At this point, the thing most likely to drive me away from Dominion (pretty much entirely, since I don't have a great deal of people to play more-than-just-Base with IRL) is this community. It was this community that got me so wrapped up in Dominion once I discovered Isotropic. The discussions, friendliness, puzzles and articles were all so interesting and insightful that I stayed around and for a long time I was the third (and possibly second for a bit when Guided disappeared) most active member of the forums. Recently though I haven't even been bothered enough about Dominion to even think of going to Isotropic to play the game. I think the reason for that is because I'm spending my time here reading the forums and there's no interesting Dominion discussion. There's just whining and moaning about Isotropic closing and being replaced by an official product, which, as Kirian quite handily pointed out, WE'VE KNOWN ABOUT FOR THE LAST 18 MONTHS. We've also known for the vast majority of that time that it's not going to be a pay-for version of Isotropic, because we were told a long time ago that ChickenZ didn't want the job.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this but I've considered leaving this community a number of times over the last few months because of this, the only reason I haven't is because I've been here so long that I know I won't be able to just walk away. It's not somewhere that really makes me want to play a game that I love and enjoy like it used to anymore though. What's the point of playing a game if I can't have fun discussions about it too?
Unfortunately, at this point, there's no way I can make a statement such as "Funsockets will be getting my money on day 1", and it's nothing to do with Funsockets itself. I think Funsockets is a great implementation of a great game, in need of a few tweaks and additions, but otherwise great. It's this community that's holding my money from Funsockets.
I'm going to wait it out a month of so. If the naysaying doesn't stop, I'll have no choice but to walk away from what's been a huge and exciting part of the last few years of my life. If it does stop and the naysayers leave/get over it, I'll be able to continue enjoying my hobby.
I doubt it'll last. I mean, people always talk about what the latest is. When there were previews happening, there was discussion on the previews, and that went on. There's a whole subforum which sprang up in a week.
Now, isotropic is about to go down, and there's a new implementation - of *course* that's going to dominate discussion for a while. And considering how big news it is, that it'll take over the conversation is sort of unavoidable.
I would expect that once it actually comes out and people start playing in it, people will shift discussion to that. There'll be new Dark Ages cards. Someone will probably start up tournaments or a league on the new platform. And so on.
