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[bedlam]

Will there ever be a pay to play option?  Like X per month or year.  I know people have said it but I prefer that (getting all cards) then always feeling like I am playing someone that only knows certain cards and has mastered them  And YES I have bought ALL physical copies (another reason I don't really wANT TO buy them again).

I moved over seas and would love to play with my parents (they introduced me and other friends but I know they aren't going to want to buy it all again)....Still sad about iso........plus it is weird it still seems all speculation and that scares me....I would think more would be know....

But thanks to everyone for everything!

How long do you intend to play Dominion online?  Let's say a monthly fee would be $10.  Reasonable, no?  But if you're intending on playing Dominion online for 9 months or more, then it would have been cheaper to just buy 2 expansions a month.

I would hope that the pay-to-play option would apply to all Goko games, not just Dominion. I might pay $10 per month to play everything that that they are going to offer eventually.

[theory]

On a side-note - are we still getting this Q 'n A tomorrow?

Yep.  I'm talking about it with Trisha right now.

[Tombolo]

[blueblimp]

By the way, since some of these questions are fairly specific or technical, it would be nice to know who is writing the answer, to put more of a human face on the company (instead of just portraying everything as a response from the company itself).

[theory]

What I think will happen is that various Goko people will answer these questions in a Google+ Hangout, which will then be posted on YouTube with maybe some kind of text transcription.  The Hangout would also allow more questions to be submitted via forum on a live basis. 

For publicity's sake I suggested that she should schedule the Hangout on Thursday, to allow maximum notice to people who want to watch it.  But this is something up to her schedule. 

[monteslu]

It sets me wondering whether companies that have produced critically acclaimed IOS implementations that have done justice to their "source material" (such as Ticket to Ride and Ascension) were also considered and rejected - and if they were rejected, on what basis?

There was a little bit about this in ednever's interview with Jay:

I asked him how he selected FunSockets. He said that people have been coming to him for years asking to develop an online Dominion game. He did not like any of the proposals. Two examples of why:

1- The wanted to make it platform-specific. They would slowly roll out platforms over time. Jay is not a technology guy, so he didn't have counter proposals, but he didn't like the idea. FunSockets came to him with HTML5 - playform agnostic. It's what sold him (even though he hadn't heard of HTML5 before)

2- DominionSocal. Imagine if you played Dominion, but if you did well, or payed extra money you could get to draw an extra card every few turns. Or the ability to see your opponents hand. Or decide your starting hand. Or get a free silver in your deck. Or many more things. All you have to do is pay a small fee... (this is the Zynga Farmville/CityVille/etc model). They told him, "This is how you make money with games online."  He said this is not how he was going to make money with Dominion - because it wouldn't be Dominion anymore.

So, the iOS-specific developers would likely fail at #1.

Goko isn't exactly excelling at #1.

The HTML5 part of Goko's implementation is the rendering to Canvas.  That part they're doing fine.  It's the security stuff, and the server side scaling that needs some work.

The performance on an iPad isn't adequate currently.

Strange. Seems ok on my Nexus 7.  Which iPad?

[blueblimp]

It sets me wondering whether companies that have produced critically acclaimed IOS implementations that have done justice to their "source material" (such as Ticket to Ride and Ascension) were also considered and rejected - and if they were rejected, on what basis?

There was a little bit about this in ednever's interview with Jay:

I asked him how he selected FunSockets. He said that people have been coming to him for years asking to develop an online Dominion game. He did not like any of the proposals. Two examples of why:

1- The wanted to make it platform-specific. They would slowly roll out platforms over time. Jay is not a technology guy, so he didn't have counter proposals, but he didn't like the idea. FunSockets came to him with HTML5 - playform agnostic. It's what sold him (even though he hadn't heard of HTML5 before)

2- DominionSocal. Imagine if you played Dominion, but if you did well, or payed extra money you could get to draw an extra card every few turns. Or the ability to see your opponents hand. Or decide your starting hand. Or get a free silver in your deck. Or many more things. All you have to do is pay a small fee... (this is the Zynga Farmville/CityVille/etc model). They told him, "This is how you make money with games online."  He said this is not how he was going to make money with Dominion - because it wouldn't be Dominion anymore.

So, the iOS-specific developers would likely fail at #1.

Goko isn't exactly excelling at #1.

The HTML5 part of Goko's implementation is the rendering to Canvas.  That part they're doing fine.  It's the security stuff, and the server side scaling that needs some work.

The performance on an iPad isn't adequate currently.

Strange. Seems ok on my Nexus 7.  Which iPad?

iPad 3. I tried it again though and it's not as bad as I remember. The animations sometimes stutter a bit, but it's usable.

Edit: Never mind, it gets significantly laggier as the game progresses, to the point that by the end of a single game, it's really bad.

[Captain_Frisk]

iPad 3. I tried it again though and it's not as bad as I remember. The animations sometimes stutter a bit, but it's usable.

Edit: Never mind, it gets significantly laggier as the game progresses, to the point that by the end of a single game, it's really bad.

Sounds like that memory leak thing everyone else is complaining of. 

[blueblimp]

iPad 3. I tried it again though and it's not as bad as I remember. The animations sometimes stutter a bit, but it's usable.

Edit: Never mind, it gets significantly laggier as the game progresses, to the point that by the end of a single game, it's really bad.

Sounds like that memory leak thing everyone else is complaining of.

Yeah, which could explain why it would play better on a Nexus 7, because I think that has Chrome, right? And on a desktop computer, Goko runs much in Chrome than in Safari.

[DStu]

iPad 3. I tried it again though and it's not as bad as I remember. The animations sometimes stutter a bit, but it's usable.

Edit: Never mind, it gets significantly laggier as the game progresses, to the point that by the end of a single game, it's really bad.

Sounds like that memory leak thing everyone else is complaining of.

Yeah, which could explain why it would play better on a Nexus 7, because I think that has Chrome, right? And on a desktop computer, Goko runs much in Chrome than in Safari.

isn't there a chrome for the ipdad?

[blueblimp]

iPad 3. I tried it again though and it's not as bad as I remember. The animations sometimes stutter a bit, but it's usable.

Edit: Never mind, it gets significantly laggier as the game progresses, to the point that by the end of a single game, it's really bad.

Sounds like that memory leak thing everyone else is complaining of.

Yeah, which could explain why it would play better on a Nexus 7, because I think that has Chrome, right? And on a desktop computer, Goko runs much in Chrome than in Safari.

isn't there a chrome for the ipdad?

IIRC it is not the same thing as "real" Chrome, but instead just a wrapper around Apple's Webkit, which is the same thing Safari uses. The reason being that Apple doesn't allow apps to run their own Javascript interpreters (for security reasons I think).

[noey21]

How long do you intend to play Dominion online?  Let's say a monthly fee would be $10.  Reasonable, no?  But if you're intending on playing Dominion online for 9 months or more, then it would have been cheaper to just buy 2 expansions a month.

After the alternative is the price of two AAA-titles, $10/month does not sound that off probably, but after all I could play MMORPGs for this.

Money isn't the issue...it is if this sucks I would rather only be 20 or 30 in.  Or as stated later if they fold.  So maybe try it out for 10......if I don't like it then wait some months.  I believe in that quote........it's a nice one.......I am enjoying retirement so i can understand it

[Wizard of Woz]

Details on the where and when for the Q and A?

[Tombolo]

Details on the where and when for the Q and A?

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4273.0

[1wheel]

Reading this http://forums.pockettactics.com/discussion/comment/1985/#Comment_1985 makes me feel pretty pessimistic about the future of board games online. Is there any reason why I shouldn't be discouraged? I've had a great time on genie and isotropic over the last few years; but they serve very niche markets which probably can't support "separate VPs for business development, marketing, developer relations, *and* monetization."

[blueblimp]

Reading this http://forums.pockettactics.com/discussion/comment/1985/#Comment_1985 makes me feel pretty pessimistic about the future of board games online. Is there any reason why I shouldn't be discouraged? I've had a great time on genie and isotropic over the last few years; but they serve very niche markets which probably can't support "separate VPs for business development, marketing, developer relations, *and* monetization."

Not really +1'ing this as a question exactly, but the linked post is really good.

Edit: The follow-up post is also worth a read: http://forums.pockettactics.com/discussion/comment/1991/#Comment_1991.

[Slacker]

What are some of the other 150 games you've signed up to develop?

[Captain_Frisk]

Do you have any comment on the pricing information that was gleaned during your public launch?  Many gamers (myself included) seem to find that pricing to be on the high end when compared to other established digital board game implementations of similar complexity (Ascension, Thunderstone)

[Captain_Frisk]

There's been a bunch of discussion on the ipbhost forum regarding bots apparently resigning.  Are they truly programmed to quit when they feel their position is unwinnable, or is this a bug that should be reported?

[Kirian]

Who is your market?

Current indications are that you're not targeting the iOS market, who overwhelmingly want an offline implementation.  While you're courting the hardcore competitive market, many of us are dissatisfied with what we've seen so far and don't think it's useful for competitive play.  And the casual gamer who's willing to play online-only is unlikely to pay $12 for an expansion pack--when compared with the prices offered by Playdek, etc.

Your only actual market segment, at launch, appears to be hardcore competitive players who are willing to play with a flawed implementation while they hope it gets better, casual gamers who will likely only play with the base set.  I'll admit I'm not a marketing guru, but this seems like it won't actually sustain server costs for very long.

How soon do you plan to play to those other markets, if at all?

[greatexpectations]

Current Top Questions For FunSockets - Final Edit
(ranked by upvotes at time of post, min. 2 upvotes, joke answers and responses removed, *'s combine votes from repeated posts)

+15 - Will you be implementing the ability to rejoin a game in the event of a disconnection?

+14 - There have been reports of many security holes in your app. // Even if they are fixed, how can I be confident that other flaws aren't compromising my user information?

+13* - Do you plan to implement a point counter yourselves? What is your policy regarding 3rd-party extensions (including but not limited to point counters)? Are custom AI's on the horizon? If so, how will they work? (poster comment: people were more interested in the counter/extension part than the AI part.)

+8* - How are ratings calculated?

+7* - Would it be possible to get a relative timetable of when the expansions will be released on Goko?

+7 - Do you want us beta testers to continue beta testing? If so, what version should we be using? Where should we post feedback/bugs?

+7 - Do you have any comment on the pricing information that was gleaned during your public launch?  Many gamers (myself included) seem to find that pricing to be on the high end when compared to other established digital board game implementations.

+5 - How many people work on funsockets?

+4 - Any plans of allowing players to tweak how the cards are laid out on screen?

+4 - I'm also interested in the familiarity the developers had with Dominion before starting their work. // Given that Goko is simultaneously developing at least 4 games ...how much attention is it really getting?  Are the "best guys" on it?  Will updates be frequent?

+4 - Will there be a package deal to purchase all of the current and coming expansions in one go?

+4 - Are any translations (especially into German) planned in the near future? Will you publish a roadmap of upcoming features?

+4 - How do you feel about comparisons between your company and Zynga in the mainstream press?

+3 - Will automatch be implemented?  Can I filter opponents based on rating?

+3 - What are some of the other 150 games you've signed up to develop?

+2 - Will there be any deal for getting price-cuts by buying physical copies of existing/future expansions?

+2 - What kind of achievements will there be? Can you tell us more about this campaign mode? Any possibility of a fast, lightweight mod of play for player that do not want fancy graphics?

+2 - What is the peak number of unique users who are attempting to access the servers.  How many did you performance test for?

+2 - Then I hereby clamor at the top of my lungs not only for a simple point counter, but also for an official full deck counter at least as extensive as Dr Held's Chrome extension.

+2 - How will we be able to get the Base Cards with new art? Will we have to pay for it? Unlock it?

+2 - How can I download a batch of play logs for analysis?

+2 - There's been a bunch of discussion on the ipbhost forum regarding bots apparently resigning.  Are they truly programmed to quit when they feel their position is unwinnable, or is this a bug that should be reported?

[pinkymadigan]

No one asked how far off the radar is offline play yet?

EDIT: OUCH.

[greatexpectations]

hey theory/trisha -

any chance we could set up another one of these Q/A sessions? it doesn't even have to be video, but the chance to ask some more questions is probably something a lot of folks here would like.

edit: i would be willing to set up a new thread and organize questions again. i would just go ahead and do it right now but confirmation that they might answer our questions would probably generate more interest and lead to better discussion.