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trisha_brooke

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FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« on: October 03, 2012, 06:03:47 pm »
+3

Hi Guys!

So, I have the answers to many of the questions you asked. Also, I'll stay around and answer some questions for about an hour.

Communication
+12 - Can we get more regular updates of information of progress? Letting us know what is/isn't being worked on. Maybe a list of known issues and progress on resolving them?
Yes. Since the open beta launch we’ve made a concerted effort to spend more time in the Board Game Geek and Dominion Strategy forums. However, keeping track of different threads and the different conversations is challenging in that environment. So we are going to spend our time responding to questions in Get Satisfaction and we’re going to issue updates every 2 weeks. These updates will include bug fixes, feature updates, and any other announcements.

That said, here’s what is being worked on now:
IE9/10 support
New Card Sets (Dark Ages, Hinterlands, etc.)
Tutorial
Google+/Chrome Store
Facebook integration - We want to get the browser experience solid before moving into mobile

And here’s what is coming after that:
iOS app support (iPads)
Android support (tablets)
Improved matching
Improved adventures with more variety in each game

+9 - Any word on release schedules for the unimplemented cards?
Part 2 of 3 for Dark Ages - We will be releasing that soon to select few beta testers to see if we missed any specific card bugs, then releasing it to the general public shortly afterwards.
Part 3 of 3 for Dark Ages - A few weeks after
Cornucopia - Sometime in November
Order thereafter:
Hinterlands 1 of 2
Hinterlands 2 of 2
Alchemy

+7 - Please can we have more information about in game advertising?
In a couple of weeks we’ll start introducing a video ad between the game launch and start of game. You’ll only see this every 10-15 minutes. However, if you decide to purchase an expansion, you won’t see any ads. 

+5 - What is the purpose of the 'invitational' beta that is still running but with an old version of the software? Is there a reason why there was no announcement made to the invited beta testers that a public beta was launched, or that the version they were testing was now outdated? Would you like to tell the invitational beta testers what their role is now?
Going forward we will update the invitational beta with new cards and features before we roll them out to the public. So when part 2 of Dark Ages is released, there will be a testing period on the invitational beta before the cards are released to the public. If you’re a beta tester, we’ll send you an email to let you know when those cards are available to test.

We intentionally did not publicize the public beta as we wanted to test our systems with organic traffic before telling people about the beta. Once we’re comfortable with our progress on bug fixes, we’ll start letting more people know about it.

+4 - Do you have a target date for a public reboot? When do you plan to add on new Beta users?
When we exit open beta is purely a function of quality. As soon as we have addressed the issues discussed above (IE9 in particular), we’ll consider letting more people know about the game. We will be sending emails to those who have signed up in the various places starting in a week or so.  However, we want to ramp carefully, so there will probably not be any big public announcements for a few weeks.

+3 - In the last Q&A you were asked about which other games Goko signed on for. Can you give us an answer to that now?
The next games on our roadmap are Treasures & Traps, Race for the Galaxy and War Factory. We’re anticipating private betas for those in the next few weeks. Those will be followed by Citadels and Empire Builder. We’ll open up Catan World to a larger audience in December.

+3 - Have you guys considered starting a blog on your website?
We have. All resources are focused on game development and bug fixes at the moment. But a blog is a good idea and something we’ll set up later when we have the technical resources to implement.

Bugs and Security
+5 - Are the reported memory leaks fixed?
This was a priority for the last couple weeks and we believe they are. However, if you find that this is still an issue for you, please let us know. It’s a top priority for us.

+5 - There are still a ton of bugs/issues/etc that people have.  Would it be helpful of us to list them individually on GetSatisfaction?
It’s always helpful to have bugs listed individually so we can close the bugs as we get to them. One big thing of why we used Get Satisfaction is it allows threads, so it’s helpful to do a search and see if your bug or feature request already exists. If you’re reporting a bug, it also helps us if you list your OS, and your web browser with it’s version number. We have heard of some people having problems with GS, so if you are email us at help@goko.com.

+2 - What specific steps have been taken to close any security flaws (present in the original beta) in your system?
A quick summary of the security updates we did:
Usernames & Passwords are not sent in plain text.   
This information is encrypted and sent via HTTPS. You’ll note the entire site isn’t HTTPS. We reserve this for information like usernames and passwords that needs to stay secure.
Passwords for the accounts that you set up in game or on the game site are stored on our servers in their encrypted state. We can never provide you with that password (because we can’t unencrypt it) and can only give you the option to reset it.
However, passwords used to access the closed beta site and sent to you via email are not secured in this way because are not attached to an actual account. They are just used for basic site access.
Javascript can no longer be inserted into meeting rooms or usernames. Users cannot execute Javascript on another’s computer via either of those methods.
Game servers now validate messages from the game client. Users cannot play cards that they don’t own or manipulate card properties while playing a game.

Some users have reported being able to see an opponent’s hand via a bug in the game client. We specifically designed the system to not let this happen and have tried repeatedly to replicate this.

We also hired a security consultant who evaluated the site and attempted to break our security. We’ve made changes he recommended and will update you once he’s completely done with his analysis.

+1 - Did you release today (sept 21)? If so, how do we report bugs that we encounter in the release version?
We did a quiet launch of the Open Beta on September 21. There are two ways to report bugs. First, you can go to Get Satisifaction.com/goko, and report bugs there. The second way to report bugs is to send us an email at help@goko.com.

Payment, Accounts, and Accessibility
+7 - Is the google requirement to obtain walled village firm? (this question is in reference to this)
+4 - If the google requirement for walled village IS firm, is it possible that we can enter our google account once when we purchase walled village?

Yes, using a Google+ account is firm for acquiring a Walled Village. However, we will be adding ways to consolidate multiple authorizations to your account at www.goko.com in the future. Though, that’s at least 2 months out now.

+4 - As you are accepting real money now, I suppose there will be no hard database resets anymore which result in losing our Adventure progress and game stats. Is my assumption correct?
Correct, from this point on, everything will remain intact going forward with regards to things you purchase, progress you make, and currencies earned.

+3 - If you buy the expansions in the beta with PayPal, will you get to keep the cards when this officially releases?
Anything you buy you will keep from this point on.

+2 - Will it be available in the app store? (even the computer version?)
Yes. That is important. We’re focused on desktop fixes now and will train our efforts on mobile apps as soon as we’re satisfied with the quality of the desktop browser version.

Game Play
+7 - Will quick play be implemented for the launch? (like isotropics auto-match)
No.  We do have a design for quick play, but we’re tackling other issues first and won’t roll it out right away.

+7 - Is there any chance we can have our preferences saved from session to session?
Certainly. For the Create Game in multiplayer, we are now saving your settings within a session. We are interested in hearing what people want to save from session to session.

+5 - Will there (ever) be the ability for users to combine sets they own to play a game?
Not right now, as there are other things we’re putting our resources towards in allowing specific set randomization.

+3 - When the iphone and other versions are implemented, will those players be able to play with players using a desktop?
No dates yet and it will be after all the desktop browsers are working well. Yes, mobile and destop users will be able to play together.

+5 - Is there any chance that "very fast" animations will be changed to "turn off" animations?
Unlikely at this time. We aren’t seeing a great increase in speed when animation is turned off. However, we are working on making things faster, especially while playing longer hand games.

+2 - I enjoy playing with random decks and choosing which deck i want to play. But since i bought the pack of 3 extension, i can't do random decks game like i want to do and i'm very upset since i paid money for something I could do by paying less!
We totally agree with this, and want to see this feature. Right now we have someone working on this feature but I don’t have the timeline for when it will be available. Soon, though, I hope.

Other
+12 - Is there anything that could be done to leave isotopic running? (for example, put it behind a goko pay wall)
We know that this won’t be popular, but the answer is no. We negotiated an exclusive license to build Dominion and believe that in order for the game to be self-sustaining
there needs to be a single version that can be played by one community of players across devices.
 
+9 - Has any thought been given to alternate methods for obtaining the promo cards?
We have! Right now, we’re looking into various ways to earn VP tokens outside of Adventures and Tournaments. There are a few things on the table and we will roll these out as we get time.

+4 - How does the rating system actually work? Numbers and formulas please.
Our rating system function very similarly to Isotropic’s. However, players in Goko’s Dominion start at 1000 points instead of 0. As you play more, your actual rating becomes more clear to our formula. So your rating will start to fluctuate less. Your rating, a number from 0 to 10,000, is shown in the Rating column of the leaderboard.  A number in parentheses indicates the number of points rating points you gained or lost in your last game. 

A "P" indicates that your rating is "provisional", i.e. the system does not yet have a good estimate of your ability.  While you are provisional, you'll see your rating in the leaderboard, but nobody else will. We do this because the initial standard deviation is so high.

Ratings are adjusted based on the following:
* What place you come in and how many players are in the game.
* The ratings of your opponents (The higher the level of your opponent the more you’ll move up)

Ratings are not adjusted based on the following:
* How many points you win by
* Number of turns

+2 - What are the plans for the tournaments which give Victory tokens?
This is on our roadmap and something we’ll roll out after we get the game up and running to our satisfaction. Look for information in one of our bi-monthly status updates.

+2 - I personally think it is fair that we, the fans of the game, should be able to play the game with all the currently released cards (i.e. everything including all of Dark Ages) and with a decent interface. I would like to know why you won't give the OK for us to play with all of the Dark Ages cards on Isotropic?
We know that everyone is anxious to play with the new dark ages cards, and we’re working on getting those out as soon as possible. We’ll start testing the next batch this week with beta testers and will roll out the final Dark Ages cards shortly after.

+1 - How much work is being put into the iOS and mobile versions of the site? I tried playing on iPad and it made games ridiculously slow.
We’re planning on releasing an app version of Dominion for iPad later this year. This is the same game that you can play on the desktop browser, but inside of a mobile wrapper app that helps address the issues that you experienced in a browser. It does this by giving our game access to hardware resources on the phone that improve speed and performance.

For the open beta, we’re focused on desktop browser only. We didn’t optimize for mobile browsers and are now telling users who try to access the game from mobile device about the performance issues.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 06:22:54 pm by theory »
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theory

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2012, 06:28:30 pm »
0

Here's a question: Donald X. suggested that you are all open to having fan-made adventures.  If the community organized some contests and voted through some ideas, are you guys able to implement it immediately, or would it have to wait for other higher-priority projects?
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Insomniac

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2012, 06:30:49 pm »
0

Are we supposed to post the questions here?

I see that when you talk about mobile versions you always say iPad, will there be an iPhone and Android Phone version?

In part 1 there was talk about an offline mode, is there an update on that front?

Any update on the "something" for the beta testers that was mentioned on the get satisfaction page?


Is there any reason to become an early adopter of the system with the pricing scheme as it is? (Sets of sets are cheaper than individual sets, since all of the sets are not yet available it implies spending more money to get everything if you adopt Goko early)

What is the status of sessions being added?

Meaning that when I lose my internet connection or for whatever other reason am forced to reload the page I can connect back to the game I was in instead of auto-forfeiting. Is this being worked on? Is it in testing? Is it something we will never see?

Do you guys have any intention on changing the starting decks in adventure to the ones Donald X mentions here?

Incidentally I strongly suspect that the starting decks will all change to be what I'm typing up for them to be.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2012, 06:34:11 pm »
+7

On the subject of isotropic - your response was not unexpected, but I was really hoping for an answer to my second question -  Does management @ Goko understand why the community is making this request? 

I've had several public and private discussions with folks who feel that the experience of playing on the current goko implementation is worse than playing on isotropic, regardless of cost / bugs / anti consumer walled village requirements. 

Complaints range from ease of use in finding / setting up a game, to frustration with animation speeds and interface challenges resulting in misplays.
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I support funsockets.... taking as much time as they need to get it right.

trisha_brooke

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2012, 06:35:30 pm »
0

Here's a question: Donald X. suggested that you are all open to having fan-made adventures.  If the community organized some contests and voted through some ideas, are you guys able to implement it immediately, or would it have to wait for other higher-priority projects?

That's actually an awesome question Theory. First, we're very open to fan-made adventures. Of course, the first things we have to prioritize are technical issues, and it depends on how technical it will be to implement. But, I know that we would love to put in fan made adventures.
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Insomniac

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2012, 06:42:44 pm »
+2

On the subject of isotropic - your response was not unexpected, but I was really hoping for an answer to my second question -  Does management @ Goko understand why the community is making this request? 

I've had several public and private discussions with folks who feel that the experience of playing on the current goko implementation is worse than playing on isotropic, regardless of cost / bugs / anti consumer walled village requirements. 

Complaints range from ease of use in finding / setting up a game, to frustration with animation speeds and interface challenges resulting in misplays.

To expand here, what is the chance of having a text based interface (Iso) if it was a toggle for goko so that it didn't cause an artificial community segregation? (Ie Goko GUI users could play against Goko Iso/Text users)
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teasel

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2012, 06:43:06 pm »
0

i'm really curious to hear more about treasure & traps and race for the galaxy especialy since i'm a huge fan of race for the galaxy... do they have a prospected date like... end of october? or something like that?

EDIT: oh i see in a few weeks,reading comprension fail :-\
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 06:52:56 pm by teasel »
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trisha_brooke

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2012, 06:48:53 pm »
0

I see that when you talk about mobile versions you always say iPad, will there be an iPhone and Android Phone version?

We will be producing tablet versions first, and then we'll see with phones.

Quote from: Insomniac on Today at 05:45:07 pm
In part 1 there was talk about an offline mode, is there an update on that front?


We've actively talked about it here, and discussed how to implement it. Right now, it's behind the priority of stability, and Ipad/Tablet introduction. Once that's out, we'll move on from there.

Quote from: Insomniac on Today at 04:58:39 pm
Any update on the "something" for the beta testers that was mentioned on the get satisfaction page?
I can't say exactly what they'll get, but once we are happy with how things are going, we'll have some more time to make that happen.

Is there any reason to become an early adopter of the system with the pricing scheme as it is? (Sets of sets are cheaper than individual sets, since all of the sets are not yet available it implies spending more money to get everything if you adopt Goko early)

The benefit of being the early adopter is being to play the cards early. The difference won't be substantial, so if you want to play all the cards now it might be great to buy them now. If you want to hold off until we're done implementing the cards that's fine to.

Quote from: Insomniac on Today at 11:31:03 am
What is the status of sessions being added?

Meaning that when I lose my internet connection or for whatever other reason am forced to reload the page I can connect back to the game I was in instead of auto-forfeiting. Is this being worked on? Is it in testing? Is it something we will never see?

We know that dropping connection is a huge problem. It's really unfun to lose a game in the middle. I've had it happen myself. So, it's something that it on the improve the quality checklist.

Quote from: Insomniac on September 27, 2012, 03:55:36 pm
Do you guys have any intention on changing the starting decks in adventure to the ones Donald X mentions here?

We have intention of making new adventures as well as updating old ones as we go along. I really don't have a timeline for this though.

Quote from: Donald X. on September 24, 2012, 03:59:57 pm
Incidentally I strongly suspect that the starting decks will all change to be what I'm typing up for them to be.
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trisha_brooke

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2012, 06:57:34 pm »
0

On the subject of isotropic - your response was not unexpected, but I was really hoping for an answer to my second question -  Does management @ Goko understand why the community is making this request? 

I've had several public and private discussions with folks who feel that the experience of playing on the current goko implementation is worse than playing on isotropic, regardless of cost / bugs / anti consumer walled village requirements. 

Complaints range from ease of use in finding / setting up a game, to frustration with animation speeds and interface challenges resulting in misplays.

We are aware of the feedback. As we go forward, we continue to make changes to improve the game, and we don't feel that we are by any means done with those changes. Things such as stacking of hand, increased animation speed, and button updates have all been made based on player feedback. We are aware of the problems that you bring up and we're actively working on improving those.
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trisha_brooke

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2012, 07:03:38 pm »
0

To expand here, what is the chance of having a text based interface (Iso) if it was a toggle for goko so that it didn't cause an artificial community segregation? (Ie Goko GUI users could play against Goko Iso/Text users)
[/quote]

Right now, we're working on making the game as good as it possibly can be in it's current implementation. Once we're happy with that, we'll be taking all the feedback and seeing where we can go from there to bring in new user features. Depending on how many people want this feature will help us put it in the priority.
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trisha_brooke

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2012, 07:08:44 pm »
0

i'm really curious to hear more about treasure & traps and race for the galaxy especialy since i'm a huge fan of race for the galaxy... do they have a prospected date like... end of october? or something like that?

EDIT: oh i see in a few weeks,reading comprension fail :-\

We'll be starting the Beta's pretty soon. You can sign up here:

http://tt.goko.com/prefinery/index.html
http://rftg.goko.com/prefinery/index.html
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trisha_brooke

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2012, 07:21:15 pm »
0

Hi Guys!

I'm going to sign off here for now. If you have more questions, bugs or other comments, you can post them at https://getsatisfaction.com/goko. If you have any problems signing on. (We are working on redoing the sign in process). You can send an email to help@goko.com

Thanks!
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2012, 07:25:30 pm »
+2

What's better, Mountebank or Witch?

Also, right now I find it's really easy to game the leaderboard.  I spent about an hour the first day of the public beta playing Conqueror Bot, haven't played since, and am still in the Top 5 on both leaderboards.  Are there any steps to make the leaderboard 'stay current' in place?  For instance, on Isotropic, if I don't play for a week, my level drops a bit to compensate for me not being an active player in the mix. 

Edit: Derp, was a bit late.
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2012, 07:47:33 pm »
+4

+5 - Is there any chance that "very fast" animations will be changed to "turn off" animations?
Unlikely at this time. We aren’t seeing a great increase in speed when animation is turned off. However, we are working on making things faster, especially while playing longer hand games.

I know how much it would speed up my games.  Others would testify to the same thing.  Who is it that's not seeing a great increase in speed?

+12 - Is there anything that could be done to leave isotopic running? (for example, put it behind a goko pay wall)
We know that this won’t be popular, but the answer is no. We negotiated an exclusive license to build Dominion and believe that in order for the game to be self-sustaining
there needs to be a single version that can be played by one community of players across devices.

This was obviously the expected answer.  But you may be postulating a community that doesn't exist.  Despite the lure of Dark Ages, about 10 times as many games are being played on Iso daily as on Goko.  And it's not as though people who play a lot on Iso don't know about Goko.  Which leads into this:

I've had several public and private discussions with folks who feel that the experience of playing on the current goko implementation is worse than playing on isotropic, regardless of cost / bugs / anti consumer walled village requirements.  Complaints range from ease of use in finding / setting up a game, to frustration with animation speeds and interface challenges resulting in misplays.

Right now, we're working on making the game as good as it possibly can be in it's current implementation. Once we're happy with that, we'll be taking all the feedback and seeing where we can go from there to bring in new user features. Depending on how many people want this feature will help us put it in the priority.

If you want the Iso community to migrate, you're going to need a system that is as good as Iso--not "as good as it can be."  Otherwise, the coherent community across devices simply won't exist--or at best you'll be running at 10-15% of Iso's traffic.
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teasel

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2012, 08:11:56 pm »
0

maybe they meant that since the game still needs to check situation and the like,the delays would be there even if you completly turned off the animation

frankly very fast is fast enough that i can't even notice the animation
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #15 on: October 03, 2012, 08:15:07 pm »
+4

What's better, Mountebank or Witch?

Also, right now I find it's really easy to game the leaderboard.  I spent about an hour the first day of the public beta playing Conqueror Bot, haven't played since, and am still in the Top 5 on both leaderboards.  Are there any steps to make the leaderboard 'stay current' in place?  For instance, on Isotropic, if I don't play for a week, my level drops a bit to compensate for me not being an active player in the mix. 

Edit: Derp, was a bit late.

I like Mountebank when there are no +2 actions, and Witch when there are.

As for the leader board, We're aware that people can hold spots. We have it in the roadmap to make sure that doesn't happen. It's not high in the priority right now, but it will be introduced.
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #16 on: October 03, 2012, 08:55:35 pm »
0

I know how much it would speed up my games.  Others would testify to the same thing.  Who is it that's not seeing a great increase in speed?

i would really like to see a quantitative comparison of how much slower goko is. maybe that's something we as a community could put together? find some people familiar with both interfaces and run them through a few scenarios...playing out a megaturn, goons buys, revealing reaction cards, and player interaction instances come to mind.

not only am i curious to see how big the difference is, i think it could also be a nice target point for goko to work towards. they might think their interface plays quickly, but unless they have played as many games as we have (allowing us both familiarity with Iso and some skill in the game) they might not understand how fast some of us actually play.
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #17 on: October 03, 2012, 08:59:23 pm »
+1

I know how much it would speed up my games.  Others would testify to the same thing.  Who is it that's not seeing a great increase in speed?

i would really like to see a quantitative comparison of how much slower goko is. maybe that's something we as a community could put together? find some people familiar with both interfaces and run them through a few scenarios...playing out a megaturn, goons buys, revealing reaction cards, and player interaction instances come to mind.

not only am i curious to see how big the difference is, i think it could also be a nice target point for goko to work towards. they might think their interface plays quickly, but unless they have played as many games as we have (allowing us both familiarity with Iso and some skill in the game) they might not understand how fast some of us actually play.

For the extreme case, try geronimoos buy all the cards in 10 - 12 turns as a solo game.

For me, very fast is fine, but I want the text log up and visible so I know what my opponents did.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #18 on: October 03, 2012, 09:00:20 pm »
0

Also, try paying a goons mega game with watchtower to trash excess copper buys.
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #19 on: October 04, 2012, 04:09:27 am »
+2

This is only from feel I haven't actually timed it.
Seems to take me about 2 to 3 times as long to play an average game on Goko.
For me this is mostly due to the time it take to check the log.
With turns increasing from say 15 secs to 30 secs players are also more likely multi task adding to the delays.
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1wheel

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #20 on: October 04, 2012, 12:12:15 pm »
+28

This isn't very scientific, but to get a better sense of how slow goko is compared isotropic and to find out exactly what is making it slower, I spent an hour on both and recorded how the time was spent:

Quote
2.17 - Log in
2.18 - Create table
2.19 - Game loads
2.24 - Try playing a feast to gain a witch. Feast is outlined in blue, but clicking on it does nothing.
2.25 - After clicking on feast for some time, it finally leaves my hand and I'm able to get a witch
2.37 - Game ends after 22 turns
2.37 - Try to join a new game
2.39 - Loading bar stuck at 1/10 of the way. Reload Page.
2.41 - Log back in, create new table
2.43 - Start game
2.58 - Game ends after 19 turns
2.59 - Create Table
3.09 - Finally start game
3.20 - "Internet Connect Lost - Press Ok to Reload Page" after 13 turns.

I'm currently streaming music and clicking through google reader, so I'm pretty sure the problem is on their end. Clicking "Ok" does not reload the page. Pressing f5 brings up an alert warning me that "Leaving this page will end any game in progress" which is a silly warning since the game has already effectively ended. It has been over an hour, so I switch to isotropic:

Quote
3.31 Enter isotropic queue and start game
3.36 Game ends after 16 turns. If cellar is any indication, Vault would be awful on goko.
3.43 Game ends after 16 turns.
3.48 Game ends after 18 turns. Start a new one
3.53 19 Turns
4:07 19 Turns - The longest game on isotropic used Possession and Platinums and takes as much time as the shortest completed game on goko which used the base set.
4.13 11 Turns
4:20 22 Turns
4.30 21 Turns

So, in an hour I was able to play 8 games on isotropic and (generously) 3 on goko.

Assuming goko implements a quick play button (which they have shown no interest in doing), speeds up game loading (Ads between games will probably make things faster ? Even if you've purchased sets, if you're playing with anyone who hasn't, you'll have to wait...), and fixes the issues with the game crashing on load (which they are probably working on) so the time it takes to get in a game becomes negligible like it is on isotropic, goko would still be substantially slower.

On isotropic, 60 minutes /8 games = 7.5 minutes per game.
On goko, (18+15+11) / 2.7 games = 16.3 minutes per game.

Why is goko so slow? Contrary what I initially thought and what I've seen suggested several times on this board, the issue isn't animations. The unofficial iOS has animations and it isn't too difficult to play a game in 4 minutes. The problem is with how goko has written their app. Testing with wireshark and a stopwatch both confirm that taking any action requiring server side interaction on goko requires about 3 or 4 seconds before the UI will be ready for the next action. On isotropic, I haven't seen it take more then 600 ms. goko compounds this problem by requiring unnecessary server side interaction. I've posted about this before, but I don't think they realize how big of a problem it is:

Quote
There isn't any need for the server to know what order I've clicked on the chapel\cellar\vault cards so I'm not sure why the client has to send that information and wait on a response while I'm growing impatient. Isotropic gets around this issue with checkboxes and the iOS dominion app uses check marks on the selected cards. In addition to making the game play faster, their implementation also reduces the impact of miss clicks since checks can be unmarked before confirming the move.

On their own, these delays make playing the bots alone frustrating but are tolerable enough. Like Rapid points out, with multiple players the delays start to snowball to point where the game isn't playable.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2012, 12:13:22 pm by 1wheel »
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #21 on: October 04, 2012, 12:21:40 pm »
0

I raised some more beta feedback today about navigator, which again communicates between the server and the client for each of the five cards you put back on the deck. You can tell the speed difference between clicking each card and clicking one, waiting, clicking two, waiting, clicking three, waiting, clicking four, waiting, clicking five.
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #22 on: October 04, 2012, 12:23:41 pm »
0

I think with the Very Fast animations it's more a matter of the annoying "flicker" of the animations than the speed, although I agree with those who are skeptical about it not making a speed difference.
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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #23 on: October 04, 2012, 12:26:40 pm »
+4

Thank you 1wheel - that mimics my gut feel experience - which says that its on the order of double time.  That means to get the same level of fix, I need to waste twice as much time playing dominion.

I already play too much.  Why I would pay money to play fewer games is beyond me.
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Fabian

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Re: FunSockets Q&A - Part 2
« Reply #24 on: October 04, 2012, 12:41:06 pm »
+3

The animations thing has been the number one thing I've complained about, from day 1 of the beta. It was unplayable then and it's unplayable now. That's not me trying to troll, it's just what it is. The animations needs to be disableable (I'm sure that's not a word), and gameplay speed needs to be sped up, somehow. The pace of play needs to be, if not as good as isotropic (I don't think that's happening), then at least not operate at half speed, if I'm being generous. I understand that playing 3 games an hour is not a big deal to those who want goko to mimic real life where one game takes half an hour or 45 minutes or whatever, but that's not what I want, and I dare say it's not what the majority of people here want. It's infuriating to know I could go at like 200-250% the speed on isotropic, even if ignoring all the other problems with Goko.

In short, bleh.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2012, 01:16:32 pm by Fabian »
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