed, people who defend iso are in the same category as people who defend linux: they like the complexity because they know how to navigate it, and the high barrier to entry creates a closer-knit community.  This is true of any specialist community: hackers, football players, swimmers, and stamp collectors all form social groups based on the simple fact that "other" people don't understand the things that community likes to do.

TDLR: If somebody is complaining about the death of iso, don't let it get to you.  He's lamenting the loss of his community, which is a real loss.  Just ignore him, and perhaps you'll meet him in the new community that will be formed around playdominion.com.

[Kirian]

In a word, yes.

I've previously outlined what's problematic on Goko right now.  I encourage you to read the whole thing.

You're saying you want Goko to be better than Iso.  I do too!  That would be awesome.  That's why I'm giving feedback about the beta.  I want it to succeed; who wouldn't?  But it's not there yet.  It's not even close. 

If one of your complaints is that Iso isn't intuitive, then I hate to break it to you, but Goko is only a tiny bit more intuitive, mainly because it has the card art.  The layout isn't any more intuitive--better in some ways, worse in others.  There's no tutorial, buttons are ambiguous (and there are no rollovers to tell you what they do), there are plenty of things that make it just as non-intuitive.

Allow me to venture that the reason the new implementation is "not as good as Isotropic" is because you are too used to Isotropic.  I want, I really want this to be not as good as Isotropic, I want it to be better than Isotropic.

No, that's not why it's worse than Iso.  It's worse than Iso because it's buggy as hell, can be hard to use in some circumstances, and is missing obvious features.

Look... you're talking as someone who has played under 100 games on Iso, and isn't in the beta.  I have no idea if you have all the currently available cards.  I'm talking from the perspective of someone who owns all the expansions, has played ~2000 games on Iso, and has played a couple dozen games on the Goko implementation.  I want Goko to be better.  But it is currently much, much worse--not because I'm used to Iso, but because it's not finished, buggy, and problematic.

Indeed, people who defend iso are in the same category as people who defend linux: they like the complexity because they know how to navigate it, and the high barrier to entry creates a closer-knit community.

Oh wait, you're serious.  Let me laugh even harder.

Again, I want Goko to succeed here.  I'd be crazy to say otherwise.  That's why I'm providing constructive feedback.  This isn't the difference between Linux and Windows; it's the difference between a Linux kernel that works well and one that is missing a bunch of standard stuff.

[Captain_Frisk]

In a word: No.  It isn't the end of the world. 

However - it does have bugs.  I hate to agree with Kirian - who briefly banned me from his tournaments for thoughtcrime - but his post that he links above is thoughtful and reasonably respectful.

It is getting better - but it just isn't there yet.  I played probably 10 games yesterday - and had the following things happen:

1. Frozen while loading
2. Frozen mid game against a live opponent forcing us to abort the game
3. Bot quit on turn 1
4. Game froze for 10+ seconds in the middle of the multiple games.

These things are just not acceptable.

Then there are the interface quibbles - accidentally trashing cards to opponents bishops, or discarding your only action card because you thought it was your turn but your opponent had really militia'd you.  Sure - these things are my fault for distracted playing - but if it happens to me - it will happen to others - and its a frustrating experience.  They have either slightly improved the interface lag - or I've gotten use to it, but I haven't been having too many problems with playing too fast lately - although the megaturn complaints are real... When you get up above 10ish cards in hand - its hard to see what's going on.  They apparently know its an issue - so hopefully it will be fixed sometime.

I get that we're all spoiled by a free implementation, but I don't buy any arguments that we shouldn't complain just because a free version exists - and that RGG / DXV made a mistake by letting us have it.  I wouldn't own all of the physical copies of dominion, if it weren't for isotropic, I probably would have lost interest a long time ago.

The fact that the free version exists - and is good - and was done by one guy - without official art - in his spare time - gives us a baseline of expectation regarding what a commercial version done by a team of people working full time with art should be able to accomplish. 

[Drab Emordnilap]

You know, although I learned the dominion mechanics IRL, I learned 90% of the cards on iso, and I never got complaints.  I would start every game saying "hi, gimme a sec to read the cards."  I invariably got back "sure, take your time," or no response at all, but nobody whined at me for taking a couple minutes.

This matches my experience identically. My 5th game of Dominion ever was on Isotropic; I spend quite a while starting my games with "I'm new; I need a second to read the cards.", without once receiving a hostile response.

I worry that, if the official Dominion digital implementation is more accessible, it'll be LESS civil. The internet isn't necessarily known for being a friendly place.

[Brando Commando]

Hold on a second. Isotropic does not advertise itself to be a tool for teaching new players how to play Dominion. If you had to teach one Dominion from absolutely zero base knowledge, I'd bet that Isotropic would be just as confusing as Goko or the real cards.

This.

To the OP: On Isotropic, why don't you just post your status as something like "I will need to read the cards"?

I'm not sure what you want out of Isotropic to make it better other than making it easier to see the card text. I think the problem is not the Isotropic takes an easy game and makes it difficult; it's that Dominion, with all expansions, is pretty complex (and about to get even more so with Dark Ages...)

You say the interface is confusing...a comment I find confusing, because it seems really obvious to me. I mean, can you give us an idea of how Isotropic could make mega-turns easier to understand than the current log? I'm genuinely curious.

Call me demanding, but I'm going to find it hard to imagine paying for something inferior when the free version was really very good. Isn't that just kind of common sense? I mean, if RGG just bought Isotropic and said, "Now you have to pay for it" I wonder if they wouldn't do pretty well...because I probably would pay for it.

[shraeye]

Hold on a second. Isotropic does not advertise itself to be a tool for teaching new players how to play Dominion. If you had to teach one Dominion from absolutely zero base knowledge, I'd bet that Isotropic would be just as confusing as Goko or the real cards.

Yeah, I hope it doesn't sound like I think Isotropic is supposed to be a teaching tool; that's not what I'm trying to say at all.  But no, I've taught Dominion quite a lot of times to people who have no knowledge at all of the game and it took less then 10 minutes.  I've even taught the game in German to a group of American highschoolers, some of whom have only studied German a single year.  Isotropic may be as confusing as Goko right now, but Isotropic should not be the standard.  The easy-to-learn real cards should be the standard.

You also mentioned megaturns being difficult to track on Iso. Well (I'm pretty sure they fixed this recently), they used to be even harder to track on Goko, because there wasn't a text log that showed what had gone on. Just cards moving around. I'm fairly sure that there's still the current problem where megaturns are hard to play out on Goko because the cards in your hand couldn't fit on the screen. Clearly, it's not easier there...

Yes yes, Goko sounds at the moment not easier than Isotropic.  This isn't a point I'm trying to make either.  Megaturns are really hard to track even in real life and will be really hard to implement anywhere.  But I'm still holding out hope that there is a really good way to do it that some brilliant dude/dudette will figure out eventually.

You know, although I learned the dominion mechanics IRL, I learned 90% of the cards on iso, and I never got complaints.  I would start every game saying "hi, gimme a sec to read the cards."  I invariably got back "sure, take your time," or no response at all, but nobody whined at me for taking a couple minutes.

That being said, I don't really get the point of your initial thread.  First of all, iso was a barebones implementation because it was done (as far as I know) by a single guy in his spare time, just for fun.  I doubt he was particularly worried about usability, and considering that, I think he actually did a pretty good job.  That being said, I don't imagine any rational person will argue that the funsockets site will be more complex or harder to use than iso. 

Cool, I hope this has been and will be the experience of the majority for online dominion; maybe I just unluckily got a really grumpy opponent for my first match.  The bold sentence is exactly how I feel about Isotropic; dougz is awesome.  Given his resources and goals, he hit a grand slam.  But rational people are arguing that FunSockets should be "as easy to use as Iso."  I'm just trying to remind people that not everyone agrees that Iso is easy to use if you're newer.  And this will likely be similar with FunSockets.  After 1000-2000 games, everyone will be used to their implementation and things will be more smiley.  The rest of your post really made me nod; perhaps I was just trying to remind people to realize that they were part of a unique community with a different dominion experience than the masses.

I've previously outlined what's problematic on Goko right now.  I encourage you to read the whole thing.....I want it to succeed; who wouldn't?  But it's not there yet.  It's not even close. 

Yeah, that was a really good and well put together post.  I am definitely following all the posts on that.  I really appreciate how you break up the problems into identifiable pieces.  Those are the sort of constructive posts that will help Goko be a seriously good implementation, I hope.  You're all aces man; keep providing this high-level feedback, Kirian. 
I've heard that it's not close and I've heard some pretty good constructive ideas on how to get it further along in topics on the Feedback forum.  But I've also heard some nonconstructive posts that automatically assume that "there", the place where Goko needs to be if it will succeed, is a copy of Isotropic with actual card art.

The layout isn't any more intuitive--better in some ways, worse in others.  There's no tutorial, buttons are ambiguous (and there are no rollovers to tell you what they do), there are plenty of things that make it just as non-intuitive....It's worse than Iso because it's buggy as hell, can be hard to use in some circumstances, and is missing obvious features.

Yeah, these have got to be fixed.  The done button has to have more context; "trashing done", "discarding done", "actions done" etc.  That's a simple fix, and it sounds really frustrating that it hasn't been implemented yet.  Why hasn't "Make a Tutorial" been an idea i've seen yet?  Maybe I missed it, but they have got to provide a tutorial in my opinion.  Maybe a "game" with the first set of cards where no shuffles are actually random.  With directions on what to do next so the interface becomes more familiar.  "Good, you've got a Militia still in your hand but you have no more Actions to play it with.  Now you should play all your treasure....You have $5 so why don't you click on a Market to buy this card?"  Then after the player has bought his first province (or two provinces) the tutorial ends saying "cool, so that's how you play.  It felt like you were doing good against this bot and you were, but here's a secret tip...there are even stronger strategies with these cards.  Well have fun playing other people!"

Look... you're talking as someone who has played under 100 games on Iso, and isn't in the beta.  I have no idea if you have all the currently available cards.  I'm talking from the perspective of someone who owns all the expansions, has played ~2000 games on Iso, and has played a couple dozen games on the Goko implementation.  I want Goko to be better.  But it is currently much, much worse--not because I'm used to Iso, but because it's not finished, buggy, and problematic.

Yeah, I understand our perspectives are different.  I'm missing Alchemy, Cornicopia, and the promos, and haven't ever even seen Goko with my own eyes...but what does that have to do with the fact that we both want Goko to be better.  Or that it's currently bad because it's buggy and problematic.  I agree, this game isn't ready if people can't even log on, if bots resign instantly, or if the game freezes up at multiple junctures.  These problems have got to be fixed before anyone even mentions a launch date, plain and simple.

It is getting better - but it just isn't there yet.  I played probably 10 games yesterday - and had the following things happen:

1. Frozen while loading
2. Frozen mid game against a live opponent forcing us to abort the game
3. Bot quit on turn 1
4. Game froze for 10+ seconds in the middle of the multiple games.

These things are just not acceptable.

Then there are the interface quibbles - accidentally trashing cards to opponents bishops, or discarding your only action card because you thought it was your turn but your opponent had really militia'd you.  Sure - these things are my fault for distracted playing - but if it happens to me - it will happen to others - and its a frustrating experience.  They have either slightly improved the interface lag - or I've gotten use to it, but I haven't been having too many problems with playing too fast lately - although the megaturn complaints are real... When you get up above 10ish cards in hand - its hard to see what's going on.  They apparently know its an issue - so hopefully it will be fixed sometime.

Spot on man, those first 4 issues are serious problems.  Like I said above I don't even want to hear about an actual launch date set until these are a thing of a past.  The interface quibbles can be addressed I hope, and I'm eager to see what they will do.  Maybe with practice we'll get really good at the new interface as well, but I really hope that it doesn't take tons of practice.  I want something that is immediately clear, maybe this doesn't exist and maybe it could.  I'm not sure.

The fact that the free version exists - and is good - and was done by one guy - without official art - in his spare time - gives us a baseline of expectation regarding what a commercial version done by a team of people working full time with art should be able to accomplish. 

Here is a statement with which I totally agree, but very carefully.  In a broad sense, the baseline has been set.  Iso was done under incredible circumstances and I will be very disappointed if the team at Goko makes a product that is worse.
But perhaps here is my main point, stated again in a different way.  We can't say that Isotropic is the baseline and THEREFORE Goko should do every single thing that Iso does, and then add pictures and glitz only once they've done all the things Iso did.  I wouldn't pay for Isotropic with pictures.  Goko should copy the general ideas of Isotropic, but NOT the specific features.
Thus, Goko should
1. Offer online dominion with seamless functionality.
2. Offer game logs so Isotropic-friendly sites like Councilroom and f.DS can continue in a Goko-style flavor.
3. probably other things....

I'm really not enough of an isotropic expert to be able to finish that list, but I want to point out that this list should not contain specific features.  Like when somebody says that putting cards back on your deck should be done like on Isotropic where you click one box first, then another, then click done.  No, that is confusing; it really truely is.  I've gotten used to it and can do it fine now, but there has got to be something between that (100% functional) confusing method and the way it is done in real-life with physical cards.  My hope is that Goko exceeds Isotropic's great benchmark, but it can only do that by being different.  Otherwise it is doomed to be a pale comparison of a free-to-us labor of love, and we'll have people expecting us to pay for that stuff.

[blueblimp]

While I agree that there is some unfair ignoring of the strong points of Goko, I think you're underrating isotropic. If I read you correctly, your main points are: iso interface is confusing; it takes too long to learn new cards on iso; iso interface is bad for tablets/phones; iso doesn't have official artwork; it's difficult to follow an opponent's turn on iso.

I disagree that the iso interface is confusing. How could it be simpler? Click a card to play it. Click a card to buy it. Every choice is presented with an explanation of what you're choosing. There are some warts (TR-Ambassador auto-choice and revealing Moat multiple times, for example), but they are minor. When I first played isotropic, I played slowly, but only because I didn't know the cards yet. Furthermore, I don't see how the Goko interface is any less confusing.

I also don't see why isotropic makes it hard to learn new cards. The text is there on mouse hover, and you read it. If you forget, you read it again. This is exactly the same as IRL, and it's pretty much the same as Goko too. I don't see how Goko is any better at teaching new cards than iso is.

iso was never intended for mobile devices, so that's why it's bad there. Telling people who play isotropic on a desktop that "you shouldn't be sad about the interface getting worse on a desktop, because now there's a mobile interface too" isn't going to convince anyone. I'm also unconvinced by Goko's one-size-fits-all approach to UI design. Tablets and desktops are drastically different use cases, and they should receive individual design attention.

iso doesn't have official artwork because it's not an official implementation of Dominion. Praising an official implementation for having official artwork is damning with faint praise, since all you need to do for that is to have a license to use it.

I agree that it's difficult to follow an opponent's turn on isotropic. It's even harder on Goko. If you've played the Ascension app for iPad, you've seen that it's an excellent app but that it's also difficult to follow your opponent's turn. I think it's just inherently difficult to follow an opponent's turn, because computer play is faster than IRL play, and because your opponent isn't explaining their actions to you out loud. Note that a text log is a closer approximation to human speech than animations are--IRL, it doesn't help with confusion much if the other person is silent but just moves the cards really slowly. And with a text log, you always have the option to look back and review the previous turn. Now that Goko has text logs too, that's not a strike against Goko.

There are some really brilliant bits of isotropic that you overlooked, too: it's nearly bug-free (that's hard!) and the "?!" to help prevent silly mistakes.

[shraeye]

To the OP: On Isotropic, why don't you just post your status as something like "I will need to read the cards"?

I always do engineer's method of telling people I'll take a sec in the beginning, it mostly works, but sometimes doesn't.  This isn't a dealbreaker to me it doesn't even bother me so much, it's just something that happened that I decided to point out in the OP.  Maybe that was a mistake, because it wasn't my main point, or even my side point.  The side point was I want card text to be even easier to access/read/find.  The main point is that FunSocket should exceed Isotropic's great benchmark, but it can only do that by being different.  Otherwise it is doomed to be a pale comparison of a free-to-us labor of love, and we'll have people expecting us to pay for that stuff.  Yeah, I just copied what I wrote in the previous post.  But sometimes it takes me a while to find my actual main point.  And it's frustrating to feel misunderstood by the internet.

I'm not sure what you want out of Isotropic to make it better other than making it easier to see the card text. I think the problem is not the Isotropic takes an easy game and makes it difficult; it's that Dominion, with all expansions, is pretty complex (and about to get even more so with Dark Ages...)

You say the interface is confusing...a comment I find confusing, because it seems really obvious to me. I mean, can you give us an idea of how Isotropic could make mega-turns easier to understand than the current log? I'm genuinely curious.

No, I can't.  I try building action trees in real-life but that also can get confusing.  I wish I could, because I would be posting that stuff nonstop until it was implemented.  I don't want anything more out of Isotropic than I am getting, Iso is Iso.  What I want is for Goko NOT to be IsotropicButBetter.

[Davio]

I won't say it's bad, it's just not what I wanted to see in an official Dominion implementation.

[blueblimp]

The fact that the free version exists - and is good - and was done by one guy - without official art - in his spare time - gives us a baseline of expectation regarding what a commercial version done by a team of people working full time with art should be able to accomplish.

Well, Goko has requirements iso doesn't: a more complicated leaderboard, unlockables, AI's, multiple platforms, swishy fancy graphics, an adventure mode (?), and so on. It's probably not that many programmers who are working on the gameplay interface itself.

Also keep in mind that dougz's full-time job is at Google. Google has notoriously intensive hiring requirements, and employees there are generally very strong programmers. Any code produced by an average Google programmer is going to be better than what 99% (made that up) of programmers can do.

[Captain_Frisk]

No, I can't.  I try building action trees in real-life but that also can get confusing.  I wish I could, because I would be posting that stuff nonstop until it was implemented.  I don't want anything more out of Isotropic than I am getting, Iso is Iso.  What I want is for Goko NOT to be IsotropicButBetter.

What are you looking for out of Goko then?  For me it's not about iso having graphics / not having graphics, but the wanting the ability to continue to play the game competitively.

1. That means that the leaderboard needs to remove obvious ways to game the system
2. It needs to let me quickly have random matches against random players
3. Play needs to be fast - with the amount of randomness in the game.  I want to be able to play as many games as i did with iso - in the same amount of time. 
4. It needs to have all of the cards - this is a big kick in the funsockets if it launches without the current expansions. 
5. I would like it to have an official point counter - because someone is going to make an unofficial one.
6. I would prefer that the interface not cause me to make errors.  (ambiguous done buttons, giant hand sizes, accidentally playing / discarding / trashing because it isn't painfully obvious what you should be doing)

The fact that the free version exists - and is good - and was done by one guy - without official art - in his spare time - gives us a baseline of expectation regarding what a commercial version done by a team of people working full time with art should be able to accomplish.

Well, Goko has requirements iso doesn't: a more complicated leaderboard, unlockables, AI's, multiple platforms, swishy fancy graphics, an adventure mode (?), and so on. It's probably not that many programmers who are working on the gameplay interface itself.

Also keep in mind that dougz's full-time job is at Google. Google has notoriously intensive hiring requirements, and employees there are generally very strong programmers. Any code produced by an average Google programmer is going to be better than what 99% (made that up) of programmers can do.

I hear you that Goko is doing more - but I would trade AI @ launch for All Cards @ launch any day of the week.  Those other things are not "requirements" for implementing online dominion.  They are nice to have sure... but getting the core gameplay correct (buys vs. gains, kings courting durations) and implementing the real cards should probably be the #1 priority.

As for dougZ being an exceptional dude - there is no doubt.  That's still not an excuse. 

[shraeye]

What are you looking for out of Goko then?  For me it's not about iso having graphics / not having graphics, but the wanting the ability to continue to play the game competitively.

1. That means that the leaderboard needs to remove obvious ways to game the system
2. It needs to let me quickly have random matches against random players
3. Play needs to be fast - with the amount of randomness in the game.  I want to be able to play as many games as i did with iso - in the same amount of time. 
4. It needs to have all of the cards - this is a big kick in the funsockets if it launches without the current expansions. 
5. I would like it to have an official point counter - because someone is going to make an unofficial one.
6. I would prefer that the interface not cause me to make errors.  (ambiguous done buttons, giant hand sizes, accidentally playing / discarding / trashing because it isn't painfully obvious what you should be doing)

That is a really tough question about what I want out of Goko.  I feel like someone will say "then what are you complaining about if you have no solution" but not having a solution is no reason to be shy about pointing out a problem you see.  I think your list is really good, and vaguely matches what I want an online Dominion to do, though it's super hard for me to sort that all out like you were able to.

This is a really good list.  Am I understanding correctly that #2 is ease of setting up a match and #3 is speed of match?  I wonder if Goko could have a text-only option in some settings tab?  No idea how hard that would be to program, or if that would make text vs visual games weirder to coordinate.  Didn't I hear something about Casual/Competitive leaderboards, or was this a recommendation by someone here?  That would be neat if there were casual/competitive matches and competitive ones could allow only players with Animations off (add an option faster than "very fast" and call it "none").
#4 is a huge hit.  I've heard that it won't release with all of the expansions, which is a shame.  Will is have most?  Some? or only a few?  It gets shamier and shamier the fewer there are.
#6 is also a problem.  "Make it more like isotropic" may be a reasonable answer, but unless it's the only one, I don't want to stop people from trying out new ideas (possibly clever and possibly not).  However, they should settle on something that works before launching, and it doesn't sound like they have a working solution yet.

[verikt]

I learnt how to play on isotropic and never played offline. I don't know why you think iso is hard to learn. The solitaire option is there for a reason. You can mouse over any card, and set up your solitaire deck so that you can at least read all the cards once, even if you don't play them. When every new expansion came out, I set up a solitaire game with those cards, and just read through the cards and resigned. What's the big deal?

[ftl]

Why hasn't "Make a Tutorial" been an idea i've seen yet?  Maybe I missed it, but they have got to provide a tutorial in my opinion.

There's some sort of 'Adventure Mode' or 'Campaign Mode' in the works. The way such things go, it seems like it would be tutorial-like, like campaigns sometimes are.

[ftl]

Didn't I hear something about Casual/Competitive leaderboards, or was this a recommendation by someone here?  That would be neat if there were casual/competitive matches and competitive ones could allow only players with Animations off (add an option faster than "very fast" and call it "none").

They currently have a 'casual' and 'pro' leaderboard. There's nothing on the pro leaderboard yet though, so we don't know the details of how the two parallel leaderboards work or what they do.

[greatexpectations]

There's some sort of 'Adventure Mode' or 'Campaign Mode' in the works. The way such things go, it seems like it would be tutorial-like, like campaigns sometimes are.

let's kill two birds with one stone then and have a campaign mode that also shows that kings courting a goons is not triple the points, the kc/goons/masq pin, the kc/bridge megaturn, and that it is possible to play 2+ tacticians in one turn.

[ftl]

Yes, that would definitely be nice. I would appreciate a campaign that takes new players on a sequence of boards/games which demonstrate various strategies as well as common misconceptions.

Actually, the way that the game is set up now, I think it's really obvious that KC-ing a goon doesn't triple the points, because you see the little animation going from the goons to your points total, and it's really clear that you only get one animation per card. Someone might still make a mistake and have wrong expectations the first time, but I think as it is right now it's pretty clear what happens.

[Davio]

There's some sort of 'Adventure Mode' or 'Campaign Mode' in the works. The way such things go, it seems like it would be tutorial-like, like campaigns sometimes are.

let's kill two birds with one stone then and have a campaign mode that also shows that kings courting a goons is not triple the points, the kc/goons/masq pin, the kc/bridge megaturn, and that it is possible to play 2+ tacticians in one turn.

Campaign mode level 1 hardcore: Empty the Colony pile in 5 turns with random shuffling. Good luck!

[Captain_Frisk]

There's some sort of 'Adventure Mode' or 'Campaign Mode' in the works. The way such things go, it seems like it would be tutorial-like, like campaigns sometimes are.

let's kill two birds with one stone then and have a campaign mode that also shows that kings courting a goons is not triple the points, the kc/goons/masq pin, the kc/bridge megaturn, and that it is possible to play 2+ tacticians in one turn.

Campaign mode level 1 hardcore: Empty the Colony pile in 5 turns with random shuffling. Good luck!

Hardcore - like diablo style?  Fail and your account is deleted?

[michaeljb]

shraeye, +1 for the tutorial suggestion, that's something that's really necessary, and could be really good, and also something I never thought of (me being in the class of people who own all the expansions, have played hundreds IRL games and thousands on iso).

There's some sort of 'Adventure Mode' or 'Campaign Mode' in the works. The way such things go, it seems like it would be tutorial-like, like campaigns sometimes are.

let's kill two birds with one stone then and have a campaign mode that also shows that kings courting a goons is not triple the points, the kc/goons/masq pin, the kc/bridge megaturn, and that it is possible to play 2+ tacticians in one turn.

Wow this is an awesome suggestion. Great way to explain all the weird rules interactions involving blue dogs.